Starting and marketing a new business online (Part 1)

For those intrepid, brave souls who just started a business or recently moved to the web you might be wondering where you should start? How do you get customers to your website and make money? The internet is a vast imbroglio; a complicated maze of digital wonderment. How can someone find little ol' me in the endless maze of the web? In essence you are the smallest needle in the world's largest haystack. Welcome to the wild, wonderful world of starting and promoting a business on the internet.

It doesn't have to be horrifying or complicated actually. With a little bit of a plan you can turn what most beginners consider a daunting task into something fairly painless and highly effective for your new venture.

So what is the magic plan? What is this big secret that I speak of? The answer can be summed up in two golden words. Keyword Research.

What is keyword research?

When you type words into Google to search for something, those words are referred to as keywords, search strings or key phrases. Keyword research is essentially finding the exact keywords that users have actually searched for in recent months. Your goal is to uncover keywords and phrases that fit your target business or industry. Ideally you want to identify the keywords that have the most searches with the least amount of competition. In a nutshell, if your website subject matter revolves around these specific words of wonder - and better yet - your website content matches the subject of these keywords exactly, you'll be considered "more relevant" to the searcher's inquiry. The result being that you'll show up higher in the search results. Mission accomplished. By knowing what people are searching for specifically you can place your most important keywords inside your website sales content or blog and eventually find your way into the search results for the products and services that you sell. Without proper research and supporting data it's almost impossible to get it right regardless if you're an expert in your field or not.

Keyword research involves spending time trying to learn what people are specifically searching for. For example, let's examine the holistic health industry. You might be surprised that people tend to search for "spiritual health advice" instead of "holistic health advice". The results of your research can affect everything from the name your choose for your business to the words you use in the content on your website to the words that you target in your advertising. By performing proper research you might find (I'm just guessing here) that the first example key phrase returns an average of 100 searches a month but the latter might return 1000 searches. You'd obviously target the keywords "holistic health advice" more often in your content if your business revolves around holistic and spiritual wellness and you might even consider using the word holistic in your business name.

First Steps:

Taking the time to research what people are searching for is a necessary first step when starting a business online. When I say "first step" I mean it really needs to be the absolute first step you make when starting a business. Even before you settle on the type of business you're going to start and what you're going to name your business you should take the time to consider the following:

• Is there a demand for my business already based on keyword search volume?
• If there is a demand, is there room for me?
• Is there a niche that I can exploit that I am not aware of?
• Are there products or services that people tend to buy or research more often within my business niche that I should focus on first?
• What words are people using to find what I want to sell online and can I use this data to help me name my business, build a more effective tagline or determine the first steps for my business?
• Based on the keywords I find, are there specific phrases, insider jargon that I am not aware of?
• Based on the amount of people searching for something can I find an even better business idea?

This is the first of a two-part article. Continue to Part II.