The best time for starting your own internet business was about 5 years ago. The next best time is now. The estimated total for online retail sales in 2018 is looking to be more than $2,500 trillion! (yes, you read that right, trillion!)

So how can you get started online if you don’t have any products to sell and have never run a business before? Here the 6 keys steps to starting your own internet business in 2018.

1. Decide On Your Market

As with any business, online or offline, you can’t sell everything to everybody. It’s important that you’re very clear on what you want to sell and who you want to sell it to. Strive on getting to know what your audience wants from you and thinks about all the time, and you will have fewer financial problems.

2. Pick A Solid Business Model

What if you don’t have any products or services of your own? You can sell products and services that have been created by other businesses. This business model is called affiliate marketing and is probably the easiest business to start up online. You promote services or products produced by somebody else and when a sale is made, you get paid a commission.

3. Build Your Website

You’re going need a website. But don’t panic. Getting a website online isn’t as complicated as you may think. There are many website building platforms available that make the whole procedure very straightforward, or you can hire somebody to build the website for you.

4. Get People To Your Website

There are numerous websites online, and you need to attract potential customers to visit your website. There are two main techniques you can use to generate website traffic. You can use free website traffic strategies or paid website traffic strategies. Both have their benefits and drawbacks and it’s always best to use a combination of both.

5. Create A List Of Customers

It’s very unlikely that your website visitors will want to buy from you on their first visit to your website. But if you can get them to leave their email address, you can stay in contact with them via email. Your emails can keep them up to date about your business and motivate them to buy from you.

6. Create A Sales Funnel

A sales funnel is a process that moves an interested prospect to a buying customer. Typically, a prospect needs to see 5 to 7 messages from you before they are prepared to buy. Email is the ideal way to deliver these messages and your sales funnel can be automated with email marketing software.