Running on a Budget.
By Stuart Reid
You can start your web business with nothing. You don't neccesarily need ANY capital to start up. Here's some tips:
* You can get FREE URL's from many places. Some will give you a
subdomain, but you can also get a `proper` site address as
well. Don't bother with addresses such as
www.freesite.com/yoursite but use something like
yoursite.freesite.com - freeola.com is a good place to get
one, but also try the classic webhosting sites such as
geocities or tripod. The only problem there is you get
advertising on your site - which you should really try to
avoid. There are banner-free freesites out there. If you
look hard enough you can even get your own domain, DNS,
webserver, mail server and more for FREE but this is for
advanced computer users only. If you have a long domain
name you can get free redirection servers such as
kick.to/yourname or bounce.to/yourname etc.
* There are tons of free info products you can start to sell
for free! lots of business web sites offer e-books you can
resell, or of course you can try your hand at affiliate
programs - and these are free as well! Try
http://www.netpreneurnow.com/ebook.shtml for some to start
off with.
* You can get credit card processing which charges you a
percentage of the sale rather than an upfront fee. Paypal
is one such service. They are free and easy to set up.
* You can get free web site statistics with services such as
nedstat.com, hitbox.com and webtracker.com and they look
that much more professional than a standard counter.
* You don't need to buy advertising - you can still get listed
on some search engines for free and services such as the
one at jimtools.com will do the submitting for you. Some
e-zines offer free ads for subscribing. You can subscribe
to safelists, and you can write and submit articles to get
more exposure. Look at the promotion page at
http://www.netpreneurnow.com for more ideas.
* You don't need to waste money on web design. There are free
web-based services that will build a site for you or you can
download something like arachnophilia. You can also (try to)
use your browsers designer, such as frontpage or netscape
composer. Of course the best way is to use notepad - and
guess what? there are free HTML courses available too!
http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/
The beauty of starting for free is ANYTHING is a profit! It is
a slower start than if you pay for services - especially when
advertising - but once you have made a sale or two you can
channel the money into paid-for services. Then the ball will
really start rolling. If you can afford it keep any money you
have for advertising, especially solo-ads or paid-for search
engine hits.
When you make, say, your first $100 that is enough to buy a good e-book with resell rights and some advertising. Used wisely this $100 can really start the sales flowing. Making money gives you that much more to make money with!
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Stuart Reid is the publisher of Netpreneur News and
webmaster of Netpreneur Now! Visit us for weekly
tips, reviews, recommendations and more. Free ad and
30 Top E-Books to new subscribers!
mailto:signup@netpreneurnow.com
http://www.netpreneurnow.com/
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