Do you really want an online business? This is a simple question, but you should really mull over what you are getting into, and whether you really can or want to make the commitment. People who are new to the Internet, are sometimes mislead into believing that a website is easy to do. The answer to that belief is -- Yes and No. I’ll give you a hint at what skills you need and what to be aware of before you venture online.

Computer Skills

First and foremost, you should enjoy working on a computer. Why? You will find that you may have to commit quite a few hours on the computer when you are building your online business. If you don’t enjoy the computer, you might want to rethink your options.

Second, to eliminate frustration and keep your productivity up, you should have some keyboarding skills. Meaning, you should at least be able to type 25 wpm and know or learn, how to cut and paste. To help to increase your keyboarding skills, look at the site Learn 2 Type (http://www.learn2type.com/index.cfm?action=TypingTest). It’s a free site that can help you with your basic typing skills.

Third, since you are going to be the chief cook and bottle washer of your business, you also need to know how to maintain your computer. On the Internet you need to protect your computer from hacker attacks. So acquaint yourself and your computer with anti-virus, anti-spam, and firewall software – you won’t regret the outlay.

Internet Skills

You should have some basic Internet skills. Such as, uploading and downloading pictures images, and files from the Internet, and understanding basic Internet terminology – the rest will come later. I’m not saying you can’t learn it – you can. But the quickness of your success will pretty much be gauged by what Internet knowledge you bring to the table when you first begin online.

Email Skills

This one is important. Okay, you may be saying – “Email is email. What is the big deal? But on the Internet, you will be acquainted with scammers. Phishing scams abound. It is the newbie that these people hope to catch.

For instance, if you receive an email stating that there is something wrong with your account, and to click on the link to verify that it is okay – DO NOT CLICK ON THE LINK. If you do, you’ve just invited a hacker, worm or virus on to your system.

Your Passion

With any business, online or offline, you must have a passion for what you want to venture into. Why? Passion is the juice that will get you up in the morning and to your computer-even when you are ill.

Your passion will even make you think differently about any situation you may face in your online journey. Think about it, if you like what you do, any bump in the road – is just that—a bump in the road. If you hate what you are doing – any bump in the road will derail you. If you don’t have the passion, don’t even think about setting up a website.

Building A Website

If you want to build a website, but you don’t have any programming knowledge, don’t fret. Most web hosting services offer programs that can get you building your own website without any programming knowledge. But you still have to do the work.

Working Your Site

Learning how to make your site profitable will take time, if you have little or no knowledge. You just can’t put a website up and say, “Here is my creation people now come to my site”. It would be nice if it worked that way, but alas, it doesn’t.

You have to invite the search engines to your site. How do you do that? You have to optimize your site for the search engines – and then let the search engines and your target market know that you are out there. Search engine optimization is a long-term strategy of getting hits to your site. It’s long-term because you have to tweak and incorporate keywords into your site without taking away from the quality of the content that you want to give to your audience. After optimization is done, then you should submit your site to the search engines for indexing.

Advertising

You need to advertise your new site on the Internet. Several ways is through press releases and articles.

Press releases will get your site quickly out on the Internet. And articles, they can give you great one-way links that your website needs. And, that small resource box at the end of your article will, or should, entice traffic to your site – which is usually your target market.