Starting an online business requires skills from many different areas of business.  Whether you outsource, partner, or do it yourself, any successful online business requires a general knowledge of all of these areas.  I would like to share with you the different aspects of doing business online that I have learned over the years and share with you some of the resources that I regularly use to conduct my own mix of online businesses.

There are several elements of a successful online business to consider when planning your own.  First you need to have a marketing plan.

• Who will your customers be?
• How will they find your business? 
• What are your financial goals?
• What sources will your revenue come from?

Another element of successful business is the ability to generate unique keyword rich content.  Content is the number one source of data that allows search engines to find your business.  Your sites content gives the search engine robots something to feed on.  Your content should be focused on the most relevant key phrases of your business and you should have enough content to make an impact and add value for your customers.  Nonsense content that is stuffed with key phrases is not a value add to your customers.  Write fresh meaningful content for your visitors.

After covering these major topics in online business, and business in general, I will share with you some of the tools and resources that I use to manage my online businesses. I find the tools that I use to be a good combination of cost effectiveness, reliability, and features when compared to other similar tools.

Online Marketing

Online marketing is one of the most important parts of online business.  If you wish to be successful with your product, idea, or service, you must put some time into your marketing plan.  Marketing itself might be one of the most overlooked areas that new business owners neglect.  The excitement of a fresh idea can quickly launch you directly into development to bring it to life without stopping to think about how you will even make money with it.  There are a few questions you should ask yourself first before diving into your new project.  And please, for the love of sanity, write it down and review it at least once a month.  I can't stress how important having a hard copy of your goals will help you stay focused and increase your chances of success.  Here are some typical parts of an online marketing plan and some questions that you might ask yourself to get started:

1. Financial Goals :: Be reasonable when making these goals but set the bar high to keep yourself committed.
1. What will your expenses be?
   
2. How much will you charge for your product/service?
3. How many sales or conversions will it take you to reach your financial goal?
4. Will you keep reserves so you can still get payed for slow months?
2. Product/Service Information ::
   
1. Where will you get your product or service from?
2. How much research and development will it take to get your product or service ready for customers?
3. How much support will you offer for your product or service?
3. Sales and Distribution Information ::
1. From what sources will you draw income from your product or service?
2. When will these sources pay you and how often? (Accounts Receivable)
3. When will you have to pay for your services and/or products? (Accounts Payable)
4. If your business involves products, will there be shipping costs to get them to the customer?
5. If your business involves services, are there resources necessary to deliver the service to the customer?
4. Advertising :: This is ongoing and you will try many different approaches but get your initial ideas for advertising down on paper.
   
1. Do you have an advertising budget? If so what is it?
2. Where will your customers most likely notice your business and be apt to get drawn in?
3. What are all the methods you can use to draw customers towards your product or service?
4. Competitive intelligence.  How do your competitors advertise?  Can you leverage from their successes or failures?

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is the requirements necessary for search engine robots to view and categorize your site. Think of SEO as the rules of the game and search engines as the referees.  The refs don't make mistakes, and there are no replays, so follow these rules carefully when building your online business.  Ignore the rules and it will significantly effect your ability to win the game.  Each search engine has multiple rules in place for how they judge your site.  Here are a few of the most common rules that you should follow and I will supply you with links to more complete lists in the tool set section at the end:

• Design and Content Rules ::
• Use keyword tools to find the most relevant keyword phrases that people search for relative to your business.
• Make sure you have at least one text link to each of your pages.  Create a site map.
• Create content using your top key phrases.  Make sure it adds value for your customers at the same time.
• If you must use images to describe something to your users make sure you label them properly with an HTML alt tag so the search engines understand your content as well.  Remember, search engines are blind to graphics so let them know what your images are about.
• Title each page using your most relevant keyword phrases for that pages content.
• Don't add more then 100 links to any one page.
• Technical Rules ::
• Make use of a robots.txt file so that search engines know which pages on your site aren't necessary for their search results.  Include pages that you wouldn't want users accessing directly or pages that are dynamically generated depending on a certain user action.
• Test your site to make sure that it works in different browsers.  If your site has obvious defects or broken links your users and potential customers will take their business and their wallets elsewhere.
  
• Test your site with a text browser, like Lynx, so you can get an idea of what the search engine crawlers see. Could a potential customer get all the information they need without being able to see the graphics? Can you access all of your content?
  
• Quality Rules ::
• Create pages that genuinely add value for your users.
• Avoid shortcuts to get people to your site.  This will only result in irrelevant users that will just leave your site once they see it doesn't offer what they are looking for. You will naturally get traffic to your site by focusing on the optimization of your content.  Be patient and update your content regularly.
• Don't duplicate your content.  This will only have a negative impact on your success with search engines.

Monetize

If your going to invest valuable time into creating an online business, try to create as many income streams as you can by monetizing your site. There are many different ways to generate income from a website.  Try to mix and match as many of these techniques as you can without sacrificing value from your site.  In other words, don't cover your site with banners and pop out surveys.  Your users will feel this emanating from your site and go somewhere less dramatic to make their purchase.

Instead you should optimize your efforts to monetize your site so that you can get the biggest bang for your effort.  Try to mix and match different monetization techniques to see what your users respond to best.  Think to yourself what you would be willing to put up with if you were the user?  Put yourself in your users shoes and pick monetization techniques that might actually be useful.

Here are a few monetization techniques that you can use to generate more income from your investment:

• Join a Contextual Ad Network.  If your users can't find what they are looking for on your site, why not get paid to refer them to relevant content elsewhere? 
• Join Affiliate Programs.  Are there products or services that other companies offer that compliment what you offer?  Chances are they have an affiliate program that you can join.  Refer your users to these other products and services and get paid per lead or per sale.
  
• Use Inline Text Ads.  Although I have never had success with these I know people who have so it's worth mentioning. With inline text ads you can allow a third party company to add links to keywords and key phrases on your site.  When a user clicks on these links you get paid.

My Tool Set

Google Adwords Keyword Tool :: (Requires login) Search for keyword phrases related to your online business and find out which ones get searched the most.

Wordtracker :: Another tool to find relevant keywords and keyword phrases for your online business.

Google Analytics :: (Requires login) Track your sites traffic statistics and see how your users traverse your site.

Google Webmaster Guidelines :: (Requires login) SEO rules for the Google search engine.

Yahoo! SEO Tips :: Top rules for the Yahoo! search engine.

Google Adsense :: (Requires login) Contextual ad network.

Adbrite :: Contextual and inline text ads.