Online Business at Zero Cost!
If you’ve been considering starting a business and work from home or even an online business maybe the initial investment you think you might need has been putting you off. I’m going to show you how the internet makes it possible for anywhere to start a business with no money. Think of it kind of like a startup. It doesn’t matter if you’re a local business or are selling a product or selling a service. There are ways to create a business with very little money in the beginning. I’m going to provide you ways, tools and resources to start your business today without spending a dime!
MARKET RESEARCH
Before you do anything, you need to see if your business idea is viable and if there’s some sort of demand for what you will be offering. The first thing you can do it use the Google Keyword Planner and start researching your niche. See what kind of volume of searches there are for keywords your business would try to rank for, check out how competitive that keyword is. For example, if you were creating a business that sold beauty products and you are located in Singapore, a good place to start would be to use the Keyword Planner to look up “Makeup Singapore”.
The next way you could do some market research is to do some crowd sourcing. Ask thousands of people if they think your business is a good idea or if they would purchase something like what you are selling. Go to Yahoo Answers and Quora and ask people, for free, and you will get a ton of answers since these sites reward people who answer questions.
CREATE A BUSINESS NAME
A lot of people like to have fun with this part of make a new business. You want it to be something unique, brand-able but still describes what the business is about. I recommend people use Panabee.com since it helps with brainstorming as well as let you know if the domain and business names are available or not.
CREATE A WEBSITE
You don’t need to be a web designer or even have to pay for things like hosting or a domain. There are free ways to have your own nice looking website for your business up in no time. If you want a blog style website, WordPress.com and Blogger both work really well. For most businesses though, I would recommend Wix.com as they are really easy to use, have nice different templates for any kind of business as well as allow you to create essential pages like “About Us” “Services” “Contact Us”, etc.
CREATE A BUSINESS PLAN
Depending on whether your business will be purely online or a local business, it may or may not be necessary to create a business plan unless you really want to.
That being said, Bplans.com is a great resource that contains many done-for-you business plans in various different niches and industries so that you can use them as a template to copy the formatting and ideas when creating your own business plan instead of writing it from scratch.
CHEAP DOMAINS IF YOU WANT ONE
If you want a .com domain, again not required if you want to go the completely free route in the beginning, but a site like GoDaddy usually has deeply discounted coupons floating around in the internet where you can get a domain from anywhere from $1-$5 as opposed to paying a full $12 for one. Again, not required if you’re comfortable with your website address being something like businessname.wix.com.
CREATE A BUSINESS LOGO
One of the most expensive parts of starting a new business in the beginning can be getting a good logo design done. If you’re not familiar with Photoshop or are not willing to spend the money to get a logo created, you could easily create one yourself with an online logo creator. I like freelogodesign.org and canva.com. Both are good ways to create simple, yet nice looking text logos that you can use on all your marketing materials and on your website.
EBAY, LAZADA, AMAZON, CAROUSELL
If you are looking to sell products or own product, this is a great way to get started, build your brand and drive a lot of free traffic to your products. Create a store with your logo, link out to your website, and build a strong relationship with customers.
CRAIGSLIST AND KIJIJI TO ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS/SERVICES
Even if you are not a local business, but especially if you are, Craigslist and Kijiji can be your best source of free traffic and leads in the very beginning. When I started out, I was getting around 2 or 4 solid leads a day. That might not sound like much but even if only 1 a week ended up being a sale, that was more than enough to support my business early on.
CREATE SOCIAL MEDIA PAGES
Now that you’re starting to gather leads and getting customers, you will want to build a relationship with these customers. Creating a page for your business on Facebook and a profile for your business on Instagram is 100% free and a great way to drive traffic to your website and build your brand.
I also recommend Pinterest and Twitter if they are applicable to your business. For example, if you’re selling something photogenic like jewellery or clothing, it could benefit you to have a page on Pinterest and Instagram.
CREATE A BUSINESS EMAIL
You don’t need a domain to have a professional email like “name@businessname.com”. You can simply use Gmail and create an email for your business like “businessname@gmail.com”. I’ve seen many businesses today use Gmail as their main business email and even put it on their website and business cards.
CREATE BUSINESS CARDS
Speaking of business cards, you can get 100 free business cards on most websites for free through regular promotions such as on VistaPrint. You don’t need to even be a graphic designer either as most of these websites like VistaPrint offer pre-made templates that you can choose from and customize with your own logo and information.
CREATE A PAYPAL ACCOUNT
Paypal is a great way for you to process payments and accept money for your products and services online, plus it’s free. You can also use Paypal to pay for business expenses or anything else you might need to purchase online to help your business grow. If you already have a Paypal account, be sure to add your business email to your Paypal account so people can send money to you through your business email as it will look more professional than accepting payments with your personal email. If you don’t have an account, create your Paypal account with your business email.
RESOURCES
DropBox – for free storage, sharing and sending files to clients
Wufoo – free online form builder for contact forms, surveys, etc
Skype – for free phone calls, talking to clients, etc.
Google Docs – free Word and Spreadsheet editor, can be used anywhere
NutCache – free invoicing and accounting system, better than Freshbooks
MailChimp – free mailing list, autoresponder
Evernote – great for keeping notes synced between devices, storing important information
Buffer – manage your social media all in one place, automate posts
Mint – track finances, create a budget for business for free
Obviously, I’m a huge advocate for starting your own monetized blog. However, it does become a bit tricky when you’re trying to do it for free. Using a free platform limits your earning potential, but it gives you the initial foundation for building an audience. Once you have a little bit of money rolling in, you can easily transfer your blog over to the paid version where you will be able to fully monetize your blog and start making money. However, start to invest at lower cost, play an important role to optimize your business. I will share more on my next blog on Online Business at Low Cost.
Do you find this helpful? Share with us if you have any information on starting an online business at zero cost.
