7 Steps On How To Build An Online Business From Scratch

Figuring out how to build an online business is no doubt a tricky subject.

I’m going to walk through step-by-step how to build an online business from scratch both at a high level and also get into the details of when necessary.

There’s more than one way to start an online business, so we’re going to take a look at what works the best and specifically how I run my own business online.  Let’s dive right in!

How To Build An Online Business From Scratch Step-By-Step

I remember when I first got started online and earned my first dollar.

I wanted to learn the best business model and start crushing it right off the bat.

There’s just one problem…

Building an online business takes time.  It takes time in the sense that your going to have to put long hours in (SHOCKING… I know) and it also takes time because things always seem to end up taking longer than you thought they would.

Ask any successful entrepreneur and they’ll tell you the same thing if they’re being honest and not trying to “sell you the dream“.

Now that you know the truth about how long it will take to build an online business, let’s take a look at how I earned my first dollar online.

I earned my first dollar NOT by…

  • spamming my affiliate links
  • asking my family to buy my new info product
  • cold calling businesses to setup a website 

Instead, I earned my first dollar online by simply talking with someone in a friendly manner who had asked me a question about a problem they had. 

I answered in a thoughtful way by showing them what I would do and in the process recommended an associated affiliate product.

It was simply about knowing the problem, gaining trust, and presenting a solution that I recommended.

These things apply to every faucet of building a successful business.  So, let’s dive into the steps to building an online business.

Here’s an overview of the steps on how to build an online business from scratch:

  • Step #1: Define The Space For Your Business
  • Step #2: Focus On Your Ideal Customer
  • Step #3: Plan & Strategize
  • Step #4: Execute On Desgning & Building A Website To Attract Value
  • Step #5: Drive Traffic With Search Engines To Your Website
  • Step #6: Test & Refine The Content For Your Business
  • Step #7: Scale Your Business Through Automation & Consistency

Let’s get started with Step 1.

Step #1: Define Your Space

The first step you need to take to start an online business is to define your space.

In other words, you need to select a niche to start producing content and build an authority in your space.

Certainly, some niches are more competitive than others to break into.  The truth is that you still can stand out and be unique.  That’s the key to breaking through.

It’s as simple as being yourself when you record or write content.  When you let your personality shine through, you build a connection and trust with your audience and soon-to-be customer.

Your goal with building a business is NOT to make money but rather to help solve people’s problems and provide value to the marketplace. 

Step #2: Focus On Your Ideal Customer

The next step is to focus hard on your ideal customer.

If you don’t know  who your ideal customer is yet, then take this opportunity to think about who you want to reach and ultimately impact with the content you produce.

The more impactful the content is, then the more people are willing to trust you.

The best way to create content that’s actually making an impact is by focusing on a specific set of people that you would consider your ideal customer.

Once again, you need to build trust with your ideal audience before they become an ideal customer.  

Step #3: Plan & Strategize

Planning and strategically thinking about how you want to approach your business might seem like a worthless cause if you already know your niche and ideal customer…

However, if you’re running a business without a plan then you’re missing a vital part of your foundation.

At this point, your the foundation of your business would crumble if it were a building.  It simply wouldn’t be able to support its own weight.

So… what does creating a plan and strategy look like? 

For me, I decided to make it a goal to focus on blogging and writing 100 blog posts before I even think about venturing into any other avenues of traffic generation such as social media.

Not only that, but I sat down and wrote out the titles and content ideas for all 100 articles.  This ensured I had a solid plan and was ready to step on the gas and go.

Step #4: Execute On Designing And Building A Website To Attract Value

You’ve now made it to the step where you can start to execute on everything you’ve been working towards.

You’ve done the hard work of laying a solid foundation for your online business.  One that’s sure to withstand the heavy storms and rains that come its way in the years to come.

Execution is the easiest of the steps, yet it can be the most difficult when you’re just starting out.

On one hand, you already have a plan and know exactly what you need to do to succeed.  On the other hand, you may find yourself 6 months in and barely be seeing any progress for your online business in terms of traffic and sales.

Remember, if this was as easy as it looks then there would be a whole lot more success stories.

There’s always going to be things you need to improve so it’s just a matter of developing the self-discipline over time to take incremental actions that move your online business forward.

Step #5: Drive Traffic With Search Engines To Your Website

If you were to ask me what I think the best way of driving traffic is, it would be through utilizing search engines.

There’s many reasons for why search engines are the best for driving traffic but here’s a quick list:

  • you get super-targeted traffic
  • easily create evergreen content
  • the lifetime of content is years as opposed to hours on social media

In particular, I focus mainly on growing my blog by writing helpful and actionable articles that rank on Google, Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, and other search engines.

YouTube is another platform and also Pinterest.  Each of these can start to get you traffic into your sales funnels and email list and eventually bring you sales simply by creating content.

Step #6: Test And Refine Your Content Approach

Always test everything.

One of the best ways to increase sales once your starting to see the flow of money come in is to split-test everything.

If you’re running a blog or YouTube Channel then definitely split-test headlines, CTAs, different styles of thumbnails, and different levels of keyword difficulty.

All of these things and more will slowly start to move the growth needle of your business forward as you impact more people and as a byproduct of that start to draw in more sales.

Step #7: Scale Through Automation And Consistency

The final step is scaling your business.

There’s honestly nothing better than finally having something that you know works and being able to scale it.

When you’re creating content to drive traffic, the only thing that’s stopping you from growing your business more is creating more content.

This is a unique point in time where you should start to ask yourself if you want to potentially hire on some virtual assistants (VA’s) to handle the repetitive and non-income producing tasks.

If you’ve got a blog, then you can hire writers to increase content creation.

You could also start to distribute content to multiple channels and expand to other platforms… Or you could go all in on building up your presence on just one platform even more.

The possibilities are truly endless when it comes to scaling your online business and increasing the bottom-line profit.  I think that’s truly what gets all of us excited the most.

Frequently Asked Questions 

The best online business model for beginners is affiliate marketing.  You’ll be able to focus primarily on marketing and driving traffic to offers.  This alleviates the need to create your own product or deal with the back-end support tasks.

I recommend not doing paid ads when starting out trying to figure out how to build an online business.  It honestly while cost you likely several thousand if not tens of thousands of dollars just  to figure out how to run profitable ads in the first place.  I recommend getting started with an online business by simply creating content that’s helpful.  Then as a byproduct you’ll start to see sales come in.  Once you’ve done that, you can re-invest those profits into paid ads.

Starting an online business is a good idea because it gives you time, location, and financial freedom.  There’s not many things that allow you to create your own day and where your actions have a direct impact on your financial gains.

Final Thoughts On How To Build An Online Business From Scratch

Hopefully you found this post useful on how to build an online business and can take the things learned with you to build your own successful and profitable online business.

It’s going to take hard work and dedication.

But slowly over time your online business will start to grow as you build it one piece of content at a time.

Be sure to leave a comment below with the step that resonated with you the most for learning how to start an online business.

Affiliate Disclaimer

I hope you enjoyed this post. This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I get a commission if you decide to purchase through my links at no additional cost to you.  I'm an independent ClickFunnels Affiliate, not an employee. I receive referral payments from ClickFunnels. The opinions expressed here are my own and are not official statements of ClickFunnels or its parent company, Etison LLC.

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