Stock Market Explorer

Posted on 16 Oct 2008

Fear can be paralyzing.

You don't have to be a Wall Street pundit to realize the economy is in major turmoil. The volatility we're dealing with is creating much uncertainty and, of course, fear.

On a personal level, the financial crisis we're experiencing can and likely will affect the price we pay at the grocery store, at the gas pump, and so on. We may learn about friends, family, or ourselves being out of work due to budget cutbacks.

The point of my words here isn't to scare you, but to say that you do have options and you can protect yourself from this financial crisis. By starting a business for yourself, you take a big step towards ensuring your financial security and eventual independence from employment at the will of someone else.

Among businesses you can start, internet businesses provide the quickest start up time and typically have low requirements for monetary investment. You can run an internet business from anywhere, and make sales to people all over the world. Unlike the brick and mortar world, you can realistically compete with larger companies and make considerable money, if not a living for yourself.

Now before you rev up and tear out of here attempting to throw that awesome site together thinking you're going to make a wiping out, take a step back. The internet has great potential for you, but you still have to do your homework and research your alternatives. Among the many internet business opportunities i've tried, many fall into two categories: "build your own websites" and "promoting other products and services."

Build your own - More profit, but more risk

Taking an idea for an internet business from scratch and building it sounds exciting. After all, would we've Google if someone didn't put their mind to it and create it from the ground up? The great aspect about building your own unique business from scratch online is you'll be likely looking at more profit since you're not paying any up front membership fees for promoting other products.

Consider the fact that most domain registrations can be secured for under $10 for 1-2 years. The price to have a site designed typically ranges between $250 and $400, and having that site hosted may run you around $10 per month. You can get started for around $500 and whatever the cost is to produce the product you're selling.

On the down side of building your own site is the risk of being an unknown entity. you'll have to invest time and likely some money into promoting yourself and your product so that people become familiar with you enough to buy.

Promote other products and services

Affiliate marketing is a term used to refer to the process of someone advertising a company's products for sale, and that person being paid a fee each time a sale is made through their advertising efforts. This can be a highly profitable business that doesn't have the risks of going it alone.

Suppose i'm an affiliate of Amazon.com. i've signed up for a free account and i've a code assigned to me that identifies me as an affiliate of Amazon. i've the ability to create links to products in Amazon that I can promote as I see fit. The links I create have my special code in them, so whenever someone clicks on one of my links and goes to Amazon I get a commission on everything that person buys on Amazon's site.

Promoting products from an established company is easier in some respects. Since the company you're promoting is likely an established one, you don't have to work on name recognition much at all. The down side of this business is your competition is greater, so you'll have to work harder at finding the best ways to promote your affiliate links and make sales.

I've given you a broad overview in this article of two of the ways of starting a business online. The important thing is to research and consider your options. In this volatile economy, you'll do yourself some good by continuing to investigate ways to make money and increase your financial security.

Just a $1 investment will get you started in internet marketing. Details at http://www.online-business-ops.com