In today’s turbulent economic times more and more people are turning to online businesses and are wondering how to even begin the process. If you are one of these people or you know someone who wants to know how to create an online business, help is finally here.

The first thing that I want you to understand about an online business is that it will involve selling a product or service. Many people don’t like selling and will shy away from any activity that involves selling, so if you are one of them and you want an online business you need to come to terms with this. 
 
The cool thing about operating your business on the internet is that you may not have to have direct contact with others. However, it will still be vital to create a personable online image since people buy from people who they like. 
 
Then, you will need to determine what would you like to do online. Will you sell a product, what product, where will you find that product? Or you may have talents that allow you to sell your services. What services could you sell? 
 
Many people start off their online business by selling services since this is certainly an easy way to generate quick cash. The services that can be offered online are endless, but here are some of the more obvious ones: software design, graphic design, writing, database design, research.  These are simple suggestions, but it gets more complex. For example, if you can write, you may either contract your services to write for others or you could produce information products and sell them yourself.
 
If you are simply selling your service, you can find many sites where you can bid on jobs that people are looking for people to do and you can get started immediately. However, if you decide to sell your own information product, you will now need to know how to market on the internet. This is the same for selling any products online where you have to know how to do internet marketing. There are 2 kinds of products, physical and digital. Digital products are downloadable such as audio (music or spoken words), or written as in books or articles.
 
There are 2 main aspects to product marketing. Where the product will come from. You can create it or you can sell products created by others. Products that are created by others are called affiliate products and may never touch your hands as in drop shipment or simply affiliate marketing. Products can also be physical where you need to get them and ship them out to the buyers. 
 
Drop shipment is where products are shipped via a fulfillment house. In both drop shipment and affiliate marketing you advertise and promote the products but they never come to you. Instead, they are shipped directly to the customers by either the product creator or a fulfillment house. Affiliate products simply mean that you are an affiliate of the product and not the product creator. So in your affiliate capacity, you market the product and get a cut of the profit. 
 
Once you have decided what you’re online product or service is, then you are ready for the next step in learning how to create an online business.