This article is about starting a web business, your online business, at home.

You might ask, "What do I have to do to start an online business that works?

What are the best things to sell on the internet?

What is the best internet business to start?

You might also ask:

Do I need a business license to sell online? (NO)

Do free websites make money? (YES)

Can I start a free internet business in minutes as the gurus say? (PROBABLY NOT)

Do I need to run an internet scam check? (YES)

If you check my list of articles at EzineArticles.com, you will see that I often write on Internet businesses and the steps for startups. We all want legitimate internet businesses to avoid the list of business scams. Maybe you are helping a relative and want internet business ideas for mom.

Here Are Some Steps to Starting an Internet Business with Top Internet Companies:

1. Find a Niche Market

You may already have a hobby or interest that is in a niche market. You need to find a niche market where those in the market have wants and needs. Automobiles is not a niche market. Model T Parts may be.

2. Find the Buyers in That Market, Hungry Buyers That Have a Product Need

(See Step 4)

3. Find a Product for Your Potential Buyers

I sell flagpoles. I'm a distributor for two companies. I don't ship the flagpoles to my customers. They are drop shipped.

I also sell products as an affiliate. Some of these products I find at ClickBank.com There are thousands of products there for you to sell and you do nothing other than drive your customers to your affiliate link.

You also can go to Amazon.com, Commission Junction (CJ.com) and many other sites.

4. Find a Way to Sell and Deliver Your Product to Your Customer

For most affiliate product selling, the product is delivered for you, the money collected and then your cut of the money, your commission is delivered to you buy mail or by PayPal.com. I sell books. At times, they are shipped by my distributer. At other times I ship them myself.

5. Advertise Your Product to Your Niche Market

You can drive your potential customers directly to the pitch page of your sponsor by having them click on your affiliate link. I would give you an example of such a link here, but the editors might think I'm breaking the rules. That is what the Source Box below is for.

Another thing you can do is to create a pre-sale page or "landing page" that will tell your potential customer how much you love the product and then invites them to visit the main site through your link.

Now you know what you are to do as far as advertising-how do you do it.

Many of us use what is called "Bum Marketing." That is what I'm doing here. Article writing is one way that affiliates and other Internet marketers make money.

If you are trying to hit your niche market, you should try to pick a good keyword for insertion in the title of the article, in the first paragraph and in the last paragraph.

There are many article sites. I mainly use EzineArticles.com because I know how to navigate here. Squidoo.com is where many "bum marketers" hang out.

Another way is to promote your products is by PPC at Google®, Yahoo®, MSN® and other pay-per-click sites such as GoClick.com®. The procedure is to create a campaign, write some ads, add keywords that are not so popular you have to pay dollars instead of cents, and wait.

You must restrict the amount of money you will spend in a day or in a month. You should pause your campaign immediately if you are not making money. You need to work on that keyword list. If you are selling a product with a $30.00 commission and you have sold nothing at all, stop the campaign when you have spent $30.00. Why waste more money?

PPC is not "Bum Marketing". You are paying. Bum marketers don't pay for advertising, ever.

Well, I guess I do both.

Get a voucher for your PPC campaign before you start. They are usually $50.00 but I got one from GoDaddy.com for MSN for $200.00. I've spent only a fraction of that $200.00 but I've made money. That means that I will have more money to spend on my MSN campaigns.

You can find vouchers through a Google or other search engine.

If you go PPC, get technical support from the PPC sites. Their technical help is superb and they will keep you from making mistakes. But you must evaluate what they tell you. For example, if you get an email telling you that if you raise your daily limit, you will get a certain amount of additional traffic, will more traffic increase your profits? Not if your campaign is not already making money for you.

Conclusion:

I told you the basics of how to start your online business at home. From long experience, I know that I have not told you enough to succeed. To learn what you really need to know, please go to my Resource Box.

Learn to Earn!

Fly Old Glory!