Fast Senior Start-Up Steps for Building an Online Business

Internet Marketing for seniors is a smart way to create extra income streams from the comfort of your home without paying for a warehouse full of inventory. If you have been thinking about making extra money from home this could be the perfect business for you.

When you’re a senior marketer, you want to get a quick jumpstart on the process of building an online business. From the initial niche and business model selections to the consideration of your growth options, you need to know how it will all unfold.

Many marketers teaching this stuff will have you believing it takes months to get the ball rolling, but the truth is, you could technically be up and running by the end of today if you wanted to.

Most like to take a bit more time, just to feel secure in their decisions. But with a nice roadmap of what you need to be doing, you’ll have the confidence you need to power through your journey with ease. 

There are ten basic steps you’ll be using to build the foundation of your online business. Some steps will repeat over the course of time, such as networking or conducting research – while others will be one and done tasks, like setting up your website. 

Take Inventory of Your Skills and Passions 

Your very first step in starting your online business is to be honest about your current skills and what you’re passionate about. Don’t worry if you don’t currently possess certain skills that you may need to run an online business, because those can be learned.

But you need to know what your starting point is so that you can decide which business model is best for you. For example, if you have a knack for picking great products and advising people about that, but you feel uncertain about creating your own digital info product, that’s good information to guide you to be an affiliate marketer.

List all of the skills that you feel confident and comfortable with, such as research, brainstorming, writing, video creation, speaking (for podcasts possibly), graphic design, socializing (also known as networking), etc. 

The two most common areas people start out in are affiliate marketing and info product creation, but you might also prefer to start out as a freelance service provider, printable vendor, private label rights seller, or something else.

You can test drive and begin with a free website here. 

Allow your skills and preferences to guide you in the business model that you select. Then, make a list of all of the niche topics you have an interest in. From fitness to golf, making money or lawn care – anything you enjoy or have a knack for, list it as a possible niche for you to tap into. 

Spend some time taking stock of what types of products are on the market for the various niches, such as the digital courses and tools or tangible products that are delivered to a consumer’s home.

You want to make sure that there are enough products on the market in that niche for you to steadily grow your business and earn the kind of money you are hoping to make with your chosen business model.

Run Some Data and Make a Firm Decision 

After you have chosen your niche and business model, it will be time for you to decide where you will house your online business. That means you need to choose a domain name.

Your domain name will ideally consist of relevant niche keywords that help people understand what your site is all about. Some people try to come up with a brand name that doesn’t include keywords, and that’s fine if you intend to take it all the way – but keywords do help in terms of recognition and even as SEO.

Go to your favorite keyword processor and begin searching for words and phrases that have to do with your niche topic. You can start off broad and then work your way into more narrow results.

As you download the information, set aside any particular words and phrases you want to try to use in your domain. If you want to, you can have a separate tab open to test and see if the dot com version of those words and phrases is available as a domain name and purchase one that you feel will work best.

Don’t waste your money and scoop up dozens of ideas. Make a list and select one that will work best for you. Now is not the time for you to second guess yourself or backtrack to try to have different results – it’s time to build your business.

Get Your Site in Working Order 

When you have your domain name picked out, you will want to order a hosting plan that will support at least one domain. Connect your URL to your hosting account and log into your cPanel so that you can begin the set-up of your site.

It’s very easy to install WordPress. This will allow you to have a fully functional blog on your domain. You can do this with a simple push of a button, followed by the process of entering some administrative details.

After a few minutes for the installation, look at the login details that have been sent to you and log into your blog to begin setting up how you want it to be presented to your target audience.

On the dashboard, you will be able to choose the appearance of your site as well as how it functions. Go ahead and use a free theme for now. You can use free tools such as Canva if you want to make a header.

You’ll want to set up a Contact page as well as an About page. If there are any plugins that you would like to use on your blog, you can install and activate those at this time. Make sure you visit your blog and test out the navigation to ensure everything is working correctly.

Be Ready to Build a List 

When your new home on the ‘net is set up, you need to be ready to welcome your visitors and get them on your list. Having subscribers that you can contact will allow you to profit from your communication with them over the coming years.

First, select an email autoresponder system that you feel comfortable with. There are many that have trials or that allow a certain number of signups with no fee in the beginning.

Take a look at MailChimp, Aweber, and GetResponse initially to see if any of those meet your needs. Once you decide on one, sign up and go through their process of creating your first list.

At this time, you will write your welcome email that new subscribers will receive when they submit their contact details. Next, go through the autoresponders process for creating a form, copy the code it gives you, and paste it into a text widget on the sidebar of your blog.

Later, when you create a lead magnet page, which is dedicated to nothing but signups, you can go back and get a different form. But first, you have to create a gift that entices people to get on your list.

Create a Gift to Give Your Followers 

The gift that you will be giving your new subscribers is more than just notifications of new blog posts. Instead, it’s something they can download, watch, or read online. You may want to split test your lead magnets to see what performs best with your target audience.

One of the most common lead magnets is a simple report. You can choose a broad or narrow topic to cover that is popular with your niche demographic. You’ll want to create a professional image to reflect the free gift, and outsource this task if you are not skilled at it.

If you don’t want to use a text report, you can always create a checklist, infographic, audio interview, or video series to provide as your lead magnet gift. You can even bundle up a combination of these items, or choose one as your lead magnet and use the others as surprise gifts they receive in their email from you.

Set Up a Publishing Schedule for Your Blog

The next thing you want to do is set up a publishing schedule for your blog content. Some people try to log in each day and come up with a topic on the fly. This can cause more stress and wasted time.

Instead, spend a little time choosing 30 topics for you to discuss on your blog. This might be a mixture of step by step instructions, advice or tips, strategy, product reviews, etc.

If you don’t want to schedule a post every day, you can cut back to two or three days per week. However, the more often you post to your blog, the better it is for your search engine rankings.

It also gives your target audience more reason to revisit your site if they know you will have fresh content for them to consume each and every day. If you want to go one step further, you can outline each of your ideas so that when the day comes for you to create that content, you can hit the ground running.

Pick Your Social Platforms and Set Up Profiles

Not every niche thrives on every single social networking platform. Some have more of an audience than others do. You will need to go to the various platforms to determine whether or not there are people seeking that information.

Then, analyze how big the audience is based on their engagement of existing content by your future competitors. Don’t neglect certain social platforms just because you assume your audience is not on there.

For example, many people think Tik Tok is just for silly dances, but there is a wide audience for niche topics like gardening, cleaning, and more. You also want to check sites and apps like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, and even forums where you can discuss the topic as a contributor.

You don’t want to dilute your efforts too much. Creating content takes a lot of time and energy, so you want to focus on those that are best suited for your niche topic. Create your profiles and make sure that you include a link back to your blog.

Start Networking with Those Who Will Benefit You in Many Ways

Your next step will be to begin networking with anyone who will benefit you along the way. This can include people who are not in your niche. Fellow marketers who have a different business model may also know some of the same skills that you need to succeed, such as paid traffic or search engine optimization.

You also want to network with people who will potentially become affiliates for your own digital products if and when you decide to launch a line of them. It’s never good form to suddenly hit someone up in private messages, asking them to promote for you when you haven’t spoken to them previously.

Make Sure You’re Monetizing Everything You Do

As you begin to post content to your blog and create emails that are going out to your subscribers, start looking at how you can monetize all of your content and communications.

Whether you are sending people directly to products that you created, or making recommendations to other people’s products or services, you never want to leave money on the table by forgetting one of the main purposes for the creation of your content.

Sometimes, monetization is not the sole focus of your content, but instead it is casually woven into the content that is designed to benefit and guide your target audience. For example, if you are in the keto niche, you might create a blog post that teaches people how to count their macros.

Within that blog post, you might mention a keto course and hyperlink out to it. But the rest of your page is filled with value-based information at no charge to your readers. Of course, you can also create a specific product review for your blog that details the benefits of that particular course if you want to, but don’t make these types of posts the only ones that you monetize.

If you mention something like a food scale, when teaching people how to watch their caloric intake, go ahead and hyperlink out to a food scale that you recommend so that if your reader doesn’t have one, they will be able to buy it through your link and deliver a commission for you.

Carefully Analyze Your Ability to Expand and Grow Your Business

The last, and one of the most important steps you will take as an online entrepreneur, is to always analyze where you’re at with your business and where you intend to grow it. As an online marketer, you do not have the same glass ceiling that many in the corporate world do when it comes to earnings.

You can take your profits as high as you are willing to work for them. So if you start out as an affiliate marketer who recommends products for the keto diet, you can also expand your niche topic to include other diets or expand into other business models, such as creating your own digital info products or even coaching people.

This is a task that you will be doing periodically throughout your career as an online entrepreneur. You might want to do it once a month, once a quarter, or annually. But don’t neglect the process of taking time to see if you are ready to do something more.