How to setup a million dollar business in less than $500
We all want to clutch that tag of self-employed, we all want to have our own business, A million dollar business to be precise. A business that would grant us a status of an entrepreneur and enough profit to act further for growth. So what the biggest obstacle that doesn’t let people own this dream of theirs. It’s the lack of capital to invest.
What internet has done is that it has opened the whole world to be your customers. So how about having a business that you own entirely spending even less than $500? For those who are still in doubt, I will share live examples of startups that have done it already at a later part of the article.
Content is king
The world right now is all about content. Be it google search engine rankings, media releases, PR or even politics for that matter. As per economic predictions, Content marketing would be a $320 bn industry by 2020 and would be the 3rd most earning industry after food and fashion. We spend a lot of time on facebook, twitter, Instagram, google+, LinkedIn, StumbleUpon etc
We all are accustomed to a lot of famous, successful online magazines. The likes of Mashable, Buzzfeed, Wittyfeed, Wired, The Magazine, Small Business Trends, etc. would quickly cross your mind. Every single of these magazines had a humble start before they started ruling.
Yes, you have it right. What if you could have your own online magazine and build a million dollar business of your own. It isn’t as tough a job as you might think, but yes, you need to sweat real hard and may be round the clock initially. But then it’s worth it.
Thought of it is really mindblowing and lucrative but at the same time, you might not have any idea of how it can be achieved. Do not worry, I will help you understand all the ifs and buts of starting your million dollar business step-by-step
Purchase a domain and a hosting
So creating a web magazine starts with deciding its domain name and purchasing a domain/hosting. You need a domain that is brandable and has the potential of creating a buzz. That which the audience can familiarise easily with. There are several registrars where you can buy a domain like GoDaddy, BigRock, Abaxsoft, etc.
Done with choosing your niche, you now have to decide a name for your magazine. This also depends on the availability of the domain name. You would want the title of your magazine to match your domain name.
Try getting a “.com” or a “.net” domain that targets to the global audience. Else if you decide to write for a national audience, try getting national domains like “.in” or “.co.uk.” If you want some suggestions on your domain name, here is a list of tools.
- Domainsbot
2. NameMesh
3. BustAName
4. Panabee
Also Read: Amazing domain name suggestion tools helpful for your startup name
Set Up WordPress
Choose a theme
Next, you need to pick the best WordPress theme to befit your magazine. WordPress gives you a pre-packed theme, but I’m sure you would want to customise it according to the likes of your’s and users. There are copious free and paid themes available, and you need to choose wisely.
Your theme would be the decider for the reading experience you would provide to your guests. The popularity of your blog will depend a lot on its scheme. You want to offer an easy yet engaging reading experience.
A theme is not just about the looks. It’s also inevitable that the theme is rightly coded. Lacking that may hurt your blogging. You would get fantastic theme options on ThemeForest.
Setup WordPress
Setting up WordPress is seriously easy:
Step 1: Download WordPress from wordpress.org. Some of you might already have one-click install option that comes with your hosting. Not that its bad, but I like do it myself. That way, we can customise and control the install as per our choice. I would soon write an article on how to secure your WordPress installation, for now, let’s just focus on basics.
Step 2: Extract and upload your WordPress folder to your hosting server using an FTP client like FileZilla, CuteFTP etc.
Please check: How to upload files using Filezilla
Step 3: Create a mysql database in your cpanel and keep your database details ready.
Simply go to to the URL where you uploaded WordPress. If it is in the main domain, then enter your domain name in the browser window, like yoursite.com or www.yoursite.com.
You will see the language selection page. You can choose a language here so that rest of the installation is displayed in your own language. You can also use English for now and then later change the language.
Choosing language during WordPress installation Click on the continue button to proceed.
You will now see some installation instructions. Basically WordPress will now tell you that it will need your database name, password, and mysql host information.
Click on the ‘Let’s go’ button to continue.
WordPress will now show you a form. You need to enter the name of the database you created earlier.
Fill in the information and then click on submit button. WordPress will now connect to your database and will show you a success message.
Click on ‘Run the Install’ button to continue. WordPress will now create tables in your database and then send you to the next step of the installation. Now you need to provide some information for WordPress to setup your site. This includes site title, username, password, and admin email address.
If you do not want your website to be visible to search engines, then you can check the box next to search engine visibility. Later when you are ready you can change this from WordPress settings. If you are unsure about what to do, then simply leave it unchecked.
Click on the Install WordPress button to continue. WordPress will setup your website and finish the installation.
You will see a success message showing your username. You can now click on the Log in button to sign in to your WordPress site.
Finding the right topic
Now that you have an outstanding and eye-catching blog ready for your magazine serving great reading experience, still the main ingredient isn’t ready. What’s even more important is your content.
The best way of creating viral content is to look for what’s trending now. You can check the trends on various platforms like:
1. BuzzFeed 2. BuzzSumo 3. Facebook Trends 3. Google Trends
5. Hacker News
Getting a clue about the recent trends you can decide for the apt topics for your blog posts. Do not forget; you need to write what people want to read and still maintain the quality of your content.
Creating quality content
You decided to run a magazine that means you can write and you can write well. But one thing that you mustn’t forget is that it can never get perfect, and it can always get better. Make sure you give all your focus to your content as that’s what you built the blog for and that’s what is going to bring profit.
So while you write an article, you need to keep track of grammar, readability, and copy content as well. At the end of the day, these things decide the overall quality of your article. Now for that, you have got tools as well. Here:
1. Grammarly: A great tool to help you with your content. It would tell about all your errors typos and would also suggest advanced measure for better writing. The tool’s plagiarism checker also works fine.
2. Hemingway: This tool would grade the readability of anything t5hat you write. This would let you know whether your article id too complicated or too simple to read. You can have a perfect balance.
3. Plagiarism Checker: Now if you want to check your article for copy content, you can use this tool. The tool checks your article against thousands of web pages and reports any similarities of your article with any of those.
Step 3 Promotion
You have accomplished the above steps and started blogging as well. Will it reach out by itself? No, it won’t. The next important step for a profitable blog is the promotion.
A blogger has to let people know about the existence of the magazine. Posting awesome content is of no use when you are the only reader to that. So promote your blog to grab more and more users. Some of the beast ways are highlighted below.
Social Media Promotion
Social Media is where the world resides. There are your potential readers. So if you want to invite them, go to the place where most of them are. Promote your blog on social media, every media that you use. Share your articles again and again. Make sure you get the much-needed visibility.
Guest Posting
Another useful way of blog promotion is guest posting. If you can get your articles posted on any of those top rated blogs, the result will be huge referral traffic coming back to you. That’s what you want.
Shoutout on popular forums
To be a known name in your niche, you need to be present on popular forums like Quora and others. Ther you would find experts and pros of the business, and a lot of guidance. Post your queries feedback or updates but make sure to be regular and active on these forums.
Paid Marketing
Paid marketing can also be a handy tool. You can go for paid ads on Facebook and other media as well. This way you can also reach to people reluctant to accept your newsletter subscriptions or ignore your emails. It can help a lot in building quality leads and creating buzz about your upcoming posts as well. You can also go for online advertisers like Outbrain.
Step 4 Generating Revenue
Now you have set up a business of your own in less than $500. But business is a real business only when it earns revenue for you. So now you need some options to generate revenue from your blogs. You have your options there.
1. Advertisements: First thing you can do to monetize your blog is to sell ads. You can register yourself on Google Adsense which pays you a fixed amount for each click on an ad. The amount differs depending upon the advertiser.
Apart from that if you have large visitor base, you can sell ads directly to merchants. They would give you banners of their ads, and you will display them for the signed period.
2. Affiliate Marketing: High traffic blogs can earn a lot using affiliate marketing. You have to place these affiliate ads on your blog, and generate leads or make a product sale for them. Merchants would know through cookies where the lead or sale came from, and they pay a good price per sale or lead.
3. Sponsored Posts: Some businesses also pay bloggers to write articles about their products. Getting paid to talk about a product or a service is known as sponsored post.
There are even more ways, and these are just the ways of high profits.
So this is the way you can start earning big with investing less than $500 for your business.
How to setup a million dollar business in less than $500
Originally published at www.abaxsoft.com on February 25, 2017.
