Setting out on your own — easy business setup guide!

When looking at working for yourself the hardest step is just getting started. It can seem like there is a mountain of information out there and that you have to know it all to succeed. The truth is that just starting something and making consistent improvements will ultimately lead you into produce more content -which is what actually makes money. If you are planning to explore the traditional methods of passive income, such as affiliate marketing, social media work, web design, etc. then practice makes perfect. No one just stumbles into a loyal customer base or following. Consistently high quality content built up over months of persistent marketing is closer to the reality.

Sound a bit negative? Well it isn’t! Once you put in the work up front, then you can relax a bit and rely on both automation and your fans to share and promote your content for you. This is when you get to take the often promised trips around the world; sitting on beaches while friends toil away in gray cubicles.

So lets get started. Right now.

What you actually need to get rolling:

1. An idea. Hopefully one that you are passionate about. This idea should almost always target a relatively small group of people, allowing you to narrow your marketing efforts, making life for you much easier. Also make sure to take a good look at the competition for the niche, an idea that is too common can be a big time sink.
2. Content. You need to create value to attract customers. This can be hard in the modern internet era, with so many topics being covered over and over again — with increasing quality every time. Think what your customers really want to see: entertainment, media, education, products, guides?
3. Income Streams. Making money is the goal, so how are you going to ‘profitize’ your new venture? Are you going to sell products directly? Market them for others? Run a storefront? Advertise? All of the above? Researching strategies for similar sites can lead to some insights into the best combination to pursue. Strategies such as affiliate marketing are easy to set up, so it may make sense to give them a try. You will need contact information for this, so you will want to set up an email address at this point. Stick with GSuite (Google Apps) as it is cheap and gives you access to all of the Google products — sign up here.
4. Traffic. In order to make money people need to be consuming your content. The more people that see it the more likely someone is to buy something. Almost always this means that you need to get a solid base established on multiple social media channels. This is the prime place that automation will help (more on this later).
5. (A) A platform (optional). If you plan to sell goods then a you will want a platform to get started with. If you have no experience with this, give Shopify a try. It will give you an idea of how easy it is to sell goods online.
6. (B) A website (optional). If you are going to be distributing a good amount of content, it may be desirable to have a website. This allows you to make more interactive and engaging content. Start with a common base to begin with, such as Wordpress.

• Get a domain name — cheapest place is Namecheap
• Get web hosting — Bluehost is a solid choice
• Install Wordpress — How-to guide, its easy.
• Grab a nice theme — Themeforest has tons of options.

— That’s it! — Keep producing engaging content and watch the traffic increase as well as the profits!

We will dive into each of these topics in more detail in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for more :)