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Choosing An Online Business Is A Tricky Business

Rami Doleh

September 25, 2006

Experienced online marketers have come to realize that a "Too Good To Be True" idea is usually truly too good to be true. Yet the confusion comes from the fact that any business idea on the internet, whether it is solid or not, is presented with hyped language and giving extraordinary promises. So how can we actually differentiate between a solid online business idea and one that is based on empty promises?

Then when we actually realize what is a solid idea and what is not, how do we know that this idea is something we can work with? Meaning, would I find myself and enjoy being part of this business idea? When we answer this question you will find that the first question was answered as well.

The human mind is a master at categorization. When we find that there is something that does not belong to any category that we know of, we become puzzled and don't know how to understand it. Therefore, the mind either opens a new category or relates this new issue/entity/thing to the closest possible category it is aware of.

What we will attempt at here, is to try to categorize the online business ideas to enable the mind to understand what is being presented; accordingly, this will ease the decision making process to choose the best online business idea with which we find ourselves at ease.

There are three major online business types that we can think of. We will list each one and explain it.

1- To market your own product/service: This means that you either have a certain product or service that you want to market or that you have reseller rights to a product or service. To be able venture into this type of business you must have acquired a very good experience in online marketing. It is not advisable at all to venture into this type of online business without having solid understanding of the internet and how it works. With this method you are totally on your own.

2- To market other people's products and services: This is called affiliate marketing. With this method you will get a percentage of the retail price of each unit you sell for the business you are affiliated with. This can only be made easy if the business you are affiliated with is able to provide a comprehensive and detailed online marketing training. You will also need to make sure that you have excellent support system that will help you whenever you are stuck. There aren't many out there with these features, but if you look hard you will be able to find them. Still if you are comfortable with your online marketing skills you might not need to worry too much about such issues.

3- Creating advertising sites: The most common of those is what is called adsense sites. With this option you will have to be comfortable with creating websites and managing keywords. The best way to do that is to be able to choose your market by keyword niche and create a dynamic website which is full of information that is important to your target market. Allow others to advertise on your site and charge for it and register with Google adsense who in turn will post related ads on your website and each time the ad is clicked Google pays you.

You are mostly safe if the online business you are considering falls under any of the above categories. The only time you will have to think is when a business is asking you to become an affiliate in exchange for a considerable one time or monthly fee to allow you to market its products and services. This does not mean in anyway to run away from such businesses. On the contrary, all what I am saying if the amount that is being asked is considerable, you really need to be careful.

In any case my advice to you is to find and join a forum in which there are experienced online marketers. Whenever you find such a business that you are interested in, post a question in the forum and you will get reviews about this business that will help you in your decision making.

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