I believe there are really just two essential things you need if you’re jumping into starting your own business online…yes, I know it’s hard to believe just two, right?!  With all the offers, products, launches, promotions, widgets, and everything else you’re bombarded with everyday online, one would be led to believe this marketing thing is some complicated process involving lots of parts.

Sure there are a ton of things out there to make your life easier…but if you’re just getting started, let’s keep it simple with just these two things…start making money, and then get more advanced as you go.

So, what are they?

1) a Web Host: a company that has servers on which your website sits and lets anybody in the world visit your website.

2) an AutoResponder: an online tool that allows you to build a list of followers/customers/fans, and send out regular email broadcasts to them. This is key in building relationships with them and also selling what you have to offer.

So that’s it! I will save a lesson on AutoResponders for later, because we have enough to cover today in web hosting.

There are a ton of options when it comes to finding a web hosting company. I was very fortunate to find BlueHost, the company I use to host all my various websites, from the very beginning.  I’ve had great results with them, little down time of my sites, and great service if I ever need it.

I’ve heard horror stories from other marketers who chose what turned out to be the wrong companies to go with…sites being down all the time, unexpected overage charges, completely losing all their data…you name it, it’s probably happened.

And you hear one company advertise everywhere, with their racy commercials and sponsoring their own NASCAR car, that’s GoDaddy. They’re a great host, but I’ve always been a little turned off by how much additional crap they try to sell you.  When you go there to buy a simple domain name, it’s just up-sell after up-sell.

With BlueHost, you buy a domain name for $10 (i.e. www.BrentWehmeyer.com), and then just pay a flat monthly fee for them to host your website.

You can continue adding on as many new domain names to your site as you like. They have an online control panel called a “cPanel” which allows you to manage anything you ever needed to.  I have WordPress (blogging platform) installed on a lot of websites, and they always have newer updated versions of WordPress coming out…well instead of having to go to each of my sites to update WordPress, they have a nice feature that allows you to just click update once, and it updates all of your sites.  That’s just one of their handy features on there.

So, if you’re brand new, here’s what you need to know. You need a website with your own domain name. You can use this website for creating your own personal brand, like I have here at www.BrentWehmeyer.com, or you can set up a website about a certain topic or industry niche. Either way, set up your website with either BlueHost or HostGator, those are my top 2 recommendations.

Check back soon for more discussion and training on how I use an email auto-responder, and what it will do for your business too.

 

 

To Your Success,