Here are five cheap and free Internet marketing tips for promoting an online business:

1. Offer something for free – No matter what type of online business, customers and visitors love to receive something for nothing. Create an e-book, short report, white paper, software application, collection of articles, or something similar that can be given away for free. If you create it yourself, it’s an easy free marketing tactic. Hiring a writer or developer can still be a cheap marketing tactic. Also use free giveaways as an incentive for visitors to sign up for your email newsletter.

2. Offer an email newsletter – Having an opt-in email newsletter is a simple Internet marketing tip that can be run for free if handling mailings independently, or inexpensively even if you use an email management service to track campaign results. The key to successful email marketing is to focus on the reader or customer rather than only yourself. Offer an incentive (like a free e-book) for signing up, and continue to offer information in newsletters that would interest readers and keep them coming back.

3. Offer an incentive for repeat business – One-time visitors, clients, and customers are nice, but it’s even better if they keep providing repeat business. A cheap marketing tip for an online business is to offer a small discount on a future order, advanced notice of a new product or service launch, or a restricted area of the website only viewable to repeat visitors (such as running a forum where certain resources are only available to registered members, or members with a certain number of posts).

4. Offer something newsworthy – To make more money online, you need to keep your company’s name on the minds of visitors or customers. This can be done inexpensively by sharing significant news through press releases. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on a press release, and even hiring a public relations professional to write one can be cost effective compared to the exposure they can bring. It doesn’t cost hundreds of dollars to distribute every press release effectively. Several cheap or free online press release distribution sites will get news listed in search engines, and emailing a copy to relevant journalists and bloggers is free.

5. Offer your opinions – Many online business owners and webmasters don’t understand the value of a review. No matter what industry you’re in, and no matter what type of online business you run, there’s something or someone that can be reviewed. Review books, industry products, podcasts or seminars by industry professionals, blogs, or other websites in your niche that aren’t in direct competition. Reviews will often cost nothing, although you’ll occasionally spend a small amount on a book or other product to review if free review copies are available. Here’s the marketing benefit of reviews: Don’t only review something and let it sit online. Instead send a link to the reviewed site, publisher, or manufacturer’s public relations person or owner. While usually not necessary, you can gently suggest that they add it to their site’s press section if they have one. PR people love reviews, and it often leads to high quality backlinks to help with SEO efforts if nothing else. In some cases, it can lead to more exposure, especially if the reviews are eventually converted into a “top picks” series, yearly or monthly rankings, or something similar.

Notice that every one of these cheap and free Internet marketing tips began with the word “offer.” That’s because effective marketing often means looking beyond yourself and your online business and instead focusing on the needs of the target market. Visitors and customers will recognize and appreciate the fact that the extra of value given to them, and it can help your online business stick out in their minds. Give a little; get a lot.

1. Marketable and able to adapt to various branding efforts easily.

2. Easy to remember, at least with your target market.

3. Representative of the image your online business is trying to portray.

4. Not infringing on the trademark of any other company or website.

Once you have decided on a full business name, begin choosing a domain name for your online business or website. Here are a few basic considerations when choosing a domain name for your website:

1. What domain name extension do you prefer when choosing a domain name? (.com?, .net?, your country code?)

2. How long should your domain name to be? Shorter domain names tend to be easier to remember, but that might not be an issue if you plan to exclusively drive traffic through clicks online, rather than needing people to always remember, and type in, the domain name (such as using radio advertising to promote the website).

3. Do you prefer the domain name to be the company name, or something heavily related to the company name, or do you prefer a domain name that is keyword-rich for search engine optimization, even if that means using a less memorable or more unattractive domain name?

4. When choosing a domain name, do you want to avoid using hyphens in the domain, or is that not an issue for your particular online business?

5. Do you want to buy a previously-registered domain name that has a history (especially if its previous use was related to the new online business), or would a domain name that’s entirely new and that has never been used before be better?

6. Do you mind having numbers in the domain name, or would you prefer that everything be spelled out? If numbers are important to the domain name, will they be confusing to site visitors?

Once you’ve answered those questions about choosing a domain name, and have a basic business name (or keywords) in mind, there are a few tools that can help in choosing a domain name for your online business:

1. Domain Name Registrars – When visiting the site of a domain name registrar, conduct a search for your domain name idea(s) to see if the domain names are available. Many registrars have a built-in tool that will suggest similar domain names, if your first choice isn’t available. When targeting a general keyword, and not worried about prefix and suffix options, run a search for keyword.com, even if you know it’s not available. The registrar’s tools may suggest a substitute domain name that will meet your needs.

2. Domain Name Generators – Domain name generators are often free tools found online that can help when choosing a domain name by either adding random suffixes and prefixes to a primary keyword or by combining multiple keywords that you provide, all while searching for available domain names.

1. Do you care if your Web hosting company places advertisements on the website? If having an ad-free site or full control over ads is important, then a free Web host probably isn’t the best option.

2. Do you expect to be using heavy amounts of bandwidth, such as by hosting a lot of audio and video files? If so, consider a dedicated server when choosing a Web host, or at least a Web host offering plenty of bandwidth.

3. Do you need to be able to host more than one website on the same Web hosting account? If so, look for Web hosts offering unlimited add-on domains. If you also need sub domains, look for Web hosts offering the ability to set up unlimited sub domains as well.

4. Do you need to be able to set up multiple email accounts? If running multiple sites, or with staff members, you will likely also need multiple email addresses. When choosing a Web host, look for one that doesn’t charge extra for you to set up email addresses, and make sure the host allows for enough email addresses.

5. Do you need to run a variety of scripts, either within a website, or as the backend of a website (such as a content management system, e-commerce system, or blogging platform)? If so, when choosing a Web host for an online business, be certain the host supports the various scripts that the website will need.

6. How much downtime are you willing to tolerate? When choosing a Web host, look for guarantees on server uptime.

7. Do you want to have to commit to a long-term Web hosting contract? If a long-term commitment isn’t a problem, then saving money by going with a pre-paid yearly plan with a Web host may be an option. If the freedom to change hosts more quickly without the risk of losing as much money is important, go with a month-to-month Web hosting plan. Either way, find out ahead of time if the hosting company offers a money back guarantee during the initial phase of the Web hosting contract.

8. How many databases will you likely use? When choosing a Web host for an online business, especially if it involves running multiple websites, look for hosting companies that allow unlimited (or at least enough) MySQL databases to be set up on each Web hosting account.

9. How often do you expect a technical support representative to be available from your Web hosting company? Some offer support only via email or only during business hours, whereas others offer 24/7 technical support via phone, email, and even online chats.

By answering the above questions, you’re essentially creating a mental checklist to use when comparing and choosing a Web host for your online business needs. Evaluating needs before choosing a Web host will make the decision, and business relationship, much easier.

1. Your interests and passions – An online business opportunity, like any small business startup, can take time to become profitable. If you want to succeed in online business, generally choose a business idea that will keep you interested, even while income may be low initially.

2. Your abilities – Pursuing an online business opportunity can be hard work. Evaluate your abilities as an online business owner, and decide if the time commitment, record-keeping, marketing efforts, and other administrative tasks required of each business opportunity being considered will realistically be doable. If not, be prepared to delegate tasks to employees or independent contractors, or consider other online business opportunities that fit well within your abilities and constraints.

3. Market Need / Competition – Before jumping into any online business opportunity or small business idea, it’s important to determine that an actual “need” for your product, service, or information exists with your target market. If the market is saturated with too much competition, or there simply isn’t a demand, consider another online business opportunity or be able to offer a unique selling proposition and marketing angle. Also consider looking at a narrower niche within each business idea to find a need not yet being filled.

4. Cost to Operate – You should have at least a general sense of a business startup budget before choosing an online business opportunity to pursue. Weed out business ideas early if it would be impossible, or extremely difficult, to manage that particular online business with the predetermined budget.

If you find an online business opportunity that interests you, suits your general business and technical abilities, has a strong market demand, little or reasonable competition, and falls within your budget, you’ve found a potentially workable online business opportunity.

Here are a few common online business opportunities to spark ideas (remember to consider more specific niches within each general business idea):

1. Content Websites – Content websites are monetized by offering some kind of content (such as articles, e-books, audio files, videos, etc.), which is then monetized in some way (usually through online advertising). Community websites (such as forums and social networking sites) can be created and monetized in a similar fashion).

2. Online Services – There is a wide variety of online services, which can be offered exclusively online through your website. Some examples are Web design, programming, Web content writing and copywriting, data entry and administrative services, professional consulting services, or even Web services such as domain registrations or Web hosting.

3. Online Products – Nearly every product can be sold online. There are many options for online product sales, including creating custom products, selling affiliate products, reselling others’ products, or creating informational products (such as e-books, reports, podcasts, etc.) to sell online.

Use these basic example online business opportunities alongside the above tips for choosing the best business idea for your online startup, to aid in developing a manageable and in-demand online business.

There are a few things to consider or ask yourself before choosing customer service and tech support options for your online business:

1. Do you plan to offer all customer service and / or technical support yourself?

2. What kind of customer service and tech support would you like to make available to customers (email, live chat, phone support, etc.)? What is the competition offering? Is there an industry support standard for the type of online business that you run?

3. Would you like to be able to offer support 24/7, or only during normal business hours?

4. Do you want to provide automated customer service help in some way to cut down on manual requests? Do you plan to provide self-help resources online for common tech support issues or customer service questions?

After answering those questions related to customer service and support for online businesses, you should have a basic idea of your needs, and can start to explore various customer service and tech support options, including:

1. Live chat software – If you want to offer a live chat support option to customers, investigate various live chat software packages.

2. Phone systems or additional phone numbers / lines – You may want to have separate phone numbers available for customer service or technical support lines, especially if you expect to receive a lot of calls.

3. Outsourcing options – If you don’t want to handle technical support and customer service calls or chats alone, but can’t afford to hire full-time or part-time employees for your online business, outsourcing work to independent consultants or firms in other countries may be a viable option.

4. FAQ / help desk systems – If you want to provide on-site tech support or customer support information, so customers don’t have to contact the company for simple, common problems, then either use an FAQ or help desk solution or create a custom support area of your website. This can range from a simple frequently asked questions page, to setting up automated responses from email accounts to tackle basic questions from a dropdown list. A support forum can also be launched, where support representatives can answer questions, and customers can help each other.

No matter what customer service and support options you choose for your online business, always take care of customers and their support needs. While happy customers can be quiet customers, unhappy customers (especially with tech support issues) love to spread negative feedback.

There are several reasons to accept payments online with PayPal:

1. Startup and regular fees are low for the merchant (you). There are no monthly fees, setup fees, or cancellation fees to use PayPal’s basic options, and fees are taken directly out of incoming payments. The only monthly fee is for users of the Website Payments Pro package (when comparing the three most common PayPal payment solutions for merchants).

2. Accepting payments online with PayPal allows you to accept payments not only from a visitor’s PayPal account, but also through credit cards and e-checks, without needed to set up a separate merchant account to process credit cards.

3. Users don’t have to be a member of PayPal to be able to make a payment online with PayPal through their credit card.

4. PayPal can be very easy to set up on your website, and offers PayPal buttons for single items, or a PayPal shopping cart option.

5. PayPal offers secure online payment processing.

There are three common solutions that may fit the needs of your online business, to accept payments online with Paypal:

1. Email Payments – You can let your clients or customers pay you online via email using Paypal’s email payments option, which has no monthly or setup fees. Low fees are based on each transaction.

2. Website Payments Standard – This option to accept payments online with PayPal allows you to accept Paypal, credit card, and bank transfer payments directly from your website, and includes optional shopping cart integration. While there are no monthly or setup fees for the basic service, you can choose to add on the ability to accept payments over the phone, through fax, or through mail orders at an additional monthly fee.

3. Website Payments Pro – There are two main differences between PayPal Website Payments Standard and Website Payments Pro. Those differences are that Website Payments Pro includes a monthly fee automatically, which allows merchants to accept payments online, over the phone, or through fax and mail orders, and that Website Payments Pro allows your customers to pay directly on your site, with no redirection to pay through PayPal’s interface.

PayPal has different member account levels, including personal, premiere, and business accounts. If you want to accept payments online with PayPal, you should register for a premiere or business account. Here are the differences for merchants between those two options:

Premiere PayPal Accounts – Premiere PayPal accounts allow you to accept payments online under your own name. Premiere accounts are assessed a transaction fee for each incoming payment accepted, as opposed to a personal account.

Business Paypal Accounts – The biggest difference between a Premiere PayPal account and a Business PayPal account is that a business account allows you to accept payments under your business name (ideal if you don’t want to do business under your own name). Another benefit is that access can be set up for multiple users, which can be an advantage if more than one person must be able to access account information.

1. Is an e-commerce solution / shopping cart needed on your website?

2. Does it need to allow enough room to easily display articles?

3. Do you need to plan for on-site advertising space in the website design?

4. Does the website design need to be interactive for site visitors?

5. Do you want to run your website through a content management system (CMS)?

6. Does the website need to include an audio or video player?

7. Would your target market appreciate a flashy design, or something simple?

Once you’ve answered those questions, it’s to design a website for your online business. There are a few general options to consider when deciding how to design a website:

1. Hire a professional Web designer and/or Web programmer to create a custom Web design and backend system or e-commerce solution, including any necessary tools.

2. Design a website yourself if you already have the Web design and coding skills (or take the time to learn HMTL/XHTML/CSS/PHP etc.).

3. Use a pre-designed Web template from free Web template providers, or purchase a Website template. You can use Web templates as-is, or customize them to fit your needs.

If you don’t need a custom Web design, and don’t want to design a website yourself, then a Web template is likely the best option. Here are some types of sites that offer Web templates to use when designing a website for your online business:

1. Free Web Templates – There are many websites offering free Web templates. Many of these free Web templates are table-based designs, although several sites specialize in offering open source free CSS Web templates.

2. Pay Per Template – Some sites offer pre-made Web templates that you can use to design a website, where each template is purchased individually. Some sites offer Web templates for exclusive sales (meaning only you can use that Web template, similar to having a custom Web design). Other pay-per-template sites allow you to buy a license to use a Web template non-exclusively, meaning other online businesses may be using the same Web design (unless you alter the Web template design significantly). Some Web template sites offer templates both for exclusive and non-exclusive sales.

3. Subscription Web Templates – There are many Web template sites that offer hundreds, or even thousands, of Web templates only to subscription site members. Basically, you pay a monthly, quarterly, yearly, or similar fee to access the website, and you receive the right to download any or all of the website templates available there at no additional cost. Subscription Web template sites might be the best option if your online business will involve running multiple websites that each need a different Web design.

No matter how you decide to design a website for your online business, make sure that the website design serves the needs of both your online business and its customers or target visitors.

Web content – Web content by its nature either informs or entertains. Web content consists of most articles on a website. Other forms of content include photos, videos, and audio files. Web content often is what an online business uses to attract visitors to the site, even if indirectly.

Web copy – Web copy generally refers to text on a website that is either trying to get a response out of the reader or visitor, or that works to forward the company’s message in some way. Copy may encourage readers to buy something, to sign up for something (such as an email newsletter), or even to click on a specific link on your website. Copy also includes things such as a company / site slogan, and internal / company pages on a website (about us, contact, media kit contents, etc.), which goes towards portraying an image that you want to convey to visitors.

So how can Web content and Web copy help you make more money? Here’s how:

Web content – Many websites make the majority (if not all) of their money online as a result of Web content. Content networks (such as About.com, owned by the New York Times Co.) are a large example, while there are many smaller niche websites making their money in a similar way. To make more money online with Web content, use content to draw and keep site visitors while finding ways to monetize the website (such as including advertisements or having a membership fee to view the Web content). There are several keys to using Web content to help you make more money online:

1. Only publish high quality Web content. High quality Web content is a natural draw for readers, is often well-optimized for the Web without much extra SEO effort, and also naturally attracts quality backlinks to your website (therefore helping to increase search engine rankings, and its resulting traffic, which is then monetized).

2. Publish Web content regularly. By posting Web content on a regular basis, readers know when to expect new content, and will get into the habit of returning to your website. More traffic means more monetization potential. While ideally you should publish Web content both regularly and frequently, even if you can only publish once per week or once per month, schedule updates as regularly as possible.

3. Publish Web content that people want to read. Keyword research using tools such as Overture and Wordtracker will help you find topics in your niche that are heavily searched for. While quality content doesn’t need to be stuffed with keywords to rank well in search engines, it does need to address a need of your target readers. If they’re searching a great deal for specific information in the niche, a need for Web content on that topic may very well exist. Don’t forget to compare highly searched keyword phrases with the number of results for that same keyword phrase in search engines to determine market saturation.

Web Copy – Copywriting for the Web is usually designed with the sole purpose of turning website visitors into buyers, repeat visitors, subscribers, or whatever your aim is. A very common example of Web copy would be an online sales letter used to sell an e-book, often containing large bold subheadings and flashy, colored copy with testimonials and multiple chances to place an order.

Not all Web copy is filled with hype however. Every online order page contains Web copy designed to convince the customer to either buy more items (such as being shown related items for sale before you checkout) or to finish the order quickly before you can change your mind. Every time you see a guarantee, for example, the idea is to get you to buy now, and think about it later.

Copywriting relies a great deal on psychology, and understanding what buyers and website visitors react to. Hiring a professional copywriter (or even studying copywriting yourself before developing your website or online business) can easily lead to higher conversions from website visitors to buyers, earning you more money online in the process.

1. To determine an actual need for the products, services, or information you plan to provide through your online business.

2. To determine whether the market is already saturated with too much competition in the niche.

3. To determine the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors as compared to your own online business.

4. To gain a better understanding of your target market, their needs, and how to effectively market to them.

5. To discover potential problems or flaws with your website, products, or services of prior to a public release.

Here are a selection of online market research tools and tactics:

1. Search Engines – Search engines (like Google, Yahoo!, and MSN’s Live) are free tools that can help a great deal with online market research efforts. Their first use in online market research is in helping to identify online competitors. Simply search for variations of your business name, niche, industry, or names of products and services to see who is directly competing with your online business. Also conduct searches to help with marketing efforts, such as searching for incoming links to a competitor’s website, so you can target the same, or similar, sites in a link-building campaign.

2. Keyword Suggestion Tools – Keyword suggestion tools, such as those provided by Overture and WordTracker, are a simple online market research tool for gauging demand for a niche, product, or service with an online audience, by evaluating a keyword phrase’s search frequency.

3. Online Market Research Reports – It’s possible to find a great deal of relevant market research already conducted in online market research reports. These range from free market research reports on your location, market demographics of your visitors, or a specific industry / niche (often from government or educational research projects), to paid market research reports from private companies and researchers (sometimes costing thousands of dollars per report). For basic demographic market research online, check your government’s housing authority or industry / labor websites, or their equivalents.

4. Survey Sites / Tools – Whether using a free survey site or an integrated survey tool directly on your website, surveys are an important feedback-gathering tool in online market research. Surveys are an excellent way to discover your target market’s thoughts regarding customer service, new products or services, site design changes, policy changes, and more. Surveys are also an effective means of gathering demographical information on your target market.

5. BETA Testing / Focus Groups – Focus groups aren’t just for offline market research. Before launching a website or online business (or even a specific product or service online) publicly, recruit beta testers to test your products or site to report flaws or bugs, or hire or recruit a more general online focus group to provide feedback on anything from the Web design to site usability. Test and focus groups are a perfect example of how traditional market research methods can be tailored to an online market research model.

1. Executive Summary – Just like with traditional business plans, Internet business plans need an executive summary. The executive summary is usually the first section of an Internet business plan, although it should be the last section written. An executive summary simply serves as an overview or summary of everything else in the Internet business plan, and would include a very general company description, the company / site mission, and a summary of projected financials.

2. Website / Business Summary – The business summary or website summary of an Internet business plan will offer the reader a glimpse of who company is and what they do. It should describe the website or online business in detail, as well as some general information about the market or niche (for example, if running a niche social networking website, it should explain social networking). Answer the basic questions here of who?, what?, when?, where?, and why? – mention who owns or manages the website or online business, what the site is about or trying to offer, when the site was launched, where the site is located, and why the site or online business was launched in the first place. When updating an Internet business plan beyond the startup phase, this is also the section of the business plan which should contain past results and developments of the website or online business.

3. Management / Ownership – This section of an Internet business plan should go into greater detail regarding the managers or owners of the website or online business. If creating an Internet business plan simply for personal use, it isn’t required, although it can be beneficial in helping to realize strengths and weaknesses in the niche or industry. If planning to seek outside financing from a bank or investor, include all of the relevant business and industry experience, as well as educational credentials, of each member of the online business’ management team. This information can even be included in full resume form.

4. Marketing Plan – A marketing plan is one of the larger, and most important, sections of any Internet business plan. In it, include a SWOT analysis (your strengths and weaknesses as opposed to your competition, and opportunities and threats that you face in your market), as well as information on primary competitors, based on your market research efforts. Also outline the demographics of your target market (specifics of who you intend to visit the site or buy products or services online, such as age groups, ethnic and gender groups, marital status, income levels, etc.). Finally, the marketing plan will include a list or calendar detailing planned marketing tactics. The marketing tactic choices will likely be the biggest difference between an Internet business plan and the business plan of a brick and mortar business, as you’ll be more focused on search engine optimization (SEO), link-building, and other Internet marketing tactics.

5. Budget / Financial Projections – No Internet business plan would be complete without at least a basic budget detailing startup capital and anticipated business expenses. If you plan to pursue financing options, also include financial / profit projections for one to three years, with any supporting information to justify those financial projections to potential investors.