Okay. So one of the most damaging thoughts about running an online business – the one I hear the most often – is that “creating a business online is overwhelming.”
Yes. It can be. I get it. There is so much information out there and so many ways to distribute your content that so many people feel completely confused by what they should do first.
“Do I need a podcast?”
“How do I create a trip wire?”
Then a million other thoughts about all the other things you are told you need, a youtube channel, an instagram, a twitter, Facebook ads, email opt-ins oh my god.
Where the heck do you start first? And what do you invest in off the bat in the beginning of your business?
Okay. Deep breaths.
Before you do anything, I am going to tell you about the three basic affordable tools that I use and rely on regularly that have become the most VITAL components of my online business.
These three things are where I tell every online entrepreneur to start. This should be the first space that you work on building.
1.PURCHASE A DOMAIN NAME. I dont care if you don’t know what to do with it yet, and I don’t even care if you can’t come up with a cool badass business name just yet: Anyone who is building a business in the online space should have their own professional website to bring people too. Im not saying you need to create a massive online empire via a website right off the bat, but I am a firm believer in that when someone wants to work with you, they look you up. And the mindset in our culture is that anyone who is “professional” has a website. So go get one. I buy all of my domain names through Blue Host (click here to get my discount.) It costs you 12 dollars for a full year of owning a domain name – so you might as well grab it! Blue Host has great hosting packages too so I always host with them as well. (hosting means they keep my website up in internet land by running it through their servers.) all in all buying a domain name and having a website costs you about 74 dollars for a full year. It’s worth it.
2. PURCHASE A CUSTOMIZABLE THEME. As a person who is constantly hiring people in the online space, I hate when I see people’s websites that are just cookie cutter basic flat themes with no personality or design to them. In the early days of building my own website I was using free themes from WordPress which are basically boring template sites that are way too confusing to use and way too boring to enjoy having in your online space. Then I found DIVI Themes. Divi themes are completely 100 percent customizable and so so easy to use. You can purchase their full access theme for like, 60 bucks and it’s so so worth it. The best part of Divi theme is that it is a completely customizable drag and drop system. So It is SO super easy to use.
3. CREATE AN EMAIL LIST. At some point you are going to want to start collecting emails from your potential customers. This is what we call “leads.” There are a ton of ways to do this, but for now, you should create a free account with mail chimp here. Doing so will give you the opportunity to actually start growing an audience and have direct connection to your loyal followers when you need to promote or offer services.
So before you do anything, these three things will lay the foundation for building your online empire.
xoxox
Your Coach, Lauren Eliz Love.
P.S. Are you part of the yet? It’s free!