How To Set-up Your Own Online Service

Starting an online service is a great idea to build up a recurring monthly income for any Internet business owner who’s worried about “how to make it happen again next month?” Before I get to what the best services can be and how to kick a service off, we need to get a few important formalities out of the way.

DOES YOUR IDEA LEND ITSELF TO CASH LOVE??

What I mean is, does the service idea you’re thinking about or an idea that you found online or through a friend, lend itself to repeatability. Will it be stable in a fluctuating consumer’s requirements? Can you wash, rinse and duplicate your work for the same or new customers and have them pay you regularly?

Answering these questions should give you a better idea of the sustainability of a service you might be considering.

> Is there a built-in need for ongoing support? Can you charge an amount regularly as a service-bill and have the consumer willing to allow it? [It should NOT be that once you solved a particular requirement, they don’t need you anymore.]

> Are the people who need this service available online in large numbers? If yes, are they easily reachable and willing to pay for your expertise?

> If consumers are reachable online, are there existing services in the same sector that do well? [Do you have competitors – COMPETITION ONLINE IS GOOD.]

> Are your consumers desperate for a solution/service? When they approach you, will they be willing to try you out or will they see your price-point and try to get down and dirty and solve the problem themselves? [Your pricing should be reasonable for the service you will provide.]

> Are you truly interested or will the service get boring after 3 months and cause you to want to quit? [THIS IS A BIG ONE.]

If you answered a positive to the above questions, then you’re in a position to go about setting up an online service and have it become successful. Here are some of the most in-demand online services models:

# 1 : Continuity Information or Coaching

This one is about self-help services. The most popular niches being dating advice, dog training, income generation, health, fitness, nutrition and specimen trading (like model-train trades, golf swings etc.)

You can either be the expert adviser yourself OR go ahead to interview sites where experts post their names to be interviewed. You could talk to someone from the niche your service is in and even BUY AN EXPERT. He could be the face of your service while you handle the web setup and marketing. Then, generate ebooks and audio coaching on the cheap and sell them for appropriate pricing.

# 2 : Outsourcing and Freelancing Services

You may have to hire a few programmers beforehand for this. Don’t worry, you don’t need big money. You need brains. Most online freelancing jobs require content journalism, sales copy crafting or software assistance. BUT, all these are not skills you have to jump in with. Oh no. What you need is a PORTAL that you can handle easily.

There are tons of freelancers sitting at freelancer.com who are fed-up of their irregularity ridden payment schedules and uncertainty of income. This is a result of the nature of freelance programming and designing. Find a couple good ones (hint: check their reviews) and strike up a deal with them.

Tell ’em you need a user friendly secure portal for an outsourcing/freelance site meant to serve clients in such-and-such business. And agree to split the income you receive by charging for this portal service for the first 3 years. That’ll get their eyes sparkling. Look at iwriter.com. Brad Callen – a famous guy has done an excellent job and it’s churning out articles at the speed of light. Imagine the income for the portal commissions!!

# 3 : SEO and Search Marketing

Ah!! Probably the most profitable online service today. This does require knowledge of battling for ranking in the search engines and website usability to it’s core level. So this service is right for those who have had some previous scratch at analyzing algorithms, especially binary search and nodal trees.

But hey! If you don’t know all this stuff, don’t bother. There are tons of geeks out there who do. They’ve provided some of the best courses on action steps for you to take. Use their training as an investment and get the expertise you need.

Or better yet, find where they’re taking hits. Hint – most SEOs are great with the technical stuff and online marketing. It’s getting steady clients that gets them killed and they wind up as freelancers who could use your help. So master the client getting aspect of this business. Find out the places where most businesses do SEO that creates problems. Then ask your SEO partner to work on those problems. Once he has, you’ve got answers!! And use those answers to get clients. You can start at forums or by running a Google ad for clients.

# 4 : Virtual Assistants (VA) Services

This is a highly lucrative low investment service. It’s more of “bringing the office home” where you need to assist existing businesses in their virtual running. You need a simple computer or a laptop to carry around and competency in basic technical tasks to do with online business or store administering.

Also, proficiency in sales is an edge. To have your own VA service, you just draw up a website about your service and invite over a team of freelancers who’re interested in going to work full time. Then, take up projects on a timely basis until your skills are refined enough and you know what exact type of business your team can serve well and then how to get them as repeat clients.

# 5 : Online Store Services and Autoresponders

Heard of Aweber? Shopping carts, stores and autoresponders are an indispensable need of any business or individual who’s trying to make an earning online by selling his products. But running scripts that align with payment gateways and assuring the server doesn’t get overloaded due to overburdened requests is not easy if you don’t use a third party service.

That’s where premium monthly services like Aweber and Big Commerce come in. There’s an initial investment of a couple powerful servers involved along with design of re-usable and customizable load balancing engines and scripts to run over those servers. But, once you start getting customers paying you every month, you can re-coup your investment quickly!

I hope I got your wheels turning, cause some of the biggest money to be made online is by supplying a much sought after service…think Google, Facebook, Utube…Good luck!

Click here for more info on creating a sustainable online, residual, passive income. Oh, and be sure you get on my list too…you don’t want to miss out! 🙂

This is a guest post by Jerry Lindenburger. You may reach him at 55jerryl[a]gmail.com. He is the webmaster for Income On Demand.