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The 3 Steps to Building an Online Business on a Budget

In times of economic turmoil, more and more people turn to the internet for home based business opportunities, hoping to put their last $500 to good use, only to find that amount only covers the initial membership fee and some undisclosed, yet important, setup costs such as domain setup, merchant account, auto-responder setup, and so on.

In times of economic turmoil, more and more people turn to the internet for home based business opportunities, hoping to put their last $500 to good use, only to find that amount only covers the initial membership fee and some undisclosed, yet important, setup costs such as domain setup, merchant account, auto-responder setup, and so on. By the time their "system" is all set up and their sponsor or coach tells them they are ready for a direct mail campaign, phone blast campaign, or Google AdWords campaign, they have no money left. What is worse, most lose confidence in the system and quit.

Before you start thinking about packing it in, there is good news. There are steps you can take for building your online business on a budget. Though there are more than 3 to become super successful, I chose to limit this article to 3 steps to building an online business on a budget so you can retain the information better and can start to act. Remember, without action, you just purchased an expensive hobby, not a successful business.

1. Google AdWords setup. Wait!!! Don't get scared away yet. You are not actually turning your campaign on at the moment. When creating your Google AdWords campaign, turn it off. There are 2 reasons for creating a Google AdWords campaign as your first step. One reason is that Google AdWords is your ultimate goal as it will be the greatest source by far for lead generation. This action keeps that goal close to you and keeps you fired up.

The other reason is that you want to start thinking about your business in terms of "keywords". Forget the Spanish or other foreign language you always wanted to learn. When running an online business, you have to know where your leads are coming from and how to get close to cornering that market or demographic. Thinking in terms of keywords will help you design better landing pages, write better articles and blogs, make tweets that give you an avalanche of Twitter followers, and make better videos. Knowing the keywords you will eventually use to market your business with Google AdWords will also help you write better ads for free classifieds, the same ads that will become your AdWords ads. Get Perry Marshall's "Definitive Guide to Google AdWords" eBook to learn from one of the best.

2. Twitter setup for business. Now that you have a grasp of the keywords that best define your business, you are ready to tweet meaningful content. Set up one main hub account, preferably your first and last name or the name of your business. Do not advertise here until you acquire 2000 followers. Any earlier and you will grow your followers much slower as people will brand you as a spammer. Just stick to famous quotes, news article feeds, and other tweets based on keyword searches, as well as your personal content (including your opinions about daily events). Your landing page link will be in your profile and you will get some leads, but you want to wait until the 2000 follower mark before sending ads with a direct link to your landing page.

If you really want to test some ads immediately, then create another Twitter account and use that solely for ads. Tools like TweetLater, HootSuite, and TwitterFeed will help you automate this, sending random ads at chosen intervals to your followers. "Twixplode" by Sean Malarkey is a great resource for building a following fast.

3. Articles, Blogs and Videos. People buy from those they know, like, and/or trust. Build up all three for free by writing articles, posting blogs, and producing video content. Take the 90 articles in 90 days challenge and watch your profits soar as more and more people see you as an expert in your field. Maintain strong relevant keywords in all your articles, blogs and videos. After you post a blog, distribute an article, or upload a video with descriptive content, tweet your followers with link to the content. You will find a ton of readers, not to mention added followers to your main Twitter account.

Here's a nice trick. After you write your article, paraphrase it for a blog post, then script it for a video. Once the video is done, embed it in your article and blog post.

These steps are just the beginning but will generate leads and sales for free. Once you are making sales, take that money and turn on your Google AdWords campaign. After 90 articles, blog posts and videos, you can take a long break from that stuff and let your AdWords crank. People will see you as an expert as they research you and success is yours. Building an online business on a budget takes a lot of effort, but it pays off tremendously. Cheers to your success!