The internet has made it possible to run a business that is 100% online.
Some benefits of an online business include:

• Flexibility of working hours and location
• Minimal overheads
• No need to travel to work / work from home

Some online business models:

• Sell digital products
• Sell services
• Provide valuable information
• Provide a market for advertisers. Can you write or collate information that attracts a particular market? If so then other businesses may pay to advertise on your website.
• Affiliate – become a channel for third party products or services.

As with any business, it’s best to start with a plan, and it will take a significant investment of time, at least initially.

Many social networking websites have a business aspect, even if that’s not their primary purpose – after all there’s always buyers and sellers looking to do business. But there’s one social networking website that is specifically made for businesses and professionals – LinkedIn.

Like Facebook, LinkedIn is in a rapid growth phase. With 120 million members worldwide, and 2.3 million in Australia, LinkedIn grew 17% from January to July 2011. Many LinkedIn users are educated professionals in middle and upper management.

One of the basic uses of LinkedIn is as an online resume. It’s always available, can be kept up to date easily, and can be found by businesses looking for particular skills and experience.

Businesses (called companies) can have their own profile page, which others can follow. This is similar to how Facebook business pages work.

It’s the unique way the networking system operates that has given it the status of a trust network. When making a new connection, LinkedIn will ask how you know the person – you can’t just connect with anyone.

Your profile page shows not only your direct connections, but those who are two degrees away (connections of connections) and three degrees away (connections of connections of connections). If you want to connect with someone in your extended network (2nd and 3rd degree connections) you need to get an introduction from a 1st degree connection. It’s this referral system of networking which adds a level of trust and reliability to the network.

To connect with someone outside your network, you can use a premium paid option called InMail, which will send a professionally presented message to the contact.

There is a comprehensive search system, allowing you to find people by industry, location, company, relationship and more, making it a valuable market research tool.

To reinforce the trust factor, there is a recommendation system, whereby individuals can add recommendations to the profiles of their connections.

LinkedIn has a whole section devoted to connecting job seekers and job vacancies (www.linkedin.com/jobs). There are also paid options with extra benefits like introductions to companies you’re seeking employment with, and what they call ‘talent filters’, which allow highly targeted searches.

For up to the minute trends and news in your industry, have a look at LinkedIn Today. Presented in the style of an online newspaper, it presents the latest news from your industry and network. Stories that appear are determined what is most popular, so you get the best of what’s happening right now.

Answers is a section where you can ask questions and get answers from those in your network. You can read through questions and answers from others, and you have the option to supply your own answers.

If you’re still wondering whether it’s worth being on LinkedIn or other social networking sites, consider that your competitors and customers already are, or soon will be, and that’s probably the most compelling reason why businesses need to make the move, or have a good reason not to.

Domain names. If you’ve got a website, then you need them. Your domain name is your address on the internet, so it’s very important if you want people to be able to find you.

You never own a domain name, you register it in your name for a period of time, allowing you exclusive use, and first option to renew at the end of the term of registration.

.com

The most popular domain names end in .com, they are popular and relatively inexpensive, so if your preferred name is available in .com you should probably register it. .com domain names can be registered for 1 year at a time, or up to 10 years.

All 3, 4 and 5 letter combinations are long gone, as well as most dictionary words, so you’ll usually have a combination of words or your business name.

.com.au

For Australian businesses, it’s vital to have a .com.au domain name. These are available to register only for 2 years at a time, and you must have an ABN and a closely matching business name in order to register one. .com.au domain names are regulated by AUDA (.au Domain Administration).

Pricing

Pricing varies greatly. One of the most popular registrars in Australia is Melbourne IT, and they are just about the most expensive, at around $75 per year. Go Daddy is one of the least expensive domain registrars, with .com’s available at $11 per year, which is very close to wholesale price. Most are in between these extremes.

Your website designer will often have a domain name registration service. They will probably charge their wholesale rate, plus a mark-up to cover their time administering the name on your behalf. If you are not confident managing your own domain names, this is probably your best option.

Ownership

However, make sure that you are entered as the registrant of the domain name. You can check this by using a ‘whois’ service, such as InterNIC for most domain names, and Ausregistry Whois Lookup for .com.au domain names.

Go For It

You can browse for domain names available, and register them on this website.

I was in Brisbane for a few days last week with my family, and not having spent a lot of time in that city, I don’t necessarily know all the good places to go and things to do. Many times I pulled out my iPhone and fired up the Foursquare app to see what was around.

Foursquare is one of a number of location aware apps that knows where you are and tells you what’s in your immediate location. You can explore what’s around by category, for example restaurants. To narrow down the results, I searched for Indian – there were several but they were on the other side of town – too far to walk.

The I searched for the most popular restaurants. With each restaurant, you can see tips that have been left by other people who have been there. We read the tips left by the top restaurant and there were 22 rave reviews. So that’s where we went, and it really was a great dining experience (the restaurant was Vapiano).

On Foursquare, once you get to a place, you can ‘check in’, and have the option of notifying your friends, and even posting your location to your Facebook and Twitter account.

There is a marketing component to all this that businesses can take advantage of. A business can offer deals to those who check in, which in turn promotes the business to the customers online friend network, which can be substantial.

Also, when in an area that you are unfamiliar with, you can not only see what’s around, but also see what deals are being offered to Foursquare users. The place offering the best deal might just get your business.

Foursquare is a great tool, but it may well be left behind by the newly launched Facebook Places, which is a similar concept, but with 10 million Australians already using Facebook, they have a big head start.

Location based social networking services – they really are the next big thing.

It’s a good idea to write regular articles, or blog, on your website if you want to increase traffic (and who doesn’t!).

If you do this, you can automatically send notification to your Facebook , Twitter and other social media accounts.

This way, everything you write gets sent out to your network, and links back to your website.

There are a number of ways to set up a system like this, for example, you can add the RSS feed from your blog to third party website Twitterfeed, which will then post updates to your Twitter account.

As more people spend more time in social networks, that is where you should be sending your content.

The internet has changed the world already, but as the internet continues to evolve, we can look forward to many more far reaching changes.

Back when the only way to connect was via a slow dial up connection, websites like YouTube were impossible, they had to wait for technology to catch up. As the volume and speed of data transfer increases, more things become possible, including things that haven’t been thought of yet.

Get ready for more regular use of the buzzwords eHealth, eBusiness, eLearning and eGovernment. These describe everyday activities that affect us all, that are moving onto the internet in a big way.

eHealth: With fast broadband, online diagnosis becomes possible, allowing medical data to be transmitted in real-time, and enabling patients to get consultations from specialists without moving from home. Patients will be able to get online consultations and remote monitoring from a distant hospital through high speed Internet connection.

eBusiness: Fast internet promises increased business efficiency and productivity. Online software delivery and backups deliver benefits like security and mobility. Virtual boardrooms reduce the need for travel, saving time, money and resources. New opportunities will create jobs in different areas, including regional areas.

eLearning: Access to world class education resources is becoming commonplace. Students can learn online at their own pace whenever they get time. People living in remote regions can receive knowledge from specialists and have conversations with the help of video conferencing.

eGovernment: Online government services allow citizens to interact with government agencies freely. Services like ATO and Centrelink can all be accessed at a time convenient to the user. In the near future online voting will become the norm.