Your internet business may be small - but the Internet lets you think big. Whatever product or service your internet business offers, the Internet levels the playing field and lets you compete with bigger businesses, reaching customers around the world who can conveniently buy from you 24 hours a day.

First Step - The Ideas & Startup Plans
This is the most important step! Without a good concept, a good product, good services or good content, anything else you do is a waste of time. So what should you look for here?

If you already have a business offline means in the real world, this is the logical place to start. So many businesses launching websites as just another place they need to advertise. They simply copy their print advertisements and brochures to the web sites. While these sites are not totally worthless, but they fail to take full advantage of the supreme opportunities afforded by the new technologies online.
Your web site can be the perfect showcase for people to obtain info about your company and products, an efficient way of communicating with your present clients, potential customers and an international marketplace to sell your products and services.

If you do not have an existing business, you should still look for ideas first in areas where you already have some expertise. If your current expertise does not seem to lend itself to an online business opportunity, your next plan should be to spend some significant time learning about the businesses already operating online.Once you have an understanding of what is available, look for ways to do the same things in a better way or look for a market niche that has not been serviced well.Keep in mind that there are almost always ways to improve upon existing services & products.

Server Hard Drive Space - An average web page is 10K to 50k. Pictures & other graphics usually range on size from about 1K to 100K. This means that if you have a 10 to 15 page website with 2-5 graphics on each page, you will need 500K to about 3MB (3,000K or 3,000,000 bytes) to save your website on a server. Even if you have a much large website with many more graphics, your website should be able to fit comfortably onto about 10MB of hard disk space.

Allowable Data Transfer - When someone visits your web page, they cause data (web page code and images) to be transferred from the server hosting youryour web site, this transfer puts a strain on the resources of your host server. For this reason, limits are generally placed on the amount of "traffic" your site may receive before you are charged extra. In the example above, assuming the maximum web site size (about 3MB), and assuming 1,000 visitors per day viewed everything on your website once, you would need to transfer 30MB per day or about 1GB per month.

Secure Server - Many web hosts have this option available for an additional monthly fee. Secure (or encrypted) server space is needed if you plan to accept credit card information or other sensitive data on your website.

FTP Access - There are many ways for you to upload your web pages to your server. However, the quickest and easiest is by using an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) program .

POP Accounts - These allow you password-protected access to mail sent though your website email address.

CGI-Bin Access - If you want to run your own programs on your website, you must have CGI access. Your CGI capabilities must allow you to read, write and execute on your server.

Domain Name Hosting - At a minimum you need your host server to allow you to have your own domain name.

I highly recommend you to use HostingPartner.Pk Hosting Services (partnership with a US-based web hosting company).

Your home page is your site's and your business's online front door. It's essential that it make a good first impression on visitors.

Your company name, logo, and slogan, prominently displayed. Take full advantage of the opportunity to showcase your brand identity.

• A link to an "About the Company" page for customers to quickly learn who you are and what your business offers.

Fifth Step - Test , Test & Test
You may be eager to launch your internet business web site, but take time to review and test your site thoroughly before going live.

You will only have one chance to make a first impression on each new visiting customer, & broken links, incorrect email address, & grammatical or spelling errors don't leave a good impression to your web site visitors about your professionalism.

Sixth Step - Promote Your Internet Business...

Register your site with search engines.

Put your domain name everywhere. Brochures, advertisements, business cards, can be effective ways to promote your site and establish your corporate identity.

Eight Step - Generating Repeat Business....
Once you have customers using your services, you need to be creative about finding ways to keep the relationship going as well as encouraging your customers to send others to your site. This can be accomplished in many ways. likes, Contests and coupons, Affiliate program, Partnership/associate relationships, Newsletters.

Ninth Step - Start Selling.....

With an online identity, a Web host, an eye-catching, professional-looking Web site, and the right promotions, your internet business is ready to succeed in the competitive world of the Web.

In the light of the above-mentioned nine steps, you should have an idea or plan what to do. Then register a domain name for the same and get a web hosting package. Why have I recommend you to get domain and hosting in first steps? Because, I know, it will automatically motivate you to start earlier and as soon as possible.

Your web site development and web site promotion is not a one-time job. It needs continues research and work to keep your web site contents updated and promote it in as many ways as possible. I've listed a few promotional tips in brief here. In my next articles, I will cover each and every aspect in details.