Start an online business p1 - Military - Start Your Own Business - Military Times Edge

Four years at the Naval Academy, a dozen years in uniform with a closing stint as a Navy SEAL and instructor in Annapolis, Md.: By 1999, Stew Smith was ready to try something different.

An aspiring fitness instructor, Smith started turning out training manuals, showing would-be cops, SEALs and others how to pass their entrance physical exams. Rather than seek out a publisher and hope for Barnes & Noble to bite, he went the solo route, creating digital versions of his books and selling them through his own Web site, www.stewsmith.com.

Online entrepreneurship has a lot going for it. You can set up shop with little effort or upfront expense, work your own hours and even get started in your down time while still in uniform. “It takes literally half a day and you can be up and running, processing credit cards and everything,” Smith said.

For those eyeing a career operating an online business, experts say to find your passion. That will be the key to determining what kind of business you want to launch. With that decided, the project needs to start with a quick lesson in terminology.

“You have to do enough homework to know the difference between things like a domain name, a Web site and a Web host,” said Lawrence Gelburd, a lecturer in the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. “You do need to have some vocabulary — know things in a general way,” Gelburd said. “Otherwise you will end up aggravating really good contacts who otherwise might have been more tolerant.”

Your Web site

Find a domain name that fits — something that’s easy to remember and connects to your business plan. Type it into your browser to see if it’s already taken. If it’s available, you can usually buy, or register, the domain for between $10 and $100 at Network Solutions, GoDaddy.com and other sites.

Next the savvy owner will scope out competitors’ Web sites, looking for useful functions and attractive design elements. Explore the features of sites in your industry to see which ones are most helpful to users, Gelburd said. For as little as $50 you can use templates at Yahoo Small Business, Register.com, GoDaddy.com and elsewhere to construct a working site quickly and easily. This method works, but what you get is a relatively generic presentation. What you want, Gelburd said, is something unique.

A Web designer will charge between $1,000 and $10,000 to build a site, with pricing based on the designer’s experience and the complexity of the site. Is it worth the expense? “My feeling is there is never a second chance to make a first impression,” Gelburd said. If you are going to work from a template, present it as a trial effort to friends and family to gauge their reactions.

Get heard

To compete with Web sites around the world, marketing is going to be crucial.

A fundamental of online marketing today is search engine optimization, or SEO — the fine art of encouraging Google and other search engines to find you when people come looking. At the highest levels SEO is a complicated business employing skilled specialists, but the basics are within anyone’s grasp.

Done properly, these steps can lead to a highly visible, active and — let’s not forget — lucrative online enterprise. An owner may put in long hours, but the upfront cost will be minimal and the payoff can extend well beyond the merely professional.

“I got out of the military when my first child was born,” Smith said. “When I started doing this, I realized I could be home all the time, where I used to be gone nine months out of the year. Now I have two kids, and I can take two hours off every afternoon to go to the pool.”

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Jumping off the home page

Few businesses exist solely on a static Web page these days. Increasingly, the blog is becoming a necessary outreach tool, said Debra Condren, author of “Ambition is Not a Dirty Word” and founder of Manhattan Business Coaching. Get a free blog at Typepad.com or Wordpress.com and have your designer link it to your site. Name your blog the same name as your business and URL.

Next, leverage your blog. Add a ‘Sign up for my newsletter updates’ link to your blog, Condren said. Publish a weekly newsletter giving people advice and information related to your product or service. Invite questions and comments in order to build a relationship with your audience.

Also, consider posting a product demonstration video on YouTube. It’s free and easy and has the potential to draw many eyeballs.

Web sites to start

• www.thesitebarn.com

Offers a basic glossary in its free downloadable booklet “Website Basics.”

• www.bruceclay.com/web_rank.htm

Marketing firm Bruce Clay offers a solid introduction in its free article, “How to Improve Your Ranking through Search Engine Optimization.”

• www.youtube.com

Check out product demonstrations such as Blendtec’s “Will It Blend” series.