5 Rs to Starting an Online Home Based, Drop Shipping Internet Businesses: Part One

Jumping into anything head-first without researching the potential outcome is never a good idea- you need to adequately research starting online business ventures before doing them in order to increase your chances of success and to get quick results, in other words- to earn money online in your home based internet business.

There are 5 main areas of research that can be used to increase your level of success when starting online business ventures, such as a drop shipping internet business, including: researching niche areas, researching keywords, research for products and suppliers, research for good mentors/forums, and researching for good hosting.

Research Niche Areas

When deciding what type of home based internet business you want to have, you want to look for a specialised area with minimal competition. When you select a highly competitive area to focus on, such as electronics or babies' products, it will take a much longer time before you will achieve a return on investment and you'll need to invest much more to get things moving.

One way to select a niche is to first make a general list of categories that you are most interested in for a work from home business. Once you have a list of ideas, you can create subtopics for each of your general categories.

For example, if you put electronics on your list, you could subdivide it into types of electronics; cellular phones, mp3 players, or karaoke equipment. Create as many subtopics that you can think of and that interest you, for each of your general categories. This is the list you will focus on for the next "R" of starting online business ventures.

Keyword Research

Determining which products you want to sell should come from your keyword research. Keywords can be single words or phrases that people searching the internet are typing into the search engines to find what they are looking for. For the best results to earn money from home, you want to focus on finding keywords that are searched often, but do not turn up many search results in the search engines.

When this happens, it means there is a demand for the information and products relating to the keywords or phrases typed in, but not many web sites that are providing the information or products people are looking for. If you were to select that keyword, you would have minimal competition.

Using your list of subtopics created in the last step, start your keyword research simply by typing in a few words and phrases related to your subtopics into a search engine like Google. If the search turns up millions of results, you either need to find a smaller niche or forget that idea entirely. Cross out the subtopics that are too competitive, and keep track of the ideas that don't have huge competition.

Once you have a more narrowed down list of ideas, you can make use of a keyword tool. There are numerous tools available, such as Google Adwords Keyword Tool (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal), and Overture, now part of Yahoo (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/). There is also Wordtracker.com, where you can try out a trial version of their keyword research tool for free (http://www.wordtracker.com/).

Each of these tools allow you to get an idea of how often a certain keyword or phrase is searched for in a given month, and also a list of related searches and how often those phrases are searched for. This will help you come up with a few new ideas for a home based internet business, as well. While the numbers you receive won't be exact and may be tied to specific search engines, if one of your keyword phrases only receives 11 searches in a month, you can pretty much assume that there is not much of a demand for it!

Research for Products and Suppliers

Some people who would like to earn money from home think they can't because they don't have their own products that could be sold in a home based internet business. You do not have to have your own products to start an online business. You can partner with suppliers that offer high quality products and set up drop shipping arrangements. Drop shipping businesses allow your customers to place orders through you for products, and the products are shipped by the supplier; direct to the customer.

You don't need to have an inventory or anything! Choosing a product which has too many competitors or of low quality will hamper your speed to or even jeopardize your success. Finding well-reputed and experienced suppliers will ensure that goods be delivered to customers promptly and safely, and many of them will also provide customer service.

Two "R's", the researching a niche area and researching for high quality suppliers must be performed together. Finding a well-targeted niche area with a few competitors will do you no good if you choose an inferior product to sell. Likewise, choosing a good product to sell in a highly competitive niche will make it much harder for you to achieve results in a shorter time- and at first, you'll end up spending more money to promote your product than you'll make.