I doubt if there is anyone that would not love the lifestyle associated with building and running an online home business. The flexibility is such that you get to work from the comfort of your home, determine the hours you want to work, decide what type of products and services to offer and most importantly, enjoy the never-ending stream of income from your efforts. This is a type of earning stream that has been made possible with the inception of the internet. If you are still missing out on the huge possibilities of making money online, it is time you join the bandwagon by establishing any of the lucrative online businesses.

There are several more reasons why you should actually give thought to establishing an online business. In the course of pursuing your entrepreneurial goals, you will see yourself learning lots of priceless lessons in life. All these said, it is important to point out that being a successful internet business owner is not a feat that occurs overnight. No, it is sequential and involves a lot of steps which you are expected to pass through in order to establish a solid business. One of such steps is searching for a need and filling it. You should never be a statistic in the past mistakes of certain entrepreneurs - putting the search for product before determining your niche.

Doing the right thing the right way

It is supposed to be the other way round. This means that in order for you to make headway with your online home business, you should determine the niche you want to serve. This is when you carry out researches to determine what a certain group of people are looking for, in terms of solution to one or more given problems with little or no significant results. When you determine this, it is then left for you to decide if you would be able to cater for the needs of this particular group of people - making them your target audience or market.

This step is very important, not minding whether you will be offering products or services. You can actually earn passive income by creating and selling information products or by being an affiliate marketer of various products and services. Depending on your area of expertise and the market you choose to serve, you can create your own information products. It might seem like a daunting task but with the internet, you will find out that it is a very easy step to pass through. You can start your research (Google is your best friend to conduct any research on your project) by interacting on online forums and social media. This way, you will better understand the type of products people are after or the type of issues they need solutions for.

One sure way of determining the niche you can generate more income from is through keyword research. Through this strategy, you will be able to determine how many people are searching for a given product or service and at the same time, if there are many marketers already catering to the needs of these people. My best advice would be to go to Google's free keyword planner tool, and familiarize yourself with the tool.

For an online business that will offer products and services to people, certain basic demographics are used in determining who you should market to. These demographics include the following:

• Age
• Gender
• Location
• Occupation
• Level of Education
• Income
• Marital Status etc
•  

In some cases, ethnicity and the number of children in a given household also determine if your product will be suitable for the people you are targeting. From the results gotten from your research, you should then be able to search for or create a product that will cater to the needs of your target audience - even better than your competitors. However, as a new business, it is necessary you understand the importance of biting as much as you can chew. This means that you should focus on not more than two core markers for your target market and a maximum of three secondary markers from the list above.

As you go about this initial step in building your home business, there are certain questions you should ask yourself and also provide answers to. Some of these questions are:

• Have you determined your niche?
• Do you have a good knowledge of the product, service or information you want to sell?
• Is the target market the right one for your product?
• Why should this people buy from you?
•  

These are questions screaming for answers and you should devote quality time to ensuring that these questions are satisfactorily answered. Let us assume you want to go into creating information products to help people solve their daily needs and help you generate passive income. These products usually come in the form of eBooks. You should have it at the back of your mind that there are other people already offering the same products but come on. Since this is the case, how do you get these people to buy from you? You can do this by simply bringing something new to the table. This is why it is important to research your competitors and find out what they are not including in their products that you can include in yours.

If for example, the competition is offering eBook on how to make sugar figurines, you can distinguish your products by including instructional 15 minutes video along with your eBook. Tell me, who would not jump at such offer? Yes, don't just offer products to your target audience; offer them a combination of product, good value and immeasurable brand experience. Bring something new to the table.

Narrowing your home business down

Still on the steps to building a formidable online business, you should not start out being a jack of all trades because you will end up being master of none. This is surely not good for any business. If you are offering a product, let it be one that is targeted towards a particular market. If it is services you are offering, please don't generalize. For example, if you are offering skin care products as an affiliate marketer, stick to it instead of mixing it up with clothing accessories and home appliances. Instead, you can market skin care products under various brands. It helps keep you focused.

Another good example in the list of home businesses is freelance writing. In order to attract clients that value what you offer and pay well for same, you should target a particular niche. Are you good in technical writing? Then be an expert in that niche. When the people in your target market understand that you consistently provide high quality technical writing services, they will always come back and the pay will be such that you won't have any difficulty in making up your mind about quitting your day job.

When you are this focused in your home business, it becomes easier for you to understand what is important to your target audience, where they mostly hang out online and the extent they are willing to interact. With this understanding, you would then be able to determine what would suit their daily needs and base your marketing effort on the findings. Even though your core niche turns out to be small, with the right efforts and strategies, you will be able to build it over time and continue to generate passive income through it. This is especially if you are able to make a good impression on your customers or clients.

Finally on this first step in building your online business, you should know that identifying your target market is a step you cannot afford to miss. It is the foundation on which your business will be built on and as such, it is necessary you go about it the right way. There is hardly any target market that does not have a huge pile of information on how to become a successful entrepreneur in such given market. All you need to do is tap the many opportunities associated with such target audience and offer products that your customers would appreciate and recommend to others. I hope this help you start your online journey the right way!

After some few years of research and learning on how to really succeed online, I'm now willing to share with you how i have finally made it! My main goal is to help you Building and maintaining passive income streams with your online business based on proven and tested systems and strategies.