The Ultimate Guide to Online Businesses for Teenagers
Launching a business or a project as a teenager can be a daunting task. It's not easy to be able to find an idea, overcome challenges involving age, and be able to finance your projects. It comes down to software, and technical knowledge in some cases. In this blog post, we will show you how you can launch your website using the best tools we can find on the market. This post will teach you what it means to own a business and how you can overcome the limitations of your age when it comes to business.
Getting an Idea
First off, we need an idea for our business. This needs to solve a problem or have a special niche purpose. As teenagers, we often encounter many problems, and we know what teenagers our age are interested in. Having an idea of your skillset and where you are gonna be good at is important. Choosing the wrong niche is often how a lot of startups collapse within their initial years.
Blogs
Our blog Triteens is actually run by teenagers. This is what makes us different because we are teen-run and a lot of our contributors are teenagers. This helps us adapt content that best fits our niche, which is other teenagers who are interested in improving their life both online and offline. If you're good at writing and editing content, and you're willing to contribute time to find good content, then blogging is for you. Note that running a blog isn't easy, it will take a lot of time to grow and monetizing will take time. But with enough hard work, you can get your blog seen and grow a decent audience.
Services
If you have a skill such as art, or software development, then you may fall into this category. You will need to work and build up your skills in your industry. You will need to do some research on your industry and make sure your skills are on par with other people in the industry. You will be competing on both pricing and quality, so take your competitors and see what they are doing. Take notes on the software they use, offers they give, and how they operate. See how you can improve upon these or offer better pricing and service.
App
Running an app is a difficult but not impossible task. Teenagers founded platforms like Gimkit and Blooket and have been able to experience success. What it takes is a good idea that can then be pulled off through planning, design, and actual development. Unless you know how to program yourself, it is often recommended that you hire someone to do it for you. You can also learn through YouTube and other platforms.
Physical Goods
If you have a skill in a certain industry and you want to put those skills to work, you can start selling physical goods. These can be arts and crafts like bracelets or custom jewelry. Keep in mind that you will have to deal with the costs of shipping and managing orders though. There are also sales-tax considerations that you need to be aware of. We recommend discussing with your parents what your options are if you go this route.
Hosting
Next up, we need some hosting for our domain and website. When it comes to your website, your host is one of the most important aspects. These people are responsible for keeping your site up and ensuring your business can receive clients all 24 hours of the day and 7 days a week. These companies must be reliable and safe for users and you to use. Finding a good host really depends on what you are looking for but there are a few options.
Namecheap
Purchasing a domain is difficult but I recommend Namecheap, they provide good deals when it comes to purchasing the best domain for your business. Using them personally for my projects, I have noticed that they have good pricing and they are relatively easy to use. Namecheap also has support teams ready and other perks for using them. In fact, triteens.one had its initial registration with Namecheap!
TridentNodes
If you want to host your website I recommend using TridentNodes, a British hosting company for your needs. These people have competitive pricing that will suit your needs. For most websites, the best option is to choose the Website Hosting Plan. This plan is useful for most websites because it provides ways to implement WordPress and other popular content management systems onto your platform. It's also incredibly cheap with about $2/month.
If you need a more customized solution and you're ready to tackle some servers, you can choose their upcoming VPS plan, this plan is great if you plan on having an app because it will allow maximum control over what your website can do. This is important for creating a good app. Additionally, you may find a CMS where you need to have your own servers because the programming language isn't supported on the typical web hosting plans. In both these cases, you would want to purchase a VPS, and once again TridentNodes is a good choice.
Shopify
Another great option for hosting websites is Shopify. They are well-known in the online-shop industry and are the perfect choice for online businesses. They can easily connect to payment providers and also have a good website builder and system for when you want to get products sold. For physical goods, Shopify can be considered one of the best options.
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Legal Stuff
The next thing to worry about is the boring legal stuff you tend to ignore. There are things that vary from industry to industry and many partners and governments will require you to have certain registrations and policies on your website.
Terms and Conditions
Most websites will have terms and conditions which control how the site is dealt with and tells users what is and isn't allowed on the website. This is used to inform users about the terms of their usage and what are the limitations to their access to the website. This is very important on almost all types of websites. It will protect your company and ensures users are made aware of their rights and what isn't allowed on the website. This also cedes liability on your website for issues and downtime. Some countries may legally require this policy.
Privacy Policy
If you collect data, then it may be required to create a privacy policy. This policy is similar to the Terms of Service and should be added if your website is collecting data about a user. A lot of advertising providers and analytics providers require this to be known to the users and written out in policies. As with the terms of service, some countries may also require this policy.
LLC Registration
In some cases, you may want to file an LLC if you want to manage things and liability. This is important when it comes to your business engaging in legal contracts and other things. Filing an LLC is an official registration of your business but is not required for online businesses. But if you wish and you have reasons to, you can file one. Remember that when filing an LLC you will need one additional person above 18 to file alongside you. If you have questions on this, ask your parents or a legal professional.
Business License
In some cases, your business must be issued certain licenses. These licenses allow your business to engage in regulated industries and other things. For example, there are many restrictions in financial businesses. Most of the time there will be an age limit in these industries, so it's generally not a good idea to get into these. But if you have a business that falls into here remember to get the necessary licenses. You should contact a legal professional if you need more help in this aspect.
Marketing
Marketing is the next step to unleashing the full potential of your business. At some scale, you may need to begin hiring marketing professionals to assist you. But at the start, you will be alone in this venture, and marketing is necessary to the success of every business.
Social Media
Social media like Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are great ways to get traffic to your website. Share your projects and special content from your website, get creative! See what works and keep doing that. Once you build an audience you can use this to drive traffic to your business. This will take time and practice but eventually, you'll see that it will work.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO is an important thing to ensure that your website performs well. SEO determines your rankings online and should be maintained properly. Follow Google's guide to SEO for starting off, and remember different aspects that are necessary for good site performance. Spend lots of time educating yourself on the dos and don'ts and make sure your site meets all expectations.
Networking
There is an old saying that "word spreads fast", that's why you need to use word of mouth. Networking is important because it allows you to connect to similar people and spread the name of your business throughout your family, extended family, and so on. With brand recognition and credibility, your business will experience a lot of organic direct traffic from this.
Paid traffic
Paid traffic is also useful because, on top of getting clicks, it will provide free brand recognition for your website. Choose a platform to advertise in and see if it works for you. This method works only if you do a lot of research and figure out the best methods.
We hope that this blog post gave you insight into how teenagers can start their dream projects online. Whether it's a new blog or an amazing new app idea, teenagers worldwide can be a difference online and promote new ideas and software for the world to see. Through hard work and perseverance, we can turn an idea into a reality.
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