In order to do business online, you will need a merchant account. While traditional merchant accounts often require pre-approval (and even business credit checks), you can save time and money by simply creating an account with a third-party processor

One of the most commonly known is Paypal.com and the beauty of this service is that it’s affordable, simple and requires no paperwork, credit checks or approval.

It only takes a few minutes to create your account. 

Here’s a quick walk through of how to get started:

Begin by clicking on the “Sign Up” link from Paypal’s main page. You will then need to choose to create a Personal, Premier or Business account.  Now here I’d recommend choosing a Business account if you intend on doing a lot of business – and you do!

Reasoning:  With a business account, customers will see only the business name that you enter rather than your personal name. You will also have no transaction limits or withdrawal limits. 

Next, you will be asked to indicate the type of payment solution you are looking for – Here choose ”Website Payments Standard” and continue.  Next you’ll be asked to create your Paypal merchant profile, which includes entering in your business name, address and email address.

Note that you will not be able to change the first and last name associated with your Paypal account, however you will be able to change the Business name associated with your account later on.

And that’s pretty much it…  Once you have created your merchant profile, Paypal will send a verification email to the email address you included. You will need to click on the link contained within that email in order to complete the sign up process.  You should take some time to explore your Paypal account area, including adding a bank account and credit card to your account so that you are eligible to participate in all of Paypal’s advanced features as well as remove any sending or receiving limits.

Now there’s also another service you should create an account at - 

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Regardless of what type of online business you plan to develop, an autoresponder account is a vital component in being able to successfully build a mailing list of prospects.

When you sign up for an autoresponder account, you are able to create unlimited campaigns (which is important when targeting different niche markets). You want to ensure that you create a different list for each subject so you don’t confuse your subscribers with emails that don’t pertain to their interests (we’ll cover a lot more on list building soon).

Once you have a mailing list, you can instantly begin sending promotional based broadcasts to your leads .

Again, there are many different providers to choose from and throughout the years I have tried out the majority of them, settling on Aweber - I’ll give you some reasons below…

Why Aweber?

1) They are extremely affordable
2) Their delivery rates are higher than most competitors
3) Their navigation and control panel is user-intuitive.
4) They are a well-established autoresponder provider.

Now I’ve used Aweber for a number of years and apart from a few very minor hiccups have never experienced a problem.  If you can afford the service then go take a look…

… But there are alternatives out there!  And if budget is a concern then this will help because I’ve just brokered a special deal exclusively for Web Insider Club readers with the cool guys over at:  WizardResponderPro [all you have to do is click this link and you'll get 3 months FREE service]

A hosting account is required in order to house your website so that it’s accessible to website visitors. With a hosting account, you can create blogs, websites, squeeze pages (to capture leads) and much more.

Setting up a hosting account is exceptionally easy and very affordable. 

But there are plenty of providers to choose from and finding the right one can sometimes seem a little daunting.

While there are many different hosting providers to choose from, I personally recommend signing up for an account with HostGator  (check out their Swamp or Baby hosting package as its suitable for start up businesses).

Host Gator also offers Fantastico which is a utility that allows for instant script installations, including WordPress (it’s how we got this site up and running in just a few hours).  Fantastico will speed up the process of developing your websites eliminating any manual uploading or script configuration.  (and if you’re a little technophobic like me then I’m sure that’ll come as welcome news)

Here are two alternative hosting companies worth checking out also:  BlueHost.com (recommended by WordPress.org) & HostMonster.com