With the creation of the Internet, it has become easier than ever to start a business, especially online.

You can automate all of your business processes, and with a professionally done web site, you can have a 24/7 salesman handling most of the work for you.

The downside is that business is becoming more and more competitive. Especially if you are marketing affiliate programs, you can be competing against thousands of others to sell your products or services.

Before you begin your web site, and before you make a sale, you need to make a plan. Below are six steps you can take to give you the competitive edge in your small business.

1. Choose a customer Now I'm sure you may think I have it backwards. Maybe you think you should choose your product first.

The problem with choosing your product first is that you may not have a market to sell to. You want to make sure you have a market to sell before you choose the products you are going to sell.

You want to do your research.

The easiest way to do this is to visit sites that can give you information on demographics. Demographics are pieces of information about different groups you can use to create your market.

There are many sites you can use to gather this type of information, but here are three to help you get started:

http://americandemographics.com/
http://www.freedemographics.com/
http://www.consumerinternetbarometer.us/

Now these sites will give you information primarily on US markets, but there are plenty of sites you can use to find information on countries outside the US. The secret is to narrow your search terms. For example: international demographics, or internet demographics.

2. Choose a product Once you have a market in mind, then you want to choose a product.

You have several options here: affiliate programs, resell rights, or create your own.

Now I won't get into the pros and cons of each because that's not what this article is about.

What you want to do here is make sure that you choose a product that matches perfectly with your market.

You can search for the above terms in a good search engines to find what you are looking for.

3. Make it an offer your customer can't refuse Once you have a market and product in mind, it's time to craft your offer. Regardless of what type of product you choose, you'll have competition.

The secret here is to create something of value to add to your product. It should always be something no one else has. It could be a free report or ebook, or some additional software.

What's important is to make your offer so valuable your visitor won't want to go somewhere else to buy the product.

4. Create a great sales letter Now maybe you have chosen to sell something that already has a sales letter. That means a great deal of the work has already been done for you.

However, there are a couple of things you should know first before you use that sales letter.

If it's for an affiliate program, there's nothing you can do to change it. The way around this is to write a review for the product that appeals to your specific market. Then include a link to the sales page for the product.

If you are reselling a product, rewrite the sales letter for your target market. Make it appeal to the market you are selling to. Just make sure that it's ok to do rewrites before you go to all that trouble.

If you're marketing your own product, then you'll have to do the sales letter from scratch. Keep your market in mind, make it personal, and emphasize the benefits of the product to your target market.

5. Make it easy for your customer to buy This also ties into your sales letter.

Be clear with your customer what your product is about. Make the web page quick loading, and give your web page only one purpose, i.e. to make the sale.

When you create your web site, you want to make it as easy as possible for your customer to purchase the product.

This means having links to a payment method and making those links easy to find.

You have a lot of options here, but the important thing to remember is that your sales letter should point to where to go to make the purchase.

Accept credit cards and make it easy for your customer to use his/her card to make the purchase.

6. Automate the process When you create your web site, you'll be amazed at the number of tasks involved in running it.

If you're giving away a free report, use an autoresponder. You can also use the autoresponder for automatic follow up. Just make sure you include at least seven follow up messages. Customers seldom buy the first time, and you'll want to capture contact information up front.

Use a credit card processing method that doesn't require you to answer every email.

Check your links and make sure they work. Nothing is more frustrating for the customer than to buy the product and not be able to access it immediately.

Automate every process you can and make sure it works. That way, you'll only have to handle the email, which, as I have found out, can keep you pretty busy.

Once you've created your offer, market it. Let everyone know about it and keep doing your follow up. Once you capture that customer, you can keep marketing to him/her over and over. This will increase your sales.

Repeat these steps and keep them coming back for more.