If you have thought about questions above and still want to proceed, here is a quick check list of things you recommend you have.

1) Product or service to sell. 2) Web site and hosting company with email. 3) Shopping cart with a secure check out. 4) Merchant account so you can accept credit cards. 5) Back end technology and order fulfillment in place.

For more details about starting an ecommerce store visit this link: 1-2-1 merchant account

Or lets say you’re a professional coach. You could write an article on how to communicate better and submit it to those sites, and also to business site, because communication is crucial for business as well as family and relationships.

HOW TO START

Decide if you want to write articles yourself, and if you want to submit them yourself. There are services which will do both for you, or either, for a reasonable fee, or you can do them yourself. Then brush up your byline, and think about topics.

TOPICS

1.Make a list of things you know about or know how to do.

We are all on learning curve somewhere. Do you know how to change oil in a car? Potty train a child? Communicate well? Build resilience? Fire someone?

2.Become alert to things you’re just learning.

No matter how much we know, there’s always something knew to learn! These will always provide article topics. For instance, I just learned last week that Medicare doesn’t cover medical needs on international cruises, and there are others who don’t know this and need to, so I wrote some articles on this. Anything you learn new on Internet is likely to be needed by someone. It moves particularly fast. Now that you know about www.formatit.com site, pass it on!

3.Seasonal.

I’m writing this in early February. It’s time to be writing articles about spring, St. Patrick’s Day, tax time, and gardening. You could also still squeeze in a few about Valentine’s Day and romantic trips.

4.Events.

An article I wrote about entertaining for Super Bowl brought me some exposure on some new website. Other ideas would be Wimbledon, Kentucky Derby, and Chinese New Year. 5.Be curious and pass it on.

I was wondering if there was an online store that sold party goods for Super Bowl parties, so I did some research. I found interesting recipes, favors and games as well and that’s how that article got started. I also researched good barbecue recipes, and grills and really had a good time, learned a lot, and produced a good article.

LENGTH

Most popular length is between 700-1200 words. There’s also a market for short, 300-word-articles. For those, make sure your byline is also short, just 2 lines. These are used for fillers. Humor, day-to-day events, and "did you knows” are good for this.