With economic downturn, you may be a bit weary about your current job situation. Thoughts of starting your own online business are filling your daydreams. You’ve heard enticing call of self-employment as it screams, “More freedom, more money, more family time, live your dream!” But can you really make a go of your own Web-based company?

In all honesty… probably. I’ll be first to tell you that not everyone is cut out to be an entrepreneur. It takes dedication, passion and discipline to succeed. Not-to-mention, a lot of hard work, especially in beginning. Then there are “functional” things you’ll need. Before you make that decision to jump on Internet bandwagon, let me make a few points you’ll want to consider.

Getting Started

I know Web is just full of sites that taunt you by saying you can start your own online business within 24 hours and have millions of hits pouring into your site. The fact is, most of sites created using these “template businesses” don’t survive.

Here is a real world “short list” of what it takes to launch a successful and profitable Web site.

1. Professional Web Design – Your site is your only connection with potential customers. I simply cannot tell you how extremely vital professional Web site design is to success of your company. It helps to create trust, build confidence and instill a sense of safety… all important factors for someone who is about to give their credit card number to a company they’ve never heard of before!

2. Professionally Written Site Copy – You will be amazed to know what goes into writing emotion-stirring, sales triggering copy. You have to get inside minds of your customers. You have to have an extremely good idea of what their needs are, what makes them tick and what makes them BUY! In addition, if you have any desire at all to be indexed and ranked highly with search engines, you’ll need to have exact balance of keywords saturating your copy.

Internal Revenue Service (IRS) The IRS has best free classes around! Call your local office to find out when home business or sole proprietorship classes are held. The home business class is a half-day class; sole proprietorship class is a full day. The difference between these two classes -- extra half day -- is spent dealing with employee tax information. Take a class every year. Expenses are deductible and I bet you will learn quite a few things each year.

Web site at http://www.ustreas.gov/, or call toll free (800) 829-3676. Ask for Business Kit Publication 454 and STEP Publication 1057 (Small Business Tax Education Program). Tell them what type of organization you are considering, how many employees you will have, etc., so they can send you other free helpful publications. They'll even send you a very nice Tax Calendar. Just ask for it!

Local Authorities Let's look at some local taxing authorities. In some states, Department of Taxation provides monthly classes for new business owners. They cover state-specific topics such as business income tax, occupancy tax and sales tax.

While we're on local level, don't forget to contact your county, city or town revenue offices, too. Yes, everyone gets in act of collecting some sort of tax! It could be yearly, quarterly, or monthly. At very least, call each entity to see what they need from you and what materials or classes they provide. Don't want to call? The end result is fines and penalties later on -- usually many times more than you would have paid in first place.

Web Sites Although IRS is premier source for tax information, below are other suggested web sites to visit. Peachtree and Intuit (Quicken, QuickBooks) offer bookkeeping, accounting and tax software.