Based upon your business’ current stage, one strategy of growth will be better than another. There are seven stages associated with life of an online business. Let's call them:

·The Labored Beginnings ·The Toddler Stage ·The Adolescent Stage ·The Troubled Teen Stage ·The Young Adult Stage ·The Maturity Stage ·Death or Renewal Stage

The first stage of your business, Labored Beginnings Stage, is most difficult stage. In this stage you will be building foundation of your business. With a shoddy foundation, you will have a stillborn business. With a solid foundation, your business will experience a long and healthy life.

In this stage, you need to decide on focus of your business, its product, its business plan, its marketing plan, financial decisions, its legal form, and then launch business. Many sleepless nights will accompany this stage. You may wake up in a cold sweat wondering what hell you are doing. In this stage, your emotions will swing between unbridled optimism and heart palpitating fear.

Having successfully navigated first stage, your business will grow into its next stage, Toddler Stage. In Toddler stage, your business is just finding its legs. It takes a few steps forward. It takes a few steps backward. It occasionally falls on its butt.

In Toddler Stage, you are going to start selling your product on eBay™ . eBay™ is by far largest online auction site. If you want to make a good living selling online, eBay™ is place to start. In this stage, you will fully establish yourself as an online seller. You will observe powersellers, elite of eBay™. They are your models. Learn all you can.

The power of weblogs is that they allow millions of people to easily publish their ideas, and millions more to comment on them. Increasingly people write, read and comment on blogs. Many people mistakenly believe that blogs are only personal diaries. More and more, blogs are being used by businesses to attract customers. Since blogs now come in all flavors, let’s look at basics of blogging.

A blogger is someone who writes a blog. The “Blogosphere” is a word used to describe online community of bloggers and their writings. A blog differs from a website only because it is a website that is updated frequently, most often displaying its material in journal-like entries. An entry, a post, or a posting, are terms often used to refer to a specific article or commentary written by blogger on his or her blog. Many weblogs allow readers to write a reaction to what was written in blog entry. These comments can often be found directly following blog entry.

For millions of people, blogging is a hobby. For some, like journalists, writers, business leaders and political leaders, writing blogs enhances their professional careers. A blog gives voice a broader audience and allows more direct and interactive contact with readers. Some bloggers have readership numbers approaching that of big media and are able to earn income from their blogs. But potential profit should not be primary motivation for blogging.