How to set up your own business and website - for nothing!

Setting up your own business for nothing has only recently been made possible thanks to certain developments listed below. It's a great time to do it.

Microsoft Office Live Small Business recently launched in the UK and is completely free for up to 2 years. It gives you a free domain (.com, .net, .org or .co.uk), free web hosting and free email accounts. Free support and no hidden costs. Easy-to-use Web site design tools (and changes are instantly out there on the web - no complicated upload), and reporting on traffic, etc. A credit card or visa debit card is required to validate your indentity. This site has been designed on Microsoft Office Live Small Business. A .co.uk domain is free for the first 2 years then £10.99 every other year thereafter. There are no other costs. Any accounts opened before 11/02/08 are free forever. Build your site with the assistance of tips and tricks on the Office Live forum, and websites OXLT and OfficeLivePages.

Choose your business name subject to the domain name being available on Office Live. Once you have set up the account with the acquired domain on Office Live then register your business with HMRC as in the section above.

Add a guest book from A-Free-Guestbook. This is done by simply copying the HTML code and pasting it into the HTML feature on your Office Live website. This will present the visitor with a link to an external guest book. If you'd rather have the guestbook embedded in your site you need to use 'iframe' HTML around the guestbook HTML. The iframe code can be found on OXLT - just paste the guestbook HTML between the "" of the SRC.

Add a free join-the-mailing list feature from Bravenet if required. Be aware that Bravenet has a range of free tools but most others are riddled with adverts. Again, this is done by simply copying the HTML code and pasting it into the HTML feature on your Office Live website, or using iframe to embed the tools.

Add free Google Gadgets as required. These have only been made available for you to download to your website since November 2006. Browse the directory for what's available - tools range from newsfeeds to games to stock quotes to weather stations to calendars. These gadgets need to be embedded using iframe - for how to do this see OXLT - free tips - Google stuff.

Add free song players through Odeo or Sonific if desired. These are also brand new. Both allow you to choose songs from their library then copy HTML code to your website to give the visitor the option to play music as they browse your pages. Be aware that Sonific's songspots are fully licenced but are only free if not used on commercial sites, whilst Odeo's players are free for any site but a lot of the catalogue is unlicenced content supplied by Odeo users - so be careful for copyright infringement.

Want to incorporate video into your site? Magnify has launched a service that lets you bring subject specific video channels to your wesbite. Magnify features a meta-search tool that combs the web for videos matching a site's specific focus. Users can also upload their own video content, and the resulting mix is available for sharing, rating and ranking by your site's community as well as integrating into playlists. It's free to use, but contains advertising (Google Adsense text ads on the video pages and Revver Syndication ads in or before some videos). The good news is that you get a share of the advertising revenue: it's shared between yourself and Magnify. The best way to understand the offering is to look at an example, so take a look at FlyFish.com and click on the Video menu tab. You'll see in the address bar that you're now at FlyFishcomvideo.magnify.net, but it is otherwise well integrated into the FlyFish site. Now click around the functions on the Video page and you can see it is fairly rich in content and options, giving a new dimension to the FlyFish site.

Add a payment solution. Electronic Payments has a tool to compare the various options, but the simplest solution and the free solution is a Paypal Business Account. Free means no set up fees, no monthly fees and no fees for the shopping trolley, basket and checkout functions. At no expense you can instantly offer visitors a way to pay with credit, debit or Amex cards on your site. Paypal just takes a cut of anything you sell. For monthly sales of up to £1500 they take 3.4% plus 20p for each transaction and it is deducted at the time of transaction. Admittedly Paypal has not had the best reputation. Some sellers have suffered from having their accounts frozen by Paypal, in the case of suspected fraud by buyers, bringing their business to a halt. Simply protect yourself against this eventuality by opening a business bank account (see below) and offering customer the option of direct electronic transfers to you should the need arise. On the buyer side Paypal recently made a change to allow customers to pay by credit card without opening a Paypal account where Paypal functionality is present - this means customers can transact on your site with their credit card just like they would on a large corporate site. Applying Paypal is reasonably straight forward. Set various parameters in your profile for your business name, shipping, checkout screen format, etc. Then create buttons for Add to Basket or View Basket, for example, by setting specific item parameters such as price and description. You then get a piece of HTML code to add to your website just as above. When a customer makes a purchase you receive an email from Paypal and their payment is already in your account. You then fulfil the order and Paypal keeps a log of all the activity.

Open a free business bank account. Moneysupermarket allows you to compare accounts but most have fixed fees or transactional fees. The Abbey Business Bank Account is currently free, providing you don't exceed levels of throughput that you won't on a £5k business. Open the account under "Your Own Name T/A Your Business Name". This then means you can accept payments either in your name or in your business name. Accepting cheques or electronic payments in your business name gives you an alternative to Paypal, it looks professional and it can assist with personal anonymity if needed.

Use your initiative for how to get traffic to your site without spending on advertising - get a mailing list going, exchange links with sites of similar interest, use the search engine optimisation tool on Office Live, register your site on dmoz.org - major search engines pick up listings from here and it is free, find forums for your target customers, ask the local press to do an article on you. But also understand that it's easier to take your products to market than bringing the market to your products. Ebay is the obvious outlet, but just be aware that there are insertion fees as well as sale commissions and there are standing charges for an Ebay shop. A free alternative is ibootsale - an on-line car boot sale for new or used goods - currently offering free 3 month pitches and free listings. For hand-made products there is Etsy, which has no standing charges, very low insertion fees and low sales commission.

If your website is making no money there is a simple way to make a small return: money4banners will pay you in return for putting dynamic advertising banners on three of your pages. You receive an e-mailed £10 voucher at sign-up then a £5 voucher each month - for a store of their choice but usually Amazon. There are no minimum traffic requirements but you must have your own domain and it must not be related to anything dodgy - see the terms and conditions, If you have your own website and it is listed on Google then diskdepot will give you a free multipack of blank CDs or blank DVDs worth around £19 in return for putting a link to them on your site. To get your site listed on google, follow instructions here.

Be aware that the personal details associated with your domain ownership will be displayed on directory website 'Who Is' for all to see who is behind the business. The only way to prevent this is to change your personal details on Office Live after registration and this will be updated the same day on Who Is. However, fabricating a profile may be considered fraudulent.

Etsy is a website that provides users with a way to buy and sell handmade items, like an international craft fair. For sellers there are no shop set-up fees and no ongoing monthly fees (unlike Ebay shops), just a 20 cents (10 pence) listing for each item and a 3.5% sales cut if you succesfully make a sale. Payment is largely through Paypal. So here's how to take advantage and make this your self-employed income source: Set up a Paypal account for free; Set up an Etsy account for free; Create products using your favoured craft or use Instructables and Videojug (see PTS Daily, 03/03/07) to learn how to make products; Calculate a profit margin once Etsy and Paypal sales fees are deducted; Go to the Post Office to weigh and measure your products for shipping costs; List and sell!

Zlio recently launched in the UK. It enables anyone to create a virtual shop for free in 5 minutes and start selling products from a list of associated merchants - so giving you access to millions of products. It is template based and easy to set up. Spend the next couple of weeks deciding your shop name and compelling theme and checking out existing example sites. Then all you have to do is pick and choose the products that fit. The product links take the buyers through to the source merchant and you earn a commission from each sale you make, split with Zlio. So no stock, no shipping, no payment solutions, and all free - all you have to do is get the word out about your store and enjoy commissions for nothing. You currently can’t sell you own products through the service but they’re working on it. Your shop's domain will be yourshopname.zlio.net but you can redirect to it from a proper domain or embed it in your site or blog.

Dropshipping allows you to retail a company's products but without keeping any stock yourself. You display the products on your site and the customer purchases and pays through you. You then pay the company and they ship the goods direct to the customer but under generic packaging (or even with your branding) so that the customer is unaware that it hasn't actually come direct from you. You sell at the retail price, but only pay the company the wholesale price, so you make a profit on each sale. So: no investment, no stock, no cashflow problems. One reputable company offering dropshipping is Pixmania Pro, who sell electronics. You could sell all their products or just a specialist line. Clearly the challenge is getting customers to your site. However, dropshipping is risk free. This is an on-line venture you can set up and go into profit from your first sale onwards. For more information on dropshipping in the UK, go to the Dropshipforum.

Fancy your own cashback website?

You can get a white label cashback site hosted by one of the big cashback sites, but with a customised front end.

Greasypalm offer one whereby your customers go into the overall Greasypalm database and you get a revenue share. The differentiation is just on the branded front end. See here and get in touch with them for full details.

Cashback Rewards offer one with considerable customisation - see here and get in touch with them for full details. They charge a set up fee and a fixed monthly fee but you get 100% of the commissions generated by your site. You have full control over your own members.

EdealsUK only change the front page banner and a couple of other visuals in their customisation, however you get your own customer database and there are NO set up costs and NO monthly fees. Instead you get 60% revenue share, rather than the 100% that Cashback Rewards offer. This is the lowest risk offer therefore, but you will need to convince Edeals that it is worth their while absording the set up costs for you by outlining how you are going to get your customers.

You will be competing with a lot of existing cashback sites. See here for the full list. So, if you are interested you need to think of how to differentiate yourself from the competition. Think niches and partnerships. For example, a cashback site specifically for your town, with local promotion and whereby a percentage of your income is ploughed back into the town by way of free events. Or, for example, a cashback site for your football club, whereby a percentage of the income goes to support the club and customers receive some free club merchandise for signing up.

Make money from your car?

On our Car Expenses page we make reference to Ads On Cars, a way to get your petrol free every month by agreeing to vinyl advertising wraps on your car. You may or may not be eligible - they are selective in who, where and what they want. So here's how to do it yourself instead:

Take a digital photo of your car then on your PC divide your car into a number of advertising 'spots' (bonnet, driver's door, etc - whatever is logical for your vehicle). Determine a price for a 12 month contract for each - an acceptable charge is £200 - £400 per spot per annum (with you paying the set up and attachment of the vinyl advertisement). Print out some flyers on your PC offering a 1 year contract at a fixed price (payable in advance) and hand these out/post to local businesses and websites.

Once you have an interested client, get them to document their wording / style requirements then contact your nearest vehicle sign company. They will make up a 'proof' of the ad on paper which you can then send to your client. When that's approved the sign company will visit you to place the ad on the car. Take a photograph of the car with the ad on and send it to the client.

Here is an example of someone with a contract on their Smart.

If you get contracts for all your 'spots' you should earn enough to cover all your annual car expenses.

NB1: You will need find it easier to gain contracts if your car is new and kept clean and presentable. Even better if your car is either quirky or of cross-class appeal (such as a Beetle or Mini).

NB2: You will need to inform your insurer before placing the ads on your car - they will typically charge a £25-£50 increase in premium for your car becoming a source of income in this way. One contract will more than make this cost worthwhile.