Setting up an Internet Publishing Company

Posted by Felix Okoli on Friday September 9, 2011 10:18:9:

I wouldn't really call myself a blogger or article writer since I started web publishing even before going into blogging and I do more SEO and web development than write articles and so what will I call myself if I setup websites with content that help provide information or near information to the general public. It has more to do with publishing and it is a growing business in Nigeria.

What really is internet publishing?
Interne publishing has to do with creating and publishing content on the internet and they can be in form ox texts, videos or pictures. There are a lot of Nigerian companies already into internet publishing nowadays and one of the reasons why it seems to be a growing phenomenom is probably because of the value it adds to the company such as from online advertising.

Forms of websites which are into internet publishing
- Newspaper and news sites
- Community forums
- Classified sites
- Blogs
- Video and Picture websites
- Social networks

Viability of setting up an internet publishing company
More and more people are moving away from traditional mediums where they can get news, gossips and data like from hardcopy newspapers and magazines and are now switching to the digital medium on the web and in a way, this may be helping to reduce cutting down trees for newspapers and books and help make our world greener.

Setting up an internet company in this century is probably the best thing to do and it is relatively cheaper too and what you need to concern yourself with is bringing in good traffic and satisfying the needs of your visitors. Nowadays, people who have invested in internet companies are among our world's billionaires already such as:

- Facebook.com - American
- Baidu.com - Chinese
- Yahoo.com - American
- Google.com - American
- Bing.com - American

There are a whole lot of others and what they do mostly is provide useful content on their websites - They publish to websites

Internet publishing companies can make money from their website content by:
- Accepting online advertisers
- Selling subscriptions
- Affiliate marketing with web merchants
- Direct selling of their brand products

What it would involve
A single person may get involved with Internet publishing and be pretty successful at it but it gets more rewarding if you incorporate a company dedicated to that sort of business. A company, unlike an individual has other benefits such as having a distinct corporate identity, more incentives from the govt, can be limited to its assets, can get a larger pool or resources and gives you a better peace of mind.

In Nigeria, setting up an internet publishing company would be the same process with setting up any other company and it would normally involve:

- Constructing a good business model
- Applying for registration with a form at the Corporate Affairs commission
- Registering a corporate name
- Paying the required fee
- Waiting for approval
- Having a bank account
- Employing staff
- Paying staff their salaries
- Deducting and remitting personal tax for your employees and self
- Keeping good records of business activities
- Preparing final accounts
- Paying corporate tax
- Managing your company effectively for the long term