Anyone can start a business online, but building a profitable online business is another story. You have your product or service. You know it’s good. You want to let the world know it’s good so that you can start raking in the rewards for this great product or service that you are offering. But how do you move from having a product to having a profitable internet business?Your new online business needs exactly what a real-world business needs – advertising and customers. Having a great product and or a hot niche is great, but the most important consideration for being successful and building a profitable business online is your marketing and advertising.Think about it through the example of selling in the offline world. How does that local grocery store let customers know that the food items that they have are on sale? Well, they send out flyers to customers. They advertise on television. They advertise on the radio. They do this all in an effort to let prospective customers know what they have because they know they’ll want it. Having a business online requires the same dedication to advertising.The practice and theory in finding customers is the same for a business online only the advertising process takes a little learning on the part of the businessperson. On the internet you need to advertise your business and generate traffic that will visit your sites on a regular basis. You need to not only create great content to entice and keep the customers you find coming back to purchase your products time and time again, but you need to advertise and promote yourself as well.The days of internet anonymity are over. You need to get your name out there so that people that are doing a search online come up with your name first in their searches. You need to create a following of customers that know, like and trust you outside your business. The only way to do this is by creating and advertising your personal brand alongside your business and products. Your potential customers want to trust the people they purchase products from and they want to know your name.So how do you do all of this? Buy marketing not only your product but yourself as well. Building a profitable online business is really building and promoting two products at the same time – the business that earns you profit and your own personal brand. The same traffic creation and business building tasks you use to advertise and promote your business should be used to build your own personal brand as well.The person behind the online business is just as important as the products you sell. Take the time to build your own personal brand and advertise that persona just as much as you advertise and promote your new business online. You’ll be surprised to discover that new customers flock to you and purchase time and time again because your business has something special – it has you.