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How to Build a Website that Works!
How To Build a Website That:
Draws Traffic, Converts Visitors Into Buyers and Generates Ongoing
Income
Part 2 - Finding the Right Process
In the previous lesson we discussed the need to find a theme
for your website that is related to something you enjoy. Hopefully,
you were able to come up with a few ideas for your site concept.
But before we look at narrowing down your choices and picking
the best one let's take an overview of the process that
you will need to follow to give yourself the best chance for success.
Most websites fail due to a lack of understanding about the process
that needs to go into creating a successful online business.
Offline Versus Online Marketing
Most of us are familiar with the basic ideas that go into creating
an offline business like a retail store. For a “brick-and-mortar”
business the most important element is LOCATION, LOCATION,
LOCATION. This is the best way to ensure that you get
enough walk-in traffic to sustain your business. Having a location
that is easy to get to with ample parking are key ingredients
to a successful offline business. But none of that applies
to the online world.
It may sound obvious, but when you build your website you will
need to start at the beginning. The beginning, "that's my
domain name, right?", "that's getting a designer to
build a snazzy site, right?", "that's making sure to
find the right products and add a store, right?". Wrong,
wrong and wrong.
Sorry, but that is the recipe for disaster that
most website owners follow... with predictable results. Getting
a name, a great location and filling a store with products may
work for a traditional offline retail business but it will get
you nowhere fast on the web.
Think Like Your Customer
Your site has to begin with your visitor; the
person you want to attract to your website. You will have to first
find out what they want and then, and this is important, how
they are searching for what they want.
This brings up another point. Online nobody cares about you,
your website or your business. Online your customers are just
people with a problem in search of a solution. In short, they
are looking for information that will help them solve their problem.
So in the online world people are searching for INFORMATION,
INFORMATION, INFORMATION. This has to be the starting
point for your website and is the first element in the process
you will need to follow.
Using a Proven Process
This is the first step but you will also need to consider the
stages that follow and the order they need to be done. That process
can be summed up as...
Briefly, it works like this...
Content
People are searching for information. You provide that
information as high quality original content that is
not only appreciated by your visitors but is created in such a
way that it is found and ranked highly by search engines. (More
on that later.)
Traffic
Once the major search engines rank your pages you will
begin to draw more and more free traffic. This is much
better than having to pay for expensive advertising. If you rely
on advertising to bring traffic to your site it will disappear
as soon as you stop advertising. It is far better to build a solid
foundation of traffic that is given to you by search engines like
Google and Yahoo!
PREsell
Now that you have visitors you will want to build a relationship
with them. You will earn their respect and trust with the high
quality of the information you offer on your site. You
can then PREsell (not sell) these visitors with your recommendations
of the products and services you represent. Building this relationship
is very important. Whose recommendation would you accept; that
of a friend you trust or a sales shark grabbing at your wallet?
Monetize
Then, and only then will you be able to monetize your
site. You will add multiple products and services related
to your site theme. More on that later.
What's Next?
Okay, now that you have an idea of the big picture and have come
up with a few different ideas for your website it's time to narrow
down your choices and choose the best one. In the next
lesson we will be looking at some of the preliminary research
you MUST do before deciding on the best site concept for you.
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Until next time...
SBI-Classroom.com
7
Part Mini-Course
How to Build a Website that Works!
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