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3. Promote, Promote, Promote!
Okay, let's assume you've started your own web site and now you're looking
to build great traffic. I'm not
someone who will glibly tell you "oh sure you can succeed pretty easily,
just buy the stuff I advertise so I can make money off your
credulity." About 95% of web sites that trumpet how
much they can help you, are really interested in parting you from your money.
Avoid being sucked in by a promise that someone else's system will necessarily
work for you: instead, you would be well advised to try a lot of different ideas, spending no more
than a few weeks on any one of them, until you finally find a combination of
ideas that pays off
for you. By avoiding reliance on one business theory you minimize your exposure
to its possible failure, and you limit the emotional lows of your business
stumbles. Most people who try for Netrepreneurial success don't
succeed at first; almost all small business is like that.
So let's list some goals you really
need to consider if you want to succeed as a Netrepreneur. They may seem like just common sense, but I can almost guarantee you that
if you're not enjoying much success as a Netrepreneur, you need to stop
spitting out pages for a while, look deep down in your soul and re-examine
your basic goals and methods.
- Anyone should be able to like what they do for a living. Otherwise I think
they're really cheating yourself out of having a good time, and
their innermost being will respond to their
"cheating" with any number of self-sabotaging behaviors. If you're not
enjoying the journey, that's a sign your career should be something else.
- You must have either good sales conversion or effective
advertising (for example, Google AdSense) to mazimize revenue.
With good conversion especially, you can enjoy success even if you use
spendy methods like pay-per-click traffic.
- You want a site that's very "sticky" (in other words, you
need people to stay interested in your content.) You should be building
loyalty among your customers. The only way to do this is to care about
them; I can think of no shortcut. If you really want to help people
and you're resourceful, it can be done. Find products and services
that you really believe in, develop persuasive skills, and enthusiastically
employ those skills in your site design and your follow-up emails and newsletters.
**You must get into the mind of the user.
Now, there are three basic ways to get traffic:
- Search engine optimization. You can do it yourself
if you have the patience and technological knowledge; for most people, it's
better to hire someone for say $1000 to $3000 dollars per year. If
you sign up for Site Build-It by Ken Evoy, it's handled for you
automatically. Otherwise go to
Google and look for "search engine optimization"; if a company is really good
at it, they'll show up for this search phrase. This method works best
for sites that are out of the mainstream: don't over-focus on it if you
have a highly competitive site such as insurance, do use it if your
site is somewhat fringish such as a magic shop, and definitely use it
if your site needs to attract lucrative customers, such as a town real estate
office.
- Referrals. This is the most powerful traffic-building
method:
it works well if you're committed to building an excellent site that people
will want to tell their friends about. The best tools for power
traffic building are listed at the Trafficology site, which offers a free newsletter devoted to two things: (1) traffic building
and (2) making you their customer-for-life. ;^)
Trafficology is the Internet's
most in-depth archive of traffic-building tips, but perhaps you should go
with them only after you feel that you're starting to graduate from the
intermediate level of web design. On the other hand, they have a money-back
guarantee so you have nothing to lose by trying their materials (except your
time: it may take hours of study to determine whether
their advice is "up your alley.")
- Advertise. Probably the best way to start is with pay-per-click
traffic. Avoid banner advertising to begin with: most people have
tuned those out. Pay-per-click works well for sites that have
high conversion rations, so make sure that your site offers people
excellent deals and has great copywriting. Pay-per-click is the quickest
traffic-building method for beginners, and will help you learn what
are the highest-converting revenue sources and technicques. Start slow
and be sure not to spend too much until you know you've got a winner.
My bottom line advice, born from years of hard-won Netrepreneurial
experience: if you're a beginner, sign up for Site Build-It by Ken Evoy which teaches you some excellent
techniques while it handles much of
the hard work for you; if you want dynamite advanced stuff,
Trafficology is what I personally use.
Here's some of the best specific resources for site promotion:
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Promote, Promote, Promote! 
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Time to complete:
| Varies |
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Money you'll spend:
| Varies |
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What you'll get:
| Increase your traffic by leaps and bounds |
Best ways to promote your site:
- There are some pretty good pay-per-click search engines to place ads on,
mainly Goto.com and FindWhat.com.
You can see a list of them at PayPerClickSearchEngines.com, and get a good idea of how
much traffic they can send you.
- Consider submitting your site to the top directories
on the Web. However you'll probably have to pay hundreds of
dollars to get into Yahoo
and LookSmart, which are steadily becoming less important; the open-source DMOZ directory
should be your main target. When you submit your site, write your descriptions very
concisely. Use just the keywords you think people are searching for when
they want the products you're selling.
- Add a "site search" capability to your site, so people can easily find
what they're looking for when they visit. Some popular
customizable free site-search engines are Master.com which I use, and Google Free Search. Doing this could increase your sales
by around 10%.
- Write a good ad for your site, then pay to have it inserted
in email newsletters that are targeted to the type of people who visit
your site. Do a test run first, running differently worded
ads in 3-4 issues of the same newsletter.
One of the best things you can do is to network with other
sites, asking them to exchange links with you. It can be time-consuming work,
but it really pays off because the search engines give high rankings to
sites that are linked to by a large number of other popular sites. Here are some ideas
for persuading other people to link to you:
- Link exchanges are the easiest way to get a large number
of other sites to link to you. Do a search on Google for terms like
"link to us" and you'll find plenty of sites. To
narrow it down, include your site's main product type (e.g. if your site
is "AllAboutWidgets.com", search for 'widget "link to us"'. To make
the process easier, join a "link exchange" where every member is looking
for link partners. Again, just search for "link exchange" on Google.
- Optimize your site's design, then visit some of the many sites that hand
out awards. Ask them to exchange links with you, then post their award
graphic on your site. The best awards site I've seen is
AwardSites.com.
- Write useful articles and offer them for free to other sites,
if they will just link to you.
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Further Reading:
Here are some other promotional ideas for "down the road", if and when
you really design a great site:
 Start a free newsletter. It doesn't have to cost you a penny to
send out a weekly or monthly newsletter, just ask your web hosting
provider how to do it. That will keep your site in the minds
of your customers, and keep them coming back to your site.
- Try to get some free publicity. Establish a list of
journalist contacts, send out press releases, and do radio and TV interviews.
- Go to Google Groups
and start promoting your site in the Internet's
"newsgroups". For people who have a good site that can really start
a "buzz" on the Internet, this type of promotion can work well.
- Start your own Associate Program, commissioning other people to send paying
customers to your site. You only pay them when a customer buys something,
so it's like "pay-for-results" advertising (the best kind!)
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