Boost Your Online profits With a Website

By: Skip McGrath

Today there are plenty of programs and services that allow anyone with no technical experience to create a website. You no longer need to know HTML code or how to use web-publishing software. If you can point and click you can develop a website.

Here are two of the popular tools I recommend:

1. For ecommerce selling sites the system I like is Site Build It! They stress the importance of having an complete eBusiness and not just a website.  As they say, "SBI works. Real people build real business. Lives change."

2. If you want to set up a site to make money from Google AdSense or Affiliate Marketing, there is a great system from a company called XsitePro.  I have not used their program, but I have looked at it carefully and received tons of email from users who love their system. You can also build full ecommerce sites with XsitePro, but if this is your first website, you will get better training with Site Build It!

Once you set up your website, you have to get traffic. You can have the most beautiful website in the world, but if no one visits it you can't make money from it.  Building traffic to your website isn't really that hard and doesn't take that much time if you follow a steady routine.

Build a Regular Marketing Routine

One of the Internet's major advantages over print media is that it can be updated constantly. A website that has not changed in months seems abandoned to those who frequent the site. So change is necessary for repeat business, and this change comes down to a daily marketing routine.

Your Daily Routine

Marketing your site on the Internet should be done on a daily basis. Most experts agree that you should get into a daily routine, even if it is only for 15 minutes at a time. Doing so will increase your traffic, your customer loyalty, your sales, and your profits. In other words, it will help you create a "sticky site."

Daily promotion activities include:

• Email: No, we are not referring to email marketing, but to responding to customer email in a timely manner. If this is overlooked, you could lose hard-won customers. Many Internet businesses have earned and kept business based on their ability to respond quickly to customer email. Customers appreciate a timely response.

• Content is King: Search Engines look for content. Constantly strive to create new content that relates to the product you are selling or what your site is about. Adding content on a regular basis will boost your search results on Google and once they find it, they will index it on a regular basis. One of the best selling strategies is to give something away for free. For example, my website, www.firepit-grills.com is where I sell my line of popular firepit grills. I have several pages devoted to grilling recipes. If you were selling chef’s knives you could write a short eBook on How To Sharpen Knives and give the eBook away on your site.

• Forums: This is not copying and pasting an advertisement in newsgroups, but rather it is finding an area of your expertise and being an "advisor" or "expert" online in that area. Answer questions and give advice freely. Ensure that you reference your website in the signature of your posts, so people who read your posts can find your site. If you gain a solid reputation, you will gain customers.

• Blog – A well-written blog that is hosted on your site will help you create content and can also make money on its own. (See How To Make Money Blogging From Home).

• Facebook: By now you should have set up a Facebook Business page (fan page). Be sure an post something at least once a day. And place the Facebook Like symbol at the end of all of your articles, blog posts and anyplace you can.

• Update Your Site: Keeping your site fresh with new content is vital, even if you are selling only one product. For example, you might expand your FAQ page or your product information page. By expanding your content, you are not only giving new content for your customers to read, but you are also expanding the number of pages listed in the search engines, which will increase your chances of appearing in the top of the search results.

• Link Popularity: This is an area that takes constant work. By contacting sites on a daily basis, your link popularity will increase, and if you do it right, your link reputation will increase as well. Find sites with content similar to yours and ask to exchange links. When you post on forums, be sure and add a link to your site in your post if it is allowed.

• Videos: Create short videos on YouTube and include a link to your site in the title. Now grab the code and place the video on your site. Google likes sites with Videos and will index your sight higher in their search results.

• Guest Articles: Writing a guest article for publication in a newsletter or to post on another website is one of the best methods of promoting and marketing your website. First, the guest article can be posted on your own site as new content; second, the guest article on another site will have a link back to your site which will increase your link popularity; third, if you select a site that has a good profile online, it also has a good reputation, which will increase your link reputation; fourth, you and your company will begin to be recognized as an expert in the field. Your "brand awareness" increases.

• Track the Competition: Go where your #1 competitor goes. Use the Google Alert system to track your top competitor. Wherever their company is mentioned in a page newly indexed by Google, you will be notified. This will uncover a gold mine of information for you and you can ride on the coattails of a successful company in your industry.

The final way to get traffic is to advertise, but I would use that as a last result. If you use all of the methods I outlined above, you will get traffic and you may never have to advertise.