With the advent of Web 2.0 tools making a website is easy. These tools are simple and intuitive. Anyone can use them. There is no reason for technical barriers to keep you from being successful online. But there is a big difference in creating a website and...
Making a website that works.
Most work from home websites fail to draw and convert traffic. Without traffic your business is dead.
If you want to know how to build a website for personal reasons... and you don't care about traffic to your site... then Web 2.0 tools make it easy. Find a company that does free website hosting and put up a pretty site.
But if you are making a website for business you will need to shift your thinking.
How to Make a Website That Will Fail
What? Why would anyone want to make a website that fails? They wouldn't. But most home based business websites do just that.
The main problem is a failure to understand why people use the internet.
A previous coworker of mine used to call me - often - and ask my advice on buying a replicated site and selling someone else's products. He thought that putting up a site... any site... could make him rich. It is sort of the "If you make it they will come" way of thinking.
Fortunately he did not waste his money.
Replicated sites are your worse possible option for too many reasons to recount here. But most custom sites suffer from some of the same problems as replicated sites.
They follow a truncated methodology something like this:
- Find a product or service you want to sell.
- Create an attractive website - or pay someone else to do it - to sell this product or service.
- Put a shopping cart or some other payment process on the website.
- The website sits alone in the dark and dies from lack of traffic
Sound familiar?
The first three steps in this process are important. The fourth step just happens.
As essential as the first three steps are they are a recipe for failure if they stand by themselves. They do little to bring and convert traffic. There are several other essential steps that take into account the reasons we all use the internet.
Without these additional steps your website stands little chance of success.
Even if you are willing to pay for traffic, few people will actually buy.
But by carefully including these other essential pieces of the puzzle, you greatly increase your chances of making a website that will draw free traffic. And it will also convert more of this traffic into paying customers.
You do have to have a good product. And you do need a website. And you do need some way for your customers to pay for your product. But these steps mean nothing without a proper foundation. Your product is not your starting point. You need to revamp your way of thinking if you want to build a website that works.
Start by...
Identifying a Niche and Build a Website from That Niche
If you are trying to sell to the whole world you will most likely sell to no one. It is impossible to target everyone. The most profitable online businesses focus on a relatively small niche of prospects who might be intensely interested in their product.
This is common sense.
No one wastes their time trying to sell hunting gear to animal rights activists. That is obvious. Nor should you try to sell your products to someone who is not already interested in solutions that your product addresses.
The first group would be hostile. The second group would be oblivious.
So you need to identify a niche. Marketers call this marketing in the long tail. It basically means identifying a niche (or sub-niche) wherein you can become a recognized expert. You would be the go-to person for many who share interests related to that niche.
So where do you find this niche? Preferably from within you.
Everyone has certain interests that other people share. Identify a specific area of interest that others share and you have the beginnings of your niche. Don't pick something too large like "Sports". You also don't want to select something too tightly defined like the mating rituals of some insect nobody ever heard of
Identify a niche that you love... that thousands (not necessarily millions) of other people love and become the online expert in that niche. If you can find something about which you have a passion you are at a great advantage. Your work will come much more easily.
You will have more fun.
It is from this niche that your website will be born. Not from your product... but from your tightly defined niche.
Become the niche-master who provides rich online content for those who share your passion. Be the expert they look to for answers.
Start here and your website will not die a lonely death. It will draw hungry prospects who are eager to hear what you have to say.
Greg Post is a marketing consultant for those interested in building a successful home based business. He specializes in the attraction marketing model. This model focuses on becoming attractive to your customers and prospects by creating an environment where they can find what they are already interested in.
It is a more natural way of doing business where the customer's interests and needs truly become the most important thing. Therefore it is a more effective way of doing business.
