There are a few secrets that I’d like to share with you. You may have been privy to a few of them before. Actually you may have heard of all 4, but I can promise that you will finish each article with a fresh perspective. I will show you how 4 simple secrets can create a powerhouse Online Business. This is the first part of the 4 article series.
Before I divulge the vault of successful web business secrets I must warn you of one thing. All the information in the world will not take the place of determination and persistence. An Online Business is just like an offline business. It takes hard work and resolve to succeed. However working smart is heads and tails better than plain old working. These 4 secrets will turn any smart working, dedicated average Joe or Jane into a successful web business owner.
Online Business Success Secret #1) Content is king.
Heard that before? I know I have. The thing I never knew was how to use content to my advantage. Content is useless unless it is optimized for the search engines. It must also be optimized for your reader. You have two customers- readers and search engines. You must satisfy both with the same exact content.
1. keywords
Content is king only if you have exact and highly specific keywords placed in correct locations. Unfortunately the hard part is determining what keywords to use. A keyword can be a single word or a phrase. It is the term that web surfers use to search for information. Place yourself in their shoes and try to discover what search terms they use. You must then evaluate the search term. How many people search using that term? How many sites already deliver information on that search term? Simple demand and supply rules. The more demand with the less supply equals more profitability.
1.a hosting company
You have several options for determining keywords and their profit potential. Search yourself, pay a company to search for you or have your hosting company do a complete keyword search for your niche or Online Business topic. If your hosting company does not offer this service I recommend you switch to a plan that does. This feature alone can make or break your business’ future. If you would like my recommended hosting plan, please contact me.
Without a proper keyword search and analysis you may as well forget about becoming successful with an Online Business. Investing in this one secret is literally the start of planning your website.
1.b site structure in three tiers
Your next action step is to plan your site layout based on the 50-175 high-demand and low-supply keywords. Your site should be structure in three tiers. First is your home page. Second is made of all of your main topics and also constitutes your navigation bar buttons. Third is keywords are sub-topics of tier two pages. Organize your 50-175 keywords into three tiers. Doing this makes it easier for visitors to navigate through your site and it makes it easier for search engine spiders to find all of your pages.
1.c site map
Search engine spiders do not like to fish around for all of your pages and links. This is why many sites offer a “site map”. A site map is one page that contains links to all of the content pages. This is a fine route to take; however most people agree that pages with a lot of links on it are valued less than content pages that casually link to other content pages.
1.d topic to sub-topic
Using three tiers allows you to go from topic to sub-topic to sub-sub-topic all by natural in-content links. For example, tier 1 is the homepage on a fitness site. Tier 2 is a page all about cardio activity and its benefits. A tier three page off of that tier 2 page is about different treadmill routines. Do you see how the site visitor would like this structure? They click on “Cardio” and are given links to more specific pages about cardio topics. Search engine spiders like the three tier structure too. It means they do not have to dig through layers and levels of useless links.
1.e optimize each and every page
There is even more to content than finding profitable keywords and structuring your site into easy-to-navigate tiers. You must optimize each and every page on your website to perform well and rank high at search engines. Many people devote their working life to optimization secrets. A full length article just on optimizing is possible. Heck, a full length book is possible. My recommendation is to use a hosting company that automatically teaches you how to optimize web pages for the engines. Doing that will cause less headache and frustration and it will keep you focused on building content.
1.e-2 quick optimization
A quick education in optimization: place your specific keyword in the file name, title, description and keyword section of your page. Then sprinkle the keyword throughout the content. Also provide a link using your specific keyword in the link text. If all of this has you spinning your head, I recommend going the hosting company I use. They literally teach you to build a website using blocks. It’s all simple and easier than you think.
There is one last piece to content. It must effectively pre-sell your product or service and position you as the expert in your field. When your website has 50-175 optimizing pages for your visitors to read through it will start to position you as the expert. Your site will become known as the place for information about (insert your niche).
When visitors find your site through search engines they are seeking information about a problem or question they have. If they land on your site and you try to sell them something right away one thing is sure- they click the back button and find another site that will give them information. This is why pre-selling your product or service is paramount. Give your visitors what they want. Answer their question and in the process let them know about your services and products.
All of the information develops rapport and trust with your site visitor. It positions you as an expert. It keeps your visitor on your site longer since they are actually reading content. Search engines notice this and rank you better. How well your site can keep visitors is known as “stickiness.” Your site must attract and keep visitors for as long as possible.
Provide content that pre-sells your products, positions you as the expert and focuses on highly profitable keywords. You cannot go wrong with your web business if you do those things. The secret to content is to satisfy both your visitor and search engines. Lose one or both and you are doomed. As I mentioned earlier, it is best to work smarter and not harder. Your hosting company should be providing most of these services to you free of charge. There are a small few that do this, but it is well worth the investigation. Contact me for further resources and information. Having a successful Online Business starts with effective content.
Online Business Success Secret #2) Without Traffic- What’s the Point?
Traffic can be summed up in 2 words- free and paid. I consider all PPC (pay-per-click), ezine advertising, offline advertising, and paid directory submissions a form of paying for your traffic. I also consider any project that takes up your time to be paid advertising. After all in the Online Business world time is money. Paid advertising is not bad. It just means that you are paying to receive traffic.
Free traffic is harder to attract, but it costs you absolutely no money. Almost all free traffic is the result of surfers finding your site on the search engines. We talked about using content as your ultimate search engine ranking booster in the last article.
ways to increase traffic
Here are several ways to increase traffic. Some are paid advertising options and others are totally free.
- Write articles and submit them to several niche websites. Manually submitting articles to many websites can take a long time. I use a submission service to do all my hard work. Contact me for more info.
- Post in forums. Many forums will not allow you to market your product or services. That’s totally understandable. What I recommend doing is finding a really great forum that you can participant in. When people have questions, provide top notch and comprehensive answers. No selling. Almost all forums allow you to post your website in your sig file. Take advantage of that.
- Submit each page of your website to all major search engines. Also submit each page to all major search engines whenever you make a change on that page. Be careful with this one. Each engine has very specific directions and rules about submission rules. Be sure you do not spam! Submit pages according to each engine’s guidelines. I also use a submission service that does this for me at no additional cost.
- Create joint ventures with non-competing websites. Work with a company that compliments your product or service. Also be sure the joint venture is a win-win-win for you, the other company and your customers. Joint ventures can be a pain to set up and complete, but well worth it if done correctly.
- Look into ezine advertising, web advertising and/or PPC. Each method takes an initial investment and some time to learn, but can bring back traffic. Personally I do not prefer this method to increase traffic because it’s “iffy” at best.
- Print your website name on all business correspondences. This is a simple task, but one that is simple to do. Add it to your email sig line, forum sig lines, letterhead and business cards.
- Create an atmosphere of amazing customer service. This always leads to referrals from current clients. The more referrals the more traffic! – here : https://selaras.bitbucket.io
The bottom line Online Business
without traffic your site is floating in a sea of doom. No one is seeing your content or services. Traffic is the lifeline of any Online Business, and the rule of thumb is more traffic means more income.
This brings me to my last and final point about traffic. Once you develop a nice flow of visitors you need to know specifics. Where did those visitors come from? How did they find you? What the most popular on your site? did they enter into your site? did they leave your site? What keywords did they use to find you? You must know your visitor inside and out!
As I mentioned earlier, it is best to work smarter and not harder. Traffic analysis and search engine submissions can be very time consuming, but your hosting company should be providing most of these services to you free of charge. There are a small few that do this, but it is well worth the investigation. Contact me for further resources and information. Having a successful Online Business starts with www.hadehana.com.
Want for tips? Stay tuned for parts 3 and 4! at : here
