How to Boost Your Chances at Having a Successful Web Site

Written by Robin Nobles


How to Boost Your Chances at Having a Successful Web Site

by Robin Nobles

New Web sites are springing up online byrepparttar millions. However, when they don’t reach a level of success,repparttar 124985 Web site owners assume that they can’t make money offrepparttar 124986 Internet.

Wrong.

The one thing that is important to know, however, is that you do have to work to make money online. Just like having a regular offline business,repparttar 124987 online business needs to be taken care of,repparttar 124988 Web site continually updated, andrepparttar 124989 customers made to feel safe and secure when doing business with you.

So, let’s devote this article to simple things you can do to have a successful online business. Remember that books have been written on this subject, so this article won’t be all inclusive by any means.

But, forrepparttar 124990 average Web site owner, it will give you simple steps to take to turn your online business downrepparttar 124991 right path toward achieving success.

Future ofrepparttar 124992 Internet --

In January of 2003, Roy H. Williams, who is widely known and respected asrepparttar 124993 “Wizard of Ads,” finally declared, "Now isrepparttar 124994 time to get in." For years, Roy has been watching and predictingrepparttar 124995 Internet's future. Back in 1996, he declared, "The Internet is a baby born premature." He even predictedrepparttar 124996 great dot com crash that we’re still recovering from.

So what does Roy have to say aboutrepparttar 124997 future ofrepparttar 124998 Internet? Roy says thatrepparttar 124999 buying public has finally figured out how to userepparttar 125000 Internet and what it's good for: specifically, "information gathering and features-based comparison-shopping."

What does Roy suggest for Web sites today?

1. Ignore heavy graphic sites and focus on providing information for your visitors.

2. Build confidence by interacting with your Web visitors and anticipating and answering their questions.

3. Don’t think “advertising” – think information delivery.

4. Focus on Web site architecture (a simply designed site) and exceptional writing.

5. Help your visitors find what they’re looking for within a few minutes of landing on your site. If you make them hunt for information, they’re gone.

For more information such as what was mentioned above, subscribe to Michael Campbell’s newsletter. Michael is one ofrepparttar 125001 most well-known Internet marketers, and his newsletter is exceptional. http://www.internetmarketingsecrets.com

For more information about Roy H. Williams and his advertising philosophies, visit: http://www.newsbios.com/wizard_of_ads.htm

So, with Roy’s predictions in mind, let’s look at some ways to make our Web sites stronger, more visible, and have a better chance at being successful.

Purchase your own domain name –

Having a professional image is very important onrepparttar 125002 Web, and it begins with having your own domain name. Having your Web site located at AOL or one ofrepparttar 125003 free Web hosting companies takes away a level of professionalism.

Let’s face it: purchasing a domain is cheap! Did you know that you can purchase a domain name for $21.95 a YEAR?? That’s it! From there, you’ll want to use a professional hosting company, which will provide an address for your Web site. Combustion Hosting will be glad to take care of purchasing your domain name for you, moving your “old” Web site to their location, and hostingrepparttar 125004 site for you. Their rates to “host” your domain begin at only $15.49 a month, which is an excellent price. “Hosting” a domain simply means to provide an address onrepparttar 125005 Web for your site. http://www.combustionhosting.com/moreinfo

Naming your domain –

Before you rush off to purchase a domain, let’s talk for a minute about naming your domain. Most businesses want to name their domain afterrepparttar 125006 name of their company, which is understandable. However, if you can name your domain using keywords that people might be searching for when looking forrepparttar 125007 products or services you provide, you’re giving your site a small edge withrepparttar 125008 search engines.

For example, ifrepparttar 125009 name of your company is Simply Southern, and if you purchaserepparttar 125010 domain name simplysouthern.com, you’re not using any keywords in that domain name, and someone seeing that domain name will have no idea what your site is about.

So, why not purchase simply-southern-catering.com, which will giverepparttar 125011 engines (and your visitors) a keyword phrase that describes your site: catering.

Your e-mail address --

When you set up your own domain name, be sure to use that domain name in your e-mail address, such as:

Robin@searchengineworkshops.com

Again, this adds a level of professionalism to your business. In my case, I have an e-mail address through my local ISP, which is how I accessrepparttar 125012 Internet. I use a nickname in that e-mail address. Therefore, rather than use that e-mail address, it would be better for me to userepparttar 125013 above e-mail address that’s connected to my domain name and online business.

Professional image –

When you have a Web site, you want to portray a professional image. You want your visitors comfortable enough with your online business to purchase whatever it is you're selling.

So, don’t let your 12-year old nephew design your Web site with cutesy graphics of cartoon characters. Instead, have it designed by a professional. To save money on Web design, you can always haverepparttar 125014 designer createrepparttar 125015 main page of your site and maybe one or two interior pages, and then develop a “template” for you. Templates are “skeleton” Web pages containing justrepparttar 125016 basic design, and you can then cut and pasterepparttar 125017 rest of your pages intorepparttar 125018 template and finish uprepparttar 125019 site yourself, if you’re comfortable with working on your own site.

If you have a software program that allows you to create and work on Web pages (which is called an HTML editor), you may be able to find templates for that program that will allow you to create your own site with a professional look. FrontPage is an easy to use HTML editor that is just like working with a word processing program. If you can use Word, you can use FrontPage. Atrepparttar 125020 URL below, you’ll find a huge assortment of templates that were created just for FrontPage, which would make creating your own site very easy. http://www.thetemplatestore.com/frontpagetemplates.asp

Seven Ways to Jump Start Your New Website

Written by Donald Nelson


You've just got a new website and it looks beautiful, but unless you take some active steps to promote it, it will just sit there like a new car without any gas and empty tires.

If you are not sure where to begin, here are seven steps that are free or inexpensive. All of them will help you to get your new website rolling.

1. Tell Your Friends - Often we are thinking about reachingrepparttar unknown millions of people out there surfingrepparttar 124984 Internet, but we are forgettingrepparttar 124985 hundreds of people who we already know. Look at your e-mail address book and getrepparttar 124986 word out, tell your business contacts, friends, relatives and tel them to tell their friends too. Send an e-mail to allrepparttar 124987 people who made inquiries or bought products or services from you inrepparttar 124988 last year.

2. Link to Your Own Site - Once again we are often thinking about getting some unknown people to make a link to our websites and we are forgetting possibilities that are nearby. If you already have one website, make sure that this site is linking to your new site. A website without any incoming links to it will have a very low page ranking inrepparttar 124989 all-important Google search engine and will face an uphill battle to be seen in Google search results, especially if you are in a very competitive category

Even when your site is inrepparttar 124990 construction stage you, or even your web designer can link torepparttar 124991 new site from another already well-established site, mentioning thatrepparttar 124992 new site is under construction. If you already have several sites, then link them to your infant site. It will helprepparttar 124993 new site to be seen in competitive search engine listings even in its debut period.

3. Get a paid inclusion in one ofrepparttar 124994 big search engines. It takes 4-6 weeks to get listed in Google, and other search engines are equally slow. However there are a few fairly important search engines that have inexpensive express inclusion programs. If you join these programs, then your site will be listed in 48 hours. Inktomi, which provides results for MSN and 100 other search services, has an inclusion program which costs $39 forrepparttar 124995 first URL that you submit, and subsequent ones cost $25. The value ofrepparttar 124996 Inktomi submission is that they revisit your URL every 48 hours and if you make changes onrepparttar 124997 page you can seerepparttar 124998 results inrepparttar 124999 MSN listings very quickly. Thus, you can tweak your pages and see how it affects your position.

Similarly there are paid inclusion systems for Teoma (which feedsrepparttar 125000 popular Ask Jeeves Search Engine), Alta Vista, and Lycos.

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