The last and final article and by now you should have a decent overview of whats going to work and how to lay out an action plan that is going to begin to bring success.

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.

A web 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.

Web Success Secret #4) Monetization Will Flow When All Steps Have Been Followed.

You may be a bit surprised to learn that monetization is the last of the 4 steps. Many business owners position monetization as their first goal. Everything they do from conception of the business is geared towards making money. After all, that is the point of owning your own web business, right?

When I first learned of the four step approach to making successful web businesses, I was a bit skeptical. I have never heard of such a risky business idea- think of making money as the last goal.

That sounded absurd to me! In all of my small business education the emphasis was on profit charts and balance sheets and projected annual returns. Being online does change some things. One of those things is how you start and run a long term and profitable business.

Following the process of starting a web business often involved very little capital. The risk is typically much lower and the return on investment arrives in a shorter time span. Because of this you have a unique advantage to allow the natural progression of your site visitors come into play.

Let’s back up a bit and review. People search for information, not products, online. They are not looking to spend money. They type in their search query at the search engines. Your site should be on the first page. You should know how to provide a killer title and description that makes the potential visitor want to click on your site.

Read the rest of this entry

I hope you are looking forward to the 3rd installment of this article series. Divulging more secrets every day to help you become a huge success with your online business venture.

A web 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.

Web Success Secret #3) Pre-selling is far more effective than selling.

The first two parts of this series were geared towards both the search engines and your visitors. This article focuses directly on your visitor- more specifically your relationship with your visitor. You must gently and effectively pre-sell your visitor on your goods or services.

Anyone can sell a product or service online. All it takes is a link to a payment processor such as Paypal. The difference between successful online business owners and those wishing to make a buck is in their ‘voice’. A website has a voice.

The look and feel of your website gives your visitor an impression. When your visitor reads your words they should know the persona of your business and think of you as an expert.

These words, or content, should provide tons of information in small, bite-sized chunks of text. No one likes to read 8 pages of content on a website. On the flip side, no one likes to buy a product without knowing more about it. You need to find the perfect balance between no information and providing too much.

Generally speaking, 400-800 words can do the trick. It can provide content, position you as the expert and gently pre-sell your visitor on a product or service.

In addition to how much content you provide you should focus on providing specific answers to your customer’s problems or concerns. Most visitors are on your website because they want answers. They are not surfing your site to buy something. They want answers. So give them answers!

It’s how you provide your answers that matters. There is a difference between selling and pre-selling, and how you provide the answers or information your visitor wants is that difference.

Selling is cold, distant and forceful. Pre-selling is the opposite. Pre-selling can be thought of as a recommendation or side note to all the great content you provide.

You want your website voice to develop trust and rapport with your visitor. During that time you are positioned as an expert. Any soft recommendation that you make will be considered by your visitor.

Forceful selling causes people to put up their defenses. It causes them to take a step back and wonder what your motives are. Pre-selling does not affect people this way.

Pre-selling should lead those that are interested to your product without hesitation and those that are not interested should be led to more general content on your website- that will again attempt to gently pre-sell them.

Pre-selling and content (part 1 of this series) are closely related. You must provide information to your site visitors. You must be viewed as the expert and as a helpful friend making a recommendation.

People will not feel sold by that. People will respect that you are providing answers to their problems and making a recommendation for a product that can provide even more helpful info. It’s seen as a favor instead of a hard sell.

As I mentioned earlier, it is best to work smarter and not harder. If you would like additional guidance on how to effectively pre-sell on the Internet, contact me for a free ebook.

Having a successful web business starts with effective content. Stay tuned for part 4! If you missed Part 1 or 2 and would like a complimentary copy please contact me and I will forward it to you immediately.

Todays resource is truly the mac-daddy of how to learn and understand the nuances of internet marketing and it was my second purchase for learning how to be successful online. As you can imagine, since then it has been updated numerous times and today its just as successful and popular as ever. The Step By Step Guide To Selling Online leaves nothing to chance.

Welcome to part 2 of this article series and hope you are able to pull some information that maybe you didn’t know and even if you did i hope it refreshes your memory and gets one back to the basics.

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. A web 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.

Web Success Secret #2) Without Traffic- What’s the Point?

Part 1 of this series really got down and dirty about content. Content’s main focus is twofold- make your visitors happy and make search engines happy. This article is all about making you happy! Think of this as your starter guide to increasing traffic and building a profitable business.

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 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.

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.

Read the rest of this entry

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 web 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.

A web 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.

Web 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.

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.

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 web 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 Internet business. Investing in this one secret is literally the start of planning your website.

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 structured in three tiers. Tier one is your home page.

Read the rest of this entry

As web promotion grows more and more popular everyday, so does over analyzing your stats, rankings, page rank, popularity rank, etc. We are all caught up in an analyzing funnel that seems to have no end in sight. Now granted we are all massively guilty of this and certainly knowing where most of your traffic comes from so you can concentrate your efforts there is a must. Knowing which PPC AD is pulling the traffic is important, but if you are one of those people who have 7 tabs open and all point to analyzing stats its time to re-adjust.

Many of you who have learned how to promote your own website, seem to be forgetting the 1st and most important rule – keep promoting. The reality is when you continue to promote all the other things that are getting some much of your time and attention is going to come naturally PERIOD!

Analyzing Is Over Rated:

As we all have our own methods to base our success online, we also have to make sure that we don’t forget the fact that the more we analyze, the less we promote.

Does This Sound Like You?

- I like to re-check on a daily/hourly basis my Google search engine placements!

- I go to Alexa.com everyday to see if my ranking has gone up/down!

- I check my link popularity once a week, maybe once a day!

- I check to see how many backlinks Google rewards my site!

- I double check my site stats to see if the GoogleBot has been crawling on my site!

If this sounds like you, you might want to re-think how much you are actually contributing to your search marketing efforts.

See most people want to see their efforts being rewarded right away while loosing sight of the real agenda on hand. If you keep promoting and forget to check your rankings, placements, etc, when you actually remember to check your stats, you will be in for a huge surprise!!!

It’s better to explain it like this. Have you ever had a moment that seems like 1 minute took an eternity? On the flip side of that, have you ever had an entire afternoon seem like it flew past and you didn’t notice the time?

Read the rest of this entry