Website Design and Internet Strategy for Business Owners

The current recession is still raging despite claims of recovery. President Obama recently spoke at the White House and quoted the Department of Labor which estimated that US citizens have lost 3.6 million jobs since recession began.

For most losing a job is a calamity and yet there are some who handle this setback more effectively. The great American spirit of survival seems to exist in them. They look for alternatives to make a livelihood and to live well. They may not have opted out of their jobs, but they certainly can deal with it.

How do they manage it? Are their prepared for it? What’s their gameplan?

Forty eight year old Bob Carlos was expecting a promotion as the Vice President of his company. He was unprepared for the recession and it hit him below the belt. Carlos reeled but rallied back to life. It was then that he decided to do what he enjoyed most in life: sail.  Soon he started using his knowledge to train others and eventually, lead small excursions. Bob Carlos now leads a full life enjoying his job. He is making money in a way he never dreamt of. He now has plans to expand online and increase the scope of his customers.

Bob relied on his talent and expertise to pull his new found business through. Through a well planned strategy he started organizing camps and workshops and hired more people.
 
Bob Carlos was not an entrepreneur by choice. He was a forced entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurship is the ONLY way you can beat the current situation. No one’s hiring, no one’s extending much credit, no one cares; and you need the money and occupation to keep you going.

More and more Americans are resorting to forced entrepreneurship. The number of non-employer firms has risen steadily in this decade, from 16.5 million in 2000 to an estimated 21.1 million in 2007. Now is the time to go back to your core competency, by improving hidden skills that have been neglected for years. You may steer away from the specific job or branch that you were previously interested in, but with this newly honed skill set, you can help yourself and others in a way you never thought possible.

Many people are making the recession a blessing in disguise to hone their talent and skills, to spend time with family and community, and to get connected with themselves all over again!

All you need is

1. An exemplary skill set
2. An eye for detail
3. An ability to plan
4. Lot’s of enthusiasm.

BUT before you throw your job out the window and set out to challenge your skills, be aware of the following:

According to the SBA – an estimated 637,100 new employer firms began operations in 2007 and 560,300 firms closed that year.

“Two-thirds of new employer establishments survive at least two years, 44 percent survive at least four years, and 31 percent survive at least seven years, according to a recent study."
These results were constant for different industries. Firms that began in the second quarter of 1998 were tracked for the next 28 quarters to determine their survival rate. Of special interest, the research found that businesses that survive four years have a better chance of surviving long term. After the fourth year, the rate of firm closings declines considerably.

Earlier research has found that the major factors in a firm’s survivability include an ample supply of capital, being large enough to have employees  the owner’s education level, and the owner’s reason for starting the firm.

So where do you begin. Start with your heart and move on to brains.

I. Take a mental printout of these five attitude steps

• Start small if you want to but start today.
• Do not be afraid to fail.
• Everything in life is a learning experience to make a better you
• Enjoy what you do
• Find opportunities on the way.

II. Next start with your entrepreneurship plans. Ask yourself the following questions and write them down

• Your best skills
• Your strengths
• What you enjoy most
• Five years on what you would like to be
• The objective of your business

III. Next jot down opportunities associated with each skill

• Start with broad, then go specific
• Use the internet to search for opportunities. You’ll be amazed at what you’ll find
• Try to identify at least three opportunities

Now you should have a better understanding of what your goals of your business are.

IV. Time to put your ideas to work: brain work

• Begin to plan how you will start your business
• Take into account the cost, time, demographic structure and ROI period
• Think of the area of your business
• Try to find a niche

If you follow this step you’ll identify the most suitable business to start with.

V. Time for research

The strategy for research will depend on your skill set and the opportunity for Get an expert’s advice if you feel a little uncomfortable with where you’re headed. You can either hire an expert to do it or do it yourself. Be thorough and explore all possibilities and start building a complete strategy.

VI. Strategy Time

If you are starting for the first time ask an expert; there are lots of experts online who are willing to give a few minutes of free consultation. Make the most of it.

Opportunities

The opportunities for online entrepreneurship are galore; everyone seems to be moving online and finding their niche.

You can become an infopreneur by packaging your knowledge and selling it. The methodology may vary, but the objective will be to sell.

You have to simply decide a topic. It can be anything: knowledge from your previous work/business experience, a hobby, a passion or anything that interests you; even your grandma’s recipe!

Success stories need

1. Diligent Planning
2. Strategic Information
3. Goal Setting
4. Innovation
5. Contemporary Methods
6. Visibility
7. Good Customer Relationship
8. Identification of Opportunities
9. Sheer Hard Work

If you are one of those who think you don’t have a special set of skills to utilize, all you need to is a website. From that website you can find affiliate opportunities, make ad money, manage content or sell products by partnering with drop shippers.

If in doubt ask the expert.

OnlineBizHq.org is offering 15 minutes of free consultation on online business opportunities. They have also published a book “Plant Your Online Biz Money Tree”. This Money Tree Book is available in a pre- release e-book version for a limited time only. Click for sneak-peek buy for only $10!

• Check out the latest blog post on our website maintenance site and read on as Daniel Levis top copywriter analyzes human nature and lays out marketing techniques to master them.

  

  Find out

  • Why fear and anger are such useful emotions to evoke in your copy …
  • How society conditions your customers to respond in automatic, predictable ways to given stimuli that you can use in your marketing …
  • How demographics impact human nature, and human nurture …

With the unprecedented growth explosion of e-commerce, retailing and the expansion of the internet marketplace, an overwhelming number of opportunities for starting an online business have emerged. Yet, the question remains: should you take up a job or start an online business? A working job requires less responsibility than owning an online business, solely because the business’s future is not in your hands as an employee, but does not necessarily allow you to do what you want within the business. A steady income is always welcomed as an employee, for it allows you to map out your future with relative ease, yet a successful business may provide multiple streams of income.

Although starting an online business does not guarantee a steady income, it does allow you to do what you enjoy doing, or what you are interested in. Plus, running your own online business allows for more flexibility in terms of times and working hours as compared to the strict, rigid work hours employees must abide by. But because of the modern-era internet boom, starting an online business has never been more lucrative.

Ever since the advent of the internet, it has been evolving at an exponential pace and has attracted more and more people every year. As of March 31, 2009, approximately 6,710,029,070 users access the internet on a regular basis – over 99% of the world’s population. This drastic figure only emphasizes the innumerable opportunities that have emerged for starting an online business since the dawn of the internet, and marks a time of a more technological and computer savvy world that relies on the computer more than ever before. But before you click your mouse and begin building your online business, you should know that researching is vital and essential to having a successful business; you must become intimately familiar with whatever facet of business you envision. This requires dedication, commitment, and passion on your part. Books, e-books, magazine articles, and online articles are among the plethora of resources that can and will help jump start your business and allow it to compete in the real world. On the other hand, self-employment offers you more chances to explore and challenge your limits, without having to deal with the pressures of running your own business.

In a way, to become self-employed successfully you must adopt a system, a sort of scientific approach to your job: hypothesizing, researching, testing, re-testing, analyzing, drawing a conclusion, and finally and most importantly, communicating that conclusion with the rest of the world. To become self-employed successfully, you must learn the advantages of becoming self-employed, and weigh that with the other options you have and choose which is best for you. Only then will you be on your way to becoming a successful individual.

What most people fail to recognize is that you can be self-employed and own your own business, simultaneously. Owning your own business while at the same time working for someone is a beneficial way to gain valuable experience that will assist you in establishing your business. There are several tools that you can utilize to help automate your online business, thus taking a major workload off you so you can manage your own business as well as be self-employed satisfactorily. The first is the auto-responder. This nifty program will automatically reply to en e-mail that is sent to a certain e-mail address. It can be programmed in such a way that it sends one e-mail the first day, a different e-mail a second day, and so on. This resourceful program will allow you, the owner, to salvage valuable time spent on responding to the same e-mails that would normally fritter away hours of precious time.

Another handy way of taking a workload off of you is by hiring drop-shippers. In a nut shell, drop-shippers hold products that are being sold through your website in a warehouse and when purchased, ship it directly to the customer. This way, your company does not have to be the retailer and the manufacturer, thus reducing expenses and increases profits. Your only job is to pay the drop-shipper for the shipping costs and they will do the dirty work for you. In addition to auto-responders and drop-shippers, if properly executed, search engine optimization (SEO) will attract customers to your site, without you having to go to them. Ideally, you want your company’s web page to appear in the first page of a search engine’s page when a certain term(s) (the broader the better) is entered into the search engine. These simple tools will drastically improve the amount of clients you have, while still allowing you to focus on something more important than responding to e-mails, shipping to clients, and having to physically go to a potential client to get them to commit.

Google recognizes the role of Galileo in modern science as indicated in its display logo today. This day Aug 25 1609, 400 years ago, Galileo opened a new universe to a small community of Venetians challenging conventional views.

The world has never been the same since. We pay our tributes to this astronomer who changed the way we see the world. Though it’s been a long journey from Galileo’s Telescope to the Hubble…pioneers will always be remembered. Thank you Google for this wonderful logo.

Sangeeta Kumar

Planning is the most crucial aspect of online business. The plan should include short term and long term goals. You should always be clear about your business objectives and purposes. The goals should be effective in generating new customers and keeping the existing ones. While setting goals it is important to keep in mind to know the visitors or customers you are expecting at your site. You should be flexible enough to adapt to the needs of your changing traffic or visitors.

Online business is both, very easy and very difficult to manage at the same time. Though this is a contradictory statement, it is a reality. You can easily set up an online business to sell a product but bringing customers to your site is a big task and difficult one too!! So instead of gaining money, you are actually losing money because of the monthly rent that you’re paying to have your website hosted in cyberspace. The best way of getting the attention of people is through advertising. There are various methods to market your product online or generate traffic. Some of them are CPA(Cost Per Action) campaigns, PPC(pay per click) campaigns, Private Ads, CPM Ads, Article Marketing, Viral Marketing, Marketing on forums, Word of mouth Advertising, Social Media Marketing or Media Marketing and Referral traffic and SEO. Put together all this refers to website marketing.

Now let us discuss some of them. One of the most easy and effective way to get noticed is Pay per Click campaign or PPC. This is based on keywords or phrases related to the online business and whenever a person types this and searches the net he gets a listing by the search engines which lead to your site. These search engine listings generally appear in a box above the natural listings. Whenever a person clicks on this listing the company or organization pays a certain amount to the search engines. In fact you have to purchase these ‘keywords’ making monthly payments to the search engines. The less known phrases cost less and the more popular keywords are expensive. The trick is to purchase less expensive keywords and use them judiciously and at the same time, smartly.

But the flip side of PPC is that it sends both non-business and business traffic to your website and you end up paying for non-business traffic too. It is also expensive as your competitor may outbid you. So monitoring the PPC listing daily is an important daily schedule. Professionals are hired to take care of PPC campaigns who keep in mind the goals, asset and objectives of the online business in mind while designing such campaigns.

In contrast another website marketing strategy  tries to divert traffic to your website through natural high rankings in search engines. This method is called or Search Engine Optimization and the traffic sent through this method is called organic traffic. It is not free but relatively cheaper than PPC. SEO does not aim at clicking the site link. It is a simpler technique which aims at getting a higher rank in the listing of search engines(Yahoo,MSN,etc.) whenever a person types in a keyword to search his desired result. The experts make sure that your site is compliant with Search Engine Algorithms and no spamming or “black hat techniques” are used to rank your site.

Certain tools are used for SEO such as article posting, forum posting, press releases and blog postings. These send referral traffic to your website. Additionally, search engines help you divert the online traffic to your site. It also helps to establish goodwill for your site and build visibility with other webmasters which helps the sustainability in the long run. You can take it from there and build website strategies such as pay-per-impression or pay-per-action or blogging to monetize the traffic diverted by search engines.

B2B referral traffic consists of the incoming links from businesses which are related to your kind of business. You place their link on your website and they place yours on their site. These businesses are then visited by online surfers or visitors. That brings traffic to your site and vice a versa. So in a way incoming and reciprocal links are form of advertisement of your business on the basis of mutual understanding of businesses.
According to a recent online study, over 50% of Internet users have visited websites through referral traffic. These can be bogs, directories, forums and search engines.

Blogs and forums are compared to communities. You must then invest the time and effort into getting your target audience opt-in to receiving future specials and updates – Newsletters, enzines, new product reviews or free offer etc.-Something for them to come visit your website over and over again. According to one survey 43.2% of online traffic is Direct traffic, 36.1% is through Search engines and 20.7% is through referring sites. Referral traffic is more interactive way to generate traffic to your bog or website.

It pays to apply different strategies and not just simply cost cutting when business hits ‘bad weather’. While SEO may be economical in the long run, PPC generates instant traffic. For a new website referral traffic is hard to come by. Online or offline what is most important in a business is to build a relationship with the people and make them trust you. Once they start trusting you, they will become your loyal customers and talk about you and your service getting you more traffic.

Outsourcing as a business strategy was started in mid 1990s to manage workload and cut costs using tools of information technology. With the passage of time, wider use of the internet and much improved connectivity and communication has made outsourcing an easy tool for solving business problems, management of excessive workload and shortage of skilled workers.  Although outsourcing is mainly used by the IT enabled industry, it is interconnected with all other businesses and influences other sectors by various means.  Based on the dramatic growth in outsourcing by businesses in last few years, it seems that in future outsourcing will permeate all Services-Provider industries in the world.

Outsourcing has a new impetus in the current financial recession when companies are facing all round pressure to cut costs. They need to be leaner and smarter to emerge unscathed from this storm. The ones are able to leverage outsourcing competently will have a better chance of survival.

Outsourcing, which started with doubts of incomplete tasks, quality, quantity and turn around time issues and with a great risk to confidentiality, has proved successful in the past decade. Outsourcing has a secure future and will remain essential for businesses all around the world.

Mark

Search engines algorithms are shrouded in total secrecy. So what works in SEO and what does not is merely the result of an analysis of sites that make it to page #1. Some times the keywords show up sooner than expected, at times they do not. It’s very difficult to measure the effectiveness of an SEO campaign because the time frame for results is prolonged. With the mushrooming of SEO companies and the vagueness of operations finding the right company can be an issue.

True, SEO is no science, but it can have a scientific approach.  The results are not instantaneous like PPC but results should be visible after 3 months onto a program. Okay… give and take a few months for the vagaries of Search Engines who like to alter their algorithms just when your site is all set to take off!

The problem with SEO is that it is too vague a field. We can only guess what works and what does not. Broadly there are five factors that are said to do 70% of the work.

1. A well optimized code
2. Well Optimized Metatags
3. Header Tags, Alt tags
4. Keywords in the URL
5. Backlinks to the site

 If your SEO company is smart enough to integrate all these together chances are that by the fourth month your SERPs should be somewhere around rank 10-12 for moderately competitive keywords. Competitive keywords take much longer and the effort for increasing the positions in page 1 increases proportionally with every position.

There are two ways in which you can check if your company is really working on your website.

1. Set up Google Alert on your company’s name. Once an alert is set up, every time a directory picks up your link or a blog picks up your article or the company does a press release Google will pick it up and deliver it into your mailbox. The larger the number of alerts the more your SEO company is working.
2. Use a tracking account. Google Analytics is free and is improving with feedback. Ask you SEO company to set up a tracking in analytics and get your account id and password so that you can check occasionally.

SEO is unfortunately a long drawn process. How long should one wait before deciding that the SEO company is taking you for a ride? When you are six months into an SEO program and you face any of the following scenarios it’s time to fire your SEO company.

Scenario #1: Six months into the campaign there is no increase in search traffic

Scenario #2: Your traffic has increased but you are not getting any conversions.

Scenario #3: You have not even made it to page 2 for your targeted keyword.

Scenario #4: The company’s report shows a lot of increased links but there is hardly any increase in ranks.

Scenario #5: Your keywords are stagnated where they were.  

Scenario #1: Six months into the campaign there is no increase in search traffic
Why is it so?
Maybe they are not working at all
OR
Maybe they are targeting all the wrong keywords. Very competitive keywords may bring in more traffic volume but they take longer (read upto 12-24 months) to optimize. To maximize your ROI professional SEO companies choose a mix and match of low competition, moderate competition and high competition keywords. If your SEO company did not take this approach it’s time to fire them.

How to Check: Insist upon adding Google Analytics (a free tool) to your site and visit it regularly.

Scenario #2: Your traffic has increased but you are not getting conversions
Maybe it’s a genuine mistake which can be rectified
OR
Maybe you are getting a lot of spam traffic because the company has posted the site at improper places just to show stats of increase in traffic. Believe me this happens quite a lot with unprofessional companies who want to gain SEO credibility. The unknowledgeable client gets taken in.

How to Check: Visit analytics. Click on traffic sources. Check all the traffic types- Referral, search engine and direct. Check the type of sites the referral traffic is sending, check the type of keywords. If all of these are okay, then you need some serious website marketing not just SEO

Scenario #3: You have not even made it to page 2 for your targeted keyword
Maybe the targeted keywords are too competitive
OR
Maybe all the aspects of SEO are not being covered by your company. This is a tricky issue. If you are satisfied with your keyword movement over the months maybe just a push is needed. Otherwise you need to check what the company is doing. You can read more about it here- http://www.gmrwebteam.com/blog/index.php/website-design/trust-your-seo-company-with-open-eyes/

How to Check: Simply type your keyword in the search bar. Check page #1 for your URL. If it’s not on page #1 it should be on page #2 after 6 months of campaign for at least some of the keywords. It should show up. If it isn’t there call up the SEO
company and demand an explanation.

Scenario #4: The company’s report shows a lot of increased links but there is hardly any increase in ranks.
Maybe the ranking will improve gradually
OR
Maybe the company is trying to impress upon you that it has increased your links. This is false reporting and not genuine SEO. In the long run these links will harm your site. Keep away from the company.

How to Check: Occasionally, in the Google toolbar type the following to see the number of links to your website-
links:www.domainname.com
Analyze the relevancy of the site linking back to your website. If the links are from spam sites fire the company.

Scenario #5: Your keywords are stagnated where they were.
Suppose you were already on page #3 or page #2 for the keywords and approached a company to take you to page #1. But you haven’t moved.
Maybe the company’s taking you for a ride
OR
There is no other reason. Just fire the company. They are showing no results

There may be other scenarios which have not been covered in this article. It’s very difficult to know if the company is working hard enough to get you on page #1. Keeping constant contact with the company is a good idea. Ask for a monthly comparative report and track the increase in links, traffic and keyword positions. Get an action plan of the month by the company. Track the action plan. You will see results soon enough!

When he doesn’t know your business. You may say that it isn’t his job. But you are wrong. Your online business is not a wild crazy idea, but a source of your income. Trust the right people to design your website. Your 17 year old nephew may be able to create your website or you can get a free one from several services…they might even be kind of pretty. In my research and experience, less than 2% of businesses that have websites have planted the seeds to online success. Many of them are your competitors.
The problem is web designers focus on the technical aspects of the site. They don’t have a clue how to build a website that makes you a ton of money, drives floods of traffic, and gets you top placement on search engines.

Why Do You Have a Website?

Just one simple fact. The reason you have a website for your business, no matter what business you are in, is you want to rake in bundles of cash. May be not now but definitely later it should be bringing returns on the investment. .
How does a website make money for your business?
Well, there are only 5 things that matter if your site is going to be a cash magnet:

1. You have to be “findable” on the web
2. You have to generate leads = people to your site
3. The leads need to become prospects
4. The prospects have to be converted to buyers = sales
5. You should save bundles of money that you are spending now, on things like customer service, order fulfillment, delivery tracking, automating offers…anywhere that information is provided without getting a bunch of humans involved.

That’s all there is to it! If your web designers know these well and fine, BUT most do not. Worse, website maintenance costs money. And you are losing business to competition. That is BAD.

Your Website is Like Your Business.

You Want It to Make Money. And Save Time. All the Time. Years ago I took one of my own ideas and created a $1 million+ online business from scratch. It is now on the first page of the search engines. And it’s my business and livelihood. Make sure that your web designer owes a successful online business and knows about how to run it.

Your sole purpose in having a website should be to use it as a marketing and communications tool. It is not there to be pretty. It should not be there to win awards. It is there to make you money. Even if you have a better product or service than your competition, the one who attracts more prospects and customers – wins! Being the best at marketing is all that matters.

Online Marketing Is Completely Different Than Marketing Offline

All of the tools, techniques, communication, etc. in the online world are different than those offline. A very common mistake is to think because it works offline you can just put it on the website! It’s important to realize the reader of offline thinks and processes information in a different way than someone reading online copy. What works offline may be a complete flop online.
They are two different worlds. For example, online marketing REQUIRES you to know how to get your site ranked high, very high, in the search engines like Google and Yahoo….so you routinely appear on the first page for the optimal search terms for your business.
Of course, this assumes you know how to find the optimal words for your business, your marketplace, your niche, etc. Just so you know, the “include all words” strategy has proven to be a total failure.
And, most designers and businesses do not know that SEO (search engine optimization) is not SEM (search engine marketing). If you do one and not the other you will probably be very disappointed with your results.
Studies have shown that you need to be on the first page of search engine results to get enough people coming to your site. SEO and SEM are not optional for online success – they are mandatory!
62% of users searching on the internet select a result within the first page of results. More than 90% click within the first 3 pages of search results. Beyond that you are toast.

Increase your ROI: Only Work with People Who Know Websites and Online Marketing

When you are planning your financial future you hire a financial planner or an attorney who specializes in that area of law. When you want plastic surgery you don’t go to a podiatrist, unless you want to end up with your nose looking like a foot.
So why wouldn’t you hire someone who specializes in creating money-making websites to build your website? Why would you hire a techno-wizard who knows nothing about businesses? I know this sounds silly but I have to say it because that is what the great majority of people do – pay someone to build a pretty site and slap it online and hope for the best.
Did you know that 99% of web design companies don’t know how to devise online sites that actually market your products or services?
So what you need is someone who can do more than build a website. Much, Much More!
You need people who can help you with how to create “hot” products or services that your customers really want.
You need people who make it possible for you to have a “money tree” business. People who can produce money like it grows on trees. People who have the communication skills you need to capture the attention and “cash the order” with your customers. Online or offline. (That means using multiple marketing channels and starting with the lowest cost = online!)
You need people with real world experience as well as online experience that can combine the two for the benefit of…YOU.
No one has the time to learn everything about their business, the internet, marketing, copywriting, finances and so on. That is why…

“The price of ignorance is paid forever!"

Successful entrepreneurs value all the real-world experience they can get. Where do they get it? By surrounding themselves with a team of experts who can provide the knowledge, guidance and successful experience for a wide variety of businesses.
One of the many beauties of direct marketing online, you never are face-to-face with your prospects, you never, ever experience a single “No” response! No one enjoys hearing “No.” At first it seems like a personal rejection.
For lots of people, never hearing anything but “Yes” is a lot of fun too!

 Always Remember Your Website is your Marketing Machine

I just talked about how a good looking site can be totally useless and invisible to the public. I talked about how and why you want to be on the first page of the search engines.
Now, about driving people to your website. This is more than “being found” for the right search terms. This is about having a comprehensive strategy that links your offline and online marketing together to create leverage for your business and get maximum results.
Everything you do must have synergy, leverage and scalability. If not, don’t do it.
You need to be sure your online partner can:

• Create a site that entices visitors to convert from information seekers to paying customers
• Generate a stream of online and offline leads
• Show you what functions of your business can be automated to save you money…and put that savings to good use…getting more customers
• Show you the secrets of capturing information and how to utilize it for easy access and follow up
• Show you how to make more sales with your existing customers
• Help you set up marketing campaigns that get real results and build customer loyalty
• Help you use email marketing ethically and effectively

Seriously, if your web designer/dungeon master/graphic zulu can not do ALL of these things and more, FIRE them now. You are wasting time and money! And time is often worth more than money!

Test, Test, and Test Some More & Collaborate Results and Changes

If you really want online success, or even offline success, then you must understand the importance of successful marketing testing. It is Crucial.
Start with these questions:

• Have you tested each of your offline campaigns?
• Do you know the return on investment for each offline strategy?
• Do you know the speed of the return investment?
• Do you know all the measures for your website traffic?
• Do you know the unique visitors, hits, time spent, pages hit, etc., etc., etc. for your website?

More questions:

• Do you know how both your offline and online marketing complement each other? And affect each other?
• Do you even have a Total Marketing Strategy?

Okay, I’m not trying to overwhelm you but here are a few specific areas of just your online world that should also be tested.

• Your headlines
• Your home page
• Your navigation settings
• Your key word selection
• Your links both incoming and outgoing
• Your customer offers, bonuses, etc.
• Your information offers
• Your location of certain offers, features, buttons, etc.
• Your shopping cart (if you have one)
• Your prospect capturing system
• Your prospect and customer communication system
• Your pictures and graphics
• Your lead generation techniques
• Your automated business functions

And, test how these variables and others interact and affect one another. You can’t test in a vacuum. You need good information in order to decide what you will continue to use, what you will modify and re-test, and what you will get rid of.
Did you now that your testing should never stop? And, you must have real testing results before making decisions. That means real numbers, statistics, data…you get the idea.
Businesses that are wildly successful with their offline and online strategies are always rabid about testing and knowing how and what to test.
That is the only way to really rake it in!

Track and Measure…Correctly

You want to know everything that is happening on your website, or not happening. All of that testing will do you no good if you are not measuring and tracking all of the data associated with it.
Here are some of the tracking measures you should be talking to your web designer/builder about. In fact, they should be talking to you about these things. If you have to bring them up you are already in trouble, with a capital T.

• How many visitors are coming to the site
• How many of the visitors aren’t visitors (i.e. spiders, crawlers, etc. from search engines)
• How many visitors are new vs. old
• How long does each visitor stay on your site
• What does each visitor look at
• What graphics, words, pictures, etc are generating the most responses
• Which search engines are getting you the best prospects
• Where else are your customers coming from
• How many pages does the visitor look at
• What are your website rankings
• How much money have you made from the average visitor
• Who are your biggest money-making customers
• If you use PPC is it working and paying for itself
• Which links are bringing your visitors and are they converting to customers
• And so on

This is not a comprehensive listing, rather, it gives you an idea of how many things you could or should be tracking when it comes to your online marketing.
If you are like most people, you are thinking “there is no way I could remember all of that, much less do it.” You would be right. Remember, that is why we all need a team of experts around us to do the things we either don’t know or don’t have time for.
But, if you use these kinds of tools and tracking you will join the 1-2% of successful online businesses. You do want to make money with your website, right?
It is simple, your website should bring in more money than it costs to maintain it!
What I see everyday is that our clients do not have any idea about virtually any of these statistics. So, they are not making good decisions about what to do next. Most are just leaving the website as-is and hoping for the best.
You should get measurements for every aspect of your business including offline so that you make informed decisions based on facts, not fiction!

Some Final Thoughts

Today, you must be ONLINE with a WEBSITE to be successful. Research has shown that people are abandoning the yellow pages and many other ‘traditional’ forms of advertising. The internet is the #1 SOURCE for information on virtually every topic or subject you can imagine…and still growing rapidly.
It is as it has always been – survival of the fittest. Those businesses which combine their offline and online strategies to maximize their effectiveness are going to survive and thrive. The others will die. And in these times there will be more deaths than usual. You see it, the ‘for lease’ signs appearing everywhere, the ‘announcement’ each week of another big business failure, the empty spaces in office buildings.
Now is not the time to sit by in the corner huddled with fear. If that is you then you will soon join the ranks of dying businesses. There are a select few who are taking action, gaining market share, taking in those customers from those dying businesses, and thriving! And they are positioned to be even bigger winners when the economy recovers.
Which one are you?
Hopefully you have gained some valuable insights that will help you achieve outstanding results with your business online and offline.
Our goal is to grow our business by helping people like you grow yours. The more you learn about us the more you will see that we run our business with the same ethics, values and business building tools we recommend to you.
The key to lasting success is to create lasting value. Turn transactions into relationships. In fact, the last sentence may be the most important and valuable one you read.