You have your website set up, now how do you get paying customers?
Posted by Mark B on December 8, 2009 under Marks Blog Posts | 
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Setting up your monetised website is the easy bit. Now how do you get it to generate income?
If you pay any attention to some of the ‘gurus’ all you need to do is build a site the way they tell you to (after paying them a lot of money!) and the visitors will flood to your site eager to buy whatever you are selling.
But it doesn’t quite work like that does it?
How many ‘automatic cash systems’ and ‘push button riches’ opportuities are there out there promising to make you a fortune? And how many of these REALLY work and make the promised money to the people who buy them?
Hmmm, probably about NONE because they are just recycling old ideas that may have worked once but not any more.
Today’s internet users are a bit more savvy than before. People know that there are lots of free resources and information on a whole range of things and will look for those first. Why pay for something if there is free information on the same subject?
Lets take just one example. Many ‘automatic cash systems’ I have investigated will set you up with your own site promoting weight loss information. Great, massive market. BUT… see how many people already have sites promoting the same thing? Then see how much FREE information is being given away on the same subjects? Very few ‘newbies’ to the market will ever get a return on the money they spent on the system never mind make profit from it.
So what is the key to making money?
Well like anything else that is worthwhile the answer is not easy. There are no magic formulas. You have to do a bit of work and build things up slowly if you are to be successful. If that idea puts you off then you have 2 options available to you .
1. Quit and keep to your ‘real’ job.
2. Ignore me and go on spending money on ideas that will never work.
Still with me?
OK, so maybe you have what it takes to become successful. Now for the hard work.
Firstly you need to choose your market carefully. What are you going to sell and who are the people that will want to buy it?
Try and find a niche market that has enough people looking for it but not so many that you will never ever get a good placing in the search engines for your own site. This one task is probably the most important of all so don’t rush it.
When you have your niche you need to build a website and optimise it for your main keywords, the keywords that will bring you enough traffic to build your business but still allow you a good search engine placing (so probably not the main search terms for your product!).
These 2 jobs can take inexperienced people a few days to complete. Don’t rush the job, do it properly however long it takes you. A bad job will waste your time and money. Better not to do it at all than to do a bad job of these 2 stages.
Submit your website to the major search engines. This step is the easiest. If you have completed the 2 previous stages properly then your site will start to show up in google (often on page 1 for your chosen keywords) within a few weeks.
Build a mailing list. If you have attracted interested visitors why just let them go? Even if they don’t buy your main product or products right away you should try and get their details by offering a free product or report if they join your mailing list or subscribe to your newsletter. This will allow you to inform them of future site updates or offers you may make and will give you a second, third or fourth chance to sell your product to them. It is all about numbers at the end of the day.
Include google adsense ads on your website. Even if your visitors do not buy from you they may see an ad that catches their attention and click on the link to find out more, and you get paid for the click by google.
Market your website in other ways. In addition to search engine submissions you should consider article marketing. If you can write simple articles on your subject you can get additional links to your website and draw in more potential customers. Also consider advertising exchanges where your ad can be seen on other peoples websites and have proven a good way of drawing in potential customers on my own websites. There are numerous other ways, but these are a good starting point.
In a few paragraphs here I have briefly gone over the main tasks of getting yourself a profitable website. Obviously there is more work involved in each stage than I can cover here, but those are the principle tasks for you to complete.
If it all looks a bit complicated, there are places where you can get in depth information on all of the tasks and step by step instructions and videos to show you how to complete them.
The following sites compliment each other and provide help with the steps you need to complete to build up a successful website business.
1. To register a domain name and order reliable and cost effective hosting Click Here
2. For help choosing your niche market and building your monetised website Click Here
3. For the best way to promote your website by article marketing Click Here
4. Download a free trial of software to help get your website on google page 1 Click Here
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