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Out of Work? Underemployed? or Just Starting your Own On-line Business?
Build Your Website Cost Effectively
The biggest mistake I see most start-ups & individuals make is
spending way too much money on custom development of their website.
They believe the site needs numerous features to support their product
or service when in fact you can start with a basic few. Sophisticated
features can get expensive, especially if there is custom development
involved.
I see individuals and business plans that seek funding quite frequently. Many have blown through there initial cash reserve or
seed money and now seek funding to "enhance their platform" and "bring
it to market". A website site should be clean, simple, functional, and
very responsive ( ie quick response time ) . Stay away from those
"Website Tonite" programs, they do not produce professional looking
results. Best to launch your new business website initially with minimal functionality and continually improve and add features along the way.
There are inexpensive solutions, you just need to look around. Embrace and fall in love with open source. It is free ( mostly ) and it works well and you will have the support of the open source community to help
build your platform and even to some extent assist in the marketing of
your product or service.
There are many open source solutions, the one I prefer is Joomla (www.joomla.org ) as it is a general purpose content management system ( CMS ) with a large number of free, ready to go
plug-in components to help you build your site. These include the
basics building blocks like, site registration ( customer management),
content presentation ( formatting and getting your message across about
your product or service ), newsletter publishing ( direct marketing via
email), shopping cart, and forums ( product support ).
See www.ciozone.com
as an example of a Joomla based open source website. The website also
runs Linux, Apache, MYSQL, and PHP ( LAMP ) all open source. You can
also join the Joomla group after free registration within CIOZone.com and seek free help for your questions from our community. The CIOZone Joomla group is located here. You must be registered (free) and logged in to join.
There are also many skins ( templates ) you can use to format the look
and feel of the website, some are free, and some special custom ones
can cost $75.00
If you do not feel comfortable plugging all of
the pieces together there is an abundance of help available ( google
joomla help ), expect to pay $400 - $2000 depending on the complexity.
Or contact me in the CIOZone ( bgerneglia@ciozone.com ) and I will help you find someone.
Find an inexpensive internet service provider to host your site. A company such as godaddy.com can cost as little as $50 per month.
Market your Product or Service.
1. Try to stay away from non-inventoried product items, if the product
is not on the shelf ( or someones shelf via a distributor ) then it is
a special order and it will be time consuming to locate and deliver.
Time is $$. You also want to sell products that have non-recurring
engineering for each sale if possible. You ideally wish to build it
once sell it many times.
2. Build loyalty to your site by developing an email list from visitors. Ask them for an email address in exchange for something, like a .pdf or e-book that will educate them a bit about your product or service. E.g. if you are an exterminator, publish an e-book on spring termite infestations and how to stop them. Offer the book for free to your site visitor in exchange for an email address.
Once you have the email address, place it into an autoresponder ( an
automated email message manager ) and start the sales or up-sell
process. Craft a series of messages and send them out periodically
offering more information about seasonal pest control and plug your
product or service along the way. You can do this in the form of a
newsletter or a series of simple messages. This is how you build
loyalty. Visitors might not buy from you right away but over time some
percentage of those that do not opt out of your newsletter or messages
convert to buyers.
3. Work on your messages until you have a reasonable conversion rate 3-5% is excellent. This works if done correctly. Remember, consumers want to be sold, it is your job to remind them of the solutions available and why they should do business with you. Real customer testimonials, quotes on
your website from satisfied customers, are important to the online
sales process. If you rely solely on just hard sales from visitors with
out follow up marketing you will most likely fail.
4.Refine and optimize your landing page - keep it simple and to the point, a single column layout if possible with a clearly labeled message pitching your product or service. Do not
have too many conflicting messages, you only have one shot with your
visitor to take an action such as purchase or opt into your newsletter.
How To Draw Visitors to your Site - Get the Message Out & Tips
Network - get out and press the flesh at conferences, trade shows, and
your local industry organization events. Exchange business cards. Some
are better than this than others. If you are not good at networking and
meeting others then find a partner that it is and ask to go along with
him and learn to network.
Partner with other small companies like yourself. When your email list gets to a reasonable size, barter a space in your newsletter for space in someone else list. Small
companies should partner with other small companies. Find one partner
that has a relationship with ten other partners and ask them to
introduce you to the other ten. Companies are typically more willing
to partner with a local company rather than a remote one. They tend to
feel like they are helping a neighbor in this way - embrace it.
Blog about what is going on in your industry and give your website a plug at the bottom of the blog.
Publish some articles relevant to your product or service. Submit your website to the search engines. Expect it to take 2-6 months for them to notice you. Google will assign your
website a page rank in this time-frame. Most importantly, keep adding
articles and content to keep the search engine spiders and crawlers
coming back.
Setup a merchant account, & SSL certificate, accept credit cards as your primary form of online payment. Don't invoice for products or services if you do not have to.
Spend a couple of dollars on a Google Adwords campaign using keywords to drive visitors to your site. This can be expensive so it can not be your primary source of traffic. A well crafted site should yield a customer conversion rate in the 3-5% range.
Use a social Network to connect with others and network online. This
can work - start or join a group ( small online community ) others will
join in or welcome your participation if you add value to the group,
not just self promotional.
If you manage to grow sufficiently
to the size where you can take on a partner or two, do not waste $$ on
office space if you really do not need it. Set up a home office and
encourage your employees to work remotely. Research shows that most
employees are as much as 30% more productive when working from their
home.
Congratulations, you are now a internet direct marketer.
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