4 Strategies To Help You To Make Money From Your Website

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2006-2008 Trey Pennewell


People always seem to be looking for new ways to make money online. There is nothing wrong with being innovative and trying new methods to make money online. The problem comes up when people, seeking new methods, forget to pay attention to the proven methods of making money online.

What has worked in the past for successful webmasters is still working today, and will likely continue to work into the foreseeable future. There are 4 primary areas that a webmaster must focus on to be successful. These four areas are important regardless of the type of website you run or the product or service that you sell.


Conversions

Conversions are critical. You can get a million visitors to your site, but that means nothing if none of them make a purchase at your site. Conversions are calculated as the percentage of people that make a purchase at your site, compared to the number of total visitors.

The higher your conversion rate, the less traffic that you need to your site. Many webmasters struggle with getting that all-important traffic to their site. So instead of exclusively chasing traffic, also work on increasing the amount of traffic that you can convert into sales. There are a number of ways that you can do this with your online business.

Many webmasters understand that having a compelling sales letter, or sales pitch, is crucial. If you do not have the best possible sales letter, then you are losing potential customers. If you do not feel comfortable writing your own sales letter, consider hiring a copywriter to do it for you. You could also ask the copywriter to develop a few sales letters for your business, and you can do a comparitive analysis to see which ones bring the best conversion results for your business.

You can also improve your conversion ratio by paying attention to the layout of your web pages. There are a lot of different opinions on the best layouts for selling your products or services. For me there are a couple of easy ways to determine web page layouts.

The first thing that I consider is what I like and dislike about other websites. Is it hard to find the product on the page? Is the price hidden? Is a description of the product easy to find? Is the ordering information easy to find?

The other factor that I look at is what successful webmasters before me have done with their layout. There is no need to reinvent the wheel here. Instead of spending weeks trying to develop my own perfect layout, I will start with a template similar to those that are known for making high conversions.


Linking For Traffic

Now that we have covered conversions, we can talk about linking for traffic. While your conversions may be very good, it will never be 100%. So what this means is that the more of that precious traffic you get (at whatever conversion rate you are getting) will result in more sales and more money. It is known that the more links you have to your website, the more traffic that you will get. The links to your site are critical in driving traffic.

First of all, people click those links. I value a link from a high traffic website as much or more than a link from a high PageRank site, because actual humans are likely to be clicking the link to my website. I also place a very high value on having articles published in ezines and newsletters, because it always results in a nice boost in my website's traffic. The amount of traffic that comes as a result of having an article published in an ezine or newsletter will of course vary depending on the number of subscribers on the list.

A certain percentage of readers will always click the links that I have in a webpage or an ezine. And, a certain percentage of those who visit my website will convert to sales. Having my link appear in some ezines or newsletters can literally translate to thousands or tens of thousands of visitors to my website in a single day!

If you utilize article distributions, you can often get your articles published on a variety of websites and ezines. These articles will have your link in the author box, and you will also have the opportunity to discuss your web site and the products or services that you offer in your author box. This being said, the more effort you put into writing a good article and author box, the more likely you are to get some traffic as a result.


Linking Popularity

Building links for search engine placement purposes is just as important as linking for traffic. The more relevant back links that you have coming into your site, the higher your website will rank in the major search engines for your keywords. Back links are one of the best ways that you can get your online business to rank near the top of the search engines for your niche.

Be sure to use an anchor text on those links that is the same or similar to the keywords that you are targeting. Also, try to get those back links from relevant sites as much as possible. By this, I mean try to get those links from sites and webpages that have something in common with your site. A link from a webpage about bird watching will have little in common with your website about automobiles.

To illustrate the importance of back links, look at Digg.com (http://www.google.com/search?q=link%3ahttp%3a%2f%2fdigg%2ecom). They have a whopping 263,000 back links, which is why they are one of the most popular social book marking sites on the Internet.


Link Baiting

Link baiting is a great way to get those important back links, both for traffic and for link popularity. But, what is link baiting? It is when you have something so interesting / amusing / informative / useful that people will want to link to you, without you asking them to do so. Having something on your site that people will blog about, tell their friends about, or to send emails to their contacts about, is what constitutes link baiting. Your bait is so powerful that the fish will basically jump into the boat, without you ever needing to ask!

What kind of things work as link bait? This will depend a lot on the audience that you are trying to reach. In the SEO world, good link bait is placing free webmaster tools on your site. This means that people will bookmark the site; refer to it on forums, and possibly blog about what they learned by using your free webmaster tools.

If you are able to grow a reputation among your niche market as an expert, people will cite you and your website because of the quality information that you offer. If you run a humor site, people will forward the URL to their friends and tell them to check out a certain page.

Link baiting is also why the social book marking is exploding in popularity. If you have an article that gets onto the front page of Digg.com via link baiting, you will have an explosion in traffic. The same can be said for all of the major social bookmarking sites.

Link baiting is all about offering something unique that people will want to tell their friends about and that they will want to talk about. Spend some serious time thinking about what you can offer to your customer base that will result in successful link baiting for your website.


In Conclusion...

If you spend your time focusing on these 4 ways to make money with your online business, you are sure to be well ahead of most of your competitors. Optimize your site for conversions, build links for traffic, create links for popularity, and dangle some link bait for others to share, and you will find your customer base beginning to grow, and you will see your sales will start to improve.


About the Author:
Trey Pennewell is a writer, who writes about online marketing. Learn more about our Pay For Results SEO services at: http://www.linksandtraffic.com/seo-services/search-marketing.html Trey also manages article approvals at the free article directory located at: http://www.techcentralpublishing.com

Does Offshoring My Web Design Project Really Save Money?

Article Presented by:
Copyright © 2008 Kevin Kielty


A lot of people in the US are excited about getting web design and development done on the cheap, especially during a recession. Many foreign companies offer $10 - $15 per hour. Is it too good to be true? It can be. Below are some of the pitfalls of a low, low price website and how you can avoid them. Requirements Writing:

All technical projects begin with a set of requirements. Basically, web design requirements are the objectives that the project must meet. When you begin your web design project, you will most likely be speaking with some type of Project Manager. That person will ask questions about your project. They are not trying to work with you to come up with a business solution, they do not wish to explore your business problems. They expect you to lay out the requirements and tell them exactly what you want. The difficulty here is that technical requirements require a certain level of technical expertise. Most laypeople don't have the experience to properly communicate technical requirements to a technical person.

Thoroughly think through what you want to accomplish with your web design project. An offshore company won't act as a consultant and make suggestions. They will only give what you specifically ask for and nothing else. So you will need to do your own research, thoroughly think through your project and write out what you want your project to accomplish.

Language Barriers:

The second problem that can arise in offshoring a web design project, is the language barrier. If you are able to come up with your own your web design requirements, the next challenge is dealing with a web design project manager for whom English is a second language. Even if your Project Manager seems to be doing a good job, there are still many layers below him or her to which your project will be passed. Those people have even less understanding of the English language than your Project Manager does. In fact, your project will probably be passed off 2 or 3 more times to various people in various departments. With all that handing off and the communication issues, the potential for problems abound. You could end up spending countless hours of your own time doing quality assurance and still not really know what you're going to end up with.

When considering who to go with, think about weather or not the person you're talking to, really understands you. If you're having trouble communicating with the web design project manager, it's only going to get worse at the next level.

Project collaboration:

A design/development project requires a great deal of collaboration and is best done in person. If it cannot be done in person, the next best alternative is to have a very short cycle of collaboration, where the Project Manager or web designer/developer asks questions and you respond immediately. There is momentum to the discussion, followed by immediate action. When offshoring your web design project, you introduce a time delay. That delay can break all the momentum of the project. All of the stop and go can lead to 20 different broken threads or lists going back and forth and much confusion. Quick response time is imperative to project success. If there is a 24-48 hour delay in communication, it can lead to a delay in project completion as well as an increase in the budget, and the quality of the project will suffer. Plan for your project to take extra time. Start out with the assumption that the project will not be ready on time, and that you will need extra time to communicate back and forth to get it done properly. There are definite risks when working with an offshore web designer/developer.

It will mean more work for you:

You will need to find the best business solution - An offshore designer/developer will not act as a consultant.

You will need to do your own research and come up with the best business solution yourself.

You will need to write your own web design requirements - You will need to plan your web design project thoroughly and communicate your plans in detail. An offshore designer/developer will only give you what you specifically ask for.

It will require more of your time:

You will need to plan additional time to ensure that your project is done correctly. Ongoing communication as well as project completion will be delayed due to the time differences and language barriers.

The quality of your project can suffer:

Communication and cultural differences - Your designer may not understand your product or service the way you assume they do. For example, if they don't have private health insurance in their country, can they build a quality website that will help you sell insurance?

You don't have any recourse if you are not happy with the results:

American laws won't protect you if you are unhappy with your website. If you are going to spend over $1,000.00 on your web design project, then you may not want to risk going with an offshore designer/developer.

About the Author:
Kevin Kielty lives in Raleigh, NC. Web Design and Search Engine Marketing are his areas of expertise. He is the owner of Internet Marketing Advantage where he utilizes his 20 years of experience in sales, marketing and web development in Raleigh NC http://www.raleighseocompany.net/category/raleigh-web-design/ to provide business owners with web design and Internet marketing solutions that increase their profits. His company serves clients in North Carolina and across the US. http://www.raleighseocompany.net/