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by C.J.
Hayden
Fuel for your business
Most web site owners fall into one of two categories: they are
either spending a fortune on banner ads, bulk email, listings in classified malls, and pay-per-click
directories; or their sites are languishing with only a few hits per day.
You can change all that, and you don't have to spend a fortune. Here are three ways to get started today.
Make your site a destination.
The majority of web sites look like the owner simply posted his or her brochure.
Why should anyone visit? The number one commodity on the Internet is information,
and if you give it away for free, people will come and get it.
Improve your ranking in no-fee search engines.
You may think your position in no-fee search engines and directories like AltaVista, Open Directory,
and Lycos is out of your control, but in fact, you can do quite a bit to improve
how your site ranks. If your pages aren't in the top 10 in your chosen categories,
the chance of someone finding you is pretty slim. If you're not even in the top 30,
you can almost forget about getting search engine traffic.
Use your site to generate passive income.
If you're going to invest time and money in getting people to visit, why not have something
to sell them once they arrive? Instead of trying to make money from the web, you could
be making money on the web. It's easier than you think to get started. All you need is
one product, a secure shopping cart, and a credit card merchant account.
Since I began using these three ideas two years ago, I have increased the number of visitors to my site from a few hundred each month to several thousand. I also now earn 25% of my income from web sales.
Sound compelling enough?
For more on how to put these ideas to work for you, check out
Fuel cells.
You can learn more about CJ Hayden and her teleclasses and
programs by visiting her Get
Clients NOW! Web site.
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Fuel cells
1. Make your site a destination
Posting articles and other free information on your site
– whether by you,
about you, or about the type of work you do in general – gives people a reason to visit.
Other popular visitor attractions include:
- a regular newsletter
- downloadable booklets or white papers
- audio or video of you sharing valuable information
- a discussion board where visitors post questions and you answer.
By having this type of free content available, you now have something to publicize
and offer to potential clients by letter, email, phone conversations, and speaking
engagements. If there’s immediate value to be gained by visiting your site, people
will do it.
2. Improve your ranking in no-fee search engines
One way to improve your rank in the no-fee search engines is to focus on less obvious
keywords when designing individual pages on your site. If you use high-popularity
keywords, it’s difficult to get a good ranking, because so many sites are competing
for the same words. Instead, identify a specific word or phrase that might be less
popular, but is a good match for one page on your site.
For example, in the search engine AlltheWeb.com, if you search under
“marketing,” my
site doesn't have a single page in the top 30. But if you look under "how to get clients,"
my free newsletter page is currently ranked at number seven
– and it’s because “how to
get clients” is used in my page’s title, in the my description and keyword meta tags,
and in the text shown on the page.
You may not have a hope of getting a high ranking on a page promoting
“coaching” (13,710 searches recently), but a well-designed page focused on
“business coaching”
(1,343 searches) would have a good chance. For example, my home page is currently
ranked number five under “business coaching” on Google.
3. Use your site to generate passive income.
Many Web entrepreneurs generate passive income through their Web site by offering
e-books, teleclasses, audiotapes, and instructional CD's, all of which can often
be produced quickly and inexpensively.
Other ideas for products to sell include:
- booklets
- print-on-demand workbooks
- classes recorded on RealAudio
- bound white papers
- and becoming a reseller for assessment tools or licensed products
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Fuel for your soul
Consider these words of wisdom:
“Exposure plus 95 cents might buy you a decent cup of coffee.
The key is to position yourself in your market as the expert, the resource,
the only person your prospect would ever even think of doing business with,
or referring to others.”
— Bob Burg
“If you do a lot of things to build business, you'll build business.
They don't have to be done perfectly to work, although the better you do them,
the better they'll work. But the main point is that you have to do them
– a lot.”
— Joe Girard
“If what you're working for really matters, you'll give it all you've got.”
— Nido Qubein
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