The Internet is global! You can sell products or services and share information anywhere. This however doesn’t mean that you will immediately succeed online. The best online business is one with little competition, high potential, and in motion with today’s trends.  Begin by searching businesses relevant to yours. Look at successful websites and evaluate them. See what puts them ahead of the competition and always think of new ways you can improve them.

Getting a Website – The Right Way!

A website is a worldwide office and you should treat it like one. Your online credibility and professionalism relies entirely on how your web pages look and what they communicate. A well-built website will attract visitors and assure them of your professionalism. There are numerous online services offering free or low cost websites “in just a few clicks”.  Many people are drawn to them but don’t realize the disadvantages. In essence, these services are just software that  build your website automatically in accordance to a few settings you choose. The software doesn’t know much about your business, your goals, and things that may help or affect you. A professional web developer will propose features especially for you and can help your business tremendously. Another disadvantage of automated websites is the design. They may offer a variety of templates that you can use for your own website but there are other people, perhaps millions using them as well. Unique branding is important for any business and you cannot achieve it with stock templates. Lastly, automated services will generally host your website as a sub domain. For example their domain might be www.one-click-sites.com your website address will look like this, www.johnlaptops.one-click-sites.com.  Such a web address looks unprofessional and bad for marketing.

Hire a Professional

Investment in a professional website can be large or small, nevertheless must be fulfilled in order to succeed. There are many factors to consider when starting a website. Just owning one isn’t enough. The look, content, functionality, ease of use, search engine optimization, security, marketing, proper hosting, and so on are all requirements that only an experienced developer can satisfy and help you understand them. For instance, we not only build a website to meet a client’s needs but also suggest new solutions that we believe can further help you.

Exposure!

After your website is complete, the next step is to expose it. First you will want to submit your website to major search engines like Google and Yahoo. It can take up to 2-3 weeks for it to be indexed and appear in search engines (may take less if advanced SEO is applied). It is normal for results by keywords to take longer. For example John’s laptops website may not appear in the first week when he searches “buy affordable laptops online”. Eventually it will but it may not have a high rank if there is more competition. In order to have a high rank there are certain solutions you can apply. For examples please read our Free Online Marketing article.

Promotion

Exposure doesn’t have to be online only. If you just started your business, appoint people to your website offline as well. Pass brochures or business cards with your website address printed on them. Tell your friends, family, and any potential clients. If one person is satisfied with your services or products, he/she will recommend you to someone else and eventually you will form clients. After you collect a substantial budget via your website, you can take one step further and sign up for premium online marketing.

Google Adwords

In essence, Google Adwords is an online advertising program that  helps you promote your website by placing your text or image ads on other websites relevant to your keywords as well as the Google search results page. Adwords offers pay by click advertising, meaning that every time someone clicks on your ads, there will be a small withdraw from your budget. Please visit the Adwords website for detailed information. Below is one of many video testimonials about a new business owner who effectively used Adwords.

As you may have imagined, Google Adwords has the potential to tremendously boost your revenue if however, you offer services or products that people want and professionally.

Keep Your Website Fresh!

Now that you’re satisfied with the amount of people your website is attracting, don’t neglect it. It can become unpopular in less time than what it took you to raise its rank. Keep your website updated with new articles, offers, and promotions. If you’re earning good revenue you can even hire online administrators to do it for you.

A Scam in General

An online scam typically involves a claim that you can make incredible amounts of money with little effort. In order to dodge such schemes, you should always treat a website like an establishment. You wouldn’t purchase car insurance from an office made out of cardboard so why would you do business via a website that looks like this…

Visible Traits

Up front, the overall design of the website is just a landing page. A landing page is like an online brochure and has the following traits:  Big bold fonts, centered content, and usually a Web form or a different medium of contact. Remember, almost all landing pages are bogus. A legitimate organization or person will always have a professional website or at least afford to pay a professional designer to make one. Another red flag that raises speculation is the excessive use of images with money or other desired things. Be also wary of small animations (like the small man wielding a stack of cash or the dollar sign waving merrily). They’re not considered professional and you most certainly don’t want them prancing atop your credit card information.

Too good to be true!

Next we actually read the content. If it’s a scam you’ll see a lot of bold claims and slogans about becoming rich quick; really a desperate effort to convince the reader. The scammer will not immediately communicate any intention to collect your money but will try and persuade you further into the scheme. If you follow their steps you will eventually be asked to pay a certain amount of money to enroll in a certain kind of opportunity.

Credibility

Lastly, look for any proof of authentication. Most legit websites might have certification badges on their pages which declare them 100% true. Don’t be fooled though, scam websites can easily include these certifications as well and seem official. Some scammers will even claim to be endorsed by trusted organizations. For example they might add, “as seen on CNN, The NY Times, and Oprah!” – unless Oprah can vouch for them, don’t spend a dime!

Another red flag are bogus testimonials, some with pictures of happy people, perhaps the proud new owner of a  Hummer. There’s no easy way to tell if these people are real or part of a scam. A legit website will have more than one page, and share a lot of legal information.  The most transparent scam website will  just include a generic Privacy Policy link at the bottom to give a sense of assurance.

The Gist

The Internet is a powerful medium which you can use to generate a fortune but not without effort. Bogus opportunities are easy to dodge if you properly investigate them and just use common sense.

Simply submit your website’s URL to major search engines like Google, Yahoo, Ask, etc. The process is easy. www.freewebsubmission.com offers auto submission to the highest-rated Internet Search Engines.

2. Share interesting content

A website’s rank on search engines is determined by the number of its visitors. If your website attracts many visitors you will have a high rank in search engines, meaning that your website will appear before others. In order to generate high traffic you will need to keep your website updated with interesting content. Post articles, tutorials, events, and anything else related to your activity. Provided that you share compelling content, you can easily popularize your website by integrating it with a blog. Blogs are great for posting and managing new content.

3. List your website

If you’re offering services or products, potential customers from your area visit online directories like Google Maps Local Business, Yahoo Local, or the YellowPages Web Directory to find a local business. List your business website on all the free leading Web directories and get noticed!

4. Link Exchange

Major search engines like Google and Yahoo measure incoming links to your website so they can determine how relevant you are to search words. Your website’s credibility and rankings become higher if you are linked to popular websites. Try to form affiliations with websites within your category or those that can benefit from your content. The easiest way to gain link popularity is to request reciprocal links.

5. Make your website social

Encourage interaction on your website by using a blog or forum. Setting up a social tool can be easy but direct integration with your website may require a professional.

6. Social networking

Online communities like Facebook, Twitter, or Linkedin are very popular and good for exposure. Sign up  and post content linking to your website.

7. Participate in online communities

People share interesting topics on blogs and forums. Participate in these social communities and provide links to your website. (Do not post unsolicited links – spam) Join communities on which you can post links relevant to discussions.

8. Use signatures

A signature in a forum or email is information included at the very bottom of your message. Signatures are great for promoting your website every time you post a message. Some forums get thousands of visits each day. Include a link in your signature and you can bring high traffic to your website.

9. Answer questions

Yahoo Answers, Answers.com, and Answerbag are popular websites where people ask questions that you can answer. Visit these websites, search for questions relevant to your activity, and share your knowledge. You can provide a link to your website as a source of information.

Online Marketing

People nowadays use the Internet as a primary source for gathering, sharing, and inquiring information. Businesses are aware of this growing trend and benefit from online marketing. There are unlimited solutions available. Exposure is mainly accomplished via major search engines like Google, Yahoo, or Ask. By using effective online marketing,  you won’t spend most of your time finding clients – they’ll find you!

Time-Efficiency!

Your website for example, can store all the information you want to share with everyone. If people are interested in the services, products, or information you offer you can simply appoint them to your website. Websites can also be used for automated payments. Paypal and other payment systems make it easy for you to securely accept and send payments online in minutes.

Small Investment

Websites are like offices (worldwide offices!) and can cost little money to make. The largest portion of your expenses will go towards design and development. Some websites might cost thousands of dollars to make and others only a few hundred dollars. The actual cost will vary depending upon what functions you want your website to perform. Keeping your website online is the least expensive – it’s extremely affordable! On average you will pay around 70 dollars per year for hosting.

Credibility

It has become a standard for a business to own a website. Without one you are virtually invisible! A website communicates professionalism (or lack of professionalism if poorly made).  Things that make a website professional can be an appealing design, well written content, images, testimonials, easy contact mediums, support, and automated payments via secure systems.