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By Terry Dean
This article is quite a
bit different from our usual publication. Instead of showing
you how to succeed, today I am going to show you how to
fail.
Below are seven recipes
for the surefire failure of your web site. I will show you
how to cure each of these faulty recipes underneath each
listing.
Once you know the steps
that cause failure, you can avoid them.
Failure Recipe #1: Sell
Something You Don't Understand.
Do you want to know one
of my pet peeves? It is when someone comes to me asking
how they should sell the new book they wrote on "Internet
marketing."
My question is...If they
wrote the book on it, why are they asking for my advice?
This is a Surefire recipe
for Internet failure...You shouldn't be trying to sell something
you don't know, understand, and aren't an expert in.
In other words, don't sell
an Internet marketing product if you haven't made money
in Internet marketing.
Don't jump on a business
opportunity just because someone you know is promoting it.
Find something that you love. Then, build a business out
of that.
If you love gardening,
then find a way to develop a web site and product around
that. If you love mountain bikes, then create a web site
about that.
If you are always on the
golf course, then create a theme out of that. Review golf
courses and golf clubs. Sell golf videos on your site. Joint
Venture with a travel company and offer golf getaways.
The most successful online
sites are not in the "business opportunity" field.
They are special interest sites built around specific themes.
Failure Recipe #2: Don't
Add Your Personality.
Don't try to compete with
corporate sites with your little $100 domain. They have
the huge advertising budget to overcome their site mistakes,
but you don't. You must use your secret weapon...YOU.
Many people are ashamed
to do this, but you absolutely have to add a little bit
of you into your web sites. Your visitors are not looking
for another corporate site. They are looking for real solutions
to their problems, and they want them to come from a real
human being.
Include your name on your
site. Give your phone number and personal email address.
Tell them facts about why they should listen to you. What
experiences or credibility do you have in the field?
When you write something
for your site, let it include your personality. Include
your opinions. In other words, be interesting to the people
who visit you.
Failure Recipe #3: Ignore
Your Traffic Stats.
Where does most of your
traffic come from? Ask that question of 90% of the webmasters
out there, and they will just give you a blank look. They
have no idea where their traffic comes from.
This is a serious mistake
and one you will have to correct if you have any ambitions
for your site at all. Virtually every hosting company you
could possibly purchase your site from comes with some type
of tracking features. If you don't know what your hosting
company currently offers, ask them.
Examine your stats to find
out where your traffic is coming from. What search engines
do they use to find you? What keywords did they use? Who
else is linking to you?
Which pages do they visit
first? Which section of your web site do they go to the
most after they visit the front page? These are the types
of questions your traffic stats should be telling you.
Once you have a chance
to look at them, increase promotion in whatever areas are
working. If you notice that you are getting a lot of hits
from a specific search engine, increase your promotion on
that engine. If you receive most of your hits through links
on other sites, then work more on creating links.
If you notice your traffic
surges every time an ezine publishes one of your articles,
then send out more articles for ezines to use. Keep on doing
whatever is currently working for you! Cancel the rest.
Failure Recipe #4: Don't
Collect Email Addresses.
Sites which only have one
shot to sell their visitors are eventually going to fail.
You have to create a sales system where you can follow up
on them again and again.
The best way to do this
is to create your own ezine. You could also offer a special
series of reports which are sent out to your prospects by
email every couple of days or every week. Either method
will increase your web site sales and increase your profits.
Think about it this way.
If you can't get a prospect to commit to you by giving you
their email address, then there is no way you can sell something
to that prospect. So, focus on collecting the email address
when someone visits your site.
Offer your ezine (or your
special series of reports) on every page your of site. Give
free ebook bonuses for subscribing. Offer other incentives
for subscribing. Build the list and at the same time make
your first product offer to them. So, you are still doing
a sales presentation, but you get to follow-up at the same
time.
I will venture to say that
your actual web site serves two primary purposes. It is
there to give you the basic credibility so that they subscribe
to your email publication, and it is there to help you take
online orders. For most businesses, those are the two most
effective purposes of the entire site!
Failure Recipe #5: Sell
Shoddy Products.
If you are out to fail,
then sell some shoddy products. It used to be said that
if one customer had a bad experience they would tell 10
of their friends about it. Now, with the global efficiency
of the Internet, instead of them just telling their friends,
they may tell thousands of people about it.
When you sell a really
good product, the news gets around. When you sell a poor
product, the news gets around even faster.
So, make sure any product
you sell is your best work. Figure out a way to add additional
bonuses to it. Give the customer more than they expected.
You have to "WOW" them.
Give them faster shipping
then they expected. Purchase reprint rights to someone else's
product to throw in as a bonus. Call them up and ask them
if they need anything else. Go beyond the call of duty and
your name will begin to become well known around the Internet.
Failure Recipe #6: Build
It and Sit on It.
The phrase "Build
It and They Will Come" is a great statement to use
in a movie, but it doesn't work on the web. Too many webmasters
spend thousands of dollars building a web site, and then
they sit on it. They don't do anything with it.
If you want traffic, then
you have to go out and get the traffic. There are two commodities
that you can use to build traffic to your site:
#1: You can spend money
building traffic through offline advertising, banner ads,
ezine ads, and the like.
#2: You can spend time
writing articles to submit to ezines, participating in forums,
exchanging links, etc.
Spending your time is actually
more productive in 90% of cases then spending your money,
but either way it does cost you something. If you want traffic,
you have to advertise.
Failure Recipe #7: Do
What Everyone Else is Doing.
Most Internet marketing
methods only work until everyone knows about them. Innovations
only last so long on the web. For example, it used to be
really easy to get top positions on the search engines.
Now, you really have to work to get those positions because
every market has thousands of competitors who know the secrets
to search engine marketing.
You have to do something
a little bit wild and unique to build your traffic bases
in most cases. You have to come up with your own ideas and
not just rely on what a few select gurus are telling you.
If a guru tells a method
for building traffic, then you can rest assured that thousands
of marketers will soon be using that exact method for building
traffic. Although the method will still work, it won't work
as well as when it was first invented because of the increased
competition.
Learn to use your mind...and
then success in your business will follow.
Terry Dean, a 5 year veteran
of Internet marketing, will Take You By The Hand and Show
You Exact Results of All the Internet Marketing Techniques
he tests and Uses Every Single Month" Click here to
Find Out More:
http://www.alphabizweb.com/netbreakthroughs.html
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