The Top Ten Steps to Springboarding Your eBusiness - Part
1
by Kamau Austin
Published on this site: October 7th, 2005 - See
more articles from this month
If you are new to Internet marketing, or even a seasoned web
pro, the correct promotional usage of applications like RSS,
blogs, viral marketing, and ezines, can be confusing. Often
web gurus and pundits overwhelm new website owners with too
many advanced Internet marketing concepts.
New website owners are constantly bombarded with a lot of
information overload, and are unsure exactly how to get their
Internet businesses off the ground.
Even seasoned pros may need to be reminded of some steps
they may have overlooked, or forgotten in helping them establish
their online presence.
Are you confused about what essential eCommerce elements
should be in place to launch your online business? Are you
unsure of the most effective marketing mix for your website?
Usually the following basic ten steps are essential for spring
boarding your Internet businesses to eventual online success.
These ten steps are especially important for those new to
Internet marketing.
- Topical Research
The first thing you should do is search engine keyword research,
forum and group observation, and eBay discovery. You are
looking to see if there is enough interest online in the
business you are launching.
Use http://www.Wordtracker.com
and the http://www.Overture.com
(now Yahoo! Search Marketing) suggestion tools to find if
people are searching for or buying the products and services
you will provide.
Examine Yahoo! groups and forums like About.com, to see
if there are significant numbers of people interested in
what you will be offering. When you visit these groups pay
special attention to the problems people face.
Remember you will have a better chance for a viable business
if you look to solve people's problems. See if you can create
products and services to solve problems like the ones you
observed in the forums.
Discover if your item sells on eBay. You want to sign up
and do an advanced search on eBay to see how many sales
closed on items or services related to yours.
Most importantly you want to note related items sold on
eBay and at what price.
Make sure there are other businesses making money in the
market niche or sector in which your business will operate
to make a profit. The best way to do this is to see if similar
businesses are advertising on a consistent basis.
Advertising is very expensive, especially Pay-Per-Click
advertising. Therefore observe whether other businesses
are buying advertising in your business sector.
If they buy advertising over a significant amount of time,
be assured that they are making enough money to reinvest
into advertising. If there are a lot of long-term advertisers
on the search engines related to your business sector, you
more than likely are entering a viable Internet market.
- Brush Up On Your Web Site Copywriting
Take some copywriting courses online and learn to sell the
benefits and later features of your service. A good place
to do this is http://www.adcopywriting.com
or http://www.successdoctor.com
.
Despite the move to broadband services by many net users,
there are still bandwidth constants for audio and video
online. Therefore what you write on your site will primarily
compel your website users to buy your products or services.
If you overlook the power of compelling sales copy on your
website you will diffuse the impact of your online sales
message. In short your business will suffer from a lack
of sales.
- Familiarize Yourself with HTML
Go to a community college or adult training program and
learn HTML. It is very easy, and only takes a few evenings
to learn. You don't have to become an expert. Just learn
the basics.
You will have a hard time optimizing your site for the search
engines without knowing basic HTML.
By learning the basics of HTML you understand how it relates
to putting your keywords into things like Title, Meta and
Heading Tags. Also you will better understand concepts like
placing your keywords into your anchor text.
Another reason it is a good idea to learn HTML is to install
a Popup script. You want a script the popup blockers cannot
stop.
You will need to know HTML to create a form on your site,
or install a popup window that the popup blockers can't
stop.
- Create No Stop Popups to Capture eMail Addresses
Although popups are controversial they work! Unless you
are a copywriting genius and can create irresistible squeeze
pages, use classy and unstoppable popups.
Popups are usually up to ten times more effective than traditional
forms on web pages!
Plus they are more bearable with a cookie to show them only
once a session on your website. You must of course have
a valuable offer with your ezine to get your site visitors
to share their email addresses.
Most Internet marketers would agree, to be successful in
developing an Internet business you have to develop a responsive
email list. Your ability to sell and profit online is in
direct relation to the responsiveness of your list.
In most cases you will have to learn to sell people on joining
your ezine or email list, before you learn to sell other
products and services on your website.
For example when I take my summer vacation and stop publishing
my ezine sales on my sites almost completely dies!
Despite email filters and declining open rates, ezines are
still effective tools for the soft sell.
Just join an email service with good relations with the
ISPs and make sure people double opt-in to receive your
message. You still should be able to generate profits from
your list if you follow these guidelines.
- Create an Autoresponder Course or Evergreen eZine.
Most people don't usually buy the first time they visit
your site. On average it takes 6 to 8 communications before
a potential customer buys from you.
Therefore I suggest setting up an autoresponder course or
evergreen ezine to capture email addresses. The ultimate
goal of the autoresponder course is to cultivate customers
over time with useful information related to your expertise
or products.
Develop an informative course on the topic or subject of
your business. On the other hand you could have an evergreen
ezine. Both courses and ezines could be delivered via autoresponders.
Evergreen ezines (short for electronic magazines) are created
in advance and emailed to your subscribers automatically
on a regular basis via an autoresponder.
The reason I suggest evergreen ezines over traditional ezines
is you avoid struggling to develop an ezine manually on
a regular basis. Writing a regular ezine even bi-weekly
can be a daunting task to say the least.
If you are not good at writing I would get a college student
to do it for you.
You could also get a freelance writer to write it for you.
It would only cost you a hundred dollars or less from http://www.elance.com
or http://www.rentacoder.com
to get someone to write it for you.
The autoresponder course or evergreen ezine will literally
put your Internet profits on automatic pilot. This is because
it will constantly give you top of mind awareness with your
customers.
Your autoresponder course or evergreen ezine can also be
monetized and work well as info teasers. They could lead
back to your website featuring your products, affiliate
programs, and Adsense™ Ads.
In part 2 of our article you will learn five even more powerful
ways to springboard your business to unstoppable eCommerce
success. Until then learn to focus on these first five basic
steps of eCommerce development, and you're on your way to
selling online in record time!
End of Part 1.
Kamau Austin helps businesses develop search engine
friendly sites as sales tools to build their business. He
is publisher or http://www.SearchEnginePlan.com
and the author of "Always On Top" How to get the
highest search engine ranking for your website... every time!
Pick up his book at http://www.AlwaysOnTopthebook.com
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