So you’ve been thinking about creating your own website so you can earn money like all the rest of those Internet marketing gurus out there. Can you make it happen? What will it take to accomplish that goal?
How Big is the World Wide Web?
It’s a scary thought to jump into the fray that is known as the World Wide Web. Exactly what does it look like out there? It’s no secret that the growth of the Internet is exploding. It is used by the smallest entity, such as a family posting their family vacation photos, to the most massive corporations like Coca-Cola and Nike.
Because the Internet is in such a fluid state (sites being put up and taken down every second) it’s difficult to measure its exact size. However, in 2007 a respected survey company called Netcraft Web Server Survey made an attempt to number existing websites. The best they could come up with was over 108 million. Whether that number is correct or not is beside the point. The point is, it is big, and because of this fact, how will you even find your place? And how can you compete with the big boys to earn your piece of the Internet profit pie?
Techniques
If you were to open a new restaurant in the trendy part of your town or city, you would obviously be faced with the fact that 1. there will be competition, and 2. unless you advertise and promote, no one will know you even exist. There will be marketing techniques you must learn, such as how to design the décor of your restaurant to appeal to the best customers; how to offer the best products (your culinary delights) to please the customers; how to understand money management, accounting, advertising and so on. It’s no different when marketing online.
Planning Stages
Before you even begin to build a web site, you must decide what you want to accomplish and how will you accomplish it? While the basic goal is to earn an income from the website, what is it that you will be offering through your web pages? Will it be products, services, or information? Will this be items of your own design, or will you be an affiliate for another company? Will your site enable visitors to make the purchase at your site, or will your site be a landing page which leads them to where the purchase can be made?
Once you have answered these questions and have your goals clearly in mind, you will be ready for the next step – building the site.
Building your Web Site
How are your web-building skills? Are you creative and handy with HTML code and layout design? Or will you need help? One answer is to hire a website designer. This is if you have the cash to pay for one. The good news is there are many varieties of website-building software available and many are free. Nearly all of them offer a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) web editor to create the pages. It’s as easy as typing into a Word document. A little research and you’ll have the tools needed to create the site you need. Once you find the right software you can have a site online in less than a day.
Wooing Visitors
Let’s say you are highly interested in automotive products. Perhaps you’ve been rebuilding old cars all your life. On your website, you can offer hard-to-find parts and accessories. You will then create ads or product links for a number of different merchants whose products you represent by using a snippet of Web code downloaded from the retailer.
How many affiliate programs can you locate that are in your niche? As your marketing knowledge grows and improves, so will your website. You will be adding page after page after page presenting your visitors with the exact products they are looking for. Additionally, you may offer industry news, a free newsletter, ebooks and other informational items.
In order for your visitors to find you, you will need promotion and exposure. This is done in a wide variety of ways. There many online marketing guides and ebooks from which you can glean dozens of ideas. You may begin with articles and blogs which will have within them imbedded links to your website. You may want to purchase pay-per-click, AdWords, banners, or advertising in ezines. Only you can decide which direction to go with promotion. The key is persistence. It will take time to build up your audience. Without a doubt, the hardest part of earning money from your own site is getting people to visit. This is where you will need to invest the most time and effort. Never give up! But be aware, once you build up a trust relationship with your visitors, they will come back. Once the hardest part is done, and you can then reap the rewards.
Summary
And now that you’ve created one website with one niche and you’ve begun to make sales on a consistent basis, you can do it again. And again. And again. Could you do that with a corner restaurant that you’ve opened? Hardly.
That is the beauty of earning money from your own website on the Internet.
