Online Business Is Easy To Start, Difficult To Sustain & Grow

Let this not sound like a sermon, but each of those words in the heading is indeed true. Just as change is permanent in a person’s life, so is the uncertainty of the future of online business.

If you are a close observer of online happenings, you’ll notice that the tone and tenor of how to flourish an online business has decisively shifted from the emphasis on SEO to that on social media.

No SEO practitioner today will fail to urge you to start tweeting forthwith even if your website lacks certain virtues that search engines like which you need to resolve sooner than later.

The riches that were made by early web marketers and the news going around that the earnings of big-time bloggers have increased despite the present downturn make us oblivious to the pitfalls as we clamor for a piece of real action…and yes, some good earnings in the process.

One of the pitfalls in my considered opinion is the obvious lack of quality in what we are selling, transfixed as we are on the big picture of fortune somewhere in the infinite future.

Here are some ticklish questions I try to answer:

What Brings In Visitors?

People come to a website usually following a search. They are pulled in by the words in the search result about the website. And after arriving do they get what they want?

The answer to this question is worth every penny that the website stands for because if the website does not deliver – at least partially – what it says in its pages that bring in the visitors, then it is not worth being there.

This is where the aspect of quality comes in. To give an example, if your online business promises exciting culinary recipes of Indian origin, then all the pages of your website must excel in providing exact information about Indian foods. There is no point in promising exciting recipes and then offering run-of-the-mill preparations that everyone knows.

Dispel The Myth That Quality Is Tough

Nothing is as misplaced as the notion that offering quality information or product is tough. It’s not, and yet it is. It’s not because really it is not, except that you need to work a bit hard and understand the basic compulsions of a willing customer.

It is tough because it is hard to resist the temptation of quick success. However success doesn’t happen overnight unless you are already a name to reckon with in your chosen field.

More often than not the quality of your website suffers because it is perhaps too broad in scope for managing properly. In contrast if you focus on a niche which you know well and feel confident about, it is more likely that your website’s quality will also improve.

In his WordCamp presentation on May 30 last, Matt Cutts of Google stressed on what he termed as the ‘Katamari’ technique. What it stands for is Start In A Small Niche, Then Build Up, Build Up.

What Makes A Website A Popular Destination?

It’s the value of course. It’s the value that your visitors get for their precious time spent in your website that makes them come back to your site for more.

No two sites are essentially the same, if not in scope, but in priority. You may prioritize certain aspects of your website while your close competitor will have a different set in mind for his website.

The terms of ‘value’ therefore change from one website to another. For a small website, other than the truthfulness, usefulness, and sufficiency of its contents, the value will have these 3 specific parameters:

1. How well the website is structured that makes it easy for the visitors to navigate;

 

2. How SEO-sensible the pages of the website are with regard to keyword research, page optimization, and of course contents;

 

3. How responsive your website is to the new-age mantras like, ‘you guys should do video’, ‘if you are not using twitter you are losing out’, and so on.

There is another important point to consider. Suppose a certain webpage in your site finds great favor in Digg resulting in a sudden spike in traffic to your site. Does that mean your site has at long last matured as a great source of value?

Not really! In fact a website’s value usually goes hand in hand with the concept of popular destination. In other words, a website’s value is judged by not only how much it attains traffic, but also how much it can retain them. The more the visitors are retained, the more is the success of your online business.

How Do You Proceed?

Too much on plate! Don’t worry. What you see above is the full syllabus which is something that every site adheres to. If you already have a website your effort will be geared toward ensuring that the 3 parameters are looked into.

If you do not have a website and you are planning one shortly, or if you have a website but you do not know how to make it user-friendly or SEO-enable, your best bet will be to go for Site-Sell.

What weighs in favor of Site-Sell is that its package includes the who’s who of successful website marketing like domain naming, hosting, designing, keyword searching, keyword brainstorming, search engine optimization, submission to SEs, link building, log file analysis, click tracking, and so much more.

The moot point is if you are diligent there is perhaps no reason why you cannot succeed in making out a good living with your website.

Now, don’t take my word for it! Try out SBI free before you decide to opt for it.

Here is a video on how online business of varying types can be successful with Site Build It!