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10 Key Strategies for Success in a Home Based Business
Copyright 2005 Geoffrey Young
When you finally decide to work from home in an internet based
business, you will need to follow certain steps to be successful.
Following are the basic steps in setting up for home business
success.
1....
Creating A User-Friendly Website
In my last article, I stated several facts about the importance of having a developed search engine friendly website. The website would be visually pleasing and at the same time optimized for high search engine rankings. It stated the differences...
I Don’t Smoke, But I Love a Good .sig!
Copyright 2005 Jonathan van Clute .sig, or “Dot Sig” as it’s affectionately known, stands for “Signature File” and is the text and (usually) other contact information placed at the bottom of email or other computer-based correspondence. It is...
If you Sell a Product, Use Online Marketing, Part 2
If you Sell a Product, Use Online Marketing, Part 2 Judy Cullins ©2003 All Rights Reserved. When you offer your products via an email campaign to get people to visit your Web site, or sell direct through email, you reap many rewards--you...
Writing Articles to Gain Link Popularity and Increase Trust and Credibility – The Secret Most Overlook and do it Wrong.
As I look through my various forum links and review some of my company email, I keep coming across questions relating to generating inbound links to increase web site ranking. No matter who you are, if you have a web site online you are always...
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Online Marketing: A Busy Person’s Guide
Managing your online business is a full-time job. Unfortunately, most people have other responsibilities that prevent them from devoting all their attention to e-commerce.
If your time is limited, here are five things you must do to keep your revenue flowing:
1. Keep content updated
Nothing signals a neglected business like old content. If you walked into a retail store that had dusty signs and old merchandise you’d turn around and walk out. You would instantly know that the service would be poor and the merchandise unacceptable. A neglected website signals the same things. The only thing your online customer can judge is what they see on the screen. They have no idea you work late into the night improving your product. Make sure to do simple things like updating your copyrights to the current year and removing references to holidays that have passed. Which leads us to our next topic—promotions.
2. Develop frequent promotions
Excite your customers whenever possible. People respond to novelty. Create new promotions as often as you can. Even slight changes make a difference. A discount, a bundle, anything that says “ALL NEW” will catch their eye. If you get into the habit of constantly revising the way your products are merchandised, you will have a much stronger sense of what works. Which leads us to our next topic—testing.
3. Test and revise
In my marketing business, I have seen companies spend hours in meetings deciding what words to use and how to position a product. Often it is based on nothing more than a strongly held position by an aggressive staff member. The arguing continues until the loudest staffer gets his way. This is not the way to make decisions about your website. The only true way to know if something works is to test and revise it. If you are not tracking promotions you are simply devoting time to a hobby. This
is not to say that intuition should be ignored. It should be tried and tested to determine whether your customer sees things the way you think they do. Which leads us to our next topic—feedback.
4. Get feedback from your customers
If you want to know what your customers think you have to ask them. It’s not complicated. I guarantee that sometime in your career you will be shocked by how customers perceive something differently from you. I use the word ‘shocked’ advisedly. Sometimes you will be so close to a product that the obvious benefit or flaw escapes you completely. This is not a good experience, but it will encourage you to see how your customers view your offers. Which leads us to our next topic—buying.
5. Make buying easy
Your main goal for your website is to get people to buy something. You have a service or a product that needs to be purchased. Is it easy to buy? Do you require lots of extraneous information that you don’t use? Think long and hard about what your buying process should look like. Check out how the largest companies sell their products online. They streamline the process so that people don’t get frustrated and give up along the way. This should be your goal. Don’t feel you need to make the purchase seem ‘important’ by requiring lots of unnecessary steps. Amazon has reaped the benefits of "1-Click" ordering.
If you pay attention to these five areas, you should not feel guilty when you devote your time to other parts of the business. Which leads us to the final conclusion—make it fun! Busy people need fun too.
About the author:
Digital Media Works, Inc.(http://www.DigMediaWorks.com ) is an Internet marketing and design firm. A seasoned 25+ year management/marketing professional, founder Stephanie Diamond, former AOL Marketing Director, is experienced in building profits.
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