So You Have Your Online Business Websites. What Now?

Developing a website to make money at home with your online business is a big task and when the job is finished the last thing that we want to hear is that it is full of flaws.

It is best to think of these before you start to develop your site so that each and every bit of text, link or banner is in the best place and looks as professional as possible.

One of the biggest mistakes that online business marketers make is to develop a web site and then think that the only other thing to do is drive traffic to it. They buy some traffic and get onto Traffic Sites surfing for adverts. Thinking they will end up making money online from their new home base business.

Anyone that has been around on the internet long enough knows that there is a huge market in traffic that preys on webmasters for non specific traffic to their site. What good does this do? I am not sure to be honest but after a few hundred dollars and no sales I left the arena having not come to any conclusion.

It is not hard to get a few thousand web site image displays but what we want is hits from people who are interested in our products.

If your website is about selling bulbs for the cottage gardener then getting thousands of hits looking for light bulbs is not going to help your cause. Getting thousands or millions of visitors to your site does not help your Search Engine Optimization either as this highly developed system looks at more than the simple through put of traffic.

Traffic costs money one way or another and it would be better to get ten targeted visitors who are looking for your product and feel happy when they find it than to get thousands of visitors who don't find what they want and leave disgruntled. This is an interesting lesson that most of us have to go through if we don't have a mentor or someone to guide us through the maze.

Another mistake that online business marketers often make is that they develop their website with all their affiliate links and banners so that it looks like a circus flashing and glowing in every direction. There is no central theme and no focus of the site. If most visitors are like me then the time spent on these pages is less than ten seconds and they never entice me to purchase anything.

Other online businesses have web sites that are just plain boring with a list of links that really don't give the visitor any indication of whet to expect if any of the links are clicked.

I often wonder if the developers of these websites have visited their sites and really taken an objective look at them. There needs to be a central point that attracts the visitor's attention and holds them long enough to make the decision to move the cursor away from the 'cross of death' in the top right hand corner.

Without this the modern day surfer is gone and often gone for good.

There is a belief in the online business world that it takes an average of seven visits to your site or one of the pages on your site before a sale is made. Websites that are developed with the expectation of a conversion on the first visit are often kidding themselves regardless of how many time sensitive statements they have threatening the prospect with double prices if they leave the current page.

This is the reason that many online businesses have application forms for people to fill out and verifications of emails because in the time it takes someone to go from the site to their email and back to the next landing page on the site they have seen the brand of the site maybe four times already and the mind is being convinced that the product is for them.

As an online business entrepreneur you get to see many products and some entice you to purchase because you see value in it either for your business or for personal use. One thing that can drive people away even at this late stage of the game is if you have to leave the site to sign up with the merchant account and then verify your email with them before you come back and make a payment.

This is just too difficult and many a shopper has left the mall before payment has been finalized.
Web sites are quickly out of date. Have a look at a site that was made in 2006 and it looks like the Stone Age. It is important that you or your webmaster keeps your site up to date and doesn't let it wallow on the net in a state of disrepair. Remember visitors are constantly assessing your page with every visit. If first impression is that it is dated then you will loose them it is that simple.

This is a quick summary of some of things that we do when we first get a web site. It is not easy to understand all the requirements in the first few months and so many of us have been sold sites that promise automation and turnkey products only to find that we are spending several hours a day optimizing our sites and attempting to get targeted traffic.

All I can say to the beginner is that you need to keep learning. Set yourself a minimal budget in the early days of your site and learn whatever you can from whoever you can. Facebook is an excellent site for finding mentors who can help you through the maze of the early days of being a proud website owner.