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Casual Articles - How Solo Entrepreneurs Can Create Their First First Website for Under $100 Per Year
If you want to see new opportunities for your business and increase your decision-making speed and accuracy, begin by looking outside your own business—even outside your industry—at trends and patterns that you can apply to your own organization. Ask yourself, “How do others do what they do?” The fact is that you can learn from observing others companies’ patterns of how to change, and in turn solve problems, make decisions, and grow your business faster than ever before.A failure to recognize an impending problematic pattern can be just as devastating to a Mom & Pop business as it is to a hospital or NASA or to a CEO’s career. Enron had a pattern of corporate corruption and failure of personal responsibility. MCI had a pattern of bad investment and then later fraud to cover those bad investments. All of these things were patterns which we can look back on in retrospect, as the books are open for everybody, and from outside industries we can say, “It was obvious this was happening.” A
5. Make your site unique. This is tough to accomplish when you're using a template site, but try changing the graphic that's provided as a part of the template. Some of the companies will have a graphics library from which to choose. Or, you can get a short-term subscription to a clip art website like ClipArt.com or buy royalty-free images for as little as $1 each at DreamsTime.com. You can also have a business logo designed to upload onto the site. I've used LogoRama.com with great success.
6. Persuasive content. Remember, people visit websites because they have a problem to solve. Visitors to your website will decide to hang around and browse through your site based on how well you answer the following:
Who am I and why am I qualified to do what I do?
Who is my target market? What are their problems?
Do I fully understand and offer solutions to those problems?
You've got less than 10 seconds to capture a visitor's attention. So, it's imperative that you're speaking directly to your target market on your site and that they get a good sense of who you are and what you offer so that they can get to know, l
1. You MUST promote your website. The Reason? You are competing with many other businesses. You can't just drop your site in humongous Internet pool and expect immediate clicks and sales.2. Basic search engine optimization (SEO) is a minimum you must do for your site, otherwise NO ONE will ever find it.3. SEO + ongoing link building + fresh website content is a lean and mean formula for online success. If your competition is ferocious, you may need to add other components.4. You can promote your website yourself - there are many do-it-yourself resources available, subscribe to Internet marketing newsletters, build links, keep learning and experimenting, but don't kid yourself - it is time-consuming.5. If you decide to hire professional help, start with your web development company - see if they provide search engine optimization and website promotion services or if they can recommend someone who does.6. Your website promotion doesn't have to be expensive, b
Here's the process and technology needed to get you started on your first website:
1. Research your competition. If you don't already know know who comprises your competition, this is a great time to learn about them. Go to your favorite search engine and type in keywords that someone might use when looking for a business like yours. If you serve a local clientele, don't forgot to include your location in your keyword search.
Check out the websites that appear on the front page. What do you like about what you see? What doesn't appeal to you? What do you offer that is different than their offerings? Use these sites as a starting point for designing your own. This is not an invitation for you to plagiarize the content on another site. That content is copyrighted by the owner of the site and you can cause yourself a great deal of harm by lifting the content on one site and transferring it to your own. You should use what you discover as a model for developing a site that is very uniquely you.
2. Map out the pages on your site. Most brochures sites for service businesses start with 5 pages: Home, Services, Resources (or Free Stuff), About Us, and Contact. These five areas are a great beginning that answers the who, what, where, why, and WIIFM (what's in it for me--your visitor) questions about your business. After publishing your initial site, you may want to add an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to answer all those repetitive questions you get via email or phone calls, as well as a testimonials page so that you visitor can read about how you've helped other clients.
3. Use a hosting service that provides template websites. While an attractive initial website can be created by a web designer for as little as $350, that is still more than many solo entrepreneurs want to spend. When I created my first web site, I designed it from scratch using a very low cost website design program and free graphic resources available online. I then had some custom work done and was very dissatisfied with the results. From there I moved on to using pre-made templates for Microsoft Frontpage and have been using customized versions of those since that time for all of my sites.
However, while a customized template can be purchased for as little as $150, you still have to invest time into learning some web design program, which is a greater investment than most solo entrepreneurs want to make. That's why I suggest that many of my clients use a company providing hosting as well as an online interface for website design, creation, and updates. This type of service enables anyone who's familiar with a Microsoft Word to log in and create content, add images, and add pages to their very own website. The major providers of this type of service include GoDaddy, Yahoo Small Business, 1and1 Web Hosting. Another reputable company, SiteSell.com offers another all-one-option, but it's considerably more expensive than the others I have listed.
At a minimum, the services that you'll want in your hosting/design package include: hosting for 1 domain, 5 GB of space, 200 GB of monthly transfer volume (tied to how many visitors your site has), at least 100 templates to pick from in the website builder, 10 email accounts, 10 MB storage per email account, 24/7 support, and basic website statistics.
The downsides of this service are 1. you may end up with a website that looks like others online who've used this same service/template, and 2. the site design belongs to your hosting company, so you can't take the website with you if you choose to change hosting companies. However, once you've become more familiar with what's involved in designing a site, you can decide to further customize it or upgrade to a custom designed site at any point in time.
4. Determine the look and feel you want to convey. Are you serious or playful? Are your clients other businesses or consumers? What colors appeal to you? Make sure that your site is a good representation of your personality. This is part of the online relationship building that you're beginning, so you should love the look of your site and feel good about visitors being there.
5. Make your site unique. This is tough to accomplish when you're using a template site, but try changing the graphic that's provided as a part of the template. Some of the companies will have a graphics library from which to choose. Or, you can get a short-term subscription to a clip art website like ClipArt.com or buy royalty-free images for as little as $1 each at DreamsTime.com. You can also have a business logo designed to upload onto the site. I've used LogoRama.com with great success.
6. Persuasive content. Remember, people visit websites because they have a problem to solve. Visitors to your website will decide to hang around and browse through your site based on how well you answer the following:
Who am I and why am I qualified to do what I do?
Who is my target market? What are their problems?
Do I fully understand and offer solutions to those problems?
You've got less than 10 seconds to capture a visitor's attention. So, it's imperative that you're speaking directly to your target market on your site and that they get a good sense of who you are and what you offer so that they can get to know, li
My opinion is that the best way to build a brand is through a self-written SEO article marketing, because there you can really express yourself as an internet home business ideas marketer and gather a family of fans around yourself.1.First People Must Buy You, Then The Product.The internet is an amazing marketplace, the biggest in the world. That is the surrounding, the competition, where you have to make a difference for your internet home business ideas. Sounds impossible? Not at all! You just separate yourself by building a unique and powerful brand for your niche. The proven and best way is to use your own personality, because that is a 100 % unique brand.2.Your Target Group Wants To Know Who Is Their Master.By executing SEO article marketing, you can easily reach the amazing amount of large benefits. I already mentioned the brand building, another benefit is that you will reach huge amount of new markets, niches, by using a large amount of rela
2. Map out the pages on your site. Most brochures sites for service businesses start with 5 pages: Home, Services, Resources (or Free Stuff), About Us, and Contact. These five areas are a great beginning that answers the who, what, where, why, and WIIFM (what's in it for me--your visitor) questions about your business. After publishing your initial site, you may want to add an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page to answer all those repetitive questions you get via email or phone calls, as well as a testimonials page so that you visitor can read about how you've helped other clients.
3. Use a hosting service that provides template websites. While an attractive initial website can be created by a web designer for as little as $350, that is still more than many solo entrepreneurs want to spend. When I created my first web site, I designed it from scratch using a very low cost website design program and free graphic resources available online. I then had some custom work done and was very dissatisfied with the results. From there I moved on to using pre-made templates for Microsoft Frontpage and have been using customized versions of those since that time for all of my sites.
However, while a customized template can be purchased for as little as $150, you still have to invest time into learning some web design program, which is a greater investment than most solo entrepreneurs want to make. That's why I suggest that many of my clients use a company providing hosting as well as an online interface for website design, creation, and updates. This type of service enables anyone who's familiar with a Microsoft Word to log in and create content, add images, and add pages to their very own website. The major providers of this type of service include GoDaddy, Yahoo Small Business, 1and1 Web Hosting. Another reputable company, SiteSell.com offers another all-one-option, but it's considerably more expensive than the others I have listed.
At a minimum, the services that you'll want in your hosting/design package include: hosting for 1 domain, 5 GB of space, 200 GB of monthly transfer volume (tied to how many visitors your site has), at least 100 templates to pick from in the website builder, 10 email accounts, 10 MB storage per email account, 24/7 support, and basic website statistics.
The downsides of this service are 1. you may end up with a website that looks like others online who've used this same service/template, and 2. the site design belongs to your hosting company, so you can't take the website with you if you choose to change hosting companies. However, once you've become more familiar with what's involved in designing a site, you can decide to further customize it or upgrade to a custom designed site at any point in time.
4. Determine the look and feel you want to convey. Are you serious or playful? Are your clients other businesses or consumers? What colors appeal to you? Make sure that your site is a good representation of your personality. This is part of the online relationship building that you're beginning, so you should love the look of your site and feel good about visitors being there.
5. Make your site unique. This is tough to accomplish when you're using a template site, but try changing the graphic that's provided as a part of the template. Some of the companies will have a graphics library from which to choose. Or, you can get a short-term subscription to a clip art website like ClipArt.com or buy royalty-free images for as little as $1 each at DreamsTime.com. You can also have a business logo designed to upload onto the site. I've used LogoRama.com with great success.
6. Persuasive content. Remember, people visit websites because they have a problem to solve. Visitors to your website will decide to hang around and browse through your site based on how well you answer the following:
Who am I and why am I qualified to do what I do?
Who is my target market? What are their problems?
Do I fully understand and offer solutions to those problems?
You've got less than 10 seconds to capture a visitor's attention. So, it's imperative that you're speaking directly to your target market on your site and that they get a good sense of who you are and what you offer so that they can get to know, l
A Double Ad Tracker is an Ad-Tracker that points to an AD-Tracker. It may sound a bit like overkill to have an Ad-Tracker Pointing at another Ad-Tracker but it's not crazy.The Type of double Ad-Tracker this article discusses is where you have a Re-Direct Link from your Domain Pointing at a Re-Direct Link from a 3rd party weather it is free or Paid. Here is an Example of a Double Tracking. Step 1 Build the Free TrackerBuild the Free Ad Tracker (http://www.AdGizmo.com/track.php?17869) and have it point at the Web Site we actually want to display (http://www.trafficninja.com/article-submit.html)Step 2 Now for The Double TrackNow use your Mange re-directs from the C Panel of your domain to point a re-direct at the Free Tracker. In this case http://ewguru.com/doubletrack will point at http://www.AdGizmo.com/track.php?17869 We will now explore 7 Reasons why you should Create Double Ad Trackers.1 - Free Tracker
However, while a customized template can be purchased for as little as $150, you still have to invest time into learning some web design program, which is a greater investment than most solo entrepreneurs want to make. That's why I suggest that many of my clients use a company providing hosting as well as an online interface for website design, creation, and updates. This type of service enables anyone who's familiar with a Microsoft Word to log in and create content, add images, and add pages to their very own website. The major providers of this type of service include GoDaddy, Yahoo Small Business, 1and1 Web Hosting. Another reputable company, SiteSell.com offers another all-one-option, but it's considerably more expensive than the others I have listed.
At a minimum, the services that you'll want in your hosting/design package include: hosting for 1 domain, 5 GB of space, 200 GB of monthly transfer volume (tied to how many visitors your site has), at least 100 templates to pick from in the website builder, 10 email accounts, 10 MB storage per email account, 24/7 support, and basic website statistics.
The downsides of this service are 1. you may end up with a website that looks like others online who've used this same service/template, and 2. the site design belongs to your hosting company, so you can't take the website with you if you choose to change hosting companies. However, once you've become more familiar with what's involved in designing a site, you can decide to further customize it or upgrade to a custom designed site at any point in time.
4. Determine the look and feel you want to convey. Are you serious or playful? Are your clients other businesses or consumers? What colors appeal to you? Make sure that your site is a good representation of your personality. This is part of the online relationship building that you're beginning, so you should love the look of your site and feel good about visitors being there.
5. Make your site unique. This is tough to accomplish when you're using a template site, but try changing the graphic that's provided as a part of the template. Some of the companies will have a graphics library from which to choose. Or, you can get a short-term subscription to a clip art website like ClipArt.com or buy royalty-free images for as little as $1 each at DreamsTime.com. You can also have a business logo designed to upload onto the site. I've used LogoRama.com with great success.
6. Persuasive content. Remember, people visit websites because they have a problem to solve. Visitors to your website will decide to hang around and browse through your site based on how well you answer the following:
Who am I and why am I qualified to do what I do?
Who is my target market? What are their problems?
Do I fully understand and offer solutions to those problems?
You've got less than 10 seconds to capture a visitor's attention. So, it's imperative that you're speaking directly to your target market on your site and that they get a good sense of who you are and what you offer so that they can get to know, l
It's no mystery anymore. Actually it never has been. There's an excellent reason why you keep hearing "the money is in the list." Squeeze page may be a weird name, but you'll see them everywhere. Building an opt in email list can be a daunting prospect for a new marketer, but squeeze pages are the way to do it.Why squeeze page as a name? I believe the name comes out of a perception that getting an email address - a sign up to an opt in email list, is like squeezing blood from a stone. But, it isn't really that hard, if you're doing what you should. To get you have to give. Why should someone give up their email address to you except in anticipation of getting valuable information? Ultimately, the squeeze is that they also have to give to receive. This basic principle often gets overlooked by marketers once they get a list. A list isn't a cash machine. It's a collection of real people with real needs and real goals and as a marketer your job is to help them
The downsides of this service are 1. you may end up with a website that looks like others online who've used this same service/template, and 2. the site design belongs to your hosting company, so you can't take the website with you if you choose to change hosting companies. However, once you've become more familiar with what's involved in designing a site, you can decide to further customize it or upgrade to a custom designed site at any point in time.
4. Determine the look and feel you want to convey. Are you serious or playful? Are your clients other businesses or consumers? What colors appeal to you? Make sure that your site is a good representation of your personality. This is part of the online relationship building that you're beginning, so you should love the look of your site and feel good about visitors being there.
5. Make your site unique. This is tough to accomplish when you're using a template site, but try changing the graphic that's provided as a part of the template. Some of the companies will have a graphics library from which to choose. Or, you can get a short-term subscription to a clip art website like ClipArt.com or buy royalty-free images for as little as $1 each at DreamsTime.com. You can also have a business logo designed to upload onto the site. I've used LogoRama.com with great success.
6. Persuasive content. Remember, people visit websites because they have a problem to solve. Visitors to your website will decide to hang around and browse through your site based on how well you answer the following:
Who am I and why am I qualified to do what I do?
Who is my target market? What are their problems?
Do I fully understand and offer solutions to those problems?
You've got less than 10 seconds to capture a visitor's attention. So, it's imperative that you're speaking directly to your target market on your site and that they get a good sense of who you are and what you offer so that they can get to know, l
Where is the Future in Search going? With all the Social media. Web History, Personalized search results,Image search,Mash ups. Is it all too much? The answer is yes and noYes all these things are overwhelming but in this fast world and with the latest algorythms, we have to keep up with all these changes and updates. Now a days we use the web more and more and search more, Some of the ways the search engines help us is by simplyfying the way we do search and the way they give us the results,As a searchers we have one thing in mind that is we want relevant results and thats the same way the Search engines think too. Due to some people who are trying to trick the search engines, the search engines change the way they show results, It is all better thou to give us as searchers good relevant results. What does that mean to us as a searcher?Well that means that we will be getting more relevant results from search engines. But from a SEO point of view this might change, as SE
5. Make your site unique. This is tough to accomplish when you're using a template site, but try changing the graphic that's provided as a part of the template. Some of the companies will have a graphics library from which to choose. Or, you can get a short-term subscription to a clip art website like ClipArt.com or buy royalty-free images for as little as $1 each at DreamsTime.com. You can also have a business logo designed to upload onto the site. I've used LogoRama.com with great success.
6. Persuasive content. Remember, people visit websites because they have a problem to solve. Visitors to your website will decide to hang around and browse through your site based on how well you answer the following:
Who am I and why am I qualified to do what I do?
Who is my target market? What are their problems?
Do I fully understand and offer solutions to those problems?
You've got less than 10 seconds to capture a visitor's attention. So, it's imperative that you're speaking directly to your target market on your site and that they get a good sense of who you are and what you offer so that they can get to know, like, and trust you and eventually buy from you. If you're not clear and confuse them, they'll be gone in a flash.
7. Create a contact capturing device. To make the most of your traffic, you need a contact capturing device to gather the name and email addresses of your visitors to begin to create a contact list. Typically this is done by offering visitors the opportunity to join your mailing list, subscribe to your email newsletter, get a freebie you're giving away. You can use an email broadcast program to do this for you, like EzineDirector.com or ConstantContact.com, through a discussion list program like GoogleGroups or YahooGroups, through a shopping cart program like Kickstart Cart, or a sequential autoresponder company like aWeber.
Pick wisely when you choose your contact capturing service. You want your subscriber to opt-in just once to your list. Any change of providers will force your list to opt-in again to your list at a new service, and you can anticipate losing at least 50% of your list when you change providers. Your contact list is your online gold mine, so make it as easy as possible for you to stay in contact with them.
8. Plan for future upgrades. Will you eventually sell products online? Get a service that permits an upgrade to an ecommerce package. What about blogging? Are you interested in creating podcasts? Do you want to create an online discussion forum? How about an RSS feed of the articles you write? Begin to think now about what your marketing plans will be a year from now, and invest in a service that will allow you to add services as you become more savvy to Internet marketing techniques.
Creating your first website doesn't have to be a daunting nor expensive task. Here's a summary of yearly costs if you follow the plan outlined above: Domain purchase/renewal $10, Website Design/Hosting Package $70, Short-term subscription to clip art site: $16, and Online contact management service: $0 (up to 250 subscribers). Total cost: $96. If your business isn't yet online, now you've got an easy, inexpensive plan to create your online presence.
Copyright (c) 2006 Donna Gunter
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