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Developing an Internet Business

 
 

Introduction to Internet Marketing

Developing an Internet Business can be a time consuming and frustrating process. Many have tried and many have failed. Yet with the right tools, the right knowledge and a lot of hard word, you can succeed.

After many years of trial and error I am just now beginning to succeed. As my success increases and my enthusiasm increases, my friends have begun to ask me how they can duplicate my work.

As a result of that simple question, I have decided to devote a few pages to the subject. If you are interested in developing an Internet Business but don't know how to start please read on.

The information I am about to reveal has been gathered from many sources. Probably more than I care to admit. Some have been expensive. Some have been free. Some have promised much more than they have delivered. Much of what I paid good money for has been out and out wrong. What I am about to do is Cut Through the C--p and get you started in the right direction.

Right up front, I must tell you that this will cost you some money. If you can't set aside $900 -$1000 for start up expenses then this may not be for you. It will also take you many long hours of work to put everything together. It won't take you as many hours as it has taken me, since I have taken much of the trial and error out of the process. Starting this project is a serious commitment, especially in time.

The advantage is that you can work at your own pace. No one is going to nag you if you skip a day or two. The disadvantage is that no one is going to nag you if skipping a day or two. Funny how that works, isn't it. If skipping a day or two leads to skipping three or four and then five or six, eventually you will become discouraged and quit before you have really gotten started.

The information I am providing is free. All I ask is that you go through my links to make your purchases. Some of them will be affiliate links and I will be paid a commission for referring you to them. Fair Enough - I hope so! I wont recommend anything that I don't believe in.

Index - Web Marketing Concepts We Will be Covering

Some of these topics are still in revision. Please Book Mark this page and return periodically.

Free Tools You can Use Now

There are some neat free tools that you will find useful as you develop your web business. You will be searching the web for Affiliate programs, Link partners, and many other things. Once you get your site up, you will want to keep track of your own site ranking. I recommend that you download the free Alexa toolbar. With this feature added to your browser, you can instantly determine the ranking of the site you are visiting. For more information or to download the toolbar click on the banner below.

The next tool that you will need is the Google Toolbar. This is a bit redundant with the Alexa toolbar but it does have one feature that the Alexa toolbar does not. It can be configured to show page ranking for any page that you visit. It is also free and it takes only seconds to install. For more information click below.

Download Google Toolbar

I will be suggesting other helpful tools as we go along. Without the right tools, you won't be able to accomplish your goals.

Free Download

513 pages of valuable information on web site development. Don't let its large size overwhelm you. It is jam packed with valuable information but it is an easy read. It is in pdf format so you will need the free Acrobat Reader by Adobe if you don't already have it installed on your computer. Right Click the link below and save the file to your computer.  Website Development Action Guide

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Finding a Web Hosting Service

In order to publish a website you must have a Web Host. I have had several hosting services. There are advantages and disadvantages to each of them. I like pair.com for some of my needs. You can get an advanced account for $17.95 a month. One nice feature is that you can add multiple domain names to your advanced account for only a few dollars extra per month.

If you go with pair.com, or almost any other web hosting service, you will need an advanced HTML editor to create your pages. My recommendation (because Its the only one I have used in years) is Microsoft FrontPage. That will set you back about $200.00 and require a reasonable learning curve if you are a beginner.

Especially If you are a novice, and even if you are not, I would recommend you use SiteSell as your Host. SiteSell is so much more than a simple hosting service. They offer additional advantages that no other Web Host offers. They are one of the primary reasons I am realizing the success that I am. I will cover many of their functions as we go along. Even If you already have a site with some other host, I would recommend that you invest the money to host at least one site on SiteSell just so you have access to all the information and resources they offer.

Much of what you learn can be applied to any website once you figure out how to do it correctly. Please check them out at http://sitesell.com/altam.html  .

Its possible to accomplish many of the same things with an alternate host but this is the best package available on the internet. Currently at $499 per year, they offer one of the best all inclusive values around.

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Choosing a Site Concept - Niche Marketing

Choosing a site concept can be easy or difficult depending on your interests and your motivation. If you aren't familial with the term niche marketing, you are about to become so. The whole concept of niche marketing will be your key to internet marketing success. A niche market is one in which you concentrate on a narrowly focused concept.

For Example.
 If you choose to sell books you will be competing with Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble. Books on marketing is a narrower concept. Books on marketing rare and exotic fish is a niche market. The narrower the niche, the less you will have to compete with the big boys. The trick is to find a niche that is narrow enough so that you aren't competing directly with the big boy, yet broad enough so that you get adequate traffic.

By concentrating on a niche, you are able to become the expert or the reference source for you topic. The big boys cant swim in your small pond. In fact one concept

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Choosing a domain name for your website.

While this is usually one of the first things everyone wants to do, it should be put off until you develop fully your site concept. I am assuming that your primary purpose in creating a website is to make money. Even if I'm wrong, I'm sure you want to provide a site that draws a lot of traffic. It is very helpful if your site name reflects the content you plan to provide. Lawn-Care-Tips.com will draw more targeted lawn care traffic than JimbosLawns.com (or worse yet Jimbos.com).

The point I'm making is, wait until you are sure what the emphasis of your website is going to be before you choose your name. If you go with SiteSell, you have another reason to wait. Domain registration and renewal is paid for by SiteSell as part of your web hosting package.

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Finding Profitable Keywords

Profitable keywords (and keyword phrases) are defined as those that many people are using in keyword searches, yet have few sites competing for those keywords. Finding those keywords and then optimizing your site for those keywords can be critical in developing a profitable website. Keywords must be specific to your site concept.

Keywords are what search engines use to find your site pages. Search engine algorithms have become increasingly sophisticated. Enter a keyword or keyword phrase specific for your site into a  search engine and you may get literally thousand of hits. Once, your web page has been indexed, your site will be among these listings. Where in those listings is the important question. If your page doesn't come up in the top 30 listings for that keyword, you will see virtually no traffic from that listing.

General keywords do you no good. First off, you will never be able to achieve a top ranking with a general keyword. Secondly, even if you were to somehow, corner the market on a general keyword, the traffic you would receive would be of generally poorer quality, i.e. far less likely to be interested in your product or service.

The job of the search engine is to present the surfer with pages relevant to the topic she is searching for. Obviously, someone has to be first, someone second, etc. To determine where your page ranks for that search term, each search engine will have different criteria for evaluating your pages. That said, there are still many things you can do to make your pages more visible in the search engines. 

If you want your pages to score well in the search engines, you have to choose your keywords carefully. You are going to be building pages around these keywords so that the surfer will find you when his is searching for information about your subject. The trick is to build targeted traffic. You don't want to trick the surfer or the search engine. All you will get is a click in and a click back out.

A handy free utility for finding which keywords are really being used can be found at: http://www.goodkeywords.com/ . I use this handy little tool all the time. To find out which search terms are actually being used on the net.

Knowing which search terms are actually being searched for is only half of the battle. The other part of the equation is finding out how much competition you will have for those key words. For that, I use SitSell's SBI Managers program. By entering only your best site concept keyword into the program you can develop a list of relevant keywords with both supply and demand information available. SitSell's SBI Managers program is available as part of the package when you own an SBI site. Just one more reason why you should own at least one SBI site.

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Constructing Search Engine Optimized Pages

Once you have determined which keywords to concentrate on, you must begin to construct search engine optimized pages to attract traffic to your site. Doing this well, is critical to the success of your site. Do it wrong and your site will just sit there - no traffic - no income - no guts - no glory. Do it right and you will be pleasantly surprised at the traffic you will receive. Without traffic nothing else is important. Build the traffic first. Once you have a decent amount of traffic, you can then begin to develop an income stream.

Optimizing Each Page.

Choose the primary keyword phrase that you are going to concentrate on for that page.
Then:

  • Make that keyword phrase part of your page url or address. For example if you keyword phrase is "Siamese fighting fish" then name your page siamese-fighting-fish.html or Samese-Fighting-Fish.html. Use the "-" symbol or the "_" symbol to separate the words so that they are readable by the search engine spiders and also your human visitors.
  • Create a title tag for your page that includes your keyword phrase - preferably near the beginning of the title.
  • Include a keyword meta tag as part of your web page. List your primary keyword phrase first, Add one or two variations of that keyword phrase, (perhaps a common misspelling of your keyword) and perhaps a more general keyword at the end. If you add variations, it is advisable to also include each variation somewhere in the body of your page.
  • Include a meta tag description as part of your web page. This does not appear as part of your finished page but it may be used as part of the evaluation of your page content, and it may appear as part of the page description used by the search engine to list your site.

None of what we have done so far actually appears on the actual page that the viewer is going to see. All are important, if your page is to score well with the search engines. If you are building your pages as part of you  SiteSell website, all of this will be done for you. You still have to provide the content - you just don't have to figure out all the technical details.

Next - Finally we get to start building the actual page content. You may want to add a site banner at the top of your page and you probably need to set up a navigational bar, preferably to the left of your main content. All this is detail but if it is done wrong it can interfere with good search engine placement. We have all see search engine listings that look something like this:

HOME PAGE
[Home] [About Us] [Products] [Ordering] [Shopping Cart] [Contact Us]
www.greatstuff.com

Inspires confidence? Gives you lots of information? Makes you want to click the link? Yes? No, I think not! But we see it all the time. My point is, pay attention to details and know how the search engines work. Then work with them on their terms to put your best foot forward. Small but important digression. Now back to building content for your page.

  • Always start your content with a heading tag - preferably an "h1" tag. This alerts the search engine that you are beginning content. On some search engines this first heading will become the start of your listing. Make sure your include your specific keyword phrase as part of this heading.
  • Follow your heading with relevant content. Repeat your keyword phrase at or near the beginning of your text and again once or twice throughout the content. General rule - use your keyword phrase slightly more often than good writing would dictate. However, keep it real. Overuse can be considered keyword spamming and may get your site banned or penalized in the ranking. For long pages - divide your content with additional heading tags. This breaks up the flow and makes the page more readable.
  • Add appropriate text links to your content. These links can be either internal links or links to other websites. Include your specific keyword phrase in at least one of these links.
  • If you have added graphics to your page - go back and make sure that each has appropriate alt. tags added. These tags are not generally seen on the finished page but they may be the only clue as to what you have displayed if the surfer has turned off the graphics display. They may also be displayed on some browsers when the surfer moved the curser over the picture. If done properly, they also may add relevancy to the web page when it is spidered.
  • Small backtrack - give your graphics appropriate names. Amazon-Butterfly-Fish.gif might add just enough extra relevancy to your fish web page to increase your page ranking by a position or two. After all every little bit helps and this certainly can't hurt your ranking.

Ranking well on the search engines is important. But remember this. It is ultimately the human visitor that will buy your product or click on your affiliate link or do whatever else your primary goal is for them to do. So keep it real.

If all this seemed a little overwhelming or beyond your abilities - there is help. Don't try to go it alone. the key to success is having the right tools. The best way to get started with the right tools is to sign up for a website with SiteSell.com. They take the technical stuff out of the equation and allow you to concentrate on the rest of the equation.

You don't need to know a meta tag from a dangling participle (whatever that is). You just concentrate on building great content. They guide you through the rest. They also have great resources for finding content for your pages. Check them out at: http://results.sitesell.com/altam.html  .
I can't recommend them highly enough.

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Submitting Pages to Search Engines

There are only two way that a search engine will ever find your page. Either you will tell them where it is or they will find it on their own. Search engine spiders crawl the web daily, looking for new content. If you have links from other pages and from other sites, which you should, they will probably eventually find your page. You can speed up the process by submitting your page directly to most search engines.

Currently, the primo search engine you want to submit to is Google.com  If you do well at Google the rest will fall into line. That isn't to say you shouldn't submit to the other search engines. you should. Here is a list of some of the search engines and links to their submit form where available.

Google   Direct Hit   Alta Vista   Lycos   Hotbot   MetaCrawler   Search  Yahoo

Some are more important than others. If you build your site at SiteSell.com, your pages will be automatically submitted as they are built. They will be tracked, your page ranking will be followed. If a page should ever be dropped from a major search engine (it does happen), your pages will be resubmitted. You also get detailed reports on which pages are getting the clicks and what keywords were used to find your pages. This can be interesting and very informative. Sometimes you get more clicks on keywords that you did not intentionally optimize for. This can give you great ideas for additional content pages based on these not so optimized keywords. Great tools - I wouldn't want to develop a website without them.

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Reciprocal Links

Reciprocal Links are links into your site where you have agreed to provide a link back to the other website in exchange for their link back to you. Reciprocal links can be of great value to the popularity of your website. When done right, web surfers do use these links to find your site. In addition, search engines use these links to find your site. They also use the number of links into your site. Not all links are created equally.

Not all links are created equally. The quality of the link is of great importance.
Quality includes:

  • The overall quality of the linking site.
  • The keywords used for the link.
  • The number of links on the page.
  • The relevancy of  the links to the theme of the page.
  • The accessibility of the links page.

Ideally, a links page will be no more than two clicks away from the home page. It will be located on a page who's topic is related to the subject of your website. The link will contain keywords related to your site. And the page will contain no more than five or six links. Graphics are optional, but even if present a text link should also be included. The popularity of the site, judged by the amount of traffic it receives and the number of links into it also count.

One caveat. Don't under any circumstances, joint a "free for all" link exchange. These groups are considered a form of link spamming. They serve no useful purpose other than to increase the number of incoming  links. No one uses them to find your site, and the search engines may penalize or even ban you site for using them. 

There are many ways to find reciprocal links. The simplest is to go to the search engines and search for sites that come up when you enter the appropriate keywords. When you get a match, you can then search for their link page (assuming they have one). Find their linking page and follow their linking instructions.

A better way is to utilize a program called Zeus. You provide the Zeus program with some basic information about your site and the sites you want to link with. Zeus goes out onto the net and searches for compatible sites for you to link to. Like anything else, Zeus requires a commitment of time to make it work.

  • You still have to approve every site that Zeus finds for inclusion in your directory.

  • You still have to determine the theme category for these sites, and

  • You still have to contact those sites for reciprocal links.

I like Zeus very much and suggest you check it out at:

http://www.altam.com/goto/zeus.html

Zeus can be downloaded and used for free just by clicking on the download section. Be aware however:

You have 14 days to create and upload your Link Directory or your Zeus is permanently de-activated. Once your directory is uploaded, you may use the Demo version as long as you wish.

If you like the Zeus program, you will undoubtedly want to purchase the paid version. Due to the way SitSell manages file creation, Zeus can't be uploaded directly to your SiteSell site. This is the one drawback I have found about owning a SiteSell site. For this reason I have continued to develop sites on both SiteSell and Pair. I use my Zeus program to find beauty related websites which I upload using Zeus to BeautyListings.com. I contact these websites and offer them reciprocal links from both BeautyListings.com and my SiteSell site BeautyABCs.com. I also provide liberal links between the two sites.

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Monetizing Your Site

  1. Google AdSense
    I had spent considerable time trying to build up my viewer ship, without a great deal of attention to how I was going to convert this traffic into income. It was not until I added Google AdSense to my websites, that I began to actually see the some significant income. For an overview of Google AdSense, please go to: http://adsense.sitesell.com/altam.html
     

  2. Affiliate Programs
    Affiliate Programs are also useful in generating income. Pre sell their products, then refer them to the affiliate site for final processing. Depending on the program, you will receive a fee for each product sold. Some programs will keep track of your referrals for a set period of time and pay you for subsequent sales beyond the initial click through.
     

  3. Develop your own Informational Products
    If you are an expert on the subject of your site, an informational product could be a natural for you. People search the web for information. If you have used your site to establish yourself as an expert on your topic, they may be eager to pay you for that information. A good source of information on developing your own informational products is http://myks.sitesell.com/altam.html and http://myws.sitesell.com/altam.com
     

  4. Drop Ship Products
     If you want to offer hard goods on your site, but you don't want to be involved with all the hassle of inventory and shipping, you can't beat a good drop shipping arrangement. You need quality goods and a reliable source. The best place I have found is the Drop Ship Source Directory. The cost is $69.95 for six months access to their website. Once you establish a relationship with one or more quality drop shippers, you won't have to renew your membership. I found this site on my own and I am an affiliate for their product. Since I'm trying to be honest about this, I must confess that if you are a SiteSell owner, SiteSell now has a link to their website that allows you to subscribe for $10.00 off the standard $69.95 cost.
    It would be my suggestion to hold off, until you have developed you site and are getting sufficient traffic, before you attempt to add hard goods to your site. It takes considerable time and effort to set up one of these accounts. Your efforts are better spent developing the traffic first, then add the hard goods.
     

  5. Stock and Ship Your Own Products
    This is probably the hardest option, if you are starting out from scratch. Once orders start coming in, much of your effort will need to be directed toward fulfillment. Of course, if you already have an ongoing brick and mortar store, this is your natural first choice.
     

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Summary and Resources

These pages contain a wealth of information and dozens of ways to monetize your web business.

 

  

 
   

Copyright © 2004 Alta Enterprises
Last modified: August 07, 2005

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