A good website is a website that works, if you have created your website to sell some products, you can say that your website is a good website if it does sell products.

* But are you selling as many products as a good website sells, or you are only selling a few products now and then?
* Are your sales pages good enouth to consider your website a good website?
* Do you have enough visitors to your website to consider it a good website?
* Do you have enough return traffic or all your visitors are first time visitors?
* Do your visitors stay enough time to consider your website a good website?
* How can you know for sure if your website is a good website?
* What kind of questions should you be making to yourself to know if your webite is a good website

ASK YOURSELF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS TO KNOW IF YOUR WEBSITE IS A GOOD WEBSITE

*  Who cares?
*  What are you looking for?
*  What kind of visitors do you have?
*  Which is your priority?
*  How should you mesure your success?

WHO CARES?

If the website belongs to a company, then the web pages don´t belong to a single person, there´s not only one person that can say if you have a good website, so you will have to round up the people that are vitally interested

You will find the techno-geeks, the sales people, the public relations people, etc. etc. and everyone of them will have their own idea of what is a good website.

But once again as the website belongs to ALL the company, the people on your company who care enough to judge the website, should be asked to join the team and take some responsability about the design of the website.

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

Every one of the people who cares about the website will have their own idea of what they want out of a good website. Many of them will just be talking on behalf of their own departments, but you must force them to think on behalf of the company.

Every department can have their own objetives, goals and aspirations, every one has his own idea about what is a good website, but they need to think as a company, and the conclusion must satisfy most of them, and if you can, your must create a good webpage for all of them.

WHAT KIND OF VISITORS DO YOU HAVE?

Every website has first time visitors, returning visitors, curious, buyers, people that arrived by mistake, people that spend a short time at the website, people that spend a long time at the website, etc.

What kind of visitors do you want, the ones that show more often, the ones that read the most pages, buys more stuff, buys more frequently or spend the most money?

Which are the most important visitors for your company, to think that you have a good website?

Once you get them you can be satisfied that your site is a good website

WHICH IS YOUR PRIORITY?

Once you know what everybody wants, you will have to prioritize everybody´s goals.

Will you go after increasing visits, selling more products per visit, provide more information about the company and it´s products, improving customer satisfaction.

After a discussion that will depend on how many people is giving their own opinion about what cares most, you´ll end up with your own list of priorities, and the ones that will not be satisfied with their request, at leas will know why.

HOW SHOULD YOU MESURE YOUR SUCCESS?

How can you be sure that the numbers that you are getting are telling you that your site is a good website, It depends…

* If your main priority is to get visitors, then www.Alexa.com and it´s ranking can help you on that, but you can also use some javacript and or cookies.
* If your main goal is revenue then the sales will have the leading voice.
* If you are going after customer satisfaction then you must agree with the other members of your company how will you gather satisfaction data and how will you weigh it.

All the information that you gather must help you take business decisions. It´s not a matter of getting as much information as you can, because too much information can be as bad as not enough information.

Make sure that you keep on measuring your success, make it part of a constant improvement process, because the web changes month after month.

Then you´ll really be able to tell if your website is a good website

Well, I’m going to tell you right now, in this article!

First, what IS a Money Magnet Web Site? A Money Magnet Web Site can be defined as one that is equipped with an integrated suite of both e-commerce and internet marketing tools in a fashion that will allow you to be the most profitable with the least amount of effort.

Most e-commerce systems are equipped with the following essentials: a shopping cart, acceptance and processing of credit cards, a maintenance system that allows you to add/change products, an order-retrieval system that enables you to fulfill orders.

However, what most of them are lacking are marketing tools.  There are several marketing strategies that are essential in the creation of a successful e-commerce web site: email marketing (broadcasting) of prospects/customers, effective use of autoresponders (generate automatic email messages), online newsletter, online form/survey to capture your prospect’s email address electronic product delivery (if you sold a digital product), advertisement (ad) tracking, back end sales, affiliate program.

Now, if you had a system that would support the integration of ALL of these marketing tools in addition to the necessary e-commerce essentials, then you would have a Money Magnet Web Site.  After all, it has been shown that it often takes 7 or more ad exposures before prospective customers actually make a purchase.  Consider the following scenario:

A prospect clicks on an advertisement in an online magazine.  This action increments a counter for this particular ad to help you determine how well it’s working.  They don’t decide to buy as of yet but join your newsletter.  They are now considered a prospect.  You begin to send them a monthly email newsletter.  Additionally, an autoresponder kicks in to thank them for joining the newsletter as well as scheduling them to get email twice a month for the next 90 days reiterating your product benefits and inviting them to purchase.

Upon sending them one of your “juicy” offers that they couldn’t refuse, they finally purchase.  They will automatically be removed from your prospect list and added to your customer list.

Based on the particular product or service they’ve purchased, they will receive a series of emails every two weeks for the next 6 months offering complementary products. This will be the engine that will drive your back end sales and keep your customers coming back to your web site.

Being able to play out a scenario such as this using one integrated system would be pretty impressive don’t you think?  The internet big boys do this with expensive e-commerce platform suites produced by vendors such as IBM, Microsoft and Oracle.  Having your system automatically perform these follow up tasks frees you up to spend more time on your business, your health or your family!

=====> What can you do to obtain a money magnet web site?

Fortunately, there are ways that you can automate your website in much the same way that the big boys do.  The best and most cost-effective way would be to sign up with one of the handful of Application Service Providers available on the internet, which provide a shopping cart integrated with a full suite of marketing tools.  Normally, the shopping cart and tools are very flexible and can be incorporated into any website.

=====> Are there any other ways to automate your business besides working with a total solution provider?

You can accomplish some level of automation without an integrated shopping cart system, however, it will require manual intervention and of course it would be incomplete.  I believe that the most important asset of your e-commerce business is your email lists.  Therefore, concentrate on the implementation of a good autoresponder/list server system to “enhance” your present e-commerce website.  There are several good ones on the
market.

Look for providers that allow you to: create multiple lists, add prospects via a web form, email, or manually through a management console, send out an unlimited number of autoresponder messages, send out an unlimited number of email broadcasts, set up and distribute a newsletter.

When setting up your autoresponder system, create one list for your “prospects” and another one for your “customers”.  Now, here’s where you come in: when a person orders your product, you will have to perform the extra task of logging into your autoresponder system and manually remove them from the prospect list and add them to the customer list.  This action will then trigger your customer autoresponder series of messages to be sent.

Remember, the key to building a successful e-commerce web site is to automate your marketing engine as much as possible and drive your prospects and customers back to your web site.  This will certainly create a money magnet e-commerce web site for you!

One of the most important factors for being successful in online business, or any business for that matter, is budget control regardless of how big or small your budget is.

First we need to define what the meaning of limited budget is. First, you need to believe in your heart that it is impossible to start and run an online business for free. Do not believe anybody who tells you otherwise.

The second rule is you need to budget at least $200 for marketing and administrative costs. To give you an idea of what these costs might be here are few examples:

1-    Administrative Cost Items:

a.    Internet Connection
b.    Hosting Service for your website (If you have one)
c.    Phone Bill.
d.    Electricity
e.    Credit Card Charges
f.    Post and Courier (If applicable)

2-    Marketing Costs (Depending on your general Strategy)

a.    Software Programs
b.    Traffic Generation Services
c.    Offline Advertising
d.    Pay Per Click
e.    Leads
f.    Autoresponder Service
g.    Any other Paid advertising Tactic

Now you can add on top of the above mentioned $200 any direct costs related to your business. Mainly this includes one or both of the following:

1-    What you have to pay to stay in business including a monthly subscription if applicable.

2-    Inventory of Products that you have to buy.

To be able to spend your budget wisely we recommend following these steps:

1-    Do not start your online marketing activity by choosing paid options. In a previous article we detailed what are your free online marketing strategy tools. We will just list them here:

a.    Submit your link(s) to directories and search engines.
b.    Write and Submit articles to article directories
c.    Reciprocal linking
d.    Posting in active forums
e.    Make your website content rich and dynamic
f.    Blog and Ping.
g.    Traffic Exchange Services

2-    Buy software programs that will help you automate the processes of the above free online marketing options. Try not to opt for subscription based services. Make sure to have software programs that have a one time payment option.

3-    After few months you will realize that you have a free amount in your budget that now you can use for paid online or offline marketing options.

Our final and sincere recommendation to you is not to get involved in any online business if you cannot spend a total of $300 – $500 per month.

Let’s talk what it will cost upfront. For $10 – $20/month you can have a working website (Imagine: www.yourname.com), available to anyone in the world with internet access. That’s a trip to your favourite fast food joint. (Yes, you can afford it!) There are also some ways of getting a free site – still residing at www.yourname.com, but lets learn about all those weird internet terms first.

There are 3 basic components required to building a personal, custom website.
You need:
-     A domain name
-     A hosting account and
-     Content written in HTML or some other web language.
I know, what’s a domain name!!!?

Here is an analogy I teach:

You live in a home that is built on a certain piece of land (that you rent or buy). That piece of land has a specific address.

Your website (a collection of individual web pages) sits on a hosting account that you rent. That hosting account is found at a specific address – called a domain name.

Your Home   Your Website
Your Street Address: e.g. 1 John St, Anytown
Your domain name: e.g. www.yourname.com
Your plot of land Your hosting account
Your physical house     Your web content

Here is the 3 step process:
STEP 1: Choose your address
STEP 2: Rent some space on a computer connected to the internet
STEP 3: Build the house you want and place it on the space you bought in step 2

Let’s explain each step:
STEP 1: Choose your address (a domain name)
With the internet you can choose what you want your address to be (your domain name).  What are you selling? What would make a cool name? Understand that after over 10 years of public internet access – a lot of good names have been taken. So get creative, and be unique but understandable. An easy place to start with is your full name for a family/personal site or your product name for a business site. Make a list of about 10 possibilities that you like in this format www.yourdesiredname.com Move to the next step.

STEP 2: Rent some space on a computer connected to the internet (A hosting account)
With a quick search for the words “Web Hosting” on the internet, you get a list of web hosting companies – all eager to sell or rent you some space on their computer. GoDaddy.com and 1and1.com are some recommended companies – feel free to look into others, but there are thousands upon thousands – so don’t waste your time searching for the cheapest (you pay for what you get, but $10+ will get you a decent hosting account.

Many of the hosting companies will either give you or sell you your choice of domain name at the same time you start your hosting account. Bring out your list from STEP 1, and when instructed in the purchase process, enter in your first domain name choice. You will be informed if that name is available or not. Keep trying out your names in order of your preference until you find on that is available. Finish the purchase process and let the hosting company instruct you on how to access you account. (They’ll send you an email – and if you go with one of the companies I recommended, you can call them with your questions.)

STEP 3: Build the house you want and place it on the space you bought in step 2
You have some choices to make here:
A – You can ask someone to build you a site.
B – You can build it yourself.
C – Use a free website builder – (like a blog)
Each has its pros and cons.

The first option is great if you can afford it and can find someone reliable. If you want cheap, post a job at your local high school – someone in computer club will be able to help you for really cheap. The problem is that they may not always be around when you need them to make changes. Enter choice B

It’s great to learn a new skill, and you can learn for free online – just invest a little time. Remember once you know how… you own that knowledge forever and you will never depend on someone else to build your site. Again search online for “how to build a website” They will tell you how to design, build and upload your site onto your hosting account form STEP 2.

If you don’t really require a customized design and all you want to do is place some text and perhaps some pictures online. I suggest starting what’s called a blog – these are often free, and have a really simple “HTML CODE FREE” way of adding your content. All you do is type and publish. You can often still have your own domain name here, but each blogging company is different. Again search online for blogging – and read what the various companies offer.

Content
There is one thing that is really important and that ONLY you can do! That is come up with the content and the idea. Think about what you have to offer and what problem it solves for your visitors and prepare your content so as to answer that problem. E.g. You write great jokes. People are looking for jokes… your website should give people some jokes and perhaps they can register for your daily joke email.
Write simply, write short, write clearly. As time goes on, remember to keep your site fresh. Keep the content updated and relevant to your ideal visitors.

The goal of this article was to give you easy steps of how to get a website for yourself. Naturally you can learn more about each step, and there are many people who can give you help, but now you can start the journey. Create your list of domain names, purchase a hosting account (including the domain name you want) and build your site and keep the content fresh.

In future articles I’ll take about next steps:<br>
-     “I build it, but they ain’t coming to see it.”<br>
-     “I built it, but nobody’s buying”<br>
-     “I built it, but I don’t know how to improve it.”

A journey of a million miles starts with one step – so go to step 1 and start. (Don’t worry – this is not a long journey – but it’s exciting!).

Here to Help You!

Thanks for reading,
Your Rich Cousin
(Author and Business Success Story) Get the free e-book that got me started and helped me start making money at http://www.richcousin.com It’s so straight forward and easy to understand AND you will have the support you need to start making a great income online.