Making money from your website

by Robin Ellis on March 1, 2012

So you’ve seen your developer or built your own website / online shop. Making money with it, however, is another ball game altogether, one which takes focus, persistence, and strategy. Otherwise, what do you have really. It’s like building a petrol station in the middle of the desert, if you have no traffic, no visitors, you simply do’t make money, you don’t get past go. What follows are 14 key strategies to get you started.

  1. Have a really good web strategy, shopping cart, google analytics – keep the end in mind. Be absolutely clear on where you want to take your business and the type of products you’re selling as this can have a major bearing on the shopping cart you want to use. Mark out your strategy on paper or use software such as “freemind” to do a brain dump. Expand on these headings: marketing, sales, delivery, and admin. Also keep in mind automation for your online shop.
  2. Domain + hosting. Another important consideration. Think keywords here, my online shop is called http://toprankedvitamins.com.au. Why? Simple, I sell nutritional products and vitamins is a keyword. Your domain doesn’t have to be the name of your business.
  3. Find someone to design and build your website. I recommend WordPress but Drupal and Joombla are also popular. One of the best themes to use (with WordPress)  is Thesis, for the non coder and coder alike. If you use a designer ensure you know how to access the admin side of the software so you can maintain and update the site. Hosting, important considerations here are the uptime guarantee and importantly company support. I use ixwebhosting as I can get a real human 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
  4. Install your plugins. If you’re using WordPress there is probably a plugin for just about every scenario and in most cases they’re free.
  5. Link website to database. In this context think autoresponders to automate followup with your customers. Think about what are you giving away, what fields do want to have, and where will people go next, what email do they get, where the the first email take them, who is going to be notified, what happens in next day,week,month…approx 45 days.
  6. Followup sequence….this is where an all in one contact management program is absolutely essential. Ideally look for a program that covers all your contact management needs including your autoresponder, emails, calls and daily tasks.
  7. Start building dynamic content. Your content needs to be fresh and relevant to get loved by google. If you’re using WordPress this is very easily done by adding articles to your site, you’ve probably heard the term blogging, this is essentially what writing articles is all about. an article at least every couple of weeks should do the trick but several times a week is even better.
  8. Understand your keywords. A keyword is a word used by a search engine in its search for relevant web pages so use words relevant to your topic.
  9. Know where to put your keywords on your site.
  10. Build high quality incoming links. This refers to links from other sites.
  11. Learn how to syndicate content. With articles don’t just place them on your site, also place them on authority sites that have significant amounts of traffic. A good example of this would be http://ezinearticles.com. This also builds backlinks or incoming links.
  12. Install google analytics. This is free tracking software from google to help you see where your visitors have come from and what pages are viewed. Start testing your conversion from your “home page” to next page
  13. Advertise your site. Here you have many options from free to paid.
  14. Don’t like facebook? Get over it, to date there are nearly a billion people using facebook, how many of those people are potential customers. So the message is build a strong social media presence, this includes linkedin, flickr, twitter and Pinterest.

Remember, every journey starts with the first step, and this is a journey. I’ll have more detail in upcoming articles.

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7 Ways to Stand Out as a Leader

by Robin Ellis on February 9, 2012

As a leader, aspiring leader, or even as someone wanting to get ahead in their business, there are a number of key traits you need to develop because being a leader means standing out, it means being accountable for your thoughts and actions, said another way, EVERYTHING COUNTS. Here are 7  of those key traits:

  1. No more excuses, no more if only this, if only that….Success requires no explanation, failure provides no alibi. In the same vain, stop telling people I’m bad at e.g. speaking, closing, etc, this is a negative self fulfilling affirmation. Instead re-phrase it to “in the past I struggled with e.g. speaking, closing, etc but I’m getting better all the time”. Isn’t that a more positive approach.
  2. Staring at results. Look for the reasons behind the results, the action that caused the result(s). Sometimes we get hung up on the results in our business as not being exactly what we want. Remember, our results are the outcome of everything we’ve done up to that point. Instead of kicking the cat look hard, really hard, at the actions you took to get you where you are. Once identified, change the action and you change the result, it’s really that simple, not necessarily easy as habitual patterns sometimes take major effort to change, take quitting smoking as an example, but absolutely do-able. In essence, you’re only a decision away from going for the outcome you desire.
  3. Comfy question time. It’s easy to jump online and ask any number of questions but, what would you say if your downline asked the question(s) you’re asking. As a leader you need to have the knowledge and answers so make sure you learn rather than just asking questions without processing the response.
  4. Credibility. How do you talk about results or marketing concepts you’ve only just implemented, easy, really, you see a significant number of people you come in contact with are looking for answers relating to running a business, whether online or out in the world, so chances are you’re at least a step or 3 ahead of them which gives you the credibility edge.
  5. Sales, don’t like selling? Get over it. Remember you sold your boss, your partner….Selling is part of everyday life. When I first started out, selling was probably my biggest issue as I’d never been exposed to it but once it gets under your skin it’s totally addictive, for me it’s where the fun is. Remember if you don’t sell anything you’ll never impact anyone. And if the company you’re representing is credible it will require a certain amount (and usually minimal) amount of retail sales
  6. Everything is long term. There is no such thing as get rich quick, at least not that I’ve come across, it takes time and effort, like any business. If anyone says otherwise, exercise extreme caution before moving ahead with them.
  7. Entourage, improve the circle of people you hang out with, the events you attend. I’ve heard it said our income is around the average of the 5 people we hang out with most, so..change your friends or change their income. Instead of hanging our at the bar attend events where you learn and meet some really great people who are really making life happen. I remember my own youth where I would happily drink away the weekend talking about what I was going to do one day. It wasn’t until I kicked the habit that life, and business, really took off.

So there you have it, there are probably many more ways to stand out but they can wait for another post.

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7 Practical Ways to Create a Productive Work Environment

January 13, 2012

Creating a focused environment can be embodied within six characteristics and practices: I found this very inciteful article by entrepreneur, writer and investor Scott Scheper. You can apply these principals to any size company from home based like myself all the way up to multinationals. His 7 ways to create a productive work environment include: [...]

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Success in Your Home Based Business Is Not Just About Going Online

January 13, 2012

There are many home based businesses out there, some bad, some good, and some great, your job is to find one whose products you like, that has a pay plan that suites you, and one that supplies you with all the training and resources necessary to help you succeed. And just as there are many [...]

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How Do I Find my Facebook Fan Page?

January 12, 2012

If you are a Facebook addict, then you are well aware of the changes that were made to the main profile page when you log in, and if you are just getting into Faceebook fanpages thee are a few more hooks.. Many of these changes just are not welcome and actually caused quite an uproar. [...]

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20 Ways To Up Your Blogging Fun

January 7, 2012

Do you find blogging can be a bit of a drag – is that a yes or a yes? Darren Rowse over at Problogger has posted 20 Ways To Up Your Blogging Fun Quota… The read includes: Draw, Photograph, Share, Measure, Debate, Laugh, Watch,  Give,  Teach,  Introduce,  List,  Resource, Colour, Solve, Inspire, Ask,  Headline, Re-package, [...]

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Residual Income Explained

January 7, 2012

Imagine a business model where you make one sale and get paid for it over and over, potentially for the rest of your life – now that’s powerful. It’s how a singer song writer or an author earn money – royalties on their work, it’s also the way utilities such as power and water, phone companies, many software [...]

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Build A Home Based Business And Beat The Recession

January 6, 2012

Are you tired – you know, of the long commutes, the soaring transport costs, of waiting for that promotion, of wondering when the interest rates are going to fall, or maybe you’re incredibly successful in your career but don’t have the time to enjoy the fruits of your labor. There’s a reason for all this [...]

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Email Autoresponders – your most important non human sales tool

January 5, 2012

So you have a website or blog, and now you want to build a list, and ultimately communicate / sell to that list. The most common technique is to create an Opt-in Form (sometimes referred to as a landing page) containing an autoresponder to get people to sign up for your list. There are a [...]

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Teamwork in your business

January 4, 2012

Many years ago I was part of a team climbing Mt Taranaki in New Zealand’s Northern Island. Being one of the fitter members I was part of the lead party. It was the middle of Winter so the mountain was blanketed with snow. At about 7 hours up the mountain one of our group tripped [...]

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