Web Business Resource

Today, I want to stress the importance of testing and analyzing your internet business campaigns.

Even if your website is doing very well, you will be missing out on great opportunities to improve if you do not test and analyze. You want to keep track of your traffic. You also want to keep track of how profitable your traffic is from different sources.

Most of all, you want to test different advertising methods. See which ones bring you the most profit for your investment. To figure that out, you need to track the data and analyze it.

By testing different methods, you can find the best ones. You can try changing all sorts of things about your marketing campaign. For example, you can change your ad text, your landing page, what you are selling, how you are selling. Anything you can adjust, you want to adjust different ways and test.

What do you think?

If you want to make money online, you probably will do it by owning your own website. Most of all, I believe your success will be determined by how well you monetize your website. By that, I am referring to how much money you make per visitor on average.

If you do not gain enough revenue per visitor, it will not be worth the costs it takes you to run your website and attract visitors. If you gain enough revenue per visitor, then you will easily be able to make your website even more and more successful by continuing to invest more and more in gaining visitors.

In other words, you will only be successful if you can make more money per visitor than you spend on marketing per visitor.

Measuring how much you make per visitor is not that hard. If you are selling products, then it will depend on your conversion rates. For example, if you sell a $10.00 product, which 1 in 10 of your visitors purchase (giving you a conversion rate of 10%), then you will be making $1.00 per visitor on average (minus the cost per visitor it takes you to run your website). Thus, as long as you spend less than $1.00 on marketing per visitor on average, you would make money.

You will incur some basic costs, such as web hosting and content-generation. Those costs will be less per visitor when you have more visitors. Nonetheless, mainly your cost per visitor will be determined by how much you spend on advertising or special marketing campaigns in comparison to how much visitors they bring in.

The better your website or product is, the more effective advertising will be.

Monetization is perhaps the biggest variable. You simply will not be able to afford to market or advertise your website if it is not monetized well.

If you are selling products, you can help monetize your website better by having more popular products and by having a more effective sales-pitch. The best way to find better products and sales-pitches is to test different ones. If you monetize your website by publishing ads on them, then your click-through-rates will probably be the biggest factor in how well your website is monetized. But other factors come into play such as how much your advertisers pay you and the quality of your traffic.

I think the best way to improve your monetization is to make your website better. This influences everything else greatly. A better website will make your promotion more effective by getting people to stay on your website longer, come back more often, tell other people, etc. Generally, the goodness of a website is measured in how informative, resourceful and/or entertaining it is.

Consider this website, for example; you are here because this very blog post is informative and helpful. If you find it as useful as I believe it is, then you are much more likely to read other posts, to subscribe to my RSS feed, and to bookmark this website.

What do you think?

When I first started making websites, my intent was to spend as little money as possible. I figured I could try promoting my websites with just my time and not spend any money on advertising. I figured if I didn’t spend any money, then all my revenue would be profit.

However, I have learned that buying advertising is usually a good idea.

The trick is to ensure that you get a profitable system. You need to be making more in revenue as a result of the advertising than you are spending on the advertising. Once you have a profitable system, you can just keep investing more and more money into advertising so that you keep making more and more profit.

If you find advertising is costing you more than you can make on your website. That probably means that your website is not monetized well. If you are selling a product, then it might mean your product is not good enough or your sales-pitch is not good enough. If you make money with a content-based website, then your ads may not be placed well enough, you may not have enough ads, or your advertisers are not paying you enough. Most of all, your website probably is not good enough. It will be very hard to monetize a bad website because users will not like it, they will not stay on it, they will not come back, and they will not tell others about it or post links to it. A good website will be easy to monetize because, when people come to your website from your advertising, they will like your website. If they like it and find it useful, then they will tend to stay on it longer, to come back more often, and tell others about it and post links to it.

Basically, I’m saying that, if buying advertising is not profitable for you, it probably means that there is something very wrong with your website. Make your website better, and then monetize it better.

What do you think?

Many economists have already declared that the United States is in a recession. Officially, the government will not determine whether we are in a recession now until months later because a recession is generally defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, which can only be measured after the fact.

I wonder what effect a recession would have on internet business. If big companies like Google and Microsoft have trouble, it could trickle down to the rest of us. Of course, when any internet businesses raise their prices or go under, there are many more willing to fill the spot. Since anyone can engage in internet business from anywhere in the world, people from poorer countries are always willing to work for lower rates when other people can no longer be competitive.

The businesses that rely on selling services will be the best off, I think. The people who have to watch out are those who make money by investing. You cannot count on your money to make you money in a recession.

Whatever the case, just be careful. What do you think?

At first, you might not think that physical exercise has much to do with starting and running a successful internet business. But I think it might have a lot to do with it.

I personally swim two nights a week and lift weights the other ones. When I am doing better at exercising, I find that it makes me better at working online.

It seems to me that exercising regularly helps give me a general sense of motivation, focus, and mental strength in my daily life. It gives my day-to-day life a productive tone which carries over to managing my websites.

I figure you could have the same indirect benefits from other forms of self-improvement. For example, you can probably also help your internet business by eating healthier, dropping bad habits, getting on a good sleeping schedule, and by taking on other similar self-improving habits.

You may be surprised to see how much decisions about other aspects of your life affect how well you run your business.

What do you think?

Any business can benefit from taking customer feedback. So remember that when running an internet business.

The great thing about having a website or internet business is that your customers can give you feedback very easily. You can simply have a contact form on your website, for example. They can type up their message and send it to you in the click of a mouse.

If you have a content-based website, then your website users are generally your customers. You can get feedback from them about how to improve your website. Ask them what type of new features they want for the website. Ask them what other information they would like the website to offer.

Of course, if you also sell anything, then the people who buy your product are also customers. Try sending a feedback form with the product or with the receipt. You can get feedback not only on the product itself, but also on your customer service in general.

Remember to take criticism constructively. Customers are often nice and helpful, but sometimes they can just be mean and insulting. Even when they are mean, do not be mean back. Always be professional and do what will best help your business.

And so it goes without saying: Feel free to post feedback to me about this website any time! Thanks!

Choosing the right niche is one of the most important parts of starting your online business or website. Choosing the wrong niche will set you up for failure. Basically, choosing the right niche takes two steps.

Firstly, think of a subject that interests you a lot. You can think of this by asking yourself questions, such as: What do you do for fun? What are your hobbies? What general problems do you have in your life? What information do you like to read about? You will be able to make a better website if you are already interested in and knowledgeable about the topic.

Secondly, you need to narrow or generalize your niche to the right scope.

You do not want the niche to be too large and general, or else it will be too competitive and you will not have a specific audience to target. For example, it would be easier to target the narrower niche “dog training” than the more general niche “dogs” or even worse “pets.”

You also do not want to make your niche too narrow, or else almost nobody will be interested in it. That will make it hard to market the website, and hard to sell your product or sell advertisements.

It’s easier to make sure your niche is neither too large nor too narrow if you find an underdeveloped topic. In other words, it will be easier to find an easily targetable niche if there are not already many websites related to it.

What do you think?

I recommend that you try not to use popup and popunder advertisements on your site. Those types of ads annoy users. Also, many of the companies that buy and sell those types of advertisements are shady. The popup/popunder industry is not very honest.

Also, many other reputable businesses will refuse to advertise on your website if you have popups or popunders.

I know that when I go to a site with popups or popunders I lose respect for that website and the business that manages it. Popups and popunders are essentially a way to force users to visit a website. That is not respectable at all.

My recommendation is to stick to publishing on-site ads, such as banners, text-link-ads, and contextual ads. You can also monetize your website by creating and selling your own product.

What do you think?

One question that many people consider while creating their internet-based business is this: How many websites to make?

On one hand, some people believe that making more websites will make you more money. For example, if you make $5 a day with one website, they figure you will make $40 a day with 8 websites.

On the other hand, if you make too many websites it can be hard to manage them all.

I feel that you need balance. If you can, I would recommend making more than one website. The reason is that you do not want all your eggs in one basket.

However, I would also suggest that you avoid making too many. Instead, focus more time on each website that you have. I think it is better to have one great website than to have two websites that are only half-great.

I think that it is exponentially easier to promote a better and more helpful website.

One thing that surprises me about people who want to start their own internet business is how they waste their money. I can understand people wanting to get away from the whole 9 to 5 rat-race. However, I cannot wrap my head around why they waste what money and resources they can work up.

It takes money to make money. If you want to start a business, you need to invest time and money into it. I recommend you never invest more than you can afford to lose, and never use money you need. In other words, do not invest your rent or food money in your business. However, I suggest you invest any excess money you make in your internet business.

If you want to just have short-term fun, then invest your extra money in games and going out for nights of fun. However, if you want to start a business, invest your money in that.

Today I want to point out the importance of experimentation and analyzation.

Electronic business has the benefit that it becomes very easy to track data and run reports. In the old days, businesses would have to track data by hand and people would have to compile date on their own to make hand-made reports. Nowadays, computers usually automatically track data, and easy-to-use computer programs can create reports from the data with the click of a mouse.

If you want to start a business or expand your business, you need to find a way to get a profitable ROI. That means that you will get more money back in revenue than you have to invest.

To find a method with a good ROI, you need to experiment. To find the ROI of different business decisions, you need to track and analyze data.

You have to track how much your spending causes you to earn. Try out different ways of spending your time or money and find out what is most profitable. If you find something that is very profitable, then you can invest more time or money into it so that you end up making more money.

For example, if I spend $10.00 on PPC advertisements. I want to track the results, which I can do using traffic reports created from log files and income reports. I can compare how much on average I had to spend per visitor to how much on average I make per visitor. If I am making more money than I am spending per visitor on average, then I have a profitable ROI and I would be able to keep investing money in advertising and continually make more and more.

However, when measuring or predicting ROI, it is important to remember all types of overhead. For example, if you bought a lot of advertising, you might also have to spend more money on customer service or web hosting.

What do you think?

A few times when listening to business-related shows, I have heard a businessperson advise that aspiring entrepreneurs get funding for their good ideas from friends, family, and other personal associates.

I disagree with that advice. I recommend that you avoid taking investments from friends and family. And definitely avoid asking for them!

These businesspersons did also specify that you needed to have a good idea with full business plans and financial projections that showed that you would most likely make profits. However, if you have such a good business plan, you could gain investments from professional investors. If your business is such a good investment, you could gain investments from people other than your friends and family.

Your friends and family may invest in you even if it’s a bad financial investment because they trust you or simply because they feel obligated by your personal relationship to them. When the business and investment fails, it will hurt both you and your friendly investors. Additionally, it will strain and possibly ruin the relationship.

If you cannot get impersonal, professional investors (such as a bank or a venture capitalist) to invest in your business idea, then revise your business idea or give it up completely. Do not try to get funding for your bad business idea by taking advantage of your personal relationships with your friends and family.

What do you think?