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Posted in Featured, How-To | online business planning web design website plan website planning
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Building a website is easy with today’s tools. You can create a Blogger blog with only a few clicks. Writing the content takes some time, but is not too difficult either. What is difficult, however, is turning that website into a “money making machine” (as often advertised on cheap e-books).
If you really wish to develop a profitable website, you should keep it in mind from the website planning step. Sure you can turn your three year old personal blog into a profitable website, but it will be more difficult. And most importantly, the returns will be smaller. Therefore, you should always have the goal in mind, when beginning website planning.
- What’s the niche? Some niches are very overcrowded, like the “make money online” niche, while some are practically worthless. You need to find a balance between the amount of competition and the potential returns.
- How to monetize? Yes, I believe this should be the second question to consider. Whether you will sell your own product, sell affiliate products, or earn with contextual and banner advertising - your website planning should depend on that choice.
- Where to get traffic? As above, your design will be quite different, if you aim for search engine traffic, than it will be if you market your own product through affiliates. Other possible sources of traffic are social media, PPC advertising, and email marketing - to name a few.
- Who is your audience? Tech savvy visitors will prefer professional design and special effects. The average Internet users would be more comfortable with a simple and usable site. Also different age groups and social groups will require different plan.
- What’s special about it? Every website and service should attempt to provide the users with something more than what the competitors have to offer. This could be more information, a new point of view on the topic, or something that simply has not been available before.
- How to brand it? A website with a strong brand will get much more repeat visitors than one with nothing special about it. Branding includes choice of name and domain, website design, and tagline slogans.
- How should it work? The final step to planning a website is how it will work. Before beginning to code it you should have a clear idea about what the end product will look like. This includes functionality and user interface.
Don’t worry, if you need to change the plan as you work on the website. Some issues will always be left uncovered by your plan, and no plan is perfect. Your website plan should be a guideline by which you work, but you should be quick to stray from it, if you come up with a better idea.
A profitable website needs a business model that works. Too many online entrepreneurs refuse to follow basic business thinking that they would automatically follow with an offline business. A website is an online business and not that different from an offline one. Come up with an idea, craft a plan, create a website. Those are the steps to a money making machine.
by Sutocu | November 19, 2007 
2 hands up for point 1 & 2.Make money online niche is really damn saurated and it should not be a niche to consider unless you have lots of money to make.
I am very supportive of people using social media to boost their new blog or website and open to more people!
thank you very much for your seven tips.
im trying. wish me luck.
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Thanks you for submitting your article to my latest edition of “Webmaster Articles” Blog Carnival. It was my pleasure to include it.
Thanks
Yours John W. Furst
E-Biz Booster Blog
http://blog.fcon21.biz/
Thanks for including it!
i’m working my butt off to get my site profitable and have done all of those 7, it’s just not working out for me. i’ll keep trying
[…] presents 7 Steps to Profitable Website Planning posted at Your Website Profit. A website is really an online business and should be planned out […]
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This is really good information. I started my online magazine in 2007 and I get traffic but not as much as I would like. I’ve been surfing the net for information on how to gain and keep more visitors. This was very helpful. I think with what you’ve said I’m definately on my way to a great start.
This step by step list is really helping me to plan my next blog. with a list like this, i will surely know if i miss anything in advertising my sites. Thanks a lot for the info.
[…] at Stephen Dean’s Copywriting And Internet Advertising Blog - Copywriter. Sutocu presents 7 Steps to Profitable Website Planning posted at Your Website Profit, saying, “A website, though an online business, is still a […]
very nice web site. My English is not so good, so I do not understandt it well, but it seems very good. Thanks
I strongly suggest that people always do as much research as possible before launching a website, understand their target audience and find as much information as possible. The stronger your plans are the better your website will be.
Know your competition and see how you can improve your website.
A lot of people I’ve spoken to have focused on short term success on a website. Plan for the future, give what your target audience what it wants and the money will follow.
[…] at Stephen Dean’s Copywriting And Internet Advertising Blog - Copywriter. Sutocu presents 7 Steps to Profitable Website Planning posted at Your Website Profit, saying, “A website, though an online business, is still a […]
wow, good step by step analysis!
Listen. Do not have an opinion while you listen because frankly, your opinion doesn?t hold much water outside of Your Universe. Just listen. Listen until their brain has been twisted like a dripping towel and what they have to say is all over the floor.
Rule number 4 is especially important because alot of people spend too much time on the “special effects” on the website and end up with a page that loads slowly.
Good point that one should determine how to monetize a site before they get too far down the road with an idea. And so many people fall back on adsense. While adsense can be a good source of income, I’ve found that high traffic sites with affiliate offers do the best.
Wow, you had a lot of good key points here! Every one of these could be discussed for days. I like that you point out different age groups. That definitely has an impact on how you should market your site.
You’re dead right. You can’t possibly run a profitable business without a plan.
it looks like a nice site, thanks..
Some very good tips there. thanks!
It looks like very simple tips, but it working on many nice sites.
Very good article, I think so.
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