Copyright (c) 2009 Ajay Prasad
You have a good website, you are focused on your product,
you work hard at the business and yet your website is not
delivering the expected... What went wrong?
Mike Carlson (name changed) had a website that was
perfectly in all aspects- it was running well, looked good
and it was even on page one for some keywords. Yet he was
getting practically no traffic and his conversions were
abysmal.
Mike is no exception. There are plenty of entrepreneurs
with online businesses who are unsuccessful in attracting
traffic.
Mike just failed to plan well.
What Mike planned was that "I will sell this product,
target this keyword and have an online shopping cart for 24
hour accessibility"
Mike failed to plan a strategy. He did not plan how to
achieve his targets. He just planned what he wanted to do.
"Planning to fail is failing to plan", you've heard this
before. This is particularly true for businesses and no
prizes for guessing; this applies to online business too.
If you have decided to do business online and you have no
plan, you are doomed to fail. Online business plans must
be focused on all business activities which will lead you
to your goal, help you to reallocate your resources to
optimum use, analyze and make corrections & adjustments to
get back on track if you ever deviate from your goals.
In the world of e-commerce you need specific planning
- What ecommerce business do you want to start?
- Is there a demand for the product?
- Is it too niche to generate revenue?
- How much revenue do you plan to target in the first year
of business?
The above questions will help you decide the selling price
and the number of people who must purchase your product for
you to achieve the target. Your conversion rate will more
or less depend on the conversion rates of your industry.
Once you get an approximate figure you can calculate the
number of visitors you wish to browse your site. Then to
need a workable plan which will get the required number of
people to your website. This means that you much finalize
what phrases are being used to search for the product and
target the ones relevant to your product and traffic
estimations.
A proper business plan will establish your business goals
and eliminate unrelated unnecessary activities. After
asking yourself the above questions you have a clear view
of what you want from your online business in a given
time frame.
Online business plans may differ but there are a few broad
guidelines which all such plans should include. They are
knowledge of your market, content management and
integrating your website design with SEO. Once you have the
idea of a niche item you want to deal in you need to find
the market for it. Then you need to refresh your website
content periodically for search engines to fall in love
with you. Your website planning, development, management
and marketing strategies should be integrated with your
business model for perfect harmony between each other.
An analysis of Mike's business was that he just started
selling products outright, targeting low traffic keywords
and not finding the right people or the right market. In
fact he was selling niche products to a generic audience.
He did not research and did not plan long term He just
focused on the present.
Know your customers
Here is some basic information that is needed before you
launch your online business:
1. Who is my prospect?
- Demographic information
a. Where do they live?
b. What is their income group?
c. What is their age group?
d. What is their family size?
e. What is their profession?
f. Psychographic information
g. What is their lifestyle?
h. What are their beliefs?
i. What are their radio/TV watching habits?
2. Product usage information
- What is their hot button issue that your products or
services address?
- How do they use your products/services
a. How much?
b. How much money do they spend?
c. What are their expectations from the products/services
that you offer?
3. What is my prospects internet usage behavior?
a. What percent of your prospects look for your
product/service on the internet vs. Yellow Pages?
b. What keywords or key phrases do they use to search
products or services that you offer?
c. What percent of your prospects purchase your
product/service over the internet?
d. What makes them decide to buy on the web vs. in store?
The plan for online business is very different from the
plan for normal brick and mortar business. This business
runs 24x7 non stop and closes as and when you, the business
owner wants.
Focus on the customer
- What benefits do my products give my customers?
- How can I maintain their satisfaction levels?
- Why will the customers buy my products?
- How do I reach my target customers?
These are some questions which should be answered by your
online business plan. Traffic generation is very important
for this business and you may opt for free (article, blog,
forum marketing) or paid (solo ad, Pay-per-click marketing,
SEO) methods to generate more and more traffic.
The goals in your plan should be realistic, measurable and
appropriate to your skill level and time scale. Your plan
should include the details such as start-up costs, labor
needs product quality, competition, the size of your
potential market, profitability, necessary product support,
legal issues and regulatory concerns, associated costs like
shipping, inventory and repeat business potential and
cross-selling potential.
Keep asking yourself these questions... .
- How many visitors are coming to the site?
- How many visitors are new vs. old?
- How long does each visitor stay on your site?
- What does each visitor look at?
- What graphics, words, pictures, etc are generating the
most responses?
- Which search engines are getting you the best prospects?
- Where else are your customers coming from?
- How many pages does the visitor look at?
- What are your website rankings?
- How much money have you made from the average visitor?
- Who are your biggest money-making customers?
- If you use PPC is it working and paying for itself?
- Which links are bringing your visitors and are they
converting to customers?
Last but not the least, online business should invariably
be related to something you love to do. The product or
business should have an attraction value for you which will
help you to not get bored while the time flies. A majority
of businesses fail during the first two years after
inception, mostly because its owners are no longer willing
to put in the work needed to make it grow. By picking an
area in which you have a natural affection and aptitude in,
you will increase the chances of making your online
business more than just passing fancy.
So get going and don't forget to fail to plan a complete
strategy.
About the Author:Ajay is a partner in OnlineBizHq, an organization offering
free consultation on online business opportunities to
entrepreneurs. He is also the co-author of "Plant Your
Online Biz Money Tree" the ebook taking the entrepreneur
world by a storm. Click on the link for sneak buy at-->
http://onlinebizhq.org/free-money-tree-book.shtml Ajay is
also the owner of GMRWebTeam a professional and reputed
http://www.GMRWebTeam.com company.
Courtesy of Shannan Hearnehttp://www.SuccessPromotions.comhttp://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/shearne-marketing
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