Get Business Online

You may have heard this saying from people already

What you don’t know, doesn’t hurt you

Well, I’m here to tell you this saying is really wrong when it comes to getting business online.

You see, the Internet is a very BIG place and it keeps cHanGIng all the time, faster than anyone can keep up with, let alone anyone who happens to be busy making products, servicing clients or doing the accounting.

On the Internet, what you don’t know can hurt you. A lot!

For example, say you want to develop a website and all you know is Microsoft Word. You create a simple site that looks good to you and you publish it online. No niche research, no usability design, no speed optimization, no SEO and no dynamic content. Just an online brochure, really. You think, “It cost me nothing and it looks nice. Now, all I have to do is wait”.

WRONG! Your website takes months to be picked up by search engines and sits at the bottom of page 523, never to be seen by anyone, let alone buyers.

What you need is someone who can help you put business sense into your website from Day 1.

But let’s say you got some help and your website looks professional and even includes a shopping cart for your products, but you have not done your Internet marketing research, so your keywords are off and your structure is sub-optimal. You cleverly figure out that AdWords can get you traffic quickly and create a campaign.

BAD MOVE! Your ads will receive low quality scores by AdWords, which means they will appear lower than they should and you’ll be paying a lot more than you should. If that’s not enough, you’ll get the wrong type of visitors, the kind that doesn’t buy.

What you need is someone who can help you put business sense into your website from Day 1.

But let’s say you hire someone to put links all over the Internet back to your site. Surely, this will help bring you site up in searches and get you more business, no?

Nope. It will certainly improve your position, but working outside your site can only improve so much. Incorrect structure and content will still result in a low conversion rate and require a lot more links to make any noticeable difference to your business.

What you need is someone who can help you put business sense into your website from Day 1.

I could go on for a while, but the gist of it is

On the Internet, what you don’t know can hurt you. A lot!

If you don’t do this stuff (Internet marketing, that is) all the time and stay on top of things, you will pay more and get less than you should and make a lot less profit. Why waste time and money and why frustrate yourself? Find an Internet marketer you can trust (I know this great guy) and hire him to get you business quickly and easily from the ground up.

You new Internet business is not far away.

Talk to you soon,
Gal

If you’re reading this, you are most likely a business owner looking to market your products or services on the Internet. So what should you do first? What should you do next? Where can you find more information?

The answer is: right here, of course. Let’s start at the beginning, then, shall we?

Finding a Niche

In the offline world, when customers want to buy something (say a bottle of olive oil), this is what they do:

1. They go shopping at the nearest mall or shopping center
2. They enter the store where the product is most likely to be sold (say Wal Mart)
3. They find the shelf or aisle in which the product is kept
4. On that shelf, they typically find several types and several brands of their product
5. They start reading labels and price tags and compare the different options against one another and against their needs
6. They decide what to buy and add it to their shopping basket, in which there are other, completely unrelated products

Sounds familiar?

In the Internet world, however, things are totally different. When Internet shoppers want to buy something (say a bottle of olive oil):

1. They go looking for information using their favorite search engine (say Google)
2. They type in “olive oil”
3. They take a look at the title, description and URL of the websites listed and consider ways to fine tune their search
4. They type in a more specific search query (say “extra virgin olive oil” or “cold pressed olive oil”)
5. They take a look at the title, description and URL of the websites listed and pick out the most relevant sites
6. They visit only the sites that seem relevant, typically from top to bottom, and stop reading when they believe they have enough information
7. Now they are ready to buy
8. They look for sites that sell their preferred choice of olive oil, possibly by searching for “buy cold pressed extra virgin olive oil” or by clicking one of the sponsored links around the search results
9. They directly “land” on the page that sells what they were looking for and they buy it

Different, isn’t it?

So you see, even if you have a pretty successful offline business selling olive oil, putting up a website featuring all your products on one page or mixing your shopping cart with some history of olive oil or olive oil recipes will get you absolutely nowhere on the Internet compared with sites that have a page dedicated to one very specific thing – cold pressed extra virgin olive oil. One click to get to it, one click to buy.

The upside, of course, is that you can have as many pages as you need on your website, so you don’t have to save. There’s not rent to pay for commercial space by the square foot, no cleaning for the extra pages, only the setup cost. But the returns, oh, the returns!

The difference between having your website listed at the top of the first page of search results and having it listed on, say, page 15, is pretty much like the difference between having a website and not having one. So you must identify your online niches first, and then have your website designed to have dedicated pages for each niche.

Doing this step first makes all the rest of your search engine optimization (SEO) possible. If you don’t do this first, you are effectively crippling anything you will do later on.

Of course, being deeply involved in your own business and having an offline mindset, it is best to engage an Internet marketing consultant to help generate ideas and check how often people search for them, because some niches are not worth your effort. Not wasting your time and money on those niches and discovering “golden nuggets” you couldn’t think of yourself will bring you more than enough value to cover anything the Internet marketer will charge. Guaranteed.

Depending on where you are on your Internet journey, please choose from the list below:

I’m still thinking about putting my business online

I want to have a website

I already have a website, and I want it to do better

I’m happy with my website, but I need more traffic

Why should I choose you as my Internet marketer?

“I’m still thinking about putting my business online”

Free, no obligation consultation

• I will answer any questions you may have about taking your business online, show you examples of Internet successes.
• At the end of this step, you will be comfortable making a decision whether to take your business online.

Contact me to request your free consultation, get great value from me and pay nothing. When you’re happy to continue, consider doing more with me.

“I want to have a website”

Internet market research and recommendations report

• I will understand your business goals for going online and then perform a thorough analysis of the online marketplace to identify Internet niches in which your business can do well.
• This includes competitive analysis, search volume checks, keyword phrase generation and other areas, as your business requires.
• At the end of this step, you will have a detailed report, which your web designer can use to build a powerful website, which will attract search engines and convert visitors to clients (or leads).

Contact me to arrange our initial discussion, spend about 1 hour with me discussing your business performance indicators and Internet goals and invest $495.

“I already have a website, and I want it to do better”

Quick website review (FREE) – try before you buy

• I will review your website for some basic criteria and give you recommendations for making it more professional and more attractive.

Contact me to request the quick website review, get some great value from me and pay nothing. When you’re happy, consider doing more with me.

Website review, Internet market research and recommendations report – the real deal

• I will understand your business goals for your website, thoroughly review your website and recommend ways to make the website perform better and bring you more profits.
• This includes a review of the design (look & feel), navigation, functionality and performance statistics, as well as online market research, competitive analysis and generation of ideas tailored to your business.
• At the end of this step, you will have a detailed report, which your web designer can use to update your website, so it will receive more traffic and generate more sales (or leads). Often, having someone else look at your website results in massive value.

Contact me to arrange our initial discussion, spend about 1 hour with me discussing your business performance indicators and Internet goals and invest $795.

“I’m happy with my website, but I need more traffic”

Search engine optimization, incoming link building, article marketing, social bookmarking and more

• I will understand your online marketing parameters, agree the best online marketing strategy with you and drive more traffic to your website.
• This service can be delivered based on time, budget, method or performance.
• Through this service, you will get targeted traffic to your website, which you will be able to link with more sales, more leads and more business profits.

Contact me to arrange our initial discussion, spend about 1 hour with me discussing your business performance indicators and Internet goals, agree the scope of work and budget.

“Why should I choose you as my Internet marketer?”

You should find it easy to choose me for the following reasons:

My aim is to give you more business. I don’t sell design, I don’t sell hosting, I don’t sell domains and I don’t sell traffic. What’s good for you is good for me, because when you’re happy, you’ll want more websites and you’ll send your friends my way too. I’m not some kid, so your business is safe with me. I’ve been in professional IT services for many years, I’m a parent of 3, still married to the same wife and you can trust me with your business.

• If it ain’t gonna work, I’ll let you know. No point wasting your time or mine chasing red herrings if we can both do something useful instead.
• I have proof that my methods work. I have succeeded in tough markets by doing what I do best. See my Internet marketing results for yourself.
• I structure my charges so that most of them will come out of your new online profits. You can book as much of my time as you like and ensure you get value all along the way.

By now, you know that the Internet is great for information products, as well as for offline products with a global appeal. So far, so good. But not every business sells standard products. Some businesses make their products to suit their clients’ needs. What about them?

Well, businesses that offer custom-made products can derive great benefits from using the Internet. You see, the Internet makes communication a whole lot easier than any other alternative, and a whole lot cheaper.

Say your company offers a product with many options: color, finish, size, embossed logo, etc. You could employ an army of specialized sales people, who could walk each new customer through the decision-making process in person or over the phone, or you could build a web site, which includes pictures, descriptive text, videos and even interactively-generated visual product images, which allow your prospects to try a few options, work out what’s best for them and then order or request a quotation without employing a single person on an ongoing basis.

Couple this with the ability to keep in touch with your clients via rich emails and informing them whenever you start offering more colors, bigger sizes and so on, and you will see that the Internet can give your business a huge boost in productivity and profitability.

It is true that sometimes, human interaction is required, because the client may need some expert advice in order to get it just right, but your website will screen those who would not buy, and would just waste your time and money, because they will quickly (and at no cost to you) find out what you cannot do for them. Those who choose to contact you can now receive your full attention, because by the time you contact them, you will already have a very good idea of what they need.

To summarize, if your business can benefit from getting complex custom-order inquiries, screening those who are unlikely to buy and saving a lot of time in your selling process, which you can translate to a much smaller sales team, look seriously into your online options and contact an Internet marketer as soon as you can.

So the Internet is great for information products. Got that. But what if my product cannot be digitized and sold electronically?

First, it may be that you are selling something very unique or that you are offering it in a special way, perhaps at a special price. If your item can be sent by post or international courier service (like FedEx or UPS), you should be able to expand your business significantly by selling to other parts of the world.

Second, getting business on the Internet is so much cheaper than offline, because it doesn’t require any showroom space or sales people. This means that your profit margin is larger, and you can afford to “throw in” the cost of shipping or any “deal sweetener” you can think of that will help you get sales.

Third, your online store is open 24 hours a day, every day, in every timezone, which means you can get 2-3 times the amount of business you would get from an offline store, while catering for every possible type of Internet buyer anywhere in the world.

To summarize, if your business can benefit from selling online by increasing profit margins, reaching large new markets and virtually operating around the clock. Look seriously into your online options and contact an Internet marketer as soon as you can.

Let’s face it – the Internet is not as useful for every business.  It’s also not as appealing to every business owner. So who should consider engaging an Internet marketer for their business. More importantly, should you?

The Internet is probably by far the fastest, cheapest and richest way to deliver information. With the ability to rotate images, display animated images and show video, the Internet can deliver any type of content quicker and cheaper than any other medium. If you need to communicate information to your clients or potential buyers, the Internet can offer you some great tools.

If you have an information product, you have probably gone through the phase of creating a digital version of it, which might have been printed later. On the Internet, your digital product can be sold as a separate, possibly lower cost item, at lightening speed, to an unlimited number of customers in a completely separate market to offline buyers. Furthermore, the Internet offers armies of promotion experts, called “Affiliates”, who will gladly help you sell your information product, in return for a share of your income.

Note that the type of information best suited for the Internet is one that has global appeal. The language you use may be the only limitation, but as the Internet crosses all borders, your information can be carried to wherever there’s a need for it via this great medium.

To summarize, if your business can benefit from the delivery of paid or unpaid information to a wide, targeted market, the Internet is the place for you. Look seriously into your online options and contact an Internet marketer as soon as you can.

Welcome to Get Your Business Online, a site about bringing small businesses to the world via the Internet.

The Internet, or the World Wide Web, is a unique place, where the rules change almost daily. It’s hard to keep up with everything going on online when you’re also busy running a business. So it makes business sense to let someone else do it, who can keep up on your behalf and show you the way.

Getting a web site is a small step in the right direction, but getting business requires patience, a small investment and a good deal of knowledge and skills, which I can use to help your business profit and grow.

Want to know more? Contact me.

One of the things many people don’t know about the Internet is that it’s not all about web sites. Very often, my clients start by asking “So, how much for a website?” They think that once they have a website up and running, their business will boom all of a sudden. They think that by being present on the Internet, their clients will find them right away and immediately start buying from them.

Well, as vital and central as a web site is in setting up online marketing, there are MANY things to take into consideration before putting one up. There are also many things a business can do online, which have little or nothing to do with their web site – email marketing, article submission and more.

So typically, I walk my clients over the wide range of things that can be done and the process I use to get the fastest and biggest business results out of their Internet marketing investment, and I see their understanding and appreciation growing and growing, until they are ready to begin. Then I ask them, “Would you like a web site with that?” and they laugh, because by then, they know what I mean.

The world in the palm of your hand

If you are a business owner looking to succeed online, your first step is to revisit your business plan. Any marketing investment, online or otherwise, must serve the business and bring measurable outcomes – extended reach into a market, more leads, more sales, higher profits, diversification or whatever you want for your business.

Once you know what you want to get, decide how much you are willing to spend in order to start. On the Internet, you can start fairly small and leverage your new income stream to make more money online. The initial effort typically includes setting up a web site and doing some initial promotion, so set aside some funds upfront, and then decide how much you are willing to spend monthly over the first year of your Internet marketing campaign.

For your benefit, here are some Internet marketing articles I’ve posted. Read them to get an idea of what’s involved in Internet marketing and how I prefer to work.

I’ve also listed my Internet Marketing Services, where you will find something to suit your business needs, whether you are just considering putting your business online or want to boost the profits of your existing website..

When you’re done, contact me.