Be realistic. There is no guarantee at all that you will make money on the Internet, not even if you read a dozen articles and follow 173 “key tips” to creating a profitable website. The product or service you are selling is probably the biggest variable, and then there are the vagaries of the economy, consumer spending patterns and all the rest to consider. But the biggest factor…is you.
The best you can do is to be persistent, get honest feedback from business professionals and do your best. Many of the tips are common sense ones, but with common sense rapidly becoming quite uncommon, it will help you to read and study up. The following are not in order of importance, as every tip here is important. The main thing is to put everything you have into everything you do, and adapt along the way when you learn new things.
1. Easy reading – The same rules apply here as with print publications. A famous art director of “Life” magazine put it this way: “The page has to say ‘Read me’ and not look like a chore.” If your text is too small or you use too many (or too weird) fonts that are hard to read, visitors will give you the heave-ho and click over to something else. Even the color scheme you use can make reading difficult, so pick contrasting colors when you are selecting font and page colors. Consider keeping it simple, like using a white background and black text for great contrast and readability.
2. Easy navigation – Surfing with a website’s mini-universe can be a frustrating task if the navigation and layout is not done well. Visitors want to find the information they need on your site without a great deal of hassle. Bad navigation is a sure and certain way to tell your customers you can’t be bothered with saving them time, and that they should probably not come back. Don’t let this happen to your website. Keeping all the “nav links” together is a one way of making navigation simpler. Always insert a “back-link” to your home page on all the other site pages.
3. Targeted readership – You must always keep your target audience in mind and forget about pleasing everyone. Who are the people who will most likely be visiting your site? You need to do enough research to understand your customer, then customize the website around their needs and desires. Your site’s look and feel, plus the content and the all-important “call to action,” should all be tailored to the actual human beings who will be visiting your site.
4. Simple contact method – As it has been proven quite conclusively that people are more willing to fill out web page forms than send an email, you should put a contact form on the website and not rely on just an email link. You have to make it easy for people to contact you, so put links to the form on all the site pages and put your phone number on every page, too. Don’t make people hunt for you when they are ready to talk business or give you money.
5. Kill the dead links – If the links on your site are not in good working condition, you will simply alienate the visitors, so make sure to check your website on a regular basis to make sure they are all working properly. Just one dead link could result in a potential customer departing your site entirely. Enough of these occurrences and your website’s search engine ranking will drop like a stone.
6. Keep content fresh – The better and “fresher” your content is, and the more you offer your visitors in terms of quality (rather than simple quantity), the more often they will come back with repeat business. Search engines are known to hunger for fresh content and information on the websites over which they “crawl” so updating your copy on a regular (daily if possible) basis can really help lift your site ranking. One good way to encourage those return visits and repeat sales is to update the site with any new information your visitors would find useful and interesting. To determine what this sho