(c) 2002 by Detlev Reimer

It is no question that the Internet provides us with the best and easiest possibilities to make some serious money without having to invest thousands of dollars, first . In fact, you can have an Internet business if you just pay for your Domain Name, hosting and a followup autoresponder as fixed costs .

This easy way of getting into a new business makes many people think: "I will make money on the Internet, too ... ! " Lack of essential business knowledge is often compensated by a strong desire to "make it work". But...

What Does Your Web Site Want To Achieve ?

Would you put up a web site without even knowing what you want to achieve with it ? Before you can't answer the question , don't start building your site ! It is essential to the SUCCESS of your business . Why else would you invest days or weeks creating something only to see that nobody is interested in your products/ services ? You must know if you can create revenue streams from your efforts.

Find Out If Your Product Is Needed !

So start finding out if there's a demand for the products you want to sell and then develop your own range of products or buy licenses to some products which you know are in DEMAND. Do a survey on your main web site and list 10 to 12 of your product ideas. Create your own products based on these results. THEN start building new mini sites around them .

What Should You Consider When Building Your Web Site ?

Links :

- Don't put too many outside links on your entrance page, you want your visitors to stay, do you ?

- If you have any outside links, let them open in a new window. This way the visitors stay on your site.

- Remove all links which are not related to the content you want to focus on

- Try to use blue as a basic colour for your links. Not all Internet users are so experienced that they recognize differently coloured links as well.

Design :

- Don't try out any fancy combinations like pink with purple and aquamarin . Stick with basic colours blue, red, green, black, white, grey, yellow and combine up to three of them .

- Don't make it hard to read your content. The text should appear like you would print it out : Black font on white background !

NEVER use dark backgrounds together with dark colours . You don't want your web site visitors to GUESS what you've written ....

- Use tables in your HTML to achieve the best design .

Content :

- Provide UNIQUE content . Not rehashed material already seen on hundreds of related sites . Give your visitors a reason to return to your site. Let your site be bookmarked !

- So if you sell computer related items, don't mention the weather , news or similar unrelated stuff. It does not belong there.

How do you want to make sales if their first click goes to the weather report and they're gone ?

FOCUS :

- Don't try to be all things to all people, this won't work. Stick with one topic and sell only related items . Test if people really want your products. You want to make MONEY, do you ? So don't try to sell a "DEAD DUCK" ! Use your own products yourself and decide if the quality is good enough to be sold...

- Know who your customers are. It is necessary that you know where you can reach your potential customers with your advertising messages. It doesn't matter if you have 1,000,000 visitors. You must have TARGETED visitors who want to BUY your products !

Contacting your prospects :

- Develop a strategy to stay in regular contact with those visitors that are interested in your products and services . ---->> Newsletter, Site updates , Reports etc. - Provide signup forms for your newsletter/reports on every page of your web site !

Improving your site :

- Test different things: - new headlines, new ad copy, new arrangement of products, new colours for your web site design . Test and track everything until you have found the best combination .

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Written by Detlev Reimer, CEO of 1A IMS-Marketing. In his Web Money Marketing Newsletter, he shows regular people how to earn an income online. Subscribe to the free version by sending a blank email to: webmoney @ dreimer.par32.com (Remove spaces) or visit his website at: http://www.internetmarketing-success.com/ .

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