10 Things I Learned When Starting a Small Business on the Internet
Starting a small business can be intriguing, but disappointing. It can be hard, but inspiring. When I started my internet business, I was gung-ho about the whole idea but when I wasn't prepared to face the challenges, I almost gave up. I had loads of business experience on top of my education in Business Administration. I thought it would be easy, that was, before I learned that internet marketing is quite original!
If you are starting a small business on the internet, you can learn from my experiences and my recommendations will start you out on the right foot.
Here is a summary of what I learned in the process…
- A Pretty Website Is Not Important
- Website Development Matters
- Web Site Traffic Is Fundamental
- Keyword Research Is Vital
- Content Makes a Difference
- Fresh Content Helps
- Free Web Content Hurts
- Quality Links Are Important
- Reciprocal Links Don't Usually Work
- Perseverance Is Necessary
I started out by reviewing website designs, comparing colors and so forth. That may just be the woman in me, but I thought that the appearance of my website would attract visitors. I didn't have a clue about building web site traffic. After all, in a traditional setting the appearance of your store does matter. On the internet, that is just not true!
Web design is a lot less important than website development. Website development takes into consideration the things that make a website do its job. It includes designing the website, of course, but it also uses tactics that will attract web site traffic to your site— Qualified Traffic!
Website traffic actually makes the world go around when you are starting a small business on the internet. Without it, you be wasting your time and your money. If you don't get the traffic that you need to sustain your business, you will leave the internet disappointed and broke!
Identifying keywords that your target market will use when searching for you is the most important thing that you can do. You also have to review the competition and choose keywords that will be profitable to you – develop a niche. Keyword research is an involved process, but it can make the difference between a failed attempt and a glorious one when starting a small business on the internet.
A lot of business entrepreneurs are trying to get website traffic by dumping loads of money into advertising and they are not seeing expected results. What they don't realize is the importance of content in getting a gainful search engine listing. If you can get a satisfactory rank in the search engines, you actually get free traffic. Relative content pretty much makes the search engines happy which will result in traffic to your website. Be cautious though – if keywords are overused on your site, the effectiveness of the content actually diminishes.
Refreshing your website content frequently will let the search engines know that your website is not dead. So many people start a small business on the internet and fail, so a lot of inactive websites exist on the net. If you want a good ranking in the search engines, you will continually add content to your site. The task can be burdensome. If so, hire a web writer to write original content for you. It is worth the price.
A lot of internet business people don't have the time to write content for their website, or they are uncomfortable with the process. Sometimes, they turn to free web content thinking that it will fulfill their need for fresh content. Free content may actually hurt your search engine ranking because of duplication of content. If you want fresh content , write it yourself or hire a web writer to develop original, keyword-driven web content.
The search engines do pay attention to links coming into your site from related sources. Therefore, it is important to develop content that will be alluring enough to get people to refer to your site.
Reciprocal links – the "I'll put your link on my site if you'll put my link on yours" concept – used to help with search engine optimization. However, the search engines seem to have caught on and started eliminating reciprocal links from the process of ranking sites if they are not related to the theme of the site. Using Value Exchange is a good way to make sure that your reciprocal links are relative.
When starting a small business, the excitement keeps you going. However, once you experience failures (and you will) you will be tempted to throw in the towel. If you have the ability to persevere through hard times, you will learn a lot about internet marketing and eventually, you will be successful.
Interested in more information about starting a small business on the internet?
