Top 10 Reasons Why a Small Online Business Flops

By Gary Jamieson

Here are the 10 top reasons why small online businesses fail; it is best to be as educated as possible when trying to succeed in any business.

10. Websites that don't get into DMOZ, which is a large directory that helps your placement in search engines, will lose a step in ranks. Adding your site to DMOZ can be a painful and long process, be surprised if you get into this human powered directory at all.

9. Don't turn your web business into a banner site. When people go to a page they do not want to see flashing pictures and arrows pointing to buy something. Your visitors are smart to that kind of advertising and so is Google and other search engines.

8. Websites that don't include a blog. If used correctly, blogs get around the internet through feeds. This concept is very confusing to many people but has been proven to be beneficial.

7. Your web business should be built around a niche. Many people will go to broad. For example, "NFL Football" is too broad. Many people are fighting for these keywords, sure it's being searched a lot but nobody will find your website amongst everyone else. You would use something like "NFL Football Team Jerseys".

6. Tortoise wins the race. This is a business not a get-rich scheme. Your success will involve a lot of work and some time. Many people give up too soon, not understanding the nature of ANY business. Set goals for yourself and be realistic.

5. Link Exchanges are a necessity for getting good page rank from search engines. The mistake many people make is exchanging irrelevant links. If you have a real estate site don't link exchange with the lantern store site.

4. Websites neglect to Pre-sell. Whether you are promoting information, a service or product you need to have some pre-selling art form in your website. Give your visitors information and things that are worth their interest.

3. People don't utilize search engines. Google, Yahoo, Live and Ask make up 95% of all search engine activity. If you have not submitted your site to these search engines, you will have a lot less traffic than you should.

2. Keywords! If you make a website and don't include good keywords, search engines will never find it. For example, if you use "love" as a keyword, it is useless. 5 million other people use that same keyword.

1. It is all about Content! If you don't have good content in your website, visitors will turn away leaving the search engines to follow in their steps. The trick is to keep people at your site for as long as possible. Content is what brings people to your website as the keywords point them to your helpful information, products or services.

If you want to start your own small online business there are many things you can do to ensure success!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gary_Jamieson

Online Advertising Techniques You Should Know

By James Copper

Online advertising is the latest and the newest form of advertising. Online advertising helps you reach a larger customer base as in today's world almost everybody uses internet and surfs different sites for gathering information, downloading, chatting, etc. Online advertising is costlier as compared to news paper advertising but is cheaper than the usual TV commercials or radio advertisements. Online advertising is moderately priced and is very beneficial as it is performance driven and one needs to pay only if the desired performance is achieved by the publisher.

Online advertising is also very flexible and latest updates and modifications can be updated with minimum fuss and minimum efforts. Also online advertisement has no time constrains as that of the TV commercials. There are many web sites that publish ads and hence this gives you a larger base for advertising as compared to other mediums like TV, magazines, news paper, hoardings, etc. Also one can choose the advertising web site and content that best suits the need of his company or that best relates with the companies product and services and then accordingly make his choice.

There are two main types of online advertising pay per click advertising technique and permanent or sponsored web site advertising method. Pay per click is the latest type of advertisings, here as permanent or sponsored advertising style is the contemporary and traditional style of on line advertising. Many people are shifting to pay per click method as it is more efficient and more beneficial, in terms of money as well as productivity.

Pay per click online advertising technique:

Pay per click is completely performance driven method of advertising. An advertiser displays or publishes his or her ads on a particular site or a particular web page free of any monthly rentals, etc. The web site or the web page or the publisher gets paid for publishing these ads when the internet users click on that particular ad. Depending on the particular number of clicks for that ad in a stipulated time period the publisher gets paid. The cost of the single click is decided depending on the popularity of the web site that has published the ad, the use of popular and most searched key words in the ad, the usage and popularity of the search engine on which the web site has been listed and last but not the least the ranking of the web site in the search list.

Permanent or sponsored online advertising technique:

Permanent advertising technique is not performance driven and the advertiser has to pay a specific amount of monthly rental as well as the publishing cost to the web site or the publisher. The per month rental of the ad is calculated using factors like the size of the ad, the position of the ad like top corner bottom corner, etc; then factors like the daily visits and usage of the website, the content and efficiency of the web site are also taken into consideration.

James Copper is a writer for http://www.capsco.co.uk which is an online marketing agency

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=James_Copper

Top 7 Business Website Mistakes

By Chuck Linart

Is your website making money for your business? At the end of the day, that is all that matters. I have clients in all kinds of sectors ranging from manufacturing to entertainment, and there are several common mistakes that I see across the board. Here are the Top 7 Mistakes Companies make with their Websites:

1. Thinking of it as merely an online brochure -- True, a good website is a marketing tool, but it is so much more.
2. Not integrating the site into their other marketing efforts -- I hear this a lot, "Our site is not good enough. We're not comfortable referring people to it." (That's what keeps me in business.) Well, then make it good enough, and put it on every other communication you send out from you e-mail signature to your business card to television and radio advertisements.
3. Cheaping out and not hiring a professional to build the site -- Sometimes people want to hire their brother-in-law to make their website. That's fine if the brother-in-law is truly a professional web developer. Otherwise, it's just a waste of money. Nowadays you can get a custom-designed and programmed professional site with lots of bells and whistles for under $2,000. Why would you waste $500 on a cheap site that, if anything, hurts your business? Think about your ROI: How many new clients does your site need to help you get in the next year to pay for itself?
4. Not having a list builder built in to the site -- It amazes me that some companies do not use their contact form to build an opt-in list of people that they can market to in the future.
5. Missing opportunities to profit directly through the site -- In almost any business, there is something you can offer to your clients and clients-to-be that you can ask for the sale and collect payment on through the web. This saves you time and money, and makes you money! Why wouldn't you do it? At the very least, you should have some advertising on your site. I even advertise my competitors. Why not? Let their advertising dollars go to me and still end up with the deal when all is said and done. Ruthless, I know.
6. Not paying attention to SEO which is probably the greatest moneymaker in any webmaster's bag of tricks. A thousand dollars to get you on top of your niche for your keywords is usually money well spent. I have one client (a recording studio) who actually asked me to tone down the SEO on his site because he couldn't handle the phone calls.
7. Not customizing the site's functionality in a strategic way - If you run a medical practice, doesn't it make sense to set appointments through your website? That can free up your staff to do other things. If you are a musician, why wouldn't you sell tickets directly through your gig calendar? You need to think about what your site can do for your business. That's another reason it's important to hire a professional -- they can suggest things that you might not think of yourself.

If you can avoid those pitfalls, your website will make money for your business, no matter what that might be.

Evolution Media works with small businesses, mostly in the NYC area, to implement the advice offered above -- and more! Optimize your business website!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chuck_Linart