Thursday, July 16, 2009

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!


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