There
is a great similarity between Hollywood and the WWW.
Everyday thousands come and few make it. If you don't believe
me go back through your book-marks (sights you've saved) and see how many
sites are still around. The Internet has been promoted in such a
way to make people believe that all they need is a web site to get rich.
From personal experience we can tell you that it is simply not true!
Having a successful web site is a commitment of lots of time and lots of
hard work. There is always a learning curve involved and what works
for one may not work for another. However, the basic business principles
still apply and "Traffic" is the key. If you were to open a store
front and only had one customer a day you wouldn't be in business very
long. The same applies to a web site. It takes a lot
of traffic for a web site to be profitable. Less than 1% of your
visitors will click on an advertising banner and even less will actually
buy something. The starting point for developing traffic is
getting listed with the major search engines , directories and other web
sites.
.
.
SEARCH
ENGINES
WHAT
YOU NEED TO KNOW
There
are lots of companies and lots of software that will list you with search
engines. We personally feel that the old-fashioned way of listing
site by site is the best. Many of the search engine listing
that companies offer have nothing to do with the product or service that
you are promoting and sometimes the listings from this software does not
show up at all. Bruce Clay has a web site dedicated to getting
listed on the Internet that contains by far the most effective information
that we have found and is must reading for anyone that wants a high volume
site:
.
Search
Engine Tools
ADDITIONAL
SITES TO REVIEW
How
Search Engines Work
Search Engines In Review
Net
Ad Submission Station
Secrets
Of The Search Engines
Search Engine Watch
Search
Engine Tutorial
Once
you have an understanding of Search Engines and how they
work
you will need to write Meta Tags - this links will help you write
them
and check them.
Meta
Tags
Meta
Tag Analyzer
Listing With
The Majors
Yahoo!
Alta
Vista
AOL
Excite
Hot
Bot
Lycos
MSN
.
.
.
DIRECTORIES
WHAT
YOU NEED TO KNOW
Technically,
Yahoo is not a Search Engine - it is a directory. Specialty directories
will bring lots more traffic to you web site - and they may be called Indices,
Indexes or Site Links. Do searches with your particular site subject
to find them. Also there are many directories listed under "Free
Sites".
.
.
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LINK
EXCHANGES
WHAT
YOU NEED TO KNOW
If
you think you can just create a web site and let it sit then you are in
for a rude awakening. In Hollywood it's called "Networking".
In web lingo it's exchanging links with other sites. You will never
be a high traffic web site without lots of exposure and this is the way
to get it! Some sites prefer to just link with text but others link
with banners. If you are artistic you can create your own banners.
If not here are sites that have software that will help you to make
custom banners for free!
.
PaceWorks
Animation.Com
.
You
may also want to consider Banner Exchange Services or Reciprocal
Link "Networks" - some very good information about each
is
given at this site:
Banner
Exchange Services
.
.
.
SHOW
ME THE MONEY
To
make money with a web site you are either selling your own products and/or
services or your are selling advertising space. If you are going
to utilize your web site to promote your existing business or services
then it can become a very effective tool. We would, however, not
recommend that you invest in a large inventory of products as a web " start-up"
business. People are still leery ordering on the web - and
even very adept merchandisers like Amazon.com have yet to turn a profit.
Also be very skeptical of the Infomercial programs that offer overnight
profits on start-ups if you buy their web site development packages.
The only people that are making money are - guess who?
..
Networks
pay by impressions, click-thru's or commission on product sales.
An impression is an exposure to an ad that is placed on you page.
This means that every time someone visits your page your are paid for the
exposure. Click-thru's mean that the visitor has to click on the
banner for you to be paid. And commission sales require a visitor
to not only click on the banner but it also result in a sale. From
personal experience we can tell you that many of these companies
are scams and don't pay! Before you sign with an advertiser
it is important that you do some investigating. We've found this
site to provide really good information about "Pay-Per Click" and "Commission
Based Programs" and must reading for anyone that wants to join an advertising
banner service.
.
.We
have experimented with advertisers and believe site content has a great
impact on what advertising programs work. The size of your
site also affects revenue. Commission based programs have never
worked for us and single banners like were not reliable because the advertisers
were constantly changing our rates. Much of the information we have
given you about making money on the web sounds rather grim - but unfortunately,
true. Yes, there are web sites that make lots of money but they are
sites that have become masters at advertising and networking.
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