The Basics of Building Profitable Websites for Beginners

Lots of people start themselves a website every day in the hope of making a little bit (or a lot) of extra income on the internet. There is nothing too difficult in doing this if you are prepared to put in quite a bit of work, learn about how bring traffic to your website and also how to then monetize that traffic. This article deals mainly with the basic decisions you should be making before you ever actually get a site up and running.

A Free Website or Should You Make an Investment?

The most common mistake that I have come across for new marketers is the fact that they often choose a free website over something that they actually pay for and own for themselves. WordPress.com is one place that will allow you to do this but don't fall into the trap of thinking that you can just monetize the site after you have built it. There are some pretty strict rules with regards to what you are allowed to do on a WordPress.com website.

You still could build a website for free; a BlogSpot at Blogger.com is good for this but you have to bear in mind that the website is never truly your own. While free is of course good, it is not necessarily better! Where would you be left if you spent months or even years building out a great website on BlogSpot only to find that Google shuts down the site at a later date? You would have lost all of your hard work overnight.

A much better option than either a WordPress.com or Blogger.com website is to have your own hosted website. Yes it costs a little but it gives you the peace of mind of knowing that this website is your own and nobody can take it away from you. Hosting comes very cheaply these days, especially for the first year and during this period you can see how you get on with the site and then make a decision as to whether you will keep it running or not depending on the level of both income and enjoyment you get out of it.

Keywords, Traffic and Competition

Secondly, you are going to have to learn a little bit about how to get traffic to your site. You might have some of the most fantastic articles on the internet on your chosen subject but if nobody ever sees it then you are dead in the water.

The name of the game here is to analyse what people are actually typing into the search engines, analyzing the competition from other websites for these keyword phrases and then making a decision as to whether or not it is viable for you to compete for these keywords.

Most of those who are serious about earning an income online use some sort of keyword tracking tool which not only helps you decide on which keywords are worth targeting but also keeps a track of your rankings over time so that you can monitor progress as you rise (or fall) in the results on the search engine results pages.

WordPress, a Great Option for New Internet Marketers

Once you have made a decision on what type of keywords you are going to target, it's time to look into buying a domain name, purchasing hosting and deciding on how you are going to present your website to the world. Many beginners and experienced online marketers choose to use 'WordPress' to build their websites, this is a very easy method to get going quickly but as with anything, there is going to be a bit of a learning curve involved. Don't let this put you off however; there are a multitude of websites out there offering WordPress tutorials for beginners, intermediate and advanced users.

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How To Generate High-Quality Leads In Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing is one of the newest types of marketing, yet it actually incorporates elements of some of the oldest and well proven methods. Many of the same rules that apply to other kinds of marketing will apply to mobile marketing too. However, there are some noteworthy differences. This article presents some solid advice on getting the best from this brilliant advertising medium.

When you are creating your mobile marketing campaign, make sure to keep all platforms in mind. Search out information on all of the devices you wish to target your advertising towards, and take each into consideration when planning your campaign. You need to write a script that can be used across all devices to get the most out of your campaign.

When mobile marketing, your main concern is maintaining your current customer base rather than adding new customers. Compared with new customers, established customers are often more willing to opt-in for text updates and offers. Be mindful about how you use mobile marketing. Unsolicited marketing to new customer leads is often considered a spamming technique.

It's important to have your social networking links on your website. Today, people are very into social networking, so giving them another option to find you will be good for your business. If your customers know you have a presence on a social media network, they will check you out but they won't search.

It is important to remember that not everyone has a smart phone, so be sure your links are compatible with older phones. This is not true however if you have any flash on your standard site. If this is the case, then all phones must be directed to your mobile site.

Enhance your mobile marketing website by optimizing it for the search engine crawlers. The search engine used by most mobile devices is Google, so make sure you rank on the first page of the results.

Carefully review marketing data for your chosen niche, so that you are sure your planned campaign is accurately targeting the needs of your prospective customers. This is a wonderful way to make sure that your messages are something your viewers want to see.

There is significant promise to be found in mobile marketing, though it must be used carefully, so as to avoid annoying potential customers. Apply your mobile marketing efforts respectfully and consistently to get the best results. If you follow the advice given here, you will most likely find that you have new customers and more profits coming in.

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Editing Your Landing Pages

The Web Page

It's easy to think that writing for your webpage is like writing for anything else, but it's not: it's very different. You need to build a style that holds your visitor, and you've only go about six seconds to do it!

Impact

Well that's the first point. 'Web-surfers' follow-up their Google search for your product will be flicking through the sites. They either see what they want or move on, one site every six or so seconds, that's how long you have to catch their attention.

The Fold

The expression comes from the old style broadsheet newspapers. They were folded in half across the page and the passer-by could see the banner, the headline and not much else. That part of the page was 'above the fold' the rest of the front page was 'below the fold'.

The news items were set to ensure that the most important headlines were 'above the fold'.

On a webpage 'above the fold' means the bit of a webpage the visitor sees as he or she lands on the page; the bit that can be seen without scrolling down.

Headlines

Part of the impact issue: Headlines have the power to catch your reader's eye. Use them.

Blocks of Text

Big blocks of text are very off-putting for the 'web-surfer': keep them short on your landing pages, no more than three or four lines long. Dense material should be kept off the front page with links from an introductory 'teaser'.

Use a journalistic style - no working up to the punch line. Hit them between the eyes with the very first sentence. In the reverse of normal writing the first sentence should be a summary of the rest of the text.

150-200 words is more than enough to show above the fold. Make sure they work for you.

Eye Candy

You might think pictures a waste of valuable 'above the fold' real estate, but you'd be wrong. The right picture summing up the ethos of your site can be worth a thousand words.

Be Direct: Be Focussed

Going back to our first sentence, you have perhaps six seconds to deliver your message. Be direct, be focussed, remove anything - word, sentence, paragraph, page - that doesn't deliver your message.

Don't waste real estate welcoming your visitors, they know they are welcome; they don't need to be told.

Don't make your visitor have to think, he hasn't got time. Make your links clear and visible, place them where he can see them.

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