My Way of Putting together a Website.

I have been working online since 2004 and I had my shares of up and downs when it came to internet marketing. One of the biggest headache or pain in the ass while starting online is putting together a website.

I don’t mean in technical terms. You can hire anyone to get a website in a week or less. No I meant in terms of Marketing, Producing, it’s like giving a birth to website.

1. What’s Your Goal?  – When I am starting out, I ask myself a very simple question. What’s my goal? Now of course, your goal can be, saving the world, making money, just plain old vanilla putting your business offline.

But in this phase, you have to find out how you are going to achieve your end goal.

For example, this website http://www.varunpratap.com/ went through many phases (from a personal website to fitness blog to again a personal website to professional website to phew… tooo many). I ended up scraping all of these earlier versions just because I wasn’t satisfied.

I am a creative person and I need an outlet where I can speak, shout, rant or just be darn creative.

Currently my slogan “Desire. Commit. Succeed” is something I want others to experience. And to me, there’s nothing better using a blog to share your experience. With my experience in many diverse fields, I know I’ll end up talking about tons of different things on this blog.

So you have to decide what’s your ultimate goal? And how you are going to achieve it?

2. How are you going to create a connection? – Websites do not exists in solitude. In fact nothing exists in solitude. So when you are going to make a website, you have to find a way to create a connection with people who are going to visit your website.

There’s no other way. You cannot avoid this. No matter who you are. No matter what business you are in. No matter what your race is or where you live.

Your website cannot live without visitors and there has to be a way to connect with them.

2 Easiest way to connect with them are

1. Blog Like this one.
2. Newsletter
3. Forum (I am adding this one but it takes lots of efforts to maintain a forum).

You also have to understand about the media (Audio and Video). Because they ultimately create a connection. You have to check whether you can use it or not.

3. Potential to monetize or not – Third thing I think about potential to monetize a website. It’s very simple, If you are already making an effort to build and maintain a website, then why not monetize it?

There are many ways to monetize. The easiest to implement are :-

1. Sell advertisement space.
2. You can create a list and sell advertisement.
3. Create a product/s and sell it.
4. Promote affiliate products.
5. Sell your services.

Now this is how I start even before I order a website design to be done. I worry about my prospects. I prepare about how I am going to connect. I prepare about how to market. I prepare about how to sell.

Like I said, any one can put a website online. These days even toddlers and their pets have one. But all of this underestimates the real though that goes behind putting a website together.

It’s not that complicated. In fact it’s easiest the moment you decide “What’s my Ultimate goal with this website?”.

This is first of my 3 part formula “Decide. Commit. Succeed”. The moment you decide and decide to commit, things changes. Everything will work in your favor depending on your will. And Succeeding is just next step.

Notice, there’s no where I talked about SEO (search engine optimization) or any other new internet technologies. Because we don’t have to worry about them.

First build a website in mind, then on paper and only then come online.

Best Regards,

Varun Pratap
Desire. Commit. Succeed.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Digg
  • BlinkList
  • De.lirio.us
  • Furl
  • IndianPad
  • Netscape
  • scuttle
  • StumbleUpon
  • Technorati
  • BlogMemes
  • del.icio.us
  • Linkter

November 30, 2009 | Filed Under Business Mindset, My Thoughts, Small Business

Leave a Comment 

Comments

Leave a Reply