Archive for November, 2009

If I were to ask you, what’s the singlemost factor behind any successful website then what would be your answer?

This factor is common to Catalog sites, Personal sites, business sites, content sites, portal sites and every other sites that exists.

Here are few of the answers people believe are right-

1. Website Design
2. Slogan
3. Graphics and Logo
4. Marketing approach
5. Any latest Internet Technology (web 2.0, blog and ping, rss feeds etc)
5. any other answer (any answer that talks about getting traffic is not right, we are talking about website)

If your answer is any of the above, then it’s wrong.

The right answer is “The Words You use on your website”.

I know this is surprising but imagine how a website would look like without any words. Imagine what your graphics, design alone without words would say?

In fact if you take any B2B website, remove their words and then look, you’ll get Same design, Same style that it’ll be hard to differentiate between them.

You are on my blog not because you like the design or you just know me or you think this is the next coming of internet technology. No. You are here because of the words I wrote. You are spending time because the Words jump out to you and resonate with you.

Just take google.com the world’s best search engine website. What’d happen if I remove the words.

Can you make head or tail of it? You have no idea what to do? Heck even their logo is made up of word google.

What I did was erase “Google Search” and “I’m Feeling Lucky” from the buttons above.

Before you came at google, you knew what’ll happen if you enter a term and click “Google Search”. But now you are clueless.

That’s why I suggest in the website, the most important factor is the words you use.

It’ll help differentiate your website than your competitors.

It’ll help you connect with your customers/prospects easily.

It’ll give meaning to your pictures, graphics on your website.

It’ll help you build trust with your visitors.

It’ll help you share information with your visitors/prospects/customers (isn’t that’s the whole reason you got your website?)

Words will help you brand your business and website.

Now the question is does any kind of word will help you? Of course the answer is NO.

You have to use words, that helps your visitors to guide through your website, understand how your website can help, and show them how to get solution to their problems.

Words will make a heck a lot difference if you just open your eyes and listen to your customers voice. 

Click Here if your goal is to create a High performing website.

Whew, it has been 5 years and right now I am looking back at the lessons Internet marketing taught me over the years. Of course I am not discussing marketing tactics and techniques here otherwise this blog post will probably turn in a huge book.

First lesson :- Strike and Grab the Opportunity fast whenever it presents

This is the first and most important lesson that you’ll learn while doing Internet Marketing.

It all comes down to speed of implementation. If you are slow, time will move on and chances of your profiting from the opportunity has left you by.

If you compare internet time line to offline line real world time line, then time is moving at least 4 times faster on internet (that’s due to advancement in Internet technologies). The cause and effect can be seen almost immediately of internet technology and time.

People who sit on the side line and wait and check are often late and broke.

That’s why I said speed of implementation is important.

Second Lesson : Ideas are dime a dozen, Action is rarer.

Too many people have way too many ideas… but people who take action are rarer. And thats true in harshest of terms for people on internet. With the access to ever changing technologies, people can exchange ideas in a blink. But People who take action on those ideas are rare and those who do, often succeeds.

Again complimented with first lesson of speed of implementation, this will help you tremendously.

Third lesson : Sell whenever the damn you can

Someone told me, “Every attempt at communication is an attempt of persuasion. Either you are persuading someone or being persuaded by someone”. When I am writing as “Sell whenever the damn you can”, it sounds like a sleazy salesman or slick opportunist.

But that’s not my intent at all.

In internet, the method of communication changes a LOT and if you have a business, you have to learn, adapt and implement different communication methods. If you are selling online you have to utilize every opportunity to communicate efficiently otherwise you’ll not sell at all.

Fourth Lesson : Learn to communicate with written word.

Now as you can guess, learning to write is going to be one of the most important way to communicate online. If you can’t write, you can’t communicate. Oh yes there are videos, audios too but let me say it again, written communication is a HUGE part of Online communities. You just cannot ignore it.

Fifth Lesson : It only takes one silly mistake to get crushed in the time

Doing business ethically is important. With internet and the ease of communication methods, you can be easily crushed. If you are a good businessman, then people won’t be able to slander you even with internet. Why ? because your evangelists(customers) will help you fight against them.

You are nothing but a speck of dirt in the time line and trust me, it’s going to be important to do your business ethically and grow and succeed.

There are many other things I can write here but I think the long laundry list is unnecessary. 5 lessons will suffice for now.

Varun Pratap

Desire. Commit. Succeed.

How to harness the true power of Internet for an Offline Business?

Business Owners tend to get burned by greedy sharks when it comes to getting their business online. One of the simplest way they get burned is by SEO (Search engine optimization) Experts. Typical SEO techniques might not work for offline business, Infact I dare say, often they don’t need those services at all.

And often these services are quite pricey even at their lowest packages (at around $5000).

Just couple of days I got a call from one of my reader asking about XYZ SEO company’s package. So I checked out their package and I almost spilled my evening tea on my PC’s screen.

SEO services are expensive and they are the kind of the expense sometimes you can live without. Their price ranges from $5000 – $50,000+. If you are wondering if it’s right decision to buy a package like that, then step back and again rationalize.

The worst part is most business owners can’t differentiate between good service or bad service when it comes to SEO. Heck this field is so complicated it even makes most online marketers sweat. And it’s purposely set that way to wring more money out of you.

When it comes to harnessing the true power for an offline business.

You are better off if you focus more towards creating and building relationships with your customer base.

You are better off spending more time utilizing Audio and Video to help create more trust in your visitors.

You are better off spending more time creating product demos which can help you sell more products.

Think of your website as platform which will help you sell more in real world. Do not worry about Typical SEO or things like that.

Think how can your website help your current marketing efforts in your business?

Think how can your website help you relate with your customers?

These questions will help you understand what kind of marketing approach you should use on your website. Without a sound marketing approach all the SEO, all the bells and whistles, all the graphics on your website is just waste of space.

Think about your marketing first, then about your website.