The Four Components of a Successful Website

There are, really, lots of things that can make or break a website.  This guru and that sage will talk, talk, talk about their particular angle and their particular strategy and charge you anywhere from $49.99 to $49,999.99 to teach it to you.  Each of these things being taught can be sifted down into four basic components: Content, Optimization, Monetization, and Promotion.

Content

This really is the core.  Everyone may say that “Content is King”, but few understand why, and there are several reasons.  The easiest reason to understand is simple:  That’s what Google looks for. Google values good content, good information, and it’s ranking calculations are set up to reward that.

Another very important reason is that it’s what people are mostly searching for.  Yes, it’s true that people are shopping online, but before they shop, they look for information.

Finally, it’s what gives your website substance. That’s kind of intangible, but it’s what makes people value your site.  It gives you authority. And that helps people when they want to buy.

Additionally, your site’s content has to be focused.  It has to have a good clear topic.  A blog that rants about politics, and then about religion, and reviews movies, and then gripes about the price of groceries might well be a good creative outlet for the author, but it’s not going to build an audience.

Optimization

Of course, if people can’t find your information, it doesn’t much matter, does it?  Your content and your pages have to be set up to contain good keywords, in the proper locations, with the right kind of interlinking.  In other words, even if you have a great hand of cards, you still have to play the game right.  With each of those things in place, your site will be easy to find, and people will come to know it as the place to go for your topic.

Monetization

That’s a newly coined word (pardon the pun) for “how to make this website pay off!”  There has to be some connection to making money, or it’s just a hobby.  There are lots of ways to do this, and they all have advantages and disadvantages.  You can sell products directly from your website, processing credit cards and fulfilling orders.  You can promote the products of other websites through an affiliate program, receiving a percentage of each sale. You can host ads on your site.  A single site can often employ many different streams of income.

Promotion

Finally, the site is ready, so now all it needs is traffic.  Good optimization will be valuable in this process, but there are more ways to make it work, too. Social networking is one way that’s both growing and practical. Paid internet advertising is now more affordable than ever, and it’s the most trackable methods of all. Site owners can be very strategic and get the most impact for their investment.

Over the course of the next few posts, I’ll be covering each of these in more detail. With this overview, however, you can either plan your upcoming website, or you can see which component needs the most work!

Mark is currently employed as an Internet Business Coach.

Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

Net Neutrality! ...Again

When I heard the fuss about neutrality being raised up again, I thought to myself, “This issue has been around a while, hasn’t it?”  In fact, I remembered having written about it some time ago.  It turns out that was back in 2006.  I looked it up: http://sohoman.blogspot.com/2006/08/net-neutrality-and-you.html  I guess the wheels of regulation turn slowly.

Not that it’s an invalid concern.  Far from it.  It’s very important that the Internet, which has a long, tested, and sometimes sordid history of unregulated freedom, be kept free for all.

Here’s the deal:  There’s a lot of content on the ‘net, not just websites and silly blogs like this one.  There’s TV shows, and movies, and streaming music and talk, and all kinds of media and information flowing through these wires, fibers, and waves.  Much of that content is being provided by some pretty big corporations.  They feel that they should be able to have better service, with faster connections, and better stability than little mom & pop web shops or bloggers.

Others, mostly mom & pop webstore owners and bloggers, as well as a lot of folks that work on the ‘net daily, feel that the same wires, fibers and waves should carry everything.  Equally.  Neutrally.  Hence, “net neutrality”.

What they’re afraid of is that these powerful and wealthy companies will end up being able to restrict the usage of the network of their smaller competitors, or even of those that speak in ways that they don’t like. And in order to preserve that equality that has existed for so long, in order to keep it a free and open forum of ideas, they’re asking for some regulation.

Yes, you heard that right.  They’re wanting regulation, rules, in order to keep things fair and free.  Oh, the irony.

If you’re reading this, it’s very likely that you’re one of the smaller website owners.  It’s likely that you’re not a major, multinational corporation.  So, this is something that you should be concerned about.  Is it possible that they’ll end up squeezing you out of the picture?  Net Neutrality, then, becomes not so much a techie-sounding buzzword, and turns into a real-life concern.

The FCC recently presented some proposed rules changes.  These are not yet fixed, and there well be legislation that could come down as well.  It would be wise for all of us to contact our representatives and let them know how we feel.  To access your representatives, look to http://www.house.gov/ and http://www.senate.gov/





Mark is currently employed as an Internet Business Coach.

Mark also has other sites and blogs, including Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Recipes, MarkHansenMusic.com and his MoBoy blog.

The Power of the #Hashtag

Last weekend was a major event for us Mormons. Those of you that aren't, bear with me, because what I have to say about that weekend will make a difference to you and how you promote your business.

So, last weekend was what we call "General Conference Weekend". It's two days of hearing speeches in big meetings (totalling about 10 hours) from our church leaders. It happens every six months and, in our culture, it's a big deal.

In recent years, an interesting cultural phenomenon has occurred, called "live tweeting", where members who are watching or attending the conference sessions post their favorite thoughts and quotes in real-time as they hear them, either on facebook, twitter, or both. Other members then watch for those quotes and share their thoughts. It becomes a running commentary on the proceedings.

Here's why that's important to anyone else: It's all tracked by a single "hashtag". For the uninitiated, a hastag is a short string of characters that immediately follow the "#" sign in a twitter post (Facebook, now, too). What good is it? Why is it there? It's to allow others to find your post by using Twitter's search function. By searching for the the right hashtag phrase, a reader can peruse all of the tweets about a given topic. In this case, those livetweeting general conference were using the now-traditional: "#ldsconf" hashtag.

I had a lot of fun this time livetweeting and reading the tweets of others as the conference went on. Many of my tweets were marked as "favorites" by others, and "retweeted" or reposted in other people's tweets. I ended up with a big list of new followers, too, all because I joined in using the right hashtag. Here's an interesting artlicle about that from the church's tech department: http://www.ldsliving.com/story/73914-latter-day-saints-take-over-social-media-at-general-conference

I was very intersted to learn from this article just how high in the national ratings the trending hashtag got.

So, the real take-away message, here, is that while you're using twitter and facebook, to find and use the hashtags that are trending in your own audience. To do this, you have to begin by finding people to follow in your audience, your industry, your niche. When you see them using hashtags, click on them, or search them. If there are a lot of relevant posts with that tag, then, you know you've hit paydirt. Sometimes you can also google search your nice and the word hashtags, because sometimes people compile articles about the hashtags and post them on blogs or pages.

Then, once you've identified them, begin using them. Make tweets and posts that are relevant to the tag and add it in. If you're sharing some online resource you've found or retweeting someone else's post, that's even better!

Then you can ride the hashtag wave to more followers, and, ultimately, new customers.

Check out Mark's other blogs, at Mark's Black Pot - Dutch Oven Cookbooks or Handicap Parking Spot