Business
Sales Funnel – Business Website And Your Strategy
This is the second of a six part series on how to get your small business website off the ground.
Yesterday we ended off by saying that your business website needs to have a purpose. That purpose is usually going to be one of the following:
- Generate leads
- Directly sell a product (e-commerce)
Once you have decided what you want your site to do, you can move forward.
The Sales Funnel
The concept of the sales funnel is very important to the setup of your business website. That cookie cutter website I talked about yesterday suffers from a complete lack of a sales funnel. A site which is designed with a specific GOAL in mind can serve as a machine for your business, generating either sales or leads (and ultimately cash in the bank).
The sales funnel is called a “funnel” for a specific reason. Think of the funnel used to put oil in your car. No matter how sloppy you are when pouring that oil, as long as it ends up in the funnel, it will make it’s way into your engine. The funnel will focus all the oil to the single entry point into your engine. Now, take that concept to your business. You have a specific goal for your website (a sale, a lead, etc) and your site is supposed to serve as a funnel to drive all incoming traffic into your goal. That is the theory, but of course you cannot expect to funnel ALL of your traffic into your goal. Not every visitor is going to buy something. But, you will continually tweak the machine (your site) so as to increase the number of people which convert to a sale (this is your conversion rate).
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What’s the Point of Your Website?
This is the first of a six part series on how to get your small business website off the ground. Be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed and/or bookmark this website so that you can follow the series to conclusion.
There are a lot of people out there (you may be one of them) who have a website for their business but have no real traffic to speak of. Unfortunately, a majority of business websites are in this boat. They have a few pages up there (made by the small business owner in most cases) but nobody comes by the site (except for those who are directly told to go there). Essentially, the site is not achieving anything for your business.
Sound familiar? For many of you, it probably will. What I’m going to do is walk you through the basics of how to turn your site into something. After all, you didn’t invest all that time and (potentially) money into your website just so you can tell people you have a website, did you? When you created it, you probably had grand plans of getting a decent amount of traffic and actually having the website generate business (and hence revenue) for you. The good news is that that CAN happen. Its just a matter of doing those things that are needed to make your site compete with the larger ones out there that get most of the traffic.
The 80/20 Rule
The 80/20 Rule, technically known as the Pareto Principle, basically says that 80% of the effects come from 20% of the causes. This principle can be applied to all kinds of different scenarios. Perhaps you generate 80% of your business revenue from 20% of your (larger) clients. Well, this rule applies to what you’re up against online. 80% of the traffic on the internet is going to be visiting about 20% of the sites that are available on the internet. Depending on your market, you can shrink that down to this: 80% of your potential market is visiting about 20% of the sites that are out there that have to do with your business.
That means that 80% of the sites for your target market are failing and competing for a small (20%) share of the market. Obviously, then, the trick is to do one of two things (or both) :
- Put your site into that 20% which are competing for the 80% of the traffic.
- Get your name in front of the eyeballs of that 80%.
To do this, we need to lay down a foundation.
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Google Free Tools Keep Getting Better
Google is the king of free web-based tools. I make routine use of Analytics, Gmail and Google Docs. I am also using Google Groups for a new group for WebbyOnline. I have used Google Webmaster Tools for site diagnostics. In short, I’m a big fan of Google.
Google Docs Sports New Features
This morning I logged into Google Docs and noticed it looks quite different than it did before. The most notable change is that you can now organize your documents into folders. The list of folders is now on the left side of the screen and the list of documents are on the right – pretty much just like Explorer in Windows. On the spreadsheet side of things, it is now much easier to create charts. The spreadsheets now support comments as well. For the full list of improvements, check this out. The beauty of Google Documents is that it allows easy collaboration. You no longer need all the fancy document sharing tools built into Microsoft Office. You can do it for free using the web at Google Docs.
Analytics Continues to Impress
I covered the re-design of Google Analytics back in May. Again, they have taken an already great tool and made it better. The reports are so much simpler to use than they used to be. All the graphs are Flash generated and load quickly. The put all the data people want most right in front of them, whereas it used to take many clicks and hunting to find what you needed.
Gmail for Business
Late last week, I decided to use Gmail for business. I needed to find a way to let my virtual assistant handle some of my email. I was thinking about installing a mail client to a second PC here in the office and providing remote access via Logmein.com. That would have worked, but with some of the recent webcam setup work I’m doing, that PC can be a little busy and I didn’t want my VA to unwittingly kick the cam offline. Next option was to hook it up with Kayako eSupport. Now, I own a license to this software and it really is killer helpdesk software. However, its almost too bulky and I was worried about the spam overflowing the thing. It then dawned on me – what about Gmail?
I already had a Gmail account for personal use, however I logged out of it and went to create a new account. After I had created the account, I was poking around the settings and was pleasantly suprised to see that Gmail now allows direct access to a POP3 account. Perhaps I’m just a latecomer to finding that one, but that’s incredibly useful! I thought I was going to have to set up forwarding accounts from my server to Gmail, but apparently now Gmail can actually log in to up to 5 external POP3 accounts and bring the email into your Gmail account. Gmail, in other words, is a full mail client – not just a box for your Gmail account which you then need to find other ways to pool your email into. And, of course, being that this was business email, I don’t want to use Gmail.com in my email addresses.
So, now my VA is able to check email for those accounts on the web with no hassle at all. It really gets me thinking if I want to use Gmail for my own mailbox. I’m still using Outlook here, and with the soon to-be-released version of Cloudmark Desktop for Thunderbird, I was thinking about a Thunderbird switch. But, I must say that having it online is elegant and convenient. And needless to say, if my hard drive ever dies again, my email would be fine. Only problem is I cannot import past email into Gmail.
Web-Based Computing
Perhaps someday we’ll all conduct all our computing needs in a web browser. It’s almost to the point now where you can practically get away with it. Software as a Service (SAAS) is very real.
Starting an Online Business Despite Information Overload
In yesterday’s newsletter, I asked for feedback from subscribers on what they wanted to see as topics covered on WebbyOnline. One reader mentioned how he wanted to start an online business but was overwhelmed by all the information out there and really didn’t know where to start. Well, that’s actually very common. The market of making money online is SO saturated that it all combines into a big noise of claims, proof and, well – crap. I had to take this into account when I decided to start blogging on WebbyOnline. There are just SO many people out there, all claiming to have the secret to making money online. I certainly did not want to be one of those people, and I certainly don’t want to appear to be competing with all that noise.
WebbyOnline is different because I cover internet business from the REAL perspective. Sure, other people do that, too. However, I think I have a knack for explaining things in plain English. My popular site, PCMechanic, took off because of my writing about seemingly complicated computer topics in a way that others could understand and apply. My aim with this site is to demystify the art and science of running a website and making money online. There are no secrets in this business. Its all there to be known. I run an internet business every day. I’m not a millionaire, but I am successful. Its a business like any other and the rules are really no different than starting an offline business.
Cut Through the Noise
So, the first thing when looking to start an online business is – yes – cut through the noise. There is just so much NOISE out there of people trying to sell the “secrets” to making money online. Let me tell you right now – its all a bunch of horseshit. At least the marketing is. Now, I’m certainly not saying that these people don’t know what they’re doing. They do, and there are many great internet marketers that make me look like I have no clue at all. But, these guys are also master copywriters, which means when you read their stuff, you are reading SALES COPY. And if you read enough sales copy, it all starts to look the same.
So, I really think the first step to getting into this yourself is to stop reading about the stories and “secrets” of others. It’s noise. It’s distraction. And it can also lead you to think you are a failure because you’re not making the money that the “big guys” are making.
So, stop the endless reading of “making money online” websites. And next…
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WebbyOnline Live
For now, I’m just testing some things. Don’t get so excited.
Using Camtasia to Quit My Job
Camtasia is a very popular video screen recording program created by TechSmith. Its probably the best screen recording application for Windows – at least that I know of. We here at PC Media make routine use of it for our video tutorials. The simplicity of it is that you start up the recorder, start recording, do your thing on screen, and stop recording. Now, we do some after-recording editing to make our videos have the style that they do. However, you don’t have to do much editing (if any at all) to make your videos useful. Now, tutorials are perhaps the most thought-of genre of video that one would do with Camtasia. However, have you thought about using it for your business?
Here’s the thing. And any person who works full time in this business will probably agree with me. This gig has a tendency to eat up all your time. I have worked hard and have created a business which has a fairly nice footprint online and I make my coin off of it. Enough to make a pretty good living. But, I’ve created this business, this thing, this SLAVE DRIVER! In other words, since I created it, I run everything and it ends up being the equivalent of the most demanding boss anybody could have. But, as Tim Ferris talks about in his book 4 Hour Work Week, what’s the point of creating a successful business on your own if you don’t have any time to enjoy it? I mean, I love the game as much as anybody, but if I’m the only guy keeping it going, then I’m stuck with it and I become the bottleneck. You see what I mean?
Make The Job Occupiable
So, what’s the answer? The answer is to make myself portable, to make myself dispensible. I want to make PC Media a self-running entity which can operate whether I am sitting at my desk or not. I’m a long way from this as of now, I must say. However, I am working toward it. I just hired a virtual assistant and am in the process of slowly but surely letting go of some things. But, how do I make it so that others can do the job I do and do it pretty much the same way?
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My Site is Worth $1,481,760!
Well, at least that’s what DnScoop.com told me. This is a site I ran across two or three weeks ago and I found it to be an interesting find. Just plug in a URL and it will run a report for you which includes:
- Age of the Domain
- Google PageRank
- Number of Inbound Links
- Traffic Rank (from Alexa)
- Number of indexed pages in the major search engines
- Domain IP Report
- Estimated value of a single link from Text Link Ads (which, of course, DnScoop is an affiliate of)
- The Site’s Estimated Value
In my case, it estimated my largest site, PC Mechanic, to be worth $1,481,760. Horrah for me!
I have no idea what their algorithm is to calculate this, but the factors they list are great leading indicators of a site’s value. As common sense will tell you, the more ingrained a site is into the fabric of the internet, the more valuable it is. So, you want a lot of incoming links, indexed pages, etc. With that comes PageRank. And with that comes increased value and increased pull for revenue.
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Thanks
Thank you for your very kind donation to my beer and coffee fund.
I hope you continue to find my blog helpful to you in our online business. You are a gentleman and a scholar!
Finding a Virtual Assistant
I have been spending time here and there over the last week attending to a very important action for my business: hiring a virtual assistant. Now, let me say ahead of time that I have not yet signed a contract with the person I am going to try out, however I should be doing that before the end of the week. I would, though, like to blurb about my experience thus far on finding a VA.
First off, a virtual assistant (VA) is essentially an assistant that does not work in my office. In other words, they are not an employee, but an independent contractor. They provide their own material and they work remotely, doing whatever you ask them to do. With the technology we have today, there really is no reason that you HAVE to have people in your office. In my case, I operate out of a home office. Even if the VA needs to work with your own software, you can give them remote desktop access and they can use a computer in your office while sitting anywhere in the world. Hence the name virtual assistant.
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What is Google PageRank?
This would make a good article topic, right? But, I’ll be honest, how could I possibly compete with the explanation of Google Pagerank I just ran across over at Smashing Magazine? This has got to be one of the most thorough write-ups I’ve ever seen on the topic.
I had to pass it on. Check it out.
I'm David Risley. I've been making my living as a blogger for over a decade. Blogging is my business and how I support my family. With this blog, I'm just gettin' REAL and telling you how this business works. 
