Hello again! Good to have you back. Hope you have a wonderful day today.

You’re going to set up your own website. You’re excited and can’t wait to start internet marketing. You’re thinking of names and asking your friends, “What do you think about …?”  You get a list of reputable sites offering domain registration and scroll down to the slot where you input your desired domain to see if it’s available. Oh, wow! It is.

STOP!  Do not proceed with the registration. You have to back up a bit and do some of that boring old research.

Remember, you asked yourself why you wanted a website and, I’m sure, you made careful notes of your reasons and your goals.  These have a great bearing on the name you choose for your site.

If you want a website to form a content site for a group of people with similar interests as your own, then the name obviously needs to reflect those interests.  It can be witty, a play on words or merely descriptive.  The choice of name is important but not crucial to the success of the site.   For example, there is a funky site called Storm the Castle which is a site about old weapons and you will find lots of fun stuff there.  It’s successful and ranks well with Google because of its content rather than because of its name. It does carry Adsense adverts to cover its costs but it is not primarily a money-making site.

However, once you decide to set up a money-making site of any kind, the choice of the name itself becomes a business tactic.

One – it has to sound a deeper resonance with your future visitors, and,

Two – if possible, it has to be search engine friendly.

To achieve both these objectives you will have to research your target market. This is known as your niche in the world of internet marketing. If you think of the whole market as a pie, then your niche is a thin slice of this pie.  As competition in the whole marketplace is intense, most marketers, whether they are selling their own products or acting as affiliates for others, will focus each project they start on such a niche.

You will need to find out what your niche is looking for; whether it be the solution to a problem, a cure for a type of pain, satisfaction of their curiosity, need for training or the fulfilment of some other deep-felt desire. You then decide how you are going to give them what they want.  Either you produce a product yourself, an e-book, a membership site or a learning site.  Once you’ve identified this niche, you can build up a profile of your typical buyer and use that to give you ideas for your domain name to fulfil point One.

Deeper analysis, including keyword analysis, will guide you to fulfilling point Two. This is a vast area and will be covered in a later post.

Some people work the other way round – I do.   They find a product they would like to produce, promote or sell and then dig down to find who, if anyone, wants it.  But the ramifications for the choice of domain are the same.

Other points to consider are whether the domain name will look all right when the component words are run together for the web address.   You may want to consider using underscores or hyphens.  If possible, try and register a domain with a .com ending as these are perceived as having more authority and of being more reliable.

You don’t want to be like me.  I have domains I can’t use because I registered them in a flash of excitement and can’t find anything to do with them.

So think carefully and do your research before you register that domain.  For practical advice and suggestions for domain registrars, you can check out Chris Fox’s Google Terminator.

Website creation is all the rage at the moment.  Not only is it much easier for non-techies to set up a simple website quickly and cheaply these days with all the open source software available but also the word is spreading about this new hyperspace world both as a marketplace and as a vast publicity generating machine.  So what is the first question you should ask yourself?

Why do you want a website?

That may seem simplistic but it’s amazing how many people don’t ask themselves that question and answer it  properly before they dive into their site creation.  The answer you give should influence the kind of website you choose. Your site’s appearance, tone and very structure will depend upon your reason for setting it up. If you start off on the wrong foot, you will have to backtrack or start all over again and this can be costly in time and/or money. So ask yourself the question and answer it fully before doing anything.

What are the main reasons why you might want to set up your own website?

Whatever your reason, it is now possible to set up a site very quickly and cheaply.  The promise of five minutes I should take with a pinch of salt. If you are already experienced you can probably set up a basic site in five hours.  However,  beginners or newbies will probably need anything from five days to five weeks depending on how quickly they can put the pieces together for themselves, or follow the training program they have chosen.

If you want a good basic DIY package for a simple site which is backed up by the promise of personal answers to any problems you may have, you can’t really do better than Chris Fox’s Google Terminator.

You have decided to offer a reward or an ethical bribe to your visitor when he subscribes or signs up but what should you choose?  The one-off short report or e-book, or the series of e-letters?  Remember that the purpose of building up your list is to create a relationship and you should think carefully about how you want to maintain your relationship once it starts.

Each method has its advantages and disadvantages.

The one-off report or ebook gives instant gratification which may be more attractive to your visitor but she  might read it and then forget about your site.  When she receives a promotional email from you later on she may not remember who you are and so not bother to open your email.

To counteract this your report or ebook will need to have impact.   Although you do not want to give away your most valuable knowledge and techniques, you can afford to give away a secret or two to tease the visitor into wanting to continue her relationship with your site to find out more.

The email or e-letter series has the advantage of keeping your site in your visitor’s ken over a longer period without any direct input from you once you have scheduled them on your autoresponder.  The challenge here is to make the emails interesting enough to make your visitor bother to click on them and open them once he is up to number five or six.

To recap, offering an ethical bribe is a good tactic to use to convert a visitor into a prospect but be aware that the different methods available nurture the relationship in different ways.   And don’t forget to make sure that you deliver on the  promise made in your offer so that you maintain your credibility and can eventually convert the prospect into a buyer.

There is so much free stuff out there these days:  free ebooks, reports, videos and/or email series, that it has become the accepted norm to offer one or more of these as a sweetner to encourage your visitor to sign up to your opt-in list. This is sometimes known as the ethical bribe.

You set up your please subscribe or opt-in form with a message along the lines of:

• If you would like a free copy of xxxxxx (or free series of 10 eletters on xxxx), please subscribe now
• Subscribe now and receive your free copy of xxxx (or free series of 10 eletters on xxxx)
• We value your subscription and will send you a free copy of xxxx (or free series of 10 eletters on xxxx)

As a relative newbie I always look to see what bonus or freebie is available when I land on a site.  Such goodies are valuable to me as a way of building up my knowledge for free and many of your visitors will see the same advantage.

Apart from being almost a business necessity now to use these bribes because there is so much competition on the internet, it’s good psychology. First of all you are pushing the greed button because everyone likes to get something for free and, secondly, you are pushing the curiosity button because the free gift is hidden at this stage and your visitor is intrigued and wants to know what it actually says.   The “What’s in the Box?” Effect.

As to the gift itself, it does not need to be anything outstandingly new or original but it must offer perceived value to the visitor.   You can offer a short report of from three to five pages or a longer ebook of about twenty pages. Then there is the option of a series of from seven to ten emails or newsletters. You can build up this material from articles you have already written and published.

Whichever route you choose, make sure you keep things interesting and informative.  You need to be useful to your reader while keeping him or her intrigued enough to check out your next communication.

You’ve got your visitor to stay awhile.   Now you have to hold his interest and convert the visit into a sign up to your email list or your RSS feed.   Whether your visitor signs up or not depends upon the quality of your content, not only what you have to say but how you say it and how you display it.

Taking the display first;  make sure you leave lots of white space around your posts and  other text so that your message stands out.  Keep your paragraphs short and use a double break between them.  For your font, don’t pick some quirky font which is difficult to read and do use at least 12 point or even 14 point.  Bolding and italics help to make your points stand out.  Most people will want to spend less than 10 minutes on your site for a casual visit and a simple layout helps them skim your post for the gist and still have time left to look at product reviews or your other monetising content which is what you want them to do.

As to how you write your content, try and keep it conversational in tone – you don’t want to preach or talk down to your reader.   An informal approach with the use of the pronoun you increases the feeling of  a relationship between you and the reader.  You will find that it helps you if you build up a picture of your visitor and imagine yourself talking to him or her.  You can tailor the register of your language to your visitor.  You wouldn’t want to use long stuffy words when talking to the average fourteen year old with an acne problem nor would you want to use street slang when talking to a grandmother who wants a solution for her hearing problem.

Finally, the quality of your content itself:  is your content worth her attention?   Is it informative and relevant and, therefore, useful?  Does it deliver on what was promised when you first attracted her to your site?  If it does, good!   But have you leavened the heavy facts with some humour?   Is your writing entertaining and interesting?   Does it pique your visitor’s curiosity and make her want to find out more?   Most importantly of all, does it make her want to start a relationship with you?  If so, you’re on to a winner and she will take up your invitation to subscribe to your emails or your RSS feed.

Well done, your list building is going great – you’ve just added another name!

You’ve done everything right.  Your visitor is now taking your site for a test drive.  From now on it’s up to you to foster this new relationship, build up her trust with good content that’s entertaining and useful.  If you do all this, your new colleague will not only buy one of your used cars but may eventually upgrade to the season’s latest model.  When it comes down to it, it’s all about establishing that first trust and then capitalising on it by giving good value in return for your visitor’s interest.