Success Is More Than A Word
I'm often asked, what is the secret to online success? Before I
answer that question, let me ask you back a simple question...
Is there a secret to any success?
I've been working on Internet-based business since December
1998, so I have seen almost the entire history of this industry.
I have seen what works and what doesn't. Now I'm going to give
you a brief guide to what works...
Hard Work Is A Must.
As far as I know, it is not a secret that hard work is the key
to succeeding in almost anything. We, humans, are just too lazy
to even realize that simple key of fortunes.
It's true what they say: the Web levels the playing field. A
high school student can make a better website than a large
industrial company. This is a fact. On a level playing field,
how big you are matters less than how hard you work.
There are millions of consumers out there, but lots of other
websites are competing for their attention. So you can't just
build an online business and walk away from it. You have to work
hard to draw visitors to your site, work hard to create a site
that those visitors want to buy from, and work hard to give
those buyers or clients such good service that they and their
friends will buy again in the future.
So the bad news is that starting a business on the Internet is
just like starting any other business: work, work, work. The
good news is that it is a lot cheaper than ever.
The web gives you something that has never existed before in
history: an inexpensive sales channel direct to consumers.
Before the age of web, if you wanted to sell direct to
consumers, you either had to build retail stores or do catalog
mailings. In either case the start-up fee is hundreds of
thousands, if not millions, of dollars.
On the web, you can sell direct to consumers worldwide for
thousands of dollars everyday. You have to work hard to exploit
this opportunity. But if you are willing to work hard, you don't
need a lot of money to get started.
Choose the Right Niche.
What sells online? That is probably the question we get asked
most. At the risk of being repetitive, what sells online is
work. In our experience, the difference in success between one
site and another depends a lot more on how hard they work than
on what they are selling.
I know of two stores, Store A and Store B, that are selling
exactly the same products. Store A sells five times as much as
Store B. The reason is, Store A works a lot harder. They work on
their site almost every day, and they also do more to promote it.
But although work is the decisive factor, what you sell matters
too. As a general rule, whatever sells in print catalogs will
also sell on the Internet. If the customer has to touch or feel
something before buying it, then you probably can't sell it in a
print catalog or online. Otherwise, you should be able to sell
almost anything. Yes, anything.
It's true that more men use the Internet now than women, so if
you sell something that men buy, you are likely to have a slight
edge. Someone who works with computers is almost certain to have
Web access, so anything computer-related is likely to do
comparatively well. And Internet users are richer and better
educated than the population as a whole, so luxury items may do
well.
But these trends are not set in stone. When televisions first
became available, the first buyers were probably richer and more
technologically inclined than the population as a whole. But TV
rapidly became mainstream, and the same thing is happening to
the internet.
More important than the type of products you sell is the size of
the niche you choose.
In the physical world, niches are based on geography. I often
buy food at the corner store near my house, despite the small
selection and high prices. If this store were more than 100
yards away, I would never buy anything there.
Not on the Internet. Geography is almost irrelevant on the
Internet. Niches on the Internet are based on what you sell, not
where you are. And whatever you sell, you have to be the place
to buy it, because your customers can just as easily visit any
other online store with a single click on their mouse.
Make Your Site Easy.
It is no accident that the people who visit your site are called
"web-surfers". They have the same short attention span as TV
"channel surfers". The average visitor to a Web site looks at
only three or four pages before going somewhere else. Your
visitors will leave at the slightest obstacle. Trust me.
If you want people to visit and order from your site, don't put
any obstacles in their way. The design of your site has to tell
them immediately where they are, and what their choices are.
Whatever you do, don't make your visitors to think..."What
next?"...
When they do, you're done.
Also, most major sites have learned not to use frames. Frames
are a lot more gratifying to the site designer than the visitor.
To visitors, frames are merely confusing. Another big
disadvantage of frames: many search engines don't index sites
that use frames. So using frames will decrease the amount of
traffic you get from search engines.
None of the most heavily visited sites use frames. In fact, the
more important the site, the simpler the design. Look at what is
probably the most important site on the web, Yahoo! There are no
bells and whistles to distract you. The design of the site is so
simple that you get it at a glance.
Just make your visitors comfortable, then you will realize that
success is more than a word.