Saturday, August 8, 2009

The Most Important Thing You Should Know Before You Create A Website

By Decker Lawrence

So you want to start an online business or you want to use the internet for an exiting offline business? While the decision to do so may stem from many reasons, the internet is a wonderful to conduct business and can be very profitable if you do things the right way.

When you are in the planning stages of staring an internet business, aside from understanding the needs of your market, the first thing you want to take to heart is the way your website is designed. The cookie cutter approach does not work in all instances. You want your site to stand out as unique. This means you will have to learn how to build your own site or farm it out.

Should you turn this over to a professional website developer, be prepared to shell out some big bucks. It can cost anywhere from $1000 for a basic design upwards to $5000 or more. By learning to do it yourself, you can save a lot of money and learn a valuable skill.

So why should you consider doing it yourself? Well for starters, you will be able to create it the way you want it. This is important when you have a clear image in your mind as to how you want your site to look. If a professional does it for you, you will get a nice looking site but it may not be exactly what you wanted.

When you learn the skills to creating your own site design, this will help later on when you want to make changes. A well developed website will always undergo periodic change to reflect new technologies. If you had to pay a web designer each time you wanted to incorporate a change, it could get costly.

The best tip I can give for success is to never create a website that is all about you. Basically, keep in mind that your visitors and their needs are the most important thing and should influence the entire reason for your website's existence. The site you create should be bout their wants, desires, needs and aspirations and how you can help them.

A site that truly benefits your visitors is a site that converts well. This means that you have to clearly communicate in every way what is important to them and not what is important to you. Many times people build websites the have very little visitor value. This is a big mistake.

Websites that target specific needs, wants and desires of a market or niche with specific solutions always win. When a person comes to your website and sees that you truly understand what they need to accomplish, most often they will reach out to you. This may result in you getting a new lead or making a sale.

As a rule of thumb, use the AIDA formula when you are planning out your site design and copy. The acronym AIDA stands for attention, interest, desire and action and should be the guiding principle for your success. You want your site to get a visitors attention, keep their interest, build a desire for your solution and get them to take action. This is how you succeed.

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