“Build a website and customers will come banging on your digital door 24/7. You’ll make money even while you sleep.” Have you heard this one?
How many business owners believe that claim or some variation of it? If you raised your hand, you’re right. If you didn’t raise your hand, you’re right too?
So we have two rights. But who is more right? The truth is, websites don’t make you money. If you have operated your own business offline for any amount of time, you would instantly recognize that a website is nothing more than a storefront. And just like a brick and mortar store, the money comes not from the fact that you have a store, but from visitors whom you convert into buyers.
Business 101 tells us that the three best ways to get a lot of visitors are location, location, and location. After all, who wouldn’t want their store to be on a corner lot at a business intersection in a big city? The three criterias are: corner lot location + business intersection location + big city location = a lot of visitors that you can covert into customers.
If this basic business principal works in the offline world, why shouldn’t it work in the real world? The fact is, websites work the same way. Build your website on a digital corner lot at a busy digital intersection in a big digital city and you have got it made. Online, we call visitors “traffic” and customers we call “conversions.” The net effect is the same, we make money when we have traffic that we can convert into buyers.
So where do you find the choice real estate online? The first online location rule is to get a really good domain name. Here’s an example.
www.Wine.com is a whole lot better than www.mybestwineonlinebiz.info.
What does this corner lot cost you? The last time I checked, domains like www.Wine.com goes for a few hundred thousand dollars while www.mybestwineonlinebiz.info was still available for $1.99 at godaddy.com.
The second location rule is to get a really good digital intersection. Now things get a little trickier online versus offline. A busy digital intersection is harder to spot. Here is an example.
www.About.com is what I call a crossroad site. People don’t go to About.com as a final destination, usually. They go to About.com to find out about something before heading to their final destination online. Let’s say you want to learn about the difference between Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot before you purchase a case. You visit About.com, read the wine facts, then you go to Wine.com to buy.
About.com gets a ton of passer-by traffic because they sit at a really good online intersection.
The last location rule that you must follow in order to get traffic is to locate your website in a big digital city. Here is where a lot of business owners trip-up. They create a website out in the middle of digital North Dakota and wonder why their website doesn’t make them any money. The paradox is that the online world is a lonely place with too many websites. What?!
Let me put it this way. There are 271,000,000 websites and counting. With so much competition out there for eyeballs, how will your website ever be found? Hence, the “lonely” part.
Okay, let me cut to the chase. Big cities on the Net are places like social sites and commerce sites. Social sites include Myspace and commerce sites include eBay. Get your site listed in one form or another at one of the big city sites, bookmark your site, and your website will be part of the big city scene.
So go get them. Grab your online real estate before they are all gone. Just remember that websites don’t make money. but the right locations will get you the traffic that you can convert into money.
