Today I wanted to talk about a topic that is very important to every single business owner. And it's a question I hear about 5 times a day on average “Where Do I Start Online?”…

A lot of business owners are very new to the internet, and therefore they often go and ask this question to web designers and the web deisgners ask them “Well what do you want to achieve online?” or “What would you like to put online?” and quite often a business owner doesn’t know what they want, they “think” they know but they don’t “really” know what is going to work for them.

So What WILL Work For A New Business Owner Going Online?

Here are the steps that you should go through to ensure that your new online marketing launch for your business is a success (notice I said “Internet Marketing Launch” not “Your New Website”?)…

Why whould I say this?…

Becuase websites as we know them are “DEAD” there is no reason why you would just wack up a plain jane 5-page website that has the old style menus of “Home - About Us - Products - Services - Contact Us” any longer… But believe me, this is what the web designers want you to have and if you “don’t know” what you want, this is what they’ll give you!

So the things you need for your internet marketing launch are:

1. 3 niche areas of your industry that you can “without a doubt” offer expert guidance and advice in
2. Market research of all 3 areas, e.g. the words people type in the search engines to find this topic, is there a viable market online for this topic?, what exactly are people looking for around this topic?, what problems are they trying to solve? and what pain are they trying to avoid?
3. Video - You need a video of yourself explaining exactly how you can help them fix their pain and avoid the problems they are facing by engaging you and your business (video is a critical factor to your success online these days, and all savvy business owners are using it (especially the online marketing experts who know of it’s immense power).
4. Strong Sales Copy - If you don’ t have a persuasive message, and no, I don’t mean a message that is full of hype, but a strong, persuasive case that addresses “ALL” the conceiveable angles of why someone would come to you over your competition, then your campaign will most likely not be as strong as it could be. If you can’t do copy yourself then be sure to hire a very successful copywriter to do it for you (DON’T skimp on this step, as that would be like trying to get your car serviced by motorbike mechanic… Not Successful… Get my point?)
5. Last but not least, you need some form of FREE offer to capture a prospective clients details, so you hopefully have them on your marketing and client list for a long time (and as long as you offer them great value you will keep them and they will convert to clients over time).

This is only the very beginning of what is required in any new online marketing campaign, notice how similar they are to the offline world of marketing, the steps are almost identical except it much easier to do this online and gather the information required, as you’re exposed to a much larger global audience instantly by doing it online.

I hope that his helps you understand what to be looking for in a web launch when you next approach your designer to put you online, and if they give you the “what do you want to achieve” line, then you’ll at least have some armoury of points to go over with them.