WebsitesWebsites have transformed my businesses probably more than anything else. It's like having extra members of staff who are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to take enquiries, provide answers to questions and help assure potential clients that they will be more than satisfied if they do business with us. And it all happens on auto pilot. People find the sites, get the info they want, send an email or download a book, all without me needing to do anything. Considering the hassle involved in packing and posting a single book, or the time spent answering the 'phone previously, it's brilliant. Plus you'll get an email domain address of your very own. My first web site was truly appalling though – it was set up through an Internet provider’s domain and was simply a one page leaflet at a really hard to remember address and was, frankly a waste of time. The next site was set up by a professional. When combined with Google Ad words it provides an immensely powerful sales tool which can be fine-tuned with the delicacy of a scalpel, and where the flow of enquiries could be turned on or off like a tap. But the problem was that this first 'music' site was not easy for me to alter. Although I could edit the pages using my own software, and upload the revised pages via FTP (File Transfer Protocol), The layout and structure of the site were messy and hard to change. One thing that has sunk in over the years is the benefit of using specialists to sort out the initial hard part of a problem - the 'heavy lifting' - and then taking over the more mundane, simpler bits myself. It usually makes sense, and is the way many others use my services. So I now aim to use the best possible option right from the start, with as much help as I need from experts, and with every stage laid out clearly – right from choosing the best domain name. It is possible to access all parts of any of my websites from any computer and make changes without using any specialist software. Pages can be quickly added, re-ordered or deleted, the changes are made immediately and the main search engines advised each day. The site system I chose still does take a bit of time and effort to work through the stages, but help is available all along the way, and the result has been well worth it for me. They also have the facility to buy up and host spare domain names cheaply, and then redirect them to an existing web site.Here are examples of some of the other websites I've set up - all using the same basic system
The last site is stuffed full of advertising. This is because I was going to close it down - the site became redundant once my ebook on tarot was published, but the site was receiving so many hits that the websites hosting site asked to take it over. They offered to host it free of charge and pay me a sum based on advertising revenue, with the option for me to take it over again in the future should I want to do so. Not bad, a possible passive income (I like those), and proof that, if you set up a website properly, visitors will come - even if you are not using an Adwords campaign to drive traffic. If you need a website for yourself, it may well be worth your while having a look at this company They do have quite a lot of help available, but feel free to drop me a line if you would like a quote for me to set up any of the site for you. When should you get help setting up a website?If you look at the very top of this page, you should see a tiny image of a book to the left of where it says 'web sites'. This picture is called a 'favicon', and is one of the small touches that can help make your site stand out from the competition. If you don't know how to create and add these, then that is probably a good indication that you need some help. If you don't know how to 'ping' the search engines to let them know your site exists, or even how to set up your site in the first place to make it search engine friendly, then you could well be wasting your time and money at the moment. |
