Virtual Entrepreneur

Test Your Online Business Plan

January 23rd, 2009 | Author: Master Money

Search Engine Watch:
1. Do the keyword research. If your most relevant keyword phrases have zero or very few searches, start rethinking right now.

2. If the keyword research works out, move forward and buy a good domain — but don’t spend too much. If it doesn’t work out you’ll be left holding a worthless domain you paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars for.

3. Build a small but functional site. Don’t build a grandiose expensive Web site before you know if you can pay for that site. Building one on a blogging platform will allow you to test the viability of what you’re trying to do. Write relevant content and optimize your pages well for the keywords you found in Step 1. Work on using good site structure and follow the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) method of organization.

4. Install analytics on your new Web site — make sure you can track conversions so you know how many dollars you’re making. This can be done for free with Google Analytics and will give you the information you need to move into more complex marketing if these first steps take off.

5. You’re probably not going to rank your brand new domain for organic searches right away, so just worry about PPC right now. Work on some campaigns to drive paid ad traffic to your new Web site and watch your analytics and spends to see if your work pays off. You will inevitably need to make some tweaks to your site based on what visitors are looking for — but this is going to make or break the future of your site. If you aren’t getting PPC traffic, then you’re using the wrong keywords, or your budget is too low. Remember: you can always ramp up later if you become successful — but jumping in with both feet and dumping a ton of money into this step will just make you more frustrated.

6. Participate at blogs and forums related to your offerings — don’t push your new Web site in people’s faces, but let them know it’s there and you’re open to feedback. Twitter is a great place to build a community and receive constructive criticism about what you’re doing online.

7. If you’re still in the game — and making some money at this point — you’re doing pretty well. Consider scaling your efforts slowly so you’re not spending faster than your site can recover the expenditures.

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