Chapters

Create A Successful Website is a beginner's colour visual step-by-step guide showing exactly how to create an online business or start up a website by ‘Doing it Yourself. This book will reduce time intensive wrong turns and avoid detours when they create an online business. Find all of this information below in the 10 day process of creating your own successful website.

Research and Planning
Here you will learn all about planning, researching and brainstorming. We will talk about setting short and long term goals and objectives for your site to steer you in the right direction, we’ll discuss options for managing your online business and watch for competitors. You will learn how to analyse your strengths and weaknesses as well as any potential threats and most importantly, the opportunities that raise their heads. As you plan your shiny new website, you will understand the need to explore every avenue of your online business so that you are fully prepared. The work you do now will be reinforced along the way.

Branding
This topic is one of my favourites, I love watching a brand take seed, then grow and prosper. In particular, I enjoy the innovative process of creating something from nothing and then branding it with colours, themes, fonts, styles, layouts and everything else that forms a recognisable and profitable brand. We’ll discuss how to brand your business, how to punch above your weight and look the business.

Navigation
Now that you’ve established your brand and explored ways to use it effectively, let’s discuss your website navigation. I have broken this down into different topics so before we go into the details of how to set up your website’s navigation, let’s first cover how you will manage this navigation and the various terms that are used to describe the innards of your website and its navigation. We’ll also explore the important task of navigating your new site and all the jargon of how a website is managed behind the scenes.

Free Websites
This chapter will go one step further and determine exactly what kind of site you will venture into. There are a number of different options open to you, from a simple blog, to a freebie el’ cheapo thingey-majig or a fancy-dancy specially built site. Whatever your preference, we’re all set to get cracking on what kind of site to choose. At the end of each day there is a ‘Notes’ page so you can use them when you think of something or need to remind yourself on research notes.

Hosted Websites
As you would host guests at a party or event, there are numerous website providers who will ‘host’ your site for you and throw in a bundle of entertainment, party poppers and hampers of goodies. In this chapter we’ll discuss various online hosted sites before moving on to sites that you can pay off on a monthly basis and eventually own. A pay monthly site gives you the benefit of having a bespoke or at least semi-bespoke site built for you and then you pay it off monthly, which of course includes the hosting.

Bespoke Websites
A bespoke site is one that is completely tailored to your needs, like Remote Employment and Remote Worker Awards, which were built for specific needs. They can be expensive and time consuming to build and often run into hundreds of thousands, but there are great bespoke agencies out there. You’ll find out how to work with a developer and create a brief to ensure your website goes to plan. We also examine various options of working with developers and web design agencies with a full list of questions to ask when contacting potential developers.

Content
The term Sticky Content refers to ensuring your visitors stick when they land on your site pages, like a fly fastens onto a sticky fly trap. Not a nice image, I know, but for long term success it is vital that your site’s content should make browsers stick and stay. Okay, maybe they won’t set up camp and live on your site, but you want to ensure they keep coming back. The way to do this is to always have fresh, topical, dynamic content. This chapter will cover all aspects of content and this covers what to feature, what not to feature, where to get content, how to keep people coming back to you site again and again. And get them recommending the site to others as this is crucial to build your traffic.

Ecommerce
Electronic Commerce, aptly named eCommerce, is the term used for the wide range of online facilities covering both business services and consumer products. Fondly known as Online Shopping, ecommerce is the exchange of a product or service in return for cash or even exchange of goods. eCommerce has blossomed and grown over the past few years and when this book goes to print, I am sure more new revolutions will have sprouted. We are all aware of being cautious with secure data transference, especially where it concerns our banking details. And luckily so are the banks. They are constantly coming up with new methods to ensure there are no leaks in the system so we can all shop merrily on the cyber high street. This chapter explores the various options to choose for you to earn revenue from your website and discover the best secure solutions for your online shop or electronic service.

Revenue
Be ready for impulse buyers. In today’s world of fast speed internet, you need to be ready for impulse buyers. Gone are the days when you could give a number to call and expect someone to ring you.
The phone may never ring, but your shopping trolley could be spinning its wheels with sales. If someone sees a product on your site at 3am when they can’t sleep, they expect to buy it immediately. Be ready for them and catch them in your eCommerce net.

Most of the software and instant sites, have easy integration with PayPal or Google Checkout so ensure you have one of them set up. However, there are others to try and we’ll go through them in this section. We will now cover a variety of ways to earn an income from your website and to even have multiple revenue streams.The most obvious way is to sell products or a service, but there are lots of other ways to earn an income and having multiple revenue streams will strengthen your business while you build your customer base.

Go Live
Here we talk about ‘Going Live’ and all that you need to do to prepare and be ready for the big day. We’ll chat about the steps to take before you go live, setting up and using your Google Analytics account and adding your site to your Google account. We will also go over your final checklist and how to fill your site so that it looks good, fat and full before you show it off to the world.
 
Go live is a very exciting time, but it is also a huge ‘time-hoover’ and you need to be on your toes to ensure everything gets done and all your tests are complete before you hit the big green button. 

See testimonials from the workshops and courses I run, which will prove that this practical book is a MUST HAVE for all budding internet entrepreneurs!

The book will be on sale on Amazon and in bookstores from August 2010.