What are some marks of healthy online businesses?

You can keep on top of your online business by simply refining each of these three important factors — all the time. It’s that simple. And that demanding!

1) A product people will pay money for

Something that people actually want. That is not the same as something that you want to sell. Many people stumble onto successful ‘Net businesses, or grow them out of a thriving offline business. This makes web success seem so effortless!

But it’s not like that for most of us. We have to experiment and test until we find the gold. And many people die of exhaustion two feet from the well. (As Bob Dylan said.) Make sure you are offering visitors something they actually want.

2) A way to consistently contact lots of these people to your site

Here are two things that work. The first will get you high up on the search engines and the second will get your first-time visitors coming back.

Put a blog on your site
Write something about your business and your products every day. And publish it on a blog. Do this religiously. There is something about putting fresh material onto your site that gets the attention of the search engines. People who do it see their site rising in the search engines. And one of the easiest ways to do this is to bolt a Word Press blog onto your site and put up a post — every day. It is one of the best Internet marketing investments you can make with your time.

Write an e-mail newsletter
They are hard work. But they tie you and your business to your subscribers, and they only cost time. Publish one.

I’m a great believer in publishing original interviews in your newsletter, because we run out of things to say unless we’re doing endless product reviews. A story about a person will always interest a reader.

You can either write a fresh, current newsletter every week or month. Or write 40 or 50 general newsletter issues that will have a shelf life, putting them onto an autoresponder like Firebirdpro, and when a visitor signs up for your newsletter they will get the first issue. Next week or month, the second one. And the third. And so on.

3) A web site that convinces these people to buy, stay in touch, and buy again (… and again …)

Your web site does this when the visitor:

• is sure of your credentials
• has enough information to answer his questions and educate him
• signs up for a newsletter that will continue to help him after he’s made his first purchase.

Try to build these factors into your site.