Roll Up Your Sleeves and Start Building!

Here you are. You'vegot your website, you've got your domain name, and you're itching tostartbuilding.  Socollect your favoritesnacks and beverages, send the kids to the neighbors, settle into yourdeskchair, and let's get going. 

Before you put anycontent on your website, you need to get clear on what exactly you wantthesite to do for you.  AsI've saidbefore, you're accomplishing three main things with it:

• Investingin your visitors by freely giving them useful information



• Establishingyourself as an expert by offering solutions for your visitors'problems; and



• Buildingtrust. 

Of course, there are a few practicalthings you also need todo, such as setting up clear communication channels between you andyourvisitors, and making your site attractive to the search enginespider-bots. 

What you are notdoing is pitching your opportunityor your products.  Assoon as you dothat, all trust evaporates.  Andbesides,you've been pitching your biz since day one, and where has it gottenyou?  

The fact is – it'snot your company or your products or your amazing compensation planthat peopleREALLY want.  Whatthey really wantis a leader and a mentor -- someone who knows the ins and outs of thebusinessand who has earned their trust.  Someonewho will lead them to that land of milk and honey they so desperatelywant. This would be you. 

What if you're not anexpert? 

Then become one. Pick an aspect of yournetwork marketing business that reallyinterests you and learn about it. Maybeit's the tax advantages of a home-based business. Or principles of time management. Or the psychology of selling. Or maybe a particular problem that your products can address. 

If you start thinking about it, I betyou'll realize thatyou DO know more than you give yourself credit for. Maybe you're reallygood atjuggling five kids' schedules while still finding time for yourbusiness. Maybeyou're teaching your kids how to do network marketing. Maybe you knowhow toorganize a really fun product party. 

Once you have a good idea of whatyou'll be writing about, picksome relevant keywords. 

What do I mean bythat? 

I'm referring to the keywords thatare indexed by the searchengines. When the search engines send their spider-bots around to checkoutyour site, they'll be most happy if it's easy to see what each page isabout.And if they're happy, they'll give you better search engine rankings,whichwill move your site closer and closer to the top of the search engineresults page (SERP) foryour keyword. Which is what you want. 

Each page can have either the same ora different keyword. 

For example, for my main page, Ichose the keyword,"network marketing online," because that was the main topic of thatpage. For another page, I used "network marketing training." And foryet another page, the keyword is "network marketing companies." 

The whole process of brainstormingyour keywords will be easierif you use SiteBuildIt!'s (SBI's) tutorials on selecting keywords.These can befound in Days 2 and 3 of the SBI Action Guide. 

So now you've picked atopic and related it to specific keywords. Are you ready to startwriting? 

What if you think you can't write? 

Can you think and talk? Can you sitdown at your breakfasttable and explain something to a friend? If you answered yes to thesequestions, you can write. It might not get you an "A" from your tenthgrade English teacher, but she's not going to be reading this. 

This is the Internet. No one cares ifyou dangle yourparticiples or get your commas in the wrong place. When it comes to gross errors in grammar andspelling, your word processing software can check it for you. 

Readers of yourwebsite will mostly want to know what's inside your head and how it canhelpthem solve their problems. Focus on organizingyour thoughts in a clear andlogical manner, and you'll be fine. 

In fact, here's a tip –actually do sit down with a friendand explain your topic. Tape record the conversation. Then go back andtype itup. You'll surprise yourself with how well it flows. 

Andhere's anotherimportant tip – you're not writing a term paper.Let your personality showthrough your writing. Use colorful words and phrases as if you weretalking.Give examples from your own experience. 

And keep in mind, there are tons ofresources on theInternet that can help you improve your writing skills. Learn to writea littlebetter bit by bit, and your new skill will pay off again and again. 

How about using otherpeople's stuff instead of writing your own? 

That's a very good question. Thereare online services thatwill provide you with professionally written stock articles. Butthey'reselling the same thing to dozens, maybe hundreds of other people. 

Thesearch engineswill not be fooled. Google and its friends are looking forORIGINAL, FRESHcontent. If they see that most of your site just duplicates a bunch ofothersites, you will probably be dropped from the search engines. Ouch! 

Ghost writing is a different issue.If you want to pay aprofessional writer to write all or part of your site for you, that'sfine aslong as the content remains unique. 

Enough said about writing. 

Let'sstart adding useful information. This is where you begin to "presell"your prospects with educational marketing.

Your first projectwill be your Landing Page. 

This is where your visitors "land"when they clicka link to your site. You can have different landing pages for differentkeywords, but let's focus for now on your home page. 

The landing page iscritically important to the success of your site.  It's purpose is tomake your visitors wantto stay and read the rest of your pages. They'll take one look at itand make asnap decision – stay and read, or click the Back button. 

What makes them stay and read?  Is it your outstandinggraphics?  Is ityour carefully edited copy?  Neither.Theywill stay and read IF your landing page gives them something they want–

and usually that's information that fills a specific need or desirethey have.

Your visitor has a conversationrunning through her headwhen she clicks into your site.  Let'ssuppose it goes something like this: "Why isn't this [whatever] working for me? How can I fix it?" 

She clicks on the link to yourwebsite and arrives at yourlanding page.  Whatwill she likely do ifyour page does not continue the conversation and help her with herproblem?  SHE WILL LEAVE. I'll betyou've done this yourself a million times. 

Sinceyour visitorwill take about six seconds to decide if she wants to stay, you need tohave anattention-grabbing headline. "Welcome tomy site" doesn't cut it. 

For ideas, try reading headlines inthe supermarket tabloidsthe next time you go through the checkout line. Imagine –"Network Marketing: Give Yourself a Major Tax Break." (If you're offering tax tips.) Or "Are You Wasting Hours ofTime You Could Be Spending With Your Family?" (For someone writing about time management.) 

Have fun with this. Get creative. 

Nextmake a list ofkey points you want to include in your landing page. 

Startby highlightingthe problem you're addressing. In the case of the imaginarytax articleabove, you might want to point out how much money your readers areleaving onthe table if they don't know what they're doing. 

Connect with their emotions. Forexample, what could they bedoing with that money if they weren't sending it to the government? Howcouldit help their family? 

Thenlet them know that your website is full of informationthat can help them with this problem, and lead them to it. 

Signyour landingpage with your name. Let them know a real person is behindthis. 

Nextstart writingyour second-tier pages. 

Organize them by sub-topic. Ourpretend tax sitemight have the following subjects in the second tier: 

• "Specialtax breaks for home-based businesses."



• "Howto keep accurate records."



• "Whichbusiness expenses are deductible and whicharen't?"



• "Howto fill out a small-business tax return."



• Etc.,etc.

I think you get the idea. 

Yourthird tiercould include links to affiliate programs, other useful websites, moredetailedinformation, and so forth. You can learn more about this in SBI'sAction Guide,Day 6. 

Two ofyour second-tier pages need tobe dedicated to communicatingwith your visitors. This is absolutely critical for the sifting andsorting process. 

The"ContactMe" page is pretty straight forward.  

You'llwant to give your name, phone number,physical address, and an email form. 

SBI strongly warnsagainst putting your actual email address anywhere on your site.Just asthe search engines send around their "good" spider-bots to index yoursite,  the bad guyssend around"spam-bots" to collect email addresses and sell them. So if you don't want to see your inboxfilling up with ads for overseas pharmacies and male-enhancementproducts, don'tplace your email address anywhere on your website. 

Instead, use a form. SBI has aform-building tool preciselyfor this purpose. When a visitor keys her message to you into themessage fieldand clicks send, you will receive an email from the website containinghername, email address, and the text of what she wrote. Your email addressis notdisclosed.
 
An opt-inform is also an absolute must for your site. 

This is how you develop an email listof loyal readers who trust you and respect your advice. You continueyour relationship with them by sending them additional relevantinformation on a regular basis.

This has two benefits for you.

These people are your customer base.Any time you have a neat new affiliate product you can let them knowabout it. If you were to write an ebook, you can promote it easily. Youcan promote almost anything, and these folks will listen to you withinterest as long as you never betray their trust.

And because the members of your listtrust you and respect your advice, they are way more likely togo ahead and BUY whatever it is you're promoting, if it's somethingthat fills a need they have.

One word of caution, though -- you need to continue to cultivate your readers' trust. Justbecause someone fills out your opt-in form does not mean they aregiving you permission to bombard them with sales pitches. Besure to give them plenty of useful, non-commercial, educationalinformation BEFORE you ask them to buy something.

Thesecond benefit is just practical.

Have you everfound a website you enjoyed, but then later when you wanted to return,youcouldn't remember the address or how you got to it in the first place?Obviously, you don't want this to happen to your visitors. 

But if theygive youtheir name and email address, and you send them additional informationperiodically, they'll be reminded  about your site, increasingthelikelihood they'll come back.
 
Inreturn for theircontact information, you'll need to offer something of value in return.Thiscould be, for example, a newsletter or a special report. As you mightimagine,simply saying, "sign here to stay in touch," is not going to get manytakers. 

Your conversion rate (the percentageof people who fill outthe opt-in form) will depend a great deal on the quality and perceivedvalue ofthe rest of your site. If they really like it, they'll sign up indroves.("Droves," in this case, is anything over 20%.) 

One tip – be sure tostate either above or below your opt-in form that you will not sell orsharetheir information with anyone else. 

Your opt-in form willbe connected to an autoresponder, which is away of sending out pre-writtenmessages to your list. 

SBI has a built-in autoresponder, butat the present time, you'relimited inthe number of messages you can send. For this reason, I've chosen touse aseparate auto-responder service, AWeber. You can read more aboutautorespondersand AWeber at my Autoresponder page.

If you don't know html code, you may notice that the text on your web pages is rather plain. 

You can add color, bolding, italics, and change the size of the text with a free tool called "Nvu." 

Basically, Nvu allows you to manipulate the visual features of your text in the same way you would using a word processor. By simply clicking on the "Source" button, you can convert the whole thing into html code. Then all you have to do is copy and paste it into a text block of your SBI page, and ta-dah! You've got a great looking page. 

You can download Nvu for free at www.nvu.com.

How would you like your site to generate extra money for you? Would you like to have plenty of funds for advertising without dipping into the family budget?

LESSON #5 is about setting up your site to bring in additional income for you even when your prospect says no. 

In the meantime, here's your Action Assignment for this lesson: 

Start writing!