Tweet

How to fail with a web site!

Written by: Andrew Nester

Article Overview: Developing a web site without a written business plan is asking for failure.

How to fail with a web site!

Developing a web site without a written business plan is asking for failure.

Whether you are considering a web site for reselling other peoples products, starting a work at home business, selling your own products, or any other business for that matter you need a written business plan before you spend your first dollar on a web site.

There are over 162 million web sites on the Internet. Getting recognized, building an opt-in email list you can sell to, gaining customer confidence and then building a business on the Internet is not as easy or as inexpensive as some try to make you think it is. Typically you don't find this out until you leap into it, find out it isn't easy, it does cost money, your' re not getting ranked on search engines, and you have few, if any, visitors to your site and no sales.

You then start going in a circle trying to figure out what your doing wrong. You spend money buying products that are supposed to help you make it happen, hiring consultants that tell you "I can save you; just hire me or but my products," signing up for pay per click programs, doing keyword analysis and writing articles all to still find out it's just not working. After spending months and hundreds of dollars most people get frustrated and quit. There are literally millions of dead web sites out there, representing lost dreams of people just like you.

How can you avoid losing your dream? Just like any brick and mortar business, in order to have any chance of succeeding on the Internet you first must develop a well thought out, written business plan. To put a business plan together you have to research your market, your competition and where your sales opportunities might be (your niche in a market), evaluate your strength and weaknesses, and get a better understanding of what you are getting yourself into.

A business plan will help you determine the potential for success, how long it's going to take to make money and how much it's going to cost you. If your' re not willing to take the time to research the business you want to pursue and write a business plan, the odds are greater than 1,000 to 1 you will not make it. You'll get better odds in the stock market or while having fun in Las Vegas or Monte Carlo.

Trust me most people cannot develop and run an Internet business all by themselves. You have strengths and weaknesses, but no one, not even you, can learn everything needed to build a successful business on the Internet. It's not as easy as putting up a web site and presto, your' re in business. It's the ongoing care and feeding of the web site that's going to make you successful.

Your plan does not have to be in a lot of detail unless you also look to using it for your business funding requirements or setting up a strategic alliance of some kind. Typically a good 8-10 page business operating plan will suffice. For this article we will stick with a simple business operating plan.

An operating plan deals with:

- How much it's going to cost you
- What your revenue goals are
- Defining your market niche
- Your strategies and tactics
- How you're going to operate on a day to day basis.

This plan should be written then reviewed regularly (weekly at a minimum to start.)

An outline for developing a typical business operating plan is:

- Define your current status and what you personally want to accomplish.
- Define yours and the business' Vision, Mission, Values
- Put together a SWOT Analysis, Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats.
- Marketing plan. This should include at a minimum:

- Product or service offering
- Market Niche
- Competition
- Keyword definition and analysis

- Strategies and Tactics
- Revenue goals
- Budget

Once the operating plan is in place you are ready to develop your web site with a higher probability of success.

Related Articles
  12 Deadly Mistakes To Avoid On Your Web Site According To Your Strategic Thinking Business Coach
  SEO-Niche Marketing Thru Search Engine Optimization
  The Problem With Your Web Site
  Why Many Website Fail to Deliver
  It's Better to Fail Quickly

Article Tags: business plan, strategic alliance, SWOT analysis



Related Forum Posts
Re: Is A Business Plan A Waste Of Time? - We should have a poll here - who has a business plan and who doesn't. I think I contributed to this thread when it first started, but I agree with our recent contributors to the thread. A Business plan is simply a must. If you fail to plan... you plan to fail.
Willing to Fail Your Way to Success - Entrepreneurs in my opinion, must be willing to fail. (This is that risk-taking factor quoted in the other post). If you aren't willing to fail then you don't take risks and if you don't take risks you do I like to call (I am qouting an awesome book called Play to Win!) 'Playing Not to Lose' instead of 'Playing to Win'. When you Play to Win you must risks. Risks are how you build a business and innovate.
Re: Is A Business Plan A Waste Of Time? - [quote="OmnivoreInk":icvpsdve]We should have a poll here - who has a business plan and who doesn't. I think I contributed to this thread when it first started, but I agree with our recent contributors to the thread. A Business plan is simply a must. If you fail to plan... you plan to fail.[/quote:icvpsdve] I'd be interested to see which of Evan's "Famous Entrepreneurs" had a business plan and which ones didn't.
What is your hit ratio? - Like most entrepreneurs I have more ideas for where I want to take my business than I can handle. I believe in the "fail early, fail often" philosophy and try to find small ways to get started on a project to see if it has any legs. I would estimate that for every 50 things I try, most of them don't have an impact for me, 10 of them have a slightly positive impact, and 1 hits it really big. Some of my big wins over the past few years have been: * Learning the ins and outs of search engine optimization to drive traffic * Putting up and optimizing Google AdSense ads to monetize the website * Deciding to be the leader in profiling famous entrepreneurs online * Recruiting outside authors to help contribute to the website content (now have over 25,000 pages) * Creating the entrepreneur forums * Bringing on staff to help cope with the daily amount of work required to keep things running smoothly What is your hit ratio and some of your big wins?
Re: What would you do if you knew you could not fail? - Would it not take a lot of the excitement out of whatever you did? If you knew in advance that nothing you did would ever fail, how much pleasure and anticipation would there be? MichelleJ


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

Starting a Business a Brave Move or a NoBrainer

Five keys to business success

Igniting Your Unstoppable Business Destiny

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.