April 2012 – Page 4 – TP Javeton WebNet

The first of three ‘Ps’? Plan!

There are a lot of factors to consider when starting a business. Primary among these factors are what has commonly been referred to as the three “P”s – Plan, Prepare, Persist. As the business owner you are responsible for eveything that happens in that new business and all decisions are yours to make, so it follows that you must utilize every tool, strategy and resource that will enhance your ability to operate the business efficiently and effectively with an eye towards ultimate success.

After you have selected some ideas from your brainstorming to base your business around, the next step is to create a plan of attack. List all that you think you’ll need before your business starts.

What will your ongoing expenses be? Factors may include rent, utilities, permits, licensing, legal fees, inventory, staff, design, marketing collateral, mailing lists, software, advertising and more. Get as much as you can down on paper and set deadlines to get things accomplished. In every business there is goal-setting (or should be) and every realistic goal has a deadline. This will allow you to evaluate your pace.

Prepare: The second of three ‘Ps’!

Once you have a plan, you must implement it by working in accordance with the steps set forth in that plan. Preparing to start a business can be a lot of work. Tasks may include getting an identity designed (or logo), creating business cards, brochures, web sites and other marketing material, consulting with CPA’s, lawyers, and HR professionals, in some cases finding and renting or buying a storefront or office, furnishing the business space, getting utilities in place, receiving and organizing inventory, getting a database for your customers and leads and any number of other tasks.

By running a home business, some of these steps will already be taken care of, yet opening a business of any kind can be an enormous task. While planning your business make sure to leave plenty of time to get it up and running. Better to plan your setup time too long than too short and finding yourself running out of money.

The third ‘P’ is Persist

This is the most important step of running a business. Without persistence, you won’t even be able to finish your business plan. Hang on like a pit-bull. When the going gets tough, get tougher. Have worst case scenario plans to fall back on, as well as best case scenario plans.

Some businesses become over-night successes, while others take a year or two develop. Along the way there will be occurrences and events that will have an effect on your business. If it’s based offline (brick and mortar), you may experience power-outs, acts of God (hurricanes, floods, snow storms, etc.), acts of the local municipality (tax increases, license rate changes, highway construction & repair, etc.), and a host of other changes that could cause you to lose momentum, if not money.

But the one thing you must have is focus on your goals. If you plan, prepare and persist, you’ve got a very good chance of business success, because you would have a foundation upon which to build.

In pursuit of instant Web traffic

The primary reason for a website succeeding or failing is a consistent flow of Web traffic or the lack of it; but you already knew that. Of major concern however, for many webmasters, is after they have created quality content, beautiful graphics, excellent sales letters, in-demand product(s) and/or service(s) and then don’t get instant Web traffic to their websites. Some website owners know all to well that good quality traffic and quality targeted traffic in a matter of days after launching, may not be achievable, but they still pursue it.

Every webmaster has the same problem in the beginning. Even I!! Solutions like Google Adsense, Adwords, Classified Ads, Banner Advertising, Blogging, Seminars, niche advertising, article advertising, press releases, opt in lists, affiliate programs and search engines – among others – can be rather costly and may not be accomplished with the kind of speed that many webmasters want to achieve.

In actuality, there is a hidden and unexplored method which many webmasters are attracted to. Link Trading!! At a Webinar I attended sometime ago, this method was discussed as one that will get Web traffic within a day. Specifically, the host indicated that you can increase traffic flow to any newly-launched website faster than any other traffic boosting technique. He said, “…imagine having your website link added to over 8000 websites which are linked to many more, you are instantaneously connected to a network of millions of websites which are already generating a huge traffic flow.”

The instant traffic utopia that isn’t

Although I was familiar with back-linking and knew a little about link exchanges, this “8000 websites” number made me a little skeptical, so I wanted to do a little more research before diving into this “traffic to my website” utopia. My first stop was Wikipedia where I learned a little more about certain linking methods to see if I could “legally” achieve the kind of Web traffic results being discussed.

Here a little of what I learned:

“A reciprocal link is a mutual link between two objects, commonly between two websites to ensure mutual traffic”;
Resource linking. “Resource links are a category of links, which can be either one-way or two-way, usually referenced as “Resources” or “Information” in navbars, but sometimes, especially in the early, less compartmentalized years of the Web, simply called “links”.
Directory Link Building. “Website directories are lists of links to websites, which are sorted into categories. Website owners can submit their sites to many of these directories. Some directories accept payment for listing in their directory, while others are free”.

Which brings us to “search engine bias”, as discussed on Wikipedia in the following manner:

Although search engines are programmed to rank websites based on their popularity and relevancy, empirical studies indicate various political, economic, and social biases in the information they provide.[14][15] These biases could be a direct result of economic and commercial processes (e.g., companies that advertise with a search engine can become also more popular in its organic search results), and political processes (e.g., the removal of search results in order to comply with local laws).[16] Google Bombing is one example of an attempt to manipulate search results for political, social or commercial reasons”.

Traffic the old-fashion way: Earned over time!

You can read more about it on this Wiki page.

You and I may have a different way of looking at search engine bias as it relates to link exchanges, automated link swapping and link directories based simply on how Google, the number one search engine on the World Wide Web, views artificially created links and backlinks to our websites; But one think is clear. The search engine (especially Google) will not reward such activity with a high rank on the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).

The point is this. Although traffic generators like search engines will take time to crawl your website and manual linking by trading links with webmasters may take longer than you would like, these methods are better and safer for attracting traffic to your website and not get penalized by the search engines. Accordingly, you need to create content that is relevant to the niche market you are targeting and utilize all of the “white hat” techniques you are familiar with, such as:

Google Adsense, Adwords (PPC), Classified Ads, Banner Advertising, Blogging, Seminars, Niche Advertising, Article Advertising, Press Releases, Opt-in Lists, Affiliate Programs and Search Engines, because in the final analysis, despite the cost and slow pace (lack of speed), you would be assured of one thing. Your work will not go in vain due to your website being penalized by the search engines. You and I cannot afford that kind of penalty and therefore should resist the attraction of instant web traffic.