Website Success Secrets by Roland Luo

WEBSITE SUCCESS

Secrets 7 keys to a successful website

anyone you like, as long as you make no changes or edits to its contents or digital

format. In fact, I’d love it if you’d make lots and lots of copies. The right to bind this and sell it as a book, however, is strictly reserved. While we’re at it, I’d like to keep the movie rights too.

Table of Contents

PART 1 1. Foreword. ..................................................................................... ........... 4 2. Find out people's needs .................................................................................... 6 3. Do what you enjoy ..................................................................................... 9 . 13 . 4. Be sure it's unique .................................................................................... 5. Focus, Focus, Focus ....................................................................... ......... 17 . 6. Persistence is key to success ...................................................................... 22 7. Copycats never prosper .................................................................... ......... 29 8. . Promote your website ...................................................................... ......... 34

PART 2 9. Million dollar homepage story ....................................................................... 44 10. There is plenty of fish in the sea ......................................................... .......... 46 11. Run as a free community service ........................................................ .......... 49 12. The rise andfall of an internet darling ............................................................. 51 13. New million dollar homepage story ................................................................ 54

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Foreword As the Internet becomes more prevalent in our society, people are using the Internet to find sources for things that they need and want. Everyone goes online these days to find information, do their research and pick out products or services to buy. These days a website is one of the best ways to market yourself, your business or your product and the truth is without a website you are missing out on a lot of opportunities. Because I've been running successful websites for many years, people always ask me how they can achieve a similar level of success. How can I build a high-traffic website? How can I make money online? How do I make my website popular? What makes some sites succeed and mine fail? how to promote my new site? Can you tell me the secret of successful website? Usually those questions go unanswered because the answer is not a simple one. It is not a short one either and there is not something that I can just say that will bring someone instant success. Since I have been asked more and more questions on this topic I decided to write a eBook about it. So those who are interested in runing websites can get an idea of where to start, how to go about it and how to achieve your goals. Making your own website can be a great way to make money on the Internet and if a successful site can even be a full time job. Making money from your website doesn't have to be difficult, you don't have to sell things and you don't have to email people. All you have to do is to build a successful website. Once you have a serious number of people coming to your website, it's very easy to turn that visitor stream into money. Have you heard of Markus Frind? his website - PlentyOfFish.com is the biggest dating website in the world. He built this website just for teaching himself ASP.NET programming language at the beginning, he became known as the google adsense millionaire in 2003. This One-person website bring in millions every year from advertisments revenue, Markus enjoys the success of his venture by working only 10 hours a week and making over 5 million a year. Maybe you also want to build a successful website like PlentyOfFish but don't know where to start, maybe you already own a website but find it's difficult to get visitors. There are hundreds of millions of sites out there trying to attract eyeballs and competing with you for viewership. There's no doubt about it – the web is a crowded place. With thousands of new websites springing up every day, your site runs the very real risk of being lost in the shuffle amongst all these competitors. A few of websites right now are attracting thousands and millions of visitors each month such as PlentyofFish.com, while others(maybe include yours) continue to struggle for an audience. Why some internet entrepreneurs are making big money while others are struggling? It can be very frustrating when you browse a prosperous site and see them make it look so easy. Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

How to build a successful website? If you are looking for the solutions on the internet, you will find many suggestions from the experts, such as "11 Steps to Create a Successful Website", "Twelve Key Components to Building a Successful Website","10 ways to make your website more successful","The best advice on how to build a successful website","The insider's guide to a successful website". Generally speaking, these solutions include more than just 3 parts: Optimize your site for search engines(SEO), Use a good design and layout, Keep your content updated. I must admit that these solutions are effective and reasonable, but they are not the key elements of a successful website. Why? Search engine optimization can help improve your website visibility in order to bring more traffic to your site, but if your website is useless to visitors, they will close the page in 3 seconds and never come back again. As for design and layout, whether we like it or not there is significant evidence that you can create a successful website with bad design, terrible code. You only need to look at the design of Craigslist or the code of Amazon to see that this is true. I have talked to many web designers about craigslist - obviously one of the most popular websites in the world. While they accept that craigslist is hugely successful- it would be hard for them not to - they claim that it is successful despite its terrible, outdated, text-heavy, ugly non-design. Keeping website content fresh is truly important, if your website is popular enouth, your visitors will generate contents for you. If not, it will be turned to a tough work for you. So, What makes some sites succeed and others fail? what are the secrets of the successful websites? how to build a popular website? Put another way, when you are asked to redesign an existing website, what problems are you looking out for and where do you concentrate your efforts?

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Part 1 Find out People's Needs When you states that you would like to have a website, one of the very first questions is "Why do you want a website?" You may be surprised by the responses I get! Fact is, most people haven't put any thought into this simple question, because they haven't really given much thought to their motivations. Often the answer is that since everyone else has one, they felt it's time they get one too. Or someone has built a successful website and earned a lot of money, so they want to copy this site. It may simply be that a close competitor has recently launched a new site, and now they feel that they need to catch up. For someone, it's simply something that is expected of them, just like getting a phone number and business cards. For most of them, they just think that maybe their websites are useful to some people. I can make my own bold - most of these websites could quietly disappear and never be missed by anyone except their owners. No one plans to fail, but failing to plan is a good way to do it. A product focus is a symptom of inward thinking. It starts from the perspective of the innovator who wants to create something. This type of thinking

starts with you and branches towards the outside world: you first start with your desire to create, then an innovation from this desire and only then do you start looking for how to connect that innovation to the outside world.The thinking process of most entrepreneurs is something like this: Get an idea for what site you want to build, Create it, Find someone who wants it. But a successful entrepreneur will look at the problem in a different sequence: Find something missing or needed in the world, Get the idea for what will fill this hole, Create it. Before even considering the practical aspects of creating a website, there is a very important fundamental question you need to ask yourself is "Why I need to build this website ?"

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Marketing guru Seth Godin says "Don't find customers for your products, find products for your customers." It means, you need to find a real pain that people are experiencing right now and offer a solution that they are willing to pay for. And as in products, so also in websites. Knowing what the client wants is the key factor to success in any type of business. If you can find people's pain points and build a website to solve their problems, then your website is bound to succeed. For those under the age of 30, it's hard to imagine there was ever time when there was no Craiglist. If you want to sell something or rent an apartment, you need to make a list of the local newspapers that are in circulation in your target community, choose the newspaper with the largest following to get the most bang for your buck, determine wich days you want the ad to run(because the more days you run the ad, the more expensive it will be), finally you have to pay tens to thousands of dollar to the local newspapers for your classified advertising. Craig Newmark found people's needs by his email distribution list of friends, featuring local events in the San Francisco Bay Area, The list grew to a website that included other categories of information, his online service allows users to post advertisements for everything from yard sales to massage

services and most of the postings are free. This famous site established its worldwide presence mostly through word of mouth, it now attracts more than 60 million unique visitors per month and serves 700 cities in 55 countries. For all Internet products, whether you can find user pain points or whether you can accurately solve their problems is the ultimate key to get the user hearts, do not start a business thinking that you know what people want and you are going to create it. If you do you will spend a lot of time and resources creating things that often people don't want. But how to find people's need ? there is not a routine to follow. Some entrepreneurs are keen to conduct market research, they think this sort of research will help him find out what people want. But in fact, market research is often a costly and time-consuming process. There may be biases that distort information, ignores answers or lets arrogance or hostility cut off communications at some point in the process. First, are the people you selected reasonable and representative? second, would people be willing to tell you their real needs? third, whether people can understand their true feelings and accurately express them to you?

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

How do you figure out what people want? I think the key is to actively ignore what you already know. Don't focus on what you want to make or what you're interested in. These things are incredibly important, but if you use them as a starting point, you're going to get bad results. If you can start from a virtual blank slate, you can then spend time looking into where there are opportunities and how the world works. This way you may catch dozens of excellent opportunities that wouldn't have fit anything you dreamt up earlier, but might fit a new idea that you have the skills and passions for. Have some ideas of what website you would like to build? It requires some brain-storming, and you should take several days or weeks to do so, maby even months. Starting from your everyday life, assume you know nothing and test everything. You go talk to them. You have conversations. You read forums and messages boards instead of tech news articles about the last startup to be sold for a bajillion dollars, and you try to get a feel for the problems people are facing and the emotional reasons they buy. Then you test and see what happens. Start out with the attitude that you know nothing. Write down your assumptions and test them, even the ones you think are silly. Keep eyes open, there are thousands of small and big businesses around us and so the thousands of niche out there. Watch TV, Youtube videos, Ads in news papers to get inspiration for a idea. Think about existing products of other companies, have a visit to electronics store, book store, and any possible store that sell products. Use your common sense and brain to think about any possible market, write down the possible problems that people face, they will like to find answers online, if you have best answer you will get a idea. Find opportunity to let yourself calm down, such as fishing, reading, walking, be sure to let your heart calm down in order to think carefully what website you should build. Try to divert your attention, maybe you will suddenly got an idea. So "Why I need to build this website ?" the answer is very simple - because I have found people's needs and I want to build this website to solve their problems. Remeber, "The only way for someone to find value to profit from is for someone else to create the value first." Adding value to someone else's life is one of the most important things you can do with your website. Knowing and understanding people needs is at the centre of every successful website, whether it sells directly to individuals or other services. Figure out what people want and give it to them. If you have a great idea for a website--something that's bound to capture the hearts and minds of people everywhere. Or perhaps you have stumbled on a service that isn't being offered by other websites else--one that is desperately needed. This is your opportunity! Don't hesitate, don't look back, jump right into it and build a website to satisfy people needs and wants.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Do What You Enjoy "Do what you enjoy and do it often" is exactly what you want to read everyday in your wall. This may sound a bit funny but it is the single most important thing you can do when building a website. Being forced to do work is one of the most draining experiences. While there are times at every job where you may feel the work may be draining and dull, you have to realize that not every day is going to be an enjoyable one. There are highs and lows, but when you are passionate about the work you look past the dull days. Your creative process is also different. You are more inclined to come up with creative ideas when you like what you do. You should never consider making a website because of the earning potential of it. You should do something you will really enjoy doing. Every subject imaginable will be a viable source of revenue in a website. You are passionate about the subject right? Other people are too. And they will come to your site, It's not the other way around. If you don't enjoy it, you won't be successful because you'll eventually g et burned out. You'll never meet a successful Internet entrepreneur that says, "I hate spending time u pdating my website and learning how to market on the Internet, but I'm still making $300,000 per year with my site." You can find a lot of reasons as to why you would want to create your own website. By simply getting in touch with what you simply enjoy doing, you can find yourself engaging into something more. You may be a small businessman who is selling retail products and would want to raise your marketing style to a whole new level. You may be a photographer who wants to promote your skills by beautifying a simple scenery and turning it into a breathtaking moment. You may be a food blogger who hops from restaurant to restaurant in order to criticize their meals and prove that they are worthy of booking a reservation five months ahead. You may be a Mark Zuckerberg wanna be that wants to build your own social networking site and earn billions every day through businesses advertising on your web site and individuals just wanting to strut their stuff.

You may also be a fashionista who wants to flaunt your fashion sense to the World Wide Web. But remember, creating your own web site is an investment. But other than that, it can also be a hobby, a bizarre but interesting Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

way to earn money but also having fun with what you do. In order for you to be able to create an original website of value to others, you must know something about the field on which your site will focus. You should also be interested in that area, because you're going to have to slave away at it for a long time before it even

Like this book ? Here's what you can do to spread the word about it: 1. Send this file to a friend. 2. Send them a link to http://www.sitesuccesstips.com/WebsiteSecrets.pdf , so they can download it themselves. 3. Buy a updated copy at http://www.sitesuccesstips.com/ (New Edition)

begins to show signs of bearing fruit. A site on something you only have a superficial interest in will wither away as your own interest fades. The people that are successful out here enjoy themselves and work at this continuously, and most of them chose a website topic they are passionate about. Craig Newmark is one of the best examples. Craig started Craigslist as a simple email list for friends that alerted them of San Francisco area arts and technology events. He built Craigslist with what he's described in a interviews as, "Do What I Enjoy." The list highlighted social gatherings of interest to internet developers - folks like Newmark. " Back then, I saw a lot of people h elping each other out and thought I should give back by starting a simple events list," says Newmark. " I got feedback on the list and did something about it, and it eventually grew into Craigslist." Today, Newmark remains one of the largest shareholders of Craigslist, but he hasn't served as an executive at the San Francisco classified ads site for years. Instead, he has concentrated on customer service, which he has described as akin to public service. Newmark's days are still spent fielding customer feedback and problems as a low-level customer service rep because he enjoy doing this. If you email Craigslist to report a spammer or offer your compliments to the service, Newmark might just be person emailing you back. Problems he can't solve are sent to his boss - that's right, his senior customer service rep boss. "The irony is that I'm also on the board, so I'm simultaneously on the top and bottom of the company," says Newmark. "That's a rarity in any business." Successful website requires that the webmaster write frequent, meaningful articles about their site's topic to attract new readers, keep readers interested and keep readers coming back. If you are only slightly interested in your site's topic, it will be difficult to log in each day and come up with fresh, exciting posts and commentary. By choosing a topic you're passionate about, it will be easier to update your website with a smile on your face each day. Doing what you enjoy is as important as ever, if you're going to make a living at it, it helps to find a niche where money flows as a regular consequence of the success of your idea. Loving what you do is almost as important as doing what you love, especially if you need to make a living at it. Not just the quantity is higher, the quality will also be higher.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

There are lots of different ways to generate new content for your site, but to do what you enjoy should always be on creating quality content. In the end, you want to keep your readers coming back for more. Don't sacrifice your site with poor quality content just so you have a new update every day. Again, because you really like it, you will pour more of your time and energy into it. That allows you to think more about your site, thinking about how to make it better and better. As a result, the quality of your website will be improved. "Work hard, my boy, and you will be successful" was my grandfather's childhood advice to me. Even though he has been dead for over a decade, I can still hear his words ringing in my head. You may have heard the same from your grandparents or parents. However, they were all only partially right. There is nothing worse than having to wake up every morning during the week to mindlessly go do work you don't even care about. However, this is never really an issue when you are passionate about the work you do. If you are not forced to work somewhere because of monetary constraint, you truly enjoy what you do and you never really work a day in your life. When all these factors are aligned, most of these people can't even tell you how hard or long they "work." For them it is not a question of how many hours they put in during a week or work/life balance, but about doing what they love as much as possible. While it does take time to accomplish these things, the thing you have to remember is this: passion drives the website. If you are not taking part in something that invokes passion, then you are putting yourself way behind the eight ball. There is another very fundamental aspect to having passion for the subject. You will be able to use and leverage what you already know about it. This means that all the learning you have done is instantly available for use on the website. That's a lot of information. But also, if you passionate about the subject you are very much more likely to continue working on the website. Thus avoiding the biggest thing that causes websites to fail: The webmaster gives up. One of the most tough work for webmasters is to keep the content fresh. With all of the work put into a site, you don't want it to remain the same for months after the launch. Continue to post new content, photos, videos, or music - whatever the site was built to present. Users want and expect to see or learn something new each time they visit your website and they view those websites that do so as more valuable. Think about it, you actually give them a reason to return! Since you are doing what you love, you won't feel burdened doing it. You will have fun and happy time. You will be happier than before. This thing alone is a great reward of doing what you love. When what you do is what you love, you're able to invest more effort and care and time. That means you're more likely to win, to gain share, to profit.Since you enjoy your time doing your works, naturally you will devote more time and energy into your site. There is no such thing as "lazy" or "not in a good mood of doing it". Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

As such, you will accomplish more and become more productive. If you can build a habit of updating every day, awesome. Quite simply, the more useful content you have out there, the better your chances of people finding your site. Even if you can't update every day, aim to post often and regularly so visitors will keep coming back for more and you can build a loyal audience base. Remeber, "Do what you love, The money will follow" , this may sound a bit funny but it is the single most important thing you can do when building a website. When you think, "Internet," what is the first thing that comes to your mind? E-commerce? Music? News? Socializing? Blogging? Those are all good places to start. You could create a website that's dedicated to your favorite band, and have a chat area where people can talk about it. If you're a news junkie, or want something less filtered than traditional media, build a website and get publicly available feeds from news providers such as Reuters, BBC, AP, and others. Build your own customized news aggregator (what used to go by the quaint name of "newspaper"), then see and show all the news that's fit to digitize. The more passionate you are about the theme, the easier it will be to keep adding information, develop your unique spin and expand the site. You should never consider making a website because of the earning potential of it. You should do something you will really enjoy doing. Every subject imaginable will be a viable source of revenue in a website. You are passionate about the subject right? You will have a fulfilling life, This is probably the most important reason of all. Since you follow your heart, you will have a fulfilling life. You follow what your heart tell you, and you follow your purpose. That's how you have a fulfilling life. In my opinion, having a fulfilling life is more – even much more – important than just being wealthy. Following your heart and following your purpose. That's what life is all about. Even if you think that you're a hopeless good-for-nothing who only knows how to play games, all is not lost. Create a website about games. If you like games so much, chances are that you will know a lot of stuff about games and what gamers want. In fact, you will be very well poised to create such a site.

Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

Be sure it's unique Let's listen to a story: A women's bathhouse in Tokyo was on fire, a group of ladies rushed out to the street. At the rush hour the street was full of people, hundreds and thousands of people ware standing there and watching. Realized they ware naked in a public space, almost by reflex these ladies tried to cover their secret body parts with hands. since women have three secret body parts so it's impossible to cover them all with only two hands, so they got into a panic and didn't know what to do. At that moment an old gentleman reminded them: "Cover your faces, women's bodies are the same! " All the ladies suddenly woke up, covered their faces with hands and run away. What should we learn from the story? Most people of course use the face to recognize others, because the face is the feature which best distinguishes a person. Why you are different from other person? because you have a unique face. The internet has become a rather crowded place, there is so much competition for so many different things - it really is down to people thinking of something unique that really stands out, otherwise your site will feel like the naked lady which face was covered, nobody knows who you are. There are millions of websites on the web today, so it isn't easy to stand out. I'm sure you've seen your share of 100% automated website-generating products which you can help you build a website in a matter of minutes, but guess what: they're useless. Basically, you'll have the same website and the exact same content as hundreds of others who were foolish enough to fall for this. The result? Money wasted on a useless product which will help you generate just about enough income to buy yourself a cup of tea. A unique website is an essential tool that can help your business to get success to a large extent. In today's world people leads very busy lives, and hardly like to see a dull designed website. In order to effectively communicate in an expanding marketplace, you need to be able to come up with unique ideas that can be effectively implemented. You need to offer something different, something that makes you stand out so the masses want to visit your site and love the experience. if you notice, the top or most popular sites have large readerships because of their unique voices and perspectives and the interesting things they share. When you start a website, one of the most important things in becoming successful is differentiating yourself from your competitors. Entrepreneurs have been getting more creative in order to succeed. Somehow, these weird and wonderful ideas managed to turn themselves into successful websites generating profits. People should try and be unique be creative and have faith in their ideas and the ideas process. If you take an honest look at your website and compare it to others in your field, can you say yours is unique? Why is it unique? Is there a reason your website is a better resource than others? Great websites pleasure their users. They do so by providing more different, more useful, and more engaging service and content.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

How to make your site stand out from the crowd ? I think it can be done from three aspects. A website inculde three parts: theme, content, layout. One of the most important aspects of website creation, development and optimization is website theme, there is no doubt that a unique theme will make your site successful. But how to make your theme unique? an idea is the starting point, a unique idea that makes your site better than another person's is the idea that will succeed. Then, executing the idea takes persistence and patience.

Sometimes, all you need is some time off to brainstorm and create new idea. Whatever your idea is, be sure it's as unique as possible. Think about how to makes your website unique, valuable, or engaging. Make your website stand out from others in your field. This will help you eliminate or significantly combat competition, which will make your business more successful. Your life experiences can be a great sources of unmatchable idea. Don't stick to the conventional ways of getting information and always make sure you use your own uniqueness to make your idea unique! You may have heard the story of Alex Tew who created a website that sold advertising on a homepage that consisted purely of ads. It was made up of one million pixels arranged in a 1000x1000 pixel grid. Alex sold ad space at $1 for a 10x10 block. In reality such a website is normally pointless for both advertisers and users. However, due to the uniqueness of the idea and how Alex pitched the website as a way for him to pay for attending university, it caught the attention of the media. He got worldwide news coverage and in just over 4 months all the pixels were sold and he had made over $1,000,000 US. Alex Tew said: "The crucial thing in creating the media interest was the idea itself: it was unique and quirky enough to stand out. I only had to push the idea a bit in the first few days by sending out a press release which essentially acted as a catalyst. This interest coupled with traditional word-of-mouth created a real buzz about the homepage, which in turn created more interest. It 'went viral' as some might say."There's an element of luck about his success, but a lot of it depends what it's about. A unique and original idea like this one, you can understand why people thought it was cool. The idea either needs to be creative genius or a really solid product or service that people actually want. That's what gets picked up in the end. There are hundreds, if not thousands of copycat sites, which cannot possibly succeed. Those who have just done something as a copycat and done exactly what others have done, have kind of all missed the point, and that's sad really. They don't see that the reason those sites are successful are down to the novelty Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

factor, and if they could enhance that novelty factor for their own businesses or their own ideas then I think that's the first step to capturing attention. While you're crafting your contents, don't be afraid to let your personality show through so you can really connect to your visitors. After all, in the end it's all about the visitor.

Another important aspects of website creation, development and optimization is website content. We all know that content means king and the importance of having unique content is very crucial. The key to website s uccess is quality content. Quality content is something that your visitors will enjoy reading, watching or listening to and will refer their friends, colleagues, family members and others to it. By building quality content on your site, you get not only search engine traffic, but trust, reputation, greater conversions and incoming natural links. The content that you put on your website has to be creative and not just copied from another website or source. Content that is fresh and creatively written is that gets more importance in the eyes of the search engines then content that is simply spun. Now you must be asking how to create such content and what exactly does unique mean? As we mentioned, the word "purpose" so in all sense the content has to have a base and purpose to it. In the end its the content that will bring the audience to your site and act as a unique selling proposition. So make sure you add value in the content that the reader can see and appreciate. See when you're writing content, check if its unique and whether or not its engaging to your audience or not? are you answering any questions based on the topic? are you providing information that will help solve or reduce a problem for your audience? All in all, keep all this in mind when writing and make sure you keep your audience in mind when writing the content. To create your content-rich Website, you need tunnel vision and a laser sharp focus. In a word; self discipline. It's easy to waste hours, even days, clicking your way from one site to another. Don't let yourself be distracted: limit your online content explorations only to Websites and resources that are directly connected to your site's subject.If you really enjoy what you are doing I think it's not difficult for you to create unique content. If possible try and establish a long term relationship with a good writer if you can't create unique content by youself, most writers are pretty adept at producing content on almost any topic, even if they just regurgitate someone else's writings in a new way.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

As the last important aspects of website, layout play a critical role in capturing attention and pulling visitors deeper into your site. The layout of the site should be created in relevancy with the theme of the website, otherwise the customers will quickly lose their interest. With hundreds of free website templates at your fingertips, it's easy for you to pick one and use it once for all. But unfortunately, free templates are being produced at an alarming rate. If your site looks the same as any other websites, people are likely to leave being bored.

At first it may seem hard to resist using a free template, but create your own and you'll be one step ahead. To be successful, you will have to create a brand identity that people can trust and remember. To achieve this goal, you can't rely upon basic or standard templates in order to get the work done. While these themes will give you the possibility to make a basic customization, it won't let you truly differentiate your website among the competition. Without much knowledge, one can make a unique website with only a little ingenuity and creativity. There are all sorts of ways to create a unique website. The number one thing that you have to keep in mind when designing your own website is to keep yourself in the mind of the consumer and those who you know will be looking at your site. Some of the things to include that will make it stand out from all the rest are pictures, headlines, and all the things that make a website interesting and intriguing to visit. There are many other ways, of course, along with all the other untraditional things that you may come up with to add to your website. If you have unique idea for building your website, but you can't design the layout by youself, it's totally worth it if you employed a good website designer. Otherwise you would probably get almost the same layouts and styles you could get ordering a ready-made website template. If that's your case, just order a template, take the source code and give it to a designer you have with your adjustment requests. Works very well and saves time and money.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Focus, Focus, Focus This is one of the greatest tips that I can give any webmasters who wants to go as far as they can as quick as they can with a new website (or with one that's been around for a while): Focus, focus, focus! The truth is that most of you already know that and yet when I look around and visited many of your websites I don't see it, I don't experience it, and I can't find much of it at all. In fact, it might just be the most significant roadblock for your growth as a webmaster and your site's growth! And this isn't a one time deal either – you're going to have constantly re-work your content, guard against focus-creep, and re-fresh your perspective everyday. The success of any website ultimately hinges on its users. Without visitors a website will be unable to produce value for its owners. As a result, users should be the focal point of web development efforts. The key to developing a successful websites is to focus on what your visitors will be looking for, and then providing answers to their questions, solutions to their problems, and present it in a way that is easy for them to process. Focus is difficult. It can be easy for a company to diverge from its main product and go off and make other products. Always remember: "you don't use your website - your customers do".

What we should do is to create a website that focuses on specific information that is both useful and interesting for the audience, many people call it "Niche Website". You notice that nothing in this words includes profits or money. Although I am a strong believer in purpose, passion, and profits, to be successful in creating website, you must understand that the focus is on the consumer or person visiting your website. If we fail to recognize that the customer is king, then we will likely fail to understand why we have not transformed our site into a profitable venture.

Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

Narrow down and isolate your service or product to a specific niche market to create website around this market. What does your website offer that is special or unique? This is one of the hardest points to overcome, and it is usually an ongoing tedious project for most internet related businesses, unless you begin with a unique service or product. This point is your websites Unique Selling Position, and will be the focus of your website's internet purpose. Your site must focus on your visitors' interests and address the question of what's in it for them and how to improve their businesses and lives. To accomplish this, strong content must be developed in the form of products, services and intellectual property, while constantly evolving. We all want our website to be special, to stand out, and to be remembered. But with all the new possibilities and requirements that come with advanced technology, how can we still keep up? How can we set our priorities right and not drown in a see of unrecognized websites among countless others? The answer is simple: We need a clear focus on the user. Now more than ever, it is important to design websites for people - those people that we want to be our visitors. We must not confuse our website with a showplace for creativity, or a platform to show off our expertise in web technologies. With all the technical possibilities that are available today, it can be difficult to set priorities and not get overwhelmed by too much useless stuff. It is important to keep it simple - this applies to your content, but also to your design. A website with a clean design, simple navigation and ease of use is what will provide the safest solution to your web building dilemma. Your end goal is to create a business website that is both professional and effective. Too much choice, or too much variety will eventually distract your visitors, making it impossible for them to focus. Without focus, visitors are almost doomed to get frustrated. Not finding what they are looking for, not reaching their goals - at least not within the expected timeframe - will leave people confused rather than excited about your site. For every design decision, you should ask yourself if less might not be more. Just because you can add bells and whistles doesn't mean you should. Instead of focusing on moving parts, you focus on building your website so that the information your customer is looking for isn't buried in interior pages or stuck under fancy irrelevant moving parts. So how does focus set you apart? Because you're focusing on one thing, you're working on your unique business, and you're becoming the best in the world at it. You're learning every day and becoming experts at what you do best. There can be no replacement for that expertise. Some less creative webmasters, or those short on time but with substantial resources on their hands, might be tempted to create a multitude of similar sites without necessarily adding unique information to any of these. I'd go ahead and say that this is generally a bad idea. You have multiple websites that you need to maintain and multiple websites that will now need a lot of work to compete. From a purely technical/logistical/cost perspective the reason I say to have one website is because I find most customers have enough trouble simply building and

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

maintaining their website and two or more becomes a heap more trouble. Consider these factors: cost of outside help, time to write content, cost to advertise two websites etc .. Think of each website as a brick and mortar store- do you have the time to manage both?

So if you are capable of overcoming these challenges, and you have a lot of time, then it may be feasible to have more than one website. The primary goal of an search engine (especially Google) is to hands-down have the best search results for a given query. That said, it doesn't help if all of the results are riddled with duplicate websites spouting the same company, content or products. So given this simple idea, if you are going to have multiple websites then you should not duplicate your content. I suggest not spreading out your efforts too broadly. It can be difficult to maintain multiple sites while keeping the content fresh and engaging. It's better to focus on just one good site than a multitude of shallow, low value-add sites. It's important that your website fills a specific need, offering a solution to a problem, steps to a process or information on a topic of interest. Content is king, and creating a site that is useful and usable is essential to being successful online. A website with content that isn't focused on a particular audience will lack a purpose and will be of little value to visitors. Remember that visitors are coming to a website to find something of interest to them. Hopefully, many of the visitors share similar interests (which will be the case if the audience is appropriately targeted), which makes it fairly simple to provide the right kind of content, you just have to keep the audience in mind.And that's the point: Quality content are always focused on a singular idea and passion always, despite the fact that you have more passions in your life. I have seen more websites that had unlimited potential in the beginning turn into a graveyard as the owner dabbled with content creep and areas of content that were outside their core set of passions. I'm not sure how this happens but it happens enough to where you've probably experienced it yourself! All of these three areas of passion, expertise, and unique value all help you with one thing: Focus. By identifying what they are you will begin to see that your site focus takes an entirely different character and quality to them and you'll find yourself more motivated and excited about your site and it's growth. By maximizing your focus you'll have a higher potential for rapid growth and simply better content for your visitors and the search engines.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Focusing enables you to build a brand on a specific subject. Creating a brand is very important. You want people to remember who you are, and you do this by branding yourself, who you are, your website, what it stands for and your members. Based on the analyses, narrow your focus to a specific niche--don't try to be all things to all people. Target a specific audience with a specific offer for a specific product or service that features specific benefits. You can have an authority site that is relatively small - so long as people within your market, and particularly the recognized authorities, treat your site as authoritative by linking to it, and mentioning it regularly in social media. The thing that made that branded website a success was that it had legitimately useful information on it that was kind of hard to find elsewhere online. So, when someone found it, they would tell their friends about it. The site earned thousands of natural shares in social media. It was being linked to naturally from other websites within its niche. It was a great feeling to build something that you could really be proud of. There's lots to do, on the journey of building an Authority website, most importantly stay focused on quality and providing your visitors with things you'd enjoy yourself. Focus on bringing your readers useful content that educates them, or deliver entertaining content that makes them feel good. Figure out what they want and deliver it. Then keep delivering it on a regular schedule they can depend on. This is the basic recipe for gaining trust, and once your site has gained the trust of enough people, and they begin to talk about the content your site contains, your authority becomes obvious not just to human readers, but to the search engines as well. When you think search engine, you might think of "Google" , when you think shopping online, you might think of "eBay", this is the power of branding. Someday if people think of your site when they want to do something, it means you have already succeeded. But even your website achieved success through dogged persistence, you still need to focus on the basic services that your site provide. Only several years ago, when you think social news site, you might think of Digg, but now you only think of Reddit. Digg and Reddit were like warring siblings a few years back. Digg was the charming older brother, sending out millions of hits to stories that hit its front page with a lovely web 2.0 design. Reddit was its scraggly younger sibling, a confusing wall of white text and blue links that sent out far fewer hits. But over time, Digg didnt focus on the basic services anymore, finally one new version, Digg version 4, as the first impression that Digg v4 made was that users aren't important to the site. An "upgrade" in Digg v4 is that news sources could auto-submit their own content, something that Digg had strongly opposed in the past. Digg made these changes to hopefully reach the mainstream status of Facebook and Twitter. And so they attempted to emulate them by turning Digg into a social network. The problem is, Digg is not a social network. Most of the users on Digg do not care about what their so-called friends are digging, mainly because nobody is actually friends in real life with anyone on Digg. And that's perfectly okay. People don't care about "following" anybody, they just care about interesting stories and links. A website can still be an enormous success with 30 million visitors a month and doesn't need to hit mainstream status to be insanely profitable. A running joke emerged - that Digg Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

that Digg was becoming the popular social site Mashable due to the publisher content taking over the site. In reality, Digg changed their business model and pretended that they didn't. Digg removed most of the user's favorite features and everyone complained that v4 was trying too hard to copy Facebook and twitter, in a crappy way.

It was as if some idiot venture capitalist saw the success of twitter and forced the people at Digg to reverseengineer the site into something similar. That is something that is unacceptable with communities and won't be forgotten, Digg isn't a social news site anymore. So where did all these disgruntled users flee to? Reddit acted as refuge for the enormous mass of internet users who would soon call themselves redditors. Reddit, who at the time some would call the smaller brother site of Digg, finally surpassed Digg in popularity in August and September of 2010. As it stands, Reddit has completely assumed Digg's former role on the internet.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Persistence is key to success In this day and age, just about anyone can create a website. It's just a matter of choosing a domain name, finding a host, setting up the design and look, posting content, a few of people think their goals are accomplished once once their website is live. The question is, do you have what it takes to run it well and be considered an excellent webmaster? For those who own websites just to serve some personal purpose, perhaps they need not worry much about running the website. After all, their websites are there just for their own pleasure, and they tend not to care too much about whether they're running the site well or not. For people who put up websites for business, however, there are certain qualities that they need to possess in order to succeed in their online goals and become great webmasters. Some people might think that running a website is easy, but it's really not. You can't just throw up a website, make a few yearly updates to it, and actually expect it to be a big success. It already takes a certain amount of knowledge and skill just to put it up and maintain it. Making it successful, business-wise, requires even more. The successful webmasters love their work, they enjoy the things that their website dealt with, and thus are enthusiastic when working on it. This is one of the reasons why these successful webmasters don't seem to realize that they are working like dogs on their sites. They enjoy the work and so don't define it as work. When you ask them how many hours a day they work, they think hard and say, "oh, maybe one or two hours", because those were the hours they actually spent updating the website. But they forget to count the umpteen hours every day they spent learning, researching, experimenting and planning before it culminated in those "one or two hours" of updating. Pretty much every people out there it seems has essentially the same hopes and dreams for their sites. The idea is that they will be able to create a website, do some SEO, write some regular articles and then watch as this over time results in a huge influx of traffic. Pretty soon, they think, they'll be raking in the big bucks and can quit their day job. The problem is that this dream doesn't happen for most of us - at least not right away. The truth is that failure is a part of lifes, and maybe even a bigger part of website. If fear of failure is holding you back, take inspiration from the stories of these successful entrepreneurs who have bounced back after major failures. As such then it can be years before you even get a sniff of success and even if you have the traffic this may not necessarily equate to riches and fame. And so these people give up, and so they guarantee the only way possible that they will never be hugely famous thanks to their websites. Being a huge success on the web actually is fairly difficult and the most important factor is the one thing that these people are clearly lacking perseverance.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

The reality is that it's actually very hard to keep working on a website and for it not to become a hit eventually. So is their any webmasters who reached their goals and built a successful website without having to persist longterm? None that I know of. Good luck finding one. Because every webmaster that I have ever spoken with has told me it takes a special kind of mindset to get to the top level. No one gets their being scared of failure or without the ability to bounce back from struggles. You can't let failure get to you. Winston Churchill said: "Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm." The ability to persist and not let anything stop you is one of the core traits of any successful person, let alone webmasters. The fact of the matter is, if you are not mentally and physically able to keep going for a long period of time, bouncing back from failures and struggles, without losing site of your end goal, then you will never be successful. Success takes thick skin. It takes a mindset that will not let anyone or anything stand in it's way of reaching their goal. Most of the people get into Internet Marketing because they are convinced it is an easy way to earn quick money. Seeking money before adding value is one of the most obvious signs of most entrepreneurs heading for doom. Their approach is to make a fast website, put up some advertising and a few affiliate links and then sit back and watch while they earn real cash.

But the most challenging time is your first years, when your website is unknown, and your page-views are low. Until you get a million page-views per month, your revenue will be negligible, and advertisers won't be interested in your site. If you're looking for a get-rich-quick-scheme, this is not the place. I don't care how other websites make it seem, there is no such thing as quick money. You have to set realistic goals and understand that the earnings will start out small. Please don't believe the hype. Don't count on that to fund your startup. This is a tough business. It can be very successful like it now is for Facebook, but webmasters usually underestimate how long it will take for page-views to ramp. Most people focus in the Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

beginning on how they can make their first dollar online. This, more often than not, leads to spammy tactics like covering their website with advertisements and using pop-ups to get people to sign-up for their mailing list which in turn scares away potential fans before they even read a single word of their content. When people start getting annoyed by pop-ups appearing every 2 minutes they will leave and never come back. Everyone knows this by now, but it seems far too many webmasters are more obsessed with quick cash than the happiness of their visitors and use them anyway. When all you are focusing on is monetization you are failing to take the first essential step towards getting people to trust you enough online to spend money: start a relationship with as many visitors as possible. Monetization is just the fruit of success that any webmasters wants to reap as soon as possible. But I would suggest not to hurry. I have made a survey for these successful entrepreneurs, one interesting result was that making money didn't even make it in the top three reasons people started their own business. The top three reasons were freedom to pursue new opportunities, the chance to follow their personal passion and to gain independence from the control of others. Money was the fourth reason entrepreneurs went into business. Craigslist founder Craig Newmark has left more money on the table during the past dozen years than most entrepreneurs see in a lifetime. But that's what has ensured that the cash keeps pouring in. Nearly all of the classified listings on Craigslist are free, and the site has never run ads of any kind. Its sole revenue stream is the $25 to $75 it charges for job postings in seven major U.S. cities. Craigslist actually is being much smarter (on purpose or not) in how it "maximizes profits." It's doing it by not pissing off users and not trying to squeeze them for every possible penny today, knowing correctly that doing so is a smart long-term strategy. You don't have to plan your entire website out from the very start. In fact it is next to impossible to do so. There are so many things you don't know about your business, your market, your visitors. Those are things you learn as you go along. Those are things you verify from your assumptions. The goal is to learn as fast as you can. Start off as small and see where your visitors lead you. Make one small move and then another, do that again and again. Successful websites need to constantly be aware of their clients and viewers. How would you like it if you visited a website and had some issues with certain parts of their website? Wouldn't you like to give some feedback? Providing your clients and viewers with an easy way for them to give you feedback is showing that you actually care about what they have to say. One of the most important things you can do is to not only know your target audience but understand them. You want them to feel connected with you on a personal level. Make sure to take part in conversations and post things that are going to get people to want to speak out and share their opinions. If possible, allow for user interaction on your website. A few examples would be user-submitted content (such as social media sites), Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

blogs, or even polls and surveys. When visitors become more involved they are likely to stay longer and come back more frequently. Visitors will be able to connect to a website owner more effectively if they have participated or contributed. For example, when a visitor submits a comment on your blog you can encourage future communication by following up, answering questions, responding, or just saying thanks for visiting. The internet is impersonal by nature.

By focusing on communications with users you can make your website more personal and give visitors a more enjoyable and rewarding experience. As social media insiders well know, creating a sense of community around your website is one of the most powerful tools for engaging and ultimately enthralling prospective fans. But doing so doesn't simply mean throwing up a sponsored message board then leaving it to stagnate, or e-mailing customers sporadic newsletter updates that regurgitate existing material easily found elsewhere. Rather, you have to not only encourage discussion and actively take part in conversations by dedicating internal time and resources, but also make customers feel as if they truly have a voice in the discussion by listening to their concerns, responding and sourcing feedback at every opportunity. Implementing programs that recognize and reward valued contributors is also vital, as is creating fan-based initiatives that allow community members to contribute and share ideas, concepts and creations of their own. Even simply giving enthusiasts the chance to submit designs for your next fundraiser's logo or arranging times where they can chat with top execs to provide input on upcoming ventures won't just engender goodwill. They'll also excite and empower a legion of amateur brand ambassadors--an essential source of free ongoing updates and constructive conversations, which will both attract users to and keep them enamored with your site. Remember, people like to know that there is indeed a person behind the website, not a greedy corporation or some machine doing all the work. Creating a recognizable brand does not happen suddenly. It is a careful, long term process that begins by understanding your needs and the needs of your customers. There is a Japanese philosophy called "Kaizen" which focuses on continuous improvement using small steps. Kaizen is all about daily changes; little changes that circumvent a huge overhaul. And it's not change for the sake of change. That's no fun unless you are a web design firm and someone is paying you handsomely for your time. It's change to eliminate waste and improve functions. Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Your website redesign should not be a massive three-month long exercise that takes place every year. Instead, once you have designed your site, you should follow this formula in an ongoing cycle until the end of time, or until the world ends this year. When you work on your website, you should be thinking of Kaizen because the version you've just published is not the final version. There doesn't even have to be a final version. You can always make improvements, and the very nature of a website will allow you to introduce these at any time. This is because a website isn't a magazine that you print and sell: once a magazine copy is out of your hands, you cannot make any changes or fix any spelling mistakes or errors. A website, however, sits on your server: if you find a mistake, you can fix it right away. In the same vein, you can introduce gradual improvements and updates to make your website more effective in serving its function. Your website is way more than a bunch of code tucked away on a server so don't forget about it like it is! Your website is your gateway to the world and it should evolve through ongoing improvements. That is where the philosophy of Kaizen comes in. Kaizen also stresses the need to do a root cause analysis of problems.

For example, if you notice that your conversion rates are dropping, then you need to analyze where your traffic is coming from and identify which traffic source is giving you the least conversion rates. Try to understand the reason why traffic from that source does not convert well. Maybe the majority of your traffic is coming from a non-English speaking region and they are finding it difficult to navigate your site. If so, offering multiple-language versions of your site or including more images may be the answer. The typical response of trying to lure visitors to convert into sales by giving offers and discounts may not work in this case. Analyzing the problems with your current design is the first and most important step in tweaking your site. I said in the first paragraph, finding people needs is at the centre of every successful website. As a entrepreneurs you should figure out what people want and give it to them. Frankly speaking, it's the most difficult part of becoming a successful website. While a few successful entrepreneurs did set a clear goal, but more of them didn't think that they would achieve so much success, they just have a good idea occasionally. You can make calculated decisions on the user experience of an application, but you never really know how users will respond ntil you get your site into the eyes of real people. If you can't put together a group of beta testers, consider using a service to gather feedback. Sometimes many people think that they have found people's needs, but after their website was build, they found they are totally wrong. What you should do in such a situation?

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Well lets see an example, Caterina Fake and her then-husband Stewart Butterfield built a online game called Game Never Ending (GNE) in 2002, a massive multiplayer online roleplaying game that was focused on social interaction rather than the more typical battle-style MMORPG. the game was about making and trading, buying and selling, interacting with other people. They built a community for the game, though the community that grew around the game was very dedicated, they couldn't make the game profitable, they ran out of cash and ware almost broke. To build community, they commented on other's photos with meaningful and genuine comments saying why they liked the pictures. This received positive feedback and users began to do likewise and soon they realized the sense of community was more important than the game and saw an opportunity for a different site from creating GNE. They took remnants of GNE and began to create Flickr, which launched in February 2004. After its creation, Flickr grew immensely. Three million registered users have shared over 130 million photos with friends and family via web. Not only can you share your photos, users can tag pictures to help sort/find specific images and leave comments on pictures. Fake admits she's an "accidental business person," which is what makes her so successful. She's not in it to make money, but instead to explore the creative side of the Internet, whether it's through community or connection. Through the process, she's parlayed her lack of tech experience into the creative ideal of the "beginner's mind," which lets her see solutions in technology that others don't."The Internet has amazing powers of distribution," she told Inc. Magazine. "You can test your ideas. You can see if it works, if it doesn't work, whether it's fun, and whether you're sufficiently motivated. People who go into entrepreneurship to get rich aren't going to be happy. It's the building of things that makes you happy." Even your had a bad start, new opportunities are everywhere. All you have to do is look around and find something that has been broken, then fix it. That does not mean that you should give up your original goal. But look at all the problems that people are having and figure out how to solve them. With persistence, a little creativity and a lot of hard work, anyone can still achieve success. Persistence and Improvement is key to running a successful website. There are no miracles here or magic systems, you will need to follow the correct steps and you will need to work on things. Your first site might fail, your second one too, but maybe your third site will be the one to succeed. We learn from every attempt. I've had only one website successes, but several out of 2, 3, maybe even 4 attempts! Does that make me a loser to have failed so much? No, of course not. One success means you are a success. At least I hope so. Then I blew it and had to start from scratch but at some point you know if you can do it once, you know the trick to make it happen again. And a big part of that trick is persistence.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

"When nothing seems to help, I go look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before." The following quote from Dutch American reformer Jacob Riis hangs in the Spurs dressing room and serves the team's unofficial motto. There are tons of people that want a great, successful online campaign but don't want to put in the work. The truth is there really aren't short cuts. The truth is that building websites is hard work that requires a significant commitment. A successful website isn't the result of one transcendent idea so much as it is hundreds of small ideas implemented well.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Copycats Never Prosper Over 2,300 years ago, Aristotle wrote, "Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world and learns first by imitation. "From mirroring someone's body language, to unwittingly mimicking someone's accent, most people have an subconscious desire to copy others. A copycat, of course, is someone or something that deliberately mimics a successful person or product, hoping to obtain some portion of that success. There's an entire spectrum of terms available besides ‘copied', ranging from "inspired by" to "plagiarised", and it's not necessarily a bad thing to be influenced by the work of others. The key is to ensure that you're consciously agreeing with a design, rather than just aping (mimicking unthinkingly – a definition which no doubt does our hairy cousins a grave disservice). Sadly, much of the technology sector simply apes. We often assume that if you follow the exact same process, system or path as someone else who's been successful, you'll get the same results. But unfortunately it's not true. The example I thought of was "learn my exact system to win the lottery". Someone who's won the lottery could document in precise detail how they got up in the morning, walked to the shop, pad for a lottery ticket with random number, got the bus home, sat in front of the TV, watched the numbers come on the screen etc. It sounds ludicrous because we know that winning the lottery is based on luck not the process you followed to get your ticket. But often it's the same with other forms of success. Not that it's luck - just that the process, path or system the successful followed is often not the critical part of why they succeeded. Sometimes it's the skills and capabilities you already have. Sometimes it's the contacts and connections. Sometimes it's just being in the right place at the right time and finding the right market. Someone without those same assets or in a different situation can follow the exact same path and not get the same results. If it's trying to copy the success of others and expecting to get the same results. I'm here to tell you that it not only doesn't work, but also can be very harmful to your business. You need to understand that successful websites have the experience you don't have, they also have tons of data, and are more likely the one to make the right choice. It's hard to accept but one of the easiest way to get into a market is to copy these sites. Whatever thought process successful entrepreneurs went through to create their offering is something copycats never experienced. They know why they used those words in that way in their marketing. They know why their choose to do things at a particular time and in a particular way. They know what is really behind every element of what they do. In fact they don't even have to think about it, because it came from them. You just need to make that selection based on your passions, goals and skills, and not just because you saw it work for someone else. You need to learn from others around you. Take in as much knowledge and learning as you can. But then it's your job to apply it in a way that works for you. Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

If you don't have a groundbreaking idea yourself, then you're not going to succeed. The truth is that you can't copy everything because usually you don't have insights into the original' processes, tools and situations. You can only copy what you see, but the secret sauce is hidden from you. While the saying goes, lightening never strikes twice in the same place, it is at least in theory possible. On the other hand, if someone breaks a rule in a way that can rarely be duplicated, we don't learn a whole lot--unless there's a pattern. As my example shows, you don't need to follow the exact path that others have taken to become successful. In fact, doing so usually provides disappointing results. Many people know Alex Tew and his Million Dollar Homepage Story. He is a true rags to riches story of success and has an excellent idea that I highly recommend. There are lots of people out there that look at Alex Tew's Million Dollar Homepage site and think that if they just need to build a same website to sell pixels, then their site will magically have thousands of buyers overnight. What they don't see, and usually don't choose or want to see is all of the brilliant idea and hard work that went into building the brand that Alex Tew have. Most people don't realize that Alex Tew was doing this website back in 2005 when he had just several buyers (most buyers are his friend). He also thought it would be a good story for the media to pick up--"Broke

student has quirky way to raise money for college" - so Tew took the money he made from the first 1,000 pixels he sold and used it to write and send out press releases to the local media. The secret is, it's all the stuff you don't see that is the true engine and catalyst behind the success. If you just copy the idea of pixels advertising, or selling advertising space through pixels instead of traditional online methods such as banner ads, or anything else, and you don't have the full strategy and media's attention, you are doomed for failure and will lose money. You may notice that the Million-Dollar-Homepage-like websites are not doing well. They may even end up losing money by hosting a blank website for years. People often get sucked into the "me too" trap. When they see something shiny from a competitor, they want it. The trouble with this is to know whether the shiny new thing will deliver the promised results. Don't play this danger game, you lose your initiative and money when you're copying others. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, when you say "I want to copy XXXX website", your words already admitted XXXX website is famous in your field. Your competitor will be like a great mountain in front of you, you can never surpass it. If you follow the competition's footstep, you'll only ever be a 2nd best version of their success, even worse.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

If a prospective customer approached you and asked: Why should I choose you over the original website? What is your answer? Maybe you will say: my website has many advantages over the original one. So let's say you like the Facebook and you want to copy the success of it, you think it's poorly designed and has major privacy problems. You decide to build a better social network website. You invest a few thousand dollars and make it just the way you want it - with all the design features you've ever wanted and the privacy policy you've embraced. You get all your friends to join and they all say nice things about it. Three months later, you get 2 more members and your friends haven't returned to your product in weeks. Clearly, things aren't working out. You ask yourself: Why? I made this layout much better than Facebook's and we don't track anyone like Facebook does. I love this product, why would anyone not want it? The answer is, the differentiating feature was something nobody cared about or wanted. When you build your business and have your differentiating feature, you have to make sure it's something people want. Too many businesses have failed because they built something for their needs but forgot to check if other people were having the same problems. Some webmaster use Lower-Priced strategy to defeat original websites. One day a webmaster was looging for me, his idea is a copycat of Million Dollar Homepage with a difference, the idea is the same he would sell pixels for money, but he will charge only $0.1 each pixel, only tenth of Million Dollar Homepage. I told him: "To be completely honest with you I have seen a lot of the million dollar homepage copycat ideas fail. The original idea was a one time jewel that really can never be replicated again without totally revamping everything but just price." The result is that his pixels ad website remain blank for years until closing. Why this webmaster failed? because customers do not just compare by price, but also by overall quality and value. The initial site had buzz because it was unique. If low price is your only competitive advantage, I think you'd better give up your copycats idea. I am not saying you can't and shouldn't emulate some of the best practices and tactics that successful people use. I'm saying that you should never take it at face value and assume that is all there is to it. You shouldn't create a product, business, or brand by copying an element of someone else's plan unless you have done your research, know your market, and have a full plan of your own. Want to be successful in internet? Be unique. Stand out. Have a plan that includes a front end, back end, proper sales funnels, goals, data, build relationships, work your ass off. So hustle, and your competition has an engaging site that gets great traffic. Avoid the temptation to copy it! The finished product will look as polished as theirs, but there will be nothing else to set you apart. You need to have your own identity-something memorable, something that is yours alone. If you don't know what that is yet, chances are your customers are confused too. Don't start working until you decide on the look you want and functionality you need. You can take inspiration from someone else's color scheme, navigation structure, or marketing ideas. In other words, while you can't ever "borrow" things like copywriting or design, you are free to notice what another company has been successful with and follow their Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

their example. For instance, if they have used an e-mail newsletter or downloadable report to gain new business, there's nothing stopping you from offering your own. In fact, if you can come up with something that's better, you might see a lot stronger results than your competitor has. Better yet, try to think about why customers like something another business has done, and then think of ways that you can improve upon the concept. For instance, most buyers don't care about newsletters as much as they just like helpful information; is there a way that you could deliver it to them that's more helpful or efficient? Do you have an idea for a marketing strategy that you haven't seen one of your competitors trying yet? you're not just going to copy your competitors. If you want to dominate your market, you'll also want to identify a unique hook that will stand out to your prospective customer. Instead of spending all of your time trying to copy your competitors, spend your time trying to be better than them. This is a lot easier than it sounds. Innovation is about making things new, rather than necessarily making new things. To do that, you naturally need to know what things are already out there. No-one is saying you should design in a vacuum, and indeed you'll never be able to anyway. Know the market, know your competition, and certainly live and breathe in the sector you're designing for. At the same time, you recognize that inspiration comes from many sources. And sometimes, accidentally, we draw a little bit too much inspiration from a source and inadvertently copy someone. Let the stuff that's out there flow over you, and yes, let it influence you. That's what inspiration is – it's being affected by something in a way that helps you do another thing. But make your designs original. It's easier, from start to finish, even if it doesn't at first seem that way. Instead of just copying a website, service offering, or marketing message, think about how you can improve on the original idea. How can you make it your own? What's missing or what can be taken away? When in doubt, avoid copying something from another company, whether they're in the same industry as you or not. Your goal should be to find what works and make it better, not to put your website and company at risk over something silly.You don't just want to run "me too" website alongside your competitors, because that won't have much impact. You want visitors to see your website and say "Yes, that's EXACTLY what I want!" To put it bluntly, you want to out-market your competitors, so you steal customers away from them. The secret to success is simple. Find out what works and do something similar, but better. Find out what doesn't work and avoid it. When analyzing your competition, you must know what to look for. It's not about copying their ideas, it's about figuring out their strategy and why they do the things they do. When I say to learn from successful websites, some people will no doubt just copy everything they do. That's not the answer. Think about Chess for a second. If black copies everything white does, black will always stay one move behind. The same applies to business. If you copy successful websites, you're still one-step behind. However, if you analyze each move successful websites makes, and then understand why they made that move, you'll prevent yourself from missing out on lucrative opportunities. When you see what the successful website does right, and

Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

then witness a live testimonial from a visitor, you're getting direct insight into what customers want. You can then cater to that. For example, if you want to succeed like Alex Tew, you can't just copy his pixel-selling service, you need to find out why so many people would spend a five-digit dollar amount for pixels on a web page plastered with tiny advertising banners. The answer is simple, if your website can make their brand and company famous, they would be willing to pay you. this is a simple but absolute truth! Roland figured out its immanent cause, so he build the site "CityKnown.com" which was inspired by the million dollar home page. CityKnown consists of a million cities instead of million pixels, each city contains local well-known businesses and brands, almost all businesses can find their city page and place their businesses on it to increase their brands awareness. More importantly, peoples not only can use thousands of words to describe their business, but also can upload hundreds of photos to display their brands. So if you want to surpass Million Dollar Homepage, you must wholly forget about pixels, otherwise you will never be successful.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Promote your website So you built your website. Now what? Many people stop when they are less than halfway to the point of completing the real reason their site is built. Why put a site on the web if nobody will find it except you? So many create fantastic looking pages and nobody knows about them except the creator and a few friends. Most of the entrepeneurs seem to have the wrong idea about marketing. The misconception is that, once their business is launched on the World Wide Web, anyone can access it and easily find it. My advice to you is that you should put some effort into marketing your website.In fact, a site might be doomed to obscurity from the outset if key promotion criteria aren't designed into the site up front and early. This category deals with a variety of concepts that are useful for all manner of sites and making them relevant so that they are found on the search engines by the audience that the website creator intends. When you've finished building and publishing your website, you will be ready for visitors. Depending on the kind of site you the kind of site you created and the contents of your pages, web users may stumble upon your site, but after all that hard work, you'll want to ensure that your target audience finds you. Many people think that having a good website is all you need to get tons of visitors. Wrong answer, all websites need promoting, even it's one of the best websites. In the Youtube's early days, Hurley and Chen realized that they were just one among a myriad of other dot-coms trying to get noticed in the complex online world. And so, they knew they would have to do whatever they could to stand out. The duo began to promote Youtube by placing promotional advertisements on CraigsList.com. Hurley and Chen posted ads that requested aspiring female models in the Los Angeles area to upload their personal videos on YouTube. They believed this would be a win-win proposal; aspiring models would want to gain the attention from having people watch their videos, and conversely, people would actually want to watch videos of these women. Hurley and Chen's CraigsList strategy proved unsuccessful, and they were forced to come up with another means of promoting their site. After they received funding from a venture capital firm, the two revamped both their site and their promotional tactics. They began giving away an iPod Nano each and every day for the next few months to people who uploaded videos. Unlike CraigsList, this promotion actually worked and helped YouTube turn around its tepid growth. If your business involves providing valuable products or services, it's most likely that it will grow almost automatically. However, this whole process can take months or even years, unless you're doing some online marketing. Many people who are trying to make money with their website simply aren't getting enough traffic. When someone first creates a website on average they usually will receive 10 visitors their first month. The sad part is out of the 10, you're one of them. You can't make any money with that kind of traffic. There is however a chance that your website gets noticed by a larger website, thus becoming ‘viral' due to people's sharing, tweeting and liking on various social networking sites, but this is a very rare occurrence. Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

Site promotion is really not that difficult. It just takes a little bit of effort, a little bit of thought, and a fair amount of patience. It is crucial to understand that site promotion is a long-term, low-intensity effort. If you do nothing else, you must learn advertising and marketing. Many programmers think advertising is evil. It isn't. Advertising is you communicating your value to potential customers. Do not just hire a marketing guy and assume everything will work out. It usually doesn't. Do not just assume customers will come to you. They won't. Learn about advertising and marketing like you would learn a new programming language. Put out offers and track responses just like you would debug a program. At least half of business is advertising and marketing. Start with reading marketing books. Then practice just like you program. Getting traffic to your site takes hard work and diligence and is not accomplished overnight. Think about it this way - how are people supposed to know where to find your site if you don't tell them? You must advertise. In order to advertise your website you, as a web programmer are handling you need to know what online marketing is. To make a website popular on internet and satisfy your client, you will need to know everything about advertising through internet. Therefore it is very important for web developers to know how to advertise for the website online by blogging, article and directory submissions and other such techniques. You can easily learn more about these through tutorials and e-books and in no time you will become an expert in the field of online marketing as well.

Now is the key question, how to promote your website? When you meet a beautiful girl, you've loved her since the moment you set eyes on her, she's beautiful, accomplished. You never knew such a perfect woman existed, and you're determined that she become a part of your life. how to win the girl's heart? Some men will adopt direct but bad strategy, they always follow the girl day and night and directly express love to her : "Marry me, I am the best man in the world, I have house, car, bike and yacht, I will make you happy", So they begin to call her constantly, figure out the perfect text to send her, and follow her on Facebook. They attempt to woo the girl into a elationship by sending flowers, stuffed animals, candy and love letters in an attempt to prove their love. But unfortunately, most girls will refuse them and say good bye to them without hesitation. So chasing girls is bad, it never works. The more you chase a girl, the more she runs away and loses interest in you. Most men have seen success using good strategy as a way to demonstrate a unique skill, talent or something difficult to do that they're proud of, something that sets they apart from the crowd. Most guys try to be nice guys, and there's really nothing wrong in that. If they want to get a girl to like them, they definitely have to play nice. Bring out their best, Bring her a teddy bear and chicken soup when she's sick, charm her by being a perfect Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

gentleman all night. Always be on their best, whether in their looks, dressing, personality or speech. They can never woo a girl with vulgar manners. They are always courteous and display the best etiquette, try to take care of her in a conservative manner. They make a good impression by buying the tickets, sodas and popcorn. And this strategy always works, so stop chasing girl and start attracting her. But, some of smart guys even have the best strategy, Morgan Freeman(a Famous American actor) said "Don't chase women, let them chase you". So how can you get a woman to chase you? Very simple, To become a famous man. If you are a famous TV or film star, singer or sports star, you can gain respect and public recognition, you don't need to chase girls, girls will chase you. When you are famous, your name is known by everyone, your face is easily recognizable. Your stories spread by tabloids, magazines, newspapers, blogs and other form of media, you have a good reputation through the form of popularity with the public. You are admired and loved by the general public and have many fans, you would be mobbed and hounded for autographs and pictures. Every single statement you make is seen as a new law, any style you may adopt projects you in the field of fashion settlers. You have become a role model for them, Children wish to be like you when they grow up, teen-agers tend to imitate you and adults admire your atitude. Of course, a group of beautiful girls are waiting for you to marry them. Some webmaster still use bad strategy to promote their websites. Many new website owners get so excited about what they can offer that they can't wait to tell everyone about it, they begin to send out promotional emails to every email address they can find. But I think these email advertising is useless, people will delete your email immediately without a quick glance. Sending bulk email spam puts your reputation at risk-period. When you send mass emails to people who never asked for them, they're going to hit the spam button. This will get you in trouble with Internet service providers, and at worst, get your email and IP address blacklisted. Your recipients will be unresponsive, you'll waste time sending to an unresponsive audience, you'll waste money sending emails to people who don't want them, you'll ruin your email marketing reputation, you'll ruin the reputation of your company or business, you'll see your open and click-through rates drop. Moreover, your rwebsite's eputation can be damaged if they keep sending spam email. When email advertisement is viewed as spam, recipients are likely to send complaints to you because of the inconvenience and annoyance that they have This si to suffer from. tuation will negative influence your site reputation. Additionally, negative customer experience can lead to bad word of mouth. If a person receives an email campaign from an organisations with a damaged reputation they are more likely to mark an email as spam thus damaging reputation further. Forum spam is another bad strategy, this method includes a bunch of different tactics that all result in the same thing - getting as many links as possible from forum pages to your website. The links are included in forum messages and other pages such as your forum profile. You may visit forums and post messages yourself, you may hire other people to do it, or you may use automated scripts to handle the whole process automatically. Although there's a good chance that you will see some initial success from using forum spam, it's a very poor strategy in the long run. Even using automated scripts, the return on investment isn't worth it. You may end up with quite a lot of links, but they will be very low quality, probably invisible to search engines, and in fact are a

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

giant red flag to search engines that look for this type of suspicious activity. Most likely, forum spam will end up causing more harm than benefit to your website. Most webmaster user good strategy, the most commonly used in site promotion is SEO(Search Engine Optimization), SEO is a methodology of strategies, techniques and tactics used to increase the amount of visitors to a website by obtaining a high-ranking placement in the search results page of a search engine (SERP) , it can help make the content on your website more relevant and easier to understand when the search engines are crawling your site and indexing the data. The goal is to get the traffic increased and to appear on the first few pages of the search engine, also ensuring that the website stays in this position and comes ahead of the competition in the search engine results. SEO is about a web page being relevant enough for a query, and being trusted enough to rank for it, so choosing the right keywords and phrases for your website is an important part of the process of search engine optimization. How to choose the right keywords ? You'll want to think about who is your target audience, select the keywords that your potential customers might use when looking for your information, product, or service. If you find that the keywords are already in high use then it would be best to avoid them and focus instead on targeted words relating to your site. Type the keywords of your choice and look what results will be shown to you, if all results are home page, you'd better give up this key words, if most of them are inner pages, then you can use this keywords. Include your keywords in the title and description without stuffing. Meta descriptions should natural and fluent. If you don't know how to do, you can analyse your competitor's title and Meta description on top 3 of google result. You should create SEO-Friendly links and anchor text, when search engine spiders crawl your blog, they don't read every word. Instead, they scan for certain parts of your post: the headline, subheaders, alt-text of images, and anchor text. Anchor text is the word or phrase you highlight when you insert a hyperlink. Choosing the right words to hyperlink can help add some important SEO value. Link building refers to the process of getting external pages to link to a page on your website. It is one of the many tactics used in SEO. Building links is a difficult, time-consuming process as not all links are created equal. A link from an authoratative website like the Wall Street Journal will make a greater impact on a SERP than a link from a newly built website, but high quality links are hard to come by. If you have partners you work with regularly or loyal customers that love your brand, you can use this to your advantage by sending out partnership badges - graphic icons that link back to your site. Using social media for marketing can enable entrepreneurs looking to further their reach to more customers. Your customers are interacting with brands through social media, therefore, having a strong social media presence on the web is the key to tap into their interest. If implemented correctly, marketing with social media can bring remarkable success to your business. Social media marketing programs usually center on efforts to create content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share it with their social networks. A corporate message spreads from user to user and presumably resonates because it appears to come from a trusted, third-party sources, as opposed to the brand or company itself. Hence, this form of marketing is driven by word-of-mouth, meaning it results in earned media rather than paid media. Social media has become a platform that is easily accessible to anyone with internet access. Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Increased communication for organizations fosters brand awareness and often, improved customer service. Additionally, social media serves as a relatively inexpensive platform for organizations to implement marketing campaigns. Facebook's casual, friendly environment requires an active social media marketing strategy that begins with creating a Facebook Business Fan Page. You will want to pay careful attention to layout, as the visual component is a key aspect of the Facebook experience. Social media marketing for business pages revolves around furthering your conversation with audiences by posting industry-related articles, images, videos, etc. Google+ is the new Facebook competitor, and it promotes the same fun, casual atmosphere. On Google+ you can upload and share photos, videos, links, and view all your +1s. Also take advantage of Google+ circles, which allow you to segment your followers into smaller groups, enabling you to share information with some followers while barring others. For example, you might try creating a "super-fan" circle, and share special discounts and exclusive offers only with that group.Twitter is the social media marketing tool that lets you broadcast your updates across the web. Follow tweeters in your industry or related fields, and you should gain a steady stream of followers in return. YouTube is the number one place for creating video content, with can be an incredibly powerful social media marketing tool. Many businesses try to create video content with the aim of having their video "go viral," but in reality those chances are pretty slim. Instead, focus on creating useful, instructive "how-to" videos. These how-to videos also have the added benefit of ranking on the video search results of Google, so don't under-estimate the power of video content! Reddit, or similar social media platforms such as Stumble Upon or Digg, are ideal for sharing compelling content. With over 2 billion page views a month, Reddit has incredible social media marketing potential, but marketers should be warned that only truly unique, interesting content will be welcomed. Posting on Reddit is playing with fire-submit spammy or overtly sales-focused content and your business could get berated by this extremely tech-savvy community. LinkedIn is one of the more professional social media marketing sites. LinkedIn Groups is a great venue for entering into a professional dialog with people in similar industries and provides a place to share content with like-minded individuals. Now is the best strategy to promote your website - To Get Your Website Well Known! You may wonder if it is impossible, in fact it's practical and many entrepreneurs have succeed,I will tell their stories later. How to get your website well known, the answer is Viral Marketing. Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions. Viral marketing campaigns are an amazing way to generate a huge amount of buzz and brand awareness whether they are carried out online or offline. Perhaps nothing is as effective and efficient in spreading your message as a viral marketing campaign. The idea behind viral marketing is to inspire people to spread your message for you. It's been estimated that a successful viral campaign can have 500-1000 times more impact than a non-viral campaign. Traditional Media Marketing is still a good way to promote your website, Traditional Media Marketing spread the word about your site to public by traditional media such as TV, radio, magazine, newspapers etc. Put your website out there as LOUD as you can, No press is bad press. The novelty is one of the biggest factors of this success, Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

innovation is a good way to attract news media because those medias are waiting for innovation, creativity and originality everyday. Million Dollar Home Page is a good example, Alex Tew took the money he made from the first 1,000 pixels he sold and used it to write and send out press releases to the local media near his hometown. The UK media quickly took the bait, Following the September press release that first brought attention to the site, The Million Dollar Homepage was featured in articles on BBC. Alex Tew also appeared on the national breakfast television programmes Sky News Sunrise and BBC Breakfast to discuss the website. By November the website was becoming popular around the world, receiving attention from the whole world news, and then news of his novel idea went "viral" over the internet, the more people heard about the site and visited it, the more advertisers wanted to buy pixels. By the end of 2005, he had sold 850,000 pixels. Then the Reuters interview was broadcast and Tew began to receive orders for 100,000 pixels every hour. He held back the last 1,000 dots to be auctioned on eBay. After 10 days of bidding, one advertiser bought them for $38,100, and brought the final tally to $1,037,100 in gross income. The secrets of Alex Tew‘s success story comes down to two important factors: The power of word of mouth and the story of a student making a million, which enchanted the media. Another success example was Digg (founded by Kevin Rose), Digg's success was largely due to the online TV show, Diggnation, which attracted a quarter of a million viewers per week who tuned in to watch Rose and a cohost chug beer, talk about popular Digg stories, and generally geek out. The show has proven to be immensely popular over the years, with thousands showing up to live shows and events. Diggnation helped prove that a business model for original, niche focused online web video could exist. Revision3 now boasts more than 80 million monthly views. While the network has many more shows on its slate, Diggnation is still among its five most watched shows, according to the The New York Times. Once again we see the value of an initial traditional media distribution channel to jumpstart an Internet service. Kevin Rose was able to publicize the launch of Digg to an audience of 100,000 target users on his cable TV show. We've now seen MySpace, Skype, eHarmony, and Digg have an initial impulse function on launch. However, companies without this initial impulse have also been successful, for example Craigslist and Flickr. While it is possible to be a success without large initial distribution, it certainly seems to improve the likelihood of success. Without this distribution, the keys are to be Viral Marketing through social media. With today's technology we can quickly communicate with millions of people with just the click of a mouse. There are so many social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, that we can communicate quickly and effectively. Today, we can spread the word like wild fire. For example, remember your high school days when rumors were spread? Viral marketing is quite similar. On the Internet, viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces websites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect. Viral marketing describes any strategy that encourages individuals to pass on a marketing message to others, creating the potential for exponential growth in the message's exposure and influence. Like viruses, such strategies take advantage of rapid multiplication to explode the message to thousands, to millions. Off the Internet, viral marketing has been referred to as "word-of-mouth," "creating a buzz," "leveraging the media," "network marketing." But on the Internet, for better or worse, it's called "viral marketing."

Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

In order to master the concept of viral marketing, you need to analyze how something goes viral. When you look at other videos or blogs that went viral you should ask yourself "why?" You should know the answer especially if youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re trying to create something that you want to go viral The classic example of viral marketing is Hotmail.com, one of the first free web-based email services. We were amazed at how quickly Hotmail spread over the global network. The rapid adoption pattern was that of a network virus. People typically send emails to their associates and friends, both geographically close and scattered around. We would notice the first user from an overseas university town, and then the number of subscribers from that region would rapidly proliferate. From an epidemiological perspective, it was if Zeus sneezed over the planet. The strategy is simple: Give away free email addresses and services; Attach a simple tag at the bottom of every free message sent out: "Get your private, free email at http://www.hotmail.com"; Then stand back while people email to their own network of friends and associates; Who see the message; Sign up for their own free email service; and then Propel the message still wider to their own ever-increasing circles of friends and associates. Like tiny waves spreading ever farther from a single pebble dropped into a pond, a carefully designed viral marketing marketing strategy ripples outward extremely rapidly. Hotmail grew its subscriber base from zero to 12 million users in 18 months, more rapidly than any company in any media in the history of the world. Fair enough, this is the Internet after all. But it did so with an advertising budget of $50,000-enough for some college newspaper ads and a billboard. Nonviral competitors like Juno spent $20 million on traditional marketing in the same time time period with less effect. What's more, Hotmail became the largest email provider in several countries, like Sweden and India, where it had done no marketing whatsoever. Viral marketing is more powerful than third-party advertising because it conveys an implied endorsement from a friend. For those who are unfamiliar, a viral campaign essentially means the spread of something (an idea, a particular ad, a song, etc.) organically, often by word of mouth. If you have created engaging content that gives readers a reason to share, that content or message has the potential to become viral. Therefore being seen by a lot more eyes than your typical campaigns. It can help you spread awareness of your message as well as increase website traffic. Viral marketin is a really cool thing. Just think about it... instead of spending an insane amount of money on newspapers ads, TV commercials or banner ads, you spent nothing - and let your fans do all the work for you. But how to do? First, you must provide valuable products or services, and it would be best to be free. "Free" is the most powerful word in a marketer's vocabulary. Keep the costs to spread your campaign low (less than free is ideal, meaning, try giving something away). The more people use them, the more people see them. The more people see them, the more people use them. Free Doesn't Mean It's Worthless, the key to successful Viral Marketing is to tweak your Online Marketing message to be one that has intrinsic value to the consumer. When one consumer sees this value, then they are likely to forward it on to their network of contacts. Online consumers tend to forward these messages for a variety of reasons, but all of them stem back to the fact that the consumer believes your viral marketing message has an intrinsic value that they wish to share with others. The most successful viral marketing will provide people with an incentive to participate - i.e. a reason to pass on the message to others. The reason for this should be obvious - why should people choose to forward your marketing message to others? You need to give them an incentive to do so, you must provide valuable products Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

or services. The product or service must be something that improves once more people use it. Most viral marketing programs give away free but valuable products or services to attract attention. If people don't benefit from spreading it, why should they spread it? they won't. What constitutes value to an online consumer? This is one of the key questions in viral marketing. Many characteristics can represent value. Humorous, entertaining, good value for money, educational, meaningful, and the list goes on. These are all reasons an online consumer may forward a Viral Marketing message to their network of contacts. Second, The critical element of viral marketing is this: it's built in. The viral message must be passed through an appropriate 'channel'. Channels are basically the medium used to transmit the message. A few examples might be E-mail, Instant Messaging Services, Video, Mobile Phone Applications, Social Web 2.0 Networks and straight through a website. There are in fact several potential channels through which a message can be virally transmitted. Do not try to make advertisements (that sucks). It was built into Hotmail and built into YouTube. The choice of a viral video as well as the engaging, fast paced format resonated with the original viewers enough for them to share the video. The more people used the camera on their cell phones, the more the idea spread, the more people wanted a camera. You're better off building the viral right into the product, creating a product that spreads because you designed it that way. Forget about you, your website or your product. Focus exclusively in creating a good and interesting story. Stories have always been amazingly powerful and shareable. Everyone loves a good story. Read this chapter carefully because the stories you create have to have a specific connection and relevance to the idea you are trying to spread. Remember that, "Information travels under the guise of idle chatter." Sure, you can add you product into the mix, but it must not be the most important thing. Third, you need to create something of interest, to do something unexpected. What motivates someone to share your content? It has to be really funny, helpful, encouraging, inspiring, shocking, etc. You need to have something unique, something original. If you want people to notice you campaign, you have to do something different something unexpected. Forget about trying to promote your products as just being great - everybody does that. Forget about trying to make it look cool - everyone else has "been there, done that". Touch your audienceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hearts, souls or nerve endings. In a world that tends to be all business, make folks laugh out loud, cry or blink in surprise (preferably all three) and you will make them remember you. Viral marketing strategies need to be well planned in order to yield any fruit. To start with, whether the content of your advertisement is audio, video or both, it needs to be unique and interesting. Whatever it is you're selling or promoting, it has to be interesting in some way. Funny clips or quotes go viral a lot because when people see them, they want to share. Another way is involving an influential person that people like watching in your campaign or making the content a pre-post to something more popular. Fourth, Make it easy to share, sharing is what viral marketing is all about. Great content must be easy to share or not enough people will get to know about it. Everything you do to make that easier is going to improve your campaign. This is very important when it comes to viral marketing. Viral marketing is also mainly about people sharing with people. For example, if you post a story on Facebook, your friends should be able to view it and their friends as well. Also, reply to comments and read them! Many people will give positive comments and some Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

will ask for more. If they ask for more, share more. If you’re promoting a story, get that story out there and post it on Twitter, Facebook, and other social networks. Why? More sharing exposure. Imagine Facebook friends commenting and liking on your status, and people retweeting your story on Twitter. Now that will surely go viral. Viral marketing is about sharing unique opportunities and stories that will force people to tell their friends. With viral marketing you need to learn how to turn odds in your favor. When starting outing viral marketing one should have a well written out plan of how to promote the message they want to go viral. With the right example of viral marketing followed there is not much to lose because people will be telling others about your story. Video is great for viral marketing because people tend to be highly visual. It is the quickest way for many to grasp a brand's message. It is also easily shareable - the crux of what viral marketing is all about to in the first place. Entrepreneurs need to ensure that their video is the best quality that they have the capability of producing. Entrepreneurs can make a declaration with their content or blog post, be controversial, spark debate, start a challenge, just have something to say that speaks louder than mere words. When done right, content becomes shareable on unbelievable levels, which in turn is viral marketing at its core. Social media can be an overwhelming medium because it is vast as a result it is generally best to home in on the top three for a viral marketing strategy. Facebook is simply a juggernaut, Twitter is quick and concise and Pinterest is the visual engine that keeps going. But there are always Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+ depending on the company’s business and where their potential and existing audience is. Email is a channel where viral marketing can really take hold. People might find content hosted on a site like YouTube or your blog, but they'll share it with friends on Facebook and via email. If at first you don’t succeed, it’s quick and simple to try again with a different approach. The last thing to keep in mind is you just never know. You could promote and release it today and it could go viral months from now. eBooks is great when doing a viral marketing campaign. It is very easy to use and don't cost much. It is a method of promoting websites and a great way to build a good reputation. Giving eBooks to your visitors is a great way to build a big audience. If people like the material that your ebook contains, they will share it to their friends, family and to other people that vill result more sales of your product. Here is a typical viral marketing example: Steve Roye and Paul Stoecklein built a comedy website killerstandup.com and they didn't know how to promote it. At the beginning they were wondering if the new approach will work. But the only way to find out was to apply it to their website. How did they do it? The idea is very simple. Roye and Stoecklein created a second website called FreeJokeBooks.com, it offers free downloadable joke books and humorous tales in the form of executable files. Created with the help of a compiler, the eBooks look like individual web sites. These eBooks circulate via email and feed traffic back to both web sites through hyperlinks. The idea seems to be very simple, but quite a few people use viral marketing. There are a lot of jokes on the Internet offered as a marketing tool and also many ebooks, but there were no joke eBooks until now. The two comedians believe their eBooks have the advantage of the massive appeal of humor. The only concern was that the hyperlinks in their books are not deleted by readers like they are in regular email jokes. In this case, there is a much greater chance of getting increased web site traffic. Many people circulate jokes over the Internet as a marketing tool, and many people circulate eBooks, but nobody seems to be circulating joke eBooks - until now. Stoecklein says that their eBooks take advantage of the massive appeal of humor, but he stresses that the hyperlinks in their books are not deleted by readers like they are in regular email jokes. In this Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

case, there is a much greater chance of getting increased web site traffic. Many people circulate jokes over the Internet as a marketing tool, and many people circulate eBooks, but nobody seems to be circulating joke eBooks - until now. Stoecklein says that their eBooks take advantage of the massive appeal of humor, but he stresses that the hyperlinks in their books are not deleted by readers like they are in regular email jokes. Therefore, the potential for subsequent web site traffic is much greater. Roye and Stoecklein launched freejokebooks.com on March 3, 2001 by sending one of their eBooks to just a handful of friends and family members. While the forecast may look good for killerstandup.com, the two comedians admit that everything is far fromperfect and that they are continuously perfecting the concept. Is this example wonderful? Because examples tell you more than theory ever could, I've rounded up 7 different resources for you to get into and help improve your business. Covering everything from Million Dollar Homepage to PlentyofFish to Craigslist, you'll find useful case studies for you to take inspiration from.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Part 2 Million Dollar Homepage Story The Million Dollar Homepage was an online page set up in 2005 by Alex Tew, a young entrepreneur from Wiltshire who was about to start his studies at the University of Nottingham. He was about to begin a three-year Business Management course at the university, and was concerned that he would be left with a student loan that could take years to repay. He already had an overdraft, which was sure to multiply at university, and he felt his poverty was reflected by his lack of decent, or matching, socks. "My site was launched due to the fact I needed money for university, and that's exactly what my aim was," he said later. He sat down with a pen and a notepad a few weeks before his course began, and brainstormed some ideas of how he could pay for the university fees and living costs without getting into the kind of debt he saw his brother get into during his time at university. He titled the page ‘How I Can Make a Million'...An ambitious title to say the least, however he had the creativity and entrepreneurial mind-set to figure out that if he aimed high and came up short, he would still have enough to accomplish his original target of paying for his three years at university and perhaps a little bit left over for the 'social' aspect of university life. Alex recalled his thought process at the time. He said: "I wrote the title to spark the creativity and then wrote down the attributes the idea needed. It had to be simple to set up and understand.It had to have a name to capture the imagination and be something that could be set up quickly with no physical delivery required." His idea was to create a page online that consisted of a million pixels arranged in a 1000 × 1000 pixel grid and sell the pixels in 10 x 10 blocks to companies so they could use the blocks as advertising space. Each block cost $1, and the minimum spend was $100 (otherwise the space would have been too small for the advertisement). The purchasers of these pixel blocks provided tiny images to be displayed on them, a URL To which the images were linked, and a slogan to be displayed when hovering a cursor over the link. The aim of the website was to sell all of the pixels in the image, thus generating a million dollars of income for Alex. The concept was simple, but Tew knew no one would be interested in buying pixel space if he didn't get the ball rolling, so he convinced some family and friends to chip in to buy the first 1,000 pixels. He also thought it would be a good story for the media to pick up--"Broke student has quirky way to raise money for college"- so Tew took the money he made from the first 1,000 pixels he sold and used it to write and send out press releases to the local media near his hometown of Cricklade, England.

Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

The UK media quickly took the bait, but what was even more remarkable--and proved to be the most effective marketing tactic-was that bloggers, online forums and chat rooms also began to embrace the story. Word of mouth through all the varied media attention quickly snowballed, and within two weeks Tew had sold $40,000 worth of pixels - enough to cover his entire three years of college. It didn't take long before media in 35 other countries got wind of Tew's million-dollar homepage idea. In just five months, Tew reached his goal of selling a $1 million worth of pixels. In the past two weeks alone, he's received close to 4 million unique hits. "It snowballed," he says."As I made money, more people talked about it and the more people talked about it, the more money I made." Four months and 2,000 customers later, including The Times and Orange, and the million dollars is almost surpassed. Two million different people have accessed the site, which has a wry blog and FAQs, in the last seven days."I've been blown away. These have been the most exciting and hectic months of my life. Things are quite surreal at the moment and because it's been so busy it hasn't really sunk in."It seems like Monopoly money. Previously I'd associated money with working at Tesco getting paid ÿ5 an hour." Alex found that he had created a viral phenomenon and the more people that found out about his page and were searching for it, the more companies and advertisers began to take notice and thus buy pixels. As big names came to the site, including The Times newspaper, Yahoo and the record label Independiente, Mr Tew decided to invest $40,000 to upgrade the server and employ a press officer based in the US. This strategy turned out to be very successful with 50 per cent of the advertisement coming from the US alone. And on 1 January 2006, the final 1,000 pixels were put up for auction on eBay. The winning bid for the last 1000 pixels on Tew's website went for $38,100 (although Tew expected more). In just a mere five months, Tew ended up making $1,037,100 and made a net of approximately $675,000 after taxes and donations were taken out. Ironically, Tew ended up dropping out of college and never got his business degree. Craigslist is a staple in over 450 cities spread across 50 countries. Even though Craigslist is for-profit, the driving Conclusion force behind the company is less the blind accumulation of wealth than to create a social community within a There are a number of things website owners can learn from the site and from Alex, but the keys of Alex Tew's Francisco, $25 for New York, Los Angeles, San Diego, Boston, Seattle, Washington D.C., Chicago and Portland), success story comes down to two important factors: The power of word of mouth and the story of a student bypassing other possible sources of ready revenue from charging for other ad categories. Today, the site serves making a million, which enchanted the media. Others eager to learn from him should have faith in their creative over 9 billion pageviews per month, and ranks ninth among the most-viewed websites in the United States. Each mind, take calculated and affordable risks, and treat 'failure' in a positive way, as a learning process. Crazy ideas month, Craigslist boasts over 30 million new classified ads, making it the leader of both classified and jobs ads in are great, often the crazier the better. The main thing though is to translate an idea into action. Everyone has the world. ideas, but not many people act on them. The only way to find out if an idea is great is to do it and give it your best shot. You can also make a exceptional idea like Alex Tew, when you've made and produce your internet site, you want people today to take a look at it. The reason Alex was being so effective is due to the fact the press picked up on his story off reporting on it. But hy the press was eager to report his story? Because his idea was unique. Don't try duplicating his approache, as countless folks have tried recreating the achievement of the million dollar homepage with practically no return at all.

Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

There Is Plenty Of Fish In The Sea If you're looking for high volumes of traffic for offers targeted in the dating space, you can't do much better than PlentyofFish. POF is one of the most profitable website today, and the most popular online dating site in existence. Remarkably, it was managed by its owner and founder Markus Frind and only one other employee for many years. It is a free dating site that generates millions of dollars of ad revenues per year. Back in 2001 after Markus's birthday someone in the office introduced him to online dating sites. Markus went back to his desk and checked out udate.com and kiss.com and lavalife/web personals. He was bored and wanted to chat with people. Markus was really annoyed when he found out he had to pay for everything, he said, " I remember looking at a couple of profiles and finding a few interesting people. I wanted to interact with them, but I remember not finding a button for me to be able to chat with these people. Later, I found out that I had to pay to say Hi. I was bored and annoyed with the idea, that I ended up telling my officemate I can do better, and make them for free." So, Markus decided to build his own dating site. He went and registered Plentyoffish.com in 2001, the domain name came from the old saying: "There is plenty of fish in the seaÿwhy does your one have to be me?" He didn't know anything besides that, so all he really ever ended up doing was creating an index page and forgot about it. In 2003, Markus felt that he's in risk of getting fired from his current 9 to 5 job, so he started to to learn ASP.NET. He said, "I had been jumping jobs every couple of months from one sinking ship to another. I had just joined a new company with 30 employees on Dec 1st of 2002, by the time Feb rolled around 15 people had already been laid off and I started to worry. "The British Columbia Institute of Technology graduate had only one goal: to teach himself a programming language to help pad his resume, and to better learn the Microsoft website-building tool ASP.NET. Markus's business model for PlentyofFish.com is that this would be a 100% free dating site. Which is a pretty solid model as far as it has taken PlentyofFish where it stands today. No one heads to Plenty of Fish for the customer service, which is all but nonexistent. The website does not need a support structure to handle members' subscription and billing issues because the service is entirely advertising-based. Its tagline is: “100 percent free. Put away your credit card”. Markus said, "I read and studied about how to improve my website. A lot of people were complaining about not being able to upload images, so by the middle of March, I added the image uploading feature. Just after a few days, Plentyoffish became viral and started growing 2-5% per day." There are a lot of loyal customers that like things just the way they are, any change might alienate them. He could choose to invest in additional hardware and software in order to drive more traffic to his site or maintain the existing model, but expanding geographically (ex. China, Japan).To keep his site's forums free of spam, Mr. Frind has refined a Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

formula for analyzing customer feedback and arriving at a determination of whether a given forum post is spam and should automatically be deleted. He has also devised some new software twists that enable him to offload work to his customers, letting users review the photos that are uploaded to the site. In 2006, Markus posted a scan of a cheque for two months' earnings - amounting to more than $900,000 - mostly to hush those techie bloggers who couldn't believe such payoffs were possible for an ungainly site like PlentyofFish. and he gave advice to other webmaster: "You have to create sites that will bring in repeat traffic. If you think you will get rich off SEO think again. If you create a Free jobs site you could net 30 million plus a year if you got big","Have your users create content and lots of it. User reviews of night clubs, Resorts, golf courses etc. Build your site around your users and make them part of your site, don't build your site for consumption", "Do not enter markets with a lot of competition monitized via adsense. Try and undercut paid content markets by offering a free service, or better yet create your own market","Keep your site dead simple, it has to load fast and have no more then 2 ads and 1 or 2 pictures other then your logo. Do not confuse your user, give them what they want and give it to them fast"," Troll around various forums and if people are not talking about your market, there is a good chance you will make money." Lots of people run Web sites by themselves. But it's likely that no other solo venture runs at the scale of PlentyOfFish. For the week ended April 28 2007, it was the 96th-busiest Web site in the U.S., according to the HitWise tracking service. That means it has more traffic than some of the Net's best-known destinations, such as Apple.com.Busy Web sites like these usually require scores of people: technicians, certainly, to keep the servers running, but also programmers, marketers and the rest. Mr. Frind says people often don't believe him when he says PlentyOfFish is all his. Two years later, the company was bringing in $10 million a year, with a 50% profit margin. Markus never spend a penny towards the promotion of his website and just grown through search engine visitors, while Yahoo and other big dating websites were spending $1 million per month on advertising. How does he do it? In large part, by keeping things simple. The graphical design ranges from rudimentary to nonexistent. No wonder, since Mr. Frind did it himself. The site also won't win any J.D. Power awards for customer support. In order for the site to move on Frind should also focus more on customer service since this is a huge part of keeping his members on his site. Frind finally realized that he should defiantly hire more employees to be on his team in order to keep the site running smooth and successful. Now, PlentyofFish employs 66 people, including developers, marketing managers, and customer service representatives, but the site relies mainly on volunteers to monitor forums and sort through the 50,000 new photos that come in each day. Conclusion Craigslist is a staple in over 450 cities spread across 50 countries. Even though Craigslist is for-profit, the driving PlentyofFish "web 2.0", isn't originalofidea. Many todaycommunity think that without force behind isn't the company is itless theeven blinda terribly accumulation wealth thanentrepreneurs to create a social within a those ingredients in the recipe, they'll never make it. Markus have clearly proved otherwise. What's his secret and what are about what it takesSan to Diego, be successful? large part, by keeping things simple, Francisco, $25hisforthoughts New York, Los Angeles, Boston,In Seattle, Washington D.C., Chicago andbuild Portland), something useful, simple in ways that people will use. But I think the key of his success is the magic word bypassing other possible sources of ready revenue from charging for other ad categories. Today, the site serves "free", as Markus told us:per "Ifmonth, you create free jobs you could net 30 million plus a in year you gotStates. big. Club over 9 billion pageviews andaranks ninthsite among the most-viewed websites theif United Each listings site, free religious personals etc would all be big money makers. month, Craigslist boasts over 30 million new classified ads, making it the leader of both classified and jobs ads in the world. Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website Website

Look for established markets and offer a service for free and support it with adsense." Take away all of the dating hoopla, and PlentyOfFish is essentially a huge online community, and like most online communities, the value comes from its size. The reason the free revenue model works so well for it is because it encourages the maximum number of people to sign up. If you’re starting an online community, you might want to use a similar strategy. Instead of investing time and money into creating a flashy, impressive website that works better than your competitors, just focus on what people really want: having lots of other people around. And making it free is often a great way to do that.

Interactive Element Websites PlentyofFish.com

( http://www.PlentyofFish.com )

Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

Run As A Free Community Service

Craigslist is a stunning business success story, especially since it's run more like a community service than a for-profit business. If you live in a major American city and you've needed to search for an apartment, job, or mate in the past two or three years, you're probably familiar with Craig's List. The Craig's List Web site at craigslist.org is now one of the Internet's most popular gathering sites, used across the world for everything from finding homes and jobs to bartering merchandise, meeting new activity partners, discussing politics, or even hunting down that cute girl or guy you saw on the street but didn't have the guts to talk to. These functions, all free for users, now attract more than 4 million users per month to the Craig's List site, with more than 650 million pages viewed per month. As with many Internet phenomena, Craig's List began simply and purely, and evolved in a grassroots fashion. The list's founder, Craig Newmark, worked for 17 years as a systems engineer for IBM, and left to join Charles Schwab in 1994. Schwab moved Newmark to San Francisco, and early the following year his job was mostly to create awareness among people on the equity brokerage business and see how this firm would evolve on the Internet. In 1995, Craig saw the beginnings of online communities and news groups and thought the Internet would help him connect with people. He started using the Internet profusely as a hobby to email friends about popular events in San Francisco. People liked the idea of being invited to the events through email and the subscribers for Craig's email list grew steadily. Soon, word of mouth led to rapid growth. The number of subscribers and postings grew rapidly. There was no moderation and Newmark was surprised when people started using the mailing list for non-event postings. People trying to get technical positions filled found that the list was a good way to reach people with the skills they were looking for. This led to the addition of a category for "jobs". User demand for more categories caused the list of categories to grow. In 1995, When Newmark's simple email listings reached over 240 subscribers, he could no longer carry on as he was; even his cc field would not accept anymore email addresses. Instead of shutting down, Newmark decided to move his list to a public server for all to access. He wanted to call his new website "San Francisco Events" but some of his closer friends suggested calling it "Craigslist" to emphasize the personal and down-to-earth nature of the list. So, he decided to use Perl to convert email logs into web pages. For simplicity, Craig had categorized the emails under various subjects such as jobs, housing, community, etc. He used the same categories on his website and this simplified a visitor's experience of Craigslist on the web.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

Craigslist visitors loved coming back to Craigslist because most of its services were free. The simple, no-banner design of the website kept the site interface simple and made it quick to load. Craigslist's advertising services grew in popularity solely due to word-of-mouth marketing by Craigslist users and customers. Craig gives the credit of Craigslist's success to its users as his team took the feedback and implemented whatever sensible suggestion they received. Craig spent much of his time on customer service for the site, he said, "From the very beginning, I was involved in talking to people, listening to people. And it hasn't stopped. The idea was that people send me information; I'd ask them about it, listen, try to do something about it-and then ask for more feedback.” Craig also realized that he lacked the managerial skills to run his company and soon hired Jim Buckmaster, Craigslist's CEO. Craig credits Jim as the one who nurtured Craigslist to be able to survive all legal issues and drive it to its success. Today, Newmark's days are spent fielding customer feedback and problems as a low-level customer service rep. If you email Craigslist to report a spammer or offer your compliments to the service, Newmark might just be person emailing you back. Problems he can't solve are sent to his boss - that's right, his senior customer service rep boss. "The irony is that I'm also on the board, so I'm simultaneously on the top and bottom of the company," says Newmark. "That's a rarity in any business." For a site that hasn't done much to change its simple design in more than 20 years, Craigslist is still many people's first stop when looking for an apartment. Craigslist's simplicity is what Newmark credits for the service's success, and why it's taken advertising dollars away from newspapers. "People tell us they don't want fancy," says Newmark. "The idea is driven by what people in the community say, and they've said to keep it simple and fast." Craigslist is a staple in over 450 cities spread across 50 countries. Even though Craigslist is for-profit, the driving Conclusion force behind the company is less the blind accumulation of wealth than to create a social community within a Why Craigslist successful? To Angeles, this day, San Craigslist the categories are soand intuitive, Francisco, $25 is forsoNew York, Los Diego,remains Boston,popular Seattle,because Washington D.C., Chicago Portland), and it only takes you a few seconds to find what you want. You don’t have to subscribe, fill out a questionnaire, bypassing other possible sources of ready revenue from charging for other ad categories. Today, the site serves or dig9 around to find what for.ninth In fact, you probably know someone landed a job, found an over billion pageviews peryou’re month,looking and ranks among the most-viewed websiteswho in the United States. Each apartment, or discovered something valuable that someone else would simply thrown away. and Youjobs click month, Craigslist boasts over 30 million new classified ads, making it thehave leader of both classified adstoin your city, find what you want, and finish the transaction. A simple, text-based format was very important in the the world. age of dial-up connections to keep site performance fast. But most importantly, Craigslist is a success story about a business that was designed to help people, not for money, but to do a service to community. What makes Newmark different from other dotcom success stories is Newmark's different attitude to business, he has chosen not to make hundreds of millions of dollars. "Larger companies tend to be focused on maximizing revenue, so they need big sales teams and business development," he said. "We don't try to do that, so we don't really need all those people. If you focus exclusively on meeting users' needs and blot out everything else, that's the best strategy."

Interactive Element Websites Craigslist.org

( http://www.craigslist.org )

Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

The Rise and Fall of an Internet Darling Digg was one of first social media sites, providing a way for consumers to put together their own collections of news and other Internet content by posting links on the site’s homepage, rather than relying on the choices made by newspaper editors. Members of Digg find and submit interesting, newsworthy, funny or useful pages from around the Internet. If other users like the submission, they’ll ‘Digg’ it. There’s an advanced algorithm at work determining how well a submission does on the site, but the basic idea is that the more votes a submission earns, the more visible it becomes.If a submission receives enough votes, it will eventually appear on the Digg homepage. This is the holy grail of social media because a front-page story guarantees a large number of visits and visibility amondst the web top influencers. Digg makes you a promise, the promise is that the site will put power in your hands. You get to decide what content is submitted to the site, and you collectively decide which submissions are important enough to be promoted to the site’s front page. Kevin Rose came up with the idea for Digg in the fall of 2004, The inspiration for Digg came from Kevin's use of the site Slashdot: "I was a big geek so Slashdot was one of my daily news sources. Users would come and submit stories. I wanted to see what would happen if the users could vote on the stories and determine which ones went on the front page." The name 'Digg' comes from the concept of users 'digging' the best content out from the rest of the noise on the Internet. The domain name 'dig.com' was already being used by Disney, so the extra 'g' is just there because the domain was free. Kevin Rose's friend David Prager originally wanted to call the site "Diggnation", but Kevin wanted a simpler name. He chose the name "Digg but Kevin wanted a simpler name. He chose the name "Digg", because users are able to "dig" stories, out of those submitted, up to the front page. Digg was launched at the end of 2004 and back then there were only about 200 users (mostly Kevin's friends), it was critical to attract the power users who devoted the time to submit stories to Digg. One of the biggest challenges in starting any user generated content site is incentivizing users to contribute content before the network effects provide users with the appropriate motivation. Digg solved this problem using three techniques: transparency, recognition, and competition. One of the great insights that Kevin Rose made with Digg was that users of other services were frustrated by the fact that those services operated as a black box. People submitted stories to the editor, the editor reviewed the submissions, and somehow a decision was made as to what was newsworthy material. The submitters were unable to decipher why their stories weren't selected or how close they might have come. Digg made this process completely transparent for people. Submitters could now see what was popular and fine-tune their submitting accordingly. This is what got people to start submitting to Digg, in addition to or in lieu of Slashdot and other content sites. Transparency also made the process fun for users, providing another incentive to submit. Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

After leading with transparency, Digg evolved the community features to foster recognition for submitters and a sense of competition amongst top submitters. People could see how they compared to other users in terms of number of submissions, hit rate of submissions, etc. This helped to build an active and loyal community of submitters. One of the first key decisions that Digg made was to focus its initial product on technology news. The Digg team considered applying the Digg concept to product reviews or other types of news, but recognized that the tech audience made the most sense. For one, tech enthusiasts tend to be early adopters. More importantly, this was an audience that Kevin Rose knew well and had access to. Prior to starting Digg, Kevin was the host of a technology cable TV show called Screensavers that aired on the TechTV cable channel. Digg got its initial site traffic by having Kevin Rose announce the Digg launch during a broadcast of Screensavers. This gave Digg immediate exposure to 100,000 target users - a nice initial distribution impulse function to get started. As it turned out, the tech enthusiast community was ideal to launch Digg for another reason: natural search ranking, i.e. SEO benefits. Because tech enthusiasts tend to be an audience that does a lot of web linking either via blogs or websites â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Digg received a lot of inbound links in a very short period of time. In February of 2005, Paris Hilton's cell phone was hacked. Images and phone numbers from the phone were posted online and it didn't take long for a user to post the link on Digg. The rapidshare downloads site started to receive an enormous amount of traffic and it was then, Kevin says, he saw "the power of breaking stories before anyone else." Within a few months, Digg was ttracting a few thousand visitors a month, the site's monthly traffic had jumped to 200,000; In August 2006, less than two years after its launch, Digg had become an Internet darling. That month, founder Kevin Rose grinned from the cover of BusinessWeek, sporting a backwards baseball cap and headphones and giving two thumbs up with the headline, "How This Kid Made $60 Million in 18 Months" - a nod to what the site was then thought to be worth. By 2008, Digg's homepage was attracting over 236 million visitors annually, Digg had grown large enough that it was thought to affect the traffic of submitted webpages. Some pages experienced a sudden increase of traffic shortly after being submitted; some Digg users refer to this as the "Digg effect". Things always reverse themselves after reaching an extreme, Twitter and Facebook became very popular in 2010, and digg's traffic began to decrease. Visitor numbers went into steep decline, and the "Digg Effect" no longer made websites fall over. Kevin said that Twitter and Facebook started to eat away at Digg's traffic as both sites evolved into places where people discovered the most up-to-the-minute news and information, the main reason people visited Digg. What is worse, Reddit had become Digg's main competitor. Reddit is very similar to Digg in that it is a user-generated social news, but unlike Digg, Reddit caters to their community by changing their logo to hot topics on the site, making their site and mobile code open source, and responding to complaints with fixes and updates. They have had their share of troubles with independent moderators but as a whole, Reddit embraces their community to the fullest. In 2010, when Digg underwent a major overhaul and became Digg v4, the grievance against the site has been that it's sold its user base out to big publishers and advertisers. Whereas Digg content used to be driven by user submissions, now, publishers automatically submit articles via RSS feed, from whence they get Diggs up - the Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

unit of social currency that determines what content makes it to the site's front page - primarily from their "followers," the users who subscribe to their feeds. The new Digg looks, therefore, like a mix of Facebook, Twitter, and RSS. The "bury" button - giving users the ability to vote a story down the popularity rankings is gone, replaced with a moderated "hide" button, aimed at combating "the bury brigades", as Rose calls them. The final nail in the coffin was that Digg became hobbled by technology problems as the site tried to move to a new database system on the fly around the same time as the summer 2010 re-launch. Since Digg was having problems in scaling its MySQL database software, it began to shift over to another open source system called Cassandra. The problems arose on the very first day of launch, where the website was completely inaccessible for millions of users and for those that could access it, it crashed randomly. This put a sour taste in the mouths of Digg users, who want to share stories every single day; news is covered at an alarmingly fast rate, and over night, Digg became outdated. Reddit acted as refuge for the enormous mass of internet users who would soon redditors. Reddit, who at the time some would call the smaller sister site of Digg, finally surpassed Digg in popularity in August and September of 2010. In July 2012, Digg was sold for a fraction of its former value: the site that was once valued at $175 million sold for just half a million dollars. Conclusion What lessons can we learn from the success and failure of Digg? Attracted story submitters by providing transparency is the secret of success. Letting users control the site can be the most incredible thing, because you have no idea what is going to be on the front page everyday, but Digg not only promised, but performed. Giving consumers control is what brought more and more people to the site, they have a sense of ownership and discovery at the same time. Digg failed because it has been notoriously fickle, as Kevin admited later:" Digg made a mistake by cloning the features of other websites like Twitter and Facebook, We did a lot of things that went against the DNA of our product." In particular, a redesign in August 2010 angered users by changing popular features and rolling out with bugs. Digg's traffic went in to freefall slightly after this. To give a generic answer as to why Digg failed, it all came down to website design and user experience. Digg users felt alienated and unable to do the things that they enjoyed doing for over many years. By contrast, Reddit stayed simple and maintained a clean interface. Reddit was as easy to use as it ever was; all categories were easy to access via the top of the page, all stories were listed to the left of the page, and advertisements were not intrusive. So to speak, Digg was not defeated by Reddit, Twitter or Facebook, but defeated by itself.

Interactive Element Websites Digg.com

( http://www.digg.com )

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

New Million Dollar Homepage Story Back in 2005, a student in England named Alex Tew launched The Million Dollar Homepage, the home page consists of a million pixels arranged in a 1000×1000 pixel grid, through which he sold the pixels for $1 each. Although it was an extremely simple idea, the unique project attracted enormous amounts of press coverage, and eventually earned $1,037,100. It also spawned countless copycat websites, but as the old saying goes, lightning never strikes twice, the idea only works once and relies on novelty, any copy-cat sites only have pure comedy value, so none of whom have found particular success with the business model. But almost everything has an exception, actually there is a new million dollar homepage that have finally achieved success. The great financial crash of 2008 resulted in over eight million jobs disappearing in a little over a year, Roland Luo also lost his job in this year. "Few words sting like the ones that inform you that you're being laid off," Roland says, "I feels like to be struck by lightning at that moment". For several months he looked for work in his field, then as things got more desperate he looked for related jobs, then any job, then it was washing dishes, cleaning toilets. Five months later Roland was still unemployed and lost his home because he couldn't keep up his mortgage payments. He found a very cheap apartment and moved in, the living condition was terrible, but it's the only apartment he can afford for. Considering that he had web design experience before, Roland decided to build a website to earn some money, he spent days agonizing about what sort of website should he create, then he heard about The Million Dollar Homepage Story on the internet. When he first visited Alex Tew's web site, he couldn't believe his eyes, this most famous home page is full of images of bikini babes, cartoons, flags, brands, it looks like an advertising train wreck you can't look at. "Only some pixels charge million dollar, that's perhaps the simplest idea for online business." Roland thought, and he built a similar website immediately, the concept was exactly the same - selling pixels online, pixels cost $50 for a block of 10×10, only half the price of Tew's original. It seemed that his failure was predestined, up to the end of the year, Roland didn't sell out a single pixel online. He realized that he should definitely make changes and try to innovate and push the concept in new directions, because "Even Alex Tew himself can't seem to replicate the success of Million Dollar Homepage !" Roland said later. He spent ten days to study this successful case and tried to figure out why so many people would spend a five-digit dollar amount for pixels on a web page plastered with tiny advertising banners, the answer was everyone wants to be well-known, especially the companies. "if your website can make their brand and company famous, they would be willing to pay you. this is a simple but absolute truth!" Roland said. Alex Tew's creative idea led to mass publicity by media and was interviewed in many TV channels and radio programmes, this led to increased publicity and valuation of the website jumped exponentially, and the high traffic attracted many companies include The Times newspaper and Yahoo to buy pixels to promote their business. Website Success Secrets _—— 7 keys to a successful website

Roland now had a good idea for his website, the idea was to help local businesses get exposure to people all over the world who want to enjoy well-known brand. he decided to give up pixel website like Million Dollar Homepage, because this idea was a one-off and relied on novelty, it's only unique the first time, so only Million Dollar Homepage have benefited from the pixel advertising. And what's more pixel website lacked longevity, once all pixel blocks were sold out, the business was all over and you had to restart again. An obvious solution to this was to turn pixel sites into the content-rich sites, instead of selling pixel blocks exclusively through a site with nothing but a giant grid of picture advertisements. The next step was to find a "container" large enough to hold well-known businesses and brands all around the world, if pixel block was not a good selection, then which solution would meet the requirement? Roland was troubled by this question for several days, he had mooned about the house all those days. One day he sat on the bed staring blankly at the wall, his apartment was very old and some of the exterior layer had already peeled off, a vague world map was revealed on the wall. In a flash, the word "city" came into his mind, he realized he could replace pixel block with city, because all the well-known businesses and brands must settle down in cities, that was Roland's Eureka Moment. He decided to build a website consists of a million cities instead of million pixels, each city contains local well-known businesses and brands, so he selected "CityKnown" as the domain name, it means "cities with well-known businesses and brands". When he went to a registrar site to pay for the domain, Roland was astonished to find he himself was so poor that even could not afford for $7.99 registration fee. Nowadays domain names are being registered by the thousands every minute, especially the good dot com domains. Fortunately, the domain name was not taken by others when he borrowed money from a friend the next day. It took Roland almost six months to build this new website, because CityKnown was more complicated then The Million Dollar Homepage. MDH is very easy to design, the whole homepage is composed of blocks of 10 x 10 pixels and then ads are displayed in the form of smaller pixel images or mini logos and symbols. Just take a look of the Million Dollar Homepage you will understand how small is a 10 x 10 pixels, it's just enough to put a character of a novel in it, the end result is a cluttered collage of ads in various shapes and colors all amassed on a single digital billboard. On the other hand, CityKnown is different because it's composed of cities all over the world, almost all businesses can find their city page and place their businesses on it to increase their brands awareness. More importantly, peoples not only can use thousands of words to describe their businesses, but also can upload hundreds of photos to display their brands. And further more, pixel websites like MDH are only used for the purpose of placing ads on the screen, it is extremely difficult to drive traffic to the website, here is the bare bone fact - the more content rich pages on your site the more traffic, because people online want information, not blatant advertising. By contrast, CityKnown is a content-rich site that not only provide well-known businesses and brands information of each city all around the world, but also provide travel information, posting reviews, blogs and opinions of travel-related content.

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website

CityKnown has been a runaway success, and Roland consistently worked on making the website better, his hard work paid off. In less than two years, the number of visitors his website now attracts is nothing short of astounding. Thousands of businesses from all over the world have selected CityKnown to display their brands, most are local well-known businesses and brands, and in the meantime CityKnown became a useful resource for people who want to find well-known businesses and brands from local city. Even better is the money he's making from it, he's bringing in over six figures a year, which Roland says is more than he ever made when he worked as a senior staff, the impecunious pauper now have become a millionaire. But the most incredible thing is, unlike The Million Dollar Homepage, CityKnown never force you to pay money for your advertisements. After recommending your businesses, you will be asked to donate $1 - $500, but even you skip this step, your businesses will still be displayed on CityKnow for ever. Have you heard of "The One World Cafe" ? You choose your portions and then pay what you think your meal was worth. According to Roland, the idea took off from there, "People seem to be embracing the entrepreneur's novel idea of paying a fair price," he said,"If people did get the results they expected on CityKnown's platform, they would be absolutely delighted to pay money for it." Conclusion So what we can learn from this story? simply these: Maybe you have lost your job, maybe you are penniless, but don't loose your heart. Because there are so many internet business opportunities out there today, many people already have become internet millionaires overnight, such as Alex Tew, Mark Zuckerberg and Craig Newmark, just seizing only one of these opportunities, you can be one of them. Creating a website is a good idea for internet entrepreneurs who are short of money and only requires advanced knowledge and techniques to be online. Perhaps the first thing that comes to your mind is to imitate the successful sites, since copycat ideas are simple and practicable. But copying a website and then using it as your own is foredoomed to failure, what you need is a brainstorming. Case analysis is one of the most effective ways to help you to gather your thoughts and ideas before you begin building a website. Through the analysis, you will find the reason why so many people are attracted by this successful site, and understand the real needs of the visitors, furthermore, you need to find the weakness of the site so that you can surpass it. Why so many people visit google? not because they like the search engine, but because they need information. If you can provide exact information they want instead of tons of related web pages, you can even beat google and become world's No.1 website.

Interactive Element Websites CityKnown.com ( http://www.cityknown.com )

Website Success Secrets _â&#x20AC;&#x201D;â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 7 keys to a successful website