Online business is a game of sorts. You are competing against others in your niche for customers and their dollars.

There are only so many “winners” in the game within a niche. When enough competing businesses divide up the available customer dollars, at times, the niche can become saturated with a excess number of players.

When the “pie” (customer purchases in a given niche and time period) or prize is divided up, too many sellers can mean a small share for each winner – sometimes not enough revenue to justify the work that is going into the business.

Of the many challenges that an online solo business owner faces in growing and maintaining a business, few are as exasperating as finding that previous work you have done has been wiped out (for some reason) through no fault of the owner.

Online business owners are in the game of creating enticing offers for their products and services (or affiliate products), driving web traffic to those offers, and hopefully converting the prospects who come to the offers into paying customers.

But that’s only a fraction of what the owner must successfully accomplish. Once customers are in hand, there is a constant effort needed to turn those customers into repeat, loyal buyers of other products that the owner makes available.

Of course, anyone who has been involved in online business understands that there are many revenue models available to the owner. Nearly all of them are reliant upon the business being able to attract a constant stream of prospects from all over the Internet.

Getting traffic to your website is critical; and the more, the better!

Most owners build a network of information “tidbits” and spread them over the locations where their targeted prospects can be found. These tidbits often include articles, reports, ebooks, videos, interviews, banners, advertising on other sites, forum posts, Adwords and Adsense campaigns, and many other traffic generators.

The tidbits that are placed in locations where prospects will find them include links back to the business web site. The idea is that the prospect will be enticed to want to see what the business owner offers in the niche that is of interest.

All of these tidbits (really advertising for the business owner) are designed to send the business traffic and they do that be being ranked highly in the search engines. The higher an ad is ranked by Google, Yahoo, or Bing/MSN (or other search engines), the more traffic it is likely to drive back to the business owner’s offers.

The challenge for the business owner is that the formula for getting content tidbits ranked high in the search engines keeps changing. Google, the largest and most important engine, does not disclose to the public exactly how it’s rankings are derived.

Not only that, Google changes it’s methodology for ranking (called an “algorithm) quite often. There is much speculation about why Google does this.

My own feeling is that Google is attempting to draw as much revenue from the public as possible. Google wants to attract paid advertising which occupies the highest ranking placements on the search engine results pages (SERPs).

In addition, Google doesn’t want the public to “game” their ranking system; hence, they change the the way they determine rankings every so often.

Web advertisers and webmasters refer to this strategy as “the Google Dance.”

Revenue from paid advertising has been on the rise for years and Google is doing everything it can to maximize it’s “take” or share of that pie.

There is some debate among advertisers and business owners about who suffers from the effects of the Google Dance, but it has hit many unsuspecting webmasters and has crushed some online businesses.

When content and ad placements drop (or are no where to be found) business income can evaporate almost over night. The dreaded Google Dance has been blamed for many businesses going out of business in a heartbeat.

So the strategy to avoid the Google Dance and withstand the “Google slap” of your previous work to get high rankings includes:

1. Publish as much high quality targeted content (tidbits or every kind) as you can. You never know what Google will “downgrade” or drop from its rankings at any given time. If you have hundreds or thousands of pieces of content spread all over your niche, your chances of surviving “the dance” without major income reduction will be enhanced.

2. Publish most of your content on static pages. Good quality stand alone content has a good chance of staying put and growing the amount of traffic to your site over time. Advertising and other people’s websites can be dropped from the rankings quickly or downgraded in importance.

3. Try to get your content syndicated if possible. If you can get many other web sites to post your content, the chances are pretty fair that Google’s actions will be less destructive than if you keep everything on your site or in just a few places.

4. Be sure to use targeted keywords in your articles, reports, ebooks, advertising, videos, etc. As you do, your content will be seen as a better fit for higher search engine placement by the search engines. Your offerings will be relevant, less likely to be considered SPAM, and more easily categorized.

5. Use HTML tags and put the title or summary of your content within them. The search engines recognize the tags and know that they are there to set off your main ideas or title. The approach we suggest is to learn as much as you can about what is preferred by the search engines and then give them what they want. In this way, you are less likely to be “danced upon” or slapped.

6. Work to increase the backlinks to your web site. The Google ranking formula places much importance on the number and quality of links coming into your web site. If lots of other relevant (to your niche) high ranking sites are linking to yours, Google will rank the quality and importance of your site higher.

7. Set up traffic tracking on your web site. In order for you to play the search engine game at a high level of confidence, it is important to know how much traffic you’re getting, where it’s coming from, and what it does once it’s on your site. Google Analytics (and many other free and paid traffic analysis software applications) help you to break down your site traffic so you can see what’s working and what’s not.

8. Make quality content an ongoing “must do” execution in your business. Google likes constantly update web sites. They don’t like to see old and never-changed pages. “Dripping content” refers to publishing one page after another in a steady constant manner (which is good) compared to dumping large amounts of content all at once (not as good).

When you think about it, most abandoned web sites are never taken down. I’m guessing there is a lot of “stale” material sitting and collecting dust in cyberspace. It might be really shocking if there was a way to know just what percentage of the world wide web is trash left over from a previous venture that no one cares for any longer.

Hopefully, if you follow these logical steps you will keep your content ranked highly in the search engines and be able to withstand the Google Dance when it comes along again.

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I found a great online resource that I’d like to share with you. It’s an online service that “grades” your web site.

It can be used as a tool that will help you to see and understand what deficiencies your site may have. Of course, the idea is to then work on fixing those details.

The site allows you to type in your URL (like “www.mydomain.com”), press a button, and a few seconds later your grade pops up. The grade is a number between 1 and 100.

Just like a test in school, the higher your grade, the more your web site conforms to all the things that make a web site good. To see all the variables that are tested, you will need to go to the web site itself.

I just graded my web site at Business Alone and was given an “89.” I’m doing OK, I suppose, but there is certainly room for improvement.

One of the reasons I enjoy this service is because you are given the reasons why your site is graded as it is. In other words, you are told the reasons for your score.

This is what the service told me about Business Alone:

“The website www.businessalone.com ranks 321,950 of the 2,898,662 websites that have been ranked so far.”

“A website grade of 89/100 for www.businessalone.com means that of the millions of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 89% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.” (depending upon when you read this post, the ranking most likely will have changed)

Here are the specific things that are taken into consideration (and that are explained for the particular web site in question):

1. Create Content – the quality and quantity of the written word on your site.
A. Blog Analysis
B. Blog Grade
C. Recent Blog Articles
D. Google Indexed Pages
E. Readability Level

2. Optimize – how well you have optimized your content so that it is found by the search engines on the web.
A. Metadata
B. Heading Summary
C. Image Summary
D. Interior Page Analysis
E. Domain Info
F. MOZ Rank
G. Last Google Crawl Date
H. Inbound Links

3. Promote – how well you are promoting your web site content on the Internet at some of the most important and popular spots.
A. Delicious bookmarks
B. Link Tweet Summary
C. Twitter Grade
D. Google Buzz Count

4. Convert – turning as much of your traffic as possible into customers and sales.
A. RSS Feed
B. Conversion Form

5. Analyze – how well your web site compares with other similar sites.
A. Traffic Rank
B. Score Summary

A couple of cautions are in order.

First, different web sites have different purposes. If your web site is a large “hub” type authority site filled with mega content, lots of back links, etc, your score will be higher than if it’s a simple squeeze page where you’re only concern is capturing a name and email address. So the purpose of your site will be partially responsible for your graded score.

Second, this isn’t the “be all – end all” of web site analysis tools. What is important in this system may not be that critical in your industry or niche.

This is simply a tool to help you understand where your web site could be “beefed up” to be more search engine friendly and more attractive to web users.

The name of this service is Website Grader by Hubspot and it can be found online at:
Website Grader It’s a free service and allows you to compare your web site grade to that of your competition.

You simply input your URL, the URLs of your competitors, and hit the “generate report” button at the bottom. Try it out and see how your web sites score!

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Of all the things you need to pay particular attention to on your web site … content is probably the most important.

Your business will be judged by your site’s content. If it’s remarkable, your business will be seen as remarkable.

If your site content is nothing but scraped or rehashed dribble, well, you site will be viewed in the same way.

Besides your content being “good” it also needs to be timely (updated often), targeted to the niche you have chosen, and of sufficient “uniqueness” that it separates itself from the content of other web sites in your niche.

Prospects and customers need to have a reason to keep coming back to your web site.

Here are ten suggestions on building strong site content:

1. Develop your own personal writing style. Create a style that is “you” and no one else. Let your readers see your personality and your life experiences. Get personal!
2. Create great content that can’t be found anywhere else. Offer content that other sites in your niche will want to give to their readers – not as scraped content – but as a resource that folks in the niche want.
3. You will begin getting lots of links from other niche sites. Don’t get too caught up in niche or industry jargon. Keep your content easily readable by your prospects and customers. That mean don’t use “thousand dollar words” of overly technical terms. Remember that you will have “newbies” at your site constantly.
4. Post content that will help you become the “authority” in your field. Your content, therefore, must be very targeted, appropriate, “meaty” and always helpful to your customers.
5. Be especially sensitive to feedback about your content. Offer your readers a way to comment on what you are writing. Offer feedback forms, suggestion boxes, content surveys, etc so that you can see what needs clarifying, what content you’re missing, etc.
6. Avoid the temptation to sell something with every piece of content. If you blatantly oversell, your customers will get the sense that you’re only after their money. Your content can help you to sell by building desire, but it should not be a constant “pitch fest.”
7. Always give content that is beneficial to the readers of your niche. Your purposes can be varied (industry news, entertainment, product reviews, editorial comments, etc) but you should never leave the reader wondering why he spent time with a particular piece of content.
8.  Don’t be afraid to link to outside expert sources. Obviously, that shouldn’t be the only thing you do (using other people’s ideas), but your work will be much more authoritative if you direct readers to other expert content off-site.
9. Stay in touch with your readers. Answer their questions. Give of your knowledge in specific situations where a customer has a question or needs help. Part of the popularity of site forums with owners is that they are a way for the owner to get knowledgeable members to help answer the questions of others.
10. Offer multiple types of content if possible. Give your customers audio, video, and interactive content besides the written word, if possible. You will be seen as an expert if you do. Sometimes these other formats can be linked to (off site).

Whatever you do, take pride in your content and work to make your site the most “authoritative” place in your niche. If you do, you will end up having to spend less and less on advertising to get new customers.

 

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Often a web site privacy policy is overlooked, thrown together in haste, or altogether omitted as the site owner is anxious to move on to more glamorous and creative aspects of developing a business home on the Internet.

Privacy policies are sometimes akin to the “fine print” of most lengthy legal documents – something to be tolerated and considered, but probably there only in the extreme case that the user really cares about such things.

I believe, strongly, that the site’s privacy policy is very important and something that can greatly enhance the visitor’s sense that the site owner really can be trusted – that he/she really does care about the confidentiality of the visitor’s personal information.

Remember, on the Internet, trust of the site/company owner is one of the most important reasons that a customer or prospect is likely to hand over personal information and eventually make a purchase of some kind.

What should the site’s privacy policy cover?

Does the policy also extend to not just the site but also the site owner’s communications with prospects in email, snail mail, advertising, faxes and other business communications?

Of course, these questions are asked because a great privacy policy will help to build trust in potential customers and also help them to feel safe and comfortable in giving the owner an email address for future correspondence.

With CAN-SPAM and other legislation now in place covering all online communications, it is critical to understand what the law says and comply with the requirements totally.

Here are some of the highlights of what your privacy policy ought to contain:

1. A general statement of your web site business support of customer and contact privacy so that the visitor, early on, knows that you have a concern and have addressed that concern already. If the visitor can’t find a privacy statement or a formal policy, he is more likely to end any contact with the business immediately.

2. An easy to find “Unsubscribe” link or mechanism. Regardless of the type of web site you run or the type of business niche you’re in, the law requires that you provide an easy and convenient mechanism for customers to break the tie with your business. For whatever reason, should the contact decide she wants to stop receiving information from your business, she has the right and prerogative to do that immediately and her request should be honored by you right now!

3. As much as possible, your policy should be easy to understand. Don’t bury the details in a lot of verbage and fine print. Be straightforward, concise, and to-the-point. Often privacy statements tend to sound like non-lawyer made up “legalese” (if there is such a word.)

Why be unclear or wishy-washy about this aspect of your business policy? Your customers will be more impressed with your willingness to be straight up with them if you simply and accurately describe how their confidential information will be gathered, kept, stored, and deleted if they so desire.

4. Be clear with the contact about how you will gather and keep (store) personal information. Let the customer know that you intend to NEVER sell, rent, or share their data with anyone.

5. If you do plan to share other web sites, tools, and resources with your customers, let them know that these are trusted sites. Make sure you have visited all the links you give to your contacts as a sort of “pre-screening” so that you don’t send your customers to sites that are not what they seem.

Imagine the damage that will be done to your own reputation and your business if you send customers to a link that serves porn, distributes viruses, or in any way is harmful or unwanted by most web users!

6. Be clear about phishing, site napping, and other scams that are rampant online. Chances are, your business won’t be a target of these scams if you are a small home operator. The large branded sites are usually the targets of these games, but it could happen to you at some point.

Your goal is to help the customer or contact feel comfortable with your site and its communications. If they understand you’re watching for these scams, they will trust that you are professional enough to watch out for their best interests as well.

7. COPPA is the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act and it should be mentioned in your privacy policy. It covers young people under the age of 13 and you need to be aware that for these children a parent or guardian must first give consent before you collect any private or personally identifiable information.

8. It is certainly good policy to let others know that your privacy policy only covers your site and communications from your business. Just because you share a link or make a product recommendation does not mean that your policy covers the customer once they leave your site. Your policy is in force while a customer reads your email or navigates your own site and no where else.

9. Give a clear instruction about what to do if a customer or user has a complaint. Customers want to know that there is a definite and easy way to get ahold of you if they need to for any reason. Make getting in contact a snap!

I suggest giving a phone number, an address, a fax, and an email address for immediate contact. Some businesses don’t do this because they are worried about getting put on scraped lists of spammers. But I can tell you positively, that having full contact information is much more satisfying to customers than not seeing that option.

(If you don’t want to give an email address to potential contacts, you can always provide a “fill in form” that they can use which is programmed to be sent to your email inbox – this way, your address will never be revealed.

10. Have a professional 3rd party review your policy and make recommendations. While this step may seem costly and not important, I would want my business to be covered to meet all aspects of the law. Hire a person that knows what to look for because, as a non-professional, you will not.

Legislation and best practices change all the time. Stay on the cutting edge of progress. Cover your business and make your customers aware of the fact that you have consulted with proper legal authorities so they can feel secure in dealing with your business.

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How many ways are there for a small business to fail?

Don’t try to count them . . . life is too short as it is . . .

I want to talk a bit about one of the dangers of solo Internet business.

I have always preached the message of niche specialization for the solo business owner. I say you should dig down deep and become an expert in a very tightly focused market.

Some have taken this message to mean that you should only focus on one product, or one single revenue stream . . . whether it’s a book, a device, a piece of software, a special service, whatever.

Lots of businesses are built on a single source of revenue. Yikes!

Some small businesses rely on a single method or strategy for all their marketing. Yikes!

Some businesses keep all their customer data, masters, and business records on one computer – only. Yikes!

Some rely on one source of supply for all their products. Yikes!

Some acquire all their new prospects through one channel. Yikes!

Some are very satisfied to put all their business eggs in one basket. Yikes!

Yikes, yikes, yikes!

Okay. The point is obvious. If your business relies on one method, one strategy, one product, one anything . . . you’re going to get burned at some point. Count on it.

A new product is released that renders your product obsolete . . .

A new technology is introduced that makes your current approach outdated . . .

Your source of business leads dries up . . .

Your niche customers’ preferences change . . .

It seems a simple enough concept, but you would be very amazed to know the number of small businesses that are vulnerable to being taken down by one simple turn of events.

Can you afford to stake your business future on one strategy, or source, or one specialized product?

What if you had lots of products, lots of sources, many strategies and ways to attract customers?

If one or two of them no longer produce, can your business survive? Of course.

Certainly, it takes time and effort to set your business up on a foundation with many anchors.

But when the ground shakes, when the storms come, you will be able to survive some unforeseen catastrophes.

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