The Importance Of Having Your

Own Website

When your new to the world of running an online home business there seems to be a million and one strategies to learn and implement. It's easy to get distracted and head down the wrong path. You can easily waste precious time and money on tactics that just don't work. You can become lost and disheartened in the process. I'm sure that many new online would be business entrepreneurs just give up because they get lost, overwhelmed, frustrated and start to doubt that they will ever be successful.

Having been through the process myself I know how this can feel. However, in my heart I knew it was possible. I did what so many others must be doing. I was using the trial and error method. I've come a long way. Now I look back on it all and I can see the pathways I took. I won't go on about all the mistakes I've made because in the long run my so called mistakes brought me to a much greater understanding of the best things to do.
This article is about the importance of having your own website. It's one step of many of the best things to do to get your home business up and running smoothly.
You MUST have your own website otherwise you will be wasting precious time and money. You will struggle to create a successful home business on the Internet if you do not have your own website.
Get one and then learn how to make it the best possible site for your particular business. All I can say is I wish I had mine up and running sooner.

STAND OUT IN THE CROWD.
When you have your own website you can stand out amongst the crowd of many sites that may be selling the same or similar product. There are billions of websites on the Internet. Many of them are very average.
When you join an affiliate program you will be given your own free websites to advertise. Everyone has the same site and depending on which affiliate program you joined there may be thousands of the exact same sites out there. It is highly likely that someone coming across your site will just skim right over it and go onto the next site without stopping to read the same thing over again.
When you have your own site you can make it unique. Put your personal stamp on every aspect of the site.
This will attract people to stop their surfing for enough time to see what you are all about. When they spend a little time viewing your products or services then they are half way to actually making a purchase from you.

IT'S ALL ABOUT RELATIONSHIPS.
Network and Internet marketing and sales isn't necessarily about what you know. It's all about how much you care and the relationships you develop over time.
How often have you heard this statement? How does this relate to you having your own website?

If you have your free website that looks exactly like everyone else's it will be more challenging for you to start developing those personal relationships. Sure, you may have been given an auto-responder with your website so your visitors will receive some ongoing contact with your product but they won't be getting to know more about YOU and what you stand for. Why should they buy from you and not the exact same website they came across last week when they were surfing?

If the site is selling membership to a network marketing or an affiliate program then the person behind the website is the person who is going to become your mentor. Many people don't realise the importance of this. The quality of the mentoring that Internet newbie home business entrepreneurs receive can make or break them.
You can use your website to tell your prospects more about what you can do to help them. You need to decide what it is that you would like to offer your customers. Make your website a portal for developing that personal connection.

CONTROL OVER CONENT
When you have your own website you have control over the content. This means you can do everything possible to maximize your site for organic search engine optimisation.
You may wish to add extras like a positive quote for the week.
You may decide to share some other personal details of your life. For example what your background was and how you over came adversity to become the successful person you are today.
You may have some photos you'd like to share. Perhaps you have some shots you took on your travels or maybe some snaps of your beloved off your home or your garden looking its very best in the springtime.
What you chose will, in part, depend on what your business is all about and the message you are trying to get across.
Start to create a more personal connection with your visitors.

ADVERTISE YOUR BUSINESS ON ONE PAGE
You may have more than one business going at the same time. If you have more than one site to advertise you'll be spending more time and money than you are able to. Having one site for all of them is a much more refined way to go and will streamline your advertising campaign.
Obviously you would want these businesses to connect in some way. Even if you think you have a wide variety of businesses there will still be a way of making a connection between them.
Spend a little time of thinking about what that connection could be.
You may decide to make your site a review centre where people can come to get a great review of what the best thing available in a certain topic is.
You could make your site a directory where all the best site links can be found on one easy to access page.
If you add a new business to your existing ones then you will be in a position to do this and not have to change your campaign radically.

LINKS AND LINK EXCHANGE.
Links are what search engines use to travel from other pages to your page and visa versa. They are one of the ways the search engines use to rate your website. The higher your rating with the search engines the closer to the top of the thousands and in some cases millions of websites with businesses similar to yours.
Links also mean traffic to your site. When someone clicks on your link they will be taken to your web page.
The more traffic the more likely you are to make a sale.

There are two types of links. There are reciprocal links i.e. you link to me and I'll link to you. These are the most commonly used links. They are often free and they aren't very valuable to you but they are better than nothing.
The second type of link is the one-way link where the person linking to your site doesn't ask to be linked back to their site in return. These types of links are of great value to you.
There are other aspects to links that I won't go into detail about here. Suffice it to say that links to non-related subject pages and links from a page where there are already lots of other links present won't be of much value to you either.

Having a great link program running is vital to developing a successful home business online. When you join an affiliate program you will be given banners. The idea is to place these mini advertisements on other peoples web pages. More than likely other people won't be interested in you doing this unless you put their links on your pages. If you have your own web page then you'll be able to partake in link exchange. If you are not using your own website it will be very difficult for you to get those high quality one-way links. Your rating and hence your home business will suffer because of this.

ENTRY CARD INTO EXCELLENT SITES.
Having your own website will give you access to areas you would otherwise be unable to go. If you only have your affiliate web pages then some sites will not accept you. For example some article distribution services will not allow affiliate links in your resource box at the end of your articles. You can still post your articles but you won't benefit so don't even waste your time doing this.

Some forums will not allow you to take your affiliate links with you. Some of the top forums for Internet marketing come into this category. These are fabulous places to be. Anyone with an online business will benefit from the knowledge that can be gained simply by becoming involved in such forums. Of course you can always go there and not take your affiliate links. You may not appreciate this fact at this stage but when you spend time in forums it is best for you to leave your domain name with every entry.

MAXIMIZE YOUR ARTICLE LINKS.
You know you need to write articles to get your website links out there in the wider community. Your articles will contain links in the resource box. These links will continue to work for you in years to come. You will have no idea as to where these articles may crop up in the future so it’s imperative that the resource box has something in it that is going to be relevant in the future.

I personally regret not knowing about this when I started writing my articles.
Now I have my own site and I know that my previously published articles have links in the resource boxes that are pointing to my affiliate pages. This is better than having sent out articles with no links and certainly better than not writing the articles in the first place. All my articles now direct people to my primary website which has a home for my affiliate links.

You've spent good time and energy on writing your articles. They are important so don't waste your article links.

IT'S COST EFFECTIVE, EASY AND FUN TO DO
Having your own website is very affordable. You will need to shop for two things.
You will need a domain name and someone to host your site. Do a search to have a look at the cost of the various companies providing these services. One thing I learned is that it is best to buy these two things at the same site. You can buy them at different sites but it will save you a lot of mucking around if you don't have to transfer anything after you've made your purchase.

Don't be afraid of designing your own web page! Even if your only experience with the Internet has been reading and sending out personal emails. You will find that creating your own site is really very easy. There are some excellent free sites that will guide you every step of the way. I strongly recommend using NVU. They can be found at www.nvu.com/index.php . I have personally used this free resource. It takes a bit of time and dedication when it's your first time but it really works and you’ll have fun too. It may take you a week and in some cases a bit longer but once it's done you'll be proud of your efforts. You will never regret it.
If you really don't think you are up to it then you can always pay someone to do it for you.