Buddy Web Design

The topic of this blog entry is making money on the internet, by having a website.

How does one make money on the internet or make money with a website? What differentiates one website from another website? We are firm believers in practicing what we preach. Therefor if we knew the answer to the aforementioned questions then we might probably not bother with writing a monthly newsletter but rather be spending our time on holiday.

However the service we sell is affordable websites for small and medium business owners in South Africa so there is nothing wrong or bad about blogging about web design or sending out a monthly newsletter. In fact it keeps our content fresh and over time attracts more traffic to our website and ultimately customers to our business.

A lot has changed over the last 9/10 years since we first started designing websites but a lot has also remained the same. Like other web designers we have also ventured into the selling of products and services as oppose to purely selling websites with varying degree of success. So what is it that makes the big difference? What's the Holy Grail of web design and making money on the internet?

One way is to get involved with some sort of a pyramid scheme disguised as a Multi Level marketing scheme and to start promising quick riches to a multitude of people at once. You then start sending out Automated Emails and hope to convert a small percentage of the database initially sourced. This is not the making money scheme I am talking about. I am talking about combining your business with our website builder and content management tool. How are you going to make money by getting a website from us?

First and foremost it is your business which needs to have a business case. There needs to be a demand for the product or service you offer and you need to have a sufficient gross profit margin for example. We design a lot of websites for startups and many startups in South Africa simply fail because of a weak business case. That has nothing to do with web design or SEO but about the underlying product you are selling.

One might make the mistake of thinking that you need to look for something no one else knows about in South Africa. Possibly a brand or product doing well in another country like Australia. While that can work a major problem is that people might not know about this unique product or service and it might not be something people would commonly use Search Engines to search for. You would need to create the awareness of the unique product or service using alternative means that relying on SEO to market your website. Sometimes the more well know brands are easier to market via a website. We for example piggy back on the Kwikwap brand name.

Besides the fact that you need your business to have a business case you also need to be passionate about what it is which you are doing. Money and wealth always follows passion. That is if the product or service which you are offering has a business case.

Once your business case has been established then you need to adhere to some basic principles to have an effective website. This has been repeated to death in previous newsletters and blog entries but are basics like having fresh and unique content on your website, getting quality websites to link to your website, using the right words on your website and making use of Google's free resources.

One you have followed these principles you should be able to find your website on page 1 for certain search terms when you have added a bit of time to the mix. That is provided you added enough content and adhered to quality guidelines of Search Engines.

So you find your website on page 1 of Google for the desired search terms and still the phone does not ring?

Your website might not be attractive (converting) by not illustrating the benefits of getting the product or service to entice website visitors into some form of action like buying or enquiring or you simply do not have a business case and there is not a big enough demand for your products and or service. Fortunately a website is a cheap tool to do market research to establish the actual demand for a product or service. You can also use Google's keyword planning tool to check how many people search for certain keywords globally. 

This is getting closer to where the boys are separated from the men...Google Advertising.

If you have ticked off all the factors mentioned in the previous paragraphs then you should be able to afford Google Adverts, the only real guarantee for top internet traffic at the time a potential buyer makes a buying decision.

I recently met such a successful person in the e commerce tourism industry and I am a bit green with envy nearly allowing myself to form the opinion that this person is arrogant. (He is arrogant and on top of that with an arrogant American accident.) But the fact is that this person makes money reselling pre packaged tours and accommodation. One should learn from the rich and successful and this person specifically mentioned the Google Keyword planning tool to first and foremost establish what the actual demand for the product or service is.

While few pioneers have made big money on the internet most people need to start at this very basic point of doing some practical market research. Websites like Google with their free resources have drastically changed the way market research should be done.

We hope this helps you one step closer to making money on the internet.