Ten insider secrets to making real money

We can all use a few extra bucks.  But picking up a second (or third!) job just isn’t feasible with the kids’ afterschool activities and the long, rush-hour commutes.

Solution:  Find a product or a service you like and sell it globally.  It’s not as tough as you might think.  Here’s what you do:

Determine what you want to sell.  It’s best if it’s unique and easy to ship.

Go to GoDaddy.com and register your domain name. Choose something catchy, easy to spell, and easy to remember.  Get the .com version. Don’t worry about all the other .net, .org, etc.  Register the name for 5 years or more.  Search engines think 1 year domain registrants are spammers, so those domains aren’t ranked as high. GoDaddy (http://www.godaddy.com/) offers the best rates for domain registration.

Go to HostGator.com and purchase hosting services. HostGator (http://www.hostgator.com/) is good and cheap.  They also let you have deep technical control over your hosting – more than GoDaddy.  Buy the ‘Hatchling’ host package.  PS.  You can click on the Host Gator banner ad to the right of this post and receive a discount on hosting.  Have HostGator help you setup WordPress.  They will know what to do.

Choose a WordPress theme. WordPress (http://wordpress.org/) was originally designed for blogging.  It’s open source and free.  Over the last few years, though, WordPress has morphed into a very powerful content management system for websites.  In other words, using WordPress, you can update and edit your site just like you were using Microsoft Word.  No need to know any techy stuff.  WordPress also offers a bunch of powerful tools for search engine optimization.  Go here for free WordPress themes: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/

Add pictures, video and text to your new site. Keep the site simple and intuitive.  Emulate the successful businesses like Amazon, Google, Target for ideas per layout and color schemes but focus like a laser on what your are selling. Remember, internet users want more meat, less bun.  Keep the text to a minimum.  Navigation or ‘flow’ through your site should be so natural even a caveman can do it.

Use PayPal for processing payments. PayPal gets the job done.  You don’t need a credit check and you don’t have to pay a ton of upfront fees.  Thirty minutes of setup gets you a robust merchant processing system which also support subscriptions, i.e. you can automatically charge clients monthly for ‘membership’ to your new service.

Install Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a free service offered by Google.  Signup for it here: www.google.com/analytics/ It takes all of 5 minutes to get started.  You will need your FTP login and password to insert the code into your web site.  Once you’ve done that, though, you will have real-time data on critical metrics like:  who is visiting your site, where are they coming from, what are they looking at, how long are they on the site, and how many people leave your site without clicking on anything.  This kind of info is gold.  It will help you determine whether your marketing efforts are paying off and whether your site is facilitating real sales.

Get feedback. It’s amazing how often we think we’re communicating well but upon confirmation we discover we’re doing a good job.  Your website must convey the benefits of your products and services.  It must encourage and ultimately convince the potential client to buy.  Show your site to 5 different people.  Let them give you some feedback on their impressions of your site.  Don’t be combative or make excuses for anything.  Just shut and listen to what they have to say.  Listen to one thing and try to understand 10 things. You’re the boss.  You will decide what needs to be done after collecting sufficient input.  Five good people (potential buyers) should be enough to get most of what you need.  Strangers are fine.

Modify your design. A simple design change can dramatically boost conversion rates.  Conversion rate is how well you convert a potential client into an actual customer.  So, if 10 people visit your site but only 1 person buys, then you have a 10% conversion rate.  Higher the rate, the better.  Don’t neglect upsells.  An upsell is someone initially wants a coach seat but you sell him/her a business class seat instead.  And don’t forget to cross-sell.  A cross-sell is when someone wants a belt and you ultimately sell that person a belt, a pair of shoes and a suit!  Finally, repeat business is smart business.  It’s infinitely more efficient to generate repeat sales (multiple sales to the same customer) than to find many customers for one sale.  In any case, fine-tune your site’s layout so it’s very efficient in selling.  Think high conversion rates, fat gross profit margins, and repeat (subscription-based is best) sales.

Use Google AdWords. Many businesses fail simply because they are unwilling to spend money to make money.  Consider for a moment how successful companies like Apple and Lexus are and how easily we recognize their brands.  Yet, both companies continue to advertise aggressively to people like you and me.  Your business is no different.  You have to pay to play.  Skip the yellow pages and stay away from the gimmicky stuff online where someone will try to sign you up for a year of online advertising.  Instead, go straight to Google AdWords:  http://adwords.google.com/ You can create an account it minutes.  Google AdWords lets you create online ads.  You decide everything, including how much to spend per click through, how much to spend per month, where you want the ads to run, etc.  You have total control.  You can even start an ad today and pause it tomorrow.  But what makes Google AdWords really powerful are the qualified leads.  Only people who are interested in your product or service will click on the ad.  That means your ad will send you people who are genuinely interested in what you’re selling.  I would rather have 10 qualified leads than 1000 unqualified ones.  Get going with Google AdWords asap.  Experiment with different ads to see what works.

People often come to me wanting some kind of magic bullet to kick start their online business.  The good news is you can enjoy good success selling online.  The nor so good news is it requires effort.

Thomas Edison once said something like:  Opportunity often comes dressed in overalls and looks like work.

The same is true with your website.  Invest the time and effort into your site and it will pay off.  Let me know if I can help with anything.

Click here if you need help.

James Kerr is Chief Geek of SuperGeeks.  He can be reached at http://supergeeks.net/ and (808) 531-GEEK.  Twitter: SuperGeeks