My-WebShop.org - First Steps to a Successful Website: 3-Goals & Objectives

Step 3 - Your Goals

OK, now you have a blueprint of how to set up your computer files and folders. Doing this now - before you put a single word on a website - will be one of the biggest time/money-savers you could possibly do! And if you don't? Well, I will GUARANTEE YOU you will get so confused and muddled that your site will be a disaster!

So you think you're ready to start writing that great website? Whoooops, hold on, pardner - not yet!

Just what do you want to accomplish?

Just what do you want to accomplish with your website?

Your 15 minutes of fame? Someplace where you can admire your own photo every day (and hope the rest of the world is as infatuated with you as you are)? A website for a social or political cause? A clever way to keep in touch with family and friends? An online business designed to bring in income?

1. I am going to assume that you want a website that will make money. Why else would you spend so much time and effort reading this and doing all the other research out there necessary to make a really first-class website? Social and political causes come and go - local and global - and many of these websites are here today, gone tomorrow.

2. I am further assuming that you want to create something that will last and that is as easy as possible to revise whenever you need to.

3. It may not need to be a huge, complex e-commerce site like eBay or Amazon, but it will need at least some basic e-commerce capabilities if you want your visitors to do any more than look at your site for a few minutes, say, "Hmmmm, that's interesting" - and click to go somewhere else.

A little thing called Market Research

Over the past 15 years I have personally designed websites that cover a wide range of businesses: aromatherapy, magazine publishing, iridology, heating & air conditioning, auto garage, singer/songwriter, motivational speaker, doctors, t-shirt designers, online newspapers, furniture sales, alternative health practitioners such as chiropractors, healing centers, political, social, humor & satire ... and I've probably missed some.

I've worked with all kinds of people, mostly successfully, sometimes not. Some of them have been intense Type A personalities who had to control every tiny facet of everything even when they had no idea what they were doing. Some were deadbeats. Some were ego-maniacs. Some were liars and thieves. Some were space cadets. Most were just simple, sincere folks who were good at what they do for a business but had no time or desire to learn how to design and maintain a website.

The first thing I ask for are the names (URLs) of the websites you like most and those of your competitors. Then, I start doing my research. (Yeah - who said I was just a computer nerd?)

This is called "market research."

Who is your market?

Who is your competition?

What are they doing?

What can you do better?

How can you make yourself stand out in front of the pack?

Just what kind of demand is there for your products or services?

So just what do you need (or not need) on your site?

Some ~~people~~ (web designers) will tell you you need Flash, Swish, Javascript, Java Applets, Java Beans, PHP, DHTML, XML, streaming music, animation, movies and video - everything they can think of - because, they say, "you need to entertain your visitors."

Horse hockey! They tell you this so they can charge you $12,000 for a website and keep a straight face! Then once they're out of sight, they're laughing all the way to the bank.

If I want to be "entertained" by a TV screen I'll pop in a DVD, videotape or just watch TV. It's a lot more convenient than waiting 30 minutes for some asinine Flash animation to load up - and all it does is have some little guy walk across the screen with fireworks and then he disappears.

Other people, who live in the real world, will tell you your website has only one purpose - to make money, to sell! Yet others profess different paths to the same goal, such as "use your website to collect e-mail addresses".

By now, many hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been written to bury you in advice on just how to do this. Most of it, in my opinion, is vague mumbly-jumbly crap - some of it is very good.

Why I created this website just for you!

Frankly, I don't blame many of you for wanting to do it yourself - but being able to handle a scalpel does not necessarily make you a brain surgeon.

Many of my "prospects" wanted to do their own website, but also wanted to spend hours picking my brain for my trade secrets - for free, of course. I could have just closed the door on them politely and hung up - shutting out a whole market - or I could assemble some of those trade secrets and make them available for a very reasonable price and tap into that growing market. I chose the latter.

I have created a Web Workshop (still a work in progress) which contains hundreds, if not thousands of valuable tips, tools, downloads, etc. just for you. It is the whole toolbox containing my trade secrets, gathered over 15 years.

And it is all yours for only $5.97 a month!

Of course you can buy individual items, but as a member you will also save up to 50% on everything - AND get a whole lot for FREE! What you're reading now is just a sampling of that material - and I want everyone to have free access to this so (a) you know what you get if you become a member, and (b) so you'll get excited and enthused about your own ability to do your own website.

Two very valuable lessons I've learned
in my 15 years as a professional web designer!

Over the years - many years, I might add, of doing things helter-skelter, flying by the seat of my pants - I had to come up with some structure to my own business. The alternative was to get trapped into a lot of hard work I never anticipated and for which I never got paid. (That can also create animosity and bad feelings with your clients!)

One of my lessons was to create a website planning sheet.

It's in several parts actually, so you don't get overwhelmed by it all. You can download them here for free for your own use (unless you're a web designer trying to compete with me, in which case this is copyrighted and you need to come up with your own). Sometime soon these planning sheets will all be online as simple forms you just fill out and hit the SEND button to send them to me.

The second lesson, learned much more recently, is that there are so many gizmos and bells and whistles out there people think they want that it is impossible to give someone a basic price beyond a basic package or two.

Take e-commerce. I can't charge the same for 500 PayPal buttons as I can for 10, just like a contractor can't build a 20-room mansion for the same price as a 2-bedroom bungalow.

So this website will be implementing a basic ala carte menu - you see it, you like it, you select it, knowing in advance what the price is. You simply put it in your shipping cart like you would a book or CD from Amazon. Your purchase is then made part of your contract.

OK, that covers how I approach websites that I design myself - but what about those of you who want to "do-it-yourself"?

The approach is pretty much the same - an ala carte menu from which you pick and pay for the tools you want. Many of them are free to registered members, others are low-cost downloads, and still others are simple cut-and-paste HTML code snippets ... oh yeah, and don't forget the eBooks and actual online tools that you can run right from your browser!

Do NOT buy everything you see on this website!

Naturally, I make more money the more tools you buy - but I'm going to commit a cardinal selling sin here. DO NOT buy everything but the kitchen sink!

I repeat that - DO NOT buy everything but the kitchen sink!

No matter how great these bargains are or how much you feel like a kid in a free candy store!

You'll never use it all and you'll end up disappointed at having spent money that was a waste (just don't blame me - you can't say you weren't warned!)

Second, if you DO use it, your site will be so cluttered and cumbersome, it will crush both you and your visitors. Choose your tools sparingly and wisely!

I know, I must be crazy, totally out of my mind to tell you NOT to buy everything I offer!

But I want you to succeed.

I want you to be happy with what you select and use.

And I want you to remember where it came from because then you'll be back!