Building an Online Store

I'm
glad you found this article because you are about to learn something
that most
web hosts won't tell you about building online stores. It will keep you
from
making a common mistakes countless people make when creating their
first store.

Now
before I get started, let me just say that I didn't write this article
to
discourage you from building an online store. I wrote it to educate so
you
won't fall into the same trap so many other beginners find themselves
in when
first starting out.

To
begin, creating the store is not the challenge it used to be. These
days the
"development part" is pretty easy. There are thousands of web hosts
now that offer a free, built-in shopping cart when you pay them to host
your
site.

Another
alternative is to use Yahoo!'s shopping cart program and have them
build and
maintain your store for a monthly fee.

Heck,
you can even use Paypal.com for free! All you do is sign up and paste
some HTML
code into your website and Voila....you've got an instant online
shopping cart.

Paypal
handles the credit card transactions while depositing the profits into
your
bank account. (They take a small percentage of every order, of course).

So
hopefully you can see that actually building the store is not the
tricky part
anymore.

The
Biggest Obstacle . . .

The
real challenge is actually getting enough traffic to make a profit from
your
store. After all, what's the point in spending time and money into
building a
store if you haven't a clue how to bring in traffic from the Internet.

Ninety
eight percent of the people that try to create online stores or
shopping sites
struggle because they don't understand how to get a top ten ranking in
the
major search engines.

It's
not as easy as just submitting to MSN, Google and Yahoo and then your
site just
shows up on the first page of results.

So
people spend all this money on a fancy website and storefront and have
no idea
how to make their site rank high with Google.com -- which is the best
source
for free traffic on the Internet.

Why
would someone search for Luke's Shopping Site to buy something when
they know
they can go to reputable companies like Yahoo, Overstock, Amazon and
many of
other popular online retailers to buy the exact same items you're
trying to
sell?

In
other words, how are you going to get your store noticed among all the
billions
of online stores already out here?

The
answer is...you probably won't going after generic terms like
"shopping" or "online store". Unless, of course, you're
prepared to fork out millions of dollars in advertising every month
like Yahoo,
Amazon and some of the others did way back when.

Not
to sound discouraging, but unless you've got an enormous amount of
capital, you
will go broke trying to compete with the gazillion online shopping
websites.

Big
name companies like Amazon.com have spent years and millions of dollars
in
advertising to build their own brand awareness and it's hard to get in
on this
market share if you're just starting out.

But
don't worry... there IS a solution to being found. And the good news
for you is
that most people will never figure this next part out. You'll be light
years
ahead of your future site's competition and you'll be rich if you do it
right.

So
if you can grasp and implement what you're about to read, you're way
ahead of
the game already! Congratulations in advance. :)

Take
the Google Test

Try
this now. Go to Google.com and type in online shopping or shopping.
Look at the
number of total search results that come up (upper right hand corner
gives you
the total number of sites). There are literally millions.

These
are all the sites you will be competing with if you try to go after a
broad
term like that.

The
reason I use Google as an example is because more than likely this is
going to
be your best place to get free traffic. People often underestimate the
amount
of visitors that are possible from this growing search engine.

I
can definitely tell you that you won't want to ignore Google and this
should be
where you focus on getting a lot of your visitors -- especially since
it's
free!

Getting
back to the example...

"Online
shopping" would be a bad term to try and target because it's too
generic.
You need something more specific.

Find
Your Online Niche

Before
you even build your store you need to determine your niche. So instead
of
trying to build a shopping site that sells everything under the sun,
start out
small and capitalize on a niche you are familiar with.

Why
Niche Sites Work

1)
They often have much less competition. Compare the results in Google
when you
type in "online shopping" versus "baseball cards".

Sure,
"online shopping" is a much more popular searched term, but you'd
have a hard time getting traffic because you're competing with so many
other
webmasters who want their sites to be #1.

2)
One of the keys with getting traffic to Google is content, content and
more
content. If you build your site on a hobby you can write pages and
pages of
content on this subject to help funnel in more traffic.

The
more pages you have on your site, the greater chance the search engines
will
find your site, thus bringing you more visitors.

More
traffic will hopefully mean more sales for you in the long-run.

Juggling
All The Way To The Bank

My
favorite example of a successful niche store is jugglenow.com.

Instead
of trying to create an ABC Online Store that sells everything, the
owner Jim
Nelson created an information site about juggling that links to his
online
store.

Notice
when you go to http://www.jugglenow.com/, there's much more than just
shopping
to be done there. Jim includes tons of articles and information about
the sport
of juggling.

These
pages are very important because they draw in traffic from the search
engines.
So instead of just promoting his online store by itself, these other
pages help
do the marketing for him.

This
is what I mean when I say draw traffic to your main site first. Even
though
Jim's money maker is the actual store, he draws traffic to this store
by
providing tons of content for the major search engines to pick up.

Jugglenow.com
is a perfect example of creating a successful, niche store. There are
tons of
sites out there like his but with different topics. You can do the same
with
the topic/niche of your choice.

Build
Your Main Website First

Many
people don't ever get this, but the key to making your store popular
and
successful is to build your main site and have that act as a gateway to
your
online store. I can't stress how important that is.

In
other words, work on getting traffic to your main site via the search
engines
and then link your store to this main website.

The
reason is, it's much easier for the search engines to find your main,
content-rich website than it is to find a single stand-alone store.

In
fact, most search engines won't even add your store to their index by
itself,
but they will list your main website that links to your store. So
that's why
you need to focus on that main site first.

So
if you want to sell your knitting needles online, you would first
create a
content-rich site on sewing. Offer tons of tips and guidelines on this
subject
to help draw in search engine traffic.

Then
from those search-engine-friendly pages you would link to your online
store.
This is much more effective than just trying to promote a stand-alone
store.

Use
Site Build It For Your Website

As
I mentioned above, building the actual store is not going to be the
challenge.
You can go to Yahoo Store or any web host out there that will offer
some kind
of online shopping cart solution. Once that's setup you just link to
your store
from your main website.

What
you need to be focusing on right now is how are you going to get
traffic to
your store. What is going to be your main marketing source to bring in
the
visitors? What will be your niche?

If
you plan on relying on the search engines, you'll need more than just a
Yahoo
Store because they won't help you get the traffic.

Sure,
they'll setup your store for you, but they won't help you get noticed
in
Google, MSN, Yahoo Search and more. This is the job of your main
website that
will link to your store.

Anyone
who is serious about starting an online store and making good money
should
always consider Site Build It.

I'm
not saying it's the only solution, I'm just saying it's the best. Hands
down.

This
is actually the same tool that Jim from jugglenow.com used to create
his
website. Notice he still relies on Yahoo Store for the actual store
part of his
website, but the rest of his site was created using Site Build It.

Like
Jim, you need to create a main website that will draw traffic in from
the
search engines first, and then from this main site link to your online
store.

What
Is Site Build It?

Site
Build It (SBI) is an all-in-one web hosting/online marketing tool at
your
fingertips. As a customer, you'll receive a login and password and will
be able
to manage your entire site right from a browser-based application.

You
don't have to know anything about HTML, PHP, CGI or any other acronyms
you may
or may not be familiar with. Creating web pages is as simple as typing
text
into a blank form and hitting "Save".

SBI
registers your domain for you, they act as your host, provide email
accounts
and everything you need to build and maintain a website.

You
won't have to worry about going to a separate site to register a domain
name
then go someplace else to find a host. Everything is done in one place.

So
if you decide to go with SBI for your site and online store, you can
ignore the
website building steps here at 2 Create a Website because SBI acts as
your web
host and domain registrar.

Many
beginners find this tool a breath of fresh air because everything you
need for
your website and store can be found inside this one tool that walks you
through
everything step by step.

Sounding
promising yet?

Well
I haven't even told you about the best feature of SBI.

Probably
the most useful part of this package is the search engine help you'll
receive.
There's no other web host on the planet (and I mean that literally)
that will
do what SBI can do when it comes to getting traffic to your site.

There
are no tricks or hidden secrets used -- only proven techniques that
show you
how to build web pages that the search engines will love so you can
bring
traffic to your site and ultimately your online store.

As
you create your pages, there will be an "online coach" telling you
how to improve your content to achieve the rank you want for various
keyword
phrases.

You
will learn what the search engines look for and how to ensure your site
is
always listed with all the popular engines.

Not
getting enough traffic is the number one reason people end up quitting
their
online businesses. They don't know how to get their sites ranked high
with
Google, MSN, Yahoo, etc so they find themselves frustrated.

If
you use SBI, you won't have to worry about this. The online guide will
literally walk you through the steps to submitting your site and
improving your
rank. It's a MUST if you want to profit from your online store.

My
Recommendation

If
you are new to building a website, I strongly recommend you consider
Site Build
It to help you get started with your store.

Even
if you use Yahoo Store (or outsource) your actual online store and
shopping cart,
at least use Site Build It to build your main site because the search
engine
help will be well worth it.

No
other web host will give you this kind of assistance.

A
Solid Guarantee!

Not
only are the folks at SiteSell (the creators of SBI) backed by the BBB,
but
they're good people. They realize that this tool may not be for
everyone BUT
they want you to at least give it a try.

So
if you're worried about spending money on something that's not right
for you,
worry no more. They've got a rock-solid guarantee that puts you at zero
risk.