eComm Tips

Have you ever started a project, and then after a week you get bored of it and only come back to it once every couple of months? I think that we are all guilty of this from time to time. Whether it’s building a model, learning a new hobby, or whatever, we all know that this is not the best way to learn how to do something or to become good at it.

The sad thing is that this is how some of us will approach starting a new online business. Let me give you an example:

So you get all excited about your new online venture, and for the first couple of weeks you are working on it pretty good. You’re starting to get the site built, or maybe you have it built and you’re in the initial stages of marketing. Then something comes up. Maybe you have to put in more time at work. Maybe one of the kids gets sick. Whatever it is, something comes along and takes your time. And before you know it, you haven’t worked on your site for about two weeks.

Here’s the thing: things will come up in life. Heck, things come up in my life all the time. But if you had a business that was doing well and you left it for two weeks, what would happen? Personally, I don’t think any of us would leave it alone for that long if we know that it was making money! But have you noticed that it’s so much easier to do that when we’re just getting started?

So here’s what I want all of you (and myself at times ) to consider: how do you expect the site to be a good, successful business if you don’t work it like it already is one?

If you want your site to become a success, you’re going to have to work at it. Otherwise you won’t be able to handle it when it does!

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Ok, I admit that money is a great motivator. But I also know that if money is your only motivation, you probably won’t stay motivated too long.

I’m a big believer that you have to be able to see more than just the dollar signs. What I’ve found is that when the going gets rough (or boring ), you need to be able to rely on something else. That’s one reason why I also believe that you should have other things that you are striving for that give your business and life meaning.

Maybe it’s a trip to Hawaii, maybe it’s being able to pay off the debt that you have. Whatever it is, try to find a bigger cause than just the money.

Money can do a lot of things for you. It can talk care of a lot of the troubles that you have. But in the end it is just paper. Think more about what you can do with it. How can you enrich your life or the life of loved ones. What really motivates you?

I think it’s worth your time to sit down and figure this one out. I’ve worked with a lot of people to help them get their new businesses set up. And one thing that I’ve found is that the ones that always tell me “I just gotta make more money” are the ones that also get the most frustrated when it doesn’t happen overnight. Having a good, solid internet business is not an overnight project. It’s going to take work. So find yourself a good motivator. You’ll be glad that you did!

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Sometimes you may find yourself in a situation where you cannot directly attach a blog to your main domain name. For example, maybe you are using a website builder that doesn’t allow you to get access to the FTP side of things, so there is no way for you to add any blogging software. Does this mean that you can’t take advantage of blogging for your business? NO!

In this situation, what you’ll want to do is buy another domain name that is very similar to the regular domain name. For example, if the name of your main domain is SomeBusiness.com, you could get SomeBusinessBlog.com. Here are the benefits of doing things this way:

Link Building

In this situation you can really get a link building benefit. Every time you write a new blog post, use one of your main keyword phrases and link it back to your main domain name. Since you have a separate domain for your blog, each one of these links can count as an inlink to your main site.

Interaction

You can still get the interaction from a blog on a different domain that you will on the same domain. All you have to do is link from your main domain over to the blog. Most people won’t even know the difference when they go over there.

The one thing that you don’t get from doing things this way is the build up of content because you’re on a different domain name. But if you are unable to add a blog to your main site, don’t let that stop you from reaping some of the benefits of blogging.

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When I talk to people about this idea a lot of them ask me something like, “But aren’t blogs just for people that have nothing better to do? I thought they were all junk!” Well, yes, there are a lot of junky blogs out that that aren’t going to do us a lot of good. But what are the benefits to having blogs? Well, part of this answer depends on how you have your blog set up. For this you have two different options: a blog attached to your site, or a blog on a separate domain name. Today we’ll talk about the first option.

Content

The first reason to have a blog attached to your site is for content creation. Search engines like to see that your site is constantly changing. One of the problems with regular website is that they tend to be somewhat static, meaning that they don’t change very often. Well, if you site never changes, why would the search engines need to come back? Having a blog can definitely help with this problem.

Link Building

This is especially true if you have the site setup like blog.sitename.com. There is still some benefit if you have a setup like www.sitename.com/blog, but it tends to be better the other way. Basically, when you add a post to your blog, you should use one of your main keyword phrases and link back to the main site. When you do this you are adding to the links that you have out there, and you’re using key phrases!

Interaction

One of the great things about blogs is that they give your customers a chance to interact with you on a different level. You can use your blog as a newsletter of sorts. It also gives you a chance to perhaps create some good link-bait articles that others will link to as well.

So in short, yes there are many reason that you might want to consider having a blog for your e-commerce website. Blogging is not just for those that are bored. Lots of businesses are starting to get involved in the blogosphere because they’re finding that it can help affect their search engine rankings.

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