If you have never ran a business before, like a traditional offline business in your home town, then there is a really good chance that you are thinking “If I build a website, I will be able to get some people to come to the site. And, I will be able to make money from at least a tiny percentage of those people even though I don’t have any experience doing it yet”.
If that is what you are thinking, then you have got it wrong. It doesn’t work like that.
That is the same thought process that a lot of first time business owners experience, especially younger business owners who are still in their 20’s. It also happens to a lot of business owners who launch local retail businesses in their local home town.
You start out thinking that “If I just finish getting it built, then it shouldn’t be that hard to get people to come.” You don’t learn how wrong that is until you have put yourself in a position where it really matters. If you had a local retail store up and running where you have to pay the bills every month, then you quickly realize that stores don’t get shoppers just because the store exists. You have to give people a reason (in that person’s own self interest) to want to visit your store.
Your website works the same way. There has to be some reason, and a good reason, why someone would want to visit your site. If you don’t build the site with that idea in mind, then you are going to struggle big time trying to get people to visit your site at all. And once they are there, they will just leave without doing whatever it is you want them to do like buy something or click on an advertisement or click on an affiliate link or join an opt-in email list.
Imagine a scenario where a person is going online to look for something that relates to your website somehow. They happen to come across your website. Is that person happy that they found your website when they land there?
You want to create a website that people are going to be really happy with when they discover it. If you can make them really happy that they discovered it, then you will be successful. You will be successful because people will return to your site a second, third and fourth time. You will be successful because people will tell each other about your website. You will be successful because it will be easier and easier to generate traffic for your website. You will be successful because you have created something that people really want.
That is what you need to focus on if you want to build a website that will be successful as fast as possible. That is what you need to focus on if you want to build a website that is successful long term. That is what you need to focus on if you want to build a sustainable business that keeps growing in value and earning decent money over a long period of time.
Look for demand in the marketplace. Identify a need or desire that a certain group of people has. Figure out if that demand is being met by what is already available and easy to find on the internet. If you can give those people a better solution than what is already out there, then that could be an opportunity. Maybe a good solution is already out there, but it is really hard to find. If you can build a website that solves their problem and your website is easier to find than the other ones then that could be an opportunity also.
Come up with an idea for a website that gives people something they really want. Then build a website that those people really want to find.
You won’t be perfect. Nobody is. Do the best you can. The closer you get to giving people what they really want to find, the more successful you will be.
