Do You Need to Build a Website?

Why Create a Business Website/Home Based Business Website?

Do you need to build a website for an online home business? Yes, you need to create a business website if you hope to succeed online. A home based business website is an essential marketing tool.

The next step in your online home business planning is figuring out whether you need an online presence in the form of your own website. Well, here's the thing... to me this is a no-brainer...

It's hard to sustain long-term success in an online home business, unless you ARE online. Duh...

But if you've been surfing the Web for very long in search of information about starting a home business online, then I know you've seen ads that say something like, "No website needed!" And technically that may be true with some approaches. But that doesn't mean it'll be effective. Just because you CAN do something, doesn't make it right.

Why You Need to Build a Website

Here are some reasons why you might want to build a website for your new online home business:

• To establish credibility
• To enable people to connect with you
• To build a mailing list
• To get free search engine traffic
• To multiply your profit potential

If you don't have a website, how do you expect to interact with people interested in what you are promoting? Even if you're only promoting affiliate products, and expect to send people to the vendor's site through your affiliate link, it'll be much easier to convert them if they stop at your website first.

You limit yourself when you don't create a business website. You don't give your target market an opportunity to get to know you and to trust you, to see you as a real person, not just some shyster out to make a buck. And the only traffic you'll get is that which you pay for through pay per click marketing (such as Google Adwords) or through offline or word-of-mouth methods.

I really don't see how you can hope to establish a thriving online home business unless you build a website for it. Do you?

What Kind of Website?

So, if you trust that you DO need to create a business website, then what kind of home based business website will work best?

To decide, let's take a look at how different types of websites work can work best for different business models...

For instance, let's look at affiliate marketing... If you are planning only on using affiliate marketing to make money online, you still need some kind of web presence to make more than a few bucks, in my opinion. But again, your approach will dictate your website needs. Here are a few ways you could go...

• You could create "landing pages" that promote a single product. The idea is to create a stand-alone page for each product you want to promote. That page could be a simple summary of benefits with an opt-in form, so that you can continue to presell the product by sending a series of automated email messages (via something called an autoresponder service). Or the landing page might actually be either a review or a summary of your experience with the product. Either way, you're "warming up" the prospect before you send them to the vendor's sales page, in the hopes that will increase conversions. This is especially effective if the sales page isn't a strong or effective one.
  
  Advantages: You can throw up landing pages fairly quickly. If you use the opt-in form method, you're also creating a list of your own customers, who you can then sell other things to as well. If you plan to use pay per click marketing, most services won't let you link directly to a vendor's site. A landing page on your own website is essential.
  
  Disadvantages: With only one page of content (at most a few paragraphs), you have limited time to convert a prospect into a sale before you send them on to the vendor's website.

• You could create minisites of 5 to 10 pages. With this method, you create small websites that contain a few pieces of content, in the form of niche-related articles. On each page, you'll include affiliate links, and possibly an opt-in form to build your own mailing list. The idea is that by providing some free content, you help build trust and credibility.
  
  Advantages: This gives you potentially a bit more exposure than the landing page idea. It also may enable you to get some free search engine traffic, though such small websites can take a while to get noticed by Google and the like.
  
  Disadvantages: This type of site requires more work, more time, and possibly more of a financial investment.

• You could create a review blog, where each post reviews a different product. Blogs are becoming more and more popular for promoting affiliate products. That's partly because they are so easy (and often free) to create. Each blog post focuses on a different niche-related product.
  
  Advantages: Build a website with blog software to create a review blog that enables you to focus on more than one product, so you're not putting all your eggs into one basket, so to speak. You could also incorporate other forms of monetization, without detracting from your affiliate marketing efforts too much. It's easy to get free traffic with a blog, because search engines tend to love them and list them higher in the search engine results. And the interactivity of a blog can really help you connect with visitors.
  
  Disadvantages: If you don't keep a blog fresh, it won't stay high in the search results listings for long, and your free traffic will fall off. A blog can require a fair amount of maintenance as well, especially if you're getting a lot of comments on your posts.

• You could create a full-fledged content website. A content website is a full-bodied home based business website with at least 50 pages of pure content; 100 pages is even better. When you build a website of this size, you maximize your efforts to connect with your target market and perhaps even build a community of like-minded visitors. You can integrate affiliate links and ads throughout the site, giving you repeated opportunities to convert prospects into sales.
  
  Advantages: Bigger conversions are likely if your content is of high value and you establish trust and credibility so that people want to follow your recommendations. Also the fact that you provide so much free information often makes people want to repay you by following your links.
  
  Disadvantages: This type of home based business website is a major commitment of time and energy, as well as a financial investment. It takes time to write content, especially if you're not a natural writer. And what if you lose interest in the topic before you get the site fully built? There's also a maintenance commitment... you'll need to add new content on a regular basis to keep the site fresh.

In Summary...

That's just an overview of how you might build a website for affiliate marketing, which you can apply to other home business models. In the future, I'll provide more details on each of these options, so please check back. But it is my opinion that if you're going to build a website, a full content website is often the very best approach, because it can incorporate all the other methods and gives you the most flexibility. Sure, it will take some effort to create a business website of this magnitude, but isn't your future business success worth it?