I’ve been thinking a lot about how to dominate a market, I’m not talking about making a living in a market, I’m talking about truly dominating the market.

It’s not as hard as a lot of people want to make it out to be but it does take a lot of hard work and a person that is obsessed at being the best. If you think you have what it takes and want to hear my two cents then keep reading.

I’d start with the name, you need something that stands out from the crowd. Something that says we are both different and better then the competition and most importantly, your design needs to say the same thing. Your text needs to speak to your potential clients and make the browsing site visitor want to become a client. Your site content needs to be powerful and emotional, letting the site visitor know what your product can do for him.

I’d have a picture of the site owner on the website to help build credibility, an about us page, an 800 number, contact information and real business address on every page, testimonies from real clients, I’d keep my home page fresh and updated weekly, custom 404 pages, text written like a real person, links to my privacy policy on every page and a website that had personality from the design to the text.

Once this was done I would test and improve the site daily, common sense says that if your obsessed with site conversion then it’s only a matter of time before you can dominate the market. Everything else being equal, if I’m bidding on AdWords and can convert more site visitors into customers then you can, then it’s only a matter of time before I’m able to out bid you on every keyword because I’m making more money then you are.

Step one in dominating a market is having a website that will convert site visitors into site clients.

Most business owners desire is to have the best looking custom designed website available, out doing the competitions and making customers smile when they see the site. Customers see websites as an extension of the company they are doing business with. Your website is seen by your customers the same way the customers would see you store in the real world.

What Makes A Good Custom Website Design?

We need to understand a couple things about what customers are looking for when they get to our website.

1. Information

2. To purchase a product

3. Entertainment

They are not there to look at how well we designed our custom website or to see what type of neat little tricks we’re able to do with flash or anything else. They have a need and want to know if our website is able to fill that need. A good custom designed website is designed with the customer in mind.

A custom designed website should have a header that is set up to show the customer that they are in the right place. The header should have a logo, tag line and some pictures that show what the site is about. If your selling baby strollers then you should have pictures of baby strollers in the header.

The site should be easy to navigate, nothing special or unusual, if you feel the need to write text to explain how to navigate your site then chances are the navigation is no good.

The text should be written with the customer in mind, it should have personality and spark a desire in your customer to make them want to learn more about your business. The website should be set up as a whole to guide the customer in the direction you want them to go.

I’m hoping this page of my site will guide you to making a purchase from us, if you would like a price on a custom designed website contact us today.

It seems that I can’t get through a day without having to spend a couple hours trying to talk a client out of doing something crazy.

I’m only the designer and should give the client what he/she wants, but I have a hard time not adding in my two cents and sometimes even refusing to do a design because I disagree with the direction the site is taking.

For some reason people really have a hard time understanding that a visitor to their site could careless what the site looks like.

They have come to your website to find information, buy a product or be entertained not for a flash intro page, a cute little guy typing away at his computer or the little stat counter that shows how little visitors your site has really had.

They don’t care about the colors of your site, the pictures in the header, your logo, colors, fonts or anything else you might think is important.

They are there for a purpose and have a goal in mind and could care less about all the other stuff.

So does the design even matter?

You can bet it does, but not in the way a lot of people seem to think.

While the visitor to your site could care less about the color of your site the colors do effect him/her. In most cases the site visitor is not even aware of the effect the colors have on them.

Some colors have more influence than others but all colors do influence our emotions.

For example blue is a calming, peaceful, and trusting color while red is anger, impulsive and an action color.

I’m not going to write about all the effects each color has on a person but knowing what colors to add into a site can effect the response a person takes while on your site.

Another aspect of the design is in font and size of the font.

Large easy to read fonts are an important part of your site. The easer it is to read what you have to say the better the chances are that a visitor will take the time to read it.

Adding scrolling text and moving pictures will only distract the eye of the reader and make the text more difficult to read as will using crazy font colors or constantly changing the colors of the font.

Something else I see a lot of people wanting to do is add pictures into the header that has nothing to do with the site.

You have 3 seconds to let your visitor know what your site is about. If you add pictures of pretty flowing rivers while trying to sell pigs online this will only cause confusion and cause the visitor to leave in hopes of finding his/her perfect pig some where else.

So if your selling pigs, then put pictures of pigs in the header.

The header is the first thing people see when entering your site, by using appropriate pictures in the header it helps give an understanding of what your site is about.

It’s also a good idea to put a nicely designed logo in your header that tells something about your business. I know most people could careless rather or not you have a logo but a logo does help to build trust and credibility.

Something else I find funny is the all about me text everyone wants to place on their home page.

No one cares about you or your business; they only want to know what’s in it for them.

So the first line of text should tell the site visitor why they should even consider spending more then 3 seconds on your site.

What can you do for me?

I could go on with my rant all day but the more I type the better I feel.

But before I end my rant I would like to say one last thing.

The navigation on your site is an important part of your site, trying to come up with something original is just crazy. As a site visitor I don’t want to spend an hour trying to figure out how to go to the next page on your site.

Just make the navigation the same as everyone else’s and be happy your site visitor decided to stay long enough to look through your site.

Ok, I’m through with my rant now and I can go back to work.

About The Author

Janeth Duque is the owner of Geeks On Steroids and is well-known in the world of web design and search engine optimization.

Web Site: Geeks on Steroids

View her website at: http://www.geeksonsteroids.com

Do ugly sites make more money?

I saw an article not to long ago talking about how ugly sites can make more money than nicely designed sites. While this want work in any other market, it will and does work in the Google AdSense market.

Let me explain how to make money with Google AdSense.

1. No good content.If you give someone, that comes to your site, what their looking for then they will not click on your ads. It’s important to put enough content on the site to get it to rank but not give the end searcher what their looking for.

1. Trick the visitor.A good thing to do with a made for Google site is to trick the visitor with the navigations our banner ads. You can do this by blending the ads into the page or placing the ads right above your left hand navigation.
   
2. Placing ads.You need to place the ads above your text, in the middle of your text, at the bottom of your text and above your left hand navigation. The most important thing is to get the visitor to leave your site by way of a banner ad, so put them every where.
   
   
3. Build lots of these sites.The more sites you have the more money you can make. This means don’t worry or put a lot of time into the design or content of the site, put your time into building more sites.
   
   

This really sounder like a poor business model to me and I felt there had to be a better way of doing things. So I started asking around and was pointed in the direction of Danny Wirken.

As faith would have it Danny is a good friend and easy to get hold of. The conversation with Danny showed me that there was hope after all.

Danny Wirken has been able to make good money online while staying away from the ugly site syndrome. His business model is building good quality sites that are created for traffic.

He went on to say that he’s looking for repeat visitors and not just the first time visitor. His sites are built in such away that people want to return. He also said his click through rates is lower but he more than makes up for this in volume.

So the ugly sites don’t prevail.

Danny was kind enough to discuss some of the things he’s in the process of doing and even showed a sample site he’s working on.

The site he was kind enough to show us was a site about woman and having babies.

As I talked to Danny I was amazed at the time and effort he was willing to put into a site. The site is actually a blog and is translated into 11 different languages. He also has a graphic designer making custom pictures for each blog post.

Danny said the idea is to make each visitor a return visitor. He does this not by translating articles but by hiring writers in other countries to take his ideas and thoughts and write them in their own language.

Ugly Is Not Better

Author: James Brausch

I am constantly asked the following question:

“What should I put on my content sites?”

Of course they are asking about my traffic generation strategy
where I recommend creating content sites and pushing the
traffic to a product site.

Here are some possibilities to put on your content site:

1. A Resource Directory

Resource directories used to be a great form of content. Yahoo
actually got it’s start as a resource directory. They are now
the #2 most visited site on the entire Internet. The search
engine ranking data (http://www.RankingFactors.com) shows that
outbound links are still a positive ranking correlation factor
(even though so-called SEO “experts” moan about PR leak and
other such nonsense). One problem with resource directories is
the level that they have been abused lately with all of the
Adsense scraper sites. There are literally hundreds of
thousands of useless resource directories out there now that
have been created with automation.

2. Articles

Articles are my very favorite form of content for content
sites. They are perhaps the purest form of content. If you
think about it, a blog post can almost always also be
considered an article. In fact, you may see this very blog post
appear as a syndicated article soon via Artemis Pro. If you want
only your own articles on your content site, a blog is a great
content management system. If you want to allow others to
submit articles (and this is VERY POWERFUL!), then stay tuned.
I will be releasing a product very soon that makes this very
easy.

3. Product Reviews

A product review is really just a kind of article; isn’t it?
Normally I recommend using content sites for driving traffic to
your own sites. Product reviews can be a double-whammy though.
You can use them as legitimate examples of pure content on your
content site (to get visitors and push them to your product
sites) AND you can also include affiliate links in the product
review and make some direct income.

4. Surveys

It is difficult to get a survey to match up with the Ranking
Factors data, but these are a very nice way to have your users
add some content to your site.

5. Forums

Forums are also very difficult to get aligned with the Ranking
Factors data. They are also notorious for advertising blind
spots. The visitors really focus on the forum and will largely
ignore your attempts to distract them to your product site.
Still, they are a great way to get a large number of visitors
generating content for you. That concept of getting your
visitors to generate your content is important.

6. Blogs

I haven’t tried this, but I have seen it done. The idea is much
like forums, but you are providing hosting for other people’s
blogs in return for your ad being on their blog.

7. Downloads

If your market has anything to do with software, a download
area can draw a lot of visitors. There are other markets that
are also well-suited to downloads. The most common types other
than software are covered in the next three types of content.

8. Pictures

Do you have a travel site you are trying to promote? How about
a dating site? Or a photography site? These are obvious types
of sites where a picture content site can help drive traffic.
What about your topic? Are pictures something that will draw
your type of visitors?

9. Videos

Videos are quickly becoming mainstream on the Internet.
Although you will need to pay for quite a bit more bandwidth
when offering videos, this type of content can match up with
almost any topic of site.

10. Audios

Some sites can really benefit from audios. They will take less
bandwidth than videos, but only makes sense for some topics of
sites.

There are probably hundreds of types of content that I haven’t
covered, but that should get you started. Remember that the
point of the content sites is to provide traffic that you can
distract to your product sites. That means:

1. The content needs to be quality content that actually
provides value to the universe. You don’t want people arriving
at your product site feeling that they have been tricked by
some junk page generator.

2. You don’t need some huge variety of content. A site with 5
interesting articles about the topic of your product is just
fine. A site with 500 interesting articles is even better.
Don’t somehow convince yourself that 5 articles isn’t “enough”.
that somehow you “need” a forum, a blog, and a picture download
area. You don’t. Any single form of content in any quantity is
just fine.

3. A form of content that allows your visitors to generate more
content is most powerful. That way you don’t have to do the work
to get the traffic. your visitors do. It also adds interactivity
and a feeling of being a part of that site for your visitors
which will help retain repeat visitors and increase
word-of-mouth traffic. I highly recommend that you focus on
some type of content that is provided primarily by your users
(although you may have to “seed” it yourself).

OK; I hope that answers the question about what to put on
content sites. Go get to work generating some serious traffic
to your product pages from your new content sites now.

About The Author: James D. Brausch posts daily Internet
marketing how-to information to his blog at:
http://www.JamesBrausch.com