don’t have any sign-ups. Why is that important to your success? You need people you can contact on a regular basis and tell them about this or that new promotion you are doing on your site. You just can’t email people if they haven’t opted to receive emails from you, because that is considered spam and spamming will get you closed down faster than you can say “I didn’t realise…” So put an opt-in box with an offer of something free to encourage people to sign-up and you will build that list over time and it will contribute enormously to the succeWe spend a lot of time, money and effort in creating a killer website. Then we go about promoting it to the masses which costs more time, money and effort. We expect our super website to be a success by getting lots of hits with visitors pouring in thanks to our zealous and costly promotion program. So why do we go to all that trouble and then do some stupid things to cause our business to fail? Let’s see what some of those stupid things are.

The first stupid things we do are try to save money and get free web hosting and a free email account. These are absolute no-no’s when it comes to running a successful business online. Free web hosting gets you lots of irrelevant advertising banners, limited bandwidth and storage and the domain name is either tacky or downright awful. Free email accounts are even worse. You not only run the risk of important emails not being delivered, but people won’t have any confidence in your business to start with because they don’t trust someone who’s email address looks like myname200664(at)hotmail.com.

Let’s assume you’ve paid good money and got a professional web hosting company and email account. Then you do another stupid thing. You don’t ask your prospective customers for feedback about your website. You might think your killer website is great and your website designer will tell you it’s great, of course. How will you know if the all important visitors to your website like it? What if they want to run as far away from it as possible because they think it stinks? How will you know if you don’t ask them?

Now we can assume you have corrected that last stupid mistake and put up a suggestion box on your contacts page and included a line in your emails, for instance:

“Any questions, please email me at…”

You are pleasantly surprised at the response. People are actually telling you how to make your business a success, by telling you what they want. Then you go ahead and do something else stupid.

Visitors are coming to your site, but even though they left you a comment to say how much they liked it, they never seem to come back. What is the stupid thing you haven’t done? You haven’t included an opt-in box so you don’t have any sign-ups. Why is that important to your success? You need people you can contact on a regular basis and tell them about this or that new promotion you are doing on your site. You just can’t email people if they haven’t opted to receive emails from you, because that is considered spam and spamming will get you closed down faster than you can say “I didn’t realise…” So put an opt-in box with an offer of something free to encourage people to sign-up and you will build that list over time and it will contribute enormously to the succes

nt. These are absolute no-no’s when it comes to running a successful business online. Free web hosting gets you lots of irrelevant advertising banners, limited bandwidth and storage and the domain name is either tacky or downright awful. Free email accounts are even worse. You not only run the risk of important emails not being delivered, but people won’t have any confidence in your business to start with because they don’t trust someone who’s email address looks like myname200664(at)hotmail.com.

Let’s assume you’ve paid good money and got a professional web hosting company and email account. Then you do another stupid thing. You don’t ask your prospective customers for feedback about your website. You might think your killer website is great and your website designer will tell you it’s great, of course. How will you know if the all important visitors to your website like it? What if they want to run as far away from it as possible because they think it stinks? How will you know if you don’t ask them?

Now we can assume you have corrected that last stupid mistake and put up a suggestion box on your contacts page and included a line in your emails, for instance:

“Any questions, please email me at…”

You are pleasantly surprised at the response. People are actually telling you how to make your business a success, by telling you what they want. Then you go ahead and do something else stupid.

Visitors are coming to your site, but even though they left you a comment to say how much they liked it, they never seem to come back. What is the stupid thing you haven’t done? You haven’t included an opt-in box so you don’t have any sign-ups. Why is that important to your success? You need people you can contact on a regular basis and tell them about this or that new promotion you are doing on your site. You just can’t email people if they haven’t opted to receive emails from you, because that is considered spam and spamming will get you closed down faster than you can say “I didn’t realise…” So put an opt-in box with an offer of something free to encourage people to sign-up and you will build that list over time and it will contribute enormously to the succe

professional web hosting company and email account. Then you do another stupid thing. You don’t ask your prospective customers for feedback about your website. You might think your killer website is great and your website designer will tell you it’s great, of course. How will you know if the all important visitors to your website like it? What if they want to run as far away from it as possible because they think it stinks? How will you know if you don’t ask them?

Now we can assume you have corrected that last stupid mistake and put up a suggestion box on your contacts page and included a line in your emails, for instance:

“Any questions, please email me at…”

You are pleasantly surprised at the response. People are actually telling you how to make your business a success, by telling you what they want. Then you go ahead and do something else stupid.

Visitors are coming to your site, but even though they left you a comment to say how much they liked it, they never seem to come back. What is the stupid thing you haven’t done? You haven’t included an opt-in box so you don’t have any sign-ups. Why is that important to your success? You need people you can contact on a regular basis and tell them about this or that new promotion you are doing on your site. You just can’t email people if they haven’t opted to receive emails from you, because that is considered spam and spamming will get you closed down faster than you can say “I didn’t realise…” So put an opt-in box with an offer of something free to encourage people to sign-up and you will build that list over time and it will contribute enormously to the succe

ggestion box on your contacts page and included a line in your emails, for instance:

“Any questions, please email me at…”

You are pleasantly surprised at the response. People are actually telling you how to make your business a success, by telling you what they want. Then you go ahead and do something else stupid.

Visitors are coming to your site, but even though they left you a comment to say how much they liked it, they never seem to come back. What is the stupid thing you haven’t done? You haven’t included an opt-in box so you don’t have any sign-ups. Why is that important to your success? You need people you can contact on a regular basis and tell them about this or that new promotion you are doing on your site. You just can’t email people if they haven’t opted to receive emails from you, because that is considered spam and spamming will get you closed down faster than you can say “I didn’t realise…” So put an opt-in box with an offer of something free to encourage people to sign-up and you will build that list over time and it will contribute enormously to the succe

don’t have any sign-ups. Why is that important to your success? You need people you can contact on a regular basis and tell them about this or that new promotion you are doing on your site. You just can’t email people if they haven’t opted to receive emails from you, because that is considered spam and spamming will get you closed down faster than you can say “I didn’t realise…” So put an opt-in box with an offer of something free to encourage people to sign-up and you will build that list over time and it will contribute enormously to the success of your business.

So there are some stupid things you can now avoid doing to save your business going down the tubes. By getting professional web hosting and email you are telling the world you are professional and mean business. By asking your customers what they want, they are telling you what to sell them and how. By creating your list, you are assuring the continued success of your business by having a growing army of potential customers who are interested in the products you have, because they have opted to be told about them by you. Not so stupid any more, eh?