The SINGLE-MOST Important "Golden Rule" For Building Your Website On A "ROCK SOLID" Foundation...

In today's lesson, we're going to continue building our "virtual e-store" and focus on some basic design elements that will GUARANTEE we lock up an unfair advantage over any competition we might encounter in our niche'...

Just to recap a bit, in Lesson 2, we discussed the 3 Key ingredients necessary
to snatch up instant, highly responsive traffic to our website.

No... we didn't get into a specific traffic plan (and rest assured we will).  We simply began laying our foundation and we also prepared our "game plan".

Do you remember what the three key ingredients we discussed are?

1. An easily targeted "laser tight" market

2. Interesting content to write about in the marketplace

3. Products readily available to generate both front and backend sales

Bravo!

So now... Are you ready to jump into Lesson 3?

Great... Let's get to work!

Do you remember why it's imperative to our success that we begin building our site with a solid foundation?

Well, we learned that without a solid foundation our "business" won't stand a snowballs chance in hell of survival - especially long term.  So we need to begin construction on a rock solid foundation...

So what should our "rock solid foundation" consist of?

YES.... OUR CUSTOMERS!

Absolutely correct!

Never lose sight of the fact that our customers are the sole focus of our business.  More importantly, building our email list of customers is going to be our websites primary goal as we begin and continue to build upon our foundation.

Not sales!

Not fancy web design awards!

Not putting up links to dozens of affiliate programs!

Not adding thousands of products that will make us a ton of money!

Nope! None of the above!  Our Primary #1 Goal as we build our website is:

BUILDING AND CONTINUALLY ADDING TO OUR CUSTOMER LIST?

Simple!

Each and every design element we implement into our website will be focused around building our list.

I know this might seem a bit confusing to you at first, but for now you'll just have to trust
me! ;-)

Don't stress...

We're going to discuss the exact methods involved in bringing traffic to our site as well as "selling our stuff" via drop ship suppliers to make a profit in later lessons, but for now we're primarily focusing on designing our site around our first "Golden Rule" - building our list.

Got it? ... Great!

Very quickly... Let me offer you a real world example just to illustrate why our list is so important and needs to be our primary focus...

"I just love hammering an important point home using examples - can't you tell?"

Please Note:  The context below was taken directly from the original course which was only available by signing up and providing your email address.  I wanted to include this portion of text in this "ONLINE VERSION" of the course as well just for demonstration purposes.  Trust me -- YOUR LIST IS EXTREMELY VALUABLE SO START BUILDING!   Think about this... How are you reading this e-course?  How did you even know it existed? Yup!  You guessed it!  You signed up for it through one of my lists... And guess what?...  Now you're one of my customers for life (unless you decide to unsubscribe - but you'd be crazy to do that ;-) Right? So whether you realize it or not, now you're silently working with me to strengthen my 'foundation'.  The more customers I have in my list, the more opportunities I have, hence the stronger my foundation and ultimately my business becomes! In return... I'm now committed to you and to prove that to you I will show you I how much I really do care about you -  how much I really do want to help you succeed online. Hopefully, you'll then begin to realize that I'm not just in this for me! I will try to enrich your life in some way!  I will entertain you!  I will provide you with a ton of value in return for your part in helping me strengthen, build and expand my foundation. Best of all, I now have a much better opportunity to build a relationship with you.  I get to show you that I really do know what I'm talking about when it comes to building a profitable website and building a successful online business. I can't do that on my website alone.  But being able to keep in touch with you via email... Now that's something invaluable! My goal is that you will come to trust me and "VALUE" what I have to offer you. If I reach my goal... You might even consider buying one of my products at some point in the future. But guess what?...  That's not really my focus! My only focus right now is offering you something valuable.  My focus is building trust with you.  My focus is showing you my appreciation. You placed your trust in me by providing me with something very valuable - your email address - so now it's my turn to offer you something of value in return. Just imagine if I didn't focus on offering you something of value - FREE - in return for your email address... Chances are you visited my website a few days ago - maybe read over my website in detail - maybe not.  Perhaps you were in a hurry or suddenly got distracted and left my site without another thought about how I might be able to help you in your business ventures. But at least you took the time to sign up on my list... If I hadn't designed my whole website around building my list I'd have lost you as a customer -- forever.  Chances are you would have left my website and forgot that I even existed by now. But that didn't happen... did it? Why? Because I'm smarter than that.  I valued your visit to my website MUCH MUCH more than that. So what did I do to prove that? I offered you something of value and interest - FREE. I already knew what you'd be interested in because I've tightly defined and studied my targeted niche'! You're interested in a way to make some money online! You're looking into locating drop shipping suppliers to add more products to your existing product line. You might even already sell on eBay so your looking to acquire some new products for your auction sales. Perhaps you just looking for help in achieving your goal of making more money online. It might even be a combination of all of the above... But I understand your needs because I know my target market.  Therefore, I know what you're looking for... ... Information and tools to help you expand and strengthen your knowledge about making money online - more specifically, drop shipping.  That's what you're interested in! But if I don't deliver on my promise of providing that to you, I've wasted your time and mine.  So I can't - I won't let that happen! I'll go out of my way if necessary to deliver on my promise. Why is that so important to me? If I deliver what I promised, then, and only then, will I have a satisfied customer who will look forward to hearing from me via email in the future. And in the future... I may have a new product I'm offering... It could be a new service I'm offering... It could be an affiliate endorsement... The bottom line... If I continue to deliver value to you as one of my customers, YOU will continue to remain a customer for life and look forward to my emails! That, in turn, may convert to a sale!  And that's why I'm in business and that's why you're in business as well!  To make sales and make a living... right? If you liked what I offered in the past, maybe... just maybe... you'll like something I'm SELLING in the future. So now do you understand the importance of adding customers to your list? I think you get the idea... Before I finish up with this example, I'd like to briefly explain to you several tools I incorporate into almost every website I own to focus on adding to my list of subscribers. I usually have a subscription box offering a free subscription to my newsletter right at the top... I have a pop up window offering my free training via my 12 week drop shipping e-course... I have a form directly within my webpage that offers my free e-course or a special report to download focused on the niche of the site... I have an exit pop up that offers something of value for subscribing to my newsletter... I have a link in the "link Bar" offering my newsletter and/or e-course That's five ways I'm offering an opportunity to sign up to one of my lists on the homepage alone! Not one simple link that says "join my newsletter".  WHO CARES! Plus... the offers for my free e-courses and newsletters aren't at all boring!  Heck, they're clever enough that you signed up immediately... right? My point here is this... Your primary focus when designing your website will be to get as many of your visitors to sign up for your list!  If 1 out of 10 folks are signing up, improve your offer to make it 2 out of 10. Once 2 out of 10 are signing up for your list, improve your offer to get 3 out of 10! Once you're getting 3 out of 10, YUP! Improve it!  And then keep improving it until you've sucked in as many subscribers as you possibly can!  And then improve it some more. That's called building a solid foundation... and a solid foundation is the difference between those businesses that succeed year-after-year and those that don't!

So let's jump right into our "virtual e-store" and see what we can do to focus our website around building our "FOUNDATION".  You've seen from the examples above how I've done that with my websites.

Now, we just need to transfer that knowledge into an e-commerce website -- and it'll be simple as you'll soon see.

Remember the theme of our website - the targeted niche' we're going to focus upon?  We decided on a cooking theme with a little extra spice to tightly define our laser targeted niche'.

Now, let's think back to what we discussed in lesson 2 and take a look at our competition.  They simply designed an e-store with everything imaginable "FOR SALE" on their site.

Just picture the scene...

"We Stock Over 5000 Products For You
To Choose From!"
 

Hmmm.. Nice logo.  Professional looking site... Lots of products...

Are ya' scared of em?  Shame on you!

Do you think they'll make a lot of sales from eager to buy customers (if they could even get customers to visit their site with all the competition out there!)

NOPE!  Guess what?  WHO CARES!  There are hundreds of other cookware sites on the net!  What do they have to offer me - the customer - that others don't?  I've seen all this before a hundred times!

• Better prices? - Let me check!  I'll leave now and do some comparison shopping online!  CLICK... You've just lost a customer!

• Free Shipping? - Ya Right! You probably jacked up prices so you can make me think I'm getting a great deal!  I'm not stupid!  Goodbye!

• Sales and specials? - So does you're competition!  Everybody's got a sale going on!  This is the Internet for goodness sake!

• The best service?  You better give me good service or I'll tell everybody not to EVER buy from you!  Word travels fast online!

• Over 5000 products?  That really doesn't impress me!  Wal-Mart has over 5 MILLION!  Maybe I should go there to buy something!  CLICK...BYE!

So tell me Mr. or Mrs. website owner... Why should I buy from you?  What's in it for me?  And by the way - the clock's ticking!  You got 10 seconds or I'm leaving!  I'm very busy!

Sound crazy?  Well.. It isn't!

That's exactly what customers are thinking as soon as they arrive at any website.

NOT FOR A MINUTE will they be thinking to themselves...

• WOW! What a nice logo - I think I'll buy something!

• Look at that!  FREE SHIPPING!  These folks are really nice to offer that!

• Great Service!  Whew!  I always wanted great service!

• Look at all the products!  Wow  I'm impressed!

• Yikes!  Look at all the sales!  I'm buying something right now before the sale ends!

Forget about it!

They're all in a hurry and want to know immediately if this website has something VALUABLE to offer them that others DO NOT!  If not... SEEEE YAAAA!

Customers don't care about you or your business!  Sad but true...Get over it!

"What's in it for me?"  That's their only concern!

So that means you only have a few seconds to grab their attention and show them exactly "WHAT'S IN IT FOR THEM.

You want to hit them over the head with a baseball bat and stop them in their tracks by presenting them with a HUGE benefit they get IMMEDIATELY for visiting your website.  That's your primary job as an astute website owner!

Know your visitors and give them something they want... FREE!

You've already spent a lot of time "rolling around in the mud" and getting all dirty just to get that ONE visitor to your website...

This isn't the time to waste all your hard work and efforts on a fancy logo or "SALE! SALE! SALE! flashing all over your site!

Who Cares!

The competition is advertising SALE! SALE! SALE! all over their site!

You're going to do something very different!

Why?

Because together you and I are much smarter than that!  We know we've only got a few seconds to grab this customers attention and offer him or her something of real value - FREE - just for stopping by.  Something nobody else is offering...

And guess what?  If they take us up on our FREE offer, we've just strengthened and expanded our foundation!  We've got their email address in our customer list.  We can now follow up with them from time to time and clearly demonstrate to them EXACTLY how and why they should do business with us.  We're going to create a relationship with our new customer and present them with offers they simply can't refuse.  We'll soon know so much about them that we'll hold an unfair advantage over our competition.

Exciting... isn't it?

Okay, so now that we know what 99% of our competitors are doing - SALE! SALE! SALE!... LOWEST PRICES AVAILABLE!  FREE SHIPPING!  BEST ON THE NET!  LARGEST SELECTION!  BLAH... BLAH... BLAH...

We know what we're NOT going to do...

So lets take a look at our homepage.  Remember... our only focus is strengthening our foundation.... Right?
 

Click on the image above or Click Here to visit our homepage LIVE!

SIDEBAR:

Let me take a moment right now and offer my quick "two cents" before we proceed further into our lessons.  I chose the theme "cooking" for our website and tightened it up to bring us to our targeted niche' Candle-Lite Cooking.

I could have chosen a hundred (maybe even a thousand) different themes but I chose this theme purposely - for a few good reasons:

1. First, I hate boring stuff!  Plain and simple!  I want you to enjoy this course and also find it entertaining!  Yes, Candle-Lite Cooking might be a stretch of the imagination but I intended it to be that way!  I want to be sure to get my point across to you that it doesn't matter what you're selling online - the basic ingredients of your website will always remain the same.
    

2. I wanted to push the limits of your creative imagination so you can clearly see that it doesn't matter what "STUFF" you'll be selling online - the point remains that you need to offer some valuable and interesting information to your website visitors at first contact.
    

3. I also wanted to be able to demonstrate (on an extreme scale) just how easy it can actually be to take any topic - even a topic as general as cooking - and spice it up to create interest in that topic.

I think I've accomplished all those and then some!

So, as you watch and learn and we continue to build our website, keep all these points at the forefront of your mind.

• BE CREATIVE!

• BE DIFFERENT!

• STAND OUT FROM THE COMPETITION!

• LET YOUR ORIGINALITY SHINE THROUGH!

Your customers will appreciate you so much more for it...

So there you have it!  Our homepage is in it's first draft.

I can hear the applause now!

Yes, we may add a few tidbits here and there.  We might even cut out a link or two.  Perhaps we'll think of something "Phenomenal" before we launch the actual site and add it in later, but at least we've got a solid game plan and our first draft completed.

Most important of all:

• We're original and different

• We're offering something extremely valuable just for stopping by...

• We're focused only on strengthening our foundation...

Rest assured... we're in much better shape already than any of our competition!

Well, that's going to do it for lesson 3.

In upcoming lessons, we are going to cover a few other key elements we need to incorporate (GOLDMINES), how and where we'll define our links from our homepage, and we'll talk about several "Secret Weapons" that will surely guarantee we get the highest response to our newsletter offer.

So, until next time..

P.S. I'd Love to hear your comments or any feedback you might have about this course.  Please send your comments to Classroom Support
 
 
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