Making Money With Your PHPNuke Web Site - Introduction

By–James R. Sanders
Bio–whiteknight0571
Homepage–Sanders Consultation Group Plus

In the almost two years I've roamed around the PHPNuke community, there seems to be one big question on every nuked site owner's mind; how do I make money with my web site. It's not surprising to say that there really isn't much information specifically slanted towards PHPNuke when it comes to moneymaking how to's, but after this series, maybe I can convince Raven to help with a module or something. This series will span quite a few weeks, and we designed it to walk you through the process from beginning to end. We won't center much on PHPNuke installation because there are already modules and information that addresses that, instead we will go through the steps from choosing a domain name through search engine optimization, and then on to getting to know your customers and choosing the right things to sell or promote on your PHPNuke web site.

What some make look simple is really a rather involved process. But failing to plan means planning to fail, and without these planning stages, and the eventual work you will need to do, there is no way of helping ensure that income you are looking for. It becomes as shooting darts at a dartboard while blindfolded. Sure, you may hit the board, but your chances of hitting the bull's eye are quite limited. This article series will make you an experienced blind folded dart thrower, one who has taken the time to learn to throw darts while blind folded and still hit the mark. For most of you, you've never ran a web site that actually brought in an income, so you have no idea what to do. That is understandable. Some of you may have other web sites that draw in an income, but are having problems doing the same with a nuked site. That too is understandable because of the way that search engines deal with dynamically generated web sites. No matter who you are, as long as you are looking for ways to generate or improve the income of a PHPNuke site, then these articles will help you accomplish your goals. You may be asking just what this series is going to cover.

We'll start from the beginning, and that is choosing a domain name, finding a place to host your site, and different things you need to keep in mind about web site operation and costs. We'll look at hosting types, the domain registration process, bandwidth, server space, advertisement, and time costs. We'll look at the SEO advantages with domain names, choosing the best one, and how to format it for the best results. We'll look at the SEO advantages and disadvantages between paid and free hosting accounts. We'll look at globalization vs. localization in whom our potential customers are and how we intend to serve them. We'll learn how to make web site goals so that we know where we want our web site to go, which will give us clues as to how we intend to get there. We'll address hobby sites, self-employment sites, selling goods and merchandise sites, and membership sites. We'll learn to define topics by visitor types and interests and learn how to use modules to address this task. We'll learn about meta tag creation and maximizing our words for the best results with the search engines that still use them, or for when search engines might start using them again. We'll learn about a customer centered site design process and how to create a web site the customer wants and will use simply because of ease of navigation. We'll even jump into web site themes, choosing text, psychological affects of colors, and cultural considerations.

I'm sure that most of you realize that these things are mostly web site design and startup tasks. That's where we have to start, because trying to ensure an income with any web site must start at the beginning. However, merely following all of these steps will not ensure an income for your web site. There is much more that comes after. We will address these areas too. Through following those first tasks related to design, we build a beautiful SEO optimized site that is easy for our visitors to find what they want. We provide them with text that is easy to read and colors that are easy on the eyes. Our site is set up in a way that encourages the natural flow the human eye follows when reading, and have placed things strategically to take advantage of that movement. All of those steps may get our site noticed, or might get it ranked in the search engines, but that's about it. Although it is part of the process, we still won't be making many sales or realizing the income potential we established the site to achieve. Through those steps, we accomplish groundbreaking steps to ensure a solid foundation to build our web site and business on, nothing more. From there we will build. How do we build you might ask.

We build the same way that any brick and mortar company would build, but we do it in a different manner. Every good company knows their customers. We will learn how to use traffic logs, surveys, and polls as a means to get to know our customers. Once we know them, we will learn ways to find out what they want, their needs and desires, so that we might be able to offer them solutions to those problems. When you break it down to the most simplistic terms, sales generation results from finding unmet needs and desires and then finding ways to help people solve them. My favorite way to illustrate this concept is the man who walks into the local hardware store and buys a hammer [sorry ladies :o)]. His need was not a hammer, but a hole in his wall. The hammer provided the means for him to do it. We will learn such things to identify what our visitors want or need so we can find ways to serve those wants and needs, which will generate sales and give us the income we need. Do you see how that chain works? We have a need and our customers have needs. By helping them to fulfill their needs, we fulfill our own needs. Providing the things our visitors want and need is not the end of the process.

We'll learn how to address trust issues that make our visitors confident enough to make purchases. We'll learn the mechanics of buying, and the mental process involved with a sale. We'll learn to do competition research to keep us credible, and apply that research to pricing strategies. We'll learn about perception, and how much of sales really is around 90% above the neck related. In ways, you could view this as a short lesson in psychology slanted towards thoughts and how people make purchases. Understanding this process helps us to meet requirements needed for visitors to make their purchases from us. This is a tool that the big companies like Del, Wal-Mart, Ford, and many others use. Why shouldn't you? You might think that we are done now, but that's still not it.

Once we've learned how to maximize our web sites to get the best return, know our visitors, and know what needs or desires they have, we'll still need to generate visitors. We'll look at the different ways to do this, and other tools to keep our web site in the potential customer's mind. We'll address linking strategies, PPC campaigns, newsletters, article writing, and the more traditional brick and mortar methods of promotion. Although we are web based, we can still benefit from the same marketing tactics used by brick and mortar establishments. We will attempt to round out an arsenal of promotion tools to help you achieve your income goals, and we'll provide all this information including low cost, and no cost, means of doing it. Do you think that we're done now? We're not done quite yet.

Just as web site design is continual and perpetual, adding new content or updating web site information, so is marketing. You can't do it once, or do it today, and not do it again later. Times are always changing, and so are the people we depend on for sales. We'll include a “Beyond Success “part that addresses this issue. Do you think that the greats became, or stayed, great simply by doing stuff once and then never doing it again? It requires ongoing customer knowledge. We'll look at ways to keep your fingers on the visitor pulse so you can adapt to change. We'll learn how to use traffic logs, questionnaires, polls, and surveys as a means to keep in touch with our customers, and continue to know their needs and desires as they age and change. We'll learn how to use this information to identify new generations and their needs as well as the aging generations and the changes they face throughout life. Being successful today selling something does not mean that you will be successful selling the same thing tomorrow. People and life change, and so does culture and needs.

In retrospect, we might even include a part on strategic alliances and joint ventures. Once you become successful, you might want to expand to broader horizons. We'll learn how to expand product/service lines, use strategic alliances, or joint ventures as a means to leverage your income goals. These tactics offer additional products or services without the need of additional costs in providing them, or a way to share the costs in providing them. They are ways to maximize income without expending profits to maximize that income, or ways to minimize profit expenditures to generate maximum income. Many web sites fail because of a lack in owner interest and owner boredom. These are tactics to help keep you engaged and interested in your web site venture. We'll also learn about self-employment, the traits and requirements needed to make it successful. If you can't motivate yourself, then self-employment is not a venture for you to get into. We'll learn what's required in self-employment, and who is best suited to such endeavors.

Once you have all of this information under your belt, you should be able to build a successful PHPNuke web site that achieves your income dreams. Understand that it is hard work, takes determination, and mountains of self-motivation. Realize that you are not going to put up a web site and then be a millionaire tomorrow. Keep in mind that most new businesses fail within the first three years of operations. Many do not survive beyond two years. Follow the steps until your web site becomes a success, and then follow the ongoing steps “Beyond Success” to maintain your sales, and you will achieve your income goals. It's going to be a lot of work, but the outcome is well worth it.

Article Idea Credits: Raven
Hitwalker
Osc2nuke Dev Team
Sudirman Agriawan

By James R. Sanders aka whiteknight0571


Sanders Consultation Group Plus

Copyright © by Ravens PHP Scripts And Web Hosting All Right Reserved.

Published on: 2005-04-27 (7542 reads)