The Ultimate Guide to Building a Profitable Website in 2020.
This article will provide you with three super effective ways to ensure you end up with a highly profitable website.
You want to make the most out of your website from a financial perspective. It’s your shop-window to the world, and if you’ve invested in it, you expect the best possible return.
But what are the most successful methods to use to maximise your online profits?
You could use banner adverts, explore affiliate marketing or even publish sponsored posts to generate income. However, if you’re just getting started, these might not be the most obvious choices as you might not have enough traffic to make them worthwhile.
1. Useful Tips to Sell Your Products and Services
This is top of the list for most entrepreneurs when it comes to making a profit from their website. It’s possibly the best place to start, and leads to many other opportunities as your website grows.
If you manufacturer a product or sell a service and you want the world to know about it, your own website is the place to start.
You’ve just seen been through a major pandemic. Businesses have suffered and some have even shut down. I hope you have learnt the importance of having your products and services in an online shop?
Websites provide that extra financial security, with remote opportunity and you should see your website as your sales team that never sleeps!
There’s a lot to bear in mind when you are selling online. Let’s take a look at some things you are going to need to prepare for…if you do these things properly, you are guaranteed to generate a solid income from your website.
Take a look at the image below. Your website is where you will be increasing your customers interest and desire before they take action.
Sell Products Beautifully.
If you are going to use your website as a shop (e-commerce site), you may have some great products, but you gotta make sure they get found!
You have to be intentional about getting found. One of the most effective ways to do this is to optimise your website for search engines (Search Engine Optimisation)
Before spending any money on an SEO campaign, you want to start off with some good practices yourself. Start by creating some highly effective descriptions for each item you’re selling. Clear, dynamic descriptions that inform and engage each visitor are key to converting that visitor into a customer.
High definition images that very clearly show your product in a well-lit and contextual environment will pay dividends too. Images are more important than ever for e-commerce websites. They can literally be make or break, between making those sales and making your website profitable or not.
You don’t need to pay a professional photographer. I’m not suggesting that. If you’re on a tight budget, you can set up a studio in your home and use your camera on your phone.
There are some great studio setups available, for prices that don’t break the bank either. It’s a good idea to budget for this before you upload any product images to your website. If you upload high res images, your website is going to be more appealing to your customers, which inevitably results in more sales.
We recently gave a local e-commerce gift shop website a makeover, by photographing all their products again and uploading to their online shop. The website was transformed!
Design Your Website for Conversion.
If you’re selling a service like a consultancy service or a cleaning business or more of an experience like a hotel or spa provides, then testimonials and customer reviews are key.
Take the time to ensure that your homepage and your subsequent pages clearly identify the benefits of purchasing your service. And make it easy for visitors to click on the right links. You can do this by limiting the amount of interactivity or links so that those leading to sales clearly stand out. Don’t underestimate the power of good strong CTA’s!
It might suit your brand to review other products that are associated with your particular market. It’s common to generate additional income this way through sponsorship deals. You could use this method to link your website to YouTube if you have the facility and skills to make video reviews.
2. Focus on Scalability and Recurring Income
Use your website to sell digital products repeatedly. Focus on products that are scalable.
Unlike a product or a service mentioned in the last heading, this allows you to maximise your potential income with minimum amount of effort and time spent…sounds great right?
With a professionally designed website, you can successfully sustain a fully scalable business model, there are so many ways to go about this.
If you want to create your own scalable products, you could provide potential customers with a choice of digital products such as courses, eBooks, printable PDF’s, graphics, templates, tutorials and so much more!
You can either host these products on your site, or use your website as part of a funnel to funnel your leads towards the site where you are hosting/selling your e-products. If you want to know more about this, you can check out Russell Brunson, who has created a £300,000,000 dollar business by teaching people how to do this.
Focus on Recurring Income.
Even if your primary business involves selling physical products, there are a number of ways in which additional recurring income can be generated through associated digital products or extra services. You could develop additional product guides or artwork to enhance your range, for example. If you provide an online service then you can upsell with a service that supports your main service, like a maintenance plan.
You’ve got the potential to make the most money on a per-sale basis this way, because you’re able to sell directly to your customers and upsell and cross-sell.
You’ll need to ensure that any digital products you create are well-designed and protected, and that they represent value for money. You’ll also need to make sure your site is secure, updated and designed to manage these kinds of sales.
3. Provide Value, Build Trust, Generate Life-Long Customers.
I’ve saved the best till last, if you get this right you will have an extremely profitable website.
You almost certainly have a high level of skill, knowledge and experience in your field. You may not be aware…but you do! Without a doubt, the most effective way to generate income on your website is to share your knowledge.
This builds authority for your brand, increases site traffic and if you do this right then people will not only be your customers, but over time will be your fans and follow your brand. You have to be providing value though, everyone wants something for free…capitalise on this!
Create Valuable Content. Publish it on a Blog.
So, you’re probably wondering how a website is going to help you do that? I get it. Well…your website is the place to build that authority. Before people can trust you with their hard earned cash, they need to know you’re the one to invest in!
Stand out from the crowd, by really utilising your website to build authority for your brand. Teach others and empower them, with any knowledge you have in your field. Create strong business relationships by helping others succeed. Focus on helping and giving and don’t think about what you’ll get in return.
Set up a blog on your website and commit to putting out a certain amount of content per week for free. Give, give and give some more! It’s all about giving before receiving. You want to build fans, that love your content and keep coming back! Share your website links to your blog all over social media.
If you need some tips on setting up a blog check out this video by Neil Patel, the king of blogging!
Do What Works. Analyse Proven Results
So many of the top influencers on the web today, in all different niches are using this technique. They know how to make their website profitable. A perfect example of this is Neil Patel. Neil focuses on building fans. He provides SO much free content, and has positioned himself as the internets guide in online marketing, using his website to publish all his amazing content.
No matter what industry you are working in, sharing your knowledge through your website and getting people to know, like and trust you by publishing content.
I’ve got a challenge for you:
1. Pick any industry/niche
2. Google the most successful person in that industry in 2020.
3. Has this not been exactly what they have done, and can you see how their website has been their number one tool to do this?
There’s the value right there! Without a website would they be where they are today?
Neil Patel has 10,000 blog posts to date. He is reaching millions of people daily using his highly profitable website.
Make Profit from Selling Courses on Your Website
Okay, you’ve used your website to build authority in your chosen niche. You’ve been putting out consistent content and organically building a consistent following….
Now it’s time to create courses and share your wealth of knowledge, making a good solid income because people know it’s worth buying from you.
Your website must be the place where people see you are friendly, honest and genuine. Show you want to help others succeed. People are always keen to learn from an expert that cares. Make sure your website looks exceptional and is full of valuable content.
Start with the topics you feel most confident about and that you have the most experience in.
The recent boom in the popularity of online courses is definitely a legitimate way to increase your income.
Don’t miss out on this great opportunity. Learning online is shaping the education of today. Business owners, entrepreneurs and teams of companies are all buying online courses. It’s a great way to learn specific skills and increase knowledge in areas of their career that will bring in more revenue.
I myself, am a huge proponent of online courses (not £10 courses from Udemy!) but courses that are from tutors with proven success.
Websites that Provide Extra Value Through Membership
Josh Hall is a great example of this. Check out Joshhall.co for a great example of a profitable e-learning website. He’s grown his business to six figures organically and has a great community of people he has empowered around him. Josh is now creating a membership for his community to share their skills and network with each other, and is making a good profit while doing so!
WordPress websites are great for integrating with LMS like LearnDash for example. These transform your website into a hub for learning! At Rees-Evans Design we solely use WordPress and love the way it integrates with so many useful tools. Host your course materials, such as videos, presentations or other documents and constantly innovate to provide a great user experience for your students.
There are plenty of options out there for where you host your course material. Be sure to do your research before you jump at the cheapest available option. I have heard of some terrible cases where people haven’t wanted to invest in a website and do this properly.
The result was bad. They hosted their content on a shared server like Udemy, and lost all their course material and never got it back…ouch!
Key Lesson Here: Invest in a website. Host all your content on an open source platform like WordPress. You then own the content and have the guarantee that you won’t lose it! If your worried about the upfront cost…ask a web designer for a payment plan. If you get it done properly, you will get your money back over and over and should see a return in the first 6 months at worst!
Conclusion
The options for generating an income from your website are limitless. One thing you can see is how profitable your website can be if used properly.
It’s not a case of whether or not you can afford one…It’s a case of you can’t afford to NOT have one.
In most cases, it takes time to make your website profitable. You will need some expertise to accomplish it, and if you are willing to invest then it will come much quicker. Things will be more professional and your website will run more efficiently achieving your goals.
It’s worth noting that your site needs to be well-designed, regularly updated and fully functioning. That way it will reassure your visitors and be capable of securely offering your customers the services they want, time and again.
Your website is a key member of your team and a great asset to your business, so don’t skimp on it.
As we move into the new year, start utilising the opportunities that websites bring. I hope some of these tips will help you towards making a good income. Be strategical, use your website carefully and monitor results!
