Not Making Money? Don’t Blame Me!
I got a message from one of my subscribers yesterday complaining,
“I have NOT made a penny from all your programs I joined.”
Now, I figured I knew the reason why he wasn’t making any money. I get this complaint all the time and it’s generally because the person’s website sucks. Sometimes it’s a full page, top-to-bottom, of blinking banner ads (epileptics beware!). Other times it’s a site that has a bunch of links to sell products but no actual content, and certainly not any content that’s been updated since the page was uploaded.
But, I thought I’d give this guy the benefit of the doubt and I asked him to send me the URL’s where he was using my tools so I could give him some pointers.
He sent me two addresses. And, sure enough, they are two, no-content, suck-y sites. (Not only that, but he wasn’t using any of my products on his sites!)
One site is a generic, pre-built, product mall. It looks like he uploaded the templates right out of the box without any customization. The other is a pre-built, “viral” recruiting page for a network marketing business. I have nothing against network marketing, but this page has such convoluted instructions for new members, it’s not surprising that no one is signing up for it.
If you want to do business on the web, you have to provide value to your visitors, and you have to build a relationship with them. This guy isn’t doing either of those things. There’s nothing on either of his sites that people can’t find in a gazillion other places on the web. As Mark Hendricks always says, a computer never buys anything from you. Only people do. And people won’t buy from you until they know you, like you and trust you.
Throwing a pre-built, no-content, suck-y site up on the web provides absolutely no value to your visitors and does absolutely nothing to help people know, like and trust you. It actually does the opposite. If anyone ever does stumble across a site like this, they’ll probably conclude that the owner is an amateur at best or a sleaze bag at worst.
So how ’bout it? Does your site suck? Is it well laid out so visitors don’t have to hunt for the navigation links? Do you have a search feature so people can find what they’re looking for? Do you update the site at least once a week? Do you have a way for visitors to subscribe to your newsletter and recommend your site to their friends? No? Then I bet you’re not making any money, are you?
Until next time, serve your customers (visitors) and prosper!
- Daniel Joseph Moran
