Build the Web Site, Then The Product!
I’ve seen countless people spend months and even years developing their amazing product only to put it on their shiny new web site and sell zero products. Why? Because they don’t understand that you need a market for your product – before you can sell anything. Building a successful web site is actually more important than the product you are selling online.
In pre-internet days, we were all told to build an extensive business plan, develop a great product or service and then start our business and watch the dollars roll in. I know, as I grew up in these times and received my MBA shortly before the internet exploded. However, I believe the internet has turned conventional wisdom on its head.
The best way to succeed in business today is to build the web site first, then the product or service. Sound crazy? What if I told you that over 90% of purchase decisions start on the web. The yellow pages are dead – if people want to buy something they turn to the internet 90% of the time, and the other 10% of the time they’re getting advice from friends.
Why would you do build a web site first? Well the truth is that today it takes many months in most niches to build sufficient traffic for a brand new site starting from scratch. It is hard to reach the tipping point – usually around 500 subscribers, where the site starts to take off and build momentum.
Building a web site first has a lot of advantages:
* Not every web site catches on – in fact billions have almost zero traffic. Building the web site first lets you experiment with developing your market niche and find out if it will work.
* Trying to sell something to your new audience too soon can turn them off.
* You can develop your product or service while you are building your web site following.
* You’ll learn a tremendous amount about what it takes to build an online business by simply creating your site and starting to build content for it.
* Once you have an online following for your site, you can actually have your customers tell you what they would like to see from your business. Give them what they want!
* Building a web site is inexpensive – a web hosting account starts at only a few dollars per month, and some sites will even host your site for free.
So before you go off and develop and advertise your amazing new product, consider launching the your web site – and see if it will fly!