What Type of Website to Start by Nelson Bates

ARTICLE 4: What Type of Website to Start
By Nelson Bates, Author Best Website: Simple Steps to Successful Websites
I want first to mention the structure of a successful website. I’ll define a successful website as the website that makes the most money, takes the least amount of time to run, and provides the most flexibility. The most successful website structure I have encountered is managed by a single owner who hires out some of the duties of his or her website business, like graphic design and database design, and then manages the Internet marketing campaign and any website updates alone.
There are certainly many ways to build a successful website. For instance, if you have the Internet marketing knowledge, and someone else has the website design knowledge, you can partner to build a great website. Of course, this means you lose some control, and you have to split your profits. I will show in Chapter 4 how to get all the work done by either doing it yourself or hiring it out.

Deciding what “type” of product to sell is pretty simple. You'll have the best opportunity of making the most money with a product to which you own the rights, whether it is a physical product, an information product, or a service.

If you have a product that can be delivered completely online, preferably without your involvement, this is probably your best bet at making a consistent and significant profit online.

I'd like to use BuySellWebsite.com as a great example of a service product. Among other things, BuySellWebsite.com sold classified ad listings to people wanting to sell their website businesses. The classified listings we sold were $99 and cost essentially nothing to provide. Whether we sold one or one thousand, it still cost the same small amount of time and money. Note: I sold BuySellWebsite.com in 2006.

The classified ad listing is a great example of a product that can be delivered online. If you have a product or service that is delivered online without your involvement, your profit margin will be much greater than with a traditional product. You'll see, later on, that you'll probably need this extra profit margin and any extra time to survive the startup process and pay for your marketing campaign.

By choosing a product that is delivered online, you are starting out on the right foot. I don't want to make it sound like you cannot succeed with a traditional physical product. I'm just saying that, in general, on online product is probably the most effective and profitable option.

A few more examples of products delivered online are e-books or membership sites where users pay a monthly fee to access information. Another example is Website Appraisals. This is a service that we sold on BuySellWebsite.com and the appraisals were then delivered through e-mail in an Adobe PDF document.

Please visit BestWebsite.com for step-by-step instructions to building profitable websites.