Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. -- Napoleon Hill

To build a web site is not as difficult as it used to and seems to be. There are a lot of web building tools in the market, like those WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) web templates, even a child can use them to build a pretty good site.

Nonetheless, if you want to build a site that can sell your product, you still need to know what site building is all about. Not the technical part of it, not the HTML, but the dos and don'ts and tricks that may attract traffic to your site. Site building is interesting. To build a site that sells is even more interesting and challenging!

 

1.	I know what theme my site should be (to sell a particular product), but what should I put on my site?
	Take a look at your product, ask yourself...what's in it that you want to buy and use it? Will it provide a lot of essential benefits if having it? Jot all benefits down, then start writing your homepage. Homepage is the default page of your site. It's your site-opener. It's usually named index.html or default.html after your domain name. Eg. http://www.domain.com/index.html The # 1 objective of your homepage should be...improve the life of your customers!
2.	Besides benefits, what else should I put on my homepage?
	Homepage should have an impact to trigger visitors' curiosity and interest to learn more about your site. Visitors are at your homepage to ask "What's in it for me?", "What benefits would I get?", "How could I get advantage out of this offer?", etc. Use the "pain" and "gain" approach to create your homepage. Assume you understand your visitors' problems and you are there to provide solutions for their pain. Convince them there's a way to cure it. Provide benefits that you can offer to ease their pain. They know they'll be better after using your product or trying out your suggestion, etc. Stress benefits and benefits only on your homepage. Think of the homepage that visitors see as your only chance to keep them. Do not sell your product directly...but presell it instead...
3.	What is preselling? What is the difference between selling and preselling?
	Selling is to tell your visitors to buy your product. Whereas preselling is to stress benefits of your product to your visitors and convince them to click the buy button... For more information on preselling and how to write web pages that presell effectively, check out this e-book... "Make Your Content PREsell!" It shows you how to write to communicate and how to honestly convince people to trust and like you. In other words, it helps you acquire the skills to write to presell!
4.	Now that I have my contents to write, what area should I pay attention to when I put them on my web pages?
	1. Use simple language, spell checked and grammar proof. 2. Do not clutter the page. 3. Choose the right fonts. 4. Never use capital letters for all words..."THIS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING" and it's hard to read. 5. Use headline to summarize briefly and clearly what's on your page. Use smaller font size for sub-headlines. 6. Highlight important points (bold or in different color). 7. Do not make your list in one long sentence...Use bulleted or numbered lists instead. 8. Although preference of colors is subjective, dark words on light background are normally easier to read than light words on dark background...use your sense of colors wisely. 9. Make your lines of sentences within the size of the width of the monitors. No one will like to read sentences partly covered to the right side of the monitor and need to scroll to the right to read the hidden words. There are a lot more to consider when writing your contents, but the basic ones should be done right.
5.	How do I get more visitors to my site?
	Look at your site from the users perspective. Why are they there? What makes sense for them to see and to visit? Make your site clear and simple to understand and navigate. Don't just give visitors a "headline", tell them why your site is different, or why they should stay and look around. "MyTipZone Site Building Tips" does not tell a visitor to stay, but "MyTipZone Site Building Tips: Best on the Web!" along with "Step-by-step guide on successful site building for your online business" tells them that this might be worth checking out.
6.	"Where am I? Where should I go next? Oh dear, I'm lost! I'd better get out of here..."
	Never let your visitors feel lost while visiting your site. Guide them through and tell them exactly where they are and how to get around your site. Navigation Make your navigation structure simple, clear to use and consistent throughout all pages. If your visitors need to find way to move on, they'll leave your site. Give them clear directions and that's what they want. Have a clean, obvious and consistent navigation bar on top or at the left side of all pages. Points of Reference Let your visitors know where they are and help them move on. The following points of reference must be consistent throughout your site: company name, logo, background, font, size and alignment of text and overall look and feel. Sitemap Provide sitemap for visitors to easily jump straight to the page that they're looking for. However, don't make this your homepage.
7.	I turned off graphic-loading to make web pages loaded faster. But the graphics in the page appear as little "broken frame". How would my visitors know what the graphics are about?
	Use "ALT" tag to include the text description for the graphics. This is especially useful if the graphic is used as link. It allows visitors to understand the destination for the link. Although graphic-loading is turned off and visitors don't see the graphic, they can still read the text.
8.	If my visitors have the graphic-loading turned on, how can I assure that my page is downloaded fast enough before he clicks away?
	Actually, graphics should not always be blamed for turning visitors away...we should...   1. catch their attention right away with useful information the moment they reach your page. 2. use only small-size graphics with 'ALT' tag to describe the graphic. Text is loaded faster than graphics and that your visitors could anticipate what graphic is being loaded. 3. keep graphics to minimum. 4. include 'WIDTH' and 'HEIGHT' attributes for all tables and graphics. 5. no fancy multimedia effects. It usually prompts visitors to install plug-ins before the page can be loaded.
9.	I want to provide a Table of Contents (TOC) at the left side on every page of my site. Should I use frames? What's the best method?
	The answer is NO. Older version of browsers don't support frames. The URL on the location bar is the same no matter which page the visitors is browsing. When they refresh a particular page, the refreshed page is always the homepage. When frames are used, there are usually scrollbars on the right or at the bottom of the contents page (besides the default window scrollbar when a page is longer than the screen size). Your page may have multiple scrollbars and this makes navigations difficult, and if you don't like this yourself, avoid using it. Moreover, it takes longer to load the page because each frame is a new whole page. Instead, use 2-column Table with left column set to 70 - 100 pixels in width as TOC, and right column as the contents.
10.	My site looks good in one particular browser but awfully ugly in another. Why is that so? How do I overcome this?
	Netscape and Internet Explorer (or any other browser) may interpret the same page differently. Even for the same browser type, different version may behave differently. Do some research on commonly-use browsers, operating systems, screen size, resolutions and connection speed. Example...  1. Browser types - netscape 7.0 or IE 5.0 2. Operation system - windows 98, windows 2000 3. Screen size - 15" or smaller monitor 4. Screen resolution - 800 * 600 pixels, 256 color quality 5. Connection speed - 28.8 connection, etc Once you have identified the specifications used by the majority group of visitors, design your web pages to cater for this group of visitors. Test out your web pages using the different browsers, OS, screen size, resolutions, connection speed, etc. You should not worry more...
11.	Should I put music on my site? How to do it?
	Generally...no. Download time is slow. Music file contains programmed, computerized music. It requires a huge amount of bytes for a decent-sounding music file. If you streamline the music by using plug-ins, visitors who don't have the plug-in will need to take the time to download the plug-in. Before your actual page is downloaded...bye.... However, music may stimulate your visitors' buying desire (well, if you do it right). Choose the right, fun and toe-tapping music, and people will get into the right mood. Deliver an OFF option so that visitors can turn the music off (if it gets on their nerve!). Most importantly, don't distract your visitors and slow them down.
12.	Related Site:
	Make Your Site SELL! The BIBLE of net-selling, is now in its second edition! This greatly expanded and totally updated MYSS! 2002 is the ultimate "how to sell on the Net" reference book... It shows you how to sell on the net...from product to stores, from site-selling to traffic-building. It's all about getting the order! Make Your Content PREsell! Written word or Content is the most important substance in the web. However, most people can't write and can't afford to hire a writer. MYCPS! helps you acquire not only the writing skill, but writing to PREsell! It shows you step-by-step, clearly... 1. how to write to communicate 2. how to develop you own voice with flair and substance 3. how to spin your site into a unique position 4. how to honestly convince people to trust and like you. It will make YOU more effective, every way, every day. Every communication that you write will be better. Your web pages, e-zines, personal e-mail, etc. Everything you EVER write will simply be more effective.