Your Website As A Business – Guest Post

This is a guest post from Matthew Needham who is the director of  The Big Red Tomato Company LTD. You will recognise Matthew as a regular around this site, his comments are first class and always aimed at providing value. I really like Matthew because of his super positive style which is backed up by years of experience. Over to you Matthew;

Most people would tend to agree that the purpose of a business is to make money for it’s owners. Businesses cannot survive in the long term without generating sufficient cash flow to keep the business running.

Many people run blogs or websites as hobbies or part time sidelines with the intention that they will someday turn their hobby into a full time source of income.

The truth is that for many people they will never make a sufficient income from their website or blog to replace their full time job because they don’t think of it as a business, they think of it as a hobby.

But, with a little thought and planning your website could not only be a business, but provide a good income for you. Here’s how:

Business Plan

Just like any bricks and mortar business, a website business will benefit in just the same way if you set out clearly what you expect to achieve from it in a business plan.

A business plan does not mean that it has to be a 200 page document with detailed cash flow projections and marketing strategies. At the very minimum it can be a single page document, but the fundamental objective is to determine what business you are in. Once you’ve figured that out, you’re well on your way to turning your website into a business.

What’s your vision?

When you’ve figured out what business you’re in and what the purpose of your website is, write it down. This written down statement forms the basis of the vision statement for your business. What’s it going to do and how?

Talk to you friends and family ask them if they understand your vision. If they don’t then I suggest you start again. You should be able to describe what your site is all about in 8 words. Could you describe your site in 8 words?

Who are your visitors?

Next, who are your visitors? With careful promotion you may get many visitors to your site, but visitors in themselves are not what you are after. What you aim to have is quality traffic who are the ideal target market for your product or service. So, the right question to ask is who should your visitors be?

You need to form a picture of who your target market is and constantly check in with them as to whether your content meets their needs. Surveys, personal emails, twitter etc are all sources of information for you. Use them. Use them a lot.

What are your objectives?

So now you know who you’re visitors are (or at least who the ones you want are) and why they are coming to your site. But what are your objectives for when they get to your website?

- Are you after collecting a mailing list?

- Are you looking to sell them products or services?

- Are you looking for a book deal?

- Are you looking to promote the products of others and earn a commission in doing so?

- Host adverts for other companies – getting income everytime someone clicks the links.

The good thing is that there are no right or wrong answers – just be clear in your mind (and in your plan) what you want your visitors to do.

What do I do?

If you take my website for instance www.bigredtomatocompany.co.uk , my site supports my work as an interim manager by providing a legacy resource to teams I work with, as well as providing content for managers or owners working in businesses who want to change their game or thier lives. In less than 8 words I descirbe my site as being for those who want to be a better leader and live a better life.

So consequently my 2 primary objectives are:

1. to differentiate my services from the services of my competitors through great content and the brand
2. attract new business for interim, consulting and coaching projects

and 2 supplementary objectives;

1. to provide an income from the sale of products and services
2. to provide opportunities such as speaking engagements or book opportunities

What will you do?

So, to make a website your business, you need to be realistic and ask yourself what you expect from your site (business) you need to set your self clear goals and objectives and you need to constantly test and measure the success (or otherwise) of your site tweaks and promotions.

Review your site every 3 months and see if it’s still meeting the objectives you set for it. If it’s not why not?

So what’s your business? Share your business model in the comments below.

by sashafatcat

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Tagged as: Guest Post, website as a business