In many cases when you start a new website you are really starting at the bottom of the barrel.
Your competition probably has more money than you, they certainly have better rankings and more repeat visitors. How can you compete with that when you are on a shoestring budget?
First off, you need to get one idea out of your head that has been beat into it by countless marketing sites, E-books, and "experts."
YOU ARE NOT GOING TO BE SUCCESSFULL OVERNIGHT!
However, you can make regular and weekly progress and overtake your competition, both in rankings and sales. There are a few things you are going to have to do though.
1.) You will need to track your statistics, website visitors, and keep track of the Search Engine Bots. If you need to learn more about statistics, may I reccomend http://www.track-now.info . Statistics and paying attention to them are one of the important things that successful webmasters all do. You should know at the end of the week what each visitor to your website was worth.
2.) Work harder at your important tasks. Many webmasters started a website because it's perceived as an easy way to make money. It's not, so get that idea out of your head right now. Start managing your time smarter. If you spend 20 hours per week surfing the Internet, chatting, or just goofing around, stop and divert that energy into something productive like link building. I'm a professional freelancer and I still get stuck in the old habit of just sitting in front of this computer and getting nothing done. I recently got so frustrated with myself I actually made a blog post out of it. I will be adding tips and tricks to be a little more productive and how I cut some of the "fluff" out of my day. It would be great if others contributed as well. http://stmadeveloper.com/blog/?p=7
3.) You are working harder, but are you working smarter? I don't mean you have to be smarter than your competition. I mean that you need to become smarter on a certain subject. For example, there are 1000s of programmers like myself who can work with PHP. I have made myself a niche working for Internet marketers who don't want to explain terms like "downline builders", "2 teir affiliate programs", etc. It doesn't matter what subject matter your website is, you just need to know more about one aspect of your content or service than other people.
4.) Make sure you are productive and earning at your real potential. Chances are if you are keeping track of your statistics (see step one) you know that every visitor is worth X dollars or cents. If your really tracking, you can tell how much value you are getting from traffic to certain pages or from certain advertising methods or SE keywords. If you have a method that is just sending you visitors that never purchase or stay just stop using it and put more effort into those things that are returning a value. If you have set your value at $30 per hour to meet your income goals, you better not be concentrating on things that return pennies per hour, right?
5.) Make sure you have the tools and services you need to communicate with your visitors. It might be live help ( http://track-it-now.info/helpcenterlive_tutorial.htm ) or it might be something like an autoresponder ( http://emaileasy.info/7.html ), but you better have some way for your visitors to contact you and ask you questions.
6.) Don't expect overnight success. Growing a site takes time and effort. However, don't get discouraged. Daily effort turns into weekly growth. One day you will wake up and find that your efforts have paid off.
7.) Use your expertise to help others. Did you know that if you have something you are knowledgeable about that you are being looked for right now? There are thousands of forum's, newsgroups, and communities on-line that would benefit from your advice. If you spend the time to help them, you will see an increase in traffic and of course revenue. Many forums allow a signature which is similar to the resource box for this article. People do click on those signature links when you help them. Since you have already taken the first step and built some trust in your knowledge don't you think they will be more likely to use what your website provides.
8.) Do not be afraid to get some help. There are 1000s of freelancers and other helpful people that make their living on the web. Farming work out to those freelancers may just be worth your time. Here is an example: You are running a finance site. You need to get a new layout, new graphics, and Search Engine optimization done. You could spend days working on all of that, and since you are not an expert you end up with an inferior website both in looks and functionality. Your two days of effort cost you money in lost sales, but the poor website will cost you thousands over the next year. A few minutes with a competent designer would have cost you a few days pay, but you end up with a great functional and attractive website. Which way is better?
