There is no such thing as a website overnight success. Mystery solved, blog for the week = done! Wait, I forgot to explain why! Let’s set the stage; in my experience in running a business for the past eight years there is no real overnight success in business, and even more so online. Fast growth can only come in one of a very few ways being:

1. A lot of capital.
2. An indescribable amount of man hours.
3. Really good people firing on all cylinders.

Sometimes its a combination, but its never without any of these attributes. The only overnight success in this world comes from gambling, the lottery or stealing, but I’m not taking my chance on beating Vegas, haven’t bought a lottery ticket in years, and likewise don’t feel like going to jail anytime soon. I don’t know where the average Joe stands but that is just me. Your Facebook, Myspace, Google, Amazon, Ebay or any other of the major apparently overnight online successes didn’t get their billion dollars a few days after their conception. Not to mention these ideas were unique at the time and have obliterated the competition for market share.

If you added the man hours of development and sweat equity for these gems of the Internet put together, you could circle the globe eight times. I can’t exactly prove that because the data doesn’t exists, but let me just tell you that none of these sites started out as even a reflection of what they are today. Facebook started as a crude version of Harvard “hot or not”, while Ebay was a cheap site for selling beanie babies (boy I’m glad I didn’t buy one of those) and Google is years worth of mathematical and search technology genius put together. The bottom line is you aren’t going to create a version of these sites and compete with these big dogs within the market place without a great idea and a truckload of benjamins. If you are still reading this and saying, “Duh, everyone knows that,” I will say that’s not quite true. Ok, so there isn’t an overnight success what now? A second part of this myth is that you can make money on the web with little or no investment similar to the California Gold Rush in 1849 that the money is just sitting there waiting for you.

While I will still contend that you can compete for a larger market share with less of a start-up cost of opening up a brick and mortar location, the online marketplace itself has become quite competitive. Simply put, unless you are a developer (or really good friends with one that is a pushover) the fact of the matter is that it’s probably going to take some capital and more than just a good idea to build a successful online enterprise. Driving traffic to your site is the second part of the equation and that takes an aggressive marketing campaign to get the users you need to find your site. The amount of money being put into online advertising year over year is growing by the billions. This means the marketplace is becoming more competitive, and unfortunately, to compete in a competitive market place revert to the three tools listed above.

If I burst anyone’s bubble I apologize. This doesn’t mean its impossible, its simply a matter of uncovering the fact that the web isn’t the haven for no cost, next million dollar ideas, those simply don’t exist anywhere. The web still remains a great place to invest one’s ingenuity, desire, and output of great ideas, this will remain true for long years to come. It just takes more work than the average bear might think to get there.

You’re going on a hot date tonight, what should you where? He’s really into sports, so maybe a Dallas Cowboy jersey. He likes tall girls, so maybe a dress with heels. But his favorite color is green, so maybe that nice new sweater you just got for Christmas. Whatever the case may be, you must dress to impress, right? It’s a no brainer.

Just like with any other type of attention you are trying to receive, treat your website with the same amount of fashionista advice. Luckily, most top names in the game know all the tricks, but do you? Have you ever looked at your website and thought, “Am I appealing to the right crowd?” Do you sell soccer balls and have a hot pink polka site, or own a floral shop with a black site? You may take a step back and consider your target audience when deciding on what stripes or stars you want, when branding your companies new website.

First, the basics, man vs. woman. The biggest rival of all, since the beginning of time. Clearly, if you’re going for a more feminine approach you aim for nice, bright colors. Your pinks, purples, pastels. Now for a more masculine site you darken things up a bit. Go for bold, with greens and blues. Not that this is the law or anything, you just want to grab their attention, as quickly and easily as you can.

Next subject, age. Are you appealing to a child or your grandma? From graphics to text, you need to make sure you’re sending the right message. Children want to see a multitude of colors, cartoon characters, and big glossy rainbow buttons. Your grandma might need less graphics, nice big text for her to read without a microscope, and very clean and simple to navigate. The children of today can easily find their way around the most complex of website layouts, but grandma may need a little more direction.

Now let’s take personal interests. An athlete will have a different take on appeal then a librarian. A person looking for a massage therapist needs something soothing. A customer looking for fine dining wants to see pictures of the delicious food you have to offer. So you want to make sure that whichever it is that you’re appealing to, they understand the message you are sending as soon as they enter your site. A wrong message could send your user in a different direction.

So now we go straight to the source… the internet… to see how a couple companies do it best.

Now this site may just be the #1 example of all time, but it proves a point on a lot of levels. Nike.com doesn’t play around when it comes to branding. They appeal to the athlete. From the grassy background to the dark color scheme, they clearly know who their audience is.

Cartoons, games, videos, oh my! Nickelodeon doesn’t think twice when considering who to appeal to. From the background, to the navigation, to the simple colors, and fairly busy layout, I’d say its clear who this site is for.

Edgey, trendy, hip. MTV appeals to the modern day crowd. Age group is 20’s – 30’s that are fairly up-to-date in culture. Their website says a lot about who they are. Once a music station, that was taken over by a slew of reality TV and raunchy programs, their image reflects what they’ve turned into. My favorite part of their site… keep hitting refresh to get different backgrounds.

What better a way to entice the female viewer then throwing the latest line of inventory at them upon arrival? Coach knows the way to my heart, and probably every other lady that goes there too. From the vibrant colors, to brilliant imagery, they have no doubt what audience is going to their site. How do you not buy something?

Hungry? Well good, because there’s only one option of where to go when you check out Outback’s site. The neutral, yet bright color scheme, and the delicious steak that then transitions into a piece of carrot cake, grabs the consumer instantly. They don’t pick sides, they appeal to everyone! I know where I’m going for dinner.

Looking to relax? This spa site really appeals to the female viewer looking for a day of Zen. From the soothing colors, to the modern layout, it’s very inviting.

Is your website sending the right message?

Do you know what phrases or keywords people are using to find you in the search engines? It is a core component of a successful keyword list and a simple thing but few people are doing it these days. Adwords allows you to set a negative keyword list for campaigns and ad groups making sure your ads won’t show for search queries containing that term. By filtering out unwanted impressions, negative keywords can help you reach the most appropriate prospects, reduce your cost-per-click (CPC), and increase your ROI.

Why is it important you might ask? Let’s walk though an example using lifeBLUE Media. The negative keyword -free template would prevent our ads from showing up on any search queries containing the terms free and template. It would not prevent our ads from showing variations of these terms though. That is where different match types come in to play. Obviously we do not offer free website templates and adding the negative keyword saved a visitor some frustration as well as money we would have paid for their click, it reduced our CPC and increased our ROI. Now everyone is happy!

So now you ask how to add a negative keyword? Simply add a “-” sign before any keyword and it is inserted as a negative keyword.

I would suggest doing a quick negative keyword research every week. In the past I have let it go a month or so before remembering to check on our keyword list and I find we have gotten fifteen clicks from something our business has nothing to do with. What wasted money! Save money and frustration and make a negative keyword list immediently.