Build a Home Based Business from scratch selling products online using Drop Shippers.

Outlay Your Web Site

Now it’s time to outlay your website. You are going to need a home page, category pages (if needed) and sub-category and/or product pages. You will also need other pages offering information normally required by customers such as shipping policies etc. Do all of this on a large piece of paper.

The main theme for this chapter is making sure you construct your navigation with your keywords in mind. Your list of keyword phrases should be a mix of categories, sub-categories and specific products.  ‘Fishing rods’ is a category, but ‘Shakespeare fishing rods’ is a sub-category, and of course a certain model of Shakespeare fishing rod would be a product. Eagle statues would be a category, but porcelain eagles statues would be a sub-category and individual designs and sizes, the products.

Your outlay or navigation needs to look like this -

 Concentrate each of the pages above on one or two keywords, so if we were selling fishing equipment including fishing rods, the home page (depending on your list of keywords) could be optimised for ‘fishing equipment’, the category page would be optimised for ‘fishing rod’ and ‘fishing rods’. The sub-category pages could be optimised for certain brands and certain types of rods such as ‘fly fishing rods’, making sure you dedicate a page to each brand or each type of rod, and then a product page for each model etc.

If you were selling candles along with scented candles, the home page could be ‘online candles’ (again depending on your list) the category page could be ‘scented candles’, the sub-category ‘soy scented candles’, and the product page a certain scent or size.

I hope you’re getting the idea here but if not, think of it like this. When a search engine crawls a page on your web site (crawling is the search engine term meaning mechanically reading) it wants to know what the page is about. If you concentrate that page on one or two ideas, it makes sense to think that a certain percentage of your words are going to be those keywords.

This is how a search engine determines what your page is about, so it knows to list your site in front of anyone who is searching for those keyword phrases. If your page is trying to promote seven different brands of fishing rod, fishing reels and a book about saltwater fishing, the search engines will get confused and not really know what your page is about.

A final note on the home page: It’s up to you if you want to try and compete with more sites by using a general keyword such as gardening, camping or candles, but you are going to have more success, if you can make your home page optimised for more specific (and less competitive) terms such as gardening supplies, camping equipment, candles online and so on.

This is why it is imperative you do your keyword research thoroughly, and give your self as much chance as possible to find important keywords to build your home page and category pages around.   

Check your competitors (remember all the websites you book marked?) to make sure you have a list of information pages that are common throughout your competitors. Also take the time to study how they use these pages and what they contain in them. At a minimum, you should have the following –

· About Us – A good place to tell your customers of your goal and mission statement, such as your level of commitment to customer satisfaction etc, as well as who you are.
· Contact Us – Some packages will have pages such as these included with a form for visitors to fill out, but if not, include at the least, an email address for them to contact you.
· Shipping – Because you’re not doing the shipping, you need to incorporate your drop shippers shipping charges. If you use more than one, average out the charges from all drop shippers and use that as your standard shipping fee (or scale it per order size). Most drop shippers are very good in explaining their shipping charges, which it makes it easier for you.
· Returns - Once again, you need to incorporate your drop shippers returns policy, and if you have more than one, ensure you use the strictest of policies for your site to cover all.
· Privacy Policy – A statement explaining how you will treat your customers details, another words, we will not share your information with anyone etc.
· FAQ – A summary of the points above is mostly what you’ll cover.
· Site Map – A page devoted to listing all your web pages in a handy reference.

Other pages may include Testimonials, Links Page (for linking to other sites in return for them linking to you), Join Us (if you offer membership, newsletters or competitions), Articles and so on, but more about these later.

Tasks:

1. Outlay your web site’s navigation.
2. Check your competitors and list all the information pages you’ll be using.

 Design Web Site Template