It takes a lot more to succeed online than a 'professional' looking website. In fact, having a 'professional' looking website with 'professional' looking stock images is one of the quickest ways to lose visitors.

Your website should be simple, authentic, and represent your company. Don't get me wrong, your website's look and feel is an important key to success, but maybe not in the way you think it is.

Oh, and if you even think about having something flashing or moving on your website, it better be a hand waving, as you'll be waving goodbye to your visitors.

Think about some of the most popular websites in the world:

• Google
  
• YouTube
  

Simple, yet elegant, succeeds on the Internet.

Do a search for any product or service you like. What do the results return? Pages and pages of people trying to sell you something.

If an encyclopedia salesperson knocks on your door, do you let them in?

If you walk into a clothing store and a salesperson asks if you need any help, do you say "YES PLEASE!"

Usually...No! So why would you behave any different on the Internet? It's even easier to reject a salesperson on the Internet as you never see their face.

Your website needs to build a relationship with its visitors. It needs to give your customers what they want. First thing they want? Information. They want to find out as much as possible before making a purchase. They want to know if they can trust you. They want to build a relationship so they know you'll be there if things go wrong.

How do you build a relationship with these lovely people? Content, loads and loads of content. Useful, informative, brilliant content. That's how you build a relationship online.

After you build that relationship they will be willing to buy anything you recommend.

Once you've started to write your content, you need to put it on your website. No problem, just create a few article links and it'll be fine?

Wrong! This is another way to get visitors to leave your website. You sure are getting good at driving traffic away from your website, eh?

So how do you keep that oh so precious traffic on your website for hours at an end? You structure it properly of course. So what exactly does that mean?

Your website is telling a story. The story starts when the visitor enters the website and ends when they leave. It's up to you whether the story ends happily for both you and your new customer...or sadly, after the Big Bad Wolf eats Grandma and Little Red Riding Hood, then skips off into the forest with their wallets.

How do you tell the story? By linking the relevant content together in a clear, logical, and easy to follow way. The homepage flows into more useful information, the articles flow into other related articles. And all the time, your website is building a relationship with your visitor.

After all, when you have a relationship with a visitor, it's much easier to slip a ring on their finger and convert them into a long term customer. 'Til death do you part.

Nowadays, every business needs a website. And the truth of the matter is web design is not the most complicated thing to learn. It gets complicated quickly if you want to do it right, but if you know more than your customer, you can fake it till you get the paycheque.

Hence, a web design company can spring out of nowhere, easily pick up contacts through its network of people, and create a nice little portfolio page on their website. Which of course, looks incredibly pretty...why wouldn't you trust them?

Let's start by the fact that every web designer has five pages on their website:

• Homepage
• Services
• Portfolio
• About Us
• Contact Us

If you see more than these five pages, you may be onto a winner.

After all, if you need quality content to be successful online, and your web designer has none, do you really think they can build you a successful website?

When you're planning your website and you hear a voice say "if you build it, they will come!" You're not on your way to an academy award winning website. You're on your way to bankruptcy.

Website success relies on three simple steps:

1. Getting visitors,
2. Keeping them,
3. And then converting them into sales.

Chances are, your website design company can't even market themselves online, let alone your business. So save your money, and put a picture of your pretty website on the back of your bathroom door. It'll get more traffic, and they're a captive audience.

"But MY web designer talks about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) so we'll be top of the search engines in no time!" I know you dream of ranking number one on google for 'dentist uk', but it's simply not that easy. Ranking well in the search engines is a process that takes time, skill, and effort on your part.

The two biggest factors in search engine optimisation are:

1. The number of quality links you receive from other websites that are related to your content (keywords).
2. The content (keywords) on your pages.

Point 1
If you have a new website, how many people do you expect to start linking to you in the beginning? Now decrease this number if you have no relevant content or information to share with the other website's visitors. Is that number closer to 0 or 20? I thought so.

Point 2
If you haven't written any content, then you don't have any pages to target the keywords your potential visitors are using.

You could see why creating great content and getting other websites to notice and then link to you might take some time. So now how are your web designers going to market you? If their only other idea is Pay-per-Click (PPC) advertising you might be in trouble. PPC has its uses, but it's old technology and not a website marketing strategy all on its own.

If you don't know how to market your website, and your web designer doesn't know how to market your website...what's the next step?

So there you have it, the five biggest secrets your web designer doesn't know about the Internet. There are of course, many, many more...but you'll pick those up in time.

Now you know these secrets, it's time to talk about the steps to becoming successful on the Internet. Rest assured, I have no get rich quick schemes or dodgy advice. Just 100% solid, business building ideas to take what you have offline...and put it online. So join my friend list or check out my small business website improvement blog for more free information.

Thanks for reading, please rate it and leave your comments as I'm eager to hear how I did on my first lens and be harassed by disgruntled web designers!