Ask the Experts

Website Wishing Well

I want to start an online business here in college. How can I succeed, when everybody is creating one?


There are no statistics gathered on how many students are operating a money-making website. It is a common goal we all seek. Let us focus on the psychology angle. Users should enjoy visiting your website, before they even consider spending money or reading your content. Sometimes, a small, creative change can completely enhance the user experience.

Every site has a blog. You are expected to ramble on about the product benefits or suggest ways to improve it. We reversed that and let customers write about themselves, spills company blog editor. It is better to allow bloggers self-promotion, so they will return to your site.

Another way to identify new customers is to take a survey. Visitors respond when you show their opinion is valued. Surveys are a quick method for start-ups to identify their audience, reports DevOps software programmer. Before a sale is even made, potential customers reveal what they want.

Most often, you are entering a market that seems saturated. There are no funds to invest in new technology. You can apply an existing technology to a new purpose. Photos were supplanted by
360 Video. Every local business now wants to upgrade their images. Even Google has added this to its search results. Webmasters are still scrambling to find more uses.

I answered this exact question many years ago for some student named Zuckerberg.

Sam Shepard is a marketing specialist with digital marketing agency Digital Next.