How many times have you surfed to a website and, upon arriving, been completely overwhelmed by what you find there. I’m referring to sites that have several animated banners, a whole bunch of product offers, an opt-in form (or two), a Flash Animation (or two), etc., etc., etc. There’s so much stuff going on that you’re not sure what the site owner expects from you and so you just leave. Have you also noticed that these types of sites take a long time to load?

Back in 1998, when I first started designing websites, it was my goal to build this type of site. After all, I was marketing myself as a Webmaster and I thought that people would be impressed by all the things I could do. And I was right. I designed a lot of “flashy” websites for people. Every new customer wanted a website that was more “spectacular” than the last one I built.

Not one of those websites survived on the Internet. Zero, zip, zilch. Remember, in 1998, High Speed Internet was a 56K Modem (lol). And how many people actually had a 56K Modem? Very few. People were surfing away from slow loading sites before they even completely loaded. Those of us who were building websites were doing our customers a great disservice.

Fortunately I learned from my mistakes. I began to appreciate and love simple, well designed websites and I’d like to share these ideas with you.

It’s extremely important to remember why people use the Internet. The number 1 reason is to find information. Realizing this is what propelled Google into the Internet Stratosphere. Google has even become a verb as a result. “Google it.” If you want to succeed on the Internet as an Internet Marketer (I refer to this in the general sense, selling on the Internet) you absolutely need to provide information. This applies to any type of product - device or digital. Here’s an example.

I need information about how to attach two pieces of wood together. I don’t have one, but I think I might need an electric drill. Since I’ve never used an electric drill I think it might be a good idea to do some research on how to use an electric drill. So I Google it.

Guess what. You happen to sell electric drills on the Internet. And you’ve posted an Article on your website that explains how to use an electric drill. Now, you’ve properly SEO’d this site so that you get a 1st page listing on Google. Or, you are using PPC to get a 1st page listing in the Sponsored ads.

Anyway, I see your listing and click on your link. And you show me how to use an electric drill. You also, through ad placement, show me that you sell electric drills and, you offer me the opportunity to sign up for your Newsletter that will show me “Selecting The Right Bit For The Job” or “The Benefits and Pitfalls of Wireless Drills” etc.

You’ve done an excellent job! You’ve got me sitting here learning what I need to know, offering a solution (product/service) and you’re offering me an education in my area of interest. So, what do I do?

Well, thanks to you, I’ve learned that I do need an electric drill and I even know how to use it. Now I procrastinate and tell myself, “I don’t really have to attach these two pieces of wood together today so why don’t I save myself a trip to the retailer? I’ll just order from this website and have it for next weekend. And why don’t I sign up for the Newsletter and really learn how to get the most out of my electric drill?”.

Give yourself a Big Round of Applause!

OK. I’ll admit that the previous scenario won’t succeed in a sale 100% of the time. But I guarantee that it will work better than a website that says “Electric Drills For Sale!”.

And guess what. It can all be done with a small number of pages. Really Simple Websites.

Really Simple Websites load fast. With todays High Speed Internet, pages can load in seconds and even less (no graphics). The faster your page loads the better are your chances of catching your visitors interest. Websites with one Article load the fastest because they are primarily text. If you want to market you need to include graphics. So we trade speed for graphics and properly compressed graphics can load very fast.

Really Simple Websites are easy to scan. People not only want information, they want it fast. An uncluttered web page allows people to see your solution quickly. If people can’t find what they are looking for almost immediately they are more likely to surf somewhere else and you have lost the opportunity to make your product presentation and convert your visitor to either a customer or subscriber to your Newsletter.

Yet another advantage of Really Simple Websites is that they are much easier to optimize for the Search Engines. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a key ingredient in getting your website indexed by the Search Engines and basic SEO is easy to accomplish if you use informative or educational Articles on your website.

In our electric drill example our Article about how to use an electric drill would have the “keyword” electric drill in the title of the Article and would be liberally used throughout our Article. This technique informs the Search Engines that the “theme” of our web page is “electric drill” and enhances the chances of our site being indexed for the keyword “electric drill”.

The opposite of this is a website that sells GPS devices, iPods, Satellite TV receivers, Cameras, etc. This type of site doesn’t promote a unified theme, unless you consider “electronic devices”, which is a very general keyword that will not make your site stand out from the thousands of others in the same category.

If you wanted to market any, or all, of the devices mentioned in the previous paragraph, the best way would be to set up a separate website for each device with informative and educational Articles that can be used to attract visitors to your sites.

I hope that you have found this Article useful and that you will use the information in it to help you build a successful Internet Marketing Business. This site has many other informative Articles designed to assist you and I hope you will take advantage of those as well.

To Your Success
Paul Johnston

Your Source For Home Based Business Resources