You put up a website to attract clients for your professional service business. Maybe you even put up a sales letter - a solo web page designed to promote an information product, tangible product, or seminar.

And so far...nothing! No takers. No sign-ups for your ezine. What's going on?

(1) Get solid evidence that people want your product -- and will buy it online.

Even on eBay and craigslist, some products go unsold. Some markets don't buy online, download ebooks or listen to mp3 files: they shop in brick and mortar stores, buy books at Borders and listen to CDs.

(2) Make sure you have targeted traffic coming to your site.

If you have no traffic...well, there's your answer. But not all traffic is equally valuable. Your keywords, positioning or referral site may be attracting visitors who are outside your target market.

(3) Encourage each visitor to begin building a relationship with you.

Often visitors won't buy on a first visit. So you need to invite them to sign up for an ezine, an ecourse, or even a downloadable manual. Some people read my ezine for over a year before they buy from me.

(4) Showcase unique, meaningful benefits for your target market.

Many professionals focus on how they deliver the service instead of how clients feel about their new lives. And you need to tell readers why you're unique - why nobody else can make the same offer.

(5) Make it easy for your visitors to say yes.

Believe it or not, when visiting other people's sites, I often have to hunt around for an order form when I'm eager, even desperate, to get my hands on a product. Ask visitors to buy...and consider adding some bright red arrows to point them in the right direction.

(6) Create a sense of urgency.

Ideally, your product or service reaches readers by connecting to their pain and their toughest challenges. But you also need to suggest reasons for buying today - not next week, not later.

(7) Test...and test some more. For example:

Test 2 or 3 versions of your headline. Sometimes a news-oriented headline actually works better than a sales-oriented headline or vice versa.

Test backgrounds. I once tripled sign-ups to my ezine by changing the background color.

Test the small stuff. Once I compared two google adwords ads. I changed the spelling of one word in the headline - from midlife to mid-life. The hyphenated version attracted 40% more clickthroughs. Go figure.

Bottom Line: Even when experts create your marketing message, you need to keep evaluating the effectiveness of your marketing materials, especially your website. The Internet gurus share one passion: testing and revising. They're constantly enhancing their sites and their messages. And the rest of us need to do the same.

There are a lot of reasons you might want to start a website. It is a great way to communicate with friends & family, and it is a great way to meet new people online and create conversations on the internet. Whether you have an idea or belief you want to promote, or a product you would like to sell, a personal or business website can be the solution to your marketing and communication goals. These days, a lack of technical knowledge doesn't have to be a barrier to getting started.

The good news is you don't need a degree in programming to start a new website. You don't even need to know a single line of code for that matter! If you can install software packages through a web-browser interface, you can set up a Content Management System (CMS) that will allow you to design, create, and manage any number of pages, articles, and stories. Some web hosts even have utilities like Fantastico that will automatically install a variety of Content Management Systems from blogs, to forums, to picture galleries or e-commerce websites.

Content Management Systems not only give websites more interactivity and functionality, they also allow people with few technical skills to get up and running with an online presence. The most popular ones like WordPress, Simple Machine Forums, phpBB, and Joomla are all free to use with varying regulations on how you can modify or transfer use of the software. Each of the programs also has discussion communities built around them where new and experienced users share advice & knowledge with the most common errors and user requests. If a problem pops up, there is a good chance that someone has already posted a step-by-step solution to it somewhere on the web.

As easy as it is to create and initially customize a new website, there is also no limit in how far you can take it. As you install easy to use CMS packages, some of the vocabulary will become a little more familiar and you'll naturally find yourself a little more comfortable with the technical aspects of your new hobby. So long as you keep regular back ups, you can confidently learn new skills by trial and error.

You know when it comes to doing anything in life its all about implementation. Sure at this juncture you may be overwhelmed and a little confused about what to do. You may have lots of ideas but you just do not know where to start.

As a result you do not implement anything you just get confused and overwhelmed and then nothing happens. The first thing you need to do is identify your strengths. This is where you are going to begin.

When it comes to building a website you know that its core value is based upon the information it provides. Secondly that information needs to be organized logically. Then that information needs to make sense to your readers and also needs to be understood by the search engines.

So having good site structure will benefit all parties concerned. At this point you probably have something in mind about what you want to do online - in other words a subject that you want to build your site around.

If not you have some reason for wanting to build a site in the first place and that may be just to share it with friends and family or to make money.

Identify your ideas and write them down. Once you have cleared your mind then you will be in a far better position to move onto the next task.

The main thing is to understand the main structure of the internet and that is to provide information which can be delivered through multiple mediums such as video, audio, or straight content.

Then just make sure that you can deliver this effectively and you will have a solid foundation to build on.