So what’s it really like to own a website which both generates profits for your business and helps (forces) it to grow?

Here’s a breakdown of a typical day of a successful website owner…


1. You Check Your Emails

  • You wake up in the morning and switch on your laptop (or PC), open your email account and check how your website has produced overnight.
  • If you sell direct online, how many sales were made?
  • If the aim is to generate sales leads, how many new leads have you received?


2. You Check Your Stats

  • You login to your Google Analytics account.
  • How much traffic did you receive yesterday?
  • Is it increasing or decreasing?
  • Where did the traffic come from?
  • Are there any areas of opportunity that small effort can result in big payoff?
  • You implement.


3. You Check Your PPC Performance

  • You login to Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing.
  • How many conversions did you receive?
  • What is the CPA?
  • Are you still profitable at this rate?
  • How are your text-ad split tests going?
  • You optimize.


4. You Check Your Rankings

  • You either run your ranking software or you manually type in your top keyword phrases.
  • Are you still in the top 5 positions for your major keyword phrases?
  • How are your competitors doing?
  • Who has just broken into the top 5?
  • What are they doing?
  • You check their linking strategy.
  • You review your strategy.


5. You Check Your SEO Strategy

  • You’re in the top position in Google, but you know that it is fiercely competitive.
  • How many articles have you syndicated this week?
  • Are you releasing a new press release this week?
  • Are you social bookmarking your valuable content?
  • Are you contacting other site owners to exchange links?
  • What are you doing to maintain your rankings?


6. You Check Your Website’s Performance

  • You login to Google Website Optimizer.
  • How is your website performing?
  • What is your conversion rate?
  • How is the latest split-testing going?
  • Is it time to test a new version of your PPC landing page?
  • Is it time to test a new version of your ‘money’ page on your main website?
  • You setup new split tests.


7. You Check Your Content Strategy

  • You know that continually providing valuable content will give you the competitive advantage you need.
  • What new content are you adding to your website?
  • What new tools are you adding to your website?
  • What can you do to build value to your prospects so that they trust you more?


8. You Check Your Emails Throughout the Day

  • You’ve setup your email account to automatically check for emails every 5 minutes. Expectations have now been set.
  • You expect a new sale or a new sales lead every 30 minutes.
  • If you haven’t received a new sale or a new lead in a couple of hours, you check that everything is okay.
  • Is your website still up?
  • Are your forms working?
  • You audit.


9. You Review Your Email Strategy

  • You login to your email management system.
  • How many new people have joined your email list today?
  • What emails will they be receiving?
  • How many people are now on your email list?
  • What value-add can you send to them?
  • How can you build the relationship with them?
  • You write a new email.


10. You Look For New Sources of Traffic

  • Your sales process is refined. A new sale or lead comes through and it automatically goes into the sales funnel.
  • How can you drive more prospects into the sales funnel?
  • You research additional keyword phrases you can add to your PPC campaigns.
  • You research additional keyword phrases you could be optimising for.
  • You design new banner ads and place them on new sites.
  • You track everything for ROI.


11. You Manage Your Business’ Growth

  • You continually try to balance the cost of growing your company vs the profit you are currently making. As your sales increase you need more staff and better systems to handle the growth.
  • What are you doing to support this growth?
  • What new systems are you putting in place?
  • Are they scalable?
  • What happens if your business doubles overnight (again)?
  • Who do you need to hire?
  • What do you need to outsource?


12. You Read Online Marketing News

  • You have a folder setup in your Firefox bookmarks toolbar with all of the online industry publications you follow. You right click and ‘open in all tabs’. You read all of the blog entries and find out what new developments are happening with SEO and PPC, especially Google.
  • What new developments could affect your SEO rankings?
  • What new developments could affect your PPC results?
  • You review your strategy.


13. You Review Your Marketing And Education Strategy

  • Online marketing moves at an incredible pace. Staying ahead of your competitors requires strategic thinking and continual education. Your SEO rankings are supporting 5 to 10 full time staff.
  • What if you lose those rankings?
  • What backup strategies have you got in place?
  • What are you doing to stay ahead of the curve?
  • What do you need to learn to be successful tomorrow?
  • Where is the online market going?
  • How can you learn what you need to learn in the most efficient and effective manner possible?

So there you have it. The life in the day of a successful website owner.

It’s not easy, but it is fun.

Of course, if you use an online marketing agency to manage your strategy, you only have to check your emails and bank balance each day, the agency does the rest.

A successful website is one of the most exciting and profitable assets your business can own, because it generates profits and helps your business grow 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days per year.