Build An Internet Parthenon, Part 1

By Daniel Ramos
Posted Monday, October 11, 2004

Dedicated to Athena Parthenos, the great Parthenon was designed by architects Ictinus and Callicrates and built over the years 447-432 B.C. Basically it is a simple rectangular building, 237 feet long by 110« feet wide, with Doric columns around its four sides. A pediment on each end rises to a slanting roof. With the exception of the roof frame and parts of the ceiling, the entire temple is constructed in marble. To this day the Parthenon remains the masterpiece of consummate proportions.

Do you notice a very important fact about this structure? It is this: the heavy roof is supported by numerous pillars. Without those pillars, the roof would collapse. My personal mentor and friend Jay Abraham calls this The Parthenon Principle.

The Parthenon Principle, simply explained, is this: Have multiple pillars generate revenue rather than one or two. Your business could collapse if it's only supported by one or two income streams. Too many business owners gamble everything on a single revenue source. They often get attached to one type of marketing - and overlook the fact that there are at least a dozen income streams they could access!

Most companies in general, generate revenue - through one or two methods they depend on and use over and over and over. However, what happens when one of those "pillars" crashes? If just ONE pillar were to go down in this scenario, you would risk losing up to 50% of your business. Ouch!

What happens if one of the pillars goes down? Do the math! If one of these TEN pillars went down, it wouldn't be catastrophic - it may even represent up to 10% of your business.

I submit however, what if your business had 15, or 20, or even 30 DIFFERENT ways, or "pillars" for generating revenue? That would make a difference, wouldn't it?

What may not seem obvious is this: the more "pillars" you have, the larger and heavier the roof that you can support. The more income-generating methods you have, the larger revenue roof you will have. I will show you how to have more pillars by opening your eyes to what the possibilities are, and what opportunities you might be missing.

In this article I am going to introduce you to a bakers dozen (yes, 13) different pillars your online business can use to generate revenue. Is that all there is, 13? No, but lets start here first and if you're bold enough, I may follow-up this article with a part 2 or even, part 3. As you go through these "pillars" think of the ways that you can apply them for your business. DO NOT, at first glance, discard them and say they don't apply to you. Think of the possibilities of how they COULD apply to you.

On to the list:

Keywords
Sit down and brainstorm as many keywords and phrases that someone might use to find a business like yours on Internet search engines. Be sure that you not only take into account not only keywords and phrases you might come up with, but also get fresh outside perspectives. Once you have the list, refine it to about 20 keywords and have your webdesigner insert these at the top of your webpages in the section in this format:

Include your URL on offline materials Put your website address onto every piece of marketing material you have, be it business cards, letterheads, invoices, brochures, everything. You don't have to include the (http://) just the (www.yourcompanydomain.com) will do just fine.

Capture email addresses from site visitors BIG tip here. Design a box on your website where visitors can leave you their name and email address, minimally. Offer them something in exchange (see next tip) and include a checkbox where the visitor gives you consent to e-mail them updates about products or services. This gives you "permission" to market to them and even remind them to revisit your website again. Keep these in a database for future and frequent use.

Publish an Ezine
No bones about - producing an ezine (newsletter your email) on a weekly, monthly or quarterly basis, is hard work. But it is one of the best ways, once you've established a solid list of email addresses, to keep in touch with those who have visited your site, build loyalty, develop brand awareness, and build future business. Don't make it long and boring, but relevant, easy to read, and something your reader can make use of. You can distribute it via your email program or subscribe to a listserver.

Press releases
If you have a newsworthy event, why not consider writing a brief, one-page release and send it to print periodicals and other ezines? You can do it by hand or use the services of Internet News Bureau [www.internetnewsbureau.com], Eric Ward's URLwire [www.urlwire.com], and the Netrageous PR Center found at [www.netrageousresults.com/PR/index.html]

E-mail Signature
Every major email program today will allow you to assign a "signature" to appear at the end of every message you send or reply to. Suggestion: make it quick and to the point (your name, company, phone number, website address, your email, and one sentence of four-to-six words of why you are the best service offering).

Search Engine Submission
I've written other articles on this, but suffice to say that you should submit your web pages to search engines. To do basic no-cost submission, visit each of the top search engines listed at Search Engine Watch [www.searchenginewatch.com]and manually submit on each website. Also visit free submission services at websites like JimTools Submit [www.jimtools.com/submit.html], and WebStep Top 100 [www.mmgexpress.com]. Keep in mind that over 90% of the search engine traffic to most Web sites comes from 8 to 10 major search engines.

Employ Search Engine Optimization Simply submitting to the search engine does not guarantee you'll receive any new visitors. If people cannot find you in the first 10 to 30 matches of a search, then submitting was a waste of time. SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, focuses on optimizing your pages to improve ranking by creating gateway pages, each tuned for a particular search phrase and search engine. The process of submission, monitoring, reporting and resubmitting is a large one, beware, but effective SEO can drive very targeted traffic to your website.

Join a banner exchange
Basically, you join a program where you agree to show a rotating banner on your website for other members, and they do the same for you. There is a good resource of banner exchanges at Banner & Link Exchange Networks [www.bannertips.com/exchangenetworks.shtml]. Smart tips: when reviewing stats, make sure you look at click-thru, not impressions, and try to join a network that members serve the same target customer demographic.

Start an affiliate program If you sell products on your website, then absolutely, start an affiliate program. Simply stated, your program pays a commission to other websites whose links to you result in an actual sale. The goal is to give people financial incentive to promote your website and products. I suggest you read this [www.clickz.com/article/cz.2645.html] excellent article from Joel Gehman, founder of EchoFactor, for factors to consider if you decide to outsource your affiliate program, and a major comparison of the top guns. I don't suggest you build your own; read this article [www.clickz.com/cgibin/gt/article.html?article=1737] to find out why.

Autoresponder
Imagine a completely automated system that delivers instant information to your potential customers and then personalizes follow up with them automatically over a pre- assigned schedule? This is what an Autoresponder will do for you: a prospect visits your website and enters his/her name and email address in a form/box requesting information. An Autoresponder will automatically send the visitor a personalized email reply; some autoresponders will send follow-up emails at later dates, add this visitor to a database, and remove prospects that don't convert to customers. For a sampling of free autoresponders, go here [www.emailaddresses.com/email_auto.htm].

Contests and Sweepstakes
Properly and tactfully done, contests will draw visitors to your website. Ask entrants to fill out a small online form that will give you demographics and most importantly, their email addresses for later permission marketing. You can easily find gift sponsors by offering them free advertising in exchange.

eBooks
The number 1 reason people go online besides sending & receiving email, is to do research. eBooks are simply electronic books that can be downloaded to the user's computer and read when they, the website visitor, is not online paying internet access fees. Its very inexpensive to create a compelling eBook that you can sell, and with today's technology, you can protect your intellectual property. The author of eBook Car Secrets Revealed sells his eBook for $29.95 and sells 17000 copies every single year, generating half-a-million dollars in yearly income.

Use these pillars to generate additional revenue streams for your business. Each one could effectually stand on their own, but together, than can generate enormous upside potential with little or virtually no downside risk.

Want to build a bigger Parthenon? Then what are you waiting for?

About the Author
Daniel Ramos is the President of Genesislogic Inc., a New York City based ebusiness that helps companies massively profit from the Internet. If you want to learn how to massively profit from the Internet, vist (WWW.GENESISLOGIC.COM) and download from an extensive online library of resources, call us toll-free at 800-590-5155, or send an email to INFO@GENESISLOGIC.COM