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A New Business Website from Start to Finish in 4 Hours?

14 Jun, 2008  Marketing  Brian Armstrong

As I was doing keyword research for my new tutoring business, I came across an interesting discovery.

People search online 10 times as often for “homework help” as they do for “tutor”.

This was true across the board…”math homework help” searched 10 times as often as “math tutor”, etc.

Glenn Nicholas over at OM4Business.com even wrote in to confirm this fact for me and point out that I needed to do something about it ASAP.

I had always been a little skeptical of the keyword “homework help”…you see, someone who types “math tutor in Houston, TX” into Google is almost certainly a good prospect. Someone who would purchase tutoring. But someone who types “homework help” into a search engine could be a kid (instead of a parent) or just someone looking to find the answer to a problem who would never hire a tutor.

Then again, I told my self, given that the keyword was searched 10 TIMES as often, I really couldn’t afford not to test it out. After all, even if 75% of those searches never turned into customers….the remaining 25% would represent a 250% increase over the current customers I was getting from tutoring related keywords. What did I have to lose?

To further seal the deal, Glenn sent me a link about something called “problem marketing” which gave me a new perspective. When people have back pain they type “back pain” into a search engine, because that is their problem. They don’t know to type in “ergonomic chair” or “sciatic nerve therapy” or whatever, because those are SOLUTIONS.

Similarly, tutoring was the solution and homework help was the problem…so maybe, just maybe, I was marketing the wrong keyword.

Anyway, the results of this little experiment remains to be seen (and I will post them on the blog), but the point of this article is that I wanted to show you how easy it was to put up a new professional looking website to test out this idea.

Homework Help BlogThe site I created is called HomeworkHelpBlog.com and it is a free resource (a blog) for students who needs help on their homework.

Saavy readers might notice that I used a domain with the keyword in it, to help it rank in search engines. The idea will be to offer free advice and tips on this site for students (my tutors can help me generate the content eventually) and build a list of subscribers who may eventually turn into tutoring customers.

The entire site from start to finish took 4 hours and $6.95 to create.

  • I already pay for hosting at 1and1 and adding a new domain was free.

  • I had to register the domain at GoDaddy, hence the $6.95
  • To build the entire site I used WordPress (again free) so there was no programming involved
  • The slick looking design was created by someone else and given away free (just google “best wordpress themes”). I installed it, again, with no programming to give it a custom look and feel.
  • From start to finish it took me about 4 hours doing it entirely myself

One of the bonuses that comes with Breaking Free is a book on how to use Wordpress for exactly this reason.

It makes it very simple and easy to put up a business website ANY TIME you have an idea like this.

Conclusion
I think the main points to take away from this article are…

  • There is a quick and inexpensive way to test out any business idea you have: starting a business website. I’ve shown how easy it is here, so really there is no excuse not to put together one of these when you have a good idea (or pay someone to do it). Maybe 1 out of 10 will really work out and you’ll have a business on your hand that can allow you to quit your job.
  • You need to understand keyword research. If I hadn’t done the research I never would have known that “homework help” was so much more popular than tutoring keywords. That information could turn out to be priceless if it doubles or triples my business.

Until next time, keep breaking free!
Brian Armstrong

Want to get 3 of the top 10 books every written on building wealth for FREE? Just subscribe to this blog and I'll send them instantly to your inbox. Oh yeah, and I promise to keep your email address private. I hate spam too!

7 Comments so far »

  1. Carlo said,

    Wrote on June 14, 2008 @ 3:47 am

    Hey Brian,

    Interesting blog post. What I don’t understand is how this is different from putting out a regular blog. Are you planning on monetizing this blog through ads/sponsorships/etc. or is there some other business model behind it? Or why not simply add a Homework Help resource center to your existing tutoring websites?

    Just throwing around ideas, and at the same time trying to gain a better understanding where exactly you’re planning to take this.

    [Reply]

  2. Brian Armstrong said,

    Wrote on June 17, 2008 @ 11:47 am

    Hi Carlo,

    Good point. It is just a blog as you pointed out. To monetize it the idea is to give people what they were searching for “homework help” for free, and then offer them a tutor at several points in the site. This will be an indirect sale, so to speak. The blog could also serve as a newsletter to send out to existing customers to keep in touch with them and build mindshare over time.

    The way the tutoring website is set up now, many people use the free trial. By having a weekly newsletter to continually offer them value, it means than in 6 months when they need another tutor they will remember us and come back as a paying customer.

    It could be monetized in other ways (ads, affiliate stuff, etc) if its successful as well.
    Thanks!
    Brian

    [Reply]

  3. Aaron said,

    Wrote on June 17, 2008 @ 10:01 pm

    Brian,

    Enjoyed the post, thanks. I’m fairly new to keyword research and SEO, so I wanted to find out a little more about how you found out that “homework help” is searched for 10 times more often than “tutor”.

    Are there certain tools you use, or websites with that information?

    I also like the idea of “problem marketing” as i find myself searching more for problems than solutions as well. I’m interested to start researching that more, and see where else it can be applied.

    Thanks for your help.
    Aaron

    [Reply]

  4. Brian Armstrong said,

    Wrote on June 17, 2008 @ 11:32 pm

    Hi Aaron,

    I used word tracker’s free trial to do the keyword research:
    http://www.startbreakingfree.com/go/wtfree

    I believe the link wasn’t working earlier if you tried to click it. Sorry about that.
    Brian

    [Reply]

  5. Creer un site said,

    Wrote on June 18, 2008 @ 2:58 am

    Hi,

    Keyword in domain are not really usefull by itself unless they are separated by a -

    You need to work on SEO once the site is launched I guess. It would take far more than 4 hors ? right ?

    regards,

    [Reply]

  6. Brian Armstrong said,

    Wrote on June 20, 2008 @ 4:18 pm

    They are still very useful even without the -. You’re right that SEO, generating content, promoting it etc could take much longer than 4 hours.
    Brian

    [Reply]

  7. Free Business Idea For The Taking said,

    Wrote on July 12, 2008 @ 1:20 pm

    […] A New Business Website from Start to Finish in 4 Hours? […]

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