Author: Kieth Rispin Added: December 17, 2006
Turnkey businesses have taken an enormous leap in popularity in the past few years. As with anything these days, if you want to see just how popular simply take a look on eBay and you will see hundreds of these types of businesses for sale. Prices range from only pennies to thousands of dollars.
Initially most turnkey sites were simply "affiliate" sites linked to such E Business giants as Amazon. You as the owner would post the site, market it build traffic and then get a paltry single digit percentage cut of what ever was sold though your site. Some people have made and still are making good money from these sites but most only earned frustration.
Times have changed however and the turnkey site has come of age. Today these sites are complete business solutions for those who want a quick, easy and economical E Business solution. You as the business owner can control virtually every aspect of your site. Although affiliations with other E business giants haven't gone away, many of these Turnkey sites are no longer dependent on any affiliation. Payment systems, data feeds and web site management are all built into a ready to do business package. In short, turnkey sites are no longer the ugly duckling of E Business and are truly an excellent option for a small or home business owner.
Now I would be remiss if I were to claim that turnkey sites do not have their short comings, as indeed they do but none are so grievously problematic that they cannot be overcome with a little time, effort and or common sense. Unfortunately, regardless of how easily these issues can be reconciled there is a legion of naysayers who love to mercilessly malign the entire turnkey industry.
The most commonly sited problem with turnkey sites is the fact that turnkeys are all the same both in appearance and content. For example, if you buy an auction turnkey site for yourself, with the hope of creating the next great auction empire, you have to know that 100's of other people have bought the exact same site and wish to do the same thing. Imagine 1000 auction websites that are all the same in appearance and content. As disheartening as this may seem, one must keep a number of things in mind the least of which is how your site looks.
The single most important consideration that negates the validity of the same look same content argument is the way in which you use your turnkey site. Many people make the mistake of expecting their glossy new turnkey site to be a standalone storefront that generates massive income. As nice as this would be it is very unlikely that you can make this happen regardless of how unique your website is. Unfortunately this is the way many turnkey vendors market their products and although there are instances where this happens it is the exception rather than the rule.
It is this author's belief that the best use of a turnkey is to enhance an existing website. A new turnkey can easily add exciting new content, products and services to any website quickly and easily. Your existing customer base will likely be the first to utilize your services or buy the products you now provide. You can easily grow your web presence one page at a time for a fraction of the cost of having a unique page built for you.What is even more important to note is that each new turnkey you add to your existing site only helps in making your original site a more content rich environment for the spiders to index. You can quickly create a network of web pages that provide a variety of services and products in a number of niches.
The second thing to note with regard to the same look same content argument is that with today's web scripts, it is not all difficult to change the look and feel of a well built turnkey site. Of course you have to have a bit of knowledge about how web pages are created but with the administrative tools that are built into many of these sites, changing your look is done with relative ease. Changes can be as simple as inserting a company logo and slogan to changing the colors and appearance of your web page through a user friendly control panel. Quality turnkey sites are built with a degree of customizability, gone are the days of one size fits all websites. If in the end, you are still at a loss as to how you can create a unique look, most good turnkey companies will do this for a nominal fee.
What it all comes down to is that your success or failure on the net is more dependant on how you market the site you have then it is on the unique look of that site. People who want to wade into the world of E Business need to understand that money spent on marketing or learning about how to market is better spent than forking out a bundle on a one of a kind website.
© 2006 Keith Rispin - All Rights Reserved
Any reproduction of this article must be done in it entirety with its author bio in tact.
Keith Rispin is the owner and webmaster of 6 websites which cater to helping today's family. He is also the owner of the Turnkey Shack a full service website and hosting solution for small & home business. Turnkey Shack
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