Ways To Improve Sales Through Your Website

Ways To Improve Sales Through Your Website

Anyone who has been marketing online knows the lifeblood of a business is the traffic of a web site.  More visitors equal more sales.  However, here are some ways you can tweak your sites to improve sales without the need to get more visitors.

The first method is to weave in your personal touch in your sales message.  Nobody wants to be sold to by a total stranger, but many people will buy what their close friends recommend to them.  If you can convince your audience that you are a personal friend who has their best interest at heart, they will be convinced to buy your products.  Remember to speak to an individual in your salesletter, not your whole audience.

The second method is to publish testimonials and comments from your customers.  A good idea would be to publish both good and bad comments; that way prospects will be really convinced that these testimonials are real.  When prospects see testimonials on your website, they will have the confidence to buy from you because human beings follow the herd mentality; when others have bought and proven it authentic, they will jump on the bandwagon and buy too.

The third method is to use visual representations for the problems and solutions that your product offers.  Not everyone will read your text copy from the head to the tail, but most people will pay attention to images (or video) on your website.

The fourth method:  Offer quality bonuses to accompany your product.  When you offer bonuses that complement your product, your prospects will feel it’s a very good deal and it would be stupid to miss it.  Be sure to state the monetary value of your bonuses so people will be even more compelled to grab your great bargain.

Lastly, ask for the sale!  Many people entice their prospects with the benefits of their product, sell to them with stories of how it has solved many problems, even offered killer bonuses but forget to ask for the sale.  Give a clear instruction on how to buy your product (e.g. “click the button to buy now!”).

Until next time…

Follow my Tweets on Twitter

Ed

The Importance of Good Design

The Importance of  Good Design

Your website is the hub of your online business; it is the virtual representation of your company whether your company exists physically or not. When you are doing business online, people cannot see you physically like how they could if they were dealing with an offline company. Hence, people do judge you by your covers. This is where  good web design comes in.

Imagine if you are running an offline company. Would you allow your salespersons to be dressed in shabby or casual clothes when they are dealing with your customers? By making your staff dress professionally, you are telling your customers that you do care about quality. This works simply because first impressions matter.

Similarly, the same holds true with your website. If your website is put together shabbily and looks like a 5 minute “quick fix”, you are literally shouting to your visitors that you are not professional and you do not care for quality.

On the opposite, if you have a totally professional looking website layout, you are giving your visitors the perception that you have given meticulous attention to every detail and you care about professionalism. You are organized, focused and you really mean business.

On the other hand, you should also have anything related to your company well designed. From business cards to letterheads to promotional brochures, even your background used on Twitter. Every little bit matters. This is because as you grow your business, these items become the face of your business. Once again, think of the “salesperson dressed shabbily” anology, and you will get my point.

Make sure your website looks the best it can be!

Until next time…

(Follow me on Twitter)

Ed

Managing All The Information Overload

These days, we are all in danger of “Information Overload”. I read an article some time ago about Information Overload, and that was before much of the Information we are overloaded today even existed. When that article first came out, there was no such thing as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or many of the RSS feeds we have so readily available to us today.

Now, it’s not uncommon for one to have accounts in all of the social networks, and subscribe to hundreds of RSS feeds as well.

One of my clients recently told me he was getting over 1000 email’s a day, and had over 1200 unread items in his RSS Reader.

Is this the ideal way of getting information?

If this sounds like you, then it’s time for you to get a grip on reality and realize that you have about the equivalent of getting a Sunday edition of the New York Times delivered to your door every day of the year!

Over subscribing to free content via RSS feeds and email newsletters is an invitation to “Information Overload Disaster”. You’re probably getting far more information delivered to your in-box and RSS reader than you could ever hope to read.

I’m guilty of bookmarking sites I visit, all with the best intentions of going back there one day, but in reality, I very rarely ever get back there, because in the following days, I’m inundated with even more stuff, more links, more places to get more information.

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

It’s time to start some RSS and Social Network housecleaning!

These days, more information is published online every 24 hours than you could read in five years. The key to managing it is to be more selective, not less. So ruthlessly unsubscribe to e-zines, RSS feeds, etc. until you get only what you absolutely need.  Even then, you won’t have time to read even a small fraction of what you get. But at least your inbox will be somewhat under control.

I challenge you: Unsubscribe from 10 newsletters today. Remove every RSS feed from your reader (Bloglines, Google Reader, whatever you use) that you know you don’t have (or take) time to read daily. Just unsubscribe from them.

You will feel less like you are in the Information Overload mode, and more like you can handle what you see.

It’s insane that we keep piling on more and more information, when we have less and less time to do our jobs. Where will it all end?

In writing this post, I removed myself from 14 email newsletters or updates I had been getting for a long time, and unchecked 22 of the RSS feeds I had been monitoring. It felt really good!

Are you suffering from “Information Overload?”

Please share a comment below and tell me what you did today to trim some of the fat off of your Information Overload.

In the meantime, FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER (Unless that’s one of the places you choose to “unload”) 😉

Ed