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A lot of website owners
work tirelessly at increasing their traffic. They submit to FFA
pages and classified sites. They participate in startup programs
and pop under exchanges. There is no end to the gimmicks they
will try, all in the hopes that they'll get more customers.
If you're one of these website owners, there is an easier way to
increase your sales!
By improving your conversion rate you'll be able to make more
money from the visitors you're already getting. What is a
conversion rate you ask? Well,
quite simply, it's the percentage of visitors that you're
converting into customers.
Most websites have a conversion rate of 1% - 2% on average. That
means that out of 100 visitors only 1 - 2 are turned into
customers. You can see
the benefit of increasing that number. If you can get a
conversion rate of 3% you're now making more sales without
having to do any extra work or spend any more money to get
traffic.
So how do you improve your conversion rate?
Here are 10 steps you can take right now.
1. Make sure the traffic visiting your site is targeted and
looking to buy. The key point here is "looking to
buy". There are a lot of services that offer targeted
traffic but the visitors have no intention of buying. If the
person isn't interested in purchasing then you're wasting time
and money showing them
your ad.
2. Make sure that when people land at your website from an ad
there is a correlation. Far too often people click on an ad that
is discussing one topic
and are taken to the home page of the company. Instead of taking
the time to search for the information they read about in the
ad, they leave. Avoid this problem by sending people to a
specific page within your site that discusses the same products
you mentioned in your ad - if such a page
doesn't exist then create a mini-site.
3. Have a professionally designed site and copy that is written
to sell. A good sales letter includes benefits for the user (not
just a features list), testimonials and action statements that
encourage the reader to take the next step.
4. Offer more value. With each product offer free eBooks,
reports, consulting, or whatever else your visitors would find
valuable - These items don't cost you anything and there is a
perceived value that can encourage someone who's on the fence to
take the leap and buy.
5. Offer a free trial or money back guarantee. People are
naturally skeptical, especially on the Internet where they can't
see a live person and decide for themselves whether they're
trustworthy. A great way to encourage them to trust you is by
showing them that you believe in your product so much that
you're willing to let them try it free - or that you'll give
them a full refund if they're not satisfied.
6. Do everything possible to get the visitors name and email
address so you can follow-up. Do this by offering a great
newsletter, a special report, an Autoresponder series, a free
eBook, a giveaway/contest, a free tool. There are endless ways
to get people to give their contact information - play around
with different offers on your site to see what works.
7. Offer multiple products. Offering products at different price
points and to different segments of your target market increases
your chances of making a sale. If you only have one product of
your own to sell, look into affiliate programs as another income
stream.
8. Follow up on every inquiry you get. Excellent customer
service is something that is unfortunately lacking on the
Internet. Do yourself a favor and make it a priority to respond
to all inquiries by the end of the day. If you're getting too
many to make this possible consider ways you can take off some
of the strain. Are there questions that a lot of customers have?
If so, include them on your FAQ page. Are there processes you
can automate so you don't have to be contacted such as
unsubscribing from your newsletter? If all else fails consider
hiring someone to help you answer
your inquiries.
9. Make the order process as easy as possible. Abandoned
shopping carts is a problem that continues to plague online
businesses. The reasons
for this include: a cumbersome order process that involves too
many steps, asking for too much information (you really don't
need to know their
shoe size) and additional fees being added on that weren't
mentioned upfront. On many websites they never even mention the
product price or
shipping costs until you're half way through the order process.
By that point customers are feeling too frustrated to purchase
anything. Be upfront
about exactly what customers can expect during the order process
and strive to make it as quick and easy as possible.
10. Test, test, test! Finding the right mix of product,
price and sales tactic is very difficult - if it was easy the
average conversion rate would be a lot higher than 2%! Your best
chance for getting a mix that works is testing
different scenarios. If you don't already know what split run
testing is you need to learn about it. In a nutshell it allows
you to show different pages to different visitors for the
purposes of determining which one performs best. Using split run
testing you can try different site layouts, sales letters,
prices, special offers, and many more scenarios to find what
gets the most sales.
Now get out there and make some money!
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Jennifer Tripp is the founder of MyDigitalAdvisor.
For step-by-step instructions on creating a profitable online
business and reviews of the best tools and resources to help you
succeed visit http://www.mydigitaladvisor.com
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