Two Simple Questions That Could Double Your Online Profits

increase website profit

Do you know the answers to these 2 simple questions?  The answers could be the path to doubling your profits.

If I were to ask you two basic questions about your website I would wager, that like most web proprietors, you couldn’t answer them off the top of your head.  Here are the questions:

  1. What is your conversion rate?
  2. What is the amount of your average sale?

Most people don’t know or pay attention to their web analytics.  This is because they either don’t understand the importance of analyzing their metrics or they don’t know how to use the data they have.  Why should you care about a bunch of stats anyway?  Isn’t it just enough to know how many people visit your website?  If you send enough traffic to your site won’t those visitors magically turn into buyers?  What if I were to tell you that paying attention to your web stats was the beginning of the path to doubling your profits and it wouldn’t cost you a dime to do it.  Would it be worth your time to learn about analytics and to start paying attention to them? [Read more...]


Where Should You Focus Your SEO & SEM Efforts?

Google is clearly continuing to dominate the search engine market.  Nielsen Online reported this month that Google has a 64.2% share of the search market, with Yahoo trailing in second with a 15.8% share of U.S. searches.

Top Search Providers for March 2009

Top Search Providers for March 2009 from Nielsen Online

Top Search Providers for March 2009 from Nielsen Online

I’m not saying to ignore the smaller search engines as they may be less competitive and easier to rank higher on.  However, focusing your search engine optimization and search engine marketing time and efforts on Google will definitely give you the best exposure.

Source:  Nielsen Online – http://www.nielsen-online.com/pr/pr_090410.pdf


Using Landing Pages For Your Marketing Campaigns Such As Google Adwords Will Increase Your Online Sales

Do your Google Adwords ads, banner ads, e-mail marketing campaigns, etc. point your visitor to your homepage?  If so, you need to read this blog post.

It’s important to have continuity between your ads and the page visitors first enter your site.  We’ve all clicked on ads that promoted a specific product or a special offer only to be driven to the company’s homepage that has no mention of that offer or product.  It’s frustrating and most people won’t take the time to search the site for what the advertisement was promoting.  Why spend money marketing your product and service only to frustrate and turn away potential customers?  Building continuity between your ad campaigns and your landing pages will increase your online sales conversion.

Website conversion with landing pages

Here’s a good example of lack of continuity, which will usually result in a lower sales conversion rate.  I did a search on Google for “Angels baseball t-shirt”, and a number of paid keyword ads showed up with some reference to Angels t-shirts in the ad copy.  However, a few of the ads I clicked simply brought me to the t-shirt company’s homepage.  In order to find any Angels t-shirts, I would have had to navigate my way through their site.  It was easier to go back to Google and find a link that brought me directly to what I was looking for, which is what I ended up doing.  These sites lost a major opportunity to make a sale.  Not to mention it was a waste of their marketing dollars.

To optimize your chance of converting a visitor into a customer, create a landing page for the related keywords you are buying.  In the above example, a great landing page would have been one that specifically listed the Angels t-shirts that were in stock and perhaps highlighted the newest and best selling Angels shirts.  Better yet, if the landing page had a special offer such as free shipping for purchases made today, it would have been more compelling and increased the chance of converting me from a visitor to a customer.

To increase your website conversion rate even further, institute direct marketing tactics to write compelling sales copy for your landing pages.  A powerful headline and compelling copy, can make huge differences in your online sales.  I’ll write in more detail about this in future blog posts.  In the meantime, check out my friend Robert Stover’s copywriting blog – Copy Ideas (http://www.copyideas.com/archives/).  He is an expert copywriter and has some great resources on his site to help you improve your website copy.


Risk Doesn’t Always Equal Success. Why Good Web Businesses Sometimes Fail and Mediocre Ones Succeed.

As a fellow entrepreneur, I understand taking risk.  That’s our life, isn’t it.  Putting everything on the line for that one chance of being successful, of making it on our own.  It’s sort of like going to Vegas and putting it all on black.  However, merely having a good concept and taking the risk to start your own internet business doesn’t mean you are going to be successful.  As you know, it takes hard work, sacrifice and dedication.  Unfortunately that’s still not enough.
Risk and entrepreneurship
You may have the best product or service in the world but if you can’t successfully market and sell it, you’ll never achieve the success you dreamed of.  Sadly, this is a common story among entrepreneurs, great ideas don’t always bring about success.

A lot goes into marketing and selling a product or service online.  Despite what others may say, there is no secret formula or magic bullet for online marketing.  Every situation is different.  What works in one situation may not work in another.  However, basic sales and marketing principles remain the same, even in internet marketing.  What varies, is how they are applied to each situation.

Even with sound sales and marketing principles, the chances of hitting the mark immediately are slim.  To be truly successful, it requires a lot of testing and refining of your marketing to see what resonates with your customers.

Here is the approach I take in marketing a product or service online:

  1. I start by taking the time to fully understand the product or service.
  2. I find out who the target customer really is- the demographics of the target market and even deeper what motivates them (the psychographics).
    1. I do this through:
  • Surveys to existing customers and website visitors.
  • Interviews with existing customers.
  • Online focus groups (if time and budget allow).
  • Analyzing the web stats.
  1. I check the process.  Does the process work properly or is it broken?
    1. I do this by taking a step back and looking at the website and the sales process from a visitor’s point-of-view.  I look at simple things like:
  • Do all the links work?
  • On the homepage or landing page, is it clear what the company is and what it sells or offers?
  • Is there a compelling reason to read more or click through?
  • Is the site easy to navigate?
  • Do the product pages have a good description of the product?
  • Is it easy to buy from the site?
  • Is the visitor asked to take action, is there a call-to-action?
  • Does the check-out process work and if so, is it intuitive?
  1. I then test small changes to see if there are improvements in the site’s goals such as conversion rate and average sale.  For example, I might run an A/B split test on the headline on the landing page to see if one converts better than the other.
  2. I refine.  Based on the results of testing I make refinements and continue the process.

Being an entrepreneur can be difficult but it’s also very exciting.  I hope I can help you make your web business a huge success!