Change These 2 Things To Increase Your Website Sales

The sad truth is most business websites don’t make money. A large amount of business owners spend thousands and thousands on their website only to have it do nothing. No one emails, no one calls… and more importantly no one buys.

How do we improve that? Here I talk about two huge errors I see with most websites.

Lacking Any Form Of Conversion Process

Most website owners are so concerned with website traffic they forget what to do with it when it arrives. Your website needs to have a clearly defined website conversion process to convert visitors into buyers. Most website owners don’t spend any time thinking about this process.

If your plan is to just have people show up and give you money then you’re in for a shock. In most cases you’re going to have to sell your products and services to the visitor. Don’t like selling? It’s time to get over it.

What’s great about the web (while also limiting us) is no face-to-face selling. This means it’s far less scary and you can put aside your fears of rejection and just do it. If nothing happens at least they won’t be hurting your feelings.

Having a distinct process is the first step to improving your website conversions
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Lacking A Web Marketing Strategy

This brings us to a bigger problem with most websites… lack of clear strategy. Website conversion is one part of the strategy that’s lacking and the second is generating traffic. Even if your website conversion is incredible it doesn’t help you if you don’t have any visitors.

It’s important to have a way of generating website traffic. These could be things like social media, article marketing, search engine optimization (SEO), video marketing and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. But the point is you need to have a strategy.

Another error (that I’ve made a lot) is to not pick one strategy and follow through with it rather than running around like a chicken with it’s head cut off. And this means no strategies you try get any traffic and you give up due to poor results. The best way is to choose a few powerful web marketing strategies and apply them consistently for the next few months.

It’s important to get these first strategies giving you results and then you can select more to add. But don’t throw away what got you that far. You’ll go far if you just learn to keep doing the basics a little bit better.

How your website can make more sales

It’s common to think that website marketing is all about increasing your website traffic or higher rankings in the search engines. It makes sense to me to ensure my website is converting before sending lots of traffic to it. That way your results will be dramatically improved when traffic is created.

The sad truth is many business owners believe traffic is everything on the internet. But it’s not their fault… there are experts at every corner promising you more website visitors and riches beyond your wildest dreams. Most don’t bother to mention that if your website can’t sell then all the traffic in the world is useless.

What your website is all about

My philosophy of website marketing is building a relationship with visitors when they arrive at your website. A huge part of this is the impression your website makes for your business. But more importantly you need to start building a relationship by collecting their contact details.

You can expect to sell about 1-2% of people the first time they visit your website. But if you bother to take the time to form a relationship with them then that figure will be a lot higher. You can compare it to the one-hit wonder band versus the band who makes consistently great albums.

Don’t fall into the social media trap

There are enough social media buzzwords being used but it’s critical to remember the goal. There are now many tools for communicating with potential prospects… and other useless ones as well. But in the end it’s all about building a relationship.

It doesn’t matter whether this relationship is built over email, or Twitter, or Facebook, or YouTube… or through mail, fax or phone. No matter what it’s still about the relationship and the value you provide. I believe you’re better to use a wide range of media to connect with your market.

Keep focused on your goal

There is no right answer… there is no great and powerful social media website that you can rely on for business. That’s like having a store but not getting a phone. Intelligent business owners realize a phone is a useful tool for their business and that’s the same with social media.

The moral of the story is to focus on building a relationship with visitors irrespective of the media. By building a relationship based on value your sales will increase dramatically. Because people buy from those they know and trust.

The next step

Take a look at your website and decide whether you’re building a relationship or just simply stating what you do. What valuable information are you offering? Do you collect contact details to send them more information?

Building a relationship isn’t hard… just imagine what you’d do if the person was right in front of you and go from your gut. The results can be amazing.

Because at the end of the day it’s all about standing out from the crowd.