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Don't you sometimes wish that someone could
tell you exactly what you need to do, in a simple, step by step fashion,
to get higher traffic and improve your sales conversion ratios?
The problem with a lot of "how-to" information
today is that it is filled with filler material and it doesn't say exactly
what to do to get the results. Well, sometimes an issue is quite complicated
and therefore needs a long explanation. And its application may be complicated
just as well, meaning that it would be impossible to show exactly how
to carry it out.
Fortunately, there are 24 things that you
can easily carry out today and get higher traffic and sales starting in
the next 24 hours -- and going up from there.
These are tried and tested
tactics, and they work very well. All you need is to duplicate the same
steps on your business and you will succeed in simple yet effective way.
Let us have a look at them now.
- Google
Google at http://www.google.com/
is one of the largest search engines today. It is fast, accurate and
one of the most visited websites on the Internet. Literally thousands
of searches are conducted daily on Google for your keywords related
to your site! Beyond the engine itself, there's a new route you can
take in order to benefit from Google.
You can now advertise on Google very affordably using their new AdWords
program. Your AdWords text ads appear on search result pages for the
keywords you buy, and can be targeted by language and country. For example,
to reach collectors of tin toys, you might buy the keywords "toy collector,"
"tin toys," etc. (For more information on AdWords, visit Google at https://adwords.google.com/AdWords/Welcome.html.)
Pricing for AdWords is based on the rank in which they're shown. Google
positions your ad based on how many users click on it over time. Current
rates are $15, $12 and $10 (per thousand impressions) for positions
1, 2 and 3 respectively, and $8 per thousand for ranks 4 through 8.
Accounts are opened with a credit card and no minimum deposit is required.
The trick is to choose very targeted keywords that will trigger your
ad (yes, you can do that!), which means that only very targeted buyers
will ever see your ad and your conversion ration will be incredibly
high.
You can set how much you wish to spend. Google takes the money out of
your credit card after it reaches $50, by which time your ad will have
been displayed roughly about 5,000 times! If your keywords are highly
targeted, many of the people who see your ad will instantly become buyers
and, if done right, you will actually get your money in before you even
pay Google! Because there are thousands of searches a day, Google alone
can be one of your biggest sales drivers with its great AdWords program.
For more details, see the Google AdWords pages -- they have plenty of
tips. Sign up today. It's fast -- your listing shows up in about an
hour. Remember, it is more effective to have about 20 targeted keywords
that are specific and related to your site, than it is to have just
one. So come up with 20 very specific and targeted keywords if you really
want to win this game hands down.
- Goto
Goto.com at http://www.goto.com/
is another powerful pay- per-listing search engine. The trick is to
pay for the top position, or at least the top 3 positions. Depending
on what your product is, how much gross profit you make out of it and
what your conversion ration is, you may be able to profit very well
with the top spot.
Why is the top spot so important? Goto.com is actually a relatively
small search engine compared to the others. Its power does not come
from people actually searching from the Goto.com site itself. It actually
comes from the partners that Goto.com has. Their top search results
reach 75% of all Internet users through their affiliate partner network,
which includes America Online, Microsoft Internet Explorer, EarthLink,
Lycos and AltaVista!
But these partner sites only show Goto.com's top one to three results
for any search. So just look for the top spot if your gross margin can
allow it. The good thing about Goto.com is that they only charge you
for a clickthrough, so you only pay when someone clicks on your link.
Top spots can cost you anywhere from $0.01 to over $4 depending on the
keyword. And your listing shows up in about 3 days.
Again, the same rule applies. It is more effective to have about 20
keywords you are targeting, and that specific and related to your site,
than it is to have just one. So come up with at least 20 very specific
and targeted keywords if you really want to win this game hands down.
- DMOZ
DMOZ at http://www.dmoz.org/,
the Open Directory Project, actually powers the search results of several
of the top search engines. It's free to get listed on this human- reviewed
directory. It takes about 3 weeks to get indexed once you submit, and
up to a couple of months for your listing to start showing up on engines
that use DMOZ.
The most important thing is to have a domain name that is high on the
alphabetic order (i.e., one that starts with a number or the letter
"A") and also include your primary keyword phrase -- the one most people
use to find your site -- in your website name (i.e., title) and its
description.
- Yahoo!
Yahoo! at http://www.yahoo.com/,
the big gorilla of the Internet, has an immense reach. Without a doubt,
you must be in Yahoo, and being in it can bring you up to 50% of your
traffic or more! Fortunately, you can now get listed in Yahoo! in 7
days for a cost of just $199 -- very worth it for what Yahoo! will give
you. My experience tells me that you will get back your investment in
a matter of days.
Similar to DMOZ, the most important thing to do is to try to have a
domain name that is high on the alphabetic order (i.e., one that starts
with a number or the letter "A") and also include your primary keyword
phrase -- the phrase that most people use to find your site -- in both
your website's name (i.e., the title) and its description.
Once you get listed, you should also sign up to have your site become
a sponsored site within Yahoo! It costs $25 to $300 or more a month
at the time of this writing, depending on the category. Sponsored sites
appear in a separate, clearly demarcated listing box, located on appropriate
category pages in the directory at the top -- which means high visibility
and much more traffic for you!
- LookSmart
LookSmart at http://www.looksmart.com/
may not necessarily be effective when used directly, but its listings
reach over 83% of the web through its partner network. In other words,
its power does not come from people searching the LookSmart.com site
itself but from its listings, which reach a much wider audience than
Yahoo! can provide.
For instance, LookSmart currently provides search solutions to leading
Internet portals, 370 ISPs and 600,000 websites, including (and this
is a partial listing): The Microsoft Network, AltaVista, Excite@Home,
iWon, Time Warner, Sony, British Telecom,US West, Netscape Netcenter
and NetZero.
Now that is power! Again, without a doubt, you must be in LookSmart.
And being in it can bring you up to 50% of your traffic or more! Fortunately,
you can now be listed in LookSmart in 2 days for a cost of just $199
-- again, it's worth it when you look at what LookSmart will give you.
Its partner sites will pick your listing up shortly after you are listed,
usually within a few days or weeks. Like Yahoo!, my experience tells
me that you will get back your investment in a matter of days. And similarly,
the most important thing to do here is to have a domain name that is
high on the alphabetic order and to include your primary keyword phrase
in your website name and its description.
- DirectHit/AskJeeves
DirectHit/AskJeeves at http://sponsor.directhit.com/
also has a paid text ads system similar to Google's. Your link appears
alongside their search results for every topic you sponsor, right where
Ask Jeeves users are looking for the best link to follow. Your link
also appears with search results on websites that participate in the
Jeeves Text Sponsorship Network, including MSN, Searchalot, Bomis.com,
SuperCyberSearch, and Direct Hit. Your ads appear in a few days and
you just need a minimum deposit of $25 to start.
- Doorways
There are still 11 search engines that drive almost 84% of web traffic
(especially new users) to websites. Even some of those that use DMOZ'
and LookSmart's databases also have their own index. They key here is
getting your pages to come up in the top 1 to 3 search results pages
for any search. If they don't, then fewer people will find you.
Two things determine where you will be ranked. One is page factors and
elements in your pages, and you can control that. The other is link
factors, or the number of other sites (and their quality) that link
to your site. That is harder to control. Whether you have many good
sites linking to you or not, you should definitely at least get some
top ranking pages in the engines to drive traffic to your site.
Now this is not an exact science. Plus, if you do not have any good
sites linking to you, then your positions will not be as good as someone
who does. It does not mean you should give up! It's better to have no
good sites linking to you (but have some good ranking pages) than to
have nothing at all! Also, remember that it is more effective to have
many pages that rank well than it is to have just a number one ranking
page. Read that last sentence again, if you must!
Therefore, put most of your efforts into creating hundreds of pages
for a large number of keywords than just creating a few number one ranking
pages for just a few keywords. And above all, make sure your keywords
are related to your site content. It is not only ethical and professional
to do so, but it is also safe as it keeps you from being reported by
your competitors to a search engine for misleading people into going
to your site using unrelated keywords.
There are a number of professional services and software packages that
do this for you, costing anywhere between $39 to several thousand dollars.
If you have several thousand dollars to spend and if your business model
supports it, you may want to get a consulting firm to create the pages
for you. They usually charge a setup fee of a few hundred dollars to
a few thousand dollars, plus a fee for each clickthrough the doorway
pages deliver.
If you do not wish to pay for the traffic that each doorway delivers,
you then should invest in a software package that does this job for
you so that you own and host the pages yourself. Not all software packages
or consultants will do the job well, so you should find out as much
as possible about each software package or consultant before handing
over your money. You should especially avoid a solution that creates
these pages out of templates as that results in duplication, which is
frowned upon by search engines. Now, my suggestion (and currently the
most affordable solution) is PositionWeaver PRO for $39.95 (for more,
see http://www.positionweaver.com/positionweaverhome.shtml).
- Press Release
This is another great driver of free publicity, although it isn't guaranteed
that your press release will be used. For more, see a press release
company such as Xpresspress at http://interferenza.net/xpresspress/al/affiliates.cgi?187,
which also offers some tips on writing a press release and can also
write your release for you. Although it may not be guaranteed, if just
one good magazine somewhere writes your story you are in for a good
amount of traffic.
- Articles
This is powerful! Write articles and submit them free to dozens of ezines
and newsletters to publish them. You will be reaching thousands of ezine
subscribers in a highly targeted way. In your articles, make sure you
carefully reference your site. Don't do it blatantly or else no one
will publish your article. Anyone can write articles, but most people
fear that they cannot and therefore never do.
You can get a list of ezines from places such as Ezine Source at http://www.ezinesource.com/.
There is also a great and popular course on how anyone can write articles
and find ezines that will publish them. It is called "Ezine Money" at
http://www.ezinemoney.net/sgx/d.cgi?9172
-- and you can buy it for only $29.
- Careful Submission to Search Engines
There is a great product called "Search Engine Commando" at http://activemarketplace.com/w.cgi?sec-9153.
It's the only one we use to submit our pages to the search engines.
This is important since you must be very careful how you do your submissions.
Many engines today have some intricate rules when it comes to submitting.
In fact, we submit our hallway pages created by PositionWeaver and or
home pages exclusively using the Search Engine Commando.
The reason? It's all about smart and responsible search engine submissions.
It plays within the search engine rules of one page per website per
25-hour period. It also tracks which page was submitted where and on
what date, and what page is next, for unlimited pages across unlimited
URLs. And it does it all automatically. Those two features alone guarantee
that we will not spam the search engines.
It even allows you to track your various page submissions to popular
directories. Their stealth technology ensures no "footprint." For example,
many of the auto-submission tools are quickly discovered and ignored
by the search engines. But this proprietary "stealth" technology plays
"within the rules" and looks just as if a normal browser submitted your
page. The bottom-line is that it is very important to do your submissions
well, especially with the majors.
- Joint Ventures
Find a site with a complimentary product to yours and a large mailing
list. Then offer to share your revenues with this site if they can just
promote it to their mailing list. If you have a digital product that
has a very high gross margin and zero delivery costs, you can afford
to offer 50% of the sales proceeds to that site. That will definitely
motivate that site to do as you say.
First, find sites with tens of thousands of subscribers in their mailing
lists. Then, have them review your product and recommend it to their
subscribers. This should bring in a rush of orders in a matter of hours!
The easiest way to track the revenue split is by setting up an affiliate
network -- I will return to this later.
- Start a Mailing List of Visitors
and Purchasers
It's true that most of your revenue will come from repeat sales. But
you first need a system of asking people to give you their email addresses.
Start a mailing list. It doesn't have to be a newsletter. Offer something
free in return in order to encourage them in giving you their email
address -- otherwise, no one will. For example, offer a free report
or a free trial. Make sure it is useful. And when someone buys something
from you, get their email address as well.
Then, every month or so, find a valuable product that they would find
useful. Email them all, telling them about it. Make sure it is a product
they will be grateful you told them about. If it is useful and relevant
to your site and their needs, that is a huge revenue stream for you.
All you will need to do is send one email and collect thousands of sales
in a few hours. How easy is that? If you have more than one product,
you are already there. If not, find a product from another company that
you can sell for a split.
Just make sure it is a great product -- never recommend bad products
to your client list. This is the one golden rule of online marketing:
Most of your profits should come from repeat sales you get from your
mailing list. It is really the easiest money to make, yet most online
businesses never use this technique. The best email collection tool
is one that automatically follows up your mailing list and also allows
you to send them a mass email whenever necessary. For example, Aweber
at http://www.aweber.com/?26252
creates the best such product -- and the price is quite affordable.
- Acquire Testimonials
Ask for testimonials in your emails, site, forums, etc. Also, whenever
someone emails you some praise, ask them whether you can quote them
and use that as a testimonial. Then place those testimonials on your
home page, buy page, testimonials page and sales letters. Testimonials
increase conversion rates dramatically, which means more money.
- Offer a Valuable Bonus
Offering a valuable bonus to buyers has two effects. It makes your product
much more valuable to the buyer and therefore leaves them more satisfied.
It also increases sales dramatically -- some people who would otherwise
not buy will buy when they are offered a bonus. Make sure it is a useful
and relevant bonus. While your bonus will depend on your industry, a
bonus comprised of good and relevant information is always easiest and
least costly to produce.
- Offer a Valuable Guarantee
This also increases sales dramatically. Some people who would otherwise
not buy will buy when they are offered a guarantee. A 30-day money back
guarantee is enough. But the stronger the guarantee is, the stronger
the sales will be. For example, an even better guarantee is a "double-your-
money-back" guarantee -- and based on my experience, that will drive
your sales through the roof!
In my estimation, very few people ever take advantage of a money back
guarantee, even when their product is good. So if your product is good,
you don't have to worry about too many returns wasting your time and
messing with your cash flow. But having that guarantee will definitely
increase your sales. If you have a great product, then a guarantee will
almost always make you more profitable, not less.
- Offer a Bargain
People love bargains. Compare your product with others in your industry
and show how yours is a bargain. Also, show how the combination of your
product and bonus results in a huge bargain for the buyer. Whatever
you do, present your sale as a deal and that will improve sales. Even
better, make it appear as a quantity-bound or time-limited bargain.
Every shop does it! If you don't believe me, visit the nearest shopping
center or mall in your area, and you will usually find a sale going
on -- one that will end sometime in the near future. Then the prices
go back up a little, only to go on sale again just a few weeks down
the road.
- Make Your Site Load Fast
Slow sites kill sales. They get abandoned. Make your site load faster.
If you don't know how, get a web designer to do it for you -- it is
worth the investment. One way of doing this is to make your site load
in separate tables in a top-down fashion. See http://www.cnet.com/
for a fast loading yet detailed site designed using separate tables.
If you have a lot of information on one page, have a look at http://www.positionweaver.com/positionweaverhome.shtml.
It is a whopping 126KB in size. However, it gives you the illusion that
it's a fast-loading site because it loads in cascading tables -- the
first two of which contain a lot of information and very few images
(it's roughly a 4-second load time on a 28.8k modem). By the time a
reader finishes looking at one table, the next one has completed loading.
- Make Your Site Looks Professional
A clean look makes sales. In the vast world wide web, it's really a
matter of credibility. So look professional and trustworthy. Otherwise,
you will be wasting your traffic, with people coming over and leaving
because they doubt your abilities -- yes, people do judge books by the
cover! If you don't know how to clean up your site, then get a web designer
to do it for you. It is worth the investment.
- Buy eZine Ads
Ezine and newsletter ads offer relatively cheap advertising and great
targeting. An ezine usually has a certain type of people that subscribe
to it. Therefore, you can be assured that everyone who sees your ad
will likely be interested in your product. Hence, conversion rates are
high with ezines. Find a good ezine to advertise in at Ezine Source
(see http://www.ezinesource.com/)
and other ezine directories.
- Buy Cheap Banner Ads
Many sites that do not have very high traffic levels will often sell
banners very cheaply -- they cannot charge a high price from the large
corporate buyers because of their relatively low pageviews. Find a few
good sites in your industry or niche, and call them to see whether they
will take your banners and charge you something like $10 (if not less)
for every 1,000 impressions. You'd be surprised!
Even better, see whether they will run your banners for free by joining
as your affiliate, since they will earn their money whenever a sale
is made from your banner. You might have to offer them something extra,
such as a 30% commission for them to agree, but at least then you will
be paying for performance and putting no money down up front.
- Get an Affiliate System
This is a great way to get many people to link to your site. They will
do the marketing for you at no cost -- it's like having hundreds of
salespeople working for you, around the clock, for free. And you only
pay them when they sell!
The best system to buy into to run your affiliate network, that I've
found, is LinkShare at http://www.linkshare.com/
or BeFree at http://www.befree.com/
-- if you can afford it. The downside is that you will pay about $5,000
setup and ongoing fees. But the upside is that these networks have over
1 million affiliates each. And once you join them they will tell those
affiliates about your program for you.
So you will instantly acquire thousands of affiliates. In fact, many
will buy your products themselves and give you sales that could possibly
pay for the setup fee and more. If you don't want to go with any of
these companies, you can get a more affordable solution for under $200,
such as AffiliateShop at http://www.affiliateshop.com/.
- Accept Credit Cards
Securely Most people want to buy online, securely, by credit card. If
you cannot offer them that option, you will lose a large percent of
potential sales. So whatever the reason that may have kept you from
getting secure online credit card ordering, find a way around it. You
must have this!
- Get a Shopping Cart System
Here is a great tip. (I got this from Marlon Sanders' "The Amazing Formula"
course.) Get a shopping cart that allows you to suggest complimentary
products at checkout time. Many people will buy a product simply because
they find it on their shopping cart as an option to add it on. Yes!
Say that you are selling printers and related equipment. Someone selects
a printer to buy, adds it to their cart and clicks on the checkout button.
If your cart automatically suggests, at that point, that they can also
get a refill cartridge and some paper, and on your checkout page those
items and their prices next to check boxes are offered, most people
will tick the boxes and add them to the order!
Here's another example: If you are selling books, add a related book
and most people will include it with their orders! Nevertheless, with
this simple technique, at that checkout stage, you can literally double
your sales.
- Speaking of Marlon Sanders, Read His
"Amazing Formula"
One ebook I have found to be extremely useful is Marlon's "The Amazing
Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy," at http://www.amazingformula.com/cgi-bin/t.cgi/148091/.
The ebook costs only $67. It is by far the most comprehensive, accurate,
easy-to-follow and real-world-and-result-oriented book on getting sales
and traffic online. Marlon takes you step-by-step through a lot of scenarios
and tactics, and I think that almost any business would benefit greatly
from his clear and straightforward lessons.
Start today!
Well, there you go! These 24 steps you will
help you get higher traffic and sales starting in the next 24 hours --
and going up from there. We hope you have found all this very informative,
but you must do one thing to make it all worthwhile. Above all, you must
act on this information. A lot of people read things, think "Wow, that's
great" and do nothing about it. Make a promise to yourself to act today.
Success is in 1% knowing what to do and in 99% doing it.
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