How To Turn More Web Site Visitors Into Customers Who Buy
By Lisa Lake   ©2004 All Rights Reserved

These days I receive a lot of email from web site owners who say "I get plenty of visitors to my site, but hardly anybody buys."

Sometimes it is downright embarrassing. These folks are getting WAY more traffic to their site than I get to mine. I'm tempted to write back and say hey, I'll fix your conversion problem if you will show me how to get all that traffic. Low conversion rates (the number of visitors who become paying customers) are a common situation caused by a few simple problems. Fix the problems and you can expect your conversion rate to jump. There aren't many instant fixes in life, but better conversion can immediately help pay the bills and put more money in your pocket. 1. Start off by putting your most popular products or services on the front page. Don't make people hunt and peck through your site to find the good stuff. Let them know right from the start you've got something that will make them drool. Take a look at Meredith Pond's http://CheapWriting.com She promises you good, low-cost business writing, then clobbers you with a ridiculously big promotion package you can buy for pennies on the dollar. Even if you don't go to Meredith's site to buy marketing packages, she gets your attention. You immediately understand she knows your situation and has good offers for you. That's enough to keep most people looking through her site. 2. Can you put up a delicious photo of your product? How about a picture of you or your staff providing a service? We humans are very visual beings (that's why we see color and dogs don't.) Give the average shopper nice photos of what she is looking for and you can expect a sale. I always come away hungry when I see the pictures of chocolate at Nancy Davis' CandyGold.com. 3. Nancy's site brings us to conversion strategy number three...put YOUR photo on your site. Most people don't buy because they don't quite feel comfortable, they don't quite trust you yet. It's a natural reaction to the Web filled with so many sites and no way to sit down and talk with the owners. Set people at ease by putting your smiling photo on your site. Nancy has hers right next to the pictures of chocolate and cash you can earn working with her. You can see that Nancy looks like a nice person you feel you've met somewhere before. That's not a bad impression to give customers. 4. Write some exciting, interesting, informative descriptions for your products and services. The more expensive the product, the longer your description must be. Rather than just droning on down the page, make your longer text include deeper details. Customers love copy that tells them everything they need to know. AND gets them excited about buying. 5. Describe the problems your product or service solves. Give real life examples that visitors can identify with. Show how your customers use what you sell. Then describe what the visitor's life will be like after he buys from you and uses your product. 6. If you can, let people search through your products and services by subject and by price. Some people want to see all the Compaq computers you sell. Others just want to know what you have in the under-$1000 range. Let people shop both ways. 7. Make it EASY to order. On longer pages of copy, put a BIG order link near the top, in the middle, and toward the end of the page. Give people a button they can click and have the item put directly into their shopping cart. Tell customers how long it will take to receive the product or service they are about to order. These simple 7 suggestions can quickly turn your site into a money-maker. More visitors will discover reasons to come back to stay on your site longer, come back again and again, and to buy.

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LISA LAKE has created a list of top ways to promote your business or career. See her http://MyAdBlaster.com Lisa also writes ad copy that sells for DrNunley's http://InternetWriters.com Reach her at lisa@myadblaster.com or 801-328-9006.

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