1. The first step in getting the right traffic is to identify your
Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Your USP states clearly what your web
site offers and how you are different from your competitors. If you are the
only online store offering large-sized red widgets, emphasize it in your
website and in your marketing campaigns.
2. Higher conversion and sales starts with getting the right visitors
to your website. Make sure you attract qualified traffic – visitors that
are genuinely interested in your products. If you are advertising your
website, your priority should be to use advertising copy specific to your
offering. Using broad terms may drive more visitors to your website that
have no intention to purchase, resulting in a decrease in conversion rate.
For example, if your website sells tour packages to Boracay Island in the
Philippines, do not advertise or buy pay-per-click keywords for the keyword
"Asian tour." You may get lots of visitors with this broad keyword, but they
may not be interested in going to Philippines, much less Boracay.
3. Generate good visibility and reviews from shopping comparison web
sites such as Shopping.com, Epinions.com, Bizrate.com, etc. While you
may have reservations on using shopping comparison sites because of its
emphasis on price, many Web users rely on shopping comparison sites to find
the best-value products that are most suitable to their needs and
requirements. Your business needs to be listed in these sites in order to
give you targeted traffic and increased online exposure without the
prohibitively expensive offline brand advertising.
4. Sharpen your landing pages. Visitors are not always arriving on
your homepage. Many come to your site via your product or other interior
pages, yet this fact is often one of the most neglected sales points. In
fact, where you send your visitors can be key to increasing your conversion
rate. Check your web statistics and find out your main landing pages – and
work on them really hard.
If you are running marketing campaigns such as emails or pay per click
advertising, your landing page should be designed to sell your products or
services -- and nothing else. The page should only have one purpose: to
sell. Give the visitor the page that they want complete with product
description and picture (better yet, show the visitor a technical and price
comparison with other products to demonstrate how your product compares with
your competitor).
The landing page should always have a push to action – make sure it is a
page where they can buy your product. Keep your “buy now” button prominent.
5. Get your web pages ready for the sale. Your goal should be to
turn your visitors into buyers. Your homepage should load fairly quickly,
with enough text for the search engines to nibble. Make it clear on the
homepage what you are selling and what visitors can expect to find.
It is also important to keep your homepage fresh. An automated date
script can show people that your site is updated daily. Also change the
content every day, whether changing the featured product, rotating the
products shown, putting in newest deals that your site offers, or even just
changing the pictures used. Also
update your copyright statements to the correct year.
Another way is to ensure that every product page contains the exact name;
model number, brand, type, etc. in the <title>element. People who search
with these keywords are ready to buy.
6. Analyze your web traffic. Your web metrics can give you clues
as to how visitors are using your website, and what areas can be improved to
help improve your sales conversion. Web analysis tools can help you analyze
customer behavior and improve your site's business success.
Look at your conversion rates, or how many visitors actually buy relative
to the visitors you attract, as well as your average order value in order to
gauge success levels. Many web statistics software such as the free Google
Analytics can provide revenue-based metrics with customer behavior. For
example, companies can use techniques such as funnel-based analysis, in
which they compare drop-off rates with lost revenue. Some software allows
for path analysis, which allows you to check which Category level, Product
Level, Product Detail Level pages are experiencing unacceptable exit ratios.
Check the top exit pages and understand why people are leaving your website.
Or why they are abandoning their shopping carts. Analyze your statistics at
the product level.
(article continued below ...)
7. Reduce load times. The faster your website, the higher the
chances of engaging the visitor quickly. Replace your table-based website
with cascading style sheets to make your pages load faster.
8. Examine what visitors are searching in your site. Your site
search can provide you with important information that can improve your
conversion rate. Check what visitors are searching for in your site. Do you
have these products? If so, how prominently are they placed on your site?
Why are the visitors not finding these products?
Also watch out for those searches that do not bring any results – it
means that people are looking for products on your site that you do not
carry. If a sizeable number of visitors are looking for the same products,
maybe you need to consider carrying these products as well. If you are
carrying those products and yet customer searches yield zero results, then
your search dictionary may not cover the terms used by the visitors. This
indicates that customers are using different terminologies for your products
that you did not expect, and the word is not included in your search
dictionary. The customer is ready to buy; unfortunately, your site search
does not anticipate other ways a customer will look for the product.
Read Part 2:
Build Customer Confidence
About The Author:
Nach Maravilla is the President and CEO of PowerHomeBiz.com. For
information on starting a
home business visit
PowerHomeBiz.com
