How to make your site into a selling machine : Part 1

By Kathy Joyce
Posted Monday, July 5, 2004

In order to succeed online you need to develop a great product, write a website that sells, and attract targeted traffic to your site.

If you don't have one find a great product. The best type of product is one that is consumable and in demand. If the product is good customers will repeat their order.

Make sure that people can order easily from your site. If you have lots of products then it's a good idea to have an online shop where customers can put products into a virtual shopping cart (a CGI scripted program) and pay for them via paypal or credit card on a secure order form page.

The easier it is for customers to order from your site the greater the chance of making sales.

Choose a webhost that has a shopping cart package. I use internetconnection and am very happy with the support they provide. (http://www.internetconnection.net/pricing.shtml)

If you are a complete novice and don't know anything about shopping cart software then you may find this of interest. (http://www.website101.com/arch/archive126.html)

You need to tailor your site towards the customer who wants or needs the product. You can do this by first imagining that you are that customer and work out what she or he is looking for when they come to your site. Provide them with the benefits of using this product. Capture their imagination. Will it save them money, make them younger, healthier, or is it just the right widget they need!! What's in it for the customer?

Imagine that this customer is a friend and you are having a one to one conversation with them over a cup of coffee. Use the word "You" a lot as if you really are talking to them. Create a desire for the product and give them confidence that it will deliver as promised.

Make each page on your site theme focused. If you are selling more than one product or groups of products you will need a page for each one. Think about the product. What does it do? What are the benefits to the customer? Why should they buy from you and not your competitor?

Provide a solution to your customer for a problem they may have and make your text benefit laden. For example if you have a product that may help eliminate pet odours from your carpet target pet owners and suggest the problem. Then tell them about the benefits your product can have just as if you were talking to a friend.

Each page should focus on just several keywords related to that product. What would a visitor type into a search engine if they were looking for this product or information? This will rank your pages well in search engines for those keywords.

In part2 I will cover getting the most wanted response from your visitors, writing an ezine and using autoresponders.

About the Author
Kathy has her own mlm online business which you can visit at (http://www.healthandbeautytowealth.co.uk) She has written other articles to help you build your online business. Subscribe to Kathy's new monthly newsletter healthtowealth
email:subscribe2healthtowealth@getresponse.com