Bring Your Visitors Back Clamoring for More! Maintain and Improve Your Web Site Weekly

By Judy Cullins
Posted Wednesday, December 1, 2004

80% of your Web site is Maintenance!

Once your Web site is up, you must maintain it. Maintenance means changes, and each time you make a change, you may make a mistake. I'm really grateful when people point out my Web glitches, and I can be more proactive by checking my site each week.

If your visitors get a link that doesn't work, see incomplete instructions, or read your dull instead of passionate copy, they will leave your site immediately, and not bookmark it.

Before you invite folks to see your masterpiece you need to check and correct all parts of your site, and especially the home page.

TEST YOUR HEADLINES. You have four seconds to get your visitor's attention. Test your title or opening sentence of copy. This one item alone can make a huge difference in the responses you receive.

Instead of the wasted words "welcome," put a benefit with a link to either a benefit story or sales letter about your product or the product itself.

When I placed "Quadruple your Web Sales in Just Four Months" with a "click here" to my sales copy following it, my Web sales increased ten times from my original home page, and this in only four months time.

People learned about my eBooks and Teleclasses on Write Your eBook or Other Short Book--Fast!, Ten Non-Techie Ways to Market Your Book Online, and Quadruple Online Sales in Four Months with Free Articles. In 2002, after being Online eight months, Web sales are consistently over $3000 each month.

If your headline doesn't say benefits, the game is over.

TEST YOUR OFFERS. People perceive more value when you add an incentive to buy. Give them a bonus FREE report or a tips list with the order. It takes little time and effort to create, but it increases sales thirty-fold.

Each month, I motivate my visitors with "Discounts of the Month" available as a navigation bar on home page. In each discount I include testimonials and benefits, And perhaps a bundling of several books or teleclasses For a deep discount--often half price.

1. Testimonials. They lend credibility to you. When people see that other well-known leaders like your products or services, they are more likely to buy. It's relatively easy to get these too.

Here's a few that worked:

- "Save yourself from headaches, disappointments, and money down the drain. Read Write Your eBook or Other Short Book- Fast! before you write another word. The author puts you on the fastest track to publishing success."

- "Wow! My sales letter worked! Thank you, thank you, thank you for presenting your 3-session teleclass "Create Your Homepage With Marketing Pizzazz." You helped me focus on who my target market really is--a major accomplishment. Knowing the difference between benefits and features helped me produce a sales letter that got me a sale the next day I put it up on my site."

- "In just one coaching session I learned how to strengthen my article's language, got a perfect acronym for my coaching business, learned the difference between benefits and features, got a new bio/benefits statement to use for networking, and most of all the "bigger picture" to see a series of products and services to sell--definitely worth her fees."

2. Benefit statements. Test your copy by emailing several groups in your address book with several choices. Call it a Survey. Ask them, which benefits makes their heart skip a beat? Enough to take out their credit card and buy. Emphasize different benefits. Try out different headlines, phrases, power words or metaphors. Appeal to different senses like smell, touch, emotions or visual. Remember most people are visual and kinesthetic.

Here are a few ideas:

For a book one client submitted these benefits: -Clean up the places of your life where you're out of integrity -Create more time, energy, and passion in your life -Uncover your deepest values and honor them.

Another book's benefits included: -Be your self in a world that wants you to be like everyone else -Develop positive expectancy to achieve real results -Procrastinate into your hearts desires -Balance work and home by mastering the joy of moseying

TEST YOUR PRICE. A price that is too low is as bad as a price too high. Too low a price devalues your product or service.

Potential clients or buyers might think, "If it's that cheap, it must not be good." One myth is that eBooks have less value than print books. If your book has information your one particular audience wants, you must price it accordingly. If your service is invaluable, be sure to charge what you're worth.

Always start your prices high. Later you can offer a deep discount.

TEST YOUR COPY. Change testimonials or pictures every so often. Redo your opening page and closing page. Instead of "Subscribe to my ezine," put a short testimonial from a famous person in your field right before the "click here" to subscribe.

Always give your visitors a reason to buy. Make your copy "you" oriented. Dan Poynter, author of The Self-Publishing Manual, said this about the free monthly ezine The Book Coach Says... ezine is chock full of useful information - totally worth your time.

Make your Web pages easier to read by using bullets. On my home page I put these questions in bullets:

"Let me help you answer questions about your book" · What are the first steps to writing a great selling book? · Will my book attract my desired audience? · Will my potential buyers think my book is worth the money? · Will my books sell enough copies for my satisfaction? · Now that it's written, how can I best promote my book?

Test the length of your copy. Check the size of your paragraphs. In general, keep them short, around 1-4 sentences. Imagine looking at a long line of print before you get to the meat? Discouraged, you would probably leave the page, and possibly the site!

Check for passive sentence construction too. Why? Because you slow your reader down with passives, and they want your clear, concise, and compelling information. Your spell and grammar check gives you those percentages at the end. If your sentences are more than 3-4% passive, you need a professional coach to check your copy. This article has 1% passive.

TEST YOUR SITE LAYOUT. Know where people are entering your site and exiting. Many companies out there can give you this service. If potential buyers keep leaving at a particular page before they go to products and ordering page, your words deceive, and some changes are in order. You can track: where your traffic is coming from, what pages visitors like, what page the majority of visitors enter and exit, and how long are they there, even which ones signed up for your eNewsletter.

TEST YOUR ORDER PROCESS. Ask friends and associates to run through different parts of your site. Show your appreciation by paying them for it with free product or service. Tell them you have a thick skin, and appreciate their honesty.

One would-be customer couldn't finish the order for one of my teleclasses. It took a lot of effort to get that mistake rectified with some free product from me. I know a famous eBook author from whom I tried and tried to buy a book. I even emailed him about it. He said he didn't take email orders and sent me back to where the problem was.

It's much better to have all links work, so your customers will have an easy ordering experience. Also, be sure to offer your customers several ways to order. Not all people like to order on the web.

Know that your job of testing never ends. It's what we call maintenance, 80% of life is maintenance! Just experimenting with these tests will bring more sales. Keep testing to know what your potential buyers really want.

About the Author
Judy Cullins: author, publisher, book coach Helps professionals manifest their book dreams Special Offer: Web Redo Kit at "Discounts of the Month" (http://www.bookcoaching.com/discounts.shtml) Send an email to mailto:Subscribe@bookcoaching.com The Book Coach Says... includes 2 free eReports mailto:Judy@bookcoaching.com