Previously I’ve discussed using ebay and online shops to increase your sales. Here we look at another selling opportunity – Craigslist.

It is fairly easy to make money with Craigslist if you know how to take advantage of it. You may find it to be a goldmine. There are millions worldwide who use the online classifieds known as Craigslist. It doesn’t really matter what it is you are offering, more

than likely there is a large portion of your niche market that is likely using it to find what you are offering.

It could be anything from music, to new or used cars, to real estate and mortgages, furniture, insurance, books, or pretty much anything you can think of and people are going there to find it. People love to find a bargain and get the cheapest prices for what

they want and they are turning to Craigslist to find it.

You may be asking yourself, “How does Craigslist make money?” If you have a product or service of any kind you are very likely going to be able to find buyers or subscribers there, lots of them.

As long as you use some creativity and ingenuity you can make a strong offer that people using Craigslist will respond to. Writing copy is very important as you have to be able to have it re-written so that it will fit in as many categories as possible.

Customize it for the different groups you would like to reach. It will only take a little tweaking to make it fit the different categories so don’t feel that you need to do a major reworking of the offer. Don’t be afraid to be creative with the way you phrase your offer. You want to catch people’s attention.

When you are constructing your post on Craigslist you are going to also make sure to have a title for the ad that will give the prospect a reason to click it. They are going to be looking at several things similar to your offer so make sure that you have all the key

elements and also a price that will grab their attention.

Those using Craigslist are used to getting quick responses so if you aren’t able to shoot them an email whenever they send you a request of show interest use an auto responder. Anyone who wants to make money with Craigslist is going to have to learn how to deal with buyers who want attention quick. If you can’t respond fast enough you will lose the sale to someone else.

It will be important to make use of all the tools they have to offer to make the most money at Craigslist. They have a tool called AdNotifier that will alert you to new ads being posted in your category. It is always good to check it out and make sure that you

are still competitive. Remember when you are constructing your post that there are others wanting to make money with Craigslist who will be doing the same. Also use your post to draw attention to your websites using links and HTML.

As with anything, make sure that you know all the terms and conditions well and that you follow them. It is a great tool to use but will only be effective if you use it properly.

Consider Craigslist as another storefront and a great opportunity to get more customers. There are plenty of people out there needing what you can offer them. Done right you will find that it is very easy to grow your business and make money with Craigslist.

A significant element of your internet marketing strategy should focus on how you are going to attract people to your website. Here, easywebdesign4u gives 12 great tips for including forums in your traffic strategy.

Forums are a place where people with a common interest congregate. They do this for a variety of reasons including,

§  Getting questions answered

§  Finding solutions to problems

§  Keeping up to date with things

§  Simply having a chat and socialising

Active, high membership forums can be an ideal source of targeted traffic for your site. Below are 12 top tips for generating traffic from forums.

1.    Identifying Suitable Forums

This is a three stage process involving,

§  Identification. There are two main ways of identifying suitable forums,

o   Google “[Your Niche/Keyword] & Forum”. Then visit anything you feel may be relevant. Remember to include your search term in quotes for an exact match.

o   Use forum directories. Sites such as www.big-boards.com list forums and show details such as the number of daily visits, posts and members. You can also search on these criteria.

§  Research. Once you’ve identified potential forums, you need to research them. Visit sites such as Alexa to review their general performance. Look for things such as where they rank on the web and the amount of traffic they attract. If the site has favourable stats, put it on your list.

§  Evaluation. Potential sites need to be evaluated for marketability. Read the rules and terms of membership and ensure the site allows you to both conduct business and include links to your site.

2. Selecting the Right One(s)

Forums you join need to be relevant to your niche. Criteria to consider are,

§  Activity. Check the volume of postings, number of users and date of most recent posts.

§  Quantity. Don’t overstretch yourself. Establish a presence on one and become an expert before signing up to another one.

§  Links. Make sure you’re allowed to put your link in your signature. Driving traffic to your site will be more difficult if you’re not allowed to tell people who you are!

§  Environment. Make sure you’re happy with the content that is being posted, both in terms of quality and tone. If you’re going to be spending a lot of time there, you need to be comfortable with your environment.

3. Think About Your Username

Your username should fit with both your business and the forum. From a business point of view your username represents your brand, therefore make sure that they’re aligned. You don’t want your username suggesting one thing while your business represents something else. Likewise, your username needs to be in keeping with the tone of the forum. You don’t want a humourous username if you’re in a serious forum. If you take the time and effort to fit in with the forum, you are likely to be more successful there.

4. Build Your Profile

 Your profile is what people see when they click on your name. As well as putting a link to your site here, you can also include,

§  Your Avatar. People like to think they are dealing with people, so putting your picture here is more likely to put people at ease than have them wondering who they are dealing with. If you would prefer not to use your photo, use an avatar which represents your business and is in keeping with the forum.

§  Your Bio. Let people know not only about your experience in the business, but also a bit about you as a person. This helps to build a relationship with your readers who may go on to become your customers and even your friends.

§  An e-mail address. People should be able to contact you with questions and comments.

§  Links. Links to other sites such as Twitter and Facebook, if allowed.

5. Include a Link to Your Site in Your Signature

Some forums get thousands of visitors each day. By simply enticing a small percentage of these to click on your link, you could see your traffic soar. Think carefully about what to link to. Most people, by default, will link to their home page. However, if your objective is to increase your mailing list, it might be more appropriate to link to a sign up page.

6. Don’t Be Spammy

People don’t like it when newcomers arrive and immediately start to sell to them. So don’t! Join the site, participate in some conversations and build up a reputation before you start selling. If you’ve chosen your forum wisely, you’re likely to find that you can recommend your products as solutions to a problem being discussed in the natural course of a conversation.

7. Be Helpful to Everyone

This is the best way to establish a good reputation. Portray yourself as a person with good intentions. People will feel comfortable with you and your relationship with them will start to build. As people do business with people they know, like and trust, building a reputation as a knowledgeable and approachable person willing to help others should stand you in good stead when promoting products.

8. Provide Quality Content

Don’t just post with one word answers. Give a reasoned opinion and perhaps link to other articles to support your case. Never call yourself an expert – show people by offering intelligent solutions to their problems. If you’re adding value you can always end your post with a line saying “This post was written for XYZ Forum. If you found it useful, check out my site at ABC.com.”

9. Start New Threads

When people enter a forum they tend to read posts at the top, so make sure yours is there! However, it needs to address a new subject. If there is already a relevant thread, add to it, or you will annoy people by fragmenting the conversation. If you have nothing new to say, you can start a new thread by posting a survey or asking for opinions.

10. Post Often

Getting traffic from forums is not a passive activity. If you join up, submit a few posts and then do nothing you will soon be forgotten. Over time, as new posts are added, yours will effectively fall off the forum. Existing members will forget about you and new members wont even know who you are! So the key here is, keep posting.

 11. Observe Forum Etiquette

Failure to do so may result in you being banned!

12. Build Backlinks

Major forums may be viewed as “authority” sites and gaining backlinks from them can improve your pagerank. This may result in more traffic coming indirectly from the forum as your site may now appear higher in the search engine results. However, don’t put links to your site in all of your posts or you will simply be seen as an advertising billboard!

So, there you have it. Forums can play a significant role in driving traffic to your website and should be included in any comprehensive internet marketing strategy. Of course, once there, your easy web design is geared to achieved the desired response.

Technorati Tags: Easy Web Design, Forums, Internet Marketing, Traffic, Traffic Strategy

In this, the fourth and final part of this autoresponder series, we look at other ways autoresponders can be used to help take your business to the next level. Specifically we look at,

• E-Mail courses
• Secret pages
• Tracking
• E-Zines

E-Mail Courses

Autoresponders are the ideal tool for managing the delivery of an e-course. E-courses provide a great opportunity for staying in touch with both prospects and customers. They help you to build a relationship with these people. The course subject needs to be relevant to the participants and of value to them. As the course progresses, the participants should start to look out for your e-mail and begin to feel that you are a trustworthy vendor.

In your e-mail signature you should include a link back to your website and you may also want to include another promotional link at the end of your message. You may be sending out the e-course because it relates to a soon to be released product. If this is the case, towards the end of the course you should start to promote the product. In the final part include a link to the item. Effectively your e-course has been a pre-sell and, if done well, will result in additional sales.

Access to Secret Pages

People love to get something for free. They also feel special if they can benefit from something which has limited access. Write a sales page and distribute it to your prospects, customers and affiliates. The sales page should talk about a fantastic free gift, e.g. “the secret tool that helped me earn thousands each month”. Explain this has limited access and is currently being stored at a secret location. The reader has to enter their details to discover the location.

Make sure the free gift is something of value but also utilise the download page to include advertisements for other, preferably similar or complementary, products. Not everyone will buy, but some will.

Tracking Your Campaigns

In the offline world, knowing which parts of your marketing are effective is often difficult to determine. Online, the task is considerably easier and tracking your autoresponder is an extremely powerful tool which could see your sales rocket!

The higher quality autoresponder services provide tracking services. You enter the URL of the web page you want the reader to visit into the tracking tool. The software generates a new URL which captures the click before redirecting the reader to the intended destination. You can then monitor the results through you cpanel. Here you can discover how many messages were delivered and how many links were clicked. You may also be told how many messages were opened.

These stats can help you to manage your advertising campaigns and improve your sales. For example, if your messages are being opened but your sales are low, you know your autoresponder is effective but your sales page needs to be changed. Adjust the sales copy and continue tracking. You may just see your sales soar!

Publish an E-Zine

An e-zine is a good way to promote your business and stay in touch with your customers. Prospects can also request a copy to find out more about you.

Unlike autoresponder messages where everybody receives the same sequence of messages starting with the first one, e-zines are received when the next one is published. This is done using the broadcast functionality within the autoresponder service.

The broadcast feature allows you to schedule publications well into the future. This gives you the flexibility to work around known busy times, e.g. Christmas, or times when you will not be available, e.g. when on holiday.  They also save past issues which means they are not only available for you to refer back to, but you can also allow your readers to request back issues. Like autoresponder messages, broadcast messages can also be tracked.

We’ve now reached the end of this series on autoresponders. I hope you’ve found it useful and can see that by incorporating some of these ideas into your easy web design you can grow your business quicker and easier than you previously thought. If you missed any of the earlier articles, you can read them here.

Still not signed up to an autoresponder service? I recommend Aweber. They offer the best deliverability and have all the features you will ever need.

Click Here to Create Your $1 Trial Account

Technorati Tags: Autoresponder, Aweber, Easy Web Design, Easy Website Design, Internet Marketing

Part 2 of this series discussed how, by incorporating autoresponders into your easy web design, you can build your list and convert prospects to customers. This article looks at how customer service can be improved with the assistance of autoresponders.

Once an order has been placed through your website, it’s always a good idea to immediately acknowledge the purchase. This can be done with the use of an autoresponder which can be integrated with your shopping cart. In fact, many shopping carts have their own autoresponders built into their system.

Research has shown that personalizing e-mails results in a far higher response rate. Therefore when you capture contact details always make sure you ask for a name as well as an e-mail address. You can then use the coding feature in your autoresponder to “talk” to each individual recipient.

Send your customer a “thank-you” message letting them know how much you value their business, hoping they’ll enjoy the product and informing them of what happens next. As the customer has now made a payment, a receipt should also be issued. These should be sent on separate e-mails so as not to dilute the value of the “thank-you”.

Your receipt, and any subsequent e-mails, can also be used as an opportunity to inform the customer of other products you have that will compliment the purchase. However, don’t make the mistake of bombarding your customer! It’s generally acceptable to send them periodic information about your specials, but emailing them on a daily basis with your offers is not good business. It may well result in them clicking the unsubscribe button and not placing future orders with you.

If the purchase is a physical product, it can be followed up with an e-mail informing the customer of when the item will be despatched. Purchasers of digital products can receive an e-mail containing a link from which the product can be downloaded.

If your customer has purchased an item which requires re-billing, e.g. a subscription, an autoresponder is the ideal tool for automating this process. You no longer have to focus on this administrative task and can instead focus on generating new business. Again, these e-mails can contain links promoting other goods and services.

Autoresponders can also be used to provide after sales service and build a relationship with the customer. In addition to sending a “thank-you” message further messages can be sent to help the customer get the most out of the product. If a digital product has been sold which requires specific software to use, the customer could be sent a link to where this can be downloaded from. Likewise, a list of frequently asked questions could be sent which may be beneficial to the customer.

Finally, depending on the resources available to you, you may decide to set up a support autoresponder.  This should automatically inform the customer that the query is being dealt with and give an idea of how soon it will be addressed. This will leave the customer feeling that something is being done, rather than totally frustrated at making a purchase which cannot be used. The difference between an irate and a patient customer could be one simple message sent via your autoresponder.

So, as you can see, by incorporating an autoresponder into your easy web design, you can offer high levels of customer service and build a long term relationship with your customers.

In the fourth and final part of this autoresponder series we’ll be looking at other uses of autoresponders you can employ to automate and grow your business.

Still not signed up to an autoresponder service? I recommend Aweber. They offer the best deliverability and have all the features you will ever need.

Click Here to Create Your $1 Trial Account

Technorati Tags: Autoresponder, Aweber, Easy Web Design, Easy Website Design, Internet Marketing

In part 1 of this series, we looked at the basics of autoresponders. In this article we look at how they can be used to attract prospects and convert them to customers.

Selling goods can be done either directly by the vendor or via an affiliate. Autoresponders can be used to aid the process regardless of the selling channel.

Using affiliates to sell your products is a great way of increasing sales as they have access to potential customers that you don’t. Given the fantastic upside to be gained by working with affiliates, it’s essential you keep them happy and motivated. An auto responder can make this so simple that it would be criminal not to do it!

Many affiliates fail simply because they don’t know how to market a product, and they have little or no support from affiliate managers. Autorsponders can be used to send them a regular stream of,

• Positive messages
• Upcoming promotions
• Details of competitions
• Sales and marketing tips
• Congratulations to, and recognition of, top sellers
• Short motivational articles
• News related to the product or service that are being sold

Failing to communicate with your downline members is the same as ensuring that they fail at the business in most cases. If you want to succeed in affiliate marketing, you have to take steps to help your downline succeed!

If you’re also selling direct to the customer, an autoresponder can also help you achieve this. Indeed, not only can they assist with the sale, but the can also help you to find new customers!

The easiest and fastest way to build an email list is to give things away for free. Some marketers will tell you that this is a waste of time, and if you already have a substantial list, it probably is. But for those who do not already have a list, this is the way that it gets built!

Find something to giveaway. It could be a report, an ebook, an interview with an expert, a video – anything, as long as it is something of value. The objective is to build a list of potential cutomers and this method produces a win-win situation. While someone gets a freebie, you get their name, e-mail address and permission to e-mail them in the future.

If you do it right, you get even more than that. The clever marketer will use every opportunity they have to maximise their sales. As well as offering the freebie they may use the “thank you” e-mail to include,

• A link to related products and services
• Valuable information aimed, not only at helping the user, but also at keeping you in their mind and hence starting to build a relationship for future sales
• Third party advertisements

They may also include affiliate links in reports or ebooks the user downloads.

These opportunities can all be automated with the use of an autoresponder.

Once you have a prospect on your list, you then want to convert them to a customer. Marketers know that, in most cases, a prospect must hear your message an average of seven times before they will make a purchase. Your autoresponder is the ideal tool to help you with this.

Building customer interest and excitement is the first step to successfully marketing many products  and this should be done slowly. Start with an informative message – one that educates the reader in some way on the topic that your product or service is related to. Perhaps include a link to the sales page for your product at the end of your message. Use this first message to focus on the problem your product or service can solve, but include just a hint of the solution.

Hinting at a solution will sow a seed of intrigue in the user. This is the hook upon which you can build. Then send a sequence of e-mails, via your autoresponder, which build on this. Illustrate how your product or service can solve the problem, and emphasise the benefits your product will bring to the reader. Provide more information with each message as this is what will keep them interested.  If you’re selling a ebook, you may even offer them a preview chapter. If your product is to be launched soon, remind them of the launch date. Keep building interest and excitement. Then, in your final message, present your sale pitch.

This type of marketing is an art which may take time to get right. Pay attention to messages that you receive from other marketers and use the best of these as the basis for your messages. Building  a ‘swap’ file will give you a future resource library which you can refer back to. Just make sure that you don’t use an exact copy of someone else’s sales message!

If you’re doing this right, by the time the potential customer reads the last message, they’ll be convinced enough to make a purchase.

So, as you can see, by incorporating an autoresponder into your easy web design, you can effortlessly attract prospects and convert them to customers.

Still not signed up to an autoresponder service? I recommend Aweber. They offer the best deliverability and have all the features you will ever need.

Click Here to Create Your $1 Trial Account

Technorati Tags: Autoresponder, Aweber, Easy Web Design, Easy Website Design, Internet Marketing

Automation is important to all businesses. The less time we spend doing small tasks, the more time we can devote to the value adding parts of the business. A key to automation is the use of an autoresponder.

Autoresponders can be used for a variety of tasks including,

• Getting people to your website
• Promoting products and services
• Granting access to whatever it is the customer has purchased
• Issuing receipts
• Thanking the customer for their business
• Informing customers of other products they may be interested in
• Keeping in contact with past customers
• Developing a relationship with potential customers
• Increasing sales and building on the relationship you have with existing customers
• A host of other tasks

Given that autoresponders can more efficiently perform such a wide range of customer service activities, the autoresponder used can mean the difference between business success and failure. As such this article, the first in a set of four, will discuss things you need to consider when choosing and setting up your autoresponder. The remaining three articles will be devoted to the benefits a business can derive from them.

With the vast number of e-mails being sent every day it is crucial that your e-mails are delivered and not treated as spam. If you’re using a service provider, the first thing you must do is ensure that the autoresponders domain name has not been blacklisted by the spam watch groups.

Once you’ve chosen your service provider, you need to ensure you know how the system works properly before you start issuing e-mails. Fail to do this and get something wrong and your customers, and potential customers, will see every mistake you make. Therefore, before deploying the system, learn, learn, learn and test, test, test.

Begin by learning how to format your messages. E-mails received with broken text are hard to read and have an unprofessional appearance. Because each email client is different, you should not allow any line in your message to exceed 65 characters. This will help prevent lines from breaking up. Check that your autoresponder messages are delivered in the correct format by sending them to yourself, before you send them to your mailing list.

Send messages to your own address until you know your autoresponder service inside and out. This may take a little time but, taking the time to learn the system should not only save you time in the future, but may also help you tweak and tune your autoresponder messages and tracking in a way that increases your responses.

Once you’re happy that you’re familiar with how your autoresponder service works, you can then turn your attention to the content of your messages. In particular you have to try and ensure your messages will not be treated as spam.

In light of the spam problem, most email clients now have spam filters installed. These filters catch spam email and either move it to a ‘spam folder’ or automatically delete it. After spending a great deal of time labouring over your series of autoresponder messages, it would be a shame to find out that the majority of the messages that are sent out end up in the spam folder, or are automatically deleted as spam!

You must ensure that your e-mails are compliant with anti-spam laws. In the US, each commercial email you send must include your name or business name, street address, city, state, zip code, and phone number. Finally, you must provide the recipient with a means by which they can remove themselves from your mailing list. This is typically an unsubscribe link.

Additional ways in which you can protect yourself from spam complaints include,

• Requesting the recipient confirms they have requested the content before it is sent. This is known as a double opt-in.
• Adding a check box on the order form asking for permission to send periodic emails.
• Upon initial request for communication, automatically redirect users to a page that gives them instructions for ‘white listing’ you. White listed addresses should never be considered spam.
• Check your autoresponder messages using one of the various spam checkers that are available online before you introduce them into your business.

We all want to build a list of a million people, but you must do so responsibly, and it does take time. Don’t get in a hurry and break all the rules and laws in an attempt to build a large list. This will only result in losing your list altogether!

The ability to add and remove names to your autoresponder manually is vital. Often, people will contact you without going through your autoresponder. These people need to be put on the autoresponders mailing list. If you are moving your list from one service to another, you need the ability to import names and addresses to your list. If your autoresponder service isn’t powerful enough to allow this, look for a different one!

In the next article in this series we’ll be looking at how to use autoresponders to generate leads and increase your sales. Until then, if you’ve yet to subscribe to a service, or feel your current provider won’t make the grade, why not try aweber? It’s one of the best services on the market and is sure to become a great asset to you business.

Click Here to Create Your $1 Trial Account

Technorati Tags: Autoresponder, Aweber, Easy Web Design, Easy Website Design, Internet Marketing

To be a successful online marketer you’re internet marketing has to identify people already comfortable with spending money online, and target this market with the objective of obtaining a slice of the pie. Ideally, you’re looking for people who buy on a regular basis .These tend to be people who are really passionate about things. They expect to spend money.

To keep profits high you need to identify your potential customers in a cost efficient manner. Internet marketing activities which can help you do this include,

§  Looking for ads, banners and promotions which are regularly repeated. This is a good sign that someone is making money from these products.

§  Visiting sites such as Amazon and Clickbank to find out what the best sellers are.

§  Going to your local newsagent to see what magazines are being sold. If there’s a magazine on a subject, there’s a market for that subject.

§  Looking for blogs and forums associated with a particular market.

Forums are a good source of research as they’re where people congregate. You can quite quickly see if people are only interested in the subject, or if they’re also used to spending. Furthermore, if this is a spending community, it could be somewhere for you to target your promotions.

If you can’t find any forums relating to your intended market, you could try looking at the comment section of blogs. Alternatively, you could decide that the lack of forums means there are easier markets to access and simply move on to something else.

To identify blogs and forums, simply type your market followed by “blog” or “forum” into search engine.

Once you’ve identified a market in terms of potential customers, look at who is pitching to those prospects. If people are buying from others there’s no reason why they shouldn’t also buy from you. However, if those “others” are professional marketers, you may have problems breaking into the market. A quick look at their website and their internet marketing will give you a feel for whether you will be able to compete.

Many people fail to make any real profits because they focus on what they want to sell rather than what people want to buy. The trick to being successful is to find out what people are prepared to spend money on. This tends to be products which,

§  Solve a problem, or

§  Yield fantastic benefits

Once you have identified a potential market, you need to convert prospects into customers. Then you need to keep these customers. Many people slip up here. They make a sale and then look for the next customer.

Over the years many studies have shown that it is far easier, not to mention cheaper, to sell a second item to an existing customer than a first item to a new customer. To maximise sales revenue from each customer you should offer value which exceeds the cost of your product. This value should also extend to your after sales service.

Although your product, once sold, may not require you to have anything else to do with the customer, by offering an after sales service you are beginning to build a relationship. People do business with people they know, like and trust. Your internet marketing should include following up on sales. Sending customers items such as product updates, free reports and money off vouchers for their next purchase, can have several benefits including,

§  Keeping your name in the mind of the customer

§  Creating a reputation for quality and value for money

When you then promote your next offering, your chances of securing additional sales from these customers have been greatly increased.

Another way of maximising sales from customers is to track what it is they buy and the cost of those products. You can then promote a more expensive product to them. If they fail to buy, you might want to simply target them with low cost offerings. However, if they buy a more expensive product you could then move them onto a list of customers you promote your high end products to.

Repeat sales are also a good way of maximising revenue. Subscription services, such as a membership sites or coaching programmes, can prove quite lucrative.

So, to maximise your sales revenue your internet marketing needs to target a group of people, who already have the buying habit, with a product which is beneficial to them. Once they’ve purchased you then need to look after them and encourage them to purchase again.

Your e-commerce website development should not be restricted to onsite functionality, but should be extended to include offsite activities which lead customers to your site. One of these activities is sales copy.

We’ve all seen those e-mails and sales letters that just seem to go on and on. Equally, we’ve all received short sales copy. So what’s best? What should you be using to increase yours sales?

Well the reality is that it very much depends on what you’re trying to sell and whether it’s a high or low ticket item.

What are you selling? If it’s a totally new, or perhaps highly technical product, then you need to educate people as to what exactly it is you’re offering. In cases like this long copy is probably best. Use the page to explain your product, the problems it solves and the benefits derived from it. If it’s a technical product, listing a host of features can also draw your prospect in. Hopefully you would have anticipated your customer’s questions correctly and, as they read the sales letter, these questions will be answered and their trust in you will start to build. By the end of the sales letter they should have the confidence to buy.

If, on the other hand, you’re selling something that’s already established, short copy will probably work best. After all, nobody wants to spend time reading about a product they’re already familiar with. Just let people know what a great offer you have and lead them to an order page in two or three quick, simple clicks.

And then there’s the price. A low ticket item doesn’t really need a lot of justification. If it’s what someone wants, they’re going to buy it. If they buy but for some reason it doesn’t quite meet their expectations, they haven’t lost a lot and just move on. We’ve all done it.

However, if it’s a high ticket item, people spend more time on the buying decision. No-one wants to waste money and the buying decision has to be right as a second, alternative product may well be beyond the reach of the consumer. Therefore you need to spend time reassuring people of what a good product it is, the benefits to be gained from purchasing it and the great offer you have which means they should buy from you.  Take your time to build up the confidence in the consumer. The more confidence they have in your product, the more likely they are to buy it.

Many organisations have undertaken research to determine which is best. The advantages of long copy include:

1. It can install confidence in the consumer as you can answer their questions before they buy.
2. The subtle use of keywords in your long copy means it can be search engine friendly, helping to attract visitors and increasing sales.
3. It can help to qualify your customer, resulting in fewer calls to customer service.
4. By formatting the main points in bold text, some customers can skim read while others can take in all the detail. Therefore you get the best of both worlds.

However, against this the advantages of short copy include:

1. Minimising the risk that you will lose your customers interest.
2. Being considered by many as a better presentation style. Additional information can be accessed via links and hence remains above the fold rather than being buried in a mass of information and easy to miss.

But do you need long copy for both your e-mail marketing and your sales letter, or short copy for both? Well, if your e-mail marketing is long copy, you should have already presold your product when your customer is taken to the sales page. Here, short copy is all that is required before moving to the order page. On the other hand, if your e-mail marketing is short copy then, unless your product is low cost or a product with which people are already familiar, then long copy will probably result in higher sales.

So, in conclusion, what’s best? It depends, and the way you can find out what works best for you is to split test. This involves using different ads and measuring the responses achieved by each. Over a period of time, the answer will be revealed and this practice will become just another component of your easy web design.

Technorati Tags: E-Commerce Website Development, Easy Web Design, Long Sales Copy, Short Sales Copy

Built your site, finally attracting visitors but still not getting sales? Don’t worry. In this short video, top conversion expert Bryan Eisenberg gives three red-hot tips to turbo-charge your e-commerce website.

So, Bryans tips are:

1. Always tell your customer why they should buy from you and not your competitor. Your business should have its own unique selling proposition (USP). As people enter your site on different pages, don’t just put it on your home page, include it in your header.
2. Manage your monthly statistics. Make sure your website metrics are monitored. There are many packages available to do this, perhaps the most popular being Google Analytics. Each month, don’t just read the report but undertake a critical review. Understand what it is telling you, e.g. do you have a high bounce rate, do most customers exit from the same page etc. and formulate a plan to address the weaknesses. Implement the plan and measure.
3. Leverage the voice of the customer. If you have testimonials, product reviews etc. from your customers, use them in your marketing. If people can see that others have bought your product and benefitted from it, it will give them more confidence to buy.    

Other tips for increased conversions include,

1. Reply promptly to any questions. This makes the customer feel more valued. Lengthy delays portray a negative image of your business and will increase the likelihood or your customer going elsewhere.
2. Offer a money back guarantee. The less risk to the customer, the more likely they will buy.
3. Provide a number of high quality FREE products. There’s no lower risk than free and if the quality is good people will generally assume the quality of your paid products is better.
4. Shorten the buying process. If people have to click through several pages to get to the checkout, or have to fill in long forms, they have plenty of opportunity to change their mind and click away. Keep the buying decision to payment process as short and easy as possible. The checkout should be reached in a couple of clicks and you can assist the buyer to complete forms by providing dropdown lists where possible.

 And don’t forget, it’s easier to sell to existing customers than it is to attract new ones. So keep in touch with your customers, provide them with valuable information and make them aware of your other products.

Technorati Tags: Converting Traffic, E-Commerce Website Development, Increase Your Conversion Rate

With a large number of websites having a commercial basis, and this website aimed at helping people to build such a site, I thought I would draw your attention to the announcements recently made by the Advertising Standards Authority regarding online advertising.

Technorati Tags: ASA, E-Commerce, Easy Web Design, Online Advertising