Your Web Marketing Minute: How to Sell Online
When you get right down to it, the internet is THE market place these days. The reason many of us turned online was to either…
- market our existing offline business online to get more customers
- start an online part of our business, selling product directly to customers
- start an online “side” business to supplement income and help make ends meet.
That’s pretty much it.
And yet, most people have a hard time making even ONE sale online. Why is that? The fact is, no one had to show you how to BUY online, but selling online is another story.
So how do you sell online?
Because I run a web marketing company, it seems that I get asked that one question more than any other. And to answer it COMPLETELY would take up a lot of time.
The reason is because there are a lot of moving parts with any sales process you create online. And each part needs to be tested.
Let me repeat that last point again…
You must TEST each and every piece of your online sales process in order to get it right.
By the way, because I KNOW keyword research cold, I can tell you that LOTS of people are looking to short-cut the process. Keywords like “fast way to make money” or “earn money fast online” only highlight the point I’m making about testing your process in order to make real money…
Please click the play button below as I discuss ONE aspect for testing your sales process.
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How to Sell Online (Part 1)
You would think that selling online is easy. After all, most of us know how to buy products and services online. And the process seems fairly straightforward, doesn’t it?
Well, yes and no.
No one had to teach you how to buy online. But the process of how to sell online involves some important factors that many of us take for granted as we search for stuff to buy. So let’s examine those factors you need to master in order to sell online.
How to Sell Online: Three Essential Tips
The first thing you need to work on if you’re going to sell online is getting people to your website.
Sounds simple enough, doesn’t it?
Yet, this one factor prevents people from making real money online. And that’s because though they know what they need to do, they don’t know HOW to do it.
Here’s what I mean. The “normal” buying process works something like this (assuming you haven’t bookmarked your favorite sites already):
- go to a search engine and type what you’re looking for (like accordian shutters)
- check out the listings on the first page
- go to the 2nd page of results if nothing caught your interest on the first page
- when you land on the site, you see if what you want is there
- if so, maybe you check out a few more sites (price checking), or
- you buy it
That’s pretty much it. More or less.
Now, here’s the thing. Millions of people are buying products and services online. We all do it. Even my 70 year old dad goes online FIRST before going to a local store or the mall (if at all).
Buying online is intuitive.
Selling online is NOT.
Let’s look at the example above and break out the critical “online selling success” factors.
1. How to Sell Online: Web Site Search Results
Here’s a screenshot of a search I did not too long ago that will help explain what we’re talking about:
In case you didn’t know this, results on Google’s search page break out this way. The listings on the left hand side of the page are there because of proper keyword usage and SEO (Search Engine Optimization).
Results on the right hand side are listed there because they are paying Google for every “click” on their ad.
Anyone selling anything online wants (NEEDS) to be listed on the first page. It’s not even an option. Sure, some percentage of online searchers will go to the second page.
And depending on the niche you’re in, you may even see some results even if your website isn’t on the first or second pages.
But we’re not talking about a trickle of web traffic. To sell online and be profitable, your website has to show up for your targeted keywords on the first or second page of the search engine results page.
And there’s only two ways that happens, as the graphic above indicates. You need to pay for traffic using pay per click marketing, or you need to learn SEO to get your site found.
This trips up most people who want to sell online.
Over the next couple of weeks we’ll discuss the other two tips and how they relate to successfully selling your products and/or services online. So be sure to
- bookmark our site
- sign up for our monthly web tips (i.e. blog updates)
- or leave a comment (we’ll let you know when the next article is up)
If there’s a particular topic you’d like discussed, you can send us an email or leave a comment below.
Next Steps…
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To discover how our web marketing firm can help you with your online presence, traffic, leads and sales, kindly follow the link. You can also review our web marketing services to better understand how we work with clients just like you.
Pay Per Click Marketing Secrets… Exposed
Think pay per click marketing is pretty basic stuff?
Think again.
At least once a day I find basic points so badly handled that it is OBVIOUS that the company running their pay per click marketing campaign is bleeding cash. Let me share a story with you that happened just a couple of days ago to explain.
My wife were looking online for bi-fold shutters for our bathroom just a couple of days ago. Not finding what we wanted locally, we turned online. To Google.
Typing in “bifold shutters” generated this result…
Okay, if you understand pay per click marketing, you’ll know that the search results on the right hand side are the paid ads, versus the “organic” or free rankings on the left hand side.
Looking at the results page, you’ll note that it breaks down nicely into SEO on the left, and Pay Per Click on the right. Alright, ‘nough said.
Now, we decided to click on the Sears link…
Sidenote: You’ll notice it’s purple, as in “visited” because we hit the back button after about 3 seconds on the site. Understand, this wasn’t the first site we visited looking for shutters. And chances are your web visitors are NOT hitting your site first during their search, either.
Now, I’ll ask you. Why do you think we stayed all of 3 seconds on the Sears site? Have any ideas?
It’s because this is what we found there…
Now let me ask you something. Do you see SHUTTERS anywhere here? Bifold interior shutters? No?
Alright, let me share a little something with you right here. A TIP GUARANTEED to save you money on your pay per click marketing campaign. Are you ready?
It’s this…
People searching for stuff are generally:
- desperately looking for a solution to a problem
- pressed for time (i.e. they are NOT spending hours looking for an answer)
- frustrated by the sheer volume of search results and lack of a clear “winner”
- and are 1 Click away from NEVER returning to your site.
What does this mean for you?
Well, a web searcher is probably not going to land on your site first. By the time we landed on Sears, we had been to 12 other websites. Seriously.
And we hadn’t found what we were looking for, either. So by this time we were pretty frustrated. And tired.
So here’s the money saving tip for you. If you’re not going to hire an experienced company like Success Marketing, LLC to handle your pay per click marketing campaign for you…
For example, we slashed one company’s Adwords budget by 75% and generated the same results they experienced previously. Now we’ve revamped the entire campaign, and they are actually making money.
At least get this part right:
- Make sure your LANDING PAGE displays the item mentioned in your AD.
If you are buying clicks for shutters, there better be some damned shutters on the page when someone lands there, or they are going to leave in about a second. Maybe less.
If that happens, you are blowing your money on nothing.
Period.
Can pay per click marketing work for your business?
Nine times out of ten we’ll say YES. But not if you run your campaign like the geniuses over at Sears. I’ll tell you one thing. Most companies operating like this have more money than brains.
At least temporarily.
Now, if you found something useful, interesting, or provacative in this article, kindly leave a comment. If you’d like help with your Pay Per Click Campaign, here’s what you can do:
- leave a comment with your website and we’ll track you down
- send an email to us at support@bestwebpresence.com. Be sure to include your URL and we’ll get in touch with you.
Not sure we can help?
Well, here’s what we did for one new client. In 14 days we generated the same amount of traffic for his high end service that he did on his own in 22 months. At a fraction of the cost, no less.
Now, what do you think that’s going to do for his business. So the question I ask you is, why would you want to wait to get started any longer?
Next Steps…
Any questions? Comments? Did we hit a nerve?
Drop us a line by leaving a comment. We will reply (here, and by email if you’d like) as soon as we’re able. And if there’s a topic you want us to discuss, let us know.
To receive monthly emails with summaries of all our latest content, sign up for our “Monthly Web Tips” above. Does that sound fair enough to you?
To discover how our web marketing firm can help you with your online presence, traffic, leads and sales, kindly follow the link. You can also review our web marketing services to better understand how we work with clients just like you.
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