Are you one of the last remaining business on Earth without a website? If so, you are leaving lots of money on the table! A successful website is simply more than a pretty brochure — it’s one that will bring you qualified leads and sales and help you increase your bottom line. Here are ten strategies you can employ to make your website a selling machine for your company.

I’ve spent more hours that I care to count attending networking functions, and I continue to be amazed at all the people I meet who don’t have a website. Many entrepreneurs love what they do but hate marketing and selling themselves. A well-written website is one of the most effective tools at your disposal that will sell for you 24/7, provided you have written compelling copy for the site.

Here are ten ways to make your website your unpaid sales force:

1. Networking. A website permits you to pass out your business card to thousands of potential clients and lets them know how to reach you and what you sell. If, in your sales copy, you tell your story of why you’re in your business, write a bio that accurately reflects your voice and style for your site, and upload your photo, your potential customers will begin to get to know you, without having to meet them one-on-one. Nothing is more amazing to me that to walk into a networking event and have total strangers come up and begin a conversation with me as though we were long-lost friends. They think we are. Why? Because they’ve visited my website or read my email newsletter or blog to the extent they have begun to get to know me, like me, and respect me.

2. Make Business Information Available. Help your customers find out more about you. What are your hours? What methods of payment do you accept? Where are you located? Being the “Internet snob” that I am, I go online first to check out a business before deciding to do business with them. Sometimes it’s to check the menu, if it’s a restaurant. Sometimes it’s to see if they offer a discount coupon. Other times I just need to find their hours of operation or driving directions. If I can’t find their website, I’m apt to find their competitor’s site that contains precisely the info that I’m seeking.

3. Better Serve Your Customers. Make doing business with you as easy and effortless as possible. With an online presence, you could make forms available to pre-qualify clients for loans if you’re a mortgage broker, enable your clients to upload their files for typesetting and printing if you’re a professional printer, or allow your customer to see if the coat he wants is in stock if you’re a clothing store. My sister is a “shoes horse” and desperately wanted a particular pair of shoes from a nationally-known department store in Houston. She checked their website to see if the shoes were in stock in her size at the store closest to her. She discovered they weren’t, but was able to find another branch that did have them in stock and was able to swing by and pick them up. When your clients are over-committed and trying to squeeze another hour out of the day, how much more will they appreciate your online presence if you can help them save one of their most valuable assets — their time?4. Release Time-Sensitive Materials. You may have a service business that relies on appointments to make your money, like a hair salon or a chiropractor’s office. You walk in on Monday morning and discover that only about half of your appointments are taken for the week. Do you decide to take part of the week off? You could, if you needed a vacation. Or, you could email the customer list you’ve built through your website and let them know that you’re taking appointments at a special discounted rate this week only, or on certain days of this week, or that they’ll get a free widget if they book an appointment by a certain date or time. How quickly do you think your customers would take advantage of this time-sensitive offer?5. Be Open All Night, 365 Days of the Year. Internet surfers don’t go online to buy–they go online to find free information. However, we live in an immediate gratification society. If you have a product for sale that fulfills a need to a particular problem, you can add a shopping cart with credit card purchasing ability to your online product catalog and enable someone to buy something from you at 2 AM, for example, when most of us are in bed. If your shopping cart permits immediate delivery of an electronic item, like an ebook or audio file, all the better, as your customer can have the information he has ordered within minutes after purchase. How many sales are you losing because your prospective customer has to fax or phone in an order or wait for your office to open to talk to you? Your e-commerce-enabled website can be your 24-hour automated salesperson.

6. Make Pictures and Sound Files Available. What if your widget is great, but people want to see it in action? Your website permits you to add sound, static images, and video to better explain who you are and what you sell, or to demonstrate use of your product or service. No brochure will do that. Additionally, audio and video testimonials from enthusiastic customers are now becoming more commonplace on websites. If you hate to sell, have a happy customer tell your website visitors how wonderful you are and how well you solved his problem. People believe enthusiastic testimonials from others who’ve successfully used your product or service.

7. Answer FAQ’s (Frequently Asked Questions). Every business has questions that customers ask again and again. Do you have the staff, or want to dedicate staff time, to answering these questions? Instead, post the questions and answers to your website and remove another barrier to doing business with you. Or, if you have the staff to do so, install a “live help” program on your website so that your site visitors can click and log-in to ask their questions right away while the question is fresh on their mind.

8. Offer Special Membership Access for Current Customers. If you’re selling a service on your site, you may want your current paying clients to have access to certain information that is generally not available to the public. With your website, you can create a password-protected, clients-only section, or special membership section, for certain groups of clients. And, as website visitors are always curious and will try to get into private areas for additional information, you can use the “authorization required” page as another opportunity to tell them about the benefits of your product and service and how their lives will be better and richer for purchasing it. And, upon purchase, they will then become a member of this “special clients” club and have all the information and privileges associated with that membership. American Express is right — membership has its privileges!9. Open to National or International Markets. For most of my adult life, I’ve lived in parts of the country that have never recovered from the mid-1980’s recession. Because I’ve had a virtual business with a website, I’ve never had to rely on the local economy to make a living. If you have a product or service that won’t sell locally, or you have a brick and mortar operation and are trying to break into new markets, a website can help you open up a dialogue with nationwide or even international markets as easily as with the company across the street. Can you stand to make more money in your business?10. Test-Market New Services and Products. Got an idea for another line of products for your business, or an additional service you’d like to add? Create a special page on your website and see how your current customers like the new offering. Ask them about price, appearance, and usability. They will let you know what they think faster and easier than any other market you may reach. Take their feedback, make necessary changes, and then roll it out to a larger market.

If you don’t currently have a website for your business, get one! If your website only serves as a pretty brochure instead of bringing you qualified customers or sales, perhaps it’s time to hire an expert to bring it to the next level. What difference would it make for you to get 95% of your clients online? I bet that would make your marketing efforts much more streamlined, and who doesn’t want to make more profit in less time?

 10 Extremely Effective Ways to Increase Your Sales.
The following are 10 simple yet very powerful ways to increase your sales significantly: 1. When you make your first sale, follow-up with the customer. You could follow-up with a "thank you" email and include an advertisement for other products you sell. You could follow-up with them regularly. The goal is to begin building a relationship with your customers so you need to keep in constant contact with them. 2. You could upsell to your customers. When they're at your order page, tell them about a few extra related products you have for sale. They could just add it to their original....

 Ten Smart Ways To Sky-Rocket Your Profits
1. Use a "P.S." at the end of your ad copy. This is were you either want to repeat a strong benefit or use a strong close like a free bonus. 2. Publish a free ebook and give it away from your web site or in your e-zine. This will increase your traffic, sales and e-zine subscribers. 3. Create multiple streams of income with your web site. You could sell your own products, join affiliate programs, sell advertising space, etc. 4. Give your visitors compliments in your ad....

 Making Money Through Product Resell Rights
Resell rights come in many forms and sizes. They can come in large packages with many products bundled together and offered for an almost suspiciously low price. Or they can be offered on a single product for a four-figure sum. There are also different types of rights offered allowing you to do different things. Basic resell rights only give you the right to sell the product. You cannot claim the product is your own and you do not have permission to offer the resell rights to anyone else. Basic resell rights are usually the cheapest, so it may be easier....

 10 Ways To Boost Your E-zine Subscribers
1. Show your potential subscribers a sample issue of your e-zine. Black out some of the important info; this will make them more curious & subscribe. 2. Give away a free follow-up autoresponder course. Publish your e-zine ad in each lesson. The more people see it, the higher the chance they'll subscribe. 3. Offer your potential customers a discount on a particular product you sell if they subscribe to your free e-zine. 4. Give other businesses permission to give a free subscription to your e-zine as a bonus for a product they sell. 5. Ask your potential subscribers questions that'll persuade them to subscribe like: "Would you like to be able to retire before....

 My Website Needed More Targeted Traffic. Guess Where I Found It?
My Website Needed More Targeted Traffic. Guess Where I Found It? by: Brian McGregor There's nothing new about using joint ventures to get traffic to websites. And good information is freely available from many internet marketing sites on how to set up JVs. This article is for the 97% of webmasters who aren't aware of a particularly powerful JV partner who already exists, and is willing to work with you. Before I reveal all, let me just check….. Like me, I would image you'd be happy if: Your JV partner's site gets huge traffic. The vast majority of page views are by targeted traffic. You can create....

 What is Your Website's Most Wanted Response?
is Your Website's Most Wanted Response? by: Steve NashYou spend time and money promoting your website; but what do you want to achieve (apart from more page views)? Is it more sales of Blue Widgets? Is it more subscribers on your mailing list? To be exact, what is your site's Most Wanted Response?I ask this question because in the excitement of creating your very own website, it is easy to forget (or not even consider) the main purpose of your site! Alas, I talk from experience!In late 1999 I created Shop Tour UK (http://www.shoptour.co.uk): "a unique way to surf secure UK....

 Profiting With Private Label Rights : Video Tutorials
There are three basic rights you should know about when it comes to resale rights marketing. These are: - Resale rights - Master resale rights - Private label rights Whenever you purchase a product with resale rights, you will only have the license to sell the said product to other people. When you purchase a product with master resale rights, you will have the license to sell the product to other people, and you will also have the option to sell the resale right for the same product as well. This means that the people to whom you sell the resale....

 Your Guide to Making Money on the Internet
There are many sites offering you ways to make easy money on the internet but most of them are scams. Even though making money on the internet is possible, it is not in the ways these sites suggest. You will never get rich quick using a scheme which will guarantee success. Don't you agree that if someone knew how to make a fortune overnight they would use it for themselves and not sell it to you for $30? This is how these sites work - they make money on the internet by giving false hopes to the broke or poor.....

 Explode Your Sales In As Little As 15 Minutes With These 10 Proven Secrets
10 Killer Tips To Explode Your Sales Explode Your Sales In As Little As 15 Minutes With These 10 Proven Secrets 1. When you make your first sale, follow-up with the customer. You could follow-up with a "thank you" email and include an advertisement for other products you sell. You could follow-up every few months. 2. You could upsell to your customers. When they're at your order page, tell them about a few extra related products you have for sale. They could just add it to their original order. 3. Tell your....

 10 Ways To Use Private Label Rights Content For Profit
Private Label Rights. The ultimate shortcut. Content provided for you, that you get to put your name on, call your own, and claim the profits. Most folks are looking for PLR ebooks and articles to use , but there's so much more you can do with them. Here's a list of ten. One:: Buying Bonus Put your name on the private label rights resources and make them a bonus. If someone buys your product, or an affiliate product you're partnering in, provide the content as a bonus. Two:: Signing Bonus ....

 How Exactly Do You Market Your Niche Product or Program?
I was brand new to this nice product marketing thing less than 2 years ago and I have to say that if you feel lost and overwhelmed I know exactly how you feel. (By the way "niche product" and "niche program" are one and the same - both things you are aiming to sell to your niche market) I made many mistakes and lived to tell the tale - and boy did it pay off! I was the number one computer phobic, clueless dumbo when I first came across this way of doing business. All I knew was this seemed like....

 Things you should know about Affiliate Marketing
The truth about affiliate marketing is that 90% of affiliates make under 100$ a month. So I would not count on making a full-time income unless you can really learn and get super good at the following: 1. How to build a good site that converts 2. SEO - you need TONS of traffic since only maybe 1 out of 200 will buy and your commission per sale may only be around $10. SEO help your site get top ranking in the search engines so more people can find you. There may be over 1 million pages competing for a search....

 7 Surefire Ways To Increase Your Traffic Starting Yesterday
7 Surefire Ways To Increase Your Traffic Starting Yesterday This article explains a few things about Internet Business,traffic,generating traffic,Viral Marketing ,marketing, lead traffic, and if you're interested, then this is worth reading, because you can never tell what you don't know. Internet. Business. Profit. To fully integrate all of these words into a successful merging you will need another word. Traffic. Every article you will find about making your site or company successful would always include the importance of generating traffic. So, we all know that in the core of it all, traffic is the most essential thing to a successful....

 10 Ways to Create Huge Income With Your Web Site
The cost of buying a domain name and arranging hosting for it is dirt cheap anymore, virtually anyone can afford to have their own web site, or several.  Learn how to squeeze money out of cyberspace with these revealing tips. The cost of setting up a web site is dirt cheap nowadays. You can register a domain for less than $2.00 as I write this (for .info domains). Hosting is also very cheap, and getting cheaper all the time. So why are so many web sites springing up?  Obviously somebody's....

 5 Ways To Increase Your Website Profit Without Increasing Traffic
Learn how to make the most money with your existing traffic level.  Make your website visitors open their wallets. To succeed in Internet marketing, you need to learn how to maximize the value of your website visitors. Here are the top 5 strategies on how to squeeze the most profit out of your website: 1.  Tweak Your Sales Copy The most sure-fire way to increase your profits is to tweak your sales copy to increase the conversion ratio of your website.  Conversion ratio is how many visitors you need on average....

Trackback URL for this post:
http://www.problogtips.com/top-10-ways-to-make-your-website-sell-247/589/trackback/

Posted by Jaron in the catagory of... General Interest