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 potential buyers to see your masterpiece you need to check and correct all parts of your site, and especially the home page.Use the seven tests below to guarantee you loyal customers and clients.
1. TEST YOUR HEADLINES. You have four-eight 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,” or a long mission statement or biography of you, put a benefit-driven headline with a link to your sales letter about your product or service.
When I placed “Quadruple your Web Sales in Just Four Months” as a link to my sales copy following it, my Web sales increased ten times from my original home page– in only six 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 stayed consistently at $3000 each month. Now, I offer 9 eBooks to help small business people succeed by promoting Online.
If your headline doesn’t emotionally appeal to your potential buyer, the game is over. Always think what’s in it for them.
2. TEST YOUR OFFERS. People perceive more value when you add an incentive to buy. Give them a special bonus report, eBook, or a tips list with the order. It takes little time and effort to create, but increases sales thirty-fold. Many visitors will buy your product based on the extra bonuses.
Motivate your visitors like I do with a “Discounts of the Month” link (navigation bar) to increase sales, include testimonials and benefits. Offer a deeper discount, even 50% by bundling of several products with cassettes of teleclasses.
3. TEST YOUR WEB HOME PAGE TESIMONIALS
Testimonials lend credibility. When potential buyers see that other well-known leaders or buyers like your products or services, they are more likely to buy. It’s relatively easy to get these too.
Follow my lead and put your best, most specific testimonial near the top of your home page. Make it a link to its related product. 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.”
Test your testimonial 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? Which words influenced them enough to take out their credit card and buy? Get people to tell you which benefit hooked them. 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, so if your benefit is making money–give your audience a picture of what they can spend the money on such as a long-needed vacation to the Caribbean or college money for their children.
Here are a few ideas:
For a personal growth 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
For tests 4, 5, 6 and 7 on testing your price, home and web site layout, and ordering process, read “Bring Your Visitors Back Clamoring for More! Part 2. When you test these parts of your Web site often, you make it easy for your potential customers to buy to make you financially independent to travel, invest, or even buy a new car.
Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people’s lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Author of 10 eBooks including “Write your eBook Fast,” “How to Market your Business on the Internet,” and “Create your Web Site With Marketing Pizzazz,” she offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, The Book Coach Says…and Business Tip of the Month at http://www.bookcoaching.com/opt-in.shtml and over 145 free articles. Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com.
