This is a copy of an email I recently sent to a customer of mine. The customer’s website had been online for two weeks and he was concerned that he still hadn’t made any sales…
I wouldn’t worry too much yet about sales levels. Two weeks isn’t a long time and, most people would agree that it takes a little time to build up steam and get the momentum going.
Of course, the more important questions is not how ‘long’ the site has been online, but how many visitors you’ve had in that time. Another important question is the ‘quality’ of the visitors. After all, those visitors who are searching specifically for the products you are selling are much more likely to place an order than those who arrive on your page via Start Page Exchanges or other poor-quality traffic-generating methods (by the way, if you’re using Start Page Exchanges, this article will help you get some more value out of them).
On the whole, an effective website can expect to make a sale to between about 1% and 5% of its visitors. That is to say that for every 20 to 100 visitors you’ll make one sale. This rule-of-thumb is more accurately applied to sales-focused mini-sites (like my Total Resale website: http://www.totalresale.com) than to broader websites like yours that sell many products.
The % conversion rate depends on many factors like an effective sales page, a professional look, and so on. Using tools like autoresponders to gather visitor email addresses and send them, for example, a free course related to the product you’re selling can do wonders to increase conversion rates.
In the beginning I was selling all my products via BizzyDays.com and sales were sluggish. Then, I changed my approach and created individual websites for each product and things really took off.
Now I attract a lot of traffic directly to each individual website and the visitors that arrive to bizzydays.com are sent on the the sales-focused websites of the particular products they’re interested in.
If you’re worried about the cost implications of creating individual websites for each product, then take a look at this article for ideas on cutting the cost of this.
I think that the biggest problem with your website at the moment is its lack of focus. You are promoting cuddly toys, electronic devices, ebooks and work-at-home opps. on the one site.
The problem with this approach is two-fold…
Firstly, because of the diversity of products, the site becomes difficult to promote effectively. Instead of being able to focus all your marketing attention on one target market, you have to focus on a whole range of target markets – each of which requires a totally different approach.
Secondly, the site risks lacking credibility in the eyes of the visitor. You see, when a visitor arrives on a site that focuses on one product or one ‘type’ of product, then he/she feels a certain re-assurance that they’ve arrived on a site that can be considered ‘in the know’ about that product and that can be relied upon to understand the needs of the customer.
However, when a visitor arrives on a site promoting a very broad range on unrelated products, their instinctive feeling is that the webmaster is throwing mud at the wall in the hope that some of it will stick. In other words, this is somebody that is trying a bit of everything in the hope of making a few bucks. As far as the visitor is concerned, this website has little or no knowledge or interest in the products being sold.
I don’t want to upset you when I say that. I’m not saying that you don’t know or care for your products. I’m just drawing your attention to the average visitor’s probable perception of things.
Another point…
Remove the apostrophes in your links. Words like “downloads” and “services” are plurals and should have no apostrophe. Spelling errors in general are very bad for business – I suggest you get someone to look the site over with you and ensure that it’s error-free. Also, when you find a moment, read this article on other things you might need to do to improve the effectiveness of the site.
One final point…
I’d get rid of the big ‘welcome’ image on the home page. This is one of the most important places on your site. People don’t need a welcome, they need to know quickly what you offer and what your site is about. Try to use this area to greater affect.
Okay, I’ll leave it at that. I hope I haven’t annoyed you with the points I’ve made – it certainly wasn’t my intention.
Michael Hopkins owns BizzyDays Publications. BRAND NEW E-BOOKS FOR FREE! Customize them and give them away. FREE PUBLICITY for you, FREE CONTENT for your visitors AND you can EARN MONEY as well! http://freeebooks.bizzydays.com
