Archive for October, 2008

Weave Your Web To Capture Your Prospect

“My website looks very nice — but I don’t get any enquiries or sales from it”.

How many times have you heard that?

My first website — a property site — cost me far more than it should have, because I didn’t really know anything about selling on the web. I put the site before the customer.

I hunted around until I found someone who seemed to offer the kind of site I was looking for. She produced a nice-looking website (she was a graphic designer!) — but one that was subsequently described to me by a copywriter as being ‘typically corporate in approach’ — all about ‘us’, with no great appeal to a visitor, no single focus and no convincing call to action.

A bit of a put-down, heh?

And — more importantly — no great traffic as a result! Even though the site eventually reached a Google page ranking of 3 (by reason of the large amount of information I put up on it), it didn’t bring in the punters.

Was this the web designer’s fault or mine?

The answer is — both! It was a case of ‘the blind leading the blind’. I hadn’t really worked out who my targets were and how to win them over, and she didn’t understand enough about commercial marketing to make me do this before even starting out on formulating the website. She ‘did’ corporate brochures!

All About Us – Not You!

The typical website out there is ‘all about us’ and little or nothing about the visitor or what they actually want. Never forget that someone only visits your website because they are looking for information or to solve a problem or need. Think about it — what are you looking for when you browse the Web?

This is why the standard ‘corporate style brochure’ on a web page really doesn’t work. Your website needs to capture your visitor, entice him/her to stay and browse further — no matter what business you’re in!

You can actually do this very easily: create a site which is full of information — full of ‘nuggets’ the visitor gets an immediate benefit from — and where they’ll want to return.

Mouthwatering Detail

Develop a site that describes, in mouthwatering detail, how your product or service

creates the exact results they’re looking for.

It doesn’t matter what business you’re in — whether you are directly selling a product, building a list of prospects or a public service website — you still need to fulfill your visitors’ needs and involve them, if you want them to return to your site and find it valuable.

The Big Myth

And here’s a BIG MYTH. Most businesses’ websites will not make a sale on a prospect’s first visit — unless you make them an ‘irresistible offer’ so compelling that your visitor just can’t go without buying (which many single-page sites can do, with good copywriting).

Typical ‘conversion rates’ that the experts achieve are only in the range 1 to 5% of visitors — so 95 to 99 of every 100 visitors to your site are likely to leave without buying.

So your website should focus on starting a relationship with your prospect, so that you can convert perhaps another 20 – 30% of your visitors over time. You need to engage with your visitor and make it worthwhile for them to do two things:

· Opt in to your ‘free offer’ and

· Return to your site later to buy.

If you succeed in getting your visitor to opt in, you can build your relationship — and this is primarily about building his/her trust in you — and encourage him/her to return to your website, for instance using a series of emails sent out by autoresponder. Tests typically show that it may take anything from 5 to 10 contacts with a prospect before they trust you enough to buy.

Clear Site

One of the most successful commercial website styles is one that looks like a letter. It can be a single site or multiple-page site (each ‘page’ can be hundreds or thousands of words long).

Each page should look like a letter and each should aim to promote a single product or service — gently but inexorably leading your visitor through to a specific action, whether it be to opt-in, download a free report that contains more information or to purchase.

Unless your site is purely for information, it should not have numerous links and buttons at the top or down the side of the page, which can distract the reader and lead them away from your site.

The exception to this (for example, see the diabetes site mentioned above), is where the whole of a multi-page site acts as a carefully crafted sales machine, focused on getting the visitor to opt-in and return again.

Lead Your Prospect

Interwoven into the text (‘copy’) on your site, you should have links to request your free report or whatever is being offered. These links, scattered throughout the letter, lead to a form for the visitor to complete, so you capture (as a minimum) their first name and email address, with permission to stay in touch.

Getting this permission (hence ‘permission marketing’) is absolutely necessary if your visitor is located in a country that has ‘data protection’ or privacy policies, such as the UK.

And don’t worry about what to give as a ’free report’. This can be distilled sections of a few chapters of your information product (if that’s what you’re offering) — some marketers simply adapt sections of the sales letter on their web page!

You can use this direct response website approach to identify your target audience — visitors literally ‘hold up their hand’ by requesting your free report (although there are quite a few ‘freebie seekers’ out there, too).

Once you have your visitor’s contact details, you can nurture a relationship with informative emails until he/she is ready to purchase from you.

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

Your Website Niche Strategy

If you want to succeed online, you have to have a strategy (or theme, a purpose, or community) for your website, with a central focus on a specific WANT that your prospects have. Then, you find products which follow along the theme.

So, the three keys to creating income from ANY web site and ANY theme, according to Terry Dean, are:

1. Have a lead product that people WANT.

2. Have freebies at your site that follow the theme.

3. Have multiple backend or supporting products for the theme.

You can’t develop a business around a single product. Even if you are promoting a single product upfront, it is not the product that people want.

They want the BENEFITS they receive out of the product.

When designing your site, think about that ever abiding “WANT” or “GOALS” that your prospects have with them continually.

Things such as: more money, weight loss, online success, being sexually attractive, self-defense, etc.

These ultimate benefits are what your prospects are really seeking.

So, don’t base your business just on products.

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

Research Your Niche Fast!

Here’s how to do quick research on a market… and cutting your losses.

Set up ten different Affiliate campaigns in ten different markets:

· Sign up as an affiliate for suitable products at ClickBank.com or Amazon.

· They give you your affiliate link

· Use Google Adwords to drive traffic to your Link

· Check daily how you’re doing.

If you’re making sales and covering your ad costs—stick with it…

… and get out of the ones that don’t pay as soon as you’ve got some results.

Try it!

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com

Get Google To Find Your Niche Ideas For You

Using Google to find HOT Niches!

Want to dominate the Web — but Stuck for ideas for niches?

Would you believe that Google will actually show you how you can make money on the Web? Sounds too good to be true?

Well, here are three ways that Google will show you exactly what’s hot just now — and what products sell on a seasonal basis!

What’s Hot Just Now, Mr Google?

Here’s a little trick using Google Products (formerly ‘FroogleTM’), a focused search engine that allows you to search for products for sale on the internet.

But you can also use it to see what’s hot today and what people want right now!

Go to www.google.com/products and look at the list of products below the search box. They are stuff that people are searching for right now!

Now, press ‘refresh’ and you’ll see a new list come up — these are live searches on Google, so you can see the kind of things that people are currently searching for.

Look for the products that come up most frequently and find ways to turn them into

niche products you can offer!

Trendy Niches!

You can use Google Trends in a similar way, but it also lets you see seasonal trends and even compare different search topics on the same page — a very powerful research tool.

Go to www.google.com/trends and you’ll see two lists. The one just below the search box shows you what people are searching for just now. The numbered list below that shows you Today’s Hot Trends.

You can also see an expanded list of hot trends at www.google.com/trends/hottrends.

These are things that thousands of people are searching for now, so use some of the ideas on www.Internet-Tycoons.com to see how you can provide what they want!

‘Tis The Season!

You can even compare searches by entering several topics in the Trends search bar, separated by commas! Try looking at the seasonal trends for searches on Fishing, Cricket and Baseball.

Not surprisingly there are spikes around special events, such as the World Cup and so on.

Target Your City!

But there’s another very powerful tool to aid your Web domination strategy hidden away in Google Trends!

Below the trend graphs, you’ll see a list of the Countries and the Cities where the terms were searched for most often. You’ll also see the Languages that were used most frequently to search for the terms.

This is very powerful information — you can target particular countries where topics are particularly hot. And—just think about this— you can even target particular cities with your Adwords campaigns, to maximise their effectiveness and minimise your Awords costs by making your keywords location-specific!

You can even target Google searches in particular languages, where you’ll probably

find that there is little or no competition for very valuable keywords and dominate the market!

Where’s Your Zeitgeist?

Google Zeitgeist is a treasure trove of research and information for your Web Biz!

Anything from Google Trends, what’s behind the stories, and the most popular searches last year and by month.

You can actually do this for each country in the world. Try ‘Bodyboard’ in Brazil, ‘Rabbits’ in Canada or ‘Jack Russel’ (dogs) in Norway!

And Zeitgeist will also show you the headline gainers and losers this month, guiding you as to what’s hot and what’s not!

Go to www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html, open your mind and explore!

So, with this enormous research arsenal at your fingertips, what’s holding you back?

Get out there and get HOT!

John Thornely
© John Thornely www.johnthornely.com 2008

To learn more about how YOU can
Profit From The Internet – Fast, visit
www.Internet-Tycoons.com