internet marketing

Sarah Worsham / Oct 13, 2008

30 Ways to Increase Sales on Your Business Website

saletimparkinson As we discussed in our previous post on traffic, there are three ways to increase sales on a website: 1) increase qualified traffic (number of potential customers), 2) increase the number of conversions (sales) or 3) both 1 and 2. This list focuses on ways you can increase traffic or conversions. A good strategy would be to pick a mixture you’re comfortable with and continue to add to it as you see success.

Increase your advertising budget
Expand the keywords you target with Search Marketing
Use/Expand Affiliate Marketing
Purchase ads on niche websites
Write articles with valuable information for your potential customers
Start a blog
Join social networks and start conversations in your areas of expertise
Advertise on social networks
Allow customers to rate and comment on your products & services
Create a FAQ section on your website
Add a discussion board to your website
Start a podcast
Target your marketing message to your audience
Change to a customer-centric design
Add support information about all your products and services
Make it easy for customers to contact you with questions or concerns
Create an ongoing newsletter
Offer a free product or service in exchange for contact information
Update your website design to a professional, modern look
Add a sitemap to make it easy for customers to find information
Include a search function
Use structured menus instead of drop-downs
Organize your website information intuitively
Add contact information throughout the site
Use a creative, but professional color scheme
Incorporate all the information needed to make a purchase decision on product and service pages
Solicit customer purchases from every product and service page
Tout company accomplishments on homepage
Announce company news through press releases
Optimize your website copy for search engines

Do you have more ways to increase sales on your business website? We’d love to hear them in the comments below.

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(photo by timparkinson @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, internet strategy, internet marketing, internet consulting

Sarah Worsham / Oct 9, 2008

Just Increasing Traffic May Not Increase Sales on Your Business Website

Many business owners get caught up with the need to increase traffic to their business website in order to increase sales and/or revenue. Increasing traffic to your website may or may not help increase sales depending on who the traffic is (whether they are potential customers).

Sales from a website are based on the number of potential customers who come to the website (a lead) and the percentage that actually purchase something (a conversion). To increase sales from a website, there are three options:

increase the number of potential customers coming to the site (leads)
increase the number of actual sales on the website (conversions)
both #1 and #2.

While increasing traffic can help, it will only help if the traffic includes more potential customers (leads). Just increasing traffic, if none of the people are interested in making a purchase, does nothing to help sales. So it is very important to increase the number of potential customers (leads), which is sometimes called qualified traffic.

Sometimes sales are not happening because information on your website is not clear or potential customers are not sure how to make a purchase. Increasing the number of potential customers who actually make a purchase (conversions) is another way to increase sales from your website. Taking a look at where people may be leaving the site, as well as whether marketing information entices a purchase can help increase conversions. Advertising should take potential customers right to an “action” page where they have all the information they need and can make a purchase.

Just increasing traffic to a website without increasing the number of potential customers and/or conversions will probably not increase your sales, leaving you wondering why your efforts are not working.

(photo by Burning Image @ Flickr CC)

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, internet strategy, internet marketing, internet consulting

Sarah Worsham / Oct 2, 2008

Customer Service is the New Marketing – Interview with Get Satisfaction

We’ve been talking a bit about branding and customer service – about how they are inter-related and can impact your overall business. In this interview with Lane Becker, co-founder of Get Satisfaction, he discusses customer service as the new marketing with interviewer Joshua-Michele Ross from O’Reilly:

In the interview, Lane points out that customer service has traditionally been considered “customer-avoidance”. Metrics measure customer service were about treating customers as numbers and closing as many issues as quickly as possible (problem tickets and time on the phone). If customers didn’t like how you treated them, there was little they could do. The Internet has changed that by allowing a disgruntled customer to reach millions of people (as well as satisfied customers). So there is a huge opportunity now for very cheap and powerful marketing through good customer service. Thinking about customer service as part of marketing can help change corporate attitudes and open the doors to meaningful conversations with your customers.

If you have questions for Lane, you can post comments on the original blog post.

What opportunities does your company have for good customer service?

Technorati Tags: customer service, brand, branding, social media, social media strategy, internet marketing, online marketing

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