I earned $55.00
in one of my affiliate programs while I was offline for two weeks,
and over $200.00 in advertising. How? I obviously wasn't promoting
during those two weeks, or even producing my ezine. My sales are
even better during ezine productions, so again, how did I earn this
while totally offline? My website is set up to sell.
How is traffic coming to my site? My website is what I promote, when
I promote. You've heard about name branding. This is how important
it is. But once traffic arrives to your site - then what? Is your
site ready to sell?
During my consultations, many of them end up being a site review.
Often I have to correct the same thing, so I thought I'd address it
here, to aid anyone having trouble with sells at their site.
What does your home page do? Does it offer products, services, and
paying links?
So a visitor arrives to your page and wham! They're smacked with
pushy sales techniques. What are they going to do? Try to find the X
in the upper right corner as fast as they can. Why?
You're trying to sell them your products and/or services. But Seqkat,
isn't that how we make money?? Yes, but don't sell the products
and/or service, yet! Sell YOURSELF first.
Your home page should tell the visitor WHO YOU ARE. Then it should
tell the visitor WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR THEM. Believe me, they didn't
come to YOUR site to see what THEY can do for you. They came to your
site to see what YOU can do for THEM.
Share with them your experiences and your goals and your
achievements. Be very honest with them - even if you're still
goaling, and haven't reached your dreams yet. Already the visitor
can identify with you. You have a common ground with them. And in
the world of so many false promises, your honesty is going to be
very refreshing and appreciated.
Okay - now HOW do you help them? What are YOU looking for when you
go to other sites? Become that source. Be exactly what you're
looking for in other sites, and people will look for your site and
stay there, when they get there. Now, how do you become that source?
RESEARCH and employ techniques you learn from the research, MAKE
MISTAKES for heaven's sake, learn from them and fine tune those
mistakes into success, and research some more, and employ those
techniques again, and make more mistakes! Repeat. 
Here's
an excellent website that provides you a perfect example of all of
the above. Check out Hana's site here and see for
yourself. It really grabs your interest, and that's what you
want your site to do: (opens in new window)
www.budgetinlondon.com
Now, after you become the very source of what we're looking for, how
do you get your visitors to where they can purchase your products
and services that you are offering? That's where these really neat
things called links, 
come in handy! Put all your links to one side of your page or on the
top. But don't try to sell them anything on your actual home page.
HELP THEM.
You seriously have to put the customer FIRST, and you LAST. If your
heart is in it, and you truly desire to help others, you're going to
flourish. If you're just there to make every buck you can make, even
if you start making sales, you'll discover a pattern, where your all
your sales are new sales, never repeat sales, which can hurt your
business.
So, my mantra is LOVE THINE CUSTOMER!!! And TRULY love them. When
you love someone you treat them as you yourself desire to be
treated. Your business becomes win/win for everyone then, a pure win
for your customers and a pure win for you. You'll be paid a great
deal more than a financial income, you'll also be paid a great deal
of joy in working with your customers.
Next step with your website - be patient! Some things you sell, will
NOT happen over night, nor next week, and not even next month. But
you'd be amazed, if you're consistent, persistent, and committed,
you'll see fruition of your efforts. DON'T GIVE UP!!
One of the best things of having your site set up to sell, you can
always promote your site. Do your name branding too - have your page
links set up with your home page url in the link, so when you're
promoting one part of your sales, your main url is being promoted -
or better yet, the NAME of your site is being promoted. So, even if
the link doesn't work - (who doesn't mis-key something from time to
time?) the customer is smart, (I do this all the time - oh gosh, am
I calling myself smart? )
- they'll go to the main url and look for it from your home page,
and then you don't lose your sale due to a mis-key.
So, no matter what page you're EVER promoting at your site, you're
ALWAYS promoting YOUR site. Even affiliate programs. Don't
promote your affiliate program directly. Make a page on YOUR site
that promotes it, then promote YOUR website page for the program.
Maybe the customer was interested in your program, but when they got
there, they didn't like it, but now they're at your site, and they
see how YOU CAN HELP THEM, and now they're digging around YOUR site,
and might see something else they like.
Look at your website as an extension of YOU. You can't be available
24/7 - (you have to sleep some time), but your website
can! Make it do the work FOR you. Make sure it tells everyone, just
as you would, if you were to meet them, who you are and what you do,
and HOW YOU CAN HELP THEM. Then let the visitor dig around and see
what they like. If they don't like your product A - they might like
your service B - so offer variations.
Now - for the numbers game. MORE people will visit your site and
leave than those who will visit your site and purchase. That's why
it's so important to make your site your ONLY promotion, even if
you're promoting affiliate programs - to get more numbers to YOUR
site. So, obviously, the more who visit your site, more will buy.
This ratio - is just a plain and simple scientific fact - that's
true in ALL BUSINESSES online and offline. There's no avoiding it -
so work with it. Don't freak out about it. Again, work with it, and
promote your site to get visitors there who WANT to come there.
Which takes us to another subject - website hits verses website
visitors. If you're getting a million people to your site to visit
for a second, that could care less about your site - your sales
number goes way down. It's better to generate 200 people, who are
really interested in what your site is offering, and really want to
go to your site. Your bandwidth is now profitable, for your sales
increase.
There's no business like an honest business. Even the small Mom
& Pop shops do very well, because of their customer service and
honesty, than a lot of big wheels, who we see get go bankrupt due to
- just what have they been doing exactly??
So again - see your site as an extension of YOU, make your site
become the very source of help you're looking for and LOVE THINE
CUSTOMERS, be patient and NEVER give up, always promote YOUR site,
or links with YOUR site's main url in it, even affiliate programs,
make a page at your site to promote the program, then promote your
site's link, not the affiliate link, and watch your sales increase,
and watch beautiful relationships blossom between you and customers.
To get started research, research, and research - and employ the
techniques you learn, then make those beautiful mistakes that will
aid you to fine tune your site to a pure success!
God bless!
In His Joy,
Seqkat
