When you run an online home-based business, your web site is more than simply a company location. Its also your primary source of advertising and marketing. If youve noticed that sales are lagging or if youre simply looking for ideas for a site youre building, the following five tips can help you boost revenue and develop an even more successful web presence.
1) Stress Your UPS
In this case, UPS isnt referring to the delivery company. Instead, it stands for Unique Positioning Statement and its one of the most important ingredients of your business. Your UPS is basically a statement of what sets you apart from your competition.
Think of it as an answer to the question: Why should I do business with you You may choose to focus on service, price, or any other special feature of your business that would appeal to customers. Whichever feature you choose should be stressed in all your web sites content. Dont shy away from telling others what sets you apart.
2) Add Interactivity
Consumers are shying away from passive activities where they just sit and watch. Instead, they want to be a part of the action, so you need to give your potential customers several ways to participate at your site.
Possibilities include message boards, polls, chat rooms, and surveys. By adding these types of elements, you are giving visitors more of a reason to stick around, to return, and to recommend your site to their friends.
3) Stress Credibility
No one wants to buy a product from someone they dont trust, so building a sense of credibility with your site is crucial to your success. You can accomplish this in a number of ways:
* Adding an About Us section
* Providing complete contact information
* Offering a money back guarantee
These methods work for several reasons. An About Us section allows visitors to get a picture of who they will be doing business with while the contact information gives them the security of knowing they can reach someone in case there is a problem.
Furthermore, the guarantee expresses your confidence in your product and that confidence is contagious. Testimonials, client lists, and awards are also effective for building credibility.
4) Test Everything
The problem with most unsuccessful business owners is that they jump right in to things without ever taking the time to test their site, their product, their layout, even their links. The result is that too much money is spent on things that do not work.
Any changes you make to your site need to be tested before being adopted permanently. For example, if you change your headline on your home page, compare your sales for the week of the change and the previous week.
If the numbers drop or stay about the same, go back to the drawing board. If the numbers go up, check one more weeks sales numbers and if the numbers are still high, you may have a winner.
5) Provide Reasons to Return
While it may only take a visitor to your site once trip to make a purchase, you want to give them reasons to come back. Otherwise, how will they know when you add new products The key is to continue to update your site, perhaps with articles or news, that may be of interest to your target audience.
If your site becomes one of your visitors primary resources for the latest information on a subject they are interested in, you can be sure they will bookmark your site and come back frequently.
Also consider having a mailing list. A mailing list will allow visitors to provide you with their email addresses so that you can send them notifications of updates, specials, and changes to the site including ads and marketing materials for new products. These email messages will also provide them with a reason to come back.
When you do business online, your web site takes the place of your sales force. If its not pulling in the numbers you had hoped for or if youve seen your numbers going down recently, you need to evaluate your site and decide where changes can and should be made.
Content, layout, graphics, even navigation all play a role in the success, or failure, of your site and your company. Dont let a small problem with your web site become the reason you go out of business.
Vishal P. Rao is the owner of: An online community of people who work at home.
Setting up your own online business can seem extremely daunting. Whether youve already got a business and want to sell products and services online or want to start from scratch with a new business, there is a great deal to think about.
However, despite the economic doom and gloom, there is real money to be made from web-based businesses. But where do you begin
If youre starting from scratch, the first thing you need to decide is what youre going to sell and who you want to sell it to. The Web is a global marketplace, but that doesnt mean your business has to be international. Some of the most successful internet businesses target tight niches. When making the decision about what type of business to start youll need to research the types of products and services that are in demand and the competition for supplying those to customers. The ratio of demand to supply will give you an idea of the likely profitability of any business idea. After all, theres no point in starting a business thats not going to make a profit, is there
If you have expertise in a particular subject or area, then thats a great place to start. If theres a subject youre passionate about then start there. Focus on what you can offer thats unique. Its much better to offer something unique in a small niche market than try and compete with a thousand other companies in a huge market. Remember the bigger the market the more competitors youll have. And on the Web, the chances are high that theyll all know more than you about the techniques associated with marketing and selling on the internet.
If youve already got an offline business that you want to promote on the Web, or have products or services that you want to sell on the internet, then youre a good part of the way there.
However, whether youve already got a business or have a good idea for starting one, theres a great deal to do to be successful on the Web. You have to come up with a domain name and register it, build a website (or get someone to build it for you), and find someone to host it. If you want to sell products or services directly from your site, youll need to build-in online shopping facilities, and if you want to accept credit cards, youll need a merchant account .
Then theres the promotion. Its all very well having a website out there in cyber space, but if no-one knows its there, you wont get any customers. So you have to promote it, on and off-line.
How do you get visitors and how do you ensure they are in your target market The most cost-effective way of generating targeted traffic on the Web is by ranking highly in search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN for keywords related to your business. Unfortunately there are thousands of Web marketing professionals out there who are intent on making sure their sites rank highly, meaning that the chance of a relative newcomer getting a top 30 ranking in a search engine is small. Without a ranking in the top thirty on the major search engines you might as well be invisible.
Finally, and most importantly, once youve got traffic, how do you convert a reasonable percentage of it into income How do you build the kind of trust and credibility online that keeps visitors coming back and spending money
Phew! If you werent daunted before, you will be by now. Fortunately, none of the problems outlined above is insurmountable. Its hard work sure, but very rewarding. And you dont have to do all the work yourself, there are plenty of solutions which will do lots of the hard work for you, like the one I use.
The important thing, as with any project, is to start and then to keep going. Imagine your website as a snowball running down a hill. It starts off very small and has no momentum. It takes hard work to roll it and help it grow, but once it reaches critical mass it gains a momentum of its own, starts to roll by itself and grows exponentially very quickly. Your web business is that snowball.
Kenny Hemphill is a website owner and marketer. His current - snowball is gaining mementum fast.