This issue includes…

° Designing Your Website to Convert More Sales

° Weekly Marketing FreebieS

° Internet Marketing Special Offers

° A Simple Method to Drive Traffic to Your Website

° Variety in Your Marketing is the Key to Success

° Tell Me What You Think!

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The 60 Second Weekly Tip
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Designing Your Website to Convert More Sales

One thing that a lot of website owners don’t seem to
understand is that there’s a big difference between the
kind of design you should use if you’re trying to present
information (usually with ads), and the kind of design you
should use if the aim of your website is to make sales.

This distinction causes a lot of confusion, bad design,
and ultimately, lost sales. If you’re trying to sell, then
there’s a whole other set of website design principles that
you need to follow.

- The Headline is Everything.

If you want your website to make sales for you, then the
first thing you need to pay attention to is the headline on
your sales page. It needs to be large, to stand out, and to
grab the visitors’ attention.

It should also give a clear benefit (not a feature) of
your product that you think would appeal to most people. If
you have a bad headline then people won’t even look at the
rest of what you’ve written - they’ll just press the back
button.

- Always Be Ready to Make the Sale.

As soon as a visitor gets to your product page, it should
be absolutely crystal clear what they’ve got to do to buy
the product. If it’s a long page, then ‘buy’ buttons should
be scattered throughout.

If a visitor could look at any part of your page and
wonder where they have to click to buy the product, then
there’s something fundamentally wrong with your website’s
design.

- Make Happy Customers Prominent.

On a sales page you should have a space for feedback that
has been left by previous customers, whether it’s in the
form of reviews or testimonials. This gives people an
opportunity to read a supposedly objective view of your
product, and makes them feel better about spending their
money on it.

Of course, this means that you need to solicit feedback
from previous customers to put in that space - a good way
of doing this is to offer rewards for customers who
contribute in this way.

- Pay Attention to Payment.

You need to make sure that your payment page - that is,
the page where you collect credit card details - is well
laid out and easy to use. Doing things like making it
difficult for customers to provide their details or making
it confusing to choose what kind of card you have is likely
to damage the customer’s confidence in you and your
website.

It is important that your order page should be
professional and standard - don’t be tempted to do anything
unusual with it.

- Highlight Special Bonuses.

To help persuade potential customers who are on the fence
about whether to buy or not to buy, you should take care to
highlight any special bonuses that purchasing your product
will give them. For example, a physical product might come
with free delivery, and a non-physical product might come
with a free ebook.

Don’t go overboard and have a ridiculous number of
bonuses, but do add enough to make the customer feel like
they’re getting very good value for their money.

- Keep It Simple.

When you’re creating a website that is going to be used to
sell products, you’ve got to keep things as simple as
possible on the technical side. That’s because the more
complicated functions you use, the more things there are
that could go wrong and stop them from buying anything from
you.

It’s better that people see a slightly less fancy website
than that they don’t see one at all because if they don’t
see your website then they won’t be doing any shopping
there.

To understand the basics of how ecommerce websites work
you should look at as many other websites as you can. Write
down the elements that they all seem to have in common -
for example, shopping carts - and you will gradually figure
out which things are essentials and which things are just
bells and whistles.

Your website should leave out everything but the
essentials, but make the essential things very easy to do.
That is the key so successful ecommerce design, and if you
can manage it then it will be very rewarding for you and
your website.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Weekly Marketing FreebieS
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Download your Free 5 Brand New Niche AdSense Templates,
no strings attached.

Instant AdSense Templates 5 Niches

**********************************

AÂ new eBooks package (#5) is waiting for you in the Freebies
section.

Titles in this package:

- AdSense Arbitrage (released last week)

- Bookmarking Demon (new)

- Boost Your Traffic (new)

- Super Affiliate Mini Training (new)

- Think Outside The Box (released last month)

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Internet Marketing Special Offers
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Purchase a SiteBuildIt subscription and get one free! Offer it
to a friend or family member at no additional cost. Limited time offer
(ends december 25, 2006)

SiteBuildIt! Holidays Special Offer Buy 1 Get 1 Free

***********************************

Signup with the PreCharge affiliate program and earn *big*
commissions this month for every new affiliate you refer.

PreCharge offers risk management and chargebacks fraud
protection solutions.

$10 offered just for signing up today using this link:

PreCharge Affiliate Program

***********************************

Get 3 to 6 month FREE Web Hosting when you signup with a
1 or 2-year plan at only $7.77/month.

Holiday Special Hosting Plan Click Here

***********************************

Protect your computer and privacy with this limited time offer:
CA Anti-Virus 2007 + CA Anti-Spyware 2007 or CA Anti-Virus
2007 + CA Personal Firewall 2007 bundles for only $39.99.

SAVE 50% - CA Anti-Virus 2007 & CA Personal Firewall 2007 - ONLY $39.99!

***********************************

Do you HavAds?

Get now your 10% discount on this must-have software.
Havads allows you to display AdSense-like ads for your favorite
affiliate programs opening in a new window so you no longer
lose your visitors when they click your ads, and get full commissions
when they purchase the product.

To claim your discount, simply enter the following code in the Coupon
field on the order page and click Update Form: 45848C693504F7CC

This offer ends in 5 days.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Featured Article
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

A Simple Method to Drive Traffic to Your Website

More and more webmasters have the recurring dilemma on how
to increase the flow of traffic to the websites. During the
past few years many methods have been developed to solve
this problem. While most of them work well, there are some
that aren’t worth the effort.

One of the methods that have spawned many success stories
in driving traffic to websites is viral marketing. Viral
marketing makes use of the tendency of a person to share
something they find informative, entertaining or amazing.
Many companies bank on this behavior to spread their
products and increase the popularity of their company or
their website.

Viral marketing makes use of many mediums in enticing this
behavior. It might be in the form of an interesting story,
an addicting flash game, an amusing video and many other
things that may catch a person’s fancy.

This ingenious form of marketing is typically low cost and
is a wonderful tool for any person to utilize. The benefit
greatly overshadows the cost or efforts to initialize this
marketing tactic. Virtually any website can greatly benefit
from viral marketing.

One of the easiest methods in viral marketing is using a
tell a friend script. This is a simple programming script
that you can attach to the programming of your website.

Generally, tell a friends scripts are installed in pages
where a media is placed so that a person can easily send
this media to any of his friends or his family members.

The basic concept of a tell a friend script is a script
where a person may input his name, email address, the
recipient’s email address and then send the media to the
intended recipient, much like an emmail with an attachment.

The reason this method is so effective is because the
email is usually from a friend of the recipient who they
know and trust. This being the case, the email is normally
opened without hesitation. Along with the mail would be a
brief description of the company or site that sponsored the
media and this allows for the introduction of either the
site or products.

When you add all this together it converts to a much
higher percentage of people viewing your offering. And
naturally included in the email is another tell a friend
script encouraging the reader to spread the word - and the
process begins again.

A tell a friend script is very simple and does not require
a complicated method of programming. In fact, you can copy
& paste a script and simply insert it on your webpage.

With a tell a friend script viral marketing strategy you
can drive traffic into your site which could potentially
spell profits. This is a simple harmless script that offers
great benefits for low cost, paired with great creativity
and foresight.

It is imperative that you have patience in using a tell a
friend script. If your chosen media doesn’t get the mileage
that is expected it may take some time before it gets
spread or shared. But if you keep testing and tweaking your
viral message there is great probability that you will
begin to see an increase in your traffic flow.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Effective Marketing Strategies
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

Variety in Your Marketing is the Key to Success

If you have already started your online business you
already know the huge potential email marketing offers.
However, you also likely realize it is unreasonable to
expect your business to thrive if email marketing is the
only marketing strategy you choose to build your business.

This is not unusual as most businesses do not typically
have a great deal of success unless they make the decision
to incorporate more than one type of promotion into their
overall marketing strategy.

So today we will examine a few other online marketing
strategies that may be used in conjunction with email
marketing.

Email marketing in itself can be multi-faceted. It may
include sending out regular content, distributing
newsletters and offering ecourses. Implementing only one of
these email marketing strategies may result in a small
increase in either website traffic or sales, but
implementing more than one strategy at a time can be much
more effective.

Similarly it is definitely worthwhile incorporating other
marketing techniques to grow your online business. This can
help you to enjoy a greater degree of success if you apply
these strategies correctly.

Some of the other marketing strategies you may wish to
employ include banner ads, participating in niche related
forums and starting an affiliate program.

Of these types of marketing, placing banner ads can be the
most expensive option. In many cases your business will
have to pay another website for the privilege of placing
your banner ad on their website.

Choosing a website which sells products which complement,
without competing, for your business is worthwhile.
However, there are some free options for banner ads
including exchanges.

This normally works by having to receive 2 or 3 banner
impressions on your own webpages each time your banner ad
appears on another persons site. Additionally, you may not
be able to control the type of website which displays your
banner ad. For this reason it is worthwhile to pay for ad
space so you can have more control over where your ads are
displayed.

Participating in niche forums or message boards can be
another way to promote your business online. Message boards
are online meeting place where likeminded people who share
a common interest meet to discuss issues and to provide
help to each other.

Most forums allow users to place a link to their website
in their signature line. If you regularly participate on an
these forums and include a signature line with a link to
your website you can reach a high concentration of members
of your target audience.

Just remember that when using forums or message baords to
promote your business it is important to follow all the
guidelines and to avoid techniques which may be deemed as
spam, such as posting your link when it is not appropriate.

Affiliate marketing programs are another type of online
marketing which can be used in conjunction with email
marketing. This involves allowing website owners to promote
your business to their list or to place your product on
their website.

These website owners are known as affiliates. Each time
one of their advertisements causes a visitor to purchase
your product, the affiliate is paid a commission. This
makes affiliate marketing incredibly cost effective as
essentially you do not pay for your advertising unless your
affiliates generate specific actions from their visitors,
such as making a purchase.

An often overlooked benefit of this strategy is that you
can use embedded codes to track your sales to determine
which promotional strategies are most effective. This
information can then be used to tweak your marketing
tactics for maximum profits.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Tell Me What You Think
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

This is your chance to speak out.

Comment on articles I’ve run in the newsletter, give me
your thoughts on changes or your ad testing results or
questions relating to your business, etc.

In other words, just talk to me about what you think I
need to do to improve the newsletter.

Be sure to include your website address too, because if
I use your comments in a future issue of the newsletter,
I’ll thank you by posting your address so that you can get
additional free traffic to your site.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
That’s a Wrap for this Week
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=

That wraps up another week’s newsletter and I hope you
enjoyed this issue.

Don’t forget to send me any comments or questions you
may have to the Feedback Loop. I would be only too happy to
help you in any way that I can.

From time to time I’ll send you important updates
that will provide information that has the potential to
greatly improve your online business… and of course
your profits!

However, you can rest assured that I will only ever
recommend products that are considered to be of HIGH value
and will provide indisputably benefits to help you grow
your business… that’s my guarantee!

Your friend,

Gilles Rais

Categories: Newsletter Issues