The Importance of Creating a Web Page that Sells

Are you 100 % sure that your web site encourages visitors to buy your products? Or are you loosing potential customers who have found you but don’t know how your offering can be of value to them?

Once I was browsing the Internet looking for a laptop shade. It is a special widget to prevent from reflecting the sun when you want to work with your laptop outside, sitting on the grass somewhere in the park in a lovely sunny weather. But, being a non-native English speaker, I did not know the exact name for it at that moment and I was trying various keyword combinations, such as laptop screen protector, laptop foil, prevent sun shine laptop, use laptop outside etc. And I couldn’t find what I was looking for.

Anyway, there are just few companies that sell this “device” and fortunately, I found one of them after typing in “laptop screen outside” desperately. Browsing the pictures of funny black gadgets sticked to the screen, I already saw myself sunbathing at the beach during my most busy working hours. But I didn’t buy immediately. I sneakily picked the keyword “laptop shade” they used on the website and continued my search in order to find more attractively-looking shades.

This short story is probably something you get through every day, maybe without conscious realising. And your customers do as well. Once they find you, you probably want them to buy from you, not to leave for another company. For this purpose, your website can be an enormously powerful tool if you build it the appropriate way.

Why More Visitors Will Buy from You

First of all, consider your target niche. Who is looking for a laptop shade? A young, fashionable “lady” eager to look well at every moment (well, I’m not, but…), or “Mr. Sayso”, a builder notoriously careless of the design but prefering utility functions? In fact, they might be both really interested, but to address their individual concerns and desires adequately, pick just one of them and try to attract THEIR senses and create an emotional momentum that will appeal specifically to THEM.

So close your eyes now and think. Who is looking for your products? What kind of people is most likely to buy one? Who will buy even more than one? After all, who is prepared to pay fortune for your products?

Having done this exercise, there is time to think of the content of your website. It is recommended to pick just one page that will be dedicated to one particular group of people looking for one particular product. As this will be the page where your potential customers will “land” from their Internet search, we call it a Landing Page.

All your pay per click campaigns, whether you use Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, Microsoft’s AdCenter or whatever else, all these ads promoting your particular product to a particular audience should point at your landing page developed exclusively for this product and this audience.

To achieve high conversion rates, which means that a high percentage of your visitors will finally buy something; each single word should mirror THEIR perceptions, THEIR opinions and, most importantly, it should refer to THEIR wants.

So what is the process to develop a landing page that will boost your revenues?

7 Steps to Make Your Landing Page Bring You Actual Sales

1. Define the purpose of your landing page

The first step when creating your landing page should be setting a goal you want to achieve. What is it that you want your visitors to do?

2. Create an irresistible desire for your product

To succeed, always list benefits of your products or services; not features. What is the difference? Benefits mean something valuable to the consumer while features are just descriptions of your product characteristics.

3. Include a Call-to-Action

Once you have decided what you want your visitors to do and after revealing all the benefits they can obtain, it is crucial that you tell them what to do next. It must be crystal clear what they need to do in order to buy the product.

4. Keep it simple, stupid

To keep your visitors focused on the steps you want them to take, keep all possible distractions away. That means, your landing page should not be stuffed with links that will direct them away from the page.

5. Generate trust

Although many of us probably do not pay particular attention to Contact Details and Privacy Policy when browsing the Internet, these are vital parts looked for especially during the purchasing process in order to make sure that you are a serious company. Apart from that, Testimonials could add trustworthiness to your landing page, too, as they are kind of confirmation and referral from the REAL people.

6. Make your ordering process clear and secure

In general, over 60 percent of online shoppers abort the ordering process. It’s a pity that after gaining their attention, interest, desire and even after beginning of the purchase you may lose them due to a complicated, unclear or unsafe ordering process.

7. Optimise your title, meta tags, headings and links

You should always use the same keywords which also appear in the copy of your page, title tag, meta description etc. Any keyword phrases which are used in your meta tags only, will not have enough prominence to help your listings for that phrase.

What Should an Effective Landing Page Look Like?

To give you a better idea on the issue, we have created a sample landing page for our 3R Success! Newsletter. Its purpose is to make people sign up for the monthly newsletter with sales, marketing and leadership articles.

You can view the landing page here:
http://www.3r.ie/landing_pages/success_newsletter.htm

Moreover, if you are interested in the issue, you can download a free Boost Your Website Traffic eBook after subscribing to the 3R Success! Newsletter.

This article was written by Simona Antosikova and Peter Lawless from 3R Sales and Marketing - http://www.3r.ie/. For previous articles like this, visit 3R's Articles. Alternatively, subscribe to Success our free monthly Information Bulletin with sales and marketing articles.

Turn Your Story into Website Traffic Boosting Tool!

Do you feel you have gained so much experience in your business that you would be able to teach others? Is there any way to benefit from your stories and advice?

Become Known on the Internet

Publishing is somewhat similar to Speaking. If anything interesting or important happens in your company, do not hesitate and tell everyone about it immediately! The best way to do it (when we consider ‘low cost options’) is to create an article and to send it to various Internet portals all over the world. It will be published in many places and overwhelmingly, this is not considered an advertising tool, but an article or news among other interesting articles and news on an knowledgeable website or in an ezine, for example.

Therefore, you should adjust your style when writing for this purpose. Do not use catchy words of your typical adverts. This should be rather more serious however, try to make it as informative and enriching as possible.

9 Rules of Effective Online Publishing

1. Always refer to your target group.


2. Don’t speak about yourself all the time.


3. Give valuable and relevant information.


4. Keep it simple, stupid (KISS).


5. Make it clear and easy to find relevant information.


6. Use a call to action.


7. We think pictures – make sure that you include them as well.


8. Use correct fonts and always check for spelling and grammar.


9. Make it trackable – and track it regularly. This will give you ideas on what to improve.

Generate More Traffic to your Website Offering a Valuable Content

In today world the role of the Internet is vital. Therefore it is crucial to create a traffic generating website, unless you are 100 % sure that your target market does not use the Internet at all. However, at any stage, the online presence makes you more recognised and respected and a website is a relatively cheap marketing tool with a long life span.

In order to attract your visitors’ attention and to keep them browsing for longer than 6 seconds, your website should contain the following:

1. The right marketing messages and testimonials for each of your niches including your customer value proposition statement.


2. 2-3 articles advising people within your particular niches in areas that you can give them professional advice.


3. Interesting and updated news that matter to your target group.

In Minutes, Let the Whole World Read Your Story!

To submit an article means to publish it on a web site which is not yours. There are various portals which welcome any articles on different topics. As it could be a tough job to submit dozens of your articles to these numerous sites one by one, some of the portals also offer a service of automated article submission.

This is an easy and fast way to let the Internet audience know about your great masterpiece. However, it is not the main reason of the articles submission. The more important role of it is its contribution to your search engine optimisation, as at the end of each article you can insert your contact data, i. e. your URL. This smart and sneaky linking strategy increases your Google, Yahoo! or Msn.com ranking.

Here I would like to share a few such portals which could be beneficial to your own publishing:

www.articlegeek.com
www.uniterra.com
www.isnare.com
www.simplysearch4it.com
www.bigarticles.com
http://r-b-e.net/articles/
www.articlemarketer.com
www.hotlib.com/articles
www.freearticle.org
www.ezinearticles.com
www.articlecube.com
http://www.articlesfactory.com/
www.articletrader.com
www.ideamarketers.com
www.marketing-seek.com
www.connectionteam.com/su3bmit.html
www.articleson.com/
www.articlesexpress.com
www.marcommwise.com/addkbank.phtml
www.goarticles.com
www.webmasterslibrary.com
http://www.articlecentral.com/
www.articlecity.com

Start Your Own eZine with Passion

Although this may seem daunting at the first sight, starting your own eZine could be as beneficial as creating your website. In a nutshell, you offer your mailing list a set of rich-content articles giving information about your products, services or about your company itself. Accordingly, you will place this content on the ezine website which will in addition generate revenues from banner ads or affiliate programmes of your partners.

To succeed brilliantly, you should choose a specific market niche your ezine will be clearly designated for:

1. Offer interesting and valuable content that will address your target audience.


2. Think about the objectives of your articles – what do you want to tell people? What do you want them to think about? What actions do you want them to take having read your article?


3. Create interesting headlines for your articles. Always check your grammar and spelling.


4. For search engine optimisation purposes, use your keyword phrases and include your snippet containing a link to your website at the end of each article.

Following all these steps obediently, you will feel great about receiving emails with thanks and positive reviews from your potential customers, and, what is more, your website traffic will increase muchfold. At the end of the day, your revenues will mirror this development closely.
Make your eBook a Power Selling Tool

As the first advantage, compared to a classical “stone” book, an eBook is much easier to distribute. It will attract new people to your business and create awareness for yourself. Apart from that, it will create an image of you as an expert in your industry:

1. You should have a sufficient knowledge in your area of business in order to write an ebook.


2. The title of your ebook is very important. It could start “How to…” or the “Do’s” and “Don’ts’” in order to attract the attention of the readers.


3. You don’t have to create 700 pages’ ebook. It could be even a small brochure.


4. You can decide to do a series of short stories with an ongoing plot and continual marketing promotion.


5. Create a nice cover for your ebook.


6. Tell everyone about your ebook. Put in on your website and submit it to various ebook portals.

Teach About Your Products via eManuals with Sheer Elation

You can offer eManuals for free in order to generate more traffic to your website, or you can even sell them. Teaching your target group how to use your products effectively, will build rapport within your target group.
Don’t be afraid to present yourself as an expert on handling with software or other products and services you are offering:

1. Find a product you are able to write about easily and you have a lot of experience with and sufficient knowledge about.


2. Create your eManual – make it clear, easy to read and understand, make sure that you cover all relevant points.


3. Publish the eManual on your website and submit it to as many various directories, portals and ezines relating to your business as possible.


4. You can also include a link to your eManual in your email newsletter.


5. Promote your eManual wherever possible.

Blog with Spectacular Success

Blogs have become a popular source of information, advice and entertainment recently. Using them for marketing purposes, you can create awareness and build rapport with your online audience in an effective way. Moreover, submitting your blog to various blog directories will help your search engine optimisation. This tool is great especially if you target young people:

1. Find a suitable blog site where you could set up your own blog. It is easy. Usually, a wide choice of various templates is available and you need just basic computer skills.


2. Place a picture of yourself to your profile.


3. Start blogging and publish regularly. Make your posts interesting.


4. We think pictures – put at least one with every post you submit.


5. Don’t be afraid to share secrets of your success with the readers. They love reading about successful people and they look for advice on how they could belong to them as well.


6. Professional blogs nowadays are very personal.


7. Manage your comments and be active – respond to people’s questions and make statements to their ideas.


8. Tell everyone about your blog. Put a link to it on your website and submit it to various blog directories.

Publish Online to Improve Your Website Ranking

As determined by the number, quality and type of linked pages, most search engines don't even consider web sites if there is not at least one or two links pointing to the web site. Links from other popular websites back to your website are one way of increasing your site's popularity. Finding websites with similar content (but not your competitors’) and high link popularity, is one way of increasing your site popularity.

As you can see, this is a continuous process which will cost you a lot of time and demand constant effort. That’s why knowing more about the issue could save you great deal of energy. Think about devoting a half day of your precious time to acquire considerable knowledge on search engine optimisation and the way to do it most effectively: combining it with your pay per click campaigns.

Many of our hugely successful customers find that 3R half day SEO Workshop can spring board them to success. In some cases the workshop combined with all your expertise is all that you need. In many cases our customers are happy to have regular meetings, to benchmark their progress and keep you on track to building a consistent system that works.

This article was written by Simona Antosikova from 3R Sales and Marketing - www.3r.ie. For previous articles like this, visit 3R's Articles. Alternatively, subscribe to Success our free monthly Information Bulletin with sales and marketing articles.