Increase Sales

How to Increase Website Sales

Whether you’re an affiliate, business owner, or ecommerce expert, you can always increase sales. Even when your profit margins are thin, more sales always equals more profit. If you’ve already got a steady stream of sales coming in, your main goal should be to increase your volume. You should also think about money-saving practices to help increase your profit, but increasing your overall sales volume should be your primary objective. If increasing online sales is on your mind, read through this web page carefully.

Increase Web Traffic

This one’s pretty obvious, but very important. In most cases, the more traffic you have, the more sales you will make. Increasing your traffic is easier said than done, but it’s worth the time and effort. There are countless ways to drive traffic to your site, but if you want to drive targeted traffic. The best way to do this is to do some search engine optimization, or SEO. If you already know how to do basic SEO, then by all means, do it yourself. If you aren’t exactly a SEO expert, you might want to consider hiring one.

Tip: One proven way to increasing sales and improving page rankings is to create a free account at http://www.ezinearticles.com and submit articles. Each article there has a resource box you can add in your website link with the keywords you wish. Visitors will read your article and some will click on your resource box link. Ezine Articles has the best quality control of any article directory and it’s not uncommon for articles to be on the first page of Google for less competitive key phrases.

Streamline Your Website

If your website is difficult to use or is blatantly confusing, you are losing out on sales. You need to do everything you can reasonably do to make your website as functional and usable as possible. Keep in mind that the average Internet user probably doesn’t know nearly as much about websites as you do, so try to keep things simple and intuitive. Eliminate excess banners and advertisements, and focus the site on your best-selling products, but make sure there are links to more obscure items (or categories) on your main homepage. If you are operating a site with a large amount of inventory, make sure you have a search function on your website. This can easily increase sales by 10% or more.

Tip: Grab uncle Charlie who’s used a computer for about 5 months. And watch him use your website. You’ll likely be horrified at how your site is navigated.

Eliminate 3rd-Party Ads

Some website owners host 3rd-party ads (either from private sales or things like Google Adsense) on their ecommerce websites. This is a big mistake and should be avoided. Not only do 3rd-party ads drive users away from your own products, but they also make your site look less professional. If a visitor going to a site to buy something, they don’t want to see a banner for another site there, let alone an Adsense strip. If you’re not making enough money with your own products, the reasoning to host 3rd-party ads is understandable, but as an expert in online sales, we can tell you truthfully that you will increase sales and generate a higher income in the long run if you eliminate all 3rd-party advertisements. So unless your website is primarily based on a free service, 3rd-party advertisements need to be removed.

Tip: If you need to use 3rd-party advertisements, rotate between different sources, including affiliate linked products from affiliate networks such as ShareASale.com, that do not directly compete with you. This will help you determine what source or external product generates you the most income.

Affiliate marketing

Once your website is established in the marketplace, you can create an Affiliate program. You can run an in-house affiliate program, or work through an Affiliate network like ShareASale.com for a fee. There are plenty of software solutions you can run yourself to manage your affiliate network, and include features such as being able to email your affiliate partners and offer them special commission rates. If you offer one specific digital service or ebook, ClickBank.com is an easy and affordable way to get your own affiliates working with you.

Tip: On average, affiliates can make up roughly 10% of all sales for an average website.

How does your site look?

When it comes to increasing website sales, you have to think like a consumer. Try to take a fresh look at your site. Try not to think about what you like about it, but rather, what a potential customer would like. Don’t use any bizarre colors – stick to mild, easy colors. If your site looks ugly or odd, people will leave without giving it a fair chance. In order to increase your sales, you might have to completely redesign your website. Unless you’re an expert designer, you absolutely do not want to attempt it yourself.

Tip: Plenty of designers exist that would be happy to create a great design for you for a very reasonable fee. Check the “services” sections of popular Webmaster forums.

Get Advice

Since you own your website (obviously), you will be rather biased when it comes to critiquing it. This is why you need other opinions. Ask your friends and family to visit your site, and ask them to tell you honestly what they think. Ask them to critique everything – the site’s design, layout, functionality – even product selection and prices. You’ll be amazed at how many negative things can be picked out from your website. Some of these things might “hurt”, and other comments entertaining, but you need take everything said into consideration, and remember that when you own an ecommerce website, you have to appeal to a very wide selection of customer mindsets.

Tip: After a while you’ll notice a few similarities between all the opinions you’ve gathered. Focus on those points first, even if they rank low on your scale of importance.

Offer Shipping Discounts

If you’re selling physical products, offering shipping discounts can help increase sales substantially. Take a look at what some of the biggest online retailers do – for example, Amazon.com offers free shipping on orders of over $25. While you don’t have to do the exact same thing, it would be wise to offer some sort of shipping discount for bulk orders. In many cases, it’s worth it to offer very cheap or even free shipping. Obviously you will lose money on shipping, but you should make more than enough to cover those loses with the automatic increased sales. Also remember to shop around when looking for ways to ship products.

Tip: Inside the US, we recommend Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes. They are available in many different sizes, and ship anywhere within the US for a flat fee, regardless of the weight.

Run Specials on your website

People are always looking for bargains. If you want to increase website sales, one of the best ways to do that is to run a good special. You don’t have to have crazy deals – just offer a good enough discount that people who are “on the fence” so to speak, will be convinced to buy your product. If you’re familiar with the concept of a loss-leader, you might want to try that too. Offer a product that sells well at a ridiculously low price – maybe even less than you’re buying it for. Then, advertise this product as much as you can. Hopefully, people will flock to your website in order to buy this product, and while they’re there, they will hopefully add some more items to their cart. Shipping discounts can also be used here to help convince people to buy more. For example, your loss-leader product could cost $15 with $5 shipping, but you could offer free shipping for orders over $50. This will convince people to save even more money, while buying more products, and in turn increasing your sales and profit. Just be sure to do all the math beforehand so you don’t end up losing in general.

Tip: You’ll want to consider the average “lifetime value” of your customer. This will help you determine how to work out the kind of loss leader you can work with.

Obtain Online Seal Certification

Your visitors still do not fully trust the Internet, especially when they have to enter their credit card details. Getting your website certified can help increase sales in the long run. There are several different certifications out there that will help out. The BuyerShield Security web seal is the premium choice available. When people go to a website and see the BuyerShield web seal or even a Better Business Bureau seal, they are instilled with confidence and know that website is legitimate and safe to use. Without seals or certifications, your website can look less trusting than it should.

Tip: The BuyerShield Security verified seal will increase sales and maximize the traffic you already receive.