The Sales Website: Essential Components

As discussed in the last article, the sales website requires a Landing Page, Order Page or Shopping Cart and a Payments Page at the minimum. For a small website selling a single (or very few) products, all the three components can be accommodated on the same page.

Additionally, a sales website will need search-engine-optimized pages to get the free traffic from search engines. These are pages that are optimized for the search terms that potential customers actually use to search for your product.

The Landing Page

In the context of selling a product, the landing page serves the function of either creating a sales lead or persuading the visitor to make an immediate purchase. Sales leads involve capturing contact information so that you can follow up with the prospect in the hope of ultimately getting a sale. Lead generation pages are best for high value products and for services.

For lower value and consumer products, an immediate sale is typically preferred.

In both cases, the landing page involves persuading the visitor to take the action desired by the seller. It contains “sales copy” that typically uses the AIDA approach to get the reader take the desired action.

AIDA : AIDA stands for certain characteristics that the sales copy must possess.

• Astands for Attention Value, i.e. the sales copy must immediately catch the attention of the visitor.

• Istands for Interest Value, i.e. the copy must arouse the reader’s interest (say, by talking about a problem that the reader faces).

• Dstands for Desire Value, i.e. the copy must create a desire for the product (say, by convincingly showing how the offer is a value-for-money solution to the reader’s problem) and

• Astands for Action Value, i.e. the copy must very clearly indicate what the reader must do (such as filling up the lead-generation form or clicking the Buy Now button).

Continue reading →

Subscription Website Software and Solutions

In an earlier article we looked at the option of charging website readers for allowing them access to premium content on your website. We observed that premium content typically consist of information or know-how that is not easily available free. We also saw that the typical solution was to allow free access to a sample of the high-value content and restrict access to most of the premium content.

It follows that we should be able to keep the premium content behind a firewall with restricted access to authorized persons, i.e. subscribers who have paid for the access. Ideally, we should also be able to prevent unauthorized use of the content by even the authorized users, such as posting it free elsewhere. These capabilities are available under two broad options:

• Website subscription software that we buy, or

• Subscription website administration services that we hire.

Subscription Website Software

There is free software plug-ins such as MemberWing that can be downloaded and activated at your WordPress blog. Such software has comparatively simple capabilities.

At the other end are packages like MemberGate that offer a large number of capabilities including Subscription Manager, Shopping Cart, Affiliate Program and your own Discussion Forums.

• Subscription Manager can automate such tasks as new member signup, sending subscription renewal notices and managing different membership plans.

• Shopping Cart enables you to offer physical, digital and downloadable products for sale at your site.

• Affiliate Program capability will make it possible to recruit affiliates, track their performance, compute compensation using applicable rules and provide reports to affiliates.

• Discussion groups allow creation of loyal communities who will visit your site again and again to participate in the discussions. These groups will typically need rules, setting up, moderation and maintenance, all complex tasks.

Options like those mentioned just above come at a price and the software tends to be expensive. Continue reading →

Charge Readers for Accessing Your Content

Subscription websites where people pay to read premium content is one way to make money with your website. You offer a sample of your content free so that readers can see its value. The premium content is hidden behind a firewall accessible only to paid subscribers.

Let us make one thing clear at the beginning. Readers are not going to pay for information that they can easily get elsewhere. To charge for content, you must provide expert information that are not easily available, and that people want.

Website Subscriptions for On-line Media

While print news has been traditionally offered under the subscription model, on-line news have been typically offered free. On-line content was monetized through advertisements displayed in the content. However, this model is becoming unviable because ad click rates and payments for clicks are both declining steeply.

Newspapers are now trying to adopt website subscription model to become profitable. However, people have become accustomed to free content on the Web and are reluctant to pay. Subscription numbers fall steeply when readers are asked to pay. Continue reading →

Sell Your Own Products on the Web

These days you can sell almost all products on the Internet. Even bulky and perishable products can be promoted using a Website. People search the net even for local purchases and bulky/perishable products can be promoted locally.

Compact products can be promoted worldwide, and if the product is downloadable, like software or an eBook, it can even be delivered instantly against payment.

Selling Your Product Involves Promoting Your Website

Creating a website describing your product, and providing facilities to order and pay for it, is only the starting point. Far more critical is the task of promoting the website so that people interested in your product becomes aware of your offer. Your website will not come to their attention automatically.

Promoting a website is a time-consuming exercise involving work on several fronts, as outlined below:

• SEO:

Make your website search engine friendly so that search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN will bring visitors interested in your product. This involves Keword Research to find search terms that your potential customers use, and search engine optimization as discussed in this SEO Article.

• Links:

Links pointing to your site from relevant sources not only bring traffic but also increases your search engine visibility. The articles at traffic building resources discuss various ways for building links.

• Ad Campaigns:

Ad campaigns can be PayPerClick ads using tools such as Google AdWords or banner and text ads on other sites against straight payments. Website Ad Brokers will help you find publishers to publish your ads. Continue reading →

Sell Ads at Your Website Real Estate
Your website can be compared to real estate where advertisers can put up their billboards or other kinds of advertising. Advertisers are interested in locations where there is plenty of traffic. They might also be interested in spots that their particular customers visit, even if not in large numbers.

The case with your website is also similar. If the site is visited by a large number of Web surfers, advertisers will be interested to put up ads on the site. Niche sites catering to particular groups can also attract merchants trying to sell to those groups. The advertisers will pay you to display their ads.

If your website has too few visitors, you should build up the traffic first. Refer to Traffic Building Methods for ways to increase traffic to your website.

How Do You Find Advertisers?
You can of course visit different websites, and use the Contact Us link at each to seek advertisements. You can highlight the specific advantages that the site owners will get by advertising on your site. However, that kind of approach is tedious work, and might also discourage you if you do not get satisfactory responses.

There are much better ways to get advertisements. There are third parties who work with website publishers on the one hand and merchant advertisers on the other. You open an account with these third party advertisement networks and they will get advertisements for your site.

In the discussion below, we mention contextual ads, banner ads, text link ads etc. These terms are explained in a separate article.

Advertising Networks
Google AdSense and Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) serve contextual ads on your website. You register the website with these agencies, and insert code snippets that they provide in the code of the pages where you want the advertisements to appear. Full instructions for inserting the code, and of optimizing the click rates, are provided by AdSense/YPN. Continue reading →

Types of Ads and Payment Methods Vary Greatly

In an earlier article, we outlined how you can make money by displaying ads on your website. That article also had links to major advertising networks that will get advertisers for you.

To really make money from ads on your website, you should know the different options available. A familiarity with these options will help you select just the right kind of ads and payment modes that suit your situation and skills.

Contextual Ads, Banner Ads, Text Link Ads and More

Advertising networks offer different kinds of ads, and the CPM, CPC and CPA models of getting paid. If you approach advertisers directly (instead of going through the ad networks), you will have to negotiate everything, and might even have to install software to count impressions and clicks.

Contextual Ads: Contextual ads are tailored to your web page content. For example, if your page discusses pet dogs, the ads might offer dog food, dog collars and all other dog-related products and services. The ad networks will analyze the context and serve relevant ads.

Banner Ads: Though “banner” refers to a format, by banner ads we typically refer to ads that allow you greater control over what ads appear on your page. Contextual ads can mean that competitors get to display their ads on your page. When you select a banner ad yourself, you can select a merchant who is not a competitor, for example.

Text Links: Text links are short text that you display on your web page. These texts constitute live links to the advertisers’ websites. Text link advertisers typically seek “link popularity” in addition to displaying a sales message. Continue reading →

Publish and Ezine and Monetize It

Ezines are newsletters that you send out periodically to subscribers. Subscriptions are typically obtained through sign-up forms at your (or third party) websites, and are re-confirmed to eliminate spam complaints. The reconfirmation is done because people can send email addresses of other people to you and the latter might then raise spam complaints when you send mail to them.

In this article we focus on the monetization opportunities provided by ezines. In the next article we look at the practical issues involved in publishing an ezine, including the all important issue of how to build a mailing list.

Mailing Lists are the Key to Monetization Opportunities

A targeted mailing list is the core requirement to tap the monetization potential of ezines. A list of email addresses is said to be targeted when the addressees are interested in a common topic, such as sailing. You can sell sailing supplies more easily to a list of sailing enthusiasts.

Whereas you might get a response of less than 1 percent if you send mails to a general list, you might be able to get a 10% response if the mailing is done to a targeted list. The mailing list also allows you to send follow up mails, and this increases response rates because many interested recipients might buy only after a number of contacts. Continue reading →

Sell the Products of Other Merchants as an Affiliate

If you do not have a product of your own, you can sell the products of other merchants. This arrangement is known as affiliate marketing and comes in different flavors. In this article we take a broad look at affiliate marketing and how to succeed with it while the next article gets into the smaller details.

A Quick Look at Affiliate Programs

You create an affiliate account with a merchant who runs an affiliate program, and get an affiliate ID. The typical next step is to get some publicity material from the merchant website, such as banners or text links with your ID incorporated, and display it at your website. Alternatively, you can plan your own ad campaign and send visitors through your affiliate ID to the merchant’s sales page.

The affiliate arrangement can be CPM, CPC, CPL or CPS, which we discuss in the next article. The merchant pays the affiliate for ad impressions (CPM), clicks on the ad (CPC), lead generation (CPL) or a sale (CPS). Affiliate management systems of the merchant keep track of impressions, clicks, leads and sales that are generated by each affiliate.

We look at affiliate programs in more detail in the next article, where you will also find links to locate an affiliate program. Continue reading →

Affiliate Program Features and Practices

As we mentioned in the last article, you can sell the products of other merchants if you do not have a product or service of your ownl. You join the affiliate program of a merchant, get an affiliate ID and also some publicity material that the merchant has designed for use by affiliates.

You display the ads at your website, or send them out through emails to your mailing list. And the merchant pays you for the ad impressions, or clicks on the ad, or a lead generated or a sale.

Affiliate ID

Merchants give each affiliate a unique ID. All your advertisements and campaigns must incorporate this ID in the link that sends visitors to the merchant site. Otherwise, the merchant has no way of knowing who sent the visitor.
You can advertisements incorporating this ID if you log into your affiliate account and get the code for displaying a particular banner or other ad.

If you are running the campaign with your own ads and materials, don’t forget to incorporate this ID into the link that sends visitors to the merchant site.

Affiliate Marketing Compensation

CPM:- You display the merchant’s ad at your website and get paid a few dollars for every thousand ad impressions. Each time a web page at your site is viewed there is one impression for each of the ads displayed on that page. However, not all impressions might be paid for. Merchants might stipulate that only “unique” visits in a day will be counted as a payable impression, i.e. if the same visitor views the page a number of times in a day, it will be counted only as one impression.

CPC:- Under the CPC arrangement, an impression alone is not enough. The site visitor must click on the ad and go to the merchant’s page. Merchants watch out for fraudulent clicks, i.e. clicking the ad yourself and other such means of inflating the number of clicks. A click is considered genuine only if it is made by a person really interested in the advertisement.

CPL:- Even a click is not enough in this case. Your reader must go further and take some action that generates a “lead” for the merchant to follow up. Often, this might involve nothing more than completing a form at the merchant’s site providing contact details.

CPS:- A sale must take place under this arrangement, and that too a sale on that visit. Some merchants, however, might make arrangements to keep track of affiliates who introduce a prospective customer first, and pay that affiliate if that prospect makes a purchase on a subsequent visit. Continue reading →