edgeyy66

Hi Warriors,

I started my site in Jan 2014 "The Edge on Strategy". This is after a year fumbling around with other service providers.

My site is based on this USP "I use my 25 years as a strategic planner to teach strategy and help you become more effective in your life"

Our traffic has gone from 6-16-75-137-149-159 vpd over the last six months. Most of this is driven my social networking as I do not believe am not ranking well in most of my keywords with google but I feel Im on track there.


I'm at it full time and put up 2 quality keyword rich webpages each - I can do this for some time to date I have over 300 quality keywords for My learning curve is high and I spent a lot of time researching learning IM and WEbmaster stuff.

The "Strategy" Niche is quite broad and competitive. My main focus is "Strategic Solutions" and "Strategies for Success". I've also found a ton of great high demand / low supply keywords for my pages.

My goal is to use this site to establish authority and sell my eBooks (also working on Audio, Video and eCourses), Relevant and High Quality Affiliate Programs, and Ad sense.Once I have an decent email list. (Today I have 80 e-mails.)

The Problem - I'm not converting at all! No eBook Sales and No Affiliate sales. I even gave up n adsence because after two months I made $4.00 and didn't think it was worth taking away from my MWR of Affiliate and eProduct purchases.

Somethings not working

.

I'm ready to make whatever changes I need. I'm thinking of offering eCource and Audio Books based my eBooks. And developing more freebees to get my work out there. I want to go deepen in to what I have now and see some sales before I start putting out more eBooks the are inspired by the same quality and content as the others

I've been consulting for years but I am new to IM. I don't mind doing an overhaul but I need some direction.

Is my copy bad?
Is my idea bad?
Is my eProducts bad?
Is my niche bad?

In other words how d oI find out if I am just throwing good money and after bad.

I realize this is a lot to task. If you could point in the right direction that would be appreciated

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

thejimy

Honestly, I would think your offer is bad.

What I did to come to this conclusion?

First, I spent around 20 seconds on your site, much more than the average user would normally, and could not figure out about what your site really is in this time.

That's a big issue! Why?

For you, as you know your contens in and out, it might be clear what you offer, what the benefits are etc. but to your visitor it's absolute not.

Second, I spent a little more time on your site, looking at the menu and some pages and I asked myself: What real problem does the site solve? I could not answer this question!

Why is this so important?

If you want visitors to get out their pocket and buy, you need to solve a real problem. Nobody will buy for something they don't feel the urge they need it.

You do not adress anyone's problem directly in any way. What I mean with "directly"? Lets's take an example from your site.

"Life Hacks" : First two paragraphs explain what are "Life Hacks" -> what's the gain or value for the reader from this? Does it provide a direct benefit? Probably not. Next section outlines the two benefits for life hacks: "use less energy" and "become more energetic". This is the result from life hacks ... but for what reason? You are still not adressing a very specific problem here that one of your visitors might have. As example, your visitors problem could be not having enough time daily, so your solution could be "achieve more every day"... but "become more energetic" is too generic and unspecific.

The reader is going to lose interest pretty quick, if you don't make this clear at the beginning and let him know, that you are going to provide a very specific solution to a very specific problem they have, not a generic one.

Looking at your writing style, there is a lot of improvement that can go also in.
How so? You are talking about "Edge on Strategy" and the strategies very often ... but what you really need to do, is write in a way, that you are talking TO YOUR VISITORS about THEM and their problems they want to solve... simply said.

If the site was mine, I would had probably rearrange and rename many things, like the menu names as a start. There is a lot that can be done on the site, to make it feel more personal, which should increase your visitors engagement with the site too.

So, in the end it needs to be also clear, what you are offering to your visitors, if they subscribed to your offers. That is still nowhere so clearly defined nor I can seem to expect anything specific while reading your site. Probably, because everything is too generic.

Hope those hints can help you.

edgeyy66

Thanks for the input. It confirms my suspicion that my "niche" needs focus. You've given me a lot to think about.

I need to decide whether I should use this authority site and then drive people to more specific sites like:

"Writing and Publishing Strategies" or "Team Building Strategies".

or hack the whole thing up and refocus from the top down.

Best Sam

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

Creativologist

H1 and H2 tags are pretty important for SEO. (if you want people to even find you)

H1 tag is
Home - Strategic Solutions


That's pretty bad for an H1 tag.


H2 is

Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

Not sure what that even means. I would change those based on thejimy's suggestions.

RogozRazvan

As mentioned before, your biggest problem is lack of clarity.

I don't know exactly what this "strategy" means. Transform it to an actual benefit.

System Thinking -> Make Your Business Run on Autopilot
Time Management -> Get Your Work Done Faster & With Less Stress
Strategic Solutions -> Bring Clarity And Direction In Your Life ?!?!

I assume that if I'm a manager and I'm actively looking for this (and I understand exactly what you offer before visiting your site), this would work. However, for 99% of the visitors, it will just alienate them.

richpage75

Hi. Here are some of my initial thoughts:

- Your website looks like a blog, and many people won't realize you are trying to sell services/courses/ebooks. This immediately puts you at an huge disadvantage.

- You don't really emphasize and explain your unique value proposition. Its all very 'fluffy' and you don't clearly explain why someone should choose you for strategy, rather than one of about about 1000 competitors. Strategic solutions for a chaotic world sounds cool, but doesn't really help provide value. Your visitors are probably wondering what a 'strategic solution' is anyway...

- You give your visitors way too much choice and overwhelm them with what to click on or look at (too much text, too many navigation links that are all competing). You need to really simplify your homepage in particular, and really focus it on solving for your visitors needs, and giving them a few clear choices that will help them. You need to make it look much more like a traditional website that offer services.

- You don't give any good incentives for someone to try using your services, or offering free incentives like an ebook or a free consultation. This will help you get more email opt-ins that you can then market to via an autoresponder series and build up a relationship.

- You don't show any social proof - you really need to show testimonials and reviews to make people understand that you are popular and offer good services. You should also list some of your client logos as this helps build credibility.

That's just a few things - if you are interested in a more comprehensive website conversion review, send me a PM.

Hope that helps!

Rich Page
http://www.rich-page.com | Twitter: @richpage
Author of 'Website Optimization: An Hour a Day'

edgeyy66

Wow! This is gold. I've feel like I've been fumbling in the Dark and someone just shined a flashlight on my page.

It never occurred to me that my home page was too "Bloggy" but that makes sense.

Does anyone have any comments about my strategy to have an Authority site" that funnels to sales. I think this is why my site is too general and not consumer / benefit focused. I am trying to sell my experience.

I've ran a successful consulting firm for twenty plus years but landing clients was all based on submitting tenders, proposal wiring and word of mouth. It's a huge swing to move into IM.

Social Proof - It's funny, I have 20+ 4 and 5 Start reviews for my eBook and another 10+ personal recommendations that are posted on linkedIn. I have them on my eBook page and About page but I'm thinking that's pretty deep into things and none see them.

I guess the question I need to answer I how to take my USP from Fluffy to Effective. Do I keep my "Authority Site" basically as is and start building more benefit driven sites? of Do I restructure my authority site to me more focused and benefit oriented?

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

richpage75

Thats why SEO only goes so far - you can have great traffic, but it doesn't matter if your website doesn't have conversion rate optimization best practices built into it to convert your traffic into leads/sales. I say forget about traffic for the moment, and fix your site - it needs lots of help! Let me know if you are interested in a full review.

Rich Page
http://www.rich-page.com | Twitter: @richpage
Author of 'Website Optimization: An Hour a Day'

Mark Andrews

Well the question then has to asked, why the ruddy change in direction? If you were doing something which was working extraordinarily well for you, why change the strategy out for one which you clearly have little clue about?

Why put your business at risk all for the sake of keeping up with everyone else?

Don't tell me, someone once said to you, "Oh ya gotta get yourself a website mate, that's where it's all at these days, didn't you know?" Which is a right load of cobblers since if your business never depended on it in the first place and you made it a bloody good success without it...why switch out to a marketing plan which obviously you don't understand and could end up costing you dearly?

Remember the maxim - 'If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it'. Which is precisely by the looks of it what you're attempting to do here.

Result so far? Piddling sums of revenue compared to a bloody good revenue before.

Tell me, would you have paid someone very good money to be given this advice (how to lose money hand over fist) and would you have acted in this manner (switching out to IM) if the subsequent decrease in earnings you had known before would be the case, in advance?

You want to talk strategy? How to get the most out of your available resources? Bit of a contradiction in terms there, offering this advice to other business owners, if at the same time you've taken such a hit on your own revenue.

Surely with the time you have at your disposal to invest in your business, the purpose is to increase your success rate based on strategies which have worked for you in the past, not blinkin' well ditching those proven strategies in favor of the great unknown, or untested marketing strategies, which in your case is not paying you now the dividend or yield you enjoyed previously.

How can you in this current position advise others if at the same time you need the exact same help yourself?

Think about it. Mull this over and get back to me with an answer down below.

- Mark Andrews

P.S. A word of advice:

Forget thinking about keywords all the time. You don't write sales copy for a search engine, for a bot, for an algorithm in order to rank well. You do write sales copy (or content) specifically for your precise target market.

How do you do this? It's easy.

You do this by directly entering into the conversation going on inside your ideal prospects mind. In other words, what is the actual conversation your ideal client is having inside their mind?

Enter directly into into this conversation to give your potential clients exactly the information, the answers which they are looking for. In other words...

Ask of your target market, "What problem do you currently have but don't want and what results do you want to see but don't yet have?"

Get into this specific conversation (through research on your part) to understand intimately the exact needs of your target market and you'll be halfway there, instead of scrabbling round just scratching the surface.

fulfilledlife

I probably spend good 5-6 minutes on the website and couldn't tell what it is about

I also find a language used a bit dry and not personal enough.

Maybe the issue is there.

edgeyy66

Mark Andrews,

FIrst off, thanks for the input.You do make some valid points but I assure you I made this choice carefully and strategically.

The reason I am making the transition from my traditional consulting business to an ecommerce model is mostly a lifestyle choice

But I will break it down:

1. I live on an (almost paid for) 10-acre, lakefront home in British Columbia that I never get to spend time on. To keep my consulting business going I was having to travel two weeks out of the month. I've done this for a long time now and it been good to me. But now I want to spend more time at home with my wife and three daughters (I missed the first two growing up and we just had a third). It's time for a change.

2. I've made enough money over the years. Now I don't have to work as hard. If I mothball my business (Saving 3-4 k / month in overhead) I can live very comfortable with only a modest additional income.

3. As I close in on 50 years old I am more and more interested in sharing with others what I've learned over the years. Granted I have a lot to learn about e-commerce and conversion rates but there is a learning curve to any new business.

I've only really been at this since January 2014 I feel like my progress is respectable with a small income already coming from eBook sales and affiliates. Obviously there's lots of room for improvement and I'm taking a break from growing my page count to improving my conversion rates.

I've got 15-20 years left of work and I believe I can meet my needs and serve my family best moving to an ecommerce model. I fully expect it to take 2-5 years to stabilize and I still have the luxury of picking and choosing the highest paying consulting gigs with the least travel.

This is my 3rd time starting a new business - first a Contracting Company for MIning Exploration in the late 1980's and my Planning Consulting Business. Both were successful but I learned from this experience it takes 2 -5 years for any business to stabilize.

I thought my business idea of "using my experience to teach strategy" was a good one but I can see it may have been too general and I may need to tweak it and become more benefits driven. Your advice is well taken about keywords. Up to now I've been very much focusing on building Keyword Rich Content Pages. Thank-you

P.S.

I had originally built this site to be an "Authority Page" first and a sales page second. My idea was to establish my expertise on line as part of my USP "Using my experience to tech others strategy" This was based on Steve Scott's authority model. Is this flawed thinking?

Fulfilled LIfe

Thanks for the input. I clearly need to work on my USP and my writing style. I've spent the last 20 year writing reports and it's hard to shake my old writing style.

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

edgeyy66

The Jimmy, Creat, Rogos:

Thanks for taking the time to look at my site. I can see that I need to tighten up my niche and stop writing like a technician - which I am.

Other than a little blogging in 2013 I've only been at this since Jan 2014. I can see I have a lot to learn. That's actually a good thing I like new challenges.

I'm going to have to go back into my cave an adjust my strategy. It's all part of the process.

Best Sam

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

edgeyy66

I chopped up my home page. Can anyone tell me if I'm on the right track from before?

Strategic Solutions

Next I'm going to chop it down even further and add an introduction video.

Best Sam

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

DABK

This is what's right now on your home page:
Strategic Solutions

Welcome to the 'Edge on Strategy' - a platform for sharing and learning strategic solutions. I built this site to teach you how to make choices and take actions to achieve your most wanted outcomes.
Choice, Action and Outcome

So, who would benefit from what you sell? What's a catchy way you have to show them, at the very top of your home page, that they've landed on a page that's got on it what they're looking for?

Then, organize your information... Look at some of Dan Kennedy (marketing guy) sites. Or Yanik Silver. Or at Google.

edgeyy66

DABK - another great insight - thanks for taking time to look at my site. I will noodle with that and make the changes ASAP. I really need to look at my voice. I kind of go back and forth between the first and third person and I think I need to make the shift to a more personal tone.

It's def a work in progress.

Right now I'm making a lot of changes to my Home Page. Once I have that up to par I will have to make the rest of the site flow from that Home Page theme.

Best, Sam

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

Demetris Papadopoulos

Hi edgey. Could i give you an advice as well? You could change the fonts of your site. The Capitilization fonts are not helping someone read it clearly. Its very noisy. And hard to read. Try changing your fonts to something more easy to the eyes if you know what i mean.

Thanks

edgeyy66

Thans Demetrius,

I just changed to that font. I was on the fence. I will go back to my Arial or Calibri standard. Thanks for the tip.

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

hlstew

Ok you asked for it.

I can't tell who your market is. Would they recognize themselves?

I can't figure out who is planning what? is it business planning? for who, what are they planning toward? What is their outcome if they plan according to your advice...

Get rid of the huge header that is wasting all your above the fold space.

Change your front page to a squeeze page offering your freebie and get that optin up to the top. I have a 30" screen and still had to scroll almost all the way to the bottom to find it and I was actually LOOKING for it, most people would not be.

On the plus side, you have a buttload of great content, which is what most people struggle with. It's just a matter of optimizing your site into a sales funnel.

Lead Capture (everyone/all traffic should start there) If you don't know who is on your site you can't sell to them

Immediate redirect to a "welcome one time offer" - your $7 ebook? (some people like to call it a tripwire but I prefer a welcome mat, who wants to trip their customers? Put some of those great testimonials on that page.

Take some of the stuff off your blog and sending it as short, informative emails to your optins

Segment your optin list (after someone buys something move them off the freebie list to the buyers list. You can automate this through your autoresponder)

Have links to something higher end at the foot of all your emails. (coaching?)

Add affiliate links into your free info that you are emailing and also on your blog.

Hide all of your great blog info, do a paid recurring newsletter for $9.95 a month, you can run it through your autoresponder or make it drip fed membership site.

Just a few ideas for monetization. I just think you are trickling away all that great knowledge on a free blog. I would setup the funnel layers deep, escalating product prices/ upsells/ downsells and buy traffic to get paid for information you already have written.

I think you should stay true to who you are with your writing, just formulate your own "strategy for success" with more clarity. Work on yourself as a client

Got a PULSE? YOU can earn Passive Income - Learn How Free at MoneyMindFlow.com

edgeyy66

HLStew,

Great advice. A lot to think about. I'll have to think about the header - but that does make sense.

Thanks for taking time to look at my site and give feedback. It's true I do really need to take my own advice - great observation.

I will be honest - I am struggling with defining my product and my target market. I know those are keys but my experience is so diverse that I end up all over the place. My thought was that "strategy" would pull it all together but that's turning out to be too general and hart to monetize. That why I'm moving into a more specific topic / niche like Industrial Content / Inbound Marketing (as suggested my a fellow Warrior)

That's a new direction and still a work in progress but I've learned a ton from the members here - I should be able to work up a "Customer Avatar" for this new direction and follow some of your suggestion. Thanks again.

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

pnglifesolutions

I think the other folks had given good input on how to tweak the content to be more targeted. I shall add on about the aesthetic part of it. The current style of your website is too casual and bloggy and did not come across as a 'serious' business.

It may sound superficial but the impression on visitors can't be understated. A right choice of style and and theme is a critical visual cue to visitor what your site is about. I suggest you check out The 18+ Best WordPress Business Themes of 2014 | WpInquire
It should give you an idea how you might want to give your re-theme your site.

I like that you had pictures and the humour injected in the caption, but you could consider dedicating that to you 'About me' section. Save the homepage real estate for the real biz.

My 2 cents worth. All the best for your new business direction!

edgeyy66

Thanks - PNG, I'me really stuck on my site design. I'll have to work on that. I use SBI right now and their sites are all pretty much the same format. I all I can do is a better header and color scheme. IDK. It's a work in progress for sure.

If it was easy anyone could do it I guess.

Best, Sam

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

SarahWalker

Successful copy is all about finding the "pain point" of your customers. Just reading a little bit of your site, I got the sense that you were trying to "sell" rather than "solve".

Bottom line, a good copywriter can sell ice to an Eskimo if they feel understood. I'd read a little more on copywriting techniques.
I suggest The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy. It's a game changer.

edgeyy66

Thanks Sara, I've spent my whole life writing technical reports and I'm struggling to make the transition to sales. Writing copy is an art form to itself.

I'm just reading "The Elements of Business Writing" By Robert W. Bly and Gary Blake - my Bible used to be "the Elements of Style" EB White but I'm finding a lot of my old habits are working against me.

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

m30jake

Wheres the buy button for your ebook?

ppc specialist

Adding to what others have already said, the page is a bit confusing.

I will start with the headline. "Strategic Solutions" is not a very good because it makes me wonder "Strategic solutions for what?"

The headline is the absolute most critical element on your landing page. This is where you get to shout out your message and make people decide that they want to read the rest of the page.

Instead of "strategic solutions", I would try something like:

Headline: Proven B2B Marketing Strategies That SELL.

Sub-headline: Our simple, yet proven marketing strategy will turn browsers into buyers.

Play around with something like this until you find what works for you.

Further down on the page it says:

Learn how to make intelligent, informed Choices.
Learn how to follow up with deliberate, focused Actions.
Learn how to achieve your most desired Outcomes.

So what? Tell them WHY they want to learn this stuff.

ex: Increase conversion rates by learning to make intelligent, informed choices.

Hope this makes sense...

jonathan12345

If I was having trouble with landing page conversions I'd definitely start by looking at where the traffic is coming from. Highly targeted traffic will convert regardless of if the page is terrible, but the % will be low and you optimize from there. If you're seeing zero conversions there's a good chance the traffic is extremely untargeted to what you are offering.

I resell mobile apps for a company called Bizness Apps. Not affiliated at all, just a fan and supporter.

edgeyy66

Thanks Everyone for your help - I am taking it all in and trying to get focused.

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

John Pagulayan

Checked your page and found out that:

1. Your pop-up opt-in does not have anything worth subscribing for. Yes they would subscribe to your blog but for a first time visitor, the question will always will be "so what will I get if I do?"

2. The layout is too confusing. It looks like a blog full of adsense ads.

3. Remove the side bar on your home page and just leave it on your blog page. It takes away whatever little attention they have on your page.

4. Remove the ads. Are you trying to sell me on amazon products, email autoresponder or planning strategies? Just stick to one.

5. You call to action is weak. I'm no expert at this but...It says "ENTER E-MAIL FOR FREE STRATEGIC PLANNING EBOOK!" An ebook that does what? says what? Shows what? It doesn't have specificity.

6. You're asking for too much. You're asking them to contact you, put in their email, check out your ads and too many links to click.

7. You didn't say if you're getting opt ins. If you are and you're still not getting sales...you're email copy is suspect. Now this I wouldn't be able to enumerate on here because of the sheer amount of things you need to do and apply. You can study other marketers though by opting in on their email list and just study their sequence.

8. You need a better copy. It was all over the place. You have to make up your mind if you want to get leads or upfront sales? If it's leads. you have to sell them into opting in. If it's clients, you have to sell them into calling you and remove those opt in boxes that goes in the way of your copy. You can check out my sig below as a sample...(I'm not saying it's the best out there but it does do the job of acquiring leads). You don't have to opt-in.

I hope my comments did not come across as rude. But your site does need a lot of work.

edgeyy66

@John No not rude at all. I am grateful for anyone who takes the time to offer me advise. I've been rewriting copy all day - mostly my home page and consulting services page. I will go through your wist and do my best on the rest. I started this site JAn 14 and I've really been all over the place> I've changed it from a "Strategic Planning" site to a "Content Writing Strategy" site.

Now I need to make the site match what I actually do. I really appreciate the tips. I'm on it.

Sam Edge, Registered Planner
The Edge on Strategy
Strategic Solutions for a Chaotic World

dburk

Hi edgeyy66,

It could be many things wrong, but if your were not even making money from AdSense, that points to an issue with traffic not being targeted. Whatever else might be wrong, you need to focus on targeted traffic from an audience with commercial intent on their minds. Don't make the mistake of thinking all traffic is the same, because it is not.

Once you have the right type of traffic you can then test various value propositions and design layouts to see which your audience responds to the most.Conversion Rate optimization is a process of purposeful testing, and measuring results using advanced analytical methods. Naturally, your test data isn't very meaningful if you are not targeting the right audience.

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yogyogi

I think design is not good at all. Put a high quality design for your website. That will definately increase your conversion.

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