6000 visits in a month 2 sales - I've done something really wrong!

[MsAngry]

Hi all - I've made some updates to the site, so this first bit is a bit out of date and my site has reverted back to a work in progress [- joy!] lol

-----------------------------------
Looking for some advice here...

Been building up my site, with articles and blog posts, and a few PPC ads on google in the early days before the low conversion rate got to me.

I've had 2 sales, I for divorce and 1 for greenhouse gardening. Thankfully no refunds else I might cry

I have dropped the price once, and am wondering if I need to drop it again for a fortnight and see what happens? Or is something else is amiss.

Today's visitors so far around 400, from blog posts linking to my sales letters, low bounce rate of 64%, with an average of a 10 minute stay per visitor.

Site : Helpful Advice Online

I think the sales letters are wrong for this style of site, so I tried a different format for gardening, and split the audioguide from the ebook. No joy with a more "Amazony" format either.

No one's signed up for the freebie guides by email - I think those signup boxes look deathly dull, but I have been concentrating on traffic, not prettying up the signup forms.

Looking for some advice on how to fix this site - I've put in a lot of effort, but the sales are pitiful - but at least there have been 2 - so there's hope.

I am thinking of giving this 2 more weeks of effort, and if nothing changes, just leaving it, hoping for the best, and working on another niche I have in mind that is a bit less "Oprah", because my heart's not in these subjects and my patience is running a bit thin with it at times.

Thanks for any advice - there's 360 people wandering round that site right now, but none of them are buying. argh!

Happy to pay for warrior advice if someone feels able to assist with any weaknesses identified.

Cheers

p.s. I'm not expecting people to land at the homepage, but to land at an article or guide page with the products listed.

[LegitSells]

Well when I visit the site I don't feel comfortable.

You have to make your site warm and welcoming. I just visit it and see tons of words and links, which makes me want to leave.

I don't know if this is your main problem and I don't care what anyone says, the website design(fonts, images, colors, etc) plays a huge roll when trying to make a sale.

Maybe if you make your page a little more 'friendly' that might help?

[MsAngry]

Thanks. Good point. I think I've spent too long coding up UK Government websites in the past

I was wondering about making the header more friendly, a bit more graphics rich on the homepage to soften the text.

Did you feel iit was too heavy on the text on all pages, or just the homepage?

[LegitSells]

I actually clicked around and checked out the 'guides' you have and those are really good in my opinion. I think if you actually get all of these visitors to make it that far and read these guides and so forth, your sales will pick up. Don't get me wrong, a few tweaks won't hurt, but it is looking decent.

Before I got to the guides, it was a little dull and blank.

Definitely change some things around, add some color and graphics. If you change anything, be sure to shoot me a PM and I'll take a look at it.

BTW: Your homepage seems a little busy and crowded with words. (That's the sentence I was looking for >_< )

[MsAngry]

Thanks.

I'll have a play in photoshop and I'll slice something up that's a bit less wordy and a bit warmer in tone... I'll see what istockphoto has to offer

[LegitSells]

Mmmm I love Photoshop

Good Luck and keep me updated!

[tessmac9708]

Ok, on this page Proven Diet and Weight Loss Advice

You just link to the order form on Clickbank. I'm not sure if this is your product or you're an affiliate. While you do give some info on the Hoodia product, perhaps not enough to warrant someone paying out $27 for it.

If you're an affiliate, maybe you should link through to the sales page.

Graham

[MsAngry]

Good point. The book image links to the sales letter, the "order now" links directly to clickbank.

Looks like I was assuming the visitor has a crystal ball - doh!

I'll switch it round, see if it helps. Thanks.

I've taken off the right panel on the home page to make it less texty and I'm going to do a more graphics/friendly homepage some point today.

[Heuristic]

I think your site is easily navigable which is a big plus. If I'm looking for anything, it won't take long for me to find it.

One problem you might be experiencing is one that I've had first hand experience at. I too had a site where I tried to cover every hot topic and it never really took off despite my best efforts. I think it was all due to the fact that the traffic wasn't targeted enough. I was trying to be all things to all people. Thus, my offers didn't convert as well as they could have.

Steve

[JP Wilson]

I've reviewed your site and identified two main problems which are, no doubt, the single handed killers of your sales (well, there may still be some other accessories but these are the main culprits).

The first of which has to do with social proof... or the lack there of. There's scarcely any of it on your offer pages at all. No testimonials, no reviews, no client feedback... nothing (at least not from what I could tell). When was the last time you bought a product from a company or marketer that you were unfamiliar with, and they didn't have this element attached to their offer in some form or another? Often times, social proof is both the first and last thing that your prospects consider before they take out their wallets and decide to take the buyer's plunge, so to speak. It's absolutely essential to your sales efforts.

The second issue deals entirely with your sales letters. I understand that you want to go more in the "free report" direction given the nature of your site, but keep in mind, your goal is still to SELL them on your offer. A good sales pitch of any kind doesn't just relay useful information or the promise of useful information, but rather, also appeals to the emotions (i.e. fears, desires, ambitions, etc.) of the prospect. Your free report style sales letters are completely absent any emotional appeal. You just kind of list off what they will be getting in the product and slap a buy button on the page without establishing any kind of desire within the mind of the prospect. No emotional connection with your client & no desire + no social proof = no/minimal sales.

Giving the site a graphical overhaul as suggested above wouldn't be a bad idea, but I would rather a plain site with compelling copy over a brilliantly graphical site with poor copy any day. Make the sales copy your priority, not the graphics.

Hope this helps.

On a higher note, at least your getting a decent flow of constant traffic to your money-pages! Just out of curiosity, how long have you been marketing this site?

[Josh Gould]

I think the website may cover too many broad topics. This could allow targeted traffic to easily become distracted which could (possibly) be reducing the chances of them purchasing or signing up for anything. Maybe try creating separate websites for all of the topics, each with relevant mailing lists/offers.

Also when I first went to the website I didn't see any offers or opt-in boxes - even while reading an article I didn't notice one until I actively looked. Make the graphic/ad space stand out. Like for the cat training stuff I'd make the graphic one of those killer Lolcat style images, yet somehow integrate it with the offer to get the click. Hell the humor alone may get the click. Test it and see which performs better! Those cats own the Internet right now (and have for awhile), use it to your advantage!

[MsAngry]

Thanks JP, some good advice there.

Not sure what to do about testimonials. I *cough* faked the ones on the Gardening guide, just to see if it made a difference.. but they do seem quite convincing. Ahem.

Same problem of no sales = no testimonials for me at the moment, so I tried to get credibillity from writer profiles and a bricks and mortar address on the contact us page. Maybe that was not good idea...

I have got stung asking someone else to write me a sales letter in the past (www.guidetohomefreezing.com) and I am really reluctant to get more help. That was $300 and I think it really sucks! It's no better than my ham-fisted attempts

I really don't mind paying for help, I'm not tight with money if I am getting a good job, but that letter just seems awful, and it's made me a bit anxious.

I do think I need help with sales letters (as I have a bit of a phobia, a bit like someone else not relishing doing some database queries and chugging out xml ) and it is slowing down my progress.

Promotional wise, I am writing articles about 8 a day which mainly go to articlesbase.com as it's quicker for approval. They also go on my site and a cut down version on the blog. I paid for some manual directory submission. I did some adwords but just lost money, and I do some blogs for each "writer".

I was hoping published articles and up to date blogs would mean credibility - I guess not.....

Site's been up a month now more or less. No real secret just 8 hours of day of looking how to bring in traffic and a bit of SEO. Newsy blogs have been good, for instance I tied in Hulk Hogan's divorce with dealing with acrimonious divorces and a whole bunch of people started checking out the divorce stuff.

Thanks again - my life force is getting topped up again

[MsAngry]

Thanks Josh. I had thought of splitting out the offerings to be:

helpfuladviceonline/product_name
helpfuladviceonline/product_name
helpfuladviceonline/product_name

and running microsites for each one... and this would be more "affliate friendly" too.

Also, I have toyed with setting up a wrapper in joomla and have the left nav moved to the top for the guide pages - good for funnelling, but dreadful usability as the users have lost their nav-bar and that annoys them.

Some more points to consider. Thanks

[Sam101]

Originally Posted by MsAngry

Thanks. Good point. I think I've spent too long coding up UK Government websites in the past

I was wondering about making the header more friendly, a bit more graphics rich on the homepage to soften the text.

Did you feel iit was too heavy on the text on all pages, or just the homepage?

BTW your site seems similar in design to the U K Health & Safety Executive's websites.
My main suggestion would be not to club all these diverse topics into one big site, you may try splitting it into various sites. If you are not sure just break out one of these sites into different sites (each covering a different niche like one for dating, another for divorce) I guess if you do it using Wordpress, it will be much easier and you can find some good themes.
Secondly the entry page should have more than a few lines to entice the reader to go to the sales page.
Thirdly the sales pages should be written in one font size higher and not have any distracting links, elements, etc that will make the visitor go elsewhere (instead of the BUY button).
For better tips on conversions visit Conversion Rate Experts website (you can Google it) for lots of tips on increasing your conversion rate.
You may also try the free version of ClickTale which will allow you to see the areas on your page that visitors spend more time on and the areas that they ignore. This will give you a good peek into their minds.
Just my 2 cents, hope you find the advice useful

[JohnMcCabe]

When I first clicked through on your link, the first thing that entered my head was "nice catalog." The colors and layout on the home page were easy on these 50-something eyes, which I appreciate.

What do people do with physical catalogs? They page through them, look at the different items that catch their eye, tell themselves "I'll have to order that someday" and set the catalog aside. Probably never to be touched again, as more catalogs, etc. get piled on top of it.

With the amount of time people are spending on your site, I'm guessing you're getting the online equivalent of "paging through the catalog."

I think your idea of setting up a series of microsites is seriously worth testing. You can keep a catalog available on the home page, much like the "you are here" guides in (at least American) shopping malls. The microsites can have an unobtrusive link returning to the homepage, but the thrust should be on converting for one product.

I played golf with a retired gentleman awhile back, and I whacked the ball a long way - all the way to the pond in front of the green. I consoled myself by observing that at least I'd hit the ball a long way. His reply? "Yep, that's half the game, isn't it?"

Do I have to tell you who won?

It's the same way with selling online. You have half the game - traffic. Now you can focus on the other half - conversion.

[Stevecyr]

Make your site the way people want it...not the way you want it...u will observer a better change...
Stuff should be like which is actually wanted by the people..do not spam or put unwanted stuff...

[JP Wilson]

Glad we could all be of help to you Ms Angry. The important thing is to not allow yourself to get discouraged to the point of giving up. You've put a lot of time and effort into the development of this project, don't abandon it just yet.
As for the testimonials... please, please, please... don't fake them!
Go to forums in your niche and give away a few review copies of each product in order to get some good feedback.

As for the copy, to be perfectly honest with you (and I mean no disrespect whatsoever), although the sales letter that you outsourced is certainly no "award winner" and has several flaws, there is an exponential difference between it and the report style sales pages on your site. Check out Michael Fortin's blog. There are a myriad of articles there that you can read which will be very helpful to you with respect to writing effective copy. Two of which can be viewed at the following links.

http://www.michelfortin.com/want-bet...go-on-a-quest/
http://www.michelfortin.com/my-seven...iting-process/

Anyhow, keep your nose to the grindstone and don't give up. You're doing exactly what you should be doing, troubleshooting. Which is more than a lot of people can say for themselves.

Cheers

[MsAngry]

Thanks for all the advice today.

I have made some changes like fixing the confusing "order now" buttons, and I have mocked up the home page in photoshop, it just needs coding up now, to make that page less "texty". I have reduced adwords since no one was clicking on them anyway, and got rid of the right panel on the home page too.

As a test, I'll hold my hands up and say I have added some 'fake testimonials, just to see if it makes a difference. I'll run this for 2 days. If it does make a difference, I'll go for genuine ones using some of the methods listed above. I didn't want to spend ages gathering them if say, it's just the price that's wrong now, since not everyone is swayed by testimonials and I have other credibility pointers like fresh content, real address, published authors etc. The testimonials are easy enough to toggle on and off in Joomla, so they're easy to ditch if needs be.

Porting out to standalone sites is a also a possibility. I guess I'll try that next. I might test 1 product with adwords and some articlesbase.com traffic. Should only e about 2 day work, and I have some more articles coming through from my writers that I can use for site promotion.

I wish I liked these subjects - this is all too Dr Phil/Oprah/Trisha TV for me.... lol

Thanks again..logging out now and offline for 2 days working away from home (AC/DC gig too!) ... but will have some access every now and again.

Cheers

[Floyd Fisher]

Originally Posted by MsAngry

Looking for some advice here...

Been building up my site, with articles and blog posts, and a few PPC ads on google in the early days before the low conversion rate got to me.

I've had 2 sales, I for divorce and 1 for greenhouse gardening. Thankfully no refunds else I might cry

I have dropped the price once, and am wondering if I need to drop it again for a fortnight and see what happens? Or is something else is amiss.

Today's visitors so far around 400, from blog posts linking to my sales letters, low bounce rate of 64%, with an average of a 10 minute stay per visitor.

Site : Helpful Advice Online

I think the sales letters are wrong for this style of site, so I tried a different format for gardening, and split the audioguide from the ebook. No joy with a more "Amazony" format either.

No one's signed up for the freebie guides by email - I think those signup boxes look deathly dull, but I have been concentrating on traffic, not prettying up the signup forms.

Looking for some advice on how to fix this site - I've put in a lot of effort, but the sales are pitiful - but at least there have been 2 - so there's hope.

I am thinking of giving this 2 more weeks of effort, and if nothing changes, just leaving it, hoping for the best, and working on another niche I have in mind that is a bit less "Oprah", because my heart's not in these subjects and my patience is running a bit thin with it at times.

Thanks for any advice - there's 360 people wandering round that site right now, but none of them are buying. argh!

Happy to pay for warrior advice if someone feels able to assist with any weaknesses identified.

Cheers

p.s. I'm not expecting people to land at the homepage, but to land at an article or guide page with the products listed.

MsAngry:

You have a lot of info on that site, perhaps too much.

Most people who succeed with this type of site focus like a lazer beam on a single subject.

Cut it down, focus it on a single niche, and see how that works for you.

[jasonl70]

pick one of your keywords.

google it.

take note of the ppc advertisers.

repeat a week or so later.

find the advertisers that are still there (ie, the ones actualy making sales).

Look at their sites. I bet they aren't info portals covering a wide range of topics

hey - we're developers. Building portals is in our nature But I learned to fight it, and my bank account thanked me! I will probaly need to launch a membership site and let that scratch my 'portal' itch

[DirectoryKing]

Is your traffic targeted to your niche.

[nicholasb]

I feel that the site looks a little spammy, and the ads on the side are hard to see plus, with ad blindness they aren't gonna get many clicks,

your better off to anchor some link text in your articles to encourage clicks

[MsAngry]

Thanks all for the further comments.

If anyone needs a case study for "1 site or many sites" question, point them to this thread and they can feel my pain

Yes, I think the site has lost its way because I approached it from a technical standpoint, not a sales standpoint. I'm a techie and it's just the way my mind works. It's not always a blessing being able to code....

It's also lost it's way because you'd have to pay me to read a salesletter - even if I was buying the product. I can buy products for $67 and I just scroll down to the price thinking "yeah yeah yeah" as the "sales blurb" wizzes past in a blur. I check the price and give it a whirl if I think the price is OK. This is a major problem and I have no idea what the answer is - apart from outsourcing this bit of the work, which has been problematic in the past.

Right now the site is in a state of flux. I've ditched the menus from the salesletter pages to streamline the process funnel and see what happens - very little I suspect... (.... and right now I'd rather think about AC/DC in Birmingham tomorrow I need a break from this site...)

After a sleepless night I think it will be better to pull all the overt salesletters off this site and put them in microsites instead, as subdomains of this domain to keep the cost down whilst I try them out. I might do different sales pages to suit different sub-niches (If I have the will - getting very jaded!)

The PLR content comes with pages like this, How Stop Your Divorce In 8 Simple Steps so it just needs a bit of tweaking on the graphics and some competitive reviews of other sales letters and it will be ok to pilot within a week or so.

I think the site might be better reverting to a "review" site, stuffed with text based affiliate links to external sales letters, then the look and feel/branding of this site doesn't strangle the sales element.

I can be knocking up a few promo articles and linking to other people's sales letters so I can get over my phobia of them and start to convince myself they do work.

Also it doesn't matter if I am linking to my products or someone elses, I just flag the link in the article copy as going to an external link so it doesn't matter if the visitor gets a serious visual jolt due to the different look and feels to the sales letters - job done.

If anyone has any thoughts on the new rationale please let me know

[vicone]

I found the top level page quite interesting but when I clicked through to one of the niche pages interest evaporated. I was expecting a pre-sell page or a sales page with a lot more content to hold my attention and lead me towards a possible sale. But I was led no-where. There were some graphics on the pages but no compelling text that led me to a 'Buy Now" or "More Info" button.

Visitors are simply not being properly channeled along a proven conversion process.

One page that did grab my attention was "How Stop Your Divorce In 8 Simple Steps". That was focused and compelling. If all the product pages were designed along similar lines, you'd find a lot more sales being generated.

Incidentally, you don't need an expensive sales letter if you have targeted traffic. If you're writing 8 articles a day you would certainly have the skills required. You just need to know the sort of structure that grabs a visitor's attention and holds it while you lead them to a final, single action: clicking on the link you are recommending - the one which will provide the solution to their needs.

Learn to hold their hand and show them which button to push.

Ivan

[saferain22]

Thanks MsAngry for starting the thread and to everyone else for the useful advice. I've found myself to be in somewhat of the same situation. The tips (especially about concentrating on one type of niche) should be able to help.

[MsAngry]

Thanks again for more feedback.

I am going to code up the 16 standalone sales pages and amend my articles to point to the new sales pages. Should have that done for Friday *groan*

See what happens

Thanks again - it has been hellish doing this on my own as I am too close to the project to really make choices that will improve the site...

[n00b]

I get a little bit of a spammy feel from the site too. For instance, I clicked on "Better Behaved Pets" and it takes me to cat training. My first thought is, ok the only product this person could find to sell is a cat training guide. So now in my mind this site is not helpful advice online, but a spammy site trying to get me to buy something. I had clicked on the link because I love dogs and was hoping to find something there.

The site just generally feels like "here's my catalog of clickbank products, please buy." You have a great concept going, but I would start out smaller and build from there. Focus on a few topics and then go from there. It feels like you're just spread too thin.

Also, the first thing my eye went to was the google ads at the top and that immediately made me think spam. In my opinion, and others will probably disagree, unless you're a blogger your site needs to either be focused on making money by selling a product or by ad revenue, not both. If you're not making much from the ads I would consider removing them. You can always reevaluate later. If you want to keep them I would probably remove them from the home page and just put them on the pages with the articles.

I love your concept though, and I really think it can be great! Kudos on the traffic, as long as that keeps coming you can tweak your site until you get a homerun! You've already overcome the biggest hurdle and that is getting up and going to work. It's clear you've put a lot of work into the site so I have no doubt that you'll get it producing more in no time.

[Toaster2]

Originally Posted by korypearman

Well when I visit the site I don't feel comfortable.

You have to make your site warm and welcoming. I just visit it and see tons of words and links, which makes me want to leave.

I don't know if this is your main problem and I don't care what anyone says, the website design(fonts, images, colors, etc) plays a huge roll when trying to make a sale.

Maybe if you make your page a little more 'friendly' that might help?

I feel it exactly the same mate.

Regards

[vicone]

MsAngry,

If you want to check the quality of your pre-sell and sales pages have a look at this work. It's a classic and it's free.

It's well illustrated, comprehensive and gives lots of useful content about how to build pre-sell product pages.

Enjoy.

Make Your Content PREsell!

Ivan

P.S. If you'd like to see a way of fitting your content into an overall structure that is designed to increase conversions, have a look at this short video. It's free. The subject of the video is:

Converting Traffic Into Sales. Designing a system that increases conversion:

http://www.NicheProfitClassroom.com/...blueprint.html

It's a good quality video but takes a minute to load.