0 sales -Have i wasted 2 years of my life?

13 years ago

It's hard to judge from your stats... would actually like to SEE your site.

Besides that, I think just three days for a $37 offer is a little early to start worrying too much.

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Noel 100K

13 years ago

Try to capture lead through optin autoresponder. Can I see your site for a full review?

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lisakleinweber

13 years ago

Yeah, you're getting worried way too early, and besides, normally nothing is a screamer right out of the gate. You'll need to watch, evaluate, tweak, and watch. Nothing you do is ever wasted. There's always opportunity to turn it around or make it better.

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ganesh

13 years ago

Have you built a list? Can you provide a link to the site? If you have a list, mail them. If you depend only on organic traffic, three days seem to be a very short period for me. $37 products sell better when promoted to a list where you have created a good relationship.

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trevorhickey

13 years ago

I totally agree with your worry. It is not unusual to ask if you've wasted time. There are all these programs out there saying "quit your job and make money online" - it is MUCH harder than it looks. Infact, I would guess that one of the best moneymakers online is selling "how to make money online" to other people. Essentially it is a downward spiral - everyone teaching the next person how to make money, when really the only money anyone's made is by selling to the next guy. I made a program on how to make money offline in 1 day. Essentially you get a website to the top of Google in 1 day and then sell it for $100. It works and I show people how to find buyers, and free sites. If you're interested let me know - but I totally agree with your frustration. You should give yourself a bit of a break though - you know way more than you give yourself credit for - you are likely very close to making money.

Thanks
1 reply

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docbrown 13 years ago

My site is not in the "making money online" niche, it's in the relationship and dating niche. Yes i know that's a crowded niche but visitors do feel my site is worthy of coming back again for another visit so i would have thought that at least someone would be interested in my ebook.
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- 1 reply
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- ConquistadorO 13 years ago
  
  Sounds fine to me. Time seems to be the only the you need more of.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  mounds 13 years ago
  
  Wasting two years of your life would be sitting there thinking about creating a website. Instead, you created the site, got traffic and even created an ebook. That puts you ahead of about 90% of everyone else (including me) and I find that alone commendable.
  
  On top of that, you've probably got piles of experience. Just in case you're book doesn't move despite your best efforts, I imagine you'd be able to jump onto the next thing much more quickly than a newbie.
  
  When you're a successful entrepreneur, be sure to drop me some tips.
  
  Thanks
  
  1 reply
  
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  frankm 13 years ago
  
  You mention a few times on your site that you've been online since 2005, but there's no evidence of anyone who's successfully used your book.
  
  I'd let people download the first chapter and read it. That way you'll get a good idea whether they like the content. Focus first on maximising the number of copies downloaded and then survey them to see if they liked the first chapter and why they didn't go on to purchase.
  
  Som video would be good too, to really engage them.
  
  I don't think you've wasted 2 years, and you have the chance to brand yourself as a relationship psychology expert.
  
  Frank
  
  Thanks
  
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JustusKim

13 years ago

Would be good if we can look at your site first.

Do you have a list?

On a side note, i would recommend the book "think and grow rich" for your perusal. If you have read it, read it again. It will help you get your drive and motivation back.

Thanks
1 reply

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docbrown 13 years ago

I don't have a list as i've been focusing so far on just getting the site to this stage.
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anthony2

13 years ago

Originally Posted by docbrown

Here are my site statistics:

Age: couple of months
Uniques/day: 200 (and growing)
Average pageviews per unique: 7
Percentage of new visitors to returning visitors: 80%-20%
Bounce rate: 1%-2%
Type of traffic: 80%+ organic traffic
Number of website pages: 400+ informative unique articles
Quality of site: content is good quality
Ebook price: $37 (in line with competitors prices)
Market: There's definitely a market there and an audience willing to purchase
Ebook payment process tested?: Yes
No. of sales: 0 (although the ebook has only gone live in the last 3 days)

Other info:

Each article has a clickable picture of the ebook leading to the pitch page.
The site has been carefully constructed in line with all the top recommended internet marketing techniques (I've been researching for over 2 solid years, so I know whats good and I know whats crap)

Is it normal to be getting 0 sales at this stage in building a website?

if we can see your website that would help alot

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j2712

Banned 13 years ago

[DELETED]

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zannix 13 years ago

What's up with the pile of "the" links on the homepage? That kind of made me laugh... might make your website drop in terms of credibility a bit... :-)
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- docbrown 13 years ago
  
  Originally Posted by zannix
  
  What's up with the pile of "the" links on the homepage? That kind of made me laugh... might make your website drop in terms of credibility a bit... :-)
  
  I'm in the process of getting that fixed.
  
  Thanks
  
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Robert M Gouge

13 years ago

I think you need to make it more clear what you want your visitors to do.

I was clicking around on some articles and what-not and, aside from the advertisements on your side bars, I had no idea you were selling anything from that site.

Seems you have put a lot of work into this, but you forgot what the actual point of the site was. Which should be to get them from A (your main page) to B (your sales page).

I like to think of it like a shopping center. All roads lead to checkout. So while your site is a good resource, it doesn't appear to be a good sales machine.

Refine your sales funnel, keeping in mind, your goal is to get your visitors to your pitch page instead of providing them countless free resources.

Thanks
2 replies

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docbrown

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Robert M Gouge

I think you need to make it more clear what you want your visitors to do.

I was clicking around on some articles and what-not and, aside from the advertisements on your side bars, I had no idea you were selling anything from that site.

Seems you have put a lot of work into this, but you forgot what the actual point of the site was. Which should be to get them from A (your main page) to B (your sales page).

I like to think of it like a shopping center. All roads lead to checkout. So while your site is a good resource, it doesn't appear to be a good sales machine.

Refine your sales funnel, keeping in mind, your goal is to get your visitors to your pitch page instead of providing them countless free resources.

But i've put a picture of the ebook on the top right (the hotest area of a webpage), and a "click here" link. I thought this was obvious? How could i better this?

Should i put a picture of the ebook into the actual article body content like say halfway through the article?
I could do that but it seems a bit pushy, and might turn the readers off rather than provide a good user experience that could result in a sale.

Thanks
1 reply

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Robert M Gouge

13 years ago

Originally Posted by docbrown

But i've put a picture of the ebook on the top right (the hotest area of a webpage), and a "click here" link. I thought this was obvious? How could i better this?

Should i put a picture of the ebook into the actual article body content like say halfway through the article?
I could do that but it seems a bit pushy, and might turn the readers off rather than provide a good user experience that could result in a sale.

The end of every article is a valuable resource spot. Even just a simple link to your pitch page at the end of articles would probably double the traffic you get on that page.

You don't have to be intrusive to your visitors, just make them aware that the information you have in your ebook is something they can benefit from and make it perfectly clear where they can find it.

I think a lot of people forget how conditioned the eyes of today's internet surfer are. Sidebar advertisements aren't as effective as they once were. Put your advertisements, optin boxes, and links where their eyes are going to be.

Thanks
1 reply

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docbrown

13 years ago

Originally Posted by Robert M Gouge

The end of every article is a valuable resource spot. Even just a simple link to your pitch page at the end of articles would probably double the traffic you get on that page.

You don't have to be intrusive to your visitors, just make them aware that the information you have in your ebook is something they can benefit from and make it perfectly clear where they can find it.

I think a lot of people forget how conditioned the eyes of today's internet surfer are. Sidebar advertisements aren't as effective as they once were. Put your advertisements, optin boxes, and links where their eyes are going to be.

Thanks Robert and everyone else too. This feedback is really helpful. I've done a lot of research but obviously there's a good bit more i need to learn. It's dissapointing i haven't got any sale because at 200 uniques per day, although small i would have figured getting something like 3-4 sales per day. I understand that organic traffic usually converts at 1-2%. Obviously thats not the case for me atm.

Thanks

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techservice 13 years ago

You can see all the good effort you have put in, I would tend to agree with Robert, there’s nothing compelling me to buy anything. I don't think you’re far off because you have lots of great content.

There’s an old saying WC used to say.....KBR (Keep bloody going)

I'm sure there's a warrior here who could advise you.
- Thanks
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RichardF

13 years ago

I agree with Robert above... While the site looks really good and useful, there's no clear call to action anywhere. You didn't say which page most of your visitors arrive to, but unless it's one of the sales letter pages, you probably won't be getting many sales.

I suggest adding an opt-in box at the bottom of every article, offering some sort of free report or bonus. Then focus on selling through the e-mail list. That's a proven method that works wonders in any niche.

Thanks
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docbrown 13 years ago

Should i put an "Add to Cart" button under each ebook in the right sidebar or something like that?
How can i make a clear call to action without going down the building an email list option? I might go down that route but it sounds slow - is there a quick fix on the site for my problem?
- Thanks
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KevinW

13 years ago

I would say the biggest mistake was:

No Optin or free giveaway such as an abbreviated version.

For example, this page:

relationshippsychology.com/how-to-make-anyone-fall-in-love-with-you-using-psychology

It should only be viewable after an optin. And then setup a drip email campaign and maybe a coupon code on the 4th 5th email.

Thanks
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mclark100

13 years ago

You've got some great advice from others.

And congrats on doing instead of just dreaming.

You're getting a good number of unique visitors, but you may need to dig further into your analytics to figure out where they are coming from, what they are really looking for (interpret the keyword searches), and at what stage they are (if at all) in the buying cycle. Somebody mentioned "researchers", and that might be correct.

I know a gentleman with an inexpensive software product that gets app 1500 visits a day and sells nothing. He asked me to look into it, and his analytics showed 90% of his visitors were searching for "free" blah blah blah. But his product wasnt free.

That's part of why creating an opt-in list and autoresponder has been mentioned. The power is in the list, and once you have one, then your sequenced e-mails can be used to convince them to buy.

Another thing, you have plenty (maybe too much) content that's free and immediately accessible, your visitors may not have any reason to buy your book.

If you added the opt-in, you could change your articles so they only displayed the first paragraph, with a "read the rest of this article" link that directed them to your opt-in page before they could read the good stuff.

Just my 2 cents...

Merrill

Thanks
2 replies

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docbrown 13 years ago

I've added links to the sales pages at the bottom of each article. I guess i could put those same links at the top of each article but i think that'd be a bit in your face trying to get money out of the visitor.
An opt-in form is next on my list so. I'll probably put it on the right hand side and offer relationship tips or something in each email and include a link to the ebooks salespages too.
I don't really want to give away the ebook for free just to build the list becuase it took me a long time to research those books.
- Thanks
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ExRat

13 years ago

Hi docbrown,

The 'the' being linked problem appears to be on every page that I have looked at.

I'm not a fan of 'click here for instant download'. I'm expecting a freebie for an opt-in and when I click through and scroll to price I immediately see $55.50 which makes me suck my teeth a little, especially with the poor graphics. But to be honest, what I think about this point doesn't matter - you should test wording, graphics and pricing to establish the optimum - I'm just throwing out my personal opinion on that one in case it helps.

But I do think you should change it so that when someone does what I did, they don't automatically see the discount price for both books. It's too much too soon. What about saving that as an upsell after a decision is made to buy one of them?

You said -

i've put a picture of the ebook on the top right (the hotest area of a webpage)

1) where did this info come from regarding the top right? Did you mean top left?

2) I see you mis-spelt 'hotest'. Are you a native English speaker? When I viewed the site I saw that you continually spell 'wives' as 'wifes'. If I try to put myself in the role of a potential buyer, considering the site mentions the letters after your name, I would be put off by the bad spelling.

As I view some random articles on the site, as an internet marketer it appears to me that your strategy has been to use each page as a kind of landing page in terms of keyword choices - IE you appear to be targeting certain popular phrases, building the articles around those phrases and sometimes overlapping topics due to this.

If, for example, I look at this page -

Cheating | RelationshipPsychology.com

...the titles of the articles seem to crossover a lot -

cheating wifes
why women cheat
why do women cheat

The problem here is when I take off my internet marketer hat and put on my 'interested prospect' hat.

As a potential buyer, I would want to at least read a handful of different articles which convinced me that this product contained something I really needed, and therefore I want to see you demonstrate compelling ability to solve my problems.

The problems I found were -

a) the articles didn't achieve this, mainly because they seem to be written for the search engines, not to achieve what I outlined just above (to convert me and convince me). As a potential buyer (IE non internet marketer, who doesn't know what an 'article written for the search engines' is) it still looked odd and would put me off

b) I naturally (because of the way the site is set up) clicked through to a list of articles (as in the link above.) With my 'prospect' hat on I expect to see coherently titled articles that all deal with different issues and provide solutions, not a bunch of overlapping topics which don't provide much compulsion to buy - I need more meaty info in the article to convince me, even though (as a marketer) I understand that you also need to only provide partial solutions ('useful but incomplete') to entice me to buy as well as leaving some meaty info in the product (to avoid refunds)

c) as I read the articles, I quickly noticed the overlap of info. Plus, they seemed to contradict each other - one article focussed on telling me the 4 reasons why women cheat, the next focussed on telling me the 3 reasons why. It doesn't look coherent, which would lead me to assume that the product isn't either.

So overall, I think that with my 'potential buyer' hat on, I am expecting to see a nicely organised, encyclopedia-style group of articles that cover all aspects of the subject clearly and coherently. Seeing a lot of crossover and no apparent logical structure to the titles of the articles, I am put off from buying and would assume that the site was made by someone 'faking it to make it.'

Does any of this help?

Thanks
1 reply

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docbrown

13 years ago

Originally Posted by ExRat

Hi docbrown,

The 'the' being linked problem appears to be on every page that I have looked at.

You said -

1) where did this info come from regarding the top right?

2) I see you mis-spelt 'hotest'. Are you a native English speaker? When I viewed the site I saw that you continually spell 'wives' as 'wifes'. If I try to put myself in the role of a potential buyer, considering the site mentions the letters after your name, I would be put off by the bad spelling.

As I view some random articles on the site, as an internet marketer it appears to me that your strategy has been to use each page as a kind of landing page in terms of keyword choices - IE you appear to be targeting certain popular phrases, building the articles around those phrases and sometimes overlapping topics due to this.

If, for example, I look at this page -

...the titles of the articles seem to crossover a lot -

cheating wifes
why women cheat
why do women cheat

The problem here is when I take off my internet marketer hat and put on my 'interested prospect' hat.

As a potential buyer, I would want to at least read a handful of different articles which convinced me that this product contained something I really needed, and therefore I want to see you demonstrate compelling ability to solve my problems.

The problems I found were -

a) the articles didn't achieve this, mainly because they seem to be written for the search engines, not to achieve what I outlined just above (to convert me and convince me). As a potential buyer (IE non internet marketer, who doesn't know what an 'article written for the search engines' is) it still looked odd and would put me off

b) I naturally (because of the way the site is set up) clicked through to a list of articles (as in the link above.) With my 'prospect' hat on I expect to see coherently titled articles that all deal with different issues and provide solutions, not a bunch of overlapping topics which don't provide much compulsion to buy - I need more meaty info in the article to convince me, even though (as a marketer) I understand that you also need to only provide partial solutions ('useful but incomplete') to entice me to buy as well as leaving some meaty info in the product (to avoid refunds)

c) as I read the articles, I quickly noticed the overlap of info. Plus, they seemed to contradict each other - one article focussed on telling me the 4 reasons why women cheat, the next focussed on telling me the 3 reasons why. It doesn't look coherent, which would lead me to assume that the product isn't either.

So overall, I think that with my 'potential buyer' hat on, I am expecting to see a nicely organised, encyclopedia-style group of articles that cover all aspects of the subject clearly and coherently. Seeing a lot of crossover and no apparent logical structure to the titling of the articles, I am put off from buying and would assume that the site was made by someone 'faking it to make it.'

Does any of this help?

Yes, i understand fully what you are saying. The articles are focused on the search engine side of things. Initially i said i'd have a super SEO optimized site. But then (like you said) i realized that this wouldn't make for a good user experience. I am currently going through the articles and refining their titles and content to make for a better user experience. This will be a long process.

I am a native speaker :-) And while i am trying to make money, the letters after my name are genuine. I think i mis-spelt "wives" because i was matching it to a keyword. Which might not be a great idea because it could be people looking for porn who are looking for "cheating wifes" as opposed to potential customers of my ebook

Thanks

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sbucciarel

Banned 13 years ago

I'd probably give the ebook away to build a list. Put a pic of the ebook in sidebar with optin form under it and use it to build a buying list to sell to.

Thanks

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Zero

13 years ago

It must be your sales copy thats the problem.

If a product isn't selling its most probably the sales copy.

If you need help on your copy - post it up in the Copywriting section:
The Copywriting Forum

and you'll probably get alot of valuable feedback regarding it.

Thanks

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Mike Hill

13 years ago

You need to do an overhaul. Everything on the front page of you site is all about you. Make it about your ideal prospect and get their attention. Delete the counter on the right, no one cares how many people have been to your website. Instead replace it with a free offer which will capture their email address on a separate page.

Also, get rid of all those "you" links that link to your main page.

PS. The design is fine, just replace the text, insert a video of you talking in a sincere way to your ideal prospect. If they like what you have to say then they will explore your sit more.

I also think you need a new product cover image and maybe a better title for the product you have. Pay killercovers.com $118 and get a professional cover, it will make a huge difference but think of a more memorable name first.

[ 1 ] Thanks

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Scott Skinner

13 years ago

Doc,

Not a bad looking site and it is early to be too worried. From a marketing standpoint, here is what I see. The page is way too "busy". Too many things to focus on. Way too easy to click away from the main point "(buying) your $37 ebook" with all the distractions to look at.

I would try a more simple, focused optin page without all the distractions with say a 10 part ecourse. At least a compelling optin box on the top right of the site or experiment with a drop down or some other type of pop up. Good Luck...

Thanks

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luzern

13 years ago

It's only 3 days, you probably need to be more patience.

Thanks
1 reply

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shystar 13 years ago

Good looking site. I do agree that it is way too early to start thinking you wasted your time. Now if the site was 2 years old, then you may be on to something
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- 1 reply
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- ExRat 13 years ago
  
  Hi docbrown,
  
  I think i mis-spelt "wives" because i was matching it to a keyword.
  
  That did cross my mind. That's what you always have to be careful of when you target mis-spelled keywords - that your prospects who can spell are not put off by it.
  
  Which might not be a great idea because it could be people looking for porn who are looking for "cheating wifes" as opposed to potential customers of my ebook
  
  Funnily enough I once had a site that targeted 'wife caught cheating' and yes, I reckon you will find that a majority of visitors are looking for pictures on the subject. You need to look into this and make allowances for it in your conversion stats. I paid good money via PPC to disappoint a few needy people before I sussed it out.
  
  Hi HelpingYouBeAnExpert,
  
  Most people build a site around a product i think that is a mistake, start with helping and solving a problem not selling.
  
  It would be easier to appraise the validity of your advice if you were to elaborate on the reasons why you hold this view.
  
  Thanks
  
  Signature
  
  Roger Davis
  
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HelpingYouBeAnExpert

13 years ago

Most people build a site around a product i think that is a mistake, start with helping and solving a problem not selling.

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0 sales -Have i wasted 2 years of my life?

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