Enjoy this guest post from Mike Seddon

It’s a fact that many businesses are loosing money through a leaky web purchase process. Most of these businesses choose to ignore the problem and will prefer to look at increasing traffic as the way to grow sales.

The analogy I like to give is to imagine you had a bucket with holes in it that you needed to fill with water. What would you do first? Fix the holes or just try to fill the bucket with water faster than it is leaking? Believe me; many businesses go for the faster filling leaky bucket solution!

What I want to do is show you five ways you can fix those holes and just by doing that you will boost your sales because you’ll close all the sales that were originally escaping you. In other words, you make more money from the buying traffic your website is already getting.

Step 1 – Stop Hiding that Buy Button!

You’ll be amazed how many businesses seem to hide the buy button. They make it blend in with the colour theme of their website or they put it below the fold (ie: you have to scroll down the website to find it).

Just making your buy buttons stand out and putting them in a prominent place will boost sales. Trust me. Try it.

Step 2 – Don’t ask for stuff you don’t need

Why is it that some websites ask for my inside leg measurements when all I’m trying to buy is an ebook! Why do they need that information?

Okay so I am exaggerating but you know what I mean. We’ve all been to sites where we have to fill out screens of questions before we can just get our credit card out and buy the darn thing.

So take a good long look at your payment screens and make sure you are only asking for information that you need to make the sale. Keep it short. Keep it brief and get the money!

Step 3 – Reinforce the Benefits

When most website owners install their shopping cart software they tend to only concentrate on setting up the pages so that they can collect the data they need to process the sale. They miss an opportunity here to help ensure the sale. If they were to add benefits of the products onto their payment screens they would find that less people abandon the shopping cart. Seeing benefits of your purchase as you go through the sales screens reinforces your desire to own the product and keeps you in the process.

Step 4 – Use Testimonials

This is the same approach I just outlined with benefits. Make sure your sales screens have testimonials. It helps reassure your purchaser that they are making the right decision in buying from you.

Step 5 – Guarantees

Do you offer a guarantee with your product? If you do make sure you repeat them on the purchase screens, especially the one that asks for the credit card details! What’s the point of having a guarantee if you don’t shout about it and use it to make sure you close as many sales as possible?

If you don’t have a guarantee then shame on you! Offer one.

The better your guarantee, the more chance you will have to make the sale. So make sure you offer a compelling guarantee. You may worry about the cost of honoring your guarantee but let me assure you that the increase in sales will more than cover any slight increase in costs due to covering a guarantee.

So there you have five easy ways you can quickly fix the holes in your purchase process and boost your sales as a result.

Once you’ve done those then you’ll be ready to increase the traffic to your website safe in the knowledge that you will maximize the sales from that extra traffic. You’ll find lots of free advice on increasing your web traffic using website promotion at the KKSmarts website.

Whether you have an Internet-based or a brick and mortar business, we all want more traffic or customers coming through our doors, right?   There is an online tool that can make a major impact on your marketing effort to bring those customers in.  It’s called Google Local Business.  It’s quick, easy and best of all – Free!

Here is a short video that explains everything about Google Local Business.

Isn’t that great?  Get your business set up on Google Local Business now and get ahead of your competitors!

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Are you considering starting an online store?  Have you done your research to see if there is a need or interest in your store? As easy as it is to start an online store, the business of selling is just as hard on the internet as it is on a physical marketplace. However, if you do your homework, and find a market for your business, you can be successful.

Here are some tips to help as you begin to think about building your online store.  It’s not enough just to want to sell a product online. What will make you stand out from other online stores?  You have to offer a product or service that is unique or popular enough to have enough buyers and then make an offer that no one can pass off.

1. You will also need to find your Unique Selling Point, the points that will make you different and better than the other online stores selling similar products. For example, you might choose to sell lawnmowers, but the competition is high in this market.  So what is your USP? Any of these can set you apart from the crowd:  a 24X7 helpline; an online chat with other gardeners; 30-day money back guarantee;or an in-store repair contract
2. Once you are clear about what you want to sell and how you want to sell, purchase a domain name.  ( I use GoDaddy to purchase all my domains) The cardinal rule of an online store is to keep the domain name and name of the online store short and relevant so that the customer can identify and remember it. For instance, an online store selling cheap cars can have the domain name “budgetauto” or “budgetcar”. It’s small, easy to remember and very relevant.
3. Once the domain is purchased, create an online store. Like your USP, your store should also be unique in style and content. But the basic structures of e-commerce websites are similar. You will need to display your products, let the customer browse through your catalogs, compare prices and features, add products to the shopping cart, calculate shipping, make payments through payment gateways, etc. I always recommend WordPress for all my clients, whether they are building an Online Store or just a regular website.  It’s easy to design and very easy to manage and works very well with all eCommerce services.
4. Full-blown or Simple eCommerce Site? You can either go for a full-fledged e-commerce service, like 1Shopping Cart.  Or you can go for a simple service through E-Junkie. There are many online eCommerce solutions; it’s up to you to decide which you need and best fits your budget.
5. Fill your website with articulate, creative and relevant content with popular keywords. Prominently display your products and prices and even highlight a “product of the week or month” on your Home Page.
6. If you are selling “downloadable’s” like software or eBooks, both 1Shopping Cart and E-Junkie offer easy ways to allow your customers to download their purchase while protecting your valuable products on a secure server.
7. Set up Affiliate Programs. As your online store grows, you might decide to develop an affiliate program to enlist the help of others in selling your products and services.  Affiliate Programs are very easy to set up with both 1Shopping Cart and E-Junkie.

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I had the opportunity to attend a teleseminar this morning by L. Drew Gerber CEO & Partner of PressKit 24/7. It was part of the Big Fish Nation program I am a member of. Big Fish empowers women entrepreneur’s to take their business to the next level through hard core business skills with a spiritual approach to success. Today’s teleseminar focused on Online Press Releases.

Drew shared with us that he defines PR as, Your Relationship with the Public and that you should begin using PR from the onset of your business. It will increase brand recognition, and boost your sales of products and services. 90 percent of reporters are getting their information from the Internet, so an Online Press Kit is essential to your Online Business Success!

As part of his company, PressKit 24/7 he has established a source to bring potential media opportunities right into your Inbox. PitchRate.com is the name of this site and it’s completely free! You can register, include a profile, select your area of expertise, along with subcategories and daily you will receive a digest of media opportunities. You can also search on the site for keywords relative to your business.

Drew loves games, and so do I! So he has offered the participants of today’s teleseminar an incredible prize for the person that gets the most people to sign up for PitchRate. That’s where I need your help! If you would like to get daily feeds of media opportunities and grow your business through online press release marketing, please sign up for this free service. And then send me a quick email to (terri.avirtualbiz@gmail.com) and put your name in the subject line. And of course, I’d love to get your feedback to share with Drew.

It’s very important that you send me an email, otherwise, I won’t know that you signed up and can’t count you in my group. I’ll follow up and let you know if YOU helped me win!

I was asked that question today when I was the special guest on the Cherries For Life WebTV show at Cherries Internet Cafe in Knoxville TN.  My answer…YES! MY name is Terri and I’m a technology junkie!  There I said it.  I love technology.  Granted, I don’t always understand all of it, but nonetheless, I love it!

As a virtual assistant, I couldn’t work without technology.  Check out my interview.  I come on the show at 21 minutes in, if you want to fast-forward.  But if you want some strange but yet unique trivia, just watch from the beginning.

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