If  you  are  a newcomer to the world of Internet business,
you  may have already learned that it's just not that easy
to  make  a  sale, regardless of how many visitors land at
your  site. Even with the best search engine marketing and
professional  online  and  print  advertising you might be
confounded  by  the  fact  that your sales are not getting
anywhere,  and  for some reason you just can't seem to get
your feet off the ground.

Well,  you're  not  alone. There are thousands of web sites
and businesses on the net, some getting thousands of visits
to their web sites every month and many of them have yet to
sell  a  product  or service. Vendors of both physical and
digital  products  face this problem on a daily basis. The
cause of the problem can be attributed to several possible
reasons-all  of  which you have to consider when analyzing
your   own  situation  and  before  launching  your  next
marketing/advertising  campaign  or  before  blaming  the
company that sold you that million guaranteed visits.

Any item or combination of  items below might be affecting
your chance of sales success.

Here are my top 11 reasons:

1. Your web site can't be found in more ways than one: It
is  imperative  that  you market and promote your web site
both  on and off the Internet. Try every ethical technique
available   to   you:  Search  engine  promotion,  banner
advertising, pop-under advertising, newsletters, print and
online magazine ads, word of mouth, etc. Just don't resort
to  using SP*AM (unsolicited email). And be sure that your
pages  work. It really hurts to spend money on advertising
only to find out that your site was down or your pages were
dead during an important campaign.

2. Your  web  site  looks  unprofessional and detracts from
your credibility: Ask yourself, the question. “Would I buy
from  a  site that looks like mine?” If you hear the words
“liar, liar” continually echoed in your head as you answer
“sure  I  would!”  then it's time to get a second or third
opinion.  Web  site  visitors  will often flee from a site
selling great products, simply because of the way it looks.
If you don't want to spend money on web design, try looking
up  “web site templates” using search engines and see what
you  can  find.  These templates will allow you to plug in
your  content and basically get a professional looking web
site for a lot less than you might imagine.

3. Your  product/service has little appeal: If visitors are
not  interested  in  what  you're  selling,  you  can pump
hundreds  or even thousands of dollars and countless hours
into advertising and it won't make any difference. In other
words,  maybe that glow in the dark camouflage suit wasn't
such a great idea.

4. You're   targeting   the   wrong   audience:   If  your
product/service  is  ideal  for  a certain type of person,
region or interest group, don't ignore this fact and waste
time  and  money  promoting outside of this focus area. In
other  words,  try focusing your advertising on a targeted
audience.  If  you're  selling  automotive products, don't
advertise  to computer enthusiasts unless you're selling a
car computer. Instead figure out where automotive customers
shop  and  what  sites  they like to visit and then try to
focus your advertising on those destinations instead.

5. Your  product/service  is  too expensive for your target
audience: If visitors can't afford or don't want to afford
what  your  selling,  maybe you need to target a different
audience.  Don't  try  to  sell expensive perfumes (Eau De
Mortgage) to an audience looking for discount 99 cent store
products.

6. Your    product    service    is   too   cheap:   Some
products/services  don't  cost  enough.  Think  “perceived
value”  and price your products/services for what they are
worth. A great product can be scarred for life, if visitors
perceive it as too cheap to be of quality. Try raising your
prices/fees  and see what happens, you might be pleasantly
surprised.

7. Your product is free so why should anyone
pay  for  it:  Many  great downloadable products have been
created as free trial versions with just one problem, they
are  full  working  versions  with  no  real  incentive to
upgrade. Most people ignore the so called “nag screens” and
continue  to  use  these  products  for years without ever
realizing  that they are violating the developers license.
Give  the  user  a  reason  to upgrade. Maybe by disabling
features  that  are  critical  to  the  operation  of your
product, but won't prevent the user from experiencing your
products  value.  When they upgrade (pay) they get all the
features turned on.

8. Visitors  can't  figure out how to place an order: It is
surprising as to how many web sites are-not order friendly.
Some web masters spend time and money developing fancy web
sites with flashy graphics and animation only to forget the
most  important  reason  for  their site's existence. They
forget  to  invite  and make it easy for visitors to place
orders.  I  recently  visited a site with great enthusiasm
after getting an email announcement. It was the “must have
product” for Internet Marketing. Problem is that there was
no order button!

9. Your  order  buttons, links or contact forms don't work:
Test your order pages and contact forms. Be sure that they
are  not  broken links and be sure that your contact forms
work  by  sending yourself a test message and by placing a
test order or two. Believe me, even seasoned marketers make
this mistake.

10.  Your  order  process  is  too painful: Try to place an
order  yourself.  Click on one of your order buttons/links
and experience the process. If they (order pages) load too
slowly  or  the  process  is  too  painful,  you will lose
potential  customers.  This sales losing process is called
“abandonment”  by  the  industry  and  affects many online
businesses  where  visitors  wanting  to  become customers
suddenly abandon their order in mid-process to do something
else.

11. You  have  unrealistic  expectations and need to take a
scientific approach to advertising: Don't buy a 100,000 web
site  visitors  package  and then expect 100,000 sales. It
won't  happen unless there was no oxygen left on earth and
you  just so happen to be selling Oxygen. There are proven
formulas that can help you estimate (at best) the amount of
sales  that can be achieved by driving a certain amount of
traffic to your site.

Use  this  simple formula to estimate how many visitors you
need to meet your sales/sign-up goals.

A). Figure out your conversion rate: A conversion is = to a
visitor that becomes a customer or a sign-up.  A conversion
rate  is defined as the number of actual sales or sign-ups
divided  by the number of site visitors in a given period.
For  example  two  sales  per  100  visitors  =  2% or a .02
conversion rate per 100 visitors.

So  take  a  good  look  at your recent sales and number of
visits  to your product/service web page. This can be done
by taking a look at your web site's statistics. If you make
one  sale  per  100  visitors  to  your site then you have a
conversion  rate  of  1%.  This  number,  by  the  way, is
considered  by  many  average marketers to be difficult to
achieve  and  rightly  so. Many web sites, lacking million
dollar  budgets,  are  happy  to  get  a tenth (.001) of a
percent.  Still,  anything is possible. We are using 1% in
this  calculation to make the example easier to understand
(the industry average is said to be 1% to 2%)

B).   Figure   out   how   many  sales/sign-ups  you  want
(quantity--not  dollar  value)

C).  Once you have this
info, plug your numbers into the equation below.

Number  of  Visitors = Desired Number of Sales / Conversion
Rate (in decimal)

So as an example: To sell 200 items at a conversion rate of
1%

Number of visitors = 200/.01 (200 divided by .01)

The minimum number of visitors required = 20,000

Therefore,   you  would  need  at  least  20,000  visitors
(minimum)  to get 200 sales, assuming that you can convert
your  visitors  with  a  hot  offer! The "right words" can
convert  the "right visitors" into paid customers. Just as
easily  as the wrong words can turn them away. Sometimes a
single  word  can make a difference. If you can raise your
conversion rate by applying the ideas in this article, you
can also reduce your cost of Customer Acquisition.

The information above is certainly not exhaustive, I'm sure
that  there  are other reasons that I did not list in this
article.  Regardless,  if taken seriously, the information
contained  herein will help boost your sales and sign-ups.
Just  remember  this  final  thought.  “Sales  are  never
guaranteed…  no one can guarantee that a customer will put
funds  into  your bank account” You can, however, increase
your  probability of success by becoming informed and then
taking positive action.