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Disappointed with your online sales? What would you say if I told you, chances are, your less-than-stellar sales can be attributed to one of three problems?

If you aren’t making the sales you envisioned, it’s probably due to one of these three things:

1. You aren’t getting enough traffic
2. You aren’t getting the right kind of traffic
3. Your site isn’t converting your visitors to customers

I’ll discuss the first two problems in Part I of this article and Part II will address some ways to increase your conversion ratio.

PROBLEM ONE: Not Enough Traffic

Simply put, no visitors = no sales.

You can have the best product in the world, but if no one can find you online, what good does it do you?

You must devote a significant amount of time daily to attracting visitors to your site. There are lots of ways to do just that.

Here are a few means to attract visitors:

• Submit to the major search engines and directories.
• Launch one or more pay-per-click campaigns. Overture and Findwhat.com are two PPC engines I like.
• Start your own email newsletter in order to maintain contact with visitors and (hopefully) convert them to customers at some point in the future.
• Utilize banner ads. Many publishers now offer pay-per-click banner advertising in addition to the traditional CPM (pay-per-impression) model, so you can get more bang for your advertising buck.
• Locate email newsletter advertising opportunities. Try Ezine Ad Auction or simply look for rate cards/advertising info on the sites and in the newsletters where you want to advertise.
• Become a “regular” on high-traffic message boards whose subject matter relates to your product/service. Many boards allow you to use your SIG file to discreetly promote your site. NEVER blatantly advertise your product or service! Most boards don’t allow it and an obvious ad probably won’t get any attention anyway - at least not the good kind of attention.
• Subscribe to several quality Internet marketing newsletters. Trafficology’s newsletter is my new favorite. You’ll be amazed at the unique traffic-generating ideas people submit each month. Some are super, some are off-the-wall, some are downright sneaky, but they’re always unique.

PROBLEM TWO: Untargeted Traffic

We’ve established that visitors are necessary in order for an online business to survive. Traffic, in and of itself, however, is worthless when it comes to selling your products or services.

Yes, I know I just said “no visitors = no sales”; and it’s true. BUT, there’s a corollary to that rule: the “wrong” visitors - even lots of them = few/no sales, too.

We’re all taught from the time we’re baby webmasters that traffic is the ultimate goal, but the reality is, it’s not.

The ultimate goal is to sell your product or service - and unless your product or service is advertising, traffic alone is useless.

You need targeted traffic.

Here’s the bottom line: you want people to visit your site that are actually interested in what you have to sell.

If you own a site that sells DVDs, visits from a million die-hard VCR users who don’t even own a DVD player might give you an ego rivaling Texas in size when you view your stats, but it ain’t gonna put any money in your pocket.

It’s better to have fewer visitors and make lots of sales than to have lots of visitors and make few sales, right?

Granted, if you have 100,000 visitors and your conversion ratio is 0.1%, that equals 100 buyers. The same amount of buyers you’d have if you converted 2% of 5,000 visitors…I don’t know about you, but I’d rather have the task of herding 5,000 people to my site than trying to attract 100,000.

Spend your hard-earned cash on getting your ads in front of your target market’s eyes. Do a little research; find out where they hang out online and pursue advertising opportunities there.

You don’t have to have huge numbers of visitors to make lots of sales…IF you have the right kind of visitors.

Now, one exception to this rule is that cheap - or better yet, FREE untargeted traffic doesn’t hurt. In fact, you may actually pick up a few sales from people who aren’t your typical customer. They might have a friend that is interested in your product or service and pass your link along to them, or something along those lines.

If it doesn’t cost you much, go for it. Save the big bucks for advertising to your target market, though.

That wraps up Part I. Be sure and read Part II to learn how to more effectively turn visitors into customers.

PROBLEM THREE: Turning Visitors into Customers

In the first part of this article, I discuss two of the three main reasons for lackluster sales at small business web sites - not enough traffic and not getting the right kind of traffic.

This half of the article, I’ll cover reason three: visitors aren’t being converted to customers.

If you’re getting enough targeted traffic but aren’t making many sales, it’s time to examine your site and try to identify potential trouble spots.

Does your site load slowly?

Very few folks are going to wait around for a bloated site to download. Consider cutting unnecessary graphics and always be sure to optimize the images you do use.

Reduce the number of server connects, especially on the home page. For example, if your affiliate program banners are hosted on another server, you might consider moving them to one of your inner pages.

If you clutter your front page with banner ads, you stand to lose the visitor before he even has a chance to find out what your site is all about - either from him mousing away to check out one of your advertisers, or because he’s simply tired of waiting for your page to load.

Do you make it difficult to do business with you?

Get past the knee-jerk reaction of, “Of course not! How stupid!” and take a really hard look at your site.

• Is your navigation consistent and intuitive? Is it easy for visitors to find what they want?
• Do you make them sit through useless intros, splash pages, etc.?
• Do you offer a variety of payment methods?
• Is the order/delivery process explained fully?
• Can the customer access a frequently asked questions page AND CONTACT YOU if he has questions?

Do you maintain contact with your visitors?

Not everyone will buy the first time they visit your site. In fact, the majority WON’T.

Does that mean they don’t need or want what you have to sell? No, it simply means they don’t need or want it *now*. There’s a good chance that sometime in the future, they will want what you have to sell. The question is, how do you keep your product/service on their minds, so that when they’re ready to make that purchase, they choose you?

Starting your own email newsletter is a super way to have sustained contact with potential customers; however, to be effective as a sales tool, the newsletter must offer something of value so that folks subscribe and actually read it.

For example, imagine you sell birdhouses. You could start a newsletter with content that birdlovers would find useful. You could publish original articles, review products and services, include links to sites of interest to your subscribers AND in each issue, you could also place a small ad detailing your current specials, informing subscribers of new items, etc.

The key is, the focus of the newsletter can’t be shameless self-promotion - what value is that to your subscribers? The FOCUS of the newsletter must be content of interest to them.

Do visitors trust you enough to become customers?

It’s not enough to have a great product or a super service. Your visitors must perceive you as trustworthy and credible or they’ll never buy.

Lots of factors play a role in how favorably you’re perceived by visitors. Here are a few ways to boost your credibility:

• Eliminate spelling errors and errors in grammar.
• Use graphics and colors that convey a professional image.
• Post your contact information!
• Consider posting customer testimonials and/or examples of your work.

The suggestions above are just a few ways you can convert more visitors to customers.

Don’t waste time promoting a site that doesn’t do its job!! If your site stinks, tons of visitors won’t do anything to fix your sad sales.

Concentrate on developing a site that SELLS. The higher your conversion ratio, the easier it is to meet and exceed your sales goals.

Source: By Jennifer Johnson on sellitontheweb.com