Making money via blogging is far more than fanciful thinking; for an increasing number of dedicated bloggers, it’s a rewarding reality. But there’s a difference between, “Hey mom! I made 50 cents this month using nothing but my typing fingers!” and, you know, actually making a living- Generating $500+ a month. Whether you generate sales through coaching, services, eBooks, physical products or any of the many other ways bloggers can pull a profit, selling more products online means thinking more like a business. Don’t worry – it’s not as intimidating as it might sound, and you won’t lose suddenly turn into a heartless corporate shill. Here are 3 simple tips to help with your sales conversions.
1. Optimize Your Website for Sales
It may sound obvious, but if you’re going to sell products through your blog, you’ve got to get it primed for sales. This is intuitively done on business websites, where the focus is all on the product and there’s all of one section devoted to a blog. It can be a little less natural, however, when blogs are the central focus. Here’s how to get it right.
Make a separate tab for your store. Each product or service you’re selling should have its own, dedicated page. If it’s a digital product, it should be downloadable in as few clicks as possible. If you’re using a shopping cart, that should also be easily accessible, with few to no barriers to purchase, like long contact or sign up forms.
2. Don’t be affraid to have More Details on your Product Page
Don’t be afraid of having too much information about a product on one page. Simply break up the text clearly with headings and insert more “buy now” buttons at prominent places as the page grows. Remember, you are looking to answer your potential customer’s objections as to why they should not buy the product at each stage, so the more information the better.
3. Don’t Distract
Think of your Product page as a giant funnel, you are pouring customers in at the top and hoping to get them out via your payment page at the bottom. Every time you introduce a distraction you are making a hole in this funnel. Here are a few things that you may think are a good idea but are more likely to reduce your sales by causing distractions:
When trying to convert your customers to sales, try to keep these items to a minimum or on the front page of your site, to reduce the number of distractions.
BONUS TIP #1: If you only take PayPal as a payment, ensure that you test the design of your checkout page, do you look trustworthy?
BONUS TIP #2: Offer a money back guarantee.
BONUS TIP #3: Make sure people know who they are buying from. Add your street address to the footer and your sales phone number in the top right corner of each page.
Need Help?
If any of this sounds a bit ambitious and you would like some more guidance; become a member of PMIYP and ask for the Website Expert service. Consultations are 45 minutes to an hour long, are by appointment only and must be booked.
To find out more about this Ask the Expert by email or to book an appointment contact Client Services at 678-515-7787
