When was the last time you took a break from trying to increace traffic to your site to work out whether or not your website is worthy of your time?

This is a very important question because if you are driving traffic to your site but not converting it to sale then, why do it? This is especially true if you are running a pay per click (PPC) campaign as you could easily be spending as much as you are earning bringing traffic to your site.

Do you spend so much time working on your site, making it look more appealing, and improving the content that you never have time to promote it? This is probably the biggest problem on the site people have the most beautiful sites but they just aren't making money, why?

From the above it should be clear that you need to find balance between the time you take working on your site to raise its conversion rate, and the time you dedicate to promoting and increasing traffic to your site.

Remember your time is your most valuable asset and your activities should help you generate the highes possible income.

So let's disscuss how you can change your website into a website that sells most importantly visitors into customers. If you are launching a new website to promote your products or services, make sure you look into constructing a internet site that is appropriate for the product or services you are selling, if you are selling toys, make the site appeal to your key demographic...kids, if you are selling administrative expertise appeal to your key demographic, the proffesional business person. I cannot stress how important it is to have a site which speaks to your target audience.

To get your website off to a good start you will want to avoid these common mistakes:

• Don't make it look like a sales website - This is a real challange but people don't like to feel like they are pushed, most of the most successful sites are informative and guide their customers to decision...NOT force. Take a look at amazon, they are experts in making people think they are making their own choices by supplying a lot of information, reviews and images about the products they are selling. But also look at some of their upselling techniques, they use recomendations, customers who brought this also brought that, they also offer little package deals where you can buy 2-3 related items at a discounted cost, however you never feel like they are pushing you to do this! What a great marketing stratergy!

• Avoid posting too many banner ads - Whilst advertising, affiliate marketing ect are all things you will want to put on your site to earn you some extra revenue, beware of having to many though see the link in the section On your site - How many ads are too many? to see what other people think the correct amount of banners is.

• Don't bore the visitor with impersonal language that is full of professional jargon or as some people put it corperate BS, remember sell the features and benefits that your customers are searching for.
• Avoid long sentences and paragraphs keep to the point and make it short and sweet so people get the information they need in the shortest space of time.
• Don't be impersonal. Show people know who you are. Put photograph of yourself on site, make sure you are smiling and looking straight out of the photo. People tend to trust people when they "think" they know who they are dealing with
• Don't confuse or overwhelm your visitors with too many options and links - This one is VERY important if people can't find their way around your site at a glance they will NOT continue they will look elsewhere remember the KISS concept Keep It Simple Stupid apply this to your navigation.
• Don't try and force your visitors to sit through an introductory movie presentation - This one is a little controversial, and many sites using flash technology will put an introductry movie whilst this is very attractive, what purpose does it serve? If you must have a movie ensure people can skip it remember the world we live in today time is a precious comodoty.
  

If you want to convert more of your visitors to customer here are some of the things you will need to think about.

• People scan web pages much more than they read them. Don't fight this, work with it to help your visitors find the information you want to give them. There have been many studies into where people look on a screen when they first enter a site and the consensuss is the top left of the page so put important information here take a look at the eye movements accross a screen take this into consideration when placing information. See image inset.
• Use a striking headline to grab people attention and draw them into your article remember first impretions count with people and it is the same on the web.
• Use bullet points and lists to make the scanning process easier, this will ensure that your potential customers learn the most from their short visit to your site..
• Use short and simple sentences, make your point!
• Talk to your visitors in a conversational manner. Imagine you are chatting to your friends, not writing an academic paper or talking to your boss. This will help them understand the information you are offering and also engage them more and hopefully increace the amount of time they spend on your site.
• Shorten the words to the most contracted form such as "don't" and "won't".
• Write product reviews rather than sales letters this is great as we spoke about amazon earlier writing reports makes customers think that they are making the decision, just guide them in the desired direction.
• Use the "you", "your" words.
• Make your keywords and phrases jump off the page by using bold or coloured fonts - This will help readers get the gist of what you are saying without haveing to read the whole thing...remember what we have said people scan websites
• Split the information into small managable chunks appropriately titled to help navigation of information quickly.
• Accessability is a big thing these days and with Disability discrimination Act out there it won't be long before websites have to apply, ensure that you think about these things, use a large easy to read font to aid partial sited, possibly make vital information available as a small video, that way you are not missing out on any of your potential market share.
• Space things out, crampped overfilled websites are nutorious for have very low conversion rates.
• Post an opt-in form, gathering information about your customers above the fold (before the scroll) and offer your visitors a bribe (such as a free report) to fill it in. This does two things first it engages the customer and secondly it helps you develop a database of customer information, which will help with marketing in the future. NB// Important note please be sure to check out information on the Data protection act and be sure to include a privacy policy to help customers trust you with their information.

If you follow these few tips and some extra reading you will be way ahead of most of the competition when it comes to setting up and developing your website which will convert visitors into customers and subscribers.

• Search Engine Optimization - How important?
• Pay per click - Google sponsored Links
• Adwords PPC Campaign management
• Letting Agents Web design
• Creating A Good AdWords PPC Advert
• AdWords Coversion Tracking