How to make your site into a selling machine part1

In order to succeed online you need to develop a great
product, write a website that sells, and attract targeted
traffic to your site.

If you don't have one find a great product. The best type of
product is one that is consumable and in demand. If the
product is good customers will repeat their order.

Make sure that people can order easily from your site. If
you have lots of products then it's a good idea to have an
online shop where customers can put products into a virtual
shopping cart (a CGI scripted program) and pay for them via
paypal or credit card on a secure order form page.

The easier it is for customers to order from your site the
greater the chance of making sales.

Choose a webhost that has a shopping cart package. I use
internetconnection and am very happy with the support they
provide. http://www.internetconnection.net/pricing.shtml

If you are a complete novice and don't know anything about
shopping cart software then you may find this of interest.
http://www.website101.com/arch/archive126.html

You need to tailor your site towards the customer who wants
or needs the product. You can do this by first imagining
that you are that customer and work out what she or he is
looking for when they come to your site. Provide them with
the benefits of using this product. Capture their
imagination. Will it save them money, make them younger,
healthier, or is it just the right widget they need!! What's
in it for the customer?

Imagine that this customer is a friend and you are having a
one to one conversation with them over a cup of coffee. Use
the word "You" a lot as if you really are talking to them.
Create a desire for the product and give them confidence
that it will deliver as promised.

Make each page on your site theme focused. If you are
selling more than one product or groups of products you will
need a page for each one. Think about the product. What does
it do? What are the benefits to the customer? Why should
they buy from you and not your competitor?

Provide a solution to your customer for a problem they may
have and make your text benefit laden. For example if you
have a product that may help eliminate pet odours from your
carpet target pet owners and suggest the problem. Then tell
them about the benefits your product can have just as if you
were talking to a friend.

Each page should focus on just several keywords related to
that product. What would a visitor type into a search engine
if they were looking for this product or information? This
will rank your pages well in search engines for those
keywords.

In part2 I will cover getting the most wanted response from
your visitors, writing an ezine and using autoresponders.