Make Your Ad Hit Its Target

August 19th, 2008 No Comments »

No matter how many clicks you get on your ad, none of them are beneficial to you if those clicks turn out to be time wasters. How can you get more people clicking on your ad that are actually potential customers? The answer lies in finding the right target.

Who is Your Perfect Customer?

Think about what you are offering. Do you have a clear picture in your mind of who would want your product or service? Whom will it benefit? Whose life will it make easier? Who has a problem that your product will solve? Write down the type of people you think would buy your product, then take a long, hard look at those folks. These are your perfect customers. How old are they? Are they men or women? Are they parents? Where do they live? What is their income level? All of these things, known as demographics, are clues to planning a successful PPC campaign.

Put Demographics to Work for You

Once you have determined who your target market is, put the information to use. Write your ad to appeal to the people who fall into that category. If you have determined that your target market is married women over 40, you need to use a different writing style than you would for single men between 18 and 25. Keep your target audience in mind when choosing keywords, titles and niches. Demographics can be one of the most powerful marketing tools you will ever use when you use the information wisely.

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Involved Readers Raise Conversion Rates

August 14th, 2008 No Comments »

Number five on the list of secrets to higher conversion rates is to get your readers involved by using interactive methods. There are many ways to do this; you just need to figure out what is the best way for your site. You brought readers to your website because you wanted them to take action. You want them to read further, to accept more information or to purchase a product. If you are monetizing your site with pay per click advertising, you want them to come back to your site more than once or to tell their friends to visit. It’s your job to give them a reason to want to come back. The more times a viewer returns to your site, the better the chance they will perform the action you really want them to take: to click on that ad, to sign up for that newsletter or to order that product.

What You Can Do

There are a multitude of ways you can get the reader involved and make them feel like they are a participant, not just a spectator. If you have a music website, ask readers to vote for their favorite song of all time. If you sell cookware, invite your readers to submit recipes and feature “the recipe of the day”, with the contributing reader receiving a byline and a free spatula. Start a blog or open a forum. It’s fairly simple to add a JavaScript quiz or game to your website. The possibilities are endless, but try to select a method that is relevant to the focal point of your website. Once you find the right method, you’re bound to see your conversion rates climb upward.

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Create a Positive Mind Set

August 13th, 2008 No Comments »

Number four on the list of higher conversion rate secrets is subliminally compelling readers to commit. You want to put your readers in a positive mind set from the beginning, so don’t ask them questions that can receive a negative answer. As you are writing your copy, only ask questions to which they can say yes. “You do want to make more money, don’t you?” “You want to make your life easier, right?” “Would you like to spend less time working?” Those questions demand a positive answer.

What if You Can’t Think of a Positive Question?

If you can’t think of a positive question, then don’t phrase it as a question. Make a statement instead. Don’t ask “you don’t want to lose money, do you?” Instead, say, “nobody likes losing money”. Now they can agree with that statement. You’re still thinking positive.

Old-fashioned Advice?

Yes, this theory has been around a long time. Why? Because it works! Successful sales people determined a long time ago that the more times you can get your client to say yes during the presentation, the more likely they will say yes when you ask them for their business. Creating a positive mind set leads to positive results. You do want positive results, don’t you?

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Conceptualize Your Offer for Higher Conversion Rates

August 11th, 2008 No Comments »

Secret number three on our list of the top five secrets to higher conversion rates is to conceptualize an offer that will be hard to refuse. What exactly does that mean? It means you need to design an offer that stands out from the multitude of other offers that your potential customer sees. Your goal is to show your readers proof that it is smarter to do business with you instead of your competitors. You need to conceive an idea that gives your offer an edge, something that makes it more valuable than the rest.

How Do You Create a Better Offer?

When you are trying to envision an offer that is more appealing than your competitors’ proposal, yet still profitable to you, you need first hand knowledge about other offers your potential customers may be considering. Go online, search out your product or service, and see what deals are available. Now decide what you can do to surpass those offers. Can you give them something in addition to competitive pricing, like a free trial or free shipping? Can you offer a stronger warranty or present a simple pod cast that assures them of your personal commitment to their complete satisfaction? Think like a buyer, not a seller. If you were considering these offers, what would tip the balance in favor of one of them?

Focus on Results

You’ve spent hours making your site fun to visit and stunningly eye-catching. You wrote sales copy that should earn an award. Yet all your efforts only pay off if the customer can see the value in your offer. Give them a reason to buy from you…and they will.

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Make Your Sales Page More Readable

August 10th, 2008 No Comments »

On our list of five top secrets to a higher conversion rate, secret number two was to make your sales page more readable. We touched on several good points, but here is a little more detail.

Make It Easy On the Eyes

Thousands of people using the web suffer from eyestrain. Studies have proven that reading performance drops sharply when people are on the internet. Don’t make it harder for them. Start by selecting a font that is large enough to read easily and has clean, simple lines. Italics may look pretty, but they are harder to read. Keep the background plain. Anything busy interferes with your ability to focus. It’s also important to use contrasting colors to help avoid eye fatigue. If your text is in a color that is in high contrast to your background color, people will be able to see it more clearly.

Make Your Page Easy To Scan

Don’t scare off your readers with a big block of intimidating text. Break it into short paragraphs with just a few sentences in each one. A nice white space between paragraphs keeps your page clean looking and gives the eyes a second to rest. Use bullets and subheadings to get their attention. Highlighting the words in different colors or using Bold letters immediately draws the eye to important areas.

Keep It Simple

Nobody likes clutter. Be ruthless when it comes to editing your sales page. Make sure every item serves a necessary purpose. Your site won’t look professional if it’s filled with too many bits and pieces. In this situation, less really is more, in most cases. Don’t use a lot of technical talk, either, unless that’s the customer you’re trying to attract. Most people don’t want to have to use a dictionary just to read a sales page.

Making your site easier to read will help build your conversion rate. There are thousands of potential customers who will simply leave if a page overwhelms their eyes. Before you finalize your page, have a completely neutral party look at it and give you their honest reaction. Remember this secret. Make it easy on the eyes and you’ll make more money.

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Writing Effective Conversion Ads

August 9th, 2008 No Comments »

In an earlier post, we took a brief look at the top five secrets to increase conversion rates. Now you probably want to know more detail about implementing each of them. Secret number 1, win their attention, sounds simple enough on the surface, but how do you actually accomplish it? Here are a few tips for making your display ads really work for you and your business.

1. Do It in 5 Seconds

Okay, you have 5-7 seconds to get your reader’s attention. So, how do you do that? Make sure your keywords are loud and proud in your headlines. Yes, that sounds pretty basic, but it is amazing how many times even professional copywriters forget that simple rule. If you’re specifically trying to sell organic dog food, make sure you feature organic dog food, not just dog food, in your headline text.

2. Sell the Sizzle, Not the Steak

I have heard that old adage since I first started in advertising, but it still has merit. “How will I benefit from this product?” is the real question your customer wants answered. Tell them why your product will make their life better. Will it save them time or money? Will it last longer? Will it make them healthier, wealthier or wiser? Spell it out in simple language. They don’t care that it will make you money, they want to know what’s in it for them.

3. Tell Them What They Need To Do

Make sure your call to action is loud and clear. Give them specific directions. Tell them why they need to do this and then tell them how to do it. Include the next step instruction in a firm tone. “View catalogue now” or “place your order here” leaves no confusion in the customer’s mind. They know the next step to take.

4. Don’t Ruin It with Bad Writing

If you know writing is not your forte, hire someone to do the writing for you. Grammatical errors and misspelled words are very distracting to many people, and you will lose their interest right away. After all, if you don’t care enough to write your ad correctly, how much will you care about their order? That is the impression a badly written ad gives to consumers. If you have to spend a little to get it right, then do it. The small initial cost will more than pay for itself in the long run.

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August 9th, 2008 No Comments »

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5 Secrets To Higher Conversion Rate

July 26th, 2008 No Comments »

Having a hard time selling your products on the web? Is your conversion rate hovering in pitiable levels? Try these 5 techniques that are sure to dramatically increase your visitor-to-sales ratio.

Higher Conversion Secret 1: Win their attention. Before they can know about your offer, they must first be able to peruse your sales page. They will only get to read your sales copy and you will be triumphant in locking up their interests until the very end. You have to come up with a catchy, benefit-oriented headline that will stop them on their tracks and compel them to invest some time on your sales copy.

Higher Conversion Secret 2: Make your sales page more readable for your visitors. To accomplish this, you will have to observe the rules in writing for a web audience, which includes: making good use of negative space, avoiding the usage of jargons and technical talk, keeping sentences and paragraphs short, and making the sales copy easy to scan by using bullets and numbers as much as possible.

Higher Conversion Secret 3: Conceptualize an offer that will be hard to refuse. Even with an excellent sales copy, if your offer is junk, it will show and your visitors will know about it. Therefore, take time to come up with an offer that is amazingly loaded with so much value that your prospects will not want to miss.

Higher Conversion Secret 4: Subliminally compel them to commit. Lead your readers’ mind to eventually say yes to your offer by phrasing your sentences into questions answerable by yes. For example, rather than saying “situation A is bad,” ask “situation A will be very bad for you, right?” Instead of saying “Brand X is the better option,” ask “Doesn’t Brand X appear to be the better option?” By doing this, your audience will feel that their beliefs, their ideas, their opinion, will all be confirmed. It will be easier for you to win their trust and to win their assent once you deliver your offer.

Higher Conversion Secret 5: Make them feel involved through a series of interactive elements. Check boxes, fill in the blanks, options they can choose from, these are some of the components you can implement on your sales copy to truly involve your readers. Their involvement is important because they are the ones who will ultimately make the decision on whether or not they will purchase your product.

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Google AdSense 101

July 26th, 2008 No Comments »

If you’re publishing a website that focuses on a specific topic, you can monetize the said website by enrolling under Google AdSense.

Google AdSense is a pay per click (PPC) program. After creating an account, Google AdSense will assign to you a code which you should embed in your web pages. This code will fetch advertisements that will be displayed on your wedsite. Whenever a visitor to your website clicks on an ad, you will earn a corresponding amount. This is the reason why a PPC program is called, well, a “pay per click” program.

 Earning Money with Google Adsense

The income you’ll earn per click may be very negligible, but if your website is visited by thousands of online users per day, you can potentially earn a fortune from this online business model. Supposing an advertisement so displayed pays a measly $0.01 per click, for example. However, if you can garner 2,000 visitors to your web pages per day, and only one-fourth of them get to click on the ads that appear on your web pages, you can earn $5 on a daily basis. And this is just for one website. What if you maintain 20 websites that can generate just as many visitors and just as many clicks? That’s an easy $100 per day!

What are the chances that your visitors will click on the displayed ads? Truth to say, Google AdSense forwards contextually relevant ads to your web pages. Hence, when a web page discusses diabetes, the ads that will appear will be about diabetes regulation, diabetes prevention, diabetes cure and the likes. Indeed, you can rest assured that your visitors are most likely to be interested with your ad.

In this day and age, many internet users have websites of their own. These may be the conventional type of websites, or perhaps online journals like blogs. They may be registered under their own domain name and are professionally hosted, or they may be sharing a domain name as well as be hosted under a free service. Aside from these things, and for as long as they’re not discussing topics prohibited by AdSense’s terms and conditions, they can implement the Google AdSense ad so that these websites can start earning profit at the soonest possible time.

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