Introductions: Boost Website Sales
It’s the dream isn’t it, how to boost website sales from your online store. You start a business, get a website and expect the sales to roll in. But it doesn’t usually work like that (unless you’ve given your website a LOT of hype before hand!).
Having a website won’t automatically bring you in sales and leads for your business and, believe it or not, it’s often a massive misconception.
I always say that your website is your business’ home online, much like a shop or office would be if you were a bricks and mortar business. But if you did have a shop or office would you fill it with a few bits, stay at home, never tell anyone about it and wonder why the sales are not coming in? No, exactly!
So, How Do you Boost Website Sales?
Let’s discover how to improve online sales, or if you don’t have a website yet, what do you need to know that will help you when you decide to take the plunge!
The first thing I would say is, before you look at different ways to drive traffic to your website (much like advertising and marketing of your new shop on the high street), decide what your website contains first.
Your Home Page
Is your home page (your shop front/window) appealing? Does it entice people in? Does it encourage people to want to look at more, or is it full of the type of stuff that put’s people off e.g welcome to my website I’m Lisa blah blah blah (would you stand in your shop window and expect that to entice people in?). Likewise, does it contain reams of text? (now even TK Maxx don’t put everything they have to offer in their shop windows!)
If you get stuck these two blogs may help you out:
Tracking Success
But it’s not just the home page you need to consider. A key thing you must do, is give your website a job, and then track it to see if it is completing that job effectively.
Let me explain!
So for example, on my website I want people to book a call with me. Yes, I want to make sales and people can buy off my website, but unless it’s a low cost purchase, potential clients would rather speak to me first, to talk about their ideas or to see if it can be done. So booking a call with me is their first step to working with me or what I like to call it, the Website Mission!
Throughout your website you can then have clear calls to action to get people to do what you want them to do. You can have secondary missions, such as join a mailing list etc., but keep pushing them towards working with you. If they are not ready yet, but want to keep in touch, they will organically sign up to your mailing list.
If you want to know more about Website Missions and the customer journey you can sign up for my free masterclass, 10 Ways to Convert Clients on Your Website:
So, Now Back to How to Boost Website Sales!
OK, you now have the above suggestions in place and your website is really user friendly. What next?
Payment!
You need to actually have some way for people to complete a purchase, and let me tell you now, ‘contact me to buy’ is rarely going to work. They want to buy here and now! Customers are not interested in sending emails back and forth, they will lose interest, especially if it’s a low cost item!
They may want to speak to you pre-purchase (so get them booking in a date on your calendar, not a thousand emails until you agree on a day and time). However,most people just want to give you their credit card details and get what you are offering, right now!
Think about it. This is why sites like Amazon as so popular, with their Prime Delivery. You don’t see visitors to Amazon wanting to contact to buy, they want to spend their money and get it the next day (or as soon as possible!)
So, make sure you have an easy way for people to purchase instantly on your website, without the need to strike up a conversation. Even if you don’t have ecommerce, this can easily be done with a Paypal, Stripe or Square Pay button.
Driving traffic to your website
Now that you’ve primed your website to do it’s thing (think of it as training your employees up to work on the shop floor and sell to customers), it’s time to actually market the thing!
There are literally thousands, if not millions, of people out there that want to buy what you are offering, so how do you get in front of them?
This is the step people miss. They create the website and then go back to social media, do a few posts (never mentioning their website after the launch date or directing people back there). The next thing you know they announce they give up on their website, as they look at social media as a seperate entity to their website, instead of getting them to work together.
Let’s go back to our example of running a shop. What would you do to actually get people to the shop? Or would you just open the doors, pull up a chair behind the cash register and wait for it to start ker-chinging?
Below are just some of the ways you can drive traffic to your website, but I suggest you pick one or two, to start with, and then build on them. If I were to pick any at the start of your journey it would be social media, email marketing (start building your list as that’s where the money is!) and blogging (showing your expertise, but don’t forget a call to action)
So, which one are you going to choose to start out with?
If you need some help planning your Website Success Strategy then I have a free course that helps you do just that!
Or join in on one of my regular Website WOW Weeks, just click the button below to sign up to the next one!
Conclusion on How to Boost Website Sales
I’ve covered just a few key tips in this blog on how to boost website sales, I know. However, if you visit the links to my other blogs, join in one of my free courses or get in touch with us, I am certain you will start seeing a turnaound in performance. Remember, you reap what you sew!