80% of Your Web Site is Maintenance

by Judy Cullins

Once your Web site is up, you must maintain it. Maintenance means changes, and each time you make a change, you may make a mistake. If your visitors get a link that doesn't work or incomplete instructions, or if your copy is lackluster instead of passionate, they will leave your site and not bookmark it.

Before you invite Web potential customers to see your masterpiece you need to check and correct all parts of your site, especially the home page. Use these 9 tests to maintain your Web site.

1. Test your headlines. You have 4 seconds to get your visitor's attention. Test your title or opening sentence. This one item alone can make a huge difference in the responses you receive.

Instead of the wasted words "welcome," put a benefit with a link to either a story about your product, a sales message, or straight to the order page for your product.

When I made "Quadruple your Web Sales in Just Three Months "a hyperlink to my sales piece for "High Traffic = High Web Sales", my Web sales increased ten times from the original one, and this is only 7 months time. If your headline doesn't do it, the game is over.

2. Test your offer. People perceive more value when you add an incentive to buy. Give them a bonus FREE report or a tips list with the order. It takes little time and effort to create, but it increases sales ten-fold.

For the holidays, I sent out a half price notice for my nine eBooks. The results amazed me.

3. Test your promotion piece by emailing your preferred audience several choices. Which one would they buy? Emphasize different benefits, try different phrases, power words and metaphors. Appeal to their different senses like smell, touch, emotions and visual.

4. Test your price. A price that is too low is as bad as a price too high. Too low a price devalues your product or service. Potential clients or buyers might think, "If it's that cheap, it must not be good."

One myth is that eBooks have less value than print books. If your book has information your one particular audience wants, it has high value and you must price it accordingly. My eBooks are in 8 ½ by 11" format. That means they have twice the information as a regular size book. They can be purchased by regular eMail or put into Portable Document Format (PDF).

5. Test your copy. Change testimonials or pictures every so often. Redo your opening page and closing page. Instead of "Subscribe to my ezine," put a short testimonial from a famous person in your field right before the "click here" to subscribe. Always give your visitors a reason to buy. Make your copy "you" oriented. Dan Poynter, author of The Self-Publishing Manual, said this about my free monthly ezine "The Book Coach Says... ezine is chock full of useful information - totally worth your time."

6. Make your Web pages easier to read by using bullets.

On my home page I put these statements in bullets:

"Book Coach Offers These Book Writing and Marketing Outcomes"

· Crystallize your book concept for absolute clarity. · Know your book's best publishing options. · Organize a model compelling chapter to apply to all chapters. · Know the first steps to writing a great selling book. · Know your book's best promotion after it is finished. · Know your book has value and will sell, before you invest time and money

7. Test your Web site paragraph length. In general, keep them short, around 1-4 sentences. Imagine looking at a long line of print before getting to the meat? Discouraged, you would probably leave the page, and possibly the site! Check for passive sentence construction too. Your spell and grammar check gives you those percentages at the end. If your sentences are more than 3-4% passive, you need a professional coach to check your copy.

8. Test your Web site layout. Know where visitors are entering your site and exiting. Many companies out there can give you this counting service. If potential buyers keep leaving at a particular page before they go to products and ordering page, your words deceive you-and some changes are in order. You can track: where your traffic is coming from, what pages visitors like, and how long are they there, even which Web visitors signed up for your eNewsletter.

9. Test your order process. Ask certain people to run through different parts of your site (show your appreciation by paying them for it with free product or service). Tell them you have a thick skin, and appreciate their honesty.

One would-be customer couldn't finish the order for one of my teleclasses. It took a lot of effort to get that mistake rectified with some free product. I know a famous eBook author from which I tried and tried to buy a book. I even emailed him about it. He said he didn't take email orders and sent me back to where the problem was. It's much better to have all links work, so your customers will have an easy ordering experience. Then they will return to your Web site over and over again.

Know that your job of testing never ends. It's what we call maintenance. 80% of life is maintenance! Just experimenting with these tests will bring more sales. Keep testing to know what your potential buyers really want.

Judy Cullins: 20-year author, speaker, book coach Helps entreprenurs manifest their book and web dreams eBk: "Ten Non-techie Ways to Market Online" www.bookcoaching.com/products.shtml Send an email to mailto:subscribe@b... FREE The Book Coach Says... includes 2 free eReports mailto:judy@b... Ph:619/466/0622

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