How to make money from your website
If your website isn’t doing something noticeable for your business then you really have to ask yourself why. Either your trying to sell something no one wants like ice to eskimos or you’re not making enough of the potential of the web.
There are elements of a website business owners need to know about because it can make the difference between getting leads and getting nothing. Unfortunately it takes more than a well designed website to keep the sales coming in. And that means more work for you. Fortunately for you not many small business owners have the dedication or belief for this type of approach. And that makes the potential pay-off even better.
Take it from me. Iv had quite a few well designed websites in my time. And it wasn’t until I stopped obsessing about design and started to address the points below that my website started to make me money.
Here are three tips to help you take your website from a tired old man to moneymaking superstar.
1. Creating an offer
There is an assumption that if we sling a few words together, knock up some text or blurb it will be OK. Yet words are arguably the most important part your website. Your words form part of your offering to the world. No words, no offer. And without an offer there is nothing to accept and buy.
Considering the importance of your offer you’d think business owners would put a lot of consideration their web text. Yet time and time again its left to the end of the project and put together quickly and under much duress.
Turning what you do into a web friendly but of text is very hard. Especially if you offer bespoke services. Getting off the typical marketing spiel we’ve all become used to and onto something that will actually sell requires persistence and skill.
Think about what your actually is your offering to your customer or client from their point of view. Write it down. Then write it down again. Keep doing it and build up a picture. If you’re using a WordPress website you can put it on your website and get a feel for it and change and delete it. This is a brilliant way of fine tuning your offer in its real environment.
If your thinking of getting a website start writing your text now. You’ll be in a position to design your website around a well thought out and considered offer. That will give you the jump on 99% of your competition who have just knocked something together at the last minute.
Ask some friends or associates to look at your website. Is it clear exactly what you’re business is offering? If not you might be missing out.
2. Stimulating a response
A good website should create a response from the person using it. It might be to get in touch, sign up to something or pick up the phone. The trade term for this is A Call to Action. Something written or graphic that acts as a command. You need to tell the person what you want them to do.
Our website has an instruction to pick up the phone and call on every page. The form on the contact page is big and is it intended to be inviting. There are buttons on all the sales pages directing people to get in touch. The slide show has buttons telling people to click here. If you don’t tell people what to do they might not do it. That could be the difference between creating leads and sales and not.
Have a look at your website. Does it have clear instructions? If not, try adding some. See if it improves the amount of sales and leads you get.
3. Web traffic
Might sound obvious but its an often overlooked part of most business owners website strategy. There’s a notion that all you have to do is put a website up and the business will come flooding in. Unfortunately its not always that easy. Your web traffic needs to come from somewhere and that somewhere needs to be looked at.
Getting traffic from the search engines is the first port of call and the easiest to sort out yourself. Read our guide to getting your website into Google to get started on this.
Have a look at your web stats. How much traffic are you getting? Could you get more from the search engines or other sources?