So you have hired the best website designing firm to get your website done. Finally the site is up and running. You have informed all your friends and customers about the site. You have enlisted your site to some search engines. To add to it your site has the best products that money can buy.

That sounds great!

Not so great actually, “Weeks have passed, months have rolled, yet theres no trace of even a single SALE from the web site. I think all these online business is just a fad.”

This is a very common feeling that most of the online entrepreneurs have after a few months of patient waiting. Their feeling is quite legitimate. After all they have spent a few thousand dollars for the development, hosting and maintenance of the site; and in return – not a single penny!

Whats wrong … is the design bit boring .. is it hosted on a bad server .. is something wrong with the domain name .. or is it selling online is just a false hope?

NO is the answer to all.

Lets clarify the doubts one by one.

Selling online is a myth … heres some statistics to rock you.

- 950 million active Internet users worldwide

- Internet marketing research firms predict online consumers will grow at a rate of 30 to 50 %  over the next few years

- More than 20 million shoppers are online at any given time

- eBay has around 115 million users worldwide

- over 430,000 people to earn a full-time, online income thru eBay alone

- at any given time there are more than 25 million items for sale on eBay

- online auction phenomenon expects to trade 1.8 billion items, worth more than $20 billion

Domain name does play a role to help people remember the site, but it has got very little to do with the sites popularity or business. Its better if the domain name is related to the theme of the site. Try to use names which are simple to spell and easy to remember.

Bad server can cause problem for the uptime of the website or the speed of its download. It surely won’t prevent visitors from your site or online sales taking place. Today most site hosting companies provide good web servers at a reasonable rate.

Well the design of a website has got very little to do with the traffic it can generate or the volume of business it can provide, as long as it is well structured, has a good navigation and quality content. The colors and images make very little difference. But remember the product photos should be of great quality and in good visible size.

Ok. Then whats wrong why is there no sales ?

A website generates sale due to some essential factors:

a) good content,
b) steady traffic,
c) product to match ones need
d) usability of the site

Write high info-value keyword focused content that ranks well with the search engines. Have a PRE-Selling content (not a sales pitch) that establishes confidence and trust and influences the visitors into becoming customers. The content should be honest and try to take the visitors into a ready-to-buy frame of mind and turn them into lifelong customers. Proper content management is important before you drive traffic into your site else your visitors won’t be convinced to buy.

Conversion rate of visitors into buyers is very low in case of online selling. Though this increases a lot with the credibility of your site’s content and the products or services.

Promoting your site is utmost important. Try to promote your website through various ways. With a good keyword-rich content try to get a high Search Engine Ranking by continuously optimizing (SEO) the site, link exchanges, pay-per-clicks, reciprocal linking, classified ads, banner exchange and text-link exchange.

You should also try to do offline promotions through media and television advertising, newspaper classified ads, placards, radio announcements, word of mouth and others.

Finally when you drive traffic to your site and also convince them to buy, you must have good products to sell. The pricing of the products should give good value for money.

If you are planning to setup an online store for your business usability of the web store is very useful. The ease at which a buyer can buy is of importance. There are some ready-made store designing products like Store Build It available which can help you built such a store.

Remember, for a professional, profitable and successful Online Business you need effective strategies, intelligent investments of time, money & energy, persistence and motivation to succeed.

This article was posted on February 21, 2006

About The Author

Anjula Sanders is an experienced copywriter with a leading ad agency and is passionate about electronic advertising. She writes for various magazines and sites. Some of her articles will be available at http://www.fastforwardincome.com, your complete resource for internet money making.

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