Want some Tips on Increasing Your Sales? Here are 9 Tips on Increasing your sales.

Do you want tips on how to increase your website sales?
Well of course you do.

Having a website can be one of the most rewarding,
addicting, and obsessive decisions you could ever choose to make.
It can also be the most frustrating, and somewhat depressive
decisions as well.

You put your heart and soul into creating your website.
From your website's design down to the color of your text.
You think about it all day and even dream about it
at night.

After everything is neatly put together, you finally
publish your site with excitement!.....

It's been two months now and that level of excitement
is slowly starting to slip away. No sales...
"What am I doing wrong?", you ask yourself.
I have the best website design and My products or
services are unique.But still NO SALES!

I've been down that road before and I definitely
understand how heartbreaking and nerve wreaking
it can be not to get what your ultimate goal is
when you first consider starting an online business,
which is getting sales and making a profit.

Well here are 9 suggestions I have
to help you convert your traffic to sales:

• Your Website Design: Is your website easy to navigate? Are the colors or fonts hard on the eyes. The background colors you choose can definitely have a negative impact on your visitors and the type of font you choose can be detrimental to your sales as well. Stay away from really fancy fonts or fonts that have a lot of curves to them. Although they might be appealing to you. I would suggest you keep the fancy font for your logos or banner graphics. Buyers may find it hard to read and if they can not read what you are selling then, click... they go to another site. When choosing a website template or design. Keep it simple. Don't choose something with a dark background. This is important if you are selling a product. It takes away from the product. The visitor focuses more on your background color than what you actually have to offer.

• Trusted Seal : Building trust is an essential part of selling online. Your buyer needs to trust you and feel comfortable purchasing your products or services. Make sure to have a SSL Certificate somewhere on your site or a trusted merchant seal. You can have this on your site or within your shopping cart. You would be amazed how many visitors actually search for the seal when they visit your site. Over 60% of online shoppers check to see if they see a trusted seal. If they don't see one, they might leave your site. You can get a seal from Godaddy, your hosting company (if applicable), Hackersafe/Mcafee and other sites as well. Over 70% of online shoppers will abandon a shopping cart if they dont' see this seal. They want to know that their credit card information is safe. Studies show that online websites who display the seal on their site/shopping cart see a surprisingly increased amount of sales after displaying one on their site.
  

• Products : Have a nice amount of products on your site. Before you launch your site. Think about what you will be selling on your site. Make a list of the different categories you will have on your site. Then make sure you have at least two to three pages of products per category. If you make your own products. Don't launch your site until you have sample images of the products you will be selling on your site. Try not to have just two or three products per category on your site. If you only have two products per category. Don't put the category on your site until you have 10 to 20 products ready. There's nothing worst than visiting a site that doesn't have a nice selection of inventory to browse through. For example purposes : Picture this scenario. You walk into a new boutique that has moved into your neighborhood. They have an inviting logo outside that screams come in and buy from us. You step inside and the decor is breath taking. You take a step further and noticed that the inside is HUGE! You take another couple of steps toward their merchandise and in this very BIG place there is only a couple of racks in the center of the store. You look around their two or three racks or displays and tell the store owner that they have a beautiful store and that you will be returning but didn't make a purchase. Why? Because the store didn't have a big enough variety because they were just starting out. I know I have done this before, it was uncomfortable for me and the store owner. You expect to find a nice selection of items when you visit a store and the same goes for an online store. Moving on...

• Price: This is a biggie. You must make sure your prices are competitive but not to low where you are not making a profit but not to high where you are not seeing any sale. What I suggest is that you do a search on Google to find out who your competitors are and see what prices they are offering. Then go back to your site and pick a product and do a test. Perform a test on that product by doing the following: Take the product you chose to do a test on and make a copy of that product so you have two of the same product. Change the name of the second product so you don't confuse the buyers. Make one product's price lower than the other. Make sure the lower price isn't so low that you won't make a profit though. Run this test for two to three weeks. If you see that the product that has the lower price sells better than the product with the higher price, than you know that you need to change your prices in order to start getting sales on that particular type of product. If that doesn't seem logical to you. Just take one product and do a test on it for three weeks. Lower the price on it ( as long as it's not lower than the MSRP), change the description around a bit and see what happens.
  

• Images: Make sure that you have clear images. You can have the best products or services but if a visitor can not see what they are buying than they will just leave your site.
  Make sure you have professional images on your site. If you take your pictures yourself, that is fine as well. Just make sure you take your pictures outside or on a white background. You can either use a white sheet or go to your local fabric store and buy a couple of yards of Muslin which should only run you .99 cents a yard. I recommend getting a photo cube. They are inexpensive and creates a professional picture. You can find one on ebay. Your images say a lot about your businesses image. If you have dark photos or photos with the cat in the background, you are less likely to get a sale. If you can not afford a good digital camera and a photo cube. Consider investing in photo background removal services.

• Shipping: Make sure you display which shipping courier you will be using on your site. You also want to display your shipping fees on your site as well. This way a buyer will know exactly how much their total order will be. You can set up a separate page that says "Shipping Fees". Create a graphic towards the top of your website pages that says Shipping Fees and make the graphic clickable to the page that has your shipping cost.

• The Type of Payments you accept: Display what type of payments you accept by placing a payment logo on your site. The closer you have it displayed at the top of your website pages the better. That is one of the first things visitors look for when they visit your site. If they don't know what type of payments you offer than they will get frustrated looking for a payment option and leave your site.

• Pay Pal: Having Pay Pal as your online payment processor can be okay depending on what type of online business you have. If you offer a service to other online businesses. Than this option is okay because most online businesses pay via Pay Pal or know what Pay Pal is. Not all of your visitors know about Pay Pal, to be honest there are a lot of people who have no clue what Pay Pal is. In saying that. I would highly recommend investing in or inquiring about signing up with a Credit Card Processing Company or a Merchant Account Company that will process your credit card payments for you. I recommend Authorize.net or Pay Pal Website Pro. Both have a monthly fee of about or around $30.00 a month. It is less confusing to the buyers and more professional. I have seen and heard about other online businesses seeing an increase in sales when they added a payment processor to their shopping cart.

• Contact Information: This is something that is overlooked or dreaded by small business website owners. It is important to have a phone number somewhere on your site. A buyers wants to see that they can contact you if there is a problem or a question that they have about ordering or an order that they place. If there is not a phone number visible and only an email address or a website contact form. They will become worried that your company may be fraudulent and not purchase from you. I know that you may have concerns about people calling you all times of the night, but there is a solution to your problems. You can sign up for an 800 number. There are tons of services out here that will provide you with an 800 number. I recommend Ring Central. You can set up an option to have them take messages on all calls or you can have a do not disturb option set so your phone does not ring in the middle of the night. Instead all calls will go to an automated voicemail service and you can retrieve your messages when you have time. You also have the option to either except a call when it comes in or to send it directly to the voice mail. When a call comes through to your 800 number and you pick up the phone. The operator chimes in immediately and says " You have a call. Press one to accept this call or two to send this call to voicemail". It's the best option especially if you work from home. You can try them out for Free for 30 days :Try RingCentral Online FREE for 30 days
  
  

I hope you enjoyed reading some of my tips and use them to
help increase your sales.

Just remember to do a lot of testing with your products
or services. See what works. If something
is not working then try a different route.

Think about installing Google Analytics within your
website so you can see which pages are your
highest exit pages and which ones are the most popular.

If you have any questions. Feel free to contact me
or leave a comment.

I am always here to help.

Yours Truly,
Carla Phillips
Your Search Engine Ranking Specialist

And The Winner Is....

I put the names in a hat and picked out one and The Winner is:



Sea By Me Candles


Congratulations You have won 5 Hours of SEO work!

So get ready to get your site listed on the first pages of the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN and to see an increase in traffic!

You will have 4 of your categories optimized plus a Bonus of adding your sitemap to Google and Yahoo. Plus you will have your site submitted to the search engines!



I'll be contacting you shortly to go over the details!

Yours Truly,

Carla Phillips

The UBP SEO services Giveaway!!!

Oh boy I am so very happy to be part of the Ulitmate Blog Party 2009!

So happy that I am going to be doing a Giveaway to one lucky WAHM blogger!

The winner will receive 5 hours of SEO work for their website. That's a value of 100.00!!! I will optimize your meta tags which include your keyword tag, meta title tag and description tag up to 5 hours. You don't have to have a Blog to win, just a website or a Blog will be good!

I have a Proven top 10 Google Listings for my clients. You can check out my profile here:

Proven Top 10 Google Listings

Here's some ways that you can win:

• You can post a comment here on the SEO Blog about why you think you deserve to win.
• You can tweet about My SEO Gal on twitter and put a link to this blog or the site: http://myseogal.com .
  
• You can Blog about My SEO Gal on your very own blog and post a link back to the site or this blog.

If you blog , facebook or tweet about us, make sure to come back and post a link showing us where you talked about us iin order to receive credit for your entry.

The winner will be chosen at the end of the UBP week, which is March 27,2009.

Good Luck to you all!

Isn't this fun!!!

Yours Truly,

Carla Phillips

Who Gives A Hoot about WAHM's?

Do you feel like no one cares about you being a WAHM?

Are you having a pitty party because you can't seem to figure out why you aren't getting any sales and your products are just so darn cute, unique, and trendy?

Well guess what! I care about you.

About a month ago, I posted a blog about an opportunity that would help WAHM's increase their sales. Well I finally got everything in gear about two weeks ago.

I created a site that is geared toward helping WAHM's increase their sales.

By being a SEO expert. I work with a lot of WAHM's and Dad's too. I was having a lot of sleepless nights because I was hearing all over the internet about small business owners not getting any traffic or sales. I knew I could help increase the traffic and take care of that problem. But the part about the sales were really getting to me.

Although I am able to help a lot of small business owners increase their sales along with their traffic. There were still some who were having a hard time increasing their sales.

Maybe it was because they didn't have enough products on their sites to make a visitor feel comfortable making a purchase. Or Maybe it was because their product images weren't the best quality. That's actually a whole different topic that I will be blogging about later.

Regardless of what the issues were. They were just not converting their traffic into sales.

Does this sound familiar?

So I created a fun website that is geared toward helping WAHM's and Dad's to increase their sales through our Online Shopping Mall with WAHM's products displayed in each department. The site is called WAHM Pub. Our slogan is "Coffee Stained T-Shirts, Jogging pants, and house slippers are Welcome! It's a great place where buyers can come and shop , chat and have fun.

I wanted the site to be different from all other advertising venues for WAHM's. There a lot of great things on the site for entertainment. Like the really off the wall departments like the Smell Good Department. With one of my favorite scents being promoted:

Yes, I have a weird since of humor!

There are other categories like our Bling Bling Department, Lookin' for Scraps (Features Scrapbooking products), Luck Be A Lady or a Man! (Features contest by WAHM's) and so much more.

There are a lot of things for buyers to do on the site, like visiting our Online Pub (it's a forum everyone, although your welcome to sip on a Margarita while joining in on some of the topics), or watching our Funny Mommy Videos. There are definitely some videos on there that I can relate too!

We also have a Super Mom Stimulus that will start in May, you can nominate a Mom or Dad to receive a $200.00 Stimulus from WAHM Pub, A Coupon Babes section, that list coupons being offered by other businesses (still working on this section) and so much more.

Okay, So I know you have a lot of questions like. How will it help increase my sales? and Most of all What is the cost for all of your kindness?

Here's how it works. You list your products on the site and when a buyer goes to the category or lands on your products page. They read over the product information that includes a description, sizes and price. If they like what they see, the click on the Buy Now button listed on your products page and lands on your product page to make the purchase.

You collect the order information, payment and shipping all through your site. I don't get a dime from your sale! You process the order just like you would any other normal order that comes through your site.

What's the point you ask?

The point is this. By implementing my SEO expertise, your products have a better chance of getting noticed on the major search engines, your products will be uploaded to Google's Product Search/Froogle/Google Base, and I do all of the paid advertising for you.

So I know, now your questions is. What's the catch?

There is no catch. Really. I really truly care. I am a WAHM myself, a mother of three. I know how difficult it is to try to get sales and how frustrating it is to spend tons of money advertising your site to not see a single ROI (return on investments). I really believe in helping others achieve their online goals and this is one way that I think I can contribute.

I know, now you are wondering how much is all of this going to cost?

Well, I really believe in the phrase, "Nothing in life is Free". So in saying that. Nothing in life is Free!!!

But the cost to list your products on the site is!

That's right, it's Free to advertise your products on the site.

All I ask is that you help promote the site. By helping to promote the site. You will be helping other WAHM's and Dads'. There are ways to help out.

You can help out by posting a My Products Are Featured At WAHM Pub button like the one below on your home page. Or Blog or Tweet about the site and tell everyone you know about the site!

The spots are limited for advertising and the amount of Free products you can list are 5.

I am also looking for Sponsors and Volunteers to help out with site.

This site is solely to help out others. So if you are interested in becoming a Sponsor. All funds will go into our site. The site is a site that is not for profit. All funds that come into the site are used to promote the site, through online ads, Google Adwords and so much more.

So if you would like to contribute by becoming a Sponsor. You can do so by either advertising your site in our WAHM Directory or by listing your Contest or Giveaway on the site. Or by Sponsoring a Super Mom Stimulus.

There are so many ways to help.

So all you WAHM's. I know you waited a long time for me to announce this and I am glad that I finally have.

If you are interested in listing your products on the site or becoming a sponsor. Just click on the link below and sign up. I will try to respond within 48 hours. It may take 72 hours for your products to get added to your site, because we have a volunteer helping out to add the products who is a WAHM mom too. So bear with us and we will definitely get your products added.


Make sure to drop by our Online Pub to chat with other Mom, Dads, Buyers and WAHM's.

Join us at: www.wahmpubm.com/forums

Advertise or Sponsor our Site

I look forward to seeing all of you at WAHM Pub and hope to help you achieve all of your Internet selling goals!

Yours Truly,

Carla Phillips

My SEO GAl's Blog: To Tweet or Not To Tweet?

My SEO GAl's Blog: To Tweet or Not To Tweet?

To Tweet or Not To Tweet?

It seems like it's been a long time since the last time I posted. I definitely have a lot of things to cover but I don't want to push it.

So I'll start off with the topic that everyone seems to be talking about, including you most likely?

Twitter!

Twitter has taken the world by storm. Some do it ever so often, some do it often and some of you, I hate to say it, are down right OBSESSED!!!

You can find your local news channels on there, you can find the latest celebs on there and guess who else you can find!

GOOGLE!

That's right I said it. Google is now on Twitter.

Do I have your attention now?

Just a couple of weeks ago, Google joined the majority and signed up for a Twitter account and within a couple of hours they had over 20K followers.

That has got to be some tweet record or something.

So what is Twitter and what does that have to do with your business success online?

Well,

Twitter is a great place to meet new people and network with other business owners. It's like an online texting oasis.

Start by signing up with a Twitter account at www.twitter.com

Name your twitter account after you business.

Set up your profile and invite your friends from forums, clients, and family too to start following you.

When someone follows you, they will get to see what you are doing by your updates.

You can also find others to follow and 9 x's out of 10 they will follow you back. You can find people to follow by clicking on the Find People link at the bottom of Twitters website.

You post little comments about what you are doing. You can post anywhere from messages about adding new products to your website or How crappy your day as been.

Twitter is a great place to build your prospect list as well. You can post links to your site, maybe even a link to a special offer on your site or a link to somewhere on your site that you offer a free download. All they have to do is sign up for your free downloadable item or giveaway and you can collect their email address to build a relationship with via newsletters, discounts, promotions etc.

The trick is though. You don't want to post mainly about your business. You want to be as natural as possible. Post about your day, your opinions about the latest trends, about any recalls you may have heard etc..

I got a great tip from a fellow follower, stalkers I like to call them.

She suggested that you post your link in all of your messages. That way, people who are following you will start to go to your website if you have interesting updates. That has worked for me as well. So I am passing on that suggestion to you.

So to end this post. I definitely recommend joining Twitter. It can be very confusing at first but definitely a must if you are a business owner looking to network , increase traffic and hopefully make a sale or two, or three, or a hundred!

Like anything. It will take time building the number of followers. I suggest having more followers than you following more.

You can come stalk us at:

www.twitter.com/myseogal

or

www.twitter.com/wahmpub

Let me know if you have any questions!

Carla

And the Winners Are.....

We would like to say Congratulations to our 1st and 2nd place winners!

1st Place Winner:
WAHM Biz Tips
Winner of our SEO Package (20 Hours value $400.00)



2nd Place Winner:
Teacups and Mudpies
$100.00 Visa Gift Card

Congratulations to our runner ups as well. Each Runner up with receive a Best Dressed Website Award to proudly display on their site.

Runner ups (not listed in any particular order):

www.mypolishpotteryshopping.com








www.faithworksboutique.com



www.crybabyzboutique.com



www.miloscreations.com





www.therosebridge.com



www.twolittlewhales.com



www.couturebabyboutique.com



www.dreamscapesbaby.com