Forums: Discussions for entrepreneurs and small business.

Hello all, I am looking for ideas about how to increase my sales of my scholarship guide that I'm selling on my website, http://www.how2winscholarships.com.

I created the site with webs.com.  It is a paid site.  I sell 2-3 guides per week and am making some nice money with google adsense.  I created the site about 3 months ago and have been promoting it like crazy online ever since.  I also email high school guidance counselors regularly and have gotten some sales through that method.

I was told once that my site had too much print, so I condensed it.  I don't know what to eliminate to condense it further.  I have been regularly posting on my blog.  I get an average of 50 visitors each day, but most of them don't stay for too long (average bounce rate is about 67%).  I'd really appreciate some feedback and suggestions on how I can increase my sales by improving my site.   Thanks!  Monica

There is a percentage of the people who visit your website that are not your target customer, and will not ever be in the market for your product. You really have two separate issues:

1) How to increase the conversion from visitor to customer

2) How to increase the total traffic from members of your target market

If you will attack each of these objectives separately, I think you will be able to increase your overall sales.

Best regards,

Molly Donaldson

It looks as though your "Call to Action" (which is for the site visitor to order the PDF or CD) is lost in the site.  You do have a lot of content - that is good.  But, I think the way in which it is displayed is distracting from what the site visitor is supposed to do.  Also, I'm surprised you would have Google Ads on your site.  Why would you want to push site visitors away from your site to other scholarship sites?  The goal is to have the site visitor order from your site - right??  The first thing I see on your site are links to other sites (the Google Ads).  I understand why you have them on your site, but I would recommend placing them on the bottom or right hand side of your site as to not be so prominant.

Also, I recommend a stronger call to action - Order NOW!!!!  You should also have an email signup somewhere.  Give exclusive free tips via email.  And in that email, push for the purchase of your PDF or CDs.  There are a number of ways to automate this.  Where you would not have to think of new content on a monthly basis.  If you're interested, contact me and we can discuss in greater detail.

Have you considered some online advertising such as on Facebook or other social networking sites targeting your demographic?  Pay-per-click campaigns are excellent and easy to track conversions from click to sale.

Hope this is helpful.

Thanks for the great advise!

I just spent the last few hours changing my site.  What do you guys think?  Is it better?

http://www.how2winscholarships.com  

Ugly, hard to read fonts.

There's a lot of room for improvement in your selling copy.  You're leaving most of the money on the table with this site.  It's just not up to snuff.

Since you're actually selling your guide that's a good indication the market is really there, because you make this site very hard to read and comprehend with your layout choices.

Hmmmmm....ok, I can take it.

Can you give me some specific ideas about what needs to be changed?

Also, I don't understand what your last paragraph means.  Can you tell me more, please?

Two immediate visual problems are immediately apparent.

1. Times New Roman is a lousy font for websites, since it is difficult to read. Arial was designed for web use. The use of any sans serif font would greatly improve readability.

2. The dark gray background with diagonal lines is atrocious. A much lighter, plain background would look much better. As Loren mention, the font sizes are inconsistent and should be used in a better manner.

The 'Recent Blog Entries' area is in prime real estate. Better to have just a link on the nav bar to the blog and use the area for the downloads you are selling.

The 'newest members' area means nothing to a website visitor. That is typically seen on blogs, but not on professional websites.  If something won't help them buy, get rid of it.

You have far too many references to yourself: the terms "I" and "my" are a turnoff. Use terms like 'The How To Win College Scholarships Guide' instead of "my guide".

Finally, take advantage of heatmap analysis to see where your site visitors actually go. Tools like ClickTale and Crazy Egg will help. Also look at attentionwizard.com for a simulated heatmap. Good luck

LBMarketing, thanks so much for the easy to understand suggestions!  I am going to take each one seriously and make the changes to my site.  Thanks again!!!  Monica