Don't Miss...

TODAY is the last day to pick up Michael Green's "How to
Become Stinking Rich Online". It certainly worked for him!
Worth a look if only to check out the outrageous lifestyle.
==> HowToBecomeStinkingRICHOnline.com
 
August 31st is ALSO the deadline to get a Free 30-day trial
for IMC's enormous 'Internet Marketing Secrets'
package. Get it now!
==> Mmarketingtip.com

I'm talking about 'Earning a Fortune Through Affiliate
Marketing' at a Free Teleseminar given by 2nd Wave Success
WED Sept 1, 2004 8:00–9:00 PM EST. Don't miss it!
==>

2nd Wave of Success

I'll be speaking at the JV Small Business/Home Business Expo
in Atlanta on October 1st, 2nd & 3rd. Be there!
==> JV Small Business/Home Business Expo

Ros Rants & Raves

Occasionally in our desire to build our web businesses
bigger, better and faster, we may overlook simple elements
that render our other efforts fruitless.

This week's feature article, 'Color Me Blue' is a true
story about just such a case, and how the problem was
solved.

Read it and prosper.

Cheers,
Rosalind

Rosalind Gardner is the Best-Selling Author of the "The
Super Affiliate Handbook:  How I Made $436,797 in ONE Year
Selling Other People's Stuff Online"

==> SuperAffiliateHandbook.com

Article: Color Me Blue

Chris, a new consulting client, asked me to help him
increase sales on his affiliate marketing site.

As he was describing his site and the problem, I thought,
"This is going to be a quick fix."

How wrong I was!

His site was excellent. Other than a few minor points, it
followed all my basic rules for a successful affiliate
marketing site.

The site was focused around a single theme in a profitable
niche, with an excellent selection of high-priced,
high-commission products.

Chris had gone the extra mile to have his site
professionally designed, and it was  simple, elegant and
user-friendly, employing consistent navigation and a nifty
database-driven search results system.

He was working directly with his merchant partners to create
ad copy that offered his visitors the best possible deals.

And he was advertising in the pay-per-click search engines
to drive tons of targeted traffic, and using hundreds of
keyword listings with brilliantly worded titles and
descriptions.

So, why on earth were his sales so low?

I knew I was picking at straws, but during our first
session, I made a host of recommendations for improvement,
which included:

- a domain name change
- a background color change
- reformatting the page table size
- rephrasing offers more positively
- adding relevant graphics and photos
- dropping poor performing merchants
- adding a newsletter
- adding new products
- redirecting non-buyers to additional offers

Chris implemented all my suggestions as well as a few of his
own. After giving the new version a few weeks to prove itself,
we scheduled our second teleconsulting session. I was
anxious to hear how well the site was now performing.

You can appreciate my dismay when Chris told me that his
sales had actually dropped!

Aargh!

I reviewed his site again, and it suddenly struck me...
he should try blue links!

Why?

Because web design convention suggests that links should be
blue, visited links purple and active links red. Although
nothing written in stone about link color, I believe that
those conventional colors should used whenever they
compliment site design.

I'd changed my own site links, Sage-Hearts.com, from
maroon to blue sometime before and noticed a nice
conversion rate increase.

Sure enough, that WAS the answer to Chris' site problems...

His conversions increased 1100% almost overnight JUST by
changing his link color to blue.

In addition to being underlined, people expect links to be
blue, and in some cases visitors may have problems with
sites that don't conform to their expectations.

With the average site visit lasting only about 8 seconds, we
don't have time to waste confusing our visitors with basic
site navigation.  Use blue links if possible to keep your
navigation instantly recognizable, unambiguous and
consistent.

Webmasters

Use the article above on your website or in your
publications. All you have to do is place the following
'resource box' after each article.

Article by Rosalind Gardner, best-selling author of the
'Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in ONE Year
Selling Other People's Products Online' and the "Net Profits
Coach" ezine, a straightforward and entertaining guide to
ebusiness. Learn from an expert. Go to:
http://RosalindGardner.com