What am I doing wrong?

[pops]

Hi Everyone,

I'm still a newbie, and maybe someone can give me some pointers. I've had this website up for a couple of months, and am getting some visitors.
In the last 6 weeks, I've had around 600 unique visitors, but only 5 sales.
I would think it would be better than this.
Obviously, my web site is not property converting traffic to customers. Oh, and I also have gotten only 7 subscribers to my newsletter.
Any suggestions on what I can do differently?
Thanks in advance for all your help.
I've learned a lot in this forum.
Thanks, Ros, for providing it for us.

[Iain Williams]

Hi Pops

I would say that that conversion ratio is pretty good for the industry you are targetting. 5 sales out of 600 visitors equates to 1/120. So for every 120 visits you are getting a sale.

Obviously I don't know where you are getting your traffic from but you just need more. The quickest way to do this is PPC (pay per click) but you need to keep an eye on how much you spend to get a decent profit return.

Looking on your site I would say you could do with more links to your sponsors and try having some nearer the top of your page.

Most of your sponsor links seem to be at the bottom of the page, which is fine but my approach is to get them to my site and either off to a sponsor as soon as poss or push them to join my newsletter early on.

You have obviously put a lot of effort into the site because there are a lot of pages of information. But perhaps another approach would be to have a smaller site and push people into joining your newsletter and then give them the information in your newsletter instead. You can then include sponsor links in your e-mail.

Just some food for thought, hope it helps

[sellportal]

Hi Cliff,

I agree with what Iain wrote and I would like to add acouple of things.


1. What is your purpose of the site. To get signups? To make sales? To teach? There's no problems to have several goals, but choose the most important and make sure it is shown well.

2. Move the text in red ("Please note: Links that leave this ...") ontop of the pages away from your premium space. Use this space to promote your primary goal with headlines.

3. Eh, I might have been in a hurry, but I couldn't find anything to buy (like a product). I saw cbmall and some affiliate programs and you may have counted a refferal sale as a "pure sale" in your conversion and to almost get a 1% conversion on your site, you're doing great. Moving around some things and formatting pages so that "sales links" either are standing out better or have the "sales links" written into the text near the top and all out the text will increase your sales.

4. Singups. Move the signup box closer to the top. Format it with a box in contrasting colors and make a bullit list with "what they get" or "why they should sign up" close to it. But make sure you decide what should be the primary goal sell <--> signup (or somehting else) as that should be shown most prominently at the top.

That was a lot of text but I really think you have a very nice site Cliff.

So let the tweaking, tracking and testing begin!

Kenth

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hey Pops,

I think your site is absolutely great! Lots of really good information there, and written by YOU, from YOUR perspective. Love it! Well done!

Iain is correct that your conversion ratio is about industry average, which is fabulous for just starting out. Give yourself a pat on the back.

You can and will improve those ratios over time.

The only recommendations I'd make are perhaps to 'tighten' it up a little, maybe give it a little 'edge'.

The almost baby blue background doesn't scream 'rich', 'professional' or 'business' to me and it blends a little too much with your header graphic which is really quite good.

I'd left align the links in your right side navigation and put them together for less scrolling.

I think I'd like to see bolder Headings, without the underlining and probably in a color other than black. Maybe pick up the nice dark blue from your header graphic.

I know we were all taught that titles need to be underlined, but the rules have changed. Only links should be underlined on web sites.

Adding a few graphic images of the products should help. Put them fairly close to the top of the page.

This is a change in my perspective, but I've been trying it of late and it seems to work - sprinkle links to both your affiliate programs and other pages on your site through the text. Not TOO many, but a few to let people know there is more where that came from.

Hope that helps and keep up the good work!

Cheers,
Ros

[pops]

Thank you all for your help and suggestions; Iain, Sellportal, and Ros.
Maybe I am doing at least a couple of things right after all.
You know, I was 21 years in the Military. I have been shot at and missed and crapped at and hit (figuratively speaking, of course) a lot more times than I care to count. It wasn't always pretty, but it was always exciting. I retired from that life nearly 15 years ago. I now have a desk job at a major insurance company and I am bored to tears. That's why I needed something to get my teeth into. I have not been stimulated at all since leaving the Military but I gotta tell ya......Ros, your encouraging words had me feelin' like an 8 year old on Christmas Eve. I am totally jazzed, finally, once again. Thank you, thank you. I am busy revamping the pages right now, putting your suggestions into practice. I am working toward one heck of a ride with this thing and I expect to get it.
Thanks again.

[sellportal]

Cliff,

The military teaches a lot of good things that can be used in business!

Disciplin, being orderly and take action.

Very good stuff for internet and online marketing.

You seem to have it all and more!

Objective, Offensive, Mass, Economy of forces, Maneuver, Unity of effort, Simplicity!

Plan it and then execute and you'll get this working in no time!

Kenth

[Rosalind Gardner]

Hey Pops,

'Jazzed' is good, glad I could help.

There isn't much point to doing a thing unless one is 'jazzed' about it.

I get pretty jazzed about most everything I do, with perhaps the exception of doing dishes. That makes my hands wet, and wet hands on a keyboard isn't recommended.

Cheers,
Ros