Online selling is by no means a simple task. To sell products online not only requires making use of high end marketing strategies but also involves lots of planning. This article is meant for those of you who intent to start an online store. It is intended to give you a fair idea of what you would need to do and what you need to avoid while planning an online selling business.

The following are the various steps that you would need to take in order to open a successful online store

1.) Designing a website that sells

The first most important aspect of online selling is to have a professional looking website that is designed to sell. You can go about creating the website from code up using web designers or simply go for readymade website templates. If you are purchasing website templates, be sure to go for templates that are professionally designed and have the option of shopping carts. Buying templates from providers who offer allied services like template customization, web hosting; SEO etc would be even better. Some template providers like ‘buytemplates.net’ offer allied services irrespective of where you actually purchased the template from. To get a rough idea of how your site should be designed you can take hints from successful discount online stores like http://www.ishopage.com, ‘gap.com’ and ‘bestbuy.com’.

2.) Hosting your store online

There are many factors that you need to take into consideration before selecting your web host when it comes to online selling. Some of the major factors are discussed as follows.

a.) Secure servers

Firstly you got to make sure if your web host offers you with SSL encryption which is very important for secure money transactions online. Most web hosting companies would offer you with SSL secure server facilities along with a regular package whereas a few would charge you an extra amount for the service.

b.) Up time guarantees

Your business is only as good as it remains online. Make sure to go for web hosting service providers who promise you an uptime guarantee of 99 %. Also check to see as to how they back up their data and what kind of back up systems they have in place in case of emergencies.

c.) Private CGI-BIN

A CGI-BIN directory is a location on your web server where you can upload your binary scripts or interactive programs. This is very important for payment processing and shopping cart management. So be sure that the hosing company gives you a private CGI BIN directory.

d.) Web logs and web statistics

Web logs and statistics are vital for your online business. Studying the web logs can give you much needed information about your customers and your sales records. Understanding your customer behavior can help you retain customers and attract new customers.

e.) Customer support

Get as much information about the hosting company’s support policies and the type of support they offer. Go for web hosting companies that offer 24/7 customer support.

f.) References

Most web hosts promise you lots of goodies but may not live up to it. Make sure to test the web host’s credibility by asking them for references. The existing customers of the hosting company can give your first hand information on the service that you can expect to get.

In addition to this you should also look for services that offer you Mysql database and PHP scripting, unlimited emails and a minimum space of 10GB.

3.) Deciding on shopping carts

If you are selling more than a handful of products then having a shopping cart on your site is a good idea. You have three major options of getting yourself an online shopping cart. First one is buying a shopping cart software program; the second is using services of an ASP and the third is programming it yourself.

Your best option as a beginner would be to go for ASP services. These services are cheap and come with flexible options. As time passes and you online business develops, you can hire programmers to design yourself a customized shopping cart or buy shopping cart software programs that can be set up in your server. Some good ASP’s that offer shopping cart services are ‘SecureNetShop’ (SecureNetShop.com) and ‘GoEmerchant’ (GoEmerchant.com).

Shopping cart software programs are a costly option for beginners and can cost you anything between $ 150 – $ 800. Some good shopping cart software programs are ‘shopfactory 6′ (shopfactory.com) and ‘storefront’ (strorefront.net)

One more option as already discussed above is making use of ecommerce website templates. These ecommerce templates have pre installed shopping cart systems and can help you set up a store in minutes. Some of these template providers also offer template customization services that would allow you to get your ordinary templates in selling modules.

4.) Deciding on how to accept payments

No matter what the speculation, credit cards are still the best way to accept payments. So make sure that your online business has facilities to accept credit cards. There was a time when you had to have a merchant account from a bank or financial institution to process credit card payments. But today there are enough options available that allow you to accept credit card payments even without a merchant account.

Paypal (paypal.com) is perhaps the best payment gateway and has no initial joining fees. Their service fees, per-transaction is very low and they allow you to accept payments from all over the world. In addition to Paypal some other good payment gateways are ’2checkout’ (2checkout.com), ‘clickbank’ (clickbank.com) and ‘paysystems’ (paysystems.com).

Payment options other than credit cards

It is by no means necessary that all your customers will have credit cards. As a matter of fact many of your customers don’t have credit cards, many don’t like to use credit cards, many have credit card phobias and the remaining may not wish to share their credit card information online. Under such a situation it would be best for you to provide alternate payment options.

Internet checks

Internet checks are as popular as credit cards when it comes to paying online. Internet checks are comparatively safer and are best if your customers are from international destinations. This technique would involve your customer’s to make payments by an online blank check provided by an internet check service provider. This information is sent to the service provider for authorization. The merchant can also print the check on his printer immediately afterwards. Some good service providers who can offer you internet check services are paybycheck (paybycheck.com) and cross-check (cross-check.com).

In addition to internet checks there are some other options of accepting online payments like money orders and electronic checks. But these methods are suitable only if your customers are from nearby locations.

The best way to decide your payment options is analyzing your customer behaviors. You can also have online check boxes or feedback forms on your website to collect information about your customer’s payment preferences and act accordingly.

5.) Promoting your online store

No promotion equals to no sales. You can promote your store using online marketing strategies like search engine optimization, email marketing, banner advertisements and affiliate marketing among others. While promoting your business you got to make sure to stay clear of any kind of illegal methods like spamming, cloaking etc. Your promotion activities should create a positive awareness about your online store that leads to trust building.

6.) Assuring your Customers

The customer is the king and just as in any other type of business here again you need to give your customer what he wants. To do this you got to be sure of your customer’s preferences. Basically you need to address the following doubts that your customers are likely to have in their mind while buying online

a.) Is my credit information safe?
b.) How will the products be delivered to me and how long will it take?
c.) Are their any additional costs associated with the item?
d.) What kind of guarantees come with the product?
e.) Are there any discounts if I purchase multiple goods?
f.) What kind of customer service does the online shop have?
g.) What happens in case the goods are damaged or of low quality?

These questions in particular and many more questions in general can arise in the minds of your customers depending on the type of your products and your online store reputation. You can address these issues by providing valuable information in your FAQ section. Providing an online live chat on your website would be a great way to deal with your customer queries. There are many services that offer free online chat software programs; for instance ‘boldchat’ (boldchat.com).

Even after all this is over there is no word like ‘remaining stagnant’ in online marketing. You got to keep on moving and adapting yourself to newer technologies and better marketing techniques to stay ahead and abreast of all those pesky competitors.

http://www.bizbrim.com is an information portal that offers quality information on topics like outsourcing, mortgage, education, email marketing, affiliate marketing, hotels and travel.

The largest cost and concern of an internet business is customer acquisition; traffic. Both quantity and quality of traffic directly determines the succes of an internet business. By the fundamental nature of traffic to an online business,one cannot afford to waste it.

So how does traffic wastage occur?

Customers are acquired by driving prospects to your virtual point of sale. At this point, usually a web page, the prospects are engaged to take the desired response. The desired response varies from change of attitude for a newsletter, to purchase of a product for a sales webpage.

This desired response occurs towards the end of the Pschology of Search. Prospect searches particular information, they see something that interests them, they view it and then they decide its relevance to them. They then take the most appropriate action, click the back button or take the desired action.

Generally speaking, Click through Rate (CTR) average 2% for internet marketing. This would be the average for Search engines, Pay per Clicks (PPC) all the way to Free classified Ads and banners. Of course for each specific media it varies significantly. However for illustration purposes lets use 2% CTR.

So, only 2% of prospects flagged down stop to give attention to be engaged. These prospects are interested. Of every 100 of this interested prospects, only 1% may be converted to take the desired response the first time.

Eric Mollink of Businessmaker.info had a real experience of this numbers. He says , they made a killer grab attention email which sent the prospects directly to their website. The mail was sent at midnight and by morning the had 400 hits, a 40% response rate. But no one signed for their program. And there was no way of knowing who the visitors were. had they been able to follow up with the 400,based on previous records, they would have closed at last 30% of the 400.

In essence, taking the previous assumed example, for every 10,000 people that see an Ad or Listing, only 200 will give attention enough to engage them. And the CR would stand at 1% i.e 2 sales or subscriptions.

After being able to get the attention of 200 prospects, 198 will be lost.

Reasons for not acting as desired vary widely. Though it would be correct to say a number were not sold. Meaning some prospects were convinced but not converted. They consequently did not respond as desired due to overcome-able objections. Those converted are those in a sellable state of mind at the time.

Remember sales is 90% emotion and 10% logic. If both strings are not methodically, systematically and sufficiently harped on, there is no sale.

Unfortunately internet presentation are unlike face to face sales presentation, where the pitch is actively adapted to the prospect’s moods(emotions) and objections(logic).

Therefore huge looses of engaged prospects will always occur due to this inflexibility. And once a potential customer is lost, they are gone, probably forever. You will then have lost precious traffic. To get them again, if ever, you will need to pay for them again, if using PPC.

Repeated contact or follow up on prospects may actually increase the total CR and consequently sales. Follow up allows a 2nd, 3rd… chance to find a prospect in a sellable state of mind.

For first time buyers, it gives 2nd ,3rd… chance to sell them again on a different product. This increases the value of the customer from one product a year to two products a year.

The best means of follow up in the internet is email. A mailing list of your prospects makes it cheaper to market to them a 2nd, 3rd… time. It also increases the chances of selling more of them, a higher CR.

With this kind of opportunity, advantages further reflect on profitability. This is simply due to the fact that there is no further cost associated with customer acquisition every time there is need to to do a follow up. With customer acquisition costs down, there is significant reduction in the cost of doing business, resulting in higher profits.

Otherwise, with no mailing list, everytime you would want to do a follow up you would pay for the prospect. Everytime you introduce a new product to your first time buyers you would pay.

Email capture is therefore no trivial matter.

Email capture is the ability of your site to get name and email address of your prospect.

Indeed you will find successful internet businesses owning a mailing list and doing some sort of publishing.

Predictability of income of a site depends on number of customers, as well as the trust the customer have on that site. Numbers of customers are developed by CTR and CR. Trust on the other hand is not easily developed on the first sitting.

Repeat contact does offer a platform to subtly create this trust.

Publishing for mailing purposes may be a reservation for some. However email capture dosen’t necessarily translate into publishing of an e-zine or a newsletter. There other ways of warming prospects to an offer. Use of sweepstakes, low price and promotion alerts etc. all of which are not periodicals. These can assist in building credibility and trust. At the same time, if well done, keeps your p[product “top of the mind” in the prospects mind. Next time the product is mentioned, it is no longer a stranger to them.

With an email list from email capture a chance is given to further develop perceived value of the product. This can incredibly increase sales. Majority of prospects take time to get convinced. They take more time to get converted. With their email addresses one can follow up on them until they are sold. Best of all there are cost of contacting the prospect, of course that is if the list is not rented.

In summary email capture allows for email marketing which can increase CR and profits, both by increasing sales as well as eliminating wastage of traffic and repeated purchase of same prospects.

Resources for opt-in mailing list for rentals such as PostMaster Direct are used by large organization. Other such resources include Me-mail, Advertising.com, Bullet mail, E-target and Ht mail.

Similarly there are innovative email capture systems. Below is an example of a free email capture system exclusivelly for internet business people, www.Opportunity.Com. Such a system can be used by netpreneurs to multiply their “paid for prospects”. At the same time they could build a reasonable mailing list accesible for targeted email marketing.

Email capture is both an effective means of avoiding traffic wastage and if used correctly, an effective marketing tool.

Copyright (c) 2004 Mark Kimathi

Below is Mark Kimathi’s recomendation for email capture,
http://www.opportunity.com/r/sitebuildit

Customers are tough cookies. They’re extremely media aware
and increasingly cynical – it’s a clever marketeer who can
get under their skin. Online surveys reinvent the
traditional format and offer a unique way of interaction -
all the benefits of the internet without the programming.

Here are ten reasons why they may be the silver bullet
marketeers’ need, complete with examples supplied by Martin
Day, managing director of Survey Galaxy – one of a new
breed of websites making online surveys quicker and cheaper

1. It’s cheap as buttons

Select the right survey website and creating surveys can be
free of any charge and the cost to publish is minimal.
Useful information harvested from surveys can be reused and
repackaged in other marketing and PR for use in press
outlets making it a very efficient form of information
gathering.

2. It’s easy peasy

Anyone can develop an online survey. Survey sites allow
people who are interested in the benefits of surveys, rather
than technicalities, to side-step the required programming
skills and create relevant up-to-the-minute surveys,
instantly – surveys that are even easier to complete than
they are to make.

3. Anyone can play

Once the survey is online it’s a simple step to promote it,
either through email (with a link enclosed), via a link
from a website or referenced by other forms of advertising.
Anyone who has the link can be connected instantly to the
survey, at a time that’s convenient to them, 24×7.

4. We’ve all got an opinion – and we like to give it

Customers like surveys – they’re not seen as spam, but as
an empowering opportunity to make their voice heard and a
chance to have an impact on a brand. They can be
particularly good for broaching sensitive subjects with
concerned employees; a survey asking a workforce on their
opinion of change allows the key issues to be raised in a
positive way and encourages employee participation. Online
surveys allow the message to reach each individual and
invite feedback in a manageable form.

5. Get inside their heads

You can lead a customer to an advertisement but you can’t
make them think. Surveys actively engage the respondents,
who think about the question before giving their response.

6. Beautiful relationships start here

It needn’t all end at the end of the survey – while you
have their attention and are in the mood you can ask if
they want to sign up for more information or a regular
newsletter – making the most of the window when you have
their interest.

7. If you like this, you’ll love?

Perhaps one of the strongest elements in a survey is the
ability to make inspired or useful connections instantly
to other areas. By including links within the survey to
websites that offer detailed information you are able to
reinforce the marketing message.

8. Subtly does it

Surveys can be used to associate a product with positive
attributes. By listing the many features of a product and
asking the respondent how important they are, regardless
of their response, the product will be associated with
the features; if they are rated as important the positive
impact is endorsed by the customer.

9. It’s not just about selling

A survey is an effective, quick and easy method to
promote and gain acceptance for a difficult proposal;
maybe a public body trying to gain acceptance and support
for a particular scheme. Take the example of a city
trying to gain support from the general public for their
bid to host a future Olympic Games. A survey can explain
each benefit putting the respondent in a much better
position to appreciate what the real advantages are that
might just combat any negative headlines. As well as
promoting the cause, useful feedback is gained that can
be used to fine tune the overall marketing strategy.

10. Fresh topics engage interest

Thinking laterally a lively and imaginative approach to
surveys can provide the ‘hook’ to engage respondents. The
survey subject can be focused towards a particular group
on a subject close to theirs hearts. The survey’s
marketing message can take the form of a simple brand
awareness message by stating that ‘this survey was
sponsored by brand name’, or by finding a link from the
subject matter to the product – something that is
surprisingly easy and highly effective. Discover the
benefits of including in your website a Public Survey
section as many people who enjoy completing crosswords and
doing word puzzles enjoy completing surveys. Having a
public survey notice board as part of a website is a low
cost and automated method that helps to increase traffic
and establish a loyal and returning following. Unlike
discussion boards there is no opportunity for people to
disrupt the site by inappropriate remarks as the survey
results are displayed in summary form enabling them to
dispense with moderators free and maintenance.

Many of the techniques and a few more to boot are
contained in the following sample survey:-

http://www.surveygalaxy.com/surPublishes.asp?survey_id=956

About Author: Martin Day is owner of Survey Galaxy Ltd.

What a loaded question! Let’s narrow that down a bit and take it from the perspective of someone who wants to work from home and make money online in a home business. That will make it an easier question to answer.
Let’s assume you’ve never had a website, don’t know how to get a merchant account, don’t know html, and are pretty much stuck with being an expert on sending and receiving email.

What’s there for you to do online to make money? Lots, in fact! These days are not at all like a couple of years ago or even six months ago. If I only had all the opportunities to make money online when I started marketing!

Here is a list of things you can do with just a website and a hosting account today:

Sell affiliate products (products like reports, ebooks, hard goods of every conceivable make, model, size, shape and function, and much, much more). Sell services (do you know how big a business being a Virtual Assistant is these days? It’s quite amazing what you can do for people without ever meeting them face-to-face, anywhere in the world!) Online auctions (Ebay has made thousands and thousands of people full-time incomes from auctioning collectibles, antiques, and even brand new equipment and gadgets of all imaginable types. You name it, it has been sold on Ebay!) Membership sites: Know of any groups of people that would love to get insider information on virtually any topic? You could make money online with a membership site!

The list is a long one and one I am not prepared to detail here. You have found your way onto the net and if you have been surfing for very long at all you know it is a gigantic super shopping mall. Who to you think is making the most money online? Aside from big corporations, most of the web is made up of sites put up by little businesses people work from home.

I sell information and I love it. Most of the products I sell are other merchants’ products. I just drive traffic to my site, provide information, and point to relevant products related to the information I provide people looking for a way to make money online. I love helping people make their first few sales.

After that, they are always hooked and cannot do enough to learn everything there is to know about how to make money online. Many people I have worked with now have a couple to several websites selling everything from reports to hard goods that can be shipped direct to their customers. Most people start out to make money online as affiliates of certain products or authors. This is a great way to get your feet wet and learn what making money online is all about. People then either work to create their own products (which they get 100% of the profits from) or expand their website into other related niches.

Darrell Knox is a writer and entrepreneur with 15 years of home business and marketing experience.Website: http://cgi.tripod.com/lazaraus26/cgi-bin/index.pl

An internet business is by far the best way to support yourself if you just cannot stand working for others for less money than you need to survive. It’s also the best way to get out of a good paying job that just takes up too much of your precious short life working for someone else.
Let’s face it, you probably know someone who has an internet business. Do they look happy to you? Do they complain as much about work and money as you do? Probably not.

This is not to say that you should quit your job and start an internet business. You should start one while you still have your job. Some people complain that this is hard and takes up too much of their free time. In the beginning a internet business is not profitable – you have to work at it like anything else.

Some people eventually go back to work blaming some program or internet business opportunity that wasted their time and didn’t work. Unfortunately, the odds are actually that they didn’t work hard enough and stick to their dreams. Many people allow themselves to believe that there are no legitimate internet businesses. It’s easier to go to work thinking this than to let themselves believe that an internet business is possible, profitable, and liberating.

But if you truly believe there are no good internet businesses, that they are all scams, then what are the thousands of people doing everyday in your hometown driving around during work hours?

You know the ones. The people you see on your day off that are driving around and standing in line in places you frequent on your days off. They can’t ALL be on their days off too! You have wondered, just like I did, what it is these people do. I know you have.

Many of them have their own internet business. Many of the people you see at the post office who know the clerks by first name are shipping packages of goods they sold on auction at Ebay or their own websites.

The cars parked in the county clerk’s office in your home town. Some are employees there, but not all of them. Many of the people coming and going from that office in your town (during business hours when everyone should be working, right?) are real estate brokers, or no money down buyers and sellers looking up local property information.

Internet business owners are all around you, everyday. The internet business industry is quite literally booming and is getting larger exponentially by the month.

The worst thing you could ever do to yourself, that is a life-altering belief system, is let yourself believe it is all a scam or that there is no room for YOUR creativity and YOUR value as a internet business owner of any kind!

Take me for instance! I own my own internet business and I sell information, business tools for internet business people, and services of all kinds. I work from home. I am one of those people you see during the week driving around town while you wonder what it is I do for a living. Nice to meet you!

Darrell Knox is a writer and entrepreneur with 15 years of home business and marketing experience.Website: http://cgi.tripod.com/lazaraus26/cgi-bin/index.pl

So you want to start a business? Good for you. Really, I mean that sincerely. I think about the millions of people that let the thought pass briefly through their minds on he way to work everyday.

The vas majority of people merely toy with the idea at points in their lives when they hate their bosses or their pay or their lack of vacation time. You, on the other hand, are investigating what it takes o start a business. At least you are going to find the answers here and stop wasting time wondering “what if.”

It is very easy to start a business if you do it on the internet. You have little overhead involved, no rent, not even products to stock (if you sell electronic goods)!

What’s more, there are literally thousands of people marketing other peoples’ products as “affiliates.” You can literally start a business using other peoples’ stock, property, know-how, services, and goods.

I know people who are making astounding amounts of money monthly just selling products that don’t even belong to them. I would tell you figures, but you’d never in a million years believe me.

How creative can you be? Well, here’s a little story of a guy who started a business online in one of the most unusual ways I have heard of in a long time.

You remember the deck of cards that the U.S. government created with the top 50 most wanted terrorists? Saddam Hussein was the Ace of Spades, if you recall.

Someone I know of got a hold of a distributor for those cards, and asked if they would take orders from him and ship orders to his customers. He then set up a website, joined Google’s Adwords program where you pay-per-click on your ad, and made $12,000.00 in ONE WEEK selling decks of cards with terrorists on them as souvenirs!

You think you can’t start a business on the internet? Think again! If a guy can make $12,000 a week selling souvenirs, you can certainly find products to sell or even create your own.

Most people start making money online as affiliates. This way you sell other peoples’ products and you get a commission for referring sales to them. All you need for this is some great products to affiliate with, a website, a host for your site, and you have everything you need!

Take my site for instance. I sell other peoples’ products and services and I love it. If you start a business like mine, there is no need to stock any products, get a merchant account, or deal with customer service. The product owners take care of all that.

Never in the history of mankind has it been easier or cheaper to start a business. If you want it, go for it!

Darrell Knox is a writer and entrepreneur with 15 years of home business and marketing experience.Website: http://cgi.tripod.com/lazaraus26/cgi-bin/index.pl

If you learn how other people make money online, I mean really study how it’s done and ask a lot of questions, there is no reason in the world you cannot make money on the internet as well.

How do people make money with websites? There are literally tens of thousands of things people make money on from the net. From hard goods of all kinds (anything that can be shipped, including cars and boats!) to information and memberships.

People make money selling insurance, car parts, reports on every imaginable topic people want to know more about, selling affiliate products, and even fundraising for charity!

That’s right! People make money helping their favorite charities raise money. By creating an in-demand product for a charity to sell to their members, and letting them keep at least 50%, you can make money as a professional fundraiser.

I know someone who makes money selling a dog biscuit and dog food cookbook! That’s right, a cookbook for dog lovers to make treats for their pets. I told you! Anything goes on the net as long as there are buyers looking for what you sell.

It’s truly mind boggling how some people make money online. You just have to be creative and understand how the net works and how people shop online. You have to know how to get into the search engines so people can find you.

And most of all you need a couple good ideas, or find other people with great ideas and sell THEIR stuff for commission! There is no excuse for failure – the world of internet marketing is your oyster!

There are tons of resource sites that can help you understand every single minute detail of making money online from setting up a website to choosing a hosting service to taking credit cards and filling orders. There’s nothing else like it in the world.

I have a site that helps people find ways to make money online. I make money with information products, and help others learn how to make money online doing the same thing.

Some people make money on Ebay auctioning things people are searching for right now all over the world. Still other people sell their time as Virtual Assistants helping busy executives and other business owners complete mundane but important tasks the business owner has no time to do.

With some referrals, over time you can be busier than you ever imagined with clients beating down your door because they heard you do great work at reasonable rates. All this without ever meeting ANY of your clients face-to-face. Working online makes working for people in other countries a snap, as long as you speak the language, it’s no different than if the person you sell to or work with lives right down the street.

Bottom line: You CAN make money online if you are the type of person who is a self-starter and motivated to work toward your goals even when the going gets tough.

Darrell Knox is a writer and entrepreneur with 15 years of home business and marketing experience. Website: http://cgi.tripod.com/lazaraus26/cgi-bin/index.pl

I have written at length about the need to anticipate your visitors’ needs. I have talked about how the first screen of the homepage needs to connect immediately and directly with the task each visitor has on his or her mind. I have talked about finding the search words and phrases people use to find your site, so you can use these same words on your homepage. And so on and so on.

And I think it is all good advice. When visitors arrive at your site for the first time, the best outcome you can hope for is that they think, “Excellent, I’m in exactly the right place. I can find what I’m looking for right here.”

The problem is, the more you write the page to suit the needs of the reader, the less character it has.

There is a danger that you will become like that person at a party who roams from group to group, agreeing with everyone and simply reflecting back everyone’s opinions and views. People like that are boring and ultimately very irritating. They never risk expressing opinions of their own.

The same thing can happen with a website. The more you try to please people, the thinner the character of your company or organization becomes.

The web has always been a place where strong views and opinions are highly valued. Think about the newsletters you subscribe to and the discussion lists you take part in. The most valuable contributions are those that express real character, where people take a strong position and are not afraid to express it and stand by it.

So there is a balance here. Yes, write your homepage to appeal to the reader, but also let some of the character of your organization shine through. This doesn’t mean adding the mission statement, or shoveling the latest corporate sound bites onto your site. Heaven forbid.

But you can express some character. You can say what you believe. You can take a position and let people know what you stand for, and what you stand against.

The benefit? You’ll differentiate your site from others in the same space. You’ll stand out from the crowd. You’ll be recognized. You’ll earn respect for taking a position. You’ll catch people’s attention. You’ll make them want to tell their friends and colleagues about your site.

You don’t have to take it to extremes. You simply need to write in a recognizable voice.

Enough to set you apart from the ordinary.

Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocat of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his Excess Voice site. You’ll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at his Freelance Writing Success site.

Much of my consulting work comprises writing ‘Outside Opinion’ reports on the sites of large companies and organizations. Sometimes I review just a few pages, sometimes fifty or more.

I’m just finishing one up now and have recognized a thread that is common to many of reports.

Here is what I have noticed: On many sites we are too slow to ‘get to the meat’. Too much rambling and introduction on each page.

One of the things I do in each report is create some ‘copywriter layouts’ of key site pages. I do my critique, and then provide some sample page designs to give the client an idea of how I see each page; the key messages, the key actions etc.

But here’s the thing: I create just the first screen, not the whole page.

And within that first screen I make sure that everything that NEEDS to be said is said. I make sure the key messages are prominent. And I include one or more directions or calls-to-action.

How do I manage to get all the important points within one screen? I focus on what the visitor is expecting and hoping to find on the page. For that first screen I spend a lot of time trying to anticipate the frame of mind of the visitor. I know they are coming to the page with some task in mind. They are looking for something, some kind of answer. I either provide the answer as high up on the page as possible, or give clear choices and direction to help them click through to where they’ll find what they want.

When you look at it that way, one screen isn’t such a small space. It becomes small only when too much attention is given to promoting, explaining and applauding the company or organization. It becomes crowded when too many stakeholders are fighting for space.

And yes, I provide links starting with active verbs and get them into that first screen as well.

If someone finds what they want right there, I want to allow them to click through without having to scroll and search.

If someone is still one or two levels away from finding what they need, I want to get them on their way as quickly as possible.

When you keep the visitor at the front of your mind…when you recognize and understand what they are looking for…you’ll serve them best by getting to the ‘meat’ as quickly as possible and providing them with the links they need.

–

Article Resource: Find out more about my Outside Opinion service here.

Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocat of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his Excess Voice site. You’ll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at his Freelance Writing Success site.

This may not be a popular view, but I think writing a web site is very similar to writing a piece of direct mail. I’m not talking about smash-and-grab fliers. I’m talking about those large mailings with brochures, a four or eight-page letter and a reply card.

And no, I’m not saying that the experience or the approach is identical. There are numerous differences too. But the similarities are significant, and can guide us in how we write for the web.

Here are some similarities:

1. We can guess that our conversion rate will be pretty low. In the area of one to two percent. More, if we do a good job.

2. We have very little control over the sequence in which people will read the information we provide.

With a direct mail piece, people might start with the letter, or the brochure. And who knows where their attention will settle first within either one. You never really know which part of a direct mail brochure people will read first. And the same goes for a web site. (If you have ever sat in on a web site usability test, you know what I mean. Sometimes it’s hard to figure out why people choose particular links or pathways through a site.)

3. We know we are losing readers at every stage of the process and have to write in a way that is clear, engaging and compelling.

This is very true for both direct mail and web sites. Of the hundred people who start reading, we will lose the interest and attention of almost all of them before the ‘task’ is completed.

4. We can identify significant ‘danger points’ when it comes to losing a reader.

In a direct mail piece we know we lose readers at the end of pages…at the end of page one of a four-page letter for instance. Or after someone has completed reading a page in a brochure.

Online, we know we are losing readers when they read or skim a page and don’t click forward one step closer to completing a task.

5. We know that we lose a significant number of people at the point of completing an application or purchase. They get that far and then back away at the last moment. This is very true for both direct mail and the web.

Now for one very significant difference between direct mail writers and web writers.

Direst mail copywriters KNOW all this and write accordingly.

- A direct marketing copywriter pays very close attention to the end of each page in a letter, writing in a way to pull people forward to the next page.

- A direct marketing copywriter looks through years of test results to write an application or purchase form that will yield the best results. (As does the DM designer.)

- A direct marketing copywriter writes in a way that is deliberately and carefully both compelling and informative.

A complex product takes several pages to sell. Knowing that, a copywriter needs to cover a lot of information for readers with a very fragile level of attention. The writer has to write in a way that is fluid, engaging, informative and persuasive.

- A direct marketing copywriter knows that key benefits and offers need to be repeated throughout the package. When you know that most readers don’t read every word, you need to repeat key messages so that everyone gets to read them more than once.

What’s my point?

I have two points to make.

First, there is a degree of sophistication in writing good direct mail that is rarely evident online yet. DM writers understand the nature of their medium and their readers in minute detail. At least, the good ones do.

However, online, while the quality of writers may be good, the sophistication with which they apply their craft just can’t compete right now.

For instance, it’s very rare to find a web page where you can see how carefully the writer and designer have worked together to maximize the number of people who click forward to another page.

In time, all this will change. It’s just a factor of the relative immaturity of the online medium.

My second point is that DM copywriters live or die by results. Every single day. And to give themselves the best chance of success, they study the successful work of others, and they obsess over test results. DM marketers test everything and are always learning.

This is the second element that hasn’t got up to speed online. It’s so easy to test everything and anything online. We should be doing more of that and adding to our knowledge of what works best in given situations.

By way of wrapping this up, online writers can learn a great deal from DM writers. (The same is true for online designers, who can learn a lot from DM designers.)

Both media depend on action, repeated actions – whether it is paper pages being turned or links being clicked.

Good DM writers are masters at driving action. We should learn more from them.

Nick Usborne is a copywriter, author, speaker and advocat of good writing. You can access all his archived newsletter articles on copywriting and writing for the web at his Excess Voice site. You’ll find more articles and resources on how to make money as a freelance writer at his Freelance Writing Success site.