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A public service message sponsored by WebSuccess and BG Design

If you have already started a business whether online or "brick and mortar", after about two to three months you should be making some sales. This varies by type of business, such as whether it is long term "relationship selling" of large projects or immediate selling of small high demand items. This page is oriented to online selling. But as a rule of thumb, some sales or high prospects of sales should happen within 6 months of business startup. People start an internet business expecting volume sales within a few months. Seldom does that happen.

If you have read other pages in the "Web Success" series on this website, you should know that online Internet web selling can be more complex and competitive than conventional businesses. The cost of start up may be less, but not much less than regular business if done properly. The real costs of internet web selling are the research, planning, testing, design and writing, re-testing, re-writing, promotion, SEO advice and related costs to bring up a unique site with unique offerings that takes top ranking positions. Excellent graphics and design can be expensive.

But if the product is one which normally requires personal contact, fitting or trying on, high credibility, is high priced, or normally is sold in stores where the atmosphere and tactile and sensory elements of touch and even smell or demonstration convince the buyer to buy, then online internet sales may not be appropriate except to help bring customers to the store. A good example of an expensive web site designed to bring people into a well known store is Corner-Bakery.com. That site may not be the most search engine friendly, but it sure sells using basics of advertising very well: show the product, talk about the product, create interest, credibility and a unique style and atmosphere. That website likely cost over $60,000 with a similar amount for promotion. They have other advantages: great style, good locations and excellent products, service and atmosphere. It matches their quality eclectic yummy image.

So if you aren't getting more sales after a few months in your web business, perhaps you should study these Top 10 Tips to Increase Sales:

1) Get help with diagnosing or critiquing your web site and business, and ask people and site visitors with an easy to use comments-complaints button. Even offer to pay $2 for opinions of people leaving the site.

2) Reading all the pages in Web Success, try to determine which of the steps and standards you have not followed.

3) Try to identify the top two or three reasons people are not visiting or not buying. This is key to see whether you have traffic but few "conversions" to sales. But typically you will have a combination of problems: Low traffic and even fewer conversions. Even if you have good traffic and poor conversions, you likely have serious problems in both your site and pages design as well as possibly even the business you are in or the products or services you offer.

4) If you have good traffic and low sales, at the very least you have a problem of poor qualification of prospects, if your products and business are in demand from others. This matters not so much if you depend mainly on organic rankings instead of paid advertising. In that case, it is the content and products themselves which are not convincing and lack credibility. How do your pricing, terms and guarantees compare with competitors?

5) Most likely you have a combination of several problems from not following all the steps listed in Web Success and in business strategy, planning and positioning books, and failure to do adequate research. Have you fallen for some distributor's line that he sells a lot of jewelry or something like that? That doesn't mean any dealer is making profits. It means he has convinced many dealers to buy.

6) If the answers are not clear after examining all the above, you likely need an expert web business consultant to help you rapidly home in on problems or determine whether you should revise the business or give it up. You should allow about 5 to 10 hours at around $60 to $120 per hour for a solid critique of your business and web site. If you've spent the typical $2,000 to $10,000 in direct costs plus more labor to get to few sales, that $300 to $1200 is likely well spent if there is a chance of making your investment work. The web business consultant should be associated with a professional full service web marketing or web design and development firm.

7) The web business consultant can likely help devise some tests to more rapidly assess what is wrong with either your marketing program, your business or products, your web site, or your entire business approach. He or she should mostly examine yoru focus and positioning and competition. This was the part of your business you should have done first, as in Top 11 Tips to a Successful web business: Research to find a Niche and Business Strategy to have a unique selling proposition of a unique product or service in demand.

8) Besides the web business consultant, you can also do your own critique using the Web-Success web pages for pointers to guide you as well as other sites and asking people experienced in successful business. Don't count on friends to tell you the ugly truth.

9) Some of your efforts should focus on looking at competitors, watching their advertising (and you should have kept track of this and whether competition is growing much) and studying their sites. How are they better? How do their ads better qualify visitors or generate traffic? How good are their content and keywords? (Don't copy copyrighted materials). Consider getting a Dun & Bradstreet report on a major competitor to see how their finances and size have done lately, or call them and talk to people to see how well they are staffed, trained and equiped. A big problem with the net is too broad sources of competition, even in other countries. You should think local and regional if possible or emphasize your national source and focus.

10) The main focus of your efforts should be on "credibility". How credible and professional does your business appear... as say compared to Corner Bakery's web site? What makes your business and product look like it has been popular and around for a long time? What do you do to offer guarantees, customer service, and feedback or testimonials? How easy is it to talk to a human now? How easy is it to find the Order page and BUY NOW ? But back to basics: What is your competitive advantage?

Is your pricing structure realistic? What are your pricing plan and terms options to give "added value"? To be in business, you must study and understand marketing.

You already have a problem because you can't tout big sales and demand nor time in business. So that is where you should most polish your image. Luckily time in business will be solved by... surviving another 20 months ! Persistence and constant improvement is how some businesses finally made it! But the most successful businesses use experts to help guide them. After all, did you folllow all the expert suggestions on Web-Success? Did you use a top established Web Designer?

An expert can devise immediate tests, methods and promotion and conversion methods. An expert can help cut down the number of wrong tests, false starts and wasted time, so your next 6 months will not be like the last few months, but far better at making your web site and business more successful and competitive.

GOOD LUCK !!

NOTE: There are lots of amateurs and wanna-be's in both web design and maintenance, SEO promotion and Web Business consulting.