How To Convert Your Website Visitors Into Buyers
Just because people are checking out your home business site does not mean it is translating to revenue. Getting visitors to your site is half the battle. The other half is keeping them there by keeping them interested and then getting them to buy.
Social networking is a proven secret to success. It can take on any form. You have FaceBook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Twitter and more that show how viral marketing can work. To keep your visitors on your site, setting up a networking page via a forum has great results. Spark conversation by entering your own topics for people to comment on. Getting people talking about your product is a form of networking. It also gets picked up by search engines prompting other people to comment. Someone may come to your forum from a link to make a comment on something they read. They will read more forum posts and ultimately become interested in your product.
Statistically, the longer a visitor spends on a site the more likely they are to buy. Also, they are more likely to refer friends to that site. Making your site an interesting site to visit ensures more visitors. A site that just sells a product is really just relying on a good marketing plan outside that site. To bring those visitors in for free, you want to design what is called a sticky site. Networking sites are sticky because people can spend hours chatting about topics. The same can be true of your site if you design a forum around your product.
A good way to get your forum buzzing is to pay people to post on your forum. It is usually pretty cheap to get a few people to post some topics on your site. You can find writers on Craigslist that would do it for about $1 per post. The cost to have this done is far outweighed by increased traffic and ultimately more revenue. It is the least costly in terms of marketing that can have great results.
And finally, joining the big networking sites like FaceBook can link more visitors to your site. Create a page dedicated to your site and add friends as frequently as you can. The more friends you have the bigger your business can grow. Initially it may just be family and friends but each customer that buys a product most likely has a FaceBook account. Have them add you as a friend. Post a link to your FaceBook page on your site and vice versa. There are a many social networking sites that you can use to accomplish the same thing such as MySpace, LinkedIn and more. Twitter is also a great way to gain followers of your product.
Filed under: Home Business Tips
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Hi Carin,
Thanks for sharing the informative post. My question is, what strategy can you use on Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc. so that it doesn’t look like that you are spamming.. For example, if i start adding 100s of people on Twitter every day, won’t it look like spam? Same goes for Facebook, and Myspace? What strategy can one use to differentiate?
Thanks!
Hi Mehul,
What a great question! How I personally use the Twitter is purely to announce blog posts or videos I have create and I want to give away for free. The point is to drive traffic to your website by giving good content and help to people. This builds trust and people tend to buy products or services recommended by people they trust. On Facebook you could create a group and invite all your connections to it. Then you could send articles, announcements, or thoughts to your group. Again, this builds trust. I send people a full article with a link to my marketing blog and get traffic this way. Posting on your wall about blog posts and videos is a great idea as well. People love it because you aren’t saying anything like “come look at my site and spend money…” it’s showing them you want to help them. People are motivated but what will benefit them and what they will get out of it. Make it look enticing and less “salesy” and you will build a solid following.
Does this answer your question?
Carin
Thanks Carin. That’s exactly what I was looking for. So far, I have just been promoting new products ( and sometimes special discounts) on Twitter and Facebook. But like you said, that’s just saying “come look at my site and spend money…”
I will try and incorporate what you have suggested, and I am sure I’ll see positive results.
Thank you very much!
Mehul