After a lot of writing, many revisions, and lots of updates my book that I have with my good friend Bret Ridgway is FINALLY complete. Our book is the “50 Biggest Website Mistakes we see online business owners make”, this book is my first in this series and Bret’s second.
Bret has a book title 50 Biggest Marketing Mistakes. I thought that was such a great book that we discussed creating the follow up to it and with being a direct response webmaster and web geek and both of us being online marketers I figured this would be an easy task.
Talk about over estimating easy, trying to determine what should be included was way more difficult than I imagined, and once I really got writing that part came fairly easy. I think the biggest difficulty for Bret was improving my grammatical mistakes and adding polish to the segments, IMHO I think he did an awesome job.
We’ve gotten some good reviews so far from the book from people just getting started with a business online to some pretty savvy marketers, Bret and I cover some things we all know we should do and several things we just don’t even think about that many people leave money on the table because they’re not doing this techniques.
To find out more about the book just visit http://www.50biggestwebsitemistakes.com and pick up the first 7 mistakes that we talk about in the book. I’d love to hear your feedback!
All the best and much success in everything you do!
Frank Deardurff III - That One Web Guy!
This has to be one of the most overlooked mistakes. And it’s not the fact that upsells are done wrong. The biggest mistake is that they’re not done at all.
First, let’s clarify what an “upsell” actually is. An upsell is an offer made at the time of ordering to make additional sales to that visitor.
Think of it like this… If you’ve ever gone to a fast food restaurant such as McDonalds and you place your order for a hamburger and a drink they always ask “Do you want fries with that?”
That’s the best example of an upsell. Think about it – even if you order their combo meal they ask “Would you like an apple pie with that?”
You should have a predetermined upsell item to offer for any of the key items you sell. By doing this, you’re making a suggestion of something that would normally go along with that item that is a no-brainer for them to add without thinking. So they add it.
Of course, by applying this strategy you can increase your sales time after time. In many cases sales have increased dramatically. In one case we offered an upsell and 75% of the buyers took it.
We were selling a $97 product (Affiliate Tool Generator) and upselling a bundled package for a total of $147 which is, of course, an increase of $50 per sale.
Just imagine if only 25% of 100 buyers took the upsell? Instead of making $9,700 you would make an additional $2,425 simply by
suggesting a related item to go along with what they are already buying. The key thing is to make it a related item. You obviously would not offer them steak sauce if they were ordering a fish sandwich.
Another mistake is offering too many items. I’ve seen several websites where you go from one upsell page to another upsell to yet another upsell. Some call this “Upsell Hell”.
This strategy causes major confusion.
Just imagine you go to place the order and you are presented with a page with the upsell with two buttons, “Yes take the offer” or “No, I just want the one item” and then you go to another page with another offer and so on.
After some point you either get to place your order, get confused about what you are ordering, or just get frustrated and leave. Obviously this is not a good thing to have happen on your order page.
So be sure to increase your order totals by adding the upsell strategy to your sales process. Just be sure you follow the guidelines above.
This is an just one of the mistakes from my book “50 Biggest Website Mistakes” check it out at http://50biggestwebsitemistakes.com
All the best and much success in everything you do!
Frank Deardurff III - That One Web Guy!
Happy Holidays!!
I hope you aren’t getting too stressed out with everything going on this time of year!
My friend and colleague Valerie Dawson recently sent me two of her most popular products.
I liked them so much that I asked her if she would mind if I pass them along to you. Valerie agreed!
So I’m sending you these TWO gifts, they are really cool!
Here’s what they are:
Gift #1: “Setting New Resolutions That Stick!” Guidebook. This PDF guide shows you:
- The best ways to avoid the 15 common resolution mistakes
- How to stay motivated and on track to reach your goals
- Simple strategies to have the happiest, most prosperous year ever!
Gift #2: “Time Management Booster” MP3 Audio. This relaxing 21 minute program will help you to:
- Stop those time-wasters that seem to eat up your day
- Overcome “overwhelm” and get on top of your “to do” list
- Be a LOT more productive – and more profitable!
http://www.thedawsonmethod.com/frankssgifts/
With all the craziness going on in the economy, it often feels like some things are spinning out of our control.
It is very important to NOT focus on things that we have no control over and to put our energy and focus on those things that we DO have control over.
What do you still have control over?….
- Planning Your Future. Change what is not working by setting new goals to create better days ahead!
AND
- Your Time. Learn to spend your time wisely to accomplish more and have more fun!
You’re going to LOVE Valerie’s goal setting guide and time management audio!
But there is a catch! (however, it’s a good one!)
I want you to share these two gifts with your family, your friends, and your co-workers.
While you’re thinking of it now, just forward this email to everyone you can think of so you can “pay it forward” and share the gifts!
Here’s the page where you can claim your gifts!
http://www.thedawsonmethod.com/frankssgifts/
Wishing you JOY and HAPPINESS in the New Year!
All the best and much success in everything you do!
Frank Deardurff III - That One Web Guy!
I see this mistake quite a bit or maybe I don’t! So many times I see order buttons and form submit buttons that don’t appear to be buttons.
Many web designers will make great looking graphical buttons to “match” the design of the rest of the site. While these buttons might look nice they aren’t always effective.
There has been a lot of debate about the fact whether graphical buttons are as effective as regular “HTML” style buttons. I suggest you test on what’s best for your market but I’ll make the comment I’ve made time after time if it looks like a button, acts like a button it must be a button.
Why would you want to chance the possibility of lost sales by “hoping” the website visitors realize that the graphic button you have in place is perceived is a button. This goes the same for your opt-in form buttons, you should be consistent with the buttons so the visitor knows what is and isn’t a button.
There are a few things you can do to “enhance” the regular “HTML” button to increase you can see an example of some these effects by visiting http://www.50biggestwebsitemistakes.com. You can see that I’ve increased the size of the button and text as well as adding a red border around the button to help draw attention to the button. This increases action to the button.
Just as is true with many components of marketing copy is king even on something as small as a button. By default the text on a HTML button says simply “submit” which really doesn’t say much. You want to change the text or copy on the button to have some sort of instruction or action so that there is no question what is going to happen when they push the button.
Some examples of Copy to use on an order button would be “Click Here To Order Now”; “Order Now for Only $29.95″; A few examples for the opt-in button would be “Claim Your Report Today!” or “Get A Free Chapter!”.
By applying several of these strategies just with the button it’s self you will be surprised how much you will improve conversion of opt-ins and orders. Of course be sure that you test everything and monitor by using your stats programs.
“If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it.” Lord Kelvin
All the best and much success in everything you do!
Frank Deardurff III - That One Web Guy!
Ok I have to share this with you.
After my last blog post I decided to do at least one thing to grow my business each week.
So I looked at my action item list of things I wanted to get done but never did. This item happened to be the fact that when I moved my auto responders to Auto Response Plus I forgot to put messages in my main Newsletter/Contact series.
I know from past experience this is a good way to keep in touch with your customers and prospects. But in the hurried business life we live it was one of those things that kept getting put a side for “One Day”.
Well that “One Day” was today. I thought about 3 topics I wanted to write about for the messages. I figured 3 was a good start and will add more on a regular basis, usually the first ones are the hardest.
So I created the messages logged into my auto responder system plugged in my first message which was a “Welcome” message so that anyone new that signs up will get this greeting. Then on to the second and third setting the appropriate days to deliver.
Well here was the “mistake” apparently in setting the first message to “automatic” it did just as I had instructed… it automatically sent it out to everyone that had subscribed to this point. Just Great I thought, then in rethinking maybe it wasn’t such a bad think I mean I could write and explain what happened and it will be incentive to make sure I go back and add more content for those subscribers and will “force” me to stay ahead of the day count.
Here’s the lesson learned, first if it can be avoided to put off until “One Day” if possible, second if you do wait until “One Day” test your systems (LOL) and last be sure to take action on doing at least one thing a week to grow your business.
All the best and much success in everything you do!
Frank Deardurff III - That One Web Guy!
