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!
This website mistake has been an issue for a long time but with some of the technologies that have been introduced it has only gotten easier to achieve this mistate.
What I’m talking about is hyper links a hyperlink is a section of text that has been given some code instruction to go to a different location, either on the page or to a different website all together.
The biggest problem I see is that many web site owners or web masters try to change the appearnce of a hyperlink either to make it “blend” with the site or to even hide the fact it is a link at all.
The best anology I can think of to best describe why this is important is this. “If it looks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and walks like a duck, then it must be a duck!”
Think about this if it looks like a hyperlink, responds like a hyperlink then it must be a hyperlink. To many times people have added styles to the link to make it appear a different color or added coding to make the underline dissapear. Plus add a lot of underlined text in the copy confusing people where the links actually are.
Remember a confused shopper rarely buys; they just stay confused and then leave. A hyperlink should always remain blue and underlined. If you are going to add ANY programming to a hyperlink it would be to enable a rollover action.
What a rollover does is when the web site visitor places their mouse over the link it changes color. I generally like to use red for this action because it catches the visitor’s eye. By adding this rollover or hover action it lets them know something is about to happen and verifies the fact that it is actually a link and not just underlined text.
Some conversion specialist that I’ve talked to will even tell you, you’ll get even more conversions by leaving the link blue, adding the rollover or hover over action AND applying some code to change the cursor to the pointer finger.
The ONLY place where I might disable the apperance of a hyper link is in spots where I really don’t want them to click but need to have the link on the page. I know you’re wondering why I would even include such a link on the page.
It is always a good idea to have footer navigation on the page for things like your earnings disclaimer; privacy policy; support links and even a link to a site map for search engine spidering. Obviously these are needed but you really don’t want the vistor to click on these, you only want them to click on the order links. So for this section you can add a style to set decoration = to none. That will remove the underline but I would ONLY use that tip as I said for the footer section.
The final thing about hyperlinks is that many website owners don’t include enough buy links on their page. I’ve seen way to many sites where you have to hunt for the link to buy the product. Remember you generally have less than 10 seconds to get the visitors attention. And if they have to hunt for your order links they will move on and hunt for another site that will take their money for that product.
You want to be sure to have anywhere from 9 to 12 links on the page asking for the sale and not just, “click here to order now”. Be a little creative; add keywords or actions words like, “Click here to learn about using Hyperlinks”
All the best and much success in everything you do!
Frank Deardurff III - That One Web Guy!
