Get Your Website Selling Like IHOP on Sunday
Get the right ingredients
in your website mix
The Troubleshooter’s Guide to Websites that Sell Like Hotcakes
Your website gets compliments all the time. Your friends and clients keep telling you they like it. It’s a pretty website. Maybe you even paid a fair chunk of change to a designer and a copywriter to get the website you’ve got.
And still, it’s not really bringing you business.
What gives?
When you’ve got a pretty website that’s not bringing your business, here are the usual suspects:
1) You don’t have a sales page. Selling online isn’t just adding a “buy now” button and waiting for results. You know all the calls, lunches, free workshops and speaking you do offline to get your face in front of people who want to work with you? There are online strategies for doing the same thing—and a sales page for your program, event, or product is one. (No, Really. What’s a sales page?)
2) You aren’t clear on your “pathway.” Most people aren’t going to fork over their credit card on a $500 program first. They need to know, like, and trust you. Do you give away a free sample of your work, like a script, MP3, or white paper that helps them right away – without having to buy anything? On your website, is it clear which problem you help people solve? Do you offer a free first session and a chance to hear more from you over time?
3) You care about helping people, not “selling” them. Deep breath here. Many healers, coaches, and service professionals are concerned about being “too salesy”. If this is you, let me reassure you that sending emails and setting up your website so that it sells for you doesn’t have to be soulless, selfish, or tacky. So let that belief go… and chew on the fact that you can also reach and help more people if you set your website up in a more active – and interactive way. (So get out of your own way!)
This post is the third in a 6-part series on using the web to fill your programs and practice and sell out of your products. Coming up next: The Secret to Making Your Emails Less Used Car Salesman and More Mocha Truffle. Oh, and thanks to rcstanley's flickr photostream for the pancakes.
