Tuesday, June 30, 2009

How to Make Money on the Internet With Editorial Content

A lot of newbie Internet marketers fail to make money on the Internet because their websites are too focused on selling. They are so keen to make sales that they go overboard with their sales pitches, banner ads, and hyped up claims and the result is that they actually sell very little.

It is a very frustrating for them to know that some people out there are making a lot of money selling affiliate products on the Internet, while they are working their butts off trying to get traffic to a website that looks great but does not convert. What is the solution?

In simple terms it is a matter of rejigging the way you think about how to make money on the Internet. Unless you are a very skillful web copy sales writer, you will probably have little success trying a blatant sales technique. And if you have no confidence in your ability to write sales copy, filling up the empty spaces with banner ads will not provide a solution.

Most people have learned to ignore banner ads and just as many people hate the sensation of being sold to by someone they have never met before.

So the fatal mistake is to try and sell before you have built a relationship with the prospect of customer.

How do you build a relationship with a prospective customer?

By focusing on what that person wants and not on what you want. Of course you and I know that you want to sell something, and that will remain your primary goal, but in order to get there you need to follow the correct route because in most cases people simply don't buy a product on their first exposure to it especially from a person who they have never met and were shouting at them, "Buy, buy, buy!" The main reason why people surf the Internet is that they are looking for useful information.

This is especially the case when they enter keywords into search engines. If they run a keyword search and come across your link they will be much happier if they land on a page full of useful information that is directly related to their keyword search.

It is therefore a good idea for you to turn your website into a source of useful and relevant information that is editorial in style and not obviously trying to sell something. One example of this method is to write product reviews. Another example is to provide advice about the niche market that your website is concerned with.

By showing your visitors that you understand their need for information and by demonstrating to them that you are a knowledgeable source of information, you will probably increase the amount of direct sales you make from your website. But since even the best of websites only convert about three to five percent of first-time traffic into sales, this should not be the main aim of your website content. Treat it as a nice little bonus on the side.

Instead, the actual aim of your website should be to persuade as many people as possible to give you permission to contact them via e-mail. To do this you will need to get them to give you their name and e-mail address by filling in a form on your website. Of course not many people will simply fill-in form for no apparent reason, so you need to give them a compelling reason to do that.

What you need to do is offer them a detailed report giving much more information of the sort that they came to your website to look for. Offer the report free of charge and invite them to fill-in the form in order to access it. Make it clear to them that filling in the form will also give them the opportunity to receive your newsletter, or news updates free of charge in the future.

If your free offer is attractive enough, and if you have placed the sign up form in a prominent position, near the top of each of your web pages, you should be able to get a considerable percentage of your first-time visitors to join your list.

Now you can contact them at your leisure and work on building a relationship with them which will make the whole selling process a lot easier and therefore help you to make money on the Internet.

Source:Ezinea

0 comments: