Have you ever thought about what can prevent your visitors buying the product or service you’re promoting?

They may afraid of paying online with credit card, or just buying a product they never heard about. But how can you lead them believe your product is the best and they need to buy it?

Remove the risk

Make a list with the possible reasons of your visitors’ hesitation and pre-empt their objections to buy.

If your product is something that your visitor feels ashamed to buy, highlight the privacy and discreet packaging. Just think about the penis enlargement products. With the discreet packaging you gain trust. Chances are your prospect won’t hesitate to take out the credit card.

If your product has a solid money back guarantee of 60/90/180 days, then you must display it in bold text and highlight it. 30-day is the average money back guarantee online, having more than this can make your product easy to sell. If the merchant offers a longer money back guarantee than most products in the online industry, point this out and make a unique selling point.

You can also highlight the secure ordering processes, data protection etc.

Build your potential customers’ confidence and put them at ease. The more you remove the risk, the more chance of the sale.

Google Webmaster Tools is a great resource for you. Your website’s visibility can be improved in Google’s search results with its help. It informs webmasters about how Google is interacting with their website. It’s free to use, just like Google Analytics.

The first thing you’ll need is a Google account. If you use other Google services, you can use the same login. If not, you can sign up for a free.

Once you add your sites (yepp, sites – you can add as many as you want) to the Dashboard, each site have to be verified. If you can’t verify your site, Google won’t be able to get an insight.

You can check how Google crawls and indexes your website, when your site was last crawled and which pages are already indexed by it.

The Overview page shows you how many errors Google noticed. You can check restricted and unreachable URLs and you can see the broken links which lead to 404 error pages. You also can find the referrer sites where these links are. I hope you feel how powerful it is – you can fix any problems that prevent Google from indexing your pages.

If you have broken links that are coming from inbound links, a 301 redirect can be setup on your site to fix the problem as soon as possible. It’s sometimes easier and quicker than trying to contact the referrer site to update the link.

Google displays restricted URLs as errors. Some pages are restricted by the robots.txt file for a reason (e.g. you don’t want your redirected affiliate link to get indexed or you want to prevent duplicate content) and you don’t need to fix them.

The Statistics page is where Google tells you how it sees your site, which top search queries drive traffic to your site, etc. Top search queries are phrases people looked for and Google displayed your site in the results. This is great information about how people are searching and how they’re finding your site. You can see phrases you never think of 

One of my favourite parts is the What Google sees area where you can understand what Google thinks of your site and how it see your content. This is where you can find the reason your site can’t rank well for certain keywords. You can view comprehensive data about your internal and external links to your site.

You can upload an XML sitemap to help Google crawl all of your pages and to learn which pages are the most important to your site. You can specify your preferred domain name. You can choose how you would like to see your domain name in Google’s search results.

Google Webmaster Tools is a great resource to see how Google is interacting with your site. You can learn more about the issues, the linking structure, the keywords people use. If you don’t know why your site doesn’t appear on the first page on Google, this tool might help you detect what is the problem.

Are you using Google Webmaster Tools? Is it useful for you?

Most of the websites can be accessed by typing the domain name with www (like http://www.fatbanker.com) and without www (like http://fatbanker.com).

Try to avoid using both of them. Choose the one you prefer and stick with it because if you have a preferred domain and you promote this one, Google doesn’t have to give separate PageRank for URLs that point to the same site.

Opinions differ. Someone says use your domain with www because most people type URLs starting with it, others use it without www because it’s something like a subdomain. Choose whichever you think is best for you, just make sure you only use one format from the beginning.

Add a 301 redirect using mod_rewrite

Once you have selected your preferred domain, you can force everyone to use that domain. Simply add a 301 redirect with Apache’s mod_rewrite. It’s necessary to create or edit your existing .htaccess file. You will find it in your sites root folder – usually located in public_html folder.

If there is already an .htaccess file, create a backup.

Prefer your domain with www?

If you prefer to use www before your domain, you can copy and paste the following code to your .htaccess file:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^(.*)\.fatbanker\.com$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.fatbanker.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Of course you will need to replace fatbanker.com with your site URL. Now when your surfers access a URL like http://yourdomain.com they will be redirected to http://www.yourdomain.com. The above code redirects all yourdomain.com to www.yourdomain.com including directories and files. E.g. yourdomain.com/contact.html will be redirected to www.yourdomain.com/contact.html.

Prefer your domain without www?

If you want everyone visiting your website to do this without www in the URL, simply add the following lines to your .htaccess and upload it to your server:

RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^www\.(.+)$ [NC]
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://%1/$1 [R=301,L]


The above code redirects all www.yourdomain.com to yourdomain.com.

Some hosting provider might not show the .htaccess file or have them in read only mode. In this case you can ask them to set the 301 redirect. They will help you.

If you mess up your current .htaccess settings, you may get a 500 server error code when you try to access your site. In this case just upload the previously backed up file.

Let Google know about your decision

It’s time to tell Google which domain format you want to see in the search results.

Login to your existing Google Webmaster Tools account (or register for free) and set your preferred (canonical) domain. Some days later you will see that all of your pages are displayed in the format you wanted to see in the search results.

It’s great, everyone uses your preferred format and you ensure linking consistence. Having 50 incoming links to the preferred domain will receive more weight than having 20 inbound links pointing to your site with www and 30 links without www in URL. In the second case you present Google with two pages.

Are you using your domain with or without www?

Your USP is the very essence of your offer. Using a USP will negate the need for the surfer to shop around. It will motivate customers sufficiently to make the purchase.

Do you want to create amazingly seductive offers? Do you want to boost your sales?

Brainstorm to generate a choice of ideas that will give you the basis for writing a strong and specific USP. Follow this easy 5-step process:

1. Describe the product’s biggest benefits. Your visitor doesn’t care if you offer the best quality or price. You have to explain why that is important him/her.

   Asking questions like “What your product or service does for the customer?” or “What is the result your customers desire from the product or service?” may help you.

2. Be different. It’s called UNIQUE for a reason. The proposition must be unique and one that the competition cannot or does not offer. Compare your offer to what the competitors offer. Define your product’s uniqueness.

   Your USP should:
   - separate you from your competition
   - imply that your product is the most logical choice
   - make your product or service the “must have item”
   - create desire and urgency

3. Address a hole in the market. Identify the unfulfilled needs in your niche that your product can really fill. What are the most frustrating things your customers experiences?
4. Keep it short. Summarize your USP in one clear sentence.
5. Can the merchant deliver your USP’s promise? Ensure that your merchant can deliver your promise. Having a strong USP can increase your conversion rate or increase your refunds and chargebacks if the vendor doesn’t deliver the promise.

   E.g. it’s not the best idea to promise a rock solid money back guarantee for 6 month on a weight loss pill if the guarantee applies to unopened bottles only.

Build a powerful USP for the product you offer and use it to increase your conversion rate.

Could you create your own USPs for the products you are selling? Or is it simpler to ask your affiliate manager?

Have you ever tried to purchase the product you’re selling (or pre-selling)? The pre-sell is very important because it gives you a chance to convince the surfer that this product is the perfect choice and he needs it now. But no matter how good you are at convincing your visitors and how good is your conversion rate, if they don’t know how to buy, you will lose sales.

If the merchant is making the process difficult, the prospects’ may give up without buying anything. Check the following 7 points on the merchant’s site, check the process of buying before you start working on your site and your content.

1. Page loading. Are the pages loading quickly? Once your visitors click on one of your great CTA, they are ready to buy the product. They need to get to the merchant page immediately or they become bored. Maybe they give up. Heavy use of flash can kill your commissions.
2. Trust. Can you trust the merchant? Most people are still cautious when buying online. It’s important to give the potential customer every reason to trust the merchant. An address, a phone number, a privacy policy, a clear return policy can help a lot. Another good way to inspire confidence is an SSL certificate, because every credible merchant offer secured order form using encryption technology. Merchants must do everything possible to make prospects feel safe about buying something from a total stranger on the Internet.
3. Site structure. Can you find the order form easily and hassle-free? Won’t believe, but there are sites where you need magnifier to find the purchase button. A link with a clear CTA from every page on the site can reduce the chances of losing prospects. The more difficult the website to use, the less people will buy.
4. Phone order. If you can buy via phone, is your tracking code visible on the site? Does the telephonist ask for the tracking code during the order process? The reliable affiliate networks wouldn’t let you lose sales via phone order.
5. Required information. Do you feel you’re wasting your time while you’re filling out the order form? One of the biggest mistakes merchants make is asking too much information. They shouldn’t waste the prospects’ time asking for things they don’t need to know.
6. Clear prices. You might spend $150 on a product, but when you find out the shipping is $100 on top of that, you’re unlikely to continue the sale. With an IP to Country database it’s easy to work out where a user is from and show them the delivery cost.
7. Multiple payment options. How can you pay? Does the merchant offer multiple payment options? The more options offered, the better your chances of covering your visitors’ needs. Some people love to use their Credit Cards, some may prefer PayPal, and others want to send cheque. If they won’t be able to pay, it wasn’t worth your hard work.

You work so hard to get your customers visit the product’s or service’s site with they credit card in their hand. It would be very pitiful if you sold well to a prospect and something goes wrong when he is ready to pay.

Do you know any other point that can make you lose sales?

First, let’s talk about what USP is. USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition or Unique Selling Point. A USP is a distinct and appealing idea that sets your product or service apart from every other competitor in a positive way.

Using USPs will definitely improve your conversion rates. It will make your offer seductive and more valuable than competitors. A strong USP is a must if you want to give your visitors a compelling reason to purchase from your site.

If you identify what makes a product you’re promoting different from the competitors, then emphasize these advantages in your sales copy and boost your sales. The preposition must be something that the competitors can’t or doesn’t offer – it makes your offer unique.

“Unlike the majority…”

A great way to create a USP is by starting with the word “unlike”.

• “Unlike the majority of weight loss products “YourProduct” will help lose up to 5 pounds of body fat per week.”
• “Unlike other web hosting providers “YourWebHos”” offers 99,999% uptime guarantee that will ensure that your site is available any time.”
• “Unlike other weight loss products “YourProduct” offers 6 month money back guarantee that will ensure that if you aren’t satisfied with the results, you will get your money back.”

Create seductive offer

An irresistible offer is an invitation that is so powerful, so clearly compelling, and so obviously attractive that no one in his/her mind could refuse. Boost your sales and profits by positioning the product or service you offer as the best choice in the market.

Identify the unfulfilled needs and address a hole in the marketplace that your product can really fill. Use USPs in your headline or sub header in your copy writing.
If you don’t know what the promoted products unique selling points are, just ask the affiliate manager or discover those USPs.

Are you using USPs in your copy? Have you ever split tested which one of your USPs convert better?

Last time when I was on my trip in Italy without an Internet connection I couldn’t publish posts on my blog. According to Google Analytics the number of my visitors dropped during these days.

A lot of blogs seem like every author sit behind the screen all day long to publish (4-5 posts) daily. They can post every day whenever they are. These bloggers never go away for vacation or if they do, are posting from the beach, from the shops or from the museums.

Or… Can they write posts and schedule them for later? Googling my question I found a post on JohnChow.com about WordPress’ timestamp feature.

WordPress timestamp is a great built in tool that can save you a lot of time – also can save your blog’s traffic when you are out for weeks. You can write a bunch of posts in advance and schedule them to be published in the future. You can use it to improve your productivity.

There are days when we are feeling inspired, have a lot of great ideas to post, your writing is really flowing – and there are days when you can come up with nothing. If you are starting your brainstorming session, write your posts and use the timestamp to post them later. You don’t need to worry about periods you have nothing to write about.

How it works?

• Write your post as normally
• Look for the “Publish” section on the right side and click on the “Edit” where it says “Publish immediately”
• Select the date and time you want your post to be published – you can use a date in the past too
• Click on the “OK” button
• If the date is in the future your “Publish” button will become to “Schedule”
• Hit the “Schedule” button – your post will be automatically published at the chosen time

Remember to publish the post. If you’re just saving it, WordPress will leave it as a draft. Once you press the publish button, your post will queue. When the time comes, your post will be automatically published.

How many times do you use this WordPress feature? How many of your posts have been timestamped?

When you look for a web hosting company, they will usually promote the amount of space, bandwidth and their web hosting uptime. Most companies offer a guaranteed uptime to show off their service reliability.

Web hosting uptime is a measurement of the time a server has been running. Uptime is important to not only the hosting companies but to anyone who has a website. The availability of your website is a major concern. What if a potential buyer just read a great article linking to your site, clicked on the link and found an unavailable site? You lose sales. The cost of the downtime can amount to hundreds of dollars.

Most of the web hosting providers offer 99,9% uptime. What this 99,9% uptime means to you? For a 30 day month it means less than 1 hour when your site is unavailable. Please understand that no web hosting company can have a 100% uptime guarantee. Always look for 99,9%, 99,99% or 99,999% uptime and read (and save a copy of) their terms carefully. Can your web hosting provider give back the losses their downtime caused?

If your website experiences downtime, contact the customer service department to ask when your site will be back. If downtimes occur too many times, look for a different company with a higher uptime.

Can you imagine your site is down while there are many customers, potential buyers ready to purchase any product or service from your site? If you are not sitting in front of your computer 24 hours a day (I suppose you need some sleep), how do you notice your site experiences downtime?

That’s simple. Keep monitoring your website or server by using an uptime monitoring service. One of the monitoring services is Web Service Guard.

Let me tell you what they can do for you:

• Web Service Guard let you know when your site is unavailable for any reason. You receive real time alerts so you can fix the problem or contact the support immediately.
• There is no software to install, they can monitor any website. Web Service Guard provides independent third party monitoring services.
• Unlike other monitoring services which have keep the monitoring statistics for 30 days, Web Service Guard stores and provides details of outages for a full year.
• WebServiceGuard tracks and logs all event failures and generates historical uptime metrics. These system uptime metrics are available 24 hours a day.

You can keep monitoring your website uptime for free. Get rid off the lost online sales and low conversion rate caused by downtime and claim your free membership now!

Bounce rate is used in website traffic analysis to represent the percentage of visitors who come to your site and immediately leave without visiting any of the inside pages. Everyone wants this number to be as low as possible because we want our visitors to stay longer on our website.

How do you know what your bounce rate is? The simplest way is register for a free Google Analytics account, list your site and paste some HTML code on your pages. Analytics will you provide free in-depth reports.

Some web analytic software (just like Google Analytics) helps you to find out what bounce rate should be considered as normal. For static websites anything under 40% and for a blog or websites with lots of outbound links from 50% to 60% should be normal.

Is your bounce rate higher than it should be? I’ll show you 5 ways to lower it.

1. Provide good content
   Maybe the most important. Many of us put too much time and energy into the design of the site and not enough into writing effectively. Not giving the surfers what they are looking for is the best way to get them to leave your site immediately. Content is king!
2. Make sure your website loads quickly
   You have seconds to grab your visitors’ attention. It’s really important to ensure your site loads as quickly as possible. Optimize your site – don’t use too many or heavy images or Flash. Choose a reliable host.
3. Make your pages easily available
   Keep your navigation simple, clean, easily readable and user-friendly. Make sure your site is easy to use and well-organized. If your visitors can’t find what they are looking for quickly, they will leave your site. Surfers are impatient. They need information right now.
   Make sure you use the same menu on the whole website and provide an easy way to get back to your home page. This might sound like a no-brainer, but many folks get it wrong.
4. Use internal links
   Give people internal links (links that are pointing to other pages of your website) that will lead them to other pages of your site. Make sure you are linking to other pages that are relevant to the page you are linking from.
   Using good anchor text will help you. Let your anchor texts grab your visitors’ interest and let them dive further into your content. Never use click here – nobody will see it.
5. Take note of traffic sources
   Where is the majority of your traffic coming from? Direct links, search engines, social networking sites? The quality of the traffic will contribute the overall bounce rate being higher or lower. The more targeted your traffic is, the lower your bounce rate. Focus on traffic source that convert better.

Bounce rate is an important measure of your website’s effectiveness. There are also people who believe it plays a role in how search engines rank your site. If it is true it gives you some extra motivation in working on improving it.

If your site has been loosing visitors as fast as they enter, it’s time to make the necessary modifications on your site and then give it a few weeks to see the difference. The difference should be that your visitors will be staying on your website for longer periods of time. Run tests to see if it improves over time.

Are you using Google Analytics? What is your bounce rate? Are you satisfied with it? Do you know how people interacting with your website?

Now you know how to get your website indexed within 24 hours. It’s time to let search engines know about the other pages. The more pages get picked up by them, the better.

How can you help them to spot your whole site? Here are 5 tips:

1. Make your pages accessible.
   Each and every page should have at least one link pointing to it. You can write great articles and you can provide interesting, unique contents – if there is no link, nobody will find it. Make sure your pages are easily accessible. Link from your homepage to the pages to get your entire website crawled faster.
2. Create a sitemap.
   You can create a sitemap that contains links to every page of your site. Place a link to your sitemap page from the homepage. This map can also help your visitors to get familiar with your site.
3. Avoid variables in the URLs.
   Search engines don’t like variables in URLs (like http://www.yoursite.com/page.php?var1=somevars&var2=854). It’s a fact. They don’t index all of this kind of pages if any. You can easily get rid of them with mod rewrite. You can also make your URLs search engine and user friendly.
4. Use internal links.
   The more ways search engines can find your pages, the better. If you’re blogging, you can always link back to your previous posts. It helps Google locate your post and bring more traffic to that post. Internal links can also reduce the number of visitors who leave your site immediately after reading your page. Use them to lower your bounce rate.
5. Get links to the deep pages.
   Everybody knows we need inbound or incoming links from other websites. If an incoming link is not pointing to the home page but another page that is deeper in your site, it helps search engines to discover that page.

   It’s the so called deep linking. When you build links for your site, try to get links that point to different pages and not just to your home page. Don’t forget to use good anchor texts when deep linking.

Google doesn’t index all of your pages (maybe 50-70% of it). The 5 tips above can help you increase the amount of the indexed ones. Always make sure the spiders can find your site from different places.

Let me know if any of the above helped you to increase the number of your pages listed in search engines. Do you know any other technique? Just leave a comment.