Tables were skewed, pictures half covered up, the drop down navigation didn’t work, etc.

I actually thought this guy was playing a trick on me — no one would EVER take this site seriously.

When I commented to the client that his little joke was “very funny,” I quickly found out that this was no joke.  That was his REAL site.

After talking to him a few minutes and pulling the site up in other browsers, it didn’t take too long to figure out that he was having some serious browser compatibility problems.  He had built the site for Internet Explorer, and it was a work of art in that browser platform, but it was all messed up on nearly every other browser I tried.

Despite all the advances of internet technology, all browsers are still not created equal when it comes to how your site is viewed.  Browser incompatibility represents a huge challenge for anyone building a website.  Browser compatibility issues can affect your images, JavaScript functions, style sheets, links, navigation, and page layout.

AND it can totally kill your website profits and subscription rates!

Internet explorer, for example, tries to figure out what you meant to put in your code and fills in the blanks.  In other words, if you’ve used incorrect HTML code in your webpage, Explorer will try to make the corrections or fill in the blanks resulting in a page layout that may not be what you intended.

So obviously, you’ve got to address this issue with your website — Which can be a total pain in the rear.

Your first stop should be to check your website in a variety of browsers.  There’s three ways you can go about checking browser compatibility:

1.  Download and install all those browsers onto your computer and view your website in each browser.  This would be a total pain in the neck and totally unnecessary.

2.  Purchase browser compatibility software or a service.  There are lots of great services out there to choose from if you Google it.  I wouldn’t suggest this option unless you have a lot of websites or your build websites for your clients.

3.  Use a free service online like www.browsershots.org.

Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t really need to check your website in every browser in existence on the planet — that would be ridiculous!

The last time I checked, 99.2% of internet users only used seven browsers:

• Internet Explorer 6- 14.9%
• Internet Exploere 7 – 18.7%
• Internet Exploere 8 – 7.1%
• Firefox – 47.3%
• Google Chrome – 6%
• Safari – 3.1%
• Opera – 2.1%

Of course, these numbers change as new browsers come on the market, but it’s a pretty good place to start.

So I guess that I’m suggesting that even though technology continues to improve, browser compatibility STILL matters and you should definitely check your websites for compatibility!

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Increase your sales

1. Nail Your Niche

I’m sure that you already know what a niche is and that it’s important in your business, so I won’t belabor the point here. Design your web site to be a targeted resource center for your niche market. You’ll gain repeat visitors that are interested in that topic and increase your sales overall.

2. Fabricate REAL Freebies

Freebies are a great way to give people a taste of what you have to offer, gain traffic, and increase subscribers, but it must truly be free to work.  Otherwise it destroys your credibility and will actually reduce the number of sales you get.

Worse still is when people offer freebies that are total garbage full of affiliate links.  Make your offer genuine and you’ll improve your bottom line.

3.  Lasso Leads

Websites prove to be excellent lead generation tools and you’re missing a lot of sales if you aren’t working to capture leads for your business.  Appropriately marketing your products and services to your permission based leads can increase your sales tremendously.

4.  Track Your Traffic

Visitor analysis and complete website tracking is extremely important for any online venture.  It’s the only way to track what’s working and what isn’t for your business.

5.  Elevate Emotions

When creating sales pages and promotional materials for your products and services, be sure to engage the reader’s emotions.  Triggering your reader’s emotions will always increase your sales.

6.  Design For Dollars

When it comes to generating revenue with a website, you’ve got to design your site to make money.  It should be compatible with all the popular browsers, engage your target audience, and lead visitors by the hand to make a purchase.  Your website design should have one goal and one goal only — make the sale.

7.  Pen A Plan

Sit down and write a plan for how your website will generate revenue and gain targeted traffic.  It doesn’t have to be anything formal, but a marketing plan is a must to increase your sales.  You must plan to profit.

There are tons of other strategies that will help you increase your sales, but this basic list is a great place to get started.

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• A headline must capture the attention of your prospect.
• A headline must tell your prospect what’s in it for him.
• A headline must deliver a complete, immediately understandable message.
• A headline must pull the prospect into the copy… compelling him to keep reading.

In essence, a headline should motivate your prospect to respond.

In fact, headlines are soooo important that I have a swipe file of really great headlines that I come across.  I keep a swipe file so that I can go back and refer to those headlines and use them as headline starters when it’s time for me to create my own promotional materials.

Here are 10 headline starters from my own swipe file:

• The Untold Secrets To Making…
• Is Your (Insert Topic) Being Threatened?
• 7 Amazing Strategies to…Add New
• Do You Wish There Was An Easier Way To…
• 3 Direct Reasons Why You’ll Be Kicking Yourself if You Don’t…
• Instant Strategies Anyone Can Use To…
• The 5 Ugly Lies About…
• How I (Insert Benefit) In Record Time…
• Watch this ‘shocking’ play-by-play underground video…
• Why Aren’t You…?

If you’re interested in getting more great headlines as well as swipe files for other parts of your promotional material, then I highly recommend My Instant Swipe File.

Or feel free to visit my full review of My Instant Swipe File.

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According to the author of The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Version 2009, the Latest Edition is everything you’d Expect From A Beginner’s Guide To Starting An Online Business with over 1,250 pages of detailed, moneymaking strategies and techniques have been carefully laid out in bite-sized, easy to grab-and-apply sections, making it dead-easy to determine what you need, apply it to your business, and move onto the NEXT step.

The “Insider Secrets” system claims to carefully guide you through all the critical steps:

1. Helping you decide what you should sell…
2. Easily get a sales website live…
3. Attract your first visitor…
4. Accept your first credit card payment!
5. Ramp up sales & traffic quickly!
6. Automate your business to be “hands free”

Course Examples

Here is a small sample of what you will find within The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Course…

• How to use powerful automated research tools to quickly multiply your hobbies and interests into HUNDREDS of potential business ideas!
• The simple “measuring stick” that will instantly tell you if your product idea has REAL income potential… before you spend a penny developing it!
• The SEVEN best ways to make money from a website — add each one to your website like building blocks and watch your income explode!
• How to get paid BIG commissions by recommending other people’s products on your website!
• How you can quickly become a “Super Affiliate” and earn a full-time, six-figure income — without EVER selling a product of your own!
• Plugging NEW Revenue Streams into Your Website to Incrementally Build Your Online Income by $1,500 to $8,000+ Per Month!
• Secrets for Squeezing WAY MORE Sales and Profits Out Of Your Existing Traffic, Subscribers, Products, and Website!

Additional Benefits Reported

Here are some additional benefits reported in The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet course:

• Students receive real time updates with the latest online marketing strategies.
• Streaming videos for ease of student learning.
• Downloadable content for iPod, iPhone or other mobile device.
• The Master Blueprint for Launching and Expanding Your Internet Business is shipped Free to students.
• Foolproof goal-setting DVD and workbook provided to all students.
• A Private 30-Minute Phone Consultation With a Personal eBiz Trainers.

Product Details

Company Information: The Internet Marketing Center has a 12 year long track record of Over-Delivering on their products and providing good customer value.

Product Spefications: Complete guide to starting and growing an internet business in an electronic, web accessible format plust five business building bonuses valued at $443.

Price: $197 after 30 day trial at $2.95

Return Policy: “DOUBLE Your Profits In 1 Year… Or We’ll Pay You $200 Just For Trying!… in addition to a 100% refund of your purchase price.”

Actual Customer Feedback

“The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Version 2009 is a must have course for anyone serious about having their own Internet business. If you want to make money online, I highly recommend that you get access to this tremendous online business building course now.”

Shelley Lowery, web-source.net

“There are precious few courses that I can recommend without reservation. Insider Secrets is one of them…highly recommended.”

Kevin Tenzo, warriorforum.com

“I give Insider Secrets VERSION 2009 a perfect 10 out of 10 without hesitation. The Internet Marketing Center continues to be the leader in helping people go from nothing to big money online.”

Valeriu, internetmarketingprofitscenter.com

“We’ve used this course as our blueprint to grow the business to $500,000 per year!”

David Gray, mortgagewatchdog.com.au

“Using all that valuable information, I built my first website which now brings in $300,000 per year in sales, on average!”

Larissa Carrus, airbrushing-made-easy.com

“I can honestly say that I have never had so much fun learning anything in my life!”

Darren Salkeld, down-feather-bedding.com

““Insider Secrets” is the first investment anyone should make in their Internet businesses. It will shave off years of trial and error time, and will also save you a lot of money in the long run, by preventing you from making the kinds of mistakes Corey and Derek made as Internet marketing pioneers. I can’t emphasize that enough. Learn from this system and you’ll be so much further ahead.”

Shawn LeBrun, shawnlebrunfitness.com

“The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet has been a great tool for me. It is a very comprehensive course. I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to start an online business!”

Taylor Knight, yourparrotplace.com

The way the positive review stack up, you can’t go wrong… especially with that return policy!

Read more reviews of The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Version 2009.

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You might be surprised, if you knew.

I found a really great website that will allow you to get a really interesting view of your targeted traffic, how much money they make, what kinds of things your audience is interesting in, other sites that they visit, etc., and all that information is provided for free.

The site is called Quantcast.  Check it out, you might find it a real eye-opener!

What’s even better is that you can also use their tools to check out the targeted audience of your competition!  It’s awesome!

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This month we discuss how to show your visitors a little love to increase your subscription rate, when to take the drastic step of firing your customers, and how to create a profit funnel for your business.

To become a subscriber and read this latest edition, simply subscribe using the form to your right or click here.

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Here are the top 10 factors with the ones related to links highlighted:

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag
2. Anchor Text of Inbound Links
3. Global Link Popularity of Site
4. Age of Site
5. Link Popularity within the Site’s Internal Link Structure
6. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site
7. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community
8. Keyword Use in Body Text
9. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site
10. Topical Relationship of Linking Page

Clearly, link building is hugely important and it’s something that we all need to pay attention to.  That’s why I wanted to tell you about an article written by Wiep Knol over at Wiep.net.  He has compiled a list of  69 link building strategies for 2009 that’s very inclusive and provides a lot of great link building tips.

Here’s how he breaks the list down:

• 7 internal link building strategies
• 10 beginner strategies
• 12 places to submit your site to
• 12 old school link building techniques
• 12 ways to make people write about you
• 12 common business tactics
• 4 important considerations

Probably my most favorite part of this article is the end…  Advanced Linking Strategies.  It’s my favorite because there aren’t any listed!

“There is no such thing as advanced link building. While this list already sums up quite a few different strategies, I’m pretty sure that you can easily come up with a dozen more, that are specifically suitable for your company or industry.

Eric Ward once said that link building is “one part marketing, two parts public relations, and three parts common sense”. I’d say that link building is 10% basic SEO knowledge, 20% business thinking, 30% creativity and 40% perseverance. Either way, there’s nothing advanced to it.”

Read the entire article at: Link Building Strategies: 69 Solid Tactics For 2009

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Popups are something that I used to do, but stopped because I hate them so much as a consumer. Well, they work – so I made the business decision to go back to them.

The technology behind popups has changed quite a bit since my last dealings with them, so I did a little investigating into the ones that produce the best conversion rates and checked out some of the newer types of popups like the peel away corners or peel away ads (great for sales pages) and the ones where the background fades away (that’s the one this website uses).

Any of these types work well with my blog and sales websites, but they won’t work with my SBI websites because SBI doesn’t allow ftp access to the server (a real bummer sometimes, but other things about SBI make up for it!).

So I needed a solution that would work with SBI… and I found Floating Windows and decided to give it a try… That’s where this Floating Windows Review finally comes in.

I have to admit that my reason for trying it was more than it’s compatibility with SBI… their website is pretty slick too. Floating Windows has nice graphics, examples of both entry and exit popups, and two nice videos that show you how it all works. Their sales letter is pretty effective (you should check it out if you keep swipe files!).

Cool! I’ll give Floating Windows a shot!

A Little Disappointed…

After buying the software, I was pretty disappointed to find out that it’s actually hosted on the Floating Windows server instead of being a program on my own computer. Oh well, I thought, it won’t matter if it works as advertised. So I logged into the program through a browser interface and got to work creating my first entry popup.

Frankly, I thought the templates that Floating Windows offered were pretty good and were something that I could work with, so I didn’t really try to do too much of my own coding. I just threw together a decent looking popup, inserted the code into my SBI webpage and started testing it out.

NOTE: If you wanted to do anything really fancy with Floating Windows, I believe you’d have some problems because the templates would actually get in your way. The program is pretty restrictive.

Testing is where it all went wrong…

I originally wanted the Floating Window to open each time I entered the site so that I could see how it looked and tweak it, if necessary. What I didn’t realize at first is that there is no way to adjust how often the Floating Window opens. That means that every time a visitor enters the page, the Floating Window appears.

Very bad idea… unless you like to completely annoy your visitors!

Okay, I didn’t like that, but I figured I’d just put the Floating Window on my homepage and leave the other pages alone. That way I could keep the annoyance to a minimum. (I had originally planned to limit the popup to open once per session and put it on all the pages… but not if it opens every time!)

I don’t like to do workarounds, but they seem to be a regular occurance in the internet marketing industry.

By the way, I forgot to mention that you can’t actually open up the Floating Window that you’ve already created to make changes. You have to re-create your window from scratch each time you want to make a change!

So, I proceeded with my testing. First I accessed the page with the Floating Window in Firefox (my browser of choice). It worked fine.

Then I checked it with Internet Explorer… Disaster!

The Floating Window only came about halfway down the page and stopped short. That meant that you couldn’t actually see the headline or most of the copy… just the actual subscription box.

I went back into the program to adjust where the Floating Window lands on the page where it pops up… I actually like my popups to appear in the middle of the user’s screen.

But you can’t adjust that either!

Well, that was the last straw for me. I’ve removed the Floating Window and asked for a refund.

Summing it all up…

Since this was supposed to actually be a Floating Window Review, rather than a rant, I figured I’d lay out all the pros and cons for this program so that you can make your own decision on whether it’s right for you or not.

Positives:

• Nice graphics and templates included, but might be restrictive if you want to do anything fancy in your Floating Window.
• Compatible with SBI and any other site where you don’t have ftp access.
• Easy cut and paste coding is pretty “dummy proof” so even a complete newbie can use it.
• I briefly tested the exit popup and it worked fine… so this would be a great program if that’s all you wanted. There are some nice exit popup templates.

Negatives:

• Can’t adjust how many times the Floating Window appear per visit. It will popup every time the page is loaded.
• The entire window didn’t appear when I loaded it in Explorer… you may have a different experience. In my case, this is a deal killer.
• Can’t adjust the position of the Floating Window on the screen.
• Software hosted on third party server. I prefer to host my own software when possible.
• If you want to make changes to your current Floating Window, you can’t open it up from the serve… you have to re-create it each time you want to make a change.

If you’re still interested in this product after reading my Floating Window Review, then you can click on the box at the left to learn more and see their videos.

I ended up going with Advanced DHTML Popup to work with my SBI websites and Action Popup to go on my blogs (it has a super-simple WP plugin to set it all up). It will do everything I need it to do… but it’s pretty tricky to work with. I don’t recommend Advanced DHTML Popup unless you have a pretty good grasp of DHTML and how to integrate it with SBI.

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The general idea here is that you may be able to turn more of your website visitors into subscribers if you can prove to them that many other website visitors have made the same choice. Marc Kline puts it like this:

Just because someone else does something, doesn’t mean you should, does it? Maybe not, but from infancy all the way through adulthood, we take cues from others on what is worth our attention.

To test the theory, Aweber makes it possible to display a chicklet that shows your website visitors how many others are benefiting from your email newsletter… in other words, the chicklet shows your current subscriber count under your subscription form.

It’s a nice little setup because all you have to do is insert the code and Aweber keeps track and maintains your subscriber count for you. No fuss, no hassle.

So I decided to test out the whole social proof theory with a couple of my niche websites that offer newsletters.

To my complete surprise, displaying the subscriber count under the subscription form appears to have increased my subscription rate by 33%!

In fairness, I’ve only been running the chicklet for a month and most of my niches are somewhat cyclical, so it just could be a coincidence… I haven’t suspended the test yet to make sure that the increases are due to the subscriber count display and not to some other factor such as the time of year or other promotions that may increase my subscription rate, but I don’t think this is the case because of the way I tested it.

My results are based on a split test (page A without chicklet and page B with chicklet) and appear to be sound. I don’t think the cyclical nature of the niches in the test really has anything to do with the results and I find the results encouraging so far. Encouraging enough that I’m expanding the test to include more of my niches.

So, why would displaying the subscriber count make more people subscribe themselves?

It really comes down to the whole idea that people prefer to commit to things that others have already committed to and found success. It’s kind of the same idea as putting testimonials on sales pages to show prospects that others have found success with the product and you will too.

Your newsletter or ezine is one of your products, so if you can essentially provide testimony or proof that others have subscribed, it makes sense that it would increase your subscription rate. I agree with Marc Kline when he says:

This social proof might not make everyone want to jump on the bandwagon, but when subscribers are considering why they would want to give up some more time and inbox space to get your email, things like links to a privacy policy and subscriber counts may prove to be the tipping point. Showing your subscriber can help you to boost conversions on your sign up forms.

Anyway you look at it, it’s something worth testing for your own business and it’s another reason why I love Aweber… they are always helping me to be more effective and successful in my email marketing!

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For a lot of websites, this number can look very good until you dig a little deeper and find out what your bounce rate is. A bounce is when a visitor lands on a page on your website and never clicks through to any other pages before leaving. Therefore it follows that a bounce rate is the percentage of website visitors who land on one of your pages and then leave without going any deeper into your website.

Unless you’re talking about a landing page that’s designed for a specific purpose, like sending visitors to an affiliate website, then a website that has a high bounce rate is highly undesirable. I don’t know about you, but I want my unique visitors to come on in to my website, take their coats off, and stay awhile. I want them to click around and visit several of my pages, subscribe to my ezine, make some comments on my blog, and generally make themselves at home.

I’m betting that you feel the same way.

Do you have a serious case of bouncing visitors?

So the first thing you need to do to find out if you’ve got a serious case of bouncing visitors is to determine your bounce rate. This is really easy to do if you use any kind of analytics software on your website… which you definitely should. By simply logging into your website analytics, you can see how many visitors are coming to your site, how many pages they looked at, and if they left your site shortly after arriving to it.

In Awstats, for example, the software offers a section that calculates the amount of time each visitor is staying on your site called “Visits duration.” If visitors are staying less than 30 seconds, then you have a serious case of bouncing visitors.

If you use SBI (my favorite host), then you can get a pretty good idea of your bounce rate by doing a few simple calculations.

For example: 123,784 divided by 381,149 gives you an overall bounce rate of 32%. That may sound high, but it’s actually a very low bounce rate.

Unfortunately, most hosting services don’t offer advanced analytics software as part of their packages because most people just don’t know what to do with all that data. That’s why I highly suggest that you invest in your business with analytic software that gives you a really clear picture of what your visitors are doing on your website… including bounce rate. Here are a few options (that I’m not affiliated with) that you can look into:

http://www.statcounter.com
http://www.google.com/analytics/
http://www.webtrends.com

If you have a high bounce rate…

Before you get yourself in a panic over your bounce rate, remember that this is really just a yardstick to measure your website against. There are a lot of factors that can affect your bounce rate, including where the traffic is coming from, purpose of your website and specific landing pages, website design, and your website goals. You have to keep all these things in mind as you determine if you have a problem on your hands.

If you’re concerned about your website bounce rate, here are a few questions that you should be asking yourself:

1. Is your website compelling? You never know for sure what page visitors will land on when they visit your website, so it pays to look at your website as a whole and decide if you’ve presented yourself in a compelling and interesting way. Offering visitors lots of interesting content within your niche is a great way to engage your visitors and keep them at your site longer.

2. Is navigation easy? There’s nothing more frustrating than to click through to a website and find it nearly impossible to find anything on it. Navigation should be easy and intuitive so that visitors can immediately feel at home.

3. Is your website or landing page broken? Sometimes a high bounce rate can be directly related to a website issue. Visitors can easily be driven to the back button is your form is broken, images are missing on the page, or the pages are taking too long to load. Another big issue could be browser compatibility. If your website looks broken in Firefox, for example, then any visitor who uses Firefox will be put off by your website. Any of these factors can chase your visitors away before they even have a chance to look deeper into your site.

4. Are you targeting the right keywords? Keywords are something that I harp on a lot, but this is another situation where it pays to do your keyword homework. If you’re attracting visitors through the wrong keywords, then they won’t be the kind of highly targeted visitors that you need… and they’ll leave your site very quickly. This goes for paid advertising, organic SEO, Adwords, etc. Keywords are still your best bet to lowering your bounce rate.

5. Do you tell visitors where to go? Okay, you may be thinking H-E-double toothpicks, but I was referring to using a call to action, pointing them where you want them to go on your website, and setting up a strategic path for them. Visitors are more likely to dig deeper into your website if you’ve gotten them interested in “what’s next” on your website.

6. Where are your visitors coming from? This factor is probably the biggest one to consider if you have a high bounce rate. For example, if you advertise extensively in PPC’s, then your advertising could be seriously affecting your bounce rate. In addition, when your traffic comes from article marketing, link exchanges, search engines, forums, etc. it all affects your bounce rate. Once you know where you’re traffic is coming from, then you can make adjustments to your marketing in order to reduce your bounce rate.

Is bounce rate really that important?

I think it’s pretty important, but you’ll have to make up your own mind where this factor fits into your own business. In my view, anything that gives me clues to what’s working or not working on my websites is well worth investigating.

As with anything else in your online business, you really have to keep the big picture in mind. There are so many factors that can affect your bounce rate that you could drive yourself crazy trying to figure it all out. In addition, different types of websites can actually produce bigger bounce rates. For example, blogs typically have a higher bounce rate than simple content driven websites.

You might be able to correct a high bounce rate with something as easy as simplifying your website navigation or changing your header graphics… making the whole thing well worth it.

To me, it’s all about the bottom line. If the bounce rate affects my bottom line, then it’s worth my time. How about your?

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