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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Of course she was absolutely certain that the affiliate program was ripping her off — She’d actually made sales but they weren’t credited to her affiliate account.

Maybe that was true in her case, I don’t know, but there are also other factors that could explain here lack of affiliate sales.

1.  Does the affiliate sales page convert?

This is probably the biggest thing that all affiliates should consider before joining because it will have the biggest impact on your bottom line.   Does the sales page for the affiliate product that you want to promote have a good conversion rate?  In other words, how many people who click over to the sales page actually buy the product?

Believe it or not, conversion rates average around 2%… but I’ve see affiliate sales pages converting at much, much less.  It’s not unusual to find affiliate conversion rates in the tank at 0.01%.

2.  Does the sales page offer “untracked” sales?

Sometimes an affiliate sales page offers prospects other forms of payment that can’t be tracked to the affiliate who referred them.

For example, if a prospect can order by 800 number, then the affiliate may not get credit for sales they’ve referred who purchased through that toll free number.

I’ve seen a lot of Clickbank merchants do this kind of bait and switch thing to affiliates… let me explain.

The merchant joins Clickbank and sells one of their products through them.  Once they’re in the Clickbank marketplace and affiliates start promoting them, the merchant switches over to take payments through PayPal, phone, or another payment system and cuts the affiliate out of the sales.

3.  Is your advertising targeting the right market?

This is what I think happened to my coaching client… she was getting plenty of clicks, but they weren’t people who were interested in actually buying the product she was advertising.

It’s easy, especially with pay-per-click, to get a lot of people clicking through your ad.  All you have to do is word the ad so that it provokes a lot of clicks.

But clicks aren’t what really matters in a pay-per-click campaign… quality clicks are what matter.

That’s why most PPC experts use negative qualifiers and precise information to weed out all the tire-kickers.  Once you do that and specifically target who will see your ad, you’ll find that the quality of your clicks and your return on investment (ROI) improves tremendously.  (If you want to learn more about PPC, then I highly recommend The Definitive Guide To Google Adwords!)

In the end, there are probably lots of reasons why some affiliate products don’t sell, but these are the most common problems that affiliates face.

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It doesn’t matter how great the features are, how awesome your marketing message, or even if your product has all the bells and whistles.  It doesn’t even matter what your industry is… At the end of the day, your customers all buy some variation of one of these things:

1. Make more money
2. Save more time
3. Make them feel better about themselves
4. Avoid the frustration of doing things they don’t want or like to do
5. Saving or avoid losing money in the future

So now that you know that your customers fit into one of these categories, how can you use that to your advantage?

Easy… Focus all your energy on selling one of these key points in all your copywriting and keep these five categories in mind as you create new products.

Of course, there are a lot of other factors involved in the entire sales process, but keeping an eye on these five categories and integrating this basic knowledge into your business plan will ultimately help you to make more sales and create products and services that address a need in your industry.

And there’s your quick tip for today… there are really only 5 things that people buy.

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Lowering Your Price To Compete

This is a strategy that a lot of product owners mistakenly try in order to increase sales and gain more customers.  It sounds right — lower your price so that your product is less expensive than your competition.

Unfortunately, this strategy almost never works and will actually result in fewer sales, not more.

People don’t necessarily buy the cheapest product.  They usually buy the product that appears to be the best value for their money.

In addition, lowering your prices means less profit.  Earning less profits per sale may mean that you have a hard time keeping your business afloat.

Here’s a better strategy for pricing your products:

1.  Remain Competitive

You may not want to be the lowest priced product in your niche, but you do want to be competitive.  Take a look at the competition and what they’re offering.

You can’t price your product in a vacuum.

You’re competitors will help to guide you in your own pricing strategy.  You can take a look at the most expensive competitors and the bargain basement competitors and get a pretty good feel for what the market will bare in your industry or niche.

Once you know what your competition is doing, it will be easier to create a pricing strategy that gains a share of the market and creates sales.

2.  Create A Perception Of High Value

The best way to compete on price is to create a higher perceived value of your products compared to your competition.

You may even be able to charge significantly more for your product if you can prove to your potential customers that your product is better than anything else on the market.

The best way to create a higher perceived value is to pile on the bonuses.

Your product may be priced at $97 when the rest of the competition is priced at $47, but if you offer bonuses worth an additional $2,000 you’ll be able to easily convince potential customers that your product is superior.

Perception is everything.

3.  Test Prices

One of the best ways to price your products to compete for massive sales is to test different price points.  There are software products that run on your server that will allow you to test different prices — and they’re well-worth the money.

You’d be surprised how often you can actually charge a lot more for your product than you’d expect.

The idea is to find that “sweet spot” where you’re maximizing profits, not necessarily sales.

Here’s an example:  Let’s say that you can sell 100 ebooks for a $10 dollar profit on each and make $1,000.  You test out different price points and find that you can also sell the same ebook for $50 profit, but you only sell 50 of them instead of 100.  In the first scenario, you’ve made $1,000.  At the higher price, you actually profit $2,500!

Testing is the best way to find the “sweet spot.”

In the end, it’s important to remember that buyers are always much more interested in getting the best value for their money rather than the cheapest product.  Knowing that is how you go about pricing your product to compete for massive sales.

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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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As an affiliate, it looked like a good deal.

Just send targeted visitors to the sales page and make one sale for every sixteen or so visitors you send them.

So, I started working on my affiliate marketing campaign for the product.  In this case, I decided to use pay per click(PPC) to promote it.  Here’s why I started with PPC:

Read the rest of this post at www.The-Affiliate-Directory.com (one of my other blogs)

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In addition, hopefully this sales letter mistakes video will show you what NOT to do when you create your own sales pages!

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It should be no surprise to you that the best way to learn about internet marketing is to watch and learn from what others do… this is where the swipe file comes in.  A swipe file is simply a file or collection of marketing messages, headlines, techniques, etc. Essentially, whenever you see an example of great marketing you add it to your marketing collection.

Before The Internet

Before the internet, a swipe file would contain a bunch of direct mail marketing pieces, newspaper ads, postcards, etc. all kept in a box or file folder.

Today you can still have a file folder full of those kinds of things, but you should also consider starting a digital collection where you can put great examples of email marketing, ezine ads, headlines, digital sales letters, etc.

You can even put an expert’s entire profit funnel in your swipe file if you watch them long enough.

Some of the best marketing messages that I’ve seen were only presented in an online format… especially sales letters!

I have my own digital swipe file where I save email messages, article resource boxes, sales letters, great headlines, and other promotional materials that I think are really good.

I keep my digital swipe files on thumb drives.

Remember, a great marketing piece doesn’t have to relate directly to your chosen market to be useful to you… so save any marketing piece that works, regardless of the product.

No Copying!

A Swipe File IS NOT For Copying.

Before you get the wrong idea here… keep in mind that a swipe file is not intended to be a file where you store materials that you are going to copy later.   That would be a HUGE no no.

You should think of a swipe file as a place to store materials that you can use later to generate your own marketing ideas and strategies.

Thumbing through a collection of marketing materials will likely bring on a flood of ideas for how you can position, write about, or promote your own product… and that’s why you should create your own collection! Remember, you’re just looking for inspiration.

Don’t just save the materials from the big companies either… some of them use terrible promotional materials!

In fact, you’ll find some of the best marketing and promotional materials are written by little known people who have really taken their time on each and every piece.

You’ll also find a lot of great marketing fodder by watching what the ‘gurus’ do.  Some of them are very, very good at what they do… that’s why we think of them as ‘gurus!’

By The Way…

If you’re really interested in simply copying other people’s campaigns and using them, you really should check out CopyNProfit.  I haven’t tried it myself yet (although I plan to review it in the near future), but it seems to be getting really good reviews.

If you’ve already tried it, I hope you’ll take the time to post your comments about the program so others can benefit.

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Go From Zero To Your Own Profitable
Internet Business In Six Easy Steps!

By Derek Gehl and The Internet Marketing Center Team

This week, we’d like to jump right in and answer an important question from a reader. Mike Vernice writes:

“I am interested in building my future for both myself and my loved ones. I have to admit I am scared to make a move because of today’s economy, and I can’t afford to flop. What do you suggest?”

Well, Mike, as far as starting a website during today’s economy goes, we’ve recently gone on record saying that the downturn could actually be a GOOD time to start an Internet business.

Online sales have never been STRONGER, you’ll have access to an entire global market, the start-up costs are negligible, and you can get started while you’re working a “regular” job, so you won’t feel the pressures of needing to earn big profits right away.

In fact, we’ve written an entire article about the benefits of starting an Internet business during a recession, which you can read here.

Now as far as being “scared to make a move,” Mike, it’s common to feel that way when you’re just starting out, but the truth is, there’s nothing to worry about!

As long as you’re following a tested and proven system for starting a successful online business, there’s actually VERY little risk that you’ll “flop.”

With the right system, you can start slowly, with almost NO upfront investment, using your free time on the weekends to get the “basics” in place.

Then, over time, as you continue to learn and grow — and start earning your first modest profits — you can begin to invest more time and money in your business, applying increasingly advanced strategies, until your website is making serious money.

Then, once that site is running hands-free, you can use what you’ve learned to start a second site. And then a third. And so on…

… until you’ve got MULTIPLE streams of income flowing into your bank account automatically, and you’ve kissed your regular job goodbye FOREVER!

It won’t happen overnight, and it’s not quite as easy as some would have you believe, but if you take your time, stay focused and motivated, and don’t give up, a life-changing income really CAN be yours!

To help get you started, Mike, we’d like to walk you through the six-step system we give to all of our clients, to help them build profitable sites.

We’ve been teaching this system for over a decade now, and it’s worked for literally thousands of people, many of whom are now making incomes of $5,000… $10,000… $15,000 or MORE a MONTH!

Step #1: Find A Lucrative “Niche Market” Filled With Hungry Buyers

If you’ve been receiving this newsletter for any length of time, the term niche market should be pretty familiar to you.

In fact, it’s probably the one thing we talk about the MOST here at The Internet Marketing Center, because finding one is SO critical to the success of your business!

But if you’re new to the term, here’s how we define it:

A niche market is a group of people who are all searching online for the solution to a common problem, and not finding many relevant results.

In other words, you’re looking for a market that has HIGH demand and LOW competition. Simple, right?

So how do you find a niche market? In a word, research.

You’ll need to do keyword research to find out what problems people are typing into the search engines, you’ll need to do market research to find out where your potential market hangs out online, and you’ll need to do competition research to make sure there’s room for you in the market.

And remember: Do NOT rush this!

This is the single most important step you’ll take when creating your business. Finding a niche is like building the foundation for a house. The stronger your foundation is, the more stable your entire house will be.

Step #2: Find Or Create A Hot-Selling Product That Your Market Will Beg For

Once you’ve found your niche market, and understand the problem you’re going to help people with, it’s time to find the solution (product) you can sell to them.

And while you can build your own product to sell online, Mike, there are plenty of things you can sell without having to spend money on development, manufacturing, shipping, and storing.

You can:

• Work with a drop shipper, selling their products while they take care of the shipping and storage for you
• Join an affiliate program, and make money by recommending other peoples’ products on your website
• Offer to perform a service for people

And while these are all great options for someone just getting started, the HOTTEST thing you can sell online is information!

By creating your own ebook that solves your visitors’ problem for them, you can sell and deliver it hands-free, plus keep 100% of the proceeds from each sale!

Step #3: Write Compelling Salescopy That Turns Visitors Into Buyers

With your market and product figured out, it’s time to start building your website, right? Wrong!!

Before you even think about creating your website, you need to write powerful, compelling salescopy that answers your visitors’ biggest question: “What’s in it for ME?!”

Your copy is going to take the place of a salesperson in a brick-and-mortar store, answering all of your customers questions, overcoming their objections, and nudging them toward the buying decision.

And if you’re worried that your writing abilities may not be up to the task, don’t be! Writing good salescopy is more science than art…

… so as long as you understand a few basic principles of persuasion, you’ll be able to easily create highly effective copy for your site, even if you’re not a writer!

Step #4: Design a Website That DRIVES Visitors To Take Action

Typically, creating a website is the step that “newbies” want to do first.

But hopefully you can see now, Mike, that there are MANY advantages to getting your market, product, and salescopy figured out before you tackle the site!

And when you ARE ready to build your site, you’ll want to avoid just jumping in with both feet. As with everything else related to your business, a bit of planning goes a LONG way!

That’s because you’ve got just a few seconds to “hook” your visitors, convince them that you’ve got EXACTLY what they’re looking for, and keep them on your site long enough to buy.

So by figuring out how your site will look, what kinds of graphics you’re going to use, where you’re going to put the salescopy, and how you’re going to organize the information on the page, you’ll end up with a website that makes sales right from the get-go.

And if you’re not comfortable with the idea of building your own website, it’s actually pretty easy.

In fact, if you can update your Facebook profile or send basic emails, chances are you’ll be able to learn how to create your own simple website faster than you thought possible.

Step #5: Use Email Marketing To Build Relationships With Your Visitors

Chances are, most of your customers WON’T buy from you the first time they visit, so it’s crucial that you stay in touch with them, so you can continue driving them back to your site to make a purchase.

And by far the BEST way to do this is with email marketing.

First, note that we’re NOT talking about spam! You’ll use your site to create a list of “opt-in” subscribers; people who not only WANT to hear from you, but have specifically given you permission to email them!

Email marketing is the perfect way for ANY business to make profits, because:

• Your email list is made up of people who are inviting you to sell to them
• You’re developing lifetime relationships with your customers
• The response is 100% measurable, so you can evaluate the success of your campaigns within hours (saving thousands on advertising)
• It’s effective, instantaneous, and cheap!

And as with most other things related to your new business, email marketing is pretty easy to do! There are lots of tools out there that make it as easy as sending a regular email to a friend!

Step #6: Drive Visitors To Your Website and Start Making Sales

Your job is NOT over when your website goes live! Now you need to start actively sending customers to it, and the FASTEST way to do that is with a pay-per-click (PPC) adverting campaign.

When you get started with a PPC campaign, you:

• Get your site listed at the top of the search results in as little as 15 minutes
• Get lots of traffic for very little money
• ONLY pay for the advertising that actually works

And it’s SO easy to get started!

You just bid on specific keywords so that, whenever someone enters that word into the search engines, a link to your site appears at the top of the results page.

When someone clicks through to your website from that link, you pay the search engine the amount you bid on that particular word.

Then once you’re earning profits with your site through your PPC campaign, you can begin to focus on the many ways of bringing FREE traffic to your website!

Your Personal Blueprint For Starting A Profitable Web Business

Of course, we’ve really just scratched the surface here, Mike. There’s FAR more to starting a profitable web business than we could possibly fit into a newsletter of this size.

But the good news is that we have laid out this entire step-by-step system for you in a comprehensive “roadmap” that ANYONE can follow to quickly and easily start earning profits on the Internet…

… even if you have NO previous business experience and NO technical skills.

We carefully walk you through EVERYTHING you need to do to start your profitable Internet business, including:

• Help you decide what to sell
• Easily get a sales website (complete with copy)
• Attract your first visitors
• And take your first credit card payment

And once you’ve accomplished these key milestones, we’ll show you how to ramp up sales and traffic quickly, and then automate your entire business so it’s “hands-free!”

Then, when your site is making serious money, we’ll show you HUNDREDS of ADVANCED strategies and techniques you can use to drive profits even higher.

Best of all, we’ve JUST finished completely updating and revising the system, so it contains the MOST up-to-date techniques and strategies that people are using to earn BIG profits right this second!

So watch your email inbox over the next week. We’ll let you know the second it’s available.

At the same time, we’ll be revealing TWO very closely guarded secrets that we’ve been keeping under wraps for MONTHS. The first secret is going to revolutionize the way people learn how to make money on the Internet…

… but the second one is going to ROCK the Internet marketing world!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Internet marketing expert Derek Gehl specializes in teaching real people how to successfully start, build, and grow their own profitable online businesses on small budgets. To get instant access to the step-by-step strategies, tools, and resources he’s used to grow just $25 into over $60 Million in online sales, visit: http://www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.html

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I’m guilty of it and I bet you are too.

I regularly scan through sales letters, website copy, articles, etc. so I can quickly get to the meat of the matter and move on.

That’s why it’s important to keep that in mind in all your writing.  Sherice Jacob wrote an interesting article on the subject for Copyblogger called, “How to Write Copy for Short Attention Spans” that addresses the things you need to do to get your reader’s attention when you are writing your own sales material.

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