So what is this mystery strategy? Well as you might have guessed from the title, I’m talking about the idea of giving to your market.

Still confused? Let me try and explain this strategy a little more….

No matter what market most business owners are in, the majority always seem to focus on what they can get from their market. Now while there is no harm in seeking out opportunities in your market, I’m confident that if these business owners changed their thinking to consider what they can give to their market, they will in turn find that more opportunities present themselves and in turn they make more money.

Now, I think the best way reinforce the importance and effectiveness of this strategy is by demonstrating some examples of how you can give to your market, and show how it can benefit you further:

Content On Your Blog

No matter what kind of online business you have, I always recommend you have a blog. This is a great place to build an audience for your products or services, and also a great way to build authority in your market.

Posting regular, high quality content to your blog, is a great way to give to your market. This in turn will increase your audience, as other people share your content and it becomes spread across the Internet. You will also gain authority status in your niche as you continue to provide useful content to others, this positions you as an expert. This can have a dramatic impact on your business and allow you to sell more products or gain more clients in your business.

Answering Questions And Interacting In Your Market

Helping other people in your niche is a fantastic way to give back to your market. This could be on niche forums, on Facebook, or perhaps answering someones questions on Twitter. Whatever you do to help others, this creates new opportunities for relationships with others in your niche. The people you help may become customers of yours, or may recommend your business to others. They may also become business partners or joint venture partners on future projects.

I’ve built fantastic business relationships with my of my clients from my design business through offering exceptional service and going above and beyond what was expected. In turn, many of these people have offered me help as I’ve been growing my other businesses.

Your Own Calling Card Content

If you’re running a blog, or building your own information product business, this is one of the most powerful methods of giving back to your community that you can use.

Create a piece of unique content (ebook, report or video), or a unique tool or application which you can give away to your market. You will usually give this away in return for a name and email, but people will be happy to give you their details if your free content (which I call a calling card) looks like it has value.

Although you are asking for something back with this form of giving, it’s still a great way to build relationships and more importantly build a list of interested prospects in your niche market, which you can market to in the future. However, if you want to improve your success with this new list of prospects, you must continue to provide high quality information to them, as well as offers. By doing this you will establish yourself as an authority, but also as someone who wants to provide value and not just sell to them.

I hope you can now see the power of changing your thinking, and considering what you can do for your market, rather than what it can do for you. This strategy has honestly brought me a lot more money as a result of the relationships I have built by giving back to the niche markets in which I operate.

I’d love to hear your ideas for giving back to your market – what are you doing to give to your business community, and how has it impacted your business?

In the case of a blog, the term “conversion” can actually apply to quite a few areas. In simple terms, you can define a conversion as any time a visitor completes a specific desired action on your blog. For example, I may be building a list with my blog, and class one conversion as anytime a visitor opt’s-in to my list.

In this post, I’m going to break down conversions into three of what I think are the most popular conversion categories, and discuss what you can do to optimize your blog to maximize your conversions in each of these areas.

The three main conversion categories I’m going to focus on are:

• List Conversion
• Affiliate Conversion
• Product Conversion

At the end of this post I’m also going to discuss some general conversion boosting tips you can use on your blog to improve other less important conversions on your blog.

List Conversion

On my blogs and websites, I count a list conversion as anytime someone joins one of my mailing lists. I try and build a list on every website I launch, as this gives me the ability to communicate with these visitors even after they have left my site. I can use my lists to send offers for my own or affiliate products, or free content to my visitors, which can help me build better relationships with my visitors and create more buyers for every single person that opts-in.

I use three different strategies to help boost my opt-in/signup rates to lists on my websites and blogs:

Lightbox Optin Form

A lightbox is a box which appears over the top of my blog, and is designed to attract maximum attention from my readers.

This is the most obtrusive form of list building, but also the most effective. I use an awesome plugin called Popup Domination created by my friend Michael Dunlop to create really gorgeous looking lightbox optin forms with just a few clicks. In my tests so far on a range of blogs in different niche markets, I’ve found I’m increasing my conversions by between 200%-400% with this simple plugin.

Sidebar Optin Form

This is the most common type of list building element used on a blog. Having a sidebar optin box is a great idea, particularly as it is then a consistent element across your whole site. This means if someone enters your site through an inner page, they will still be exposed to the optin box.

The main problem with the sidebar optin is that it is becoming less effective as people get used to the optin box in this position. You will see on BusinessJolt.com I have made the optin box a bright color to ensure it stands out and attracts attention, as well as using a large attention grabbing headline for the box.

Another great strategy is to use arrows pointing to the box, or use an ecover graphic to give a digital representation of your product. If you need a nice looking ecover for your product, try my Ecover Creator 3D package.

Full Width Optin Form

The full width optin form is something I have been trialling on a few different blogs that I run. This is a great away to attract the attention of your visitors as soon as they hit the homepage of your site. Another advantage of the full width optin box is that you can provide more information about your offer or free gift, or in the case of my BusinessJolt form, add in a video or what I call the “video fakeout”.

The video fakeout is a graphic which appears to be a video, but when clicked or hovered over, it shows arrows to the optin box. This is to demonstrate that the visitor will get access to the videos when they optin. I’ve found that on some of my sites this can boost conversions quite considerably.

Create Page Specific Lightboxes

One clever strategy I’ve not yet tested, but have heard can be very effective, is to create specific lightbox popups for different pages on your blog. Each of these lightboxes would have an offer customized for the content on that page.

By doing this, you can optimize conversions by targeting the exact wants and needs of the visitors to that page based on the content of the page. Up till now this has been very difficult to do as it would require custom coding each individual lightbox, but I’ve been reliably informed by the creators of Popup Domination that this feature will be added very soon – so this is another great reason to grab this software now while the price is low!

Other List Conversion Tips

The other main conversion boosting tip I would give for increasing your list conversions is to ensure your offer is a good fit for your audience. By this I mean that if you have a fitness blog, you’re offering some kind of fitness related product or content – perhaps a 30 day fitness planning guide.

The better the offer “fits” your market, the more people will want to optin. One way to boost this is by testing different offers, or trying different benefits on your form to try and find what works best with your audience.

Affiliate Conversion

If you’re monetizing your site by promoting affiliate offers, you’ll want to maximise your return on every visitor that comes to your site. My first recommendation would be to ensure you can effectively track what links your visitors are clicking on. To do this on my sites, I use a service called GoTryThis.

GoTryThis Control Panel Allows Me To Create New Link Campaigns Fast

By using GoTryThis, I can create new link campaigns fast, and track exactly which links have been clicked on by my visitors. So for example if I created a new review page for a product, I could create a different link tracking ID for each link on the page, and see which had the best results. I can then use this information to improve the conversions of my future review pages.

You can also do more advanced affiliate linking strategies like cloaking affiliate links or direct linking to checkout pages where required.

If you don’t want to use a tool like GoTryThis to make your life easier, you can alternatively use tracking IDs on your affiliate URLs, provided that your merchant or affiliate program supports them. By doing this you can then see which tracking IDs generated the sale, and follow this back to your site to see which link is working best.

Affiliate Banner Review Strategy

If you’re using banners to promote affiliate products on your blog, this strategy can work really well and is definately worth testing.

Rather than linking directly to your affiliate offer sales page or website, you instead link your banner to an internal page or post on your site where you review the product. This allows you to pre-sell the prospect on product while they are still on your blog, and this can help boost conversions.

If you want to take this a step further, you could consider interviewing the product owner and putting the interview on your blog, which goes even further to building trust and respect for the product and its creator.

Another way to boost this strategy is by offering an exclusive bonus to your visitors for anyone that purchases through your link. This would be offered at the end of your review, and gives your visitors another incentive to buy (I’ve hardly seen anyone doing this on blogs!).

Test Different Banners Or Arrangements

It’s important to test different banners, and different arrangements of banners on your blog to maximise your conversions. There are a range of plugins available to help you do this, just do a search in Wordpress for “rotating ads” or “ad management”. If you’re tracking with GoTryThis you can also establish which banners or links are performing best on your sidebar.

Demonstrate Use Of The Affiliate Product

This is a really awesome way to boost affiliate conversions on your blog. No matter what kind of product you’re promoting, if you can demonstrate use of the product, and show results, you’re likely to improve your conversions considerably. For example, you might be promoting a training course on the graphic design software Photoshop. You might create a tutorial on how to create an effect within Photoshop, and then link to your training course and tell your visitors you learned all your Photoshop skills from the course you’re promoting.

This works even better if you can actually demonstrate the product in action, and show results to your visitors. Let’s say you were promoting the market research tool Market Samurai. You might show how you’re using the tool to find new untapped keywords, and then show your results from targetting these keywords. This positions your affiliate product as a natural progression for your visitor, meaning they’ll feel much more inclined to buy.

Build A List And Send Offers

I’ve already discussed list conversion strategies in this post, but if you’re not building a list on your affiliate blogs, you should be. Offer a free gift or some kind of short report, video or a useful tool and then follow up with your visitors with offers once they are subscribed. This means that even if your prospect doesn’t buy on the first visit to your site, you can keep sending them back there for new content, and also promote your affiliate offers alongside this.

Use High Impact Graphics

Using high impact graphics on your blog is one of the best ways to boost your conversions. You need to try and catch your visitors attention and show them a clear action to take when they have read your blog post, your review or whatever you have on your page.

High Impact Recommended Resources Box

On some pages of BusinessJolt.com you’ll see “Recommended Resources” boxes at the the end of posts. This box is designed to be eye-catching and to provide essential resources which fit well with the content of the post.

You can also try using arrows and immitate the usual blue hyperlinks with a graphic like below when promoting an affiliate product (or your own product)

This High Impact Graphic Helps Attract The Visitors Attention

Product Conversion

If you’re selling your own products through your blog (like I do on BusinessJolt.com), there are a few things you can do to help boost conversions. I know many people are against selling products through blogs as they think it devalues the blog, however I feel that if you offer high quality products that provide valuable solutions, along with providing great content for free on your blog, there’s no problem with it.

Here are some things you can try if you want to boost your product conversions on your blog (note that I usually advise that you don’t actually sell your product directly from your blog, and instead link to your product sales page or a separate page on your site where you can provide full details of your product):

Create A Products Page

This is a simple and easy step you can take to help boost your sales conversions. Create a page showing the different products you have available. This gives your visitors an immediate overview of what you have on offer, and they can identify what they may be interested in. I’m still trying different layouts and setups for my products page, but I have found that so far people prefer to click through to the sales letter to buy rather than just buying directly from the site.

Track Conversions & Goals

By using Google Analytics, you can track how many people click through from your blog to your sales page and then buy your product. You can do this by setting up individual goals for your products, so that each time someone completes a goal (i.e. purchases a product), one conversion is recorded.

By doing this, you can see where people are coming from when they purchase your product, and established your most profitable pages or areas of your sites.

Split Test Your Sales Pages

It goes without saying that you should be split testing your sales pages whenever possible. Split testing simply means testing two slightly different pages against each other to help optimize conversions. I usually test things like headlines, subheadlines and individual offers on my sales letters to establish the optimal conversion rate.

You can do all of this for free with Google Website Optimizer. If you want to know more about what to split test, check out this post where I give you all my favourite sales letter conversion boosting strategies.

Other Conversions

As well as the main categories of conversion I’ve discussed above, I know there are other smaller conversions that many of us target on our blogs. As I want this post to really cover all areas, I thought I’d include a few strategies to boost conversions on a few more blog areas:

• RSS Feed Subscribers – We all want more regular readers on our blog, so by getting people to subscribe to your RSS feed you can keep them alerted to new content. I recommend having a prominent RSS feed subscribe button or link on your blog, and ensure the button is above the fold, meaning it’s visible when the page first loads. Use an RSS icon too for increased conversions.
• Facebook Friends/Subscribers – If you want to build a following away from your blog on sites like Facebook, you need to also ensure you have a clearly visible link to join or add you on your blog. If you’re running a Facebook Page, you can also embed a widget which shows your current friends or page members on your sidebar, which can be good for boosting your following.
• Twitter Followers – Twitter is another great place to get people to follow you and keep them updated with your content. Again, you need to ensure you add prominent buttons on your site to encourage people to follow you on Twitter, and you can consider including a feed of your latest tweets on your site.

I hope you’ve found these conversion boosting tips useful, and if you’re not already optimizing your blog for conversions, this post should give you some ideas to think about. I’d also love to hear your ideas and strategies on what you’re doing to improve conversions on your blogs, so be sure to post your thoughts below!

For those of your who are newer to Internet Marketing and information marketing, an affiliate is anyone who promotes your product and is given a commission for each sale they generate (normally between 30% and 75% for digital products).

By building an army of affiliates, all sending traffic to your product, you can focus your time on other areas of your business such as refining the sales process, improving conversions and developing new products. This can give your business a new level of scalability and allow your business to grow much faster than if you were relying on driving all the traffic yourself (or through your own outsource teams). You will also find that traffic sent from affiliates is sometimes much higher quality than that you can generate through other traffic sources, particularly if it’s endorsed traffic where affiliates are building review pages or reviewing your products on their blogs.

In this post I’m going to discuss some of the basics to selling information products through affiliates, and discuss the methods I’m using to recruit more people to sell my products for me.

Step 1: Setup An Affiliate Program

This may seem like a really obvious step, but it’s the first hurdle you have to overcome if you want to get affiliates promoting your products. Below I’ve analysed three of the most popular affiliate management solutions on the market so you can see for yourself which is the best fit for your needs.

Nanacast (Packages from $97/month): This is the premium solution and has many features to allow you to run your entire information marketing business from this one main platform (this is what I use)

Advanced Affiliate Management Features

Create custom landing pages or offers for JV partners and affiliates

Tracks by IP and Cookie for maximum reliability (better for affiliates)

Built in marketplace with growing affiliate base

Tracks backend sales to further reward affiliates

Advanced product and membership management features

Pro level content delivery systems with security and iTunes integration

Higher monthly cost than most affiliate services

Ejunkie (Packages from $5/month): – E-junkie provide a simple but effective solution with all the main features you’ll need to start selling your product online and allow affiliates to promote it.

Extremely affordable affiliate system

Includes product delivery system

Get paid directly via Paypal

No advanced features like individual affiliate landing pages

Cookie only tracking & no backend tracking

No marketplace or built in affiliate base

Clickbank ($50 one off fee + 7.5% transaction fee) – Clickbank is one of the largest digital marketplaces in the world, and very popular with information marketers who sell digital products. They provide a simple affiliate solution which works well but lacks many of the advanced features you may require as your business grows.

Popular marketplace with huge affiliate base

Payment of affiliates and tax handled by Clickbank

High transaction fee per sale

Less secure commission tracking (cookie only)

Less flexibility with pricing and content delivery

Step 2: Set Your Commission Rate

The commission rate is the amount (in $ or percentage) of each referred sale that you will pay to your affiliate. The higher your commission rate, the more appealing your product will appear to affiliates, although you shouldn’t feel you have to give away 75% of your sale just to get affiliates on board.

I usually offer between 30% and 50% commission on my products, depending on the price of the product, and also if it is being sold on the front or backend of my business (generally you can offer a lower commission rate on the backend).

If you’re selling on Clickbank, you will notice that many products offer 75% commission, which makes it harder to compete at 50%. This is one of the reasons I usually advise my clients to avoid Clickbank – but if you are using Clickbank be sure to use the other methods discussed in this post to recruit affiliates away from the main Clickbank marketplace itself (you can still do very well offering 50% commission on Clickbank).

Step 3: Have A Good Looking Sales Page

As a designer, I regularly had conversations with marketers who stated that ugly pages often convert better. Now I’m certainly a big supporter of testing different designs to maximise conversions, but I’ve also found that many sites which have a nicer look and feel will be more attractive to affiliates looking to promote the product.

Having A Good Looking Website Can Help Attract Affiliates

If an affiliate is interested in promoting your product but finds your site looks awful, they’re probably going to think you haven’t invested the time and money in making your site look good, which may also reflect on the amount of effort invested in the product itself.

This may in turn have an affect on their decision whether or not to promote your product. As a minimum I’d also recommend you have an ecover for your product. You can get a designer to create an ecover for you, or use an application like Ecover Creator 3D.

Step 4: Setup An Affiliate Mailing List

As well as building a list of prospects and buyers, it’s also very important to build a list of affiliates who are interested in promoting your product. You can use this list to help motivate your affiliates into promoting for you, as well as sending them additional materials, training and other information. You can also leverage this list when you come to launch future products as you already have a built in affiliate base to help give your product an initial boost.

I recommend you setup a separate list in your autoresponder and add an optin form for this list to your affiliate area (which I’ll talk about in a second) or alternatively position the optin form on your affiliate area page and advise your affiliates they need to optin to get their affiliate training and tools.

Step 5: Create Your Affiliate Area

Building an affiliate area is one of the best ways to get more affiliates promoting your products. Your affiliate area is essentially a page on your website which has all the tools and resources your affiliates will need to promote your product.

Essentially, you should make it as easy as possible for your affiliates to promote your product. The more tools and resources you give them, the more likely they are to promote for you.

Here are some ideas of what you should include in your affiliate area:

• The Affiliate Link – You need to provide the affiliate link people should use to promote your product. They may have to signup for an account with your affiliate system first and replace their ID in the link, but you should still provide the main format of the link. If you’re using a system like Nanacast, the affiliate link will automatically be generated and added to the affiliate area.
• Introduction To Your Product - Your introduction should describe exactly what your product does, and who the main target market is. You can also give examples of who is already using your product or who is having success with your product which may give your affiliates more ideas on who they can promote to.
• Promotional Banners - These will be used by your affiliates to promote your product on their websites and blogs. I recommend including the following sizes: 125×125, 250×250, 468×60, 120×600, 160×600 and 300×250. You should also ensure that if you have animated banners, you also provide static/non-animated versions. If you need banners designing, I recommend BannersMall as they have some very reasonable packages.
• Email Swipe Copy – Marketers are mostly lazy, so they often don’t want to write their own emails to promote your product to their list. You should write a series of different emails they can literally plug into their email autoresponder to send to their list, just customizing them with their own name and affiliate link. You should also provide some subject line ideas for your promo emails.
• Promotional Tweets – Twitter is now a huge platform for getting the message out about your product. Many people may post a link to Twitter even if they are not a full-blown affiliate marketer. By providing a range of promotional tweets about your product that people can simply cut and paste, you’ll find even more people getting the word out about your product.
• Commission Information – You should let your visitors know exactly how they will be rewarded for promoting your product. Include the price of the product, details of any upsells and downsells (and the commission rate on those) and how your affiliates will get paid.
• Ideas For Promotional Opportunities - If possible, you should try and give your affiliates some ideas of where and how they can promote your product. If you have tried different places to advertise in the past, tell your affiliates what worked and what didn’t work for you. You want them to be successful promoting your product, and the faster they can make a commission, the more they will get behind your product.
• Conversion Proof (Show Affiliates Making Money) – This one is killer! If you can show your affiliates are making money, you’ll find it a lot easier to get affiliates on board. I realise that at first this isn’t a possibility, but as soon as you have some affiliates making sales, show some screenshots of your sales stats. If possible include how many visits they sent and the number of sales they made. You can usually get most of these stats from the control panel of your chosen affiliate management platform.

Example of Page Showing Commissions By Affiliates

• Your Personal Support & Details – Make yourself accessible by your affiliates, and show you are available to help. Many affiliates who want to promote your product may want to get you on a webinar or interview you as part of their promotion, so tell your affiliates you’re available for interviews etc, and let them know how to contact you

Step 6: Promote Your Affiliate Program To Your Existing Network

One of the best places I have found to recruit new affiliates is from your existing network. By this I mean friends and contacts you’ve already made in your niche. Here are some places to consider promoting your affiliate program within your network:

• Your Blog – If you have a blog in your niche, (which I always recommend you do have), this can be a great place to mention your affiliate program. There’s a good chance that your blog readers are interested in your products, so consider making a post about your affiliate program and show how your readers can make some extra cash promoting your products. If you don’t to make a post about your affiliate program, it’s a good idea to have an easy to find link to your affiliate program on your blog or blog product pages.
• Facebook – Facebook is a great place to share the word about your new products, and it’s also a great place to spread the word about your affiliate program. You could even post success stories from affiliates on your facebook account. If you wanted to take this a step further, you could even have a dedicated facebook page for your business affiliates and post all your affiliate news and success stories there.
• Twitter – Ensure you post a few tweets about your new affiliate program or your new products when they are ready to promote. Think about posting here before you launch your new products to allow your affiliates to get on board and get their affiliate tools ready before you launch.
• Personal Contacts - If you’ve built up relationships with people in your niche, consider mentioning your affiliate program to them when you speak to them. You could also add a link to your affiliate program in your status on software like Skype so it’s there to see for all your affiliates.
• Email Signature – Another great way to advertise your affiliate program to your regular contacts is to add it to your email signature. Just a simple link to your affiliate program is all you need to get some attention from your regular contacts.

Step 7: Turn Your Customers Into Affiliates

It makes sense that some of the best people to promote your product are those that use it or have experienced results from using it. So you should look at how you can try and get anyone who has bought your product to promote it as an affiliate.

There are a few ways you can do this. The most simple way is to add information about becoming an affiliate to your product delivery pages, so your customers are immediately exposed to this information after purchasing. They will also be reminded of it each time they login to check out your content.

The more advanced solution is that by using a system like Nanacast to manage your affiliate program, you can automatically sign every customer up as an affiliate when they purchase. This means you can immediately send them an affiliate link so they can easily promote your product with no further signup necessary.

It’s fair to say that inside the internet marketing space, it’s much easier to get people to promote your products as they’re already likely to have their own blogs and be familiar with affiliate marketing. However if you’re selling information products outside of the IM space, you can still get your customers to promote your product. One of the best ways to do this is by using a simple tell-a-friend script (such as this one) which your customers can use to send a pre-written message to their contacts via email.

Step 8: Start Tracking And Improving Conversions

Once you have all your affiliate program setup and you’ve started building your affiliate base, you should start to focus on conversions. Conversions are what really matter to your affiliates – the more sales you can generate from the traffic they send, the more effort they will put into sending traffic to your sites and products.

You should start by monitoring your traffic with a tool like Google Analytics, and then use Google Website Optimizer to start split testing new elements of your sales pages. If you need some ideas on what to start testing to improve conversions, have a look at my post – Powerful sales letter conversion boosters.

Advanced Affiliate Getting Strategies

If you’ve followed the steps so far, you should have set your affiliate program off to a good start, and might be looking for some more strategies for taking your affiliate program signups to the next level. Here are some more advanced strategies I’ve been experimenting with, or am planning to implement in my business.

Utilize Joint Venture & Affiliate Forums

One great place to advertise your affiliate program is special forums or discussion boards which are specifically setup for discussion about affiliate programs or finding JV’s (Joint Ventures). There are many different forums like this on the Internet, and you’ll find most Internet Marketing forums have a section dedicated to “Joint Ventures” or “Affiliate Program Promotion”.

In these forums you can usually post details about your affiliate program or product, and hopefully get some attention from new affiliates. Be sure to include links to your product sales letter and affiliate area, and details about your product and commissions.

You can also make use of Internet Marketing forums by joining in conversations and adding a signature to your forum posts (ensure you comply with the rules of the relevant forum). This can get you increased exposure for your product, and even if your product is not in the IM Space, advertising your affiliate program may get the attention of other affiliates who are in your niche.

Directly Contact List Owners In Your Niche

This is one of my favorite strategies. Here’s how it works…

First, do a search on Google for the main keywords you are targeting for your product. Look at every one of the top 10 results.

You are looking for any sites or blogs where the site owner is building a list or selling a product (look for a name and email capture form). If their product is a direct competitor to your own, then I would rule them out as it’s unlikely they will promote your product (not always the case outside of the IM niche), but if you find people selling similar products which complement your own, I recommend contacting them. You can find their details through a contact form on the site, or use a site like Who.Is to search for the owner of the domain and find their contact email.

In your email tell them who you are, about your product, and include a link where they can download it, and tell them how they can signup as an affiliate.

If you want to supercharge this technique, you can try and build a relationship with the person first by contacting them through social networks like twitter or facebook, as this will build a stronger bond. Also try building a relationship by commenting on their blog regularly as this will get you noticed fast (most marketers will still approve their own blog comments even if they outsource other areas of their business).

I recommend as soon as you can, you should automate this by outsourcing the research of the contacts. Give your outsource contact the instructions on how to search for names and email addresses, so you can write the emails. You could even template the emails and have your outsource contact send them for you, but ensure each email is personalized in it’s own way.

Submit To Affiliate Directories

I’ve had limited success with this strategy so far, but I thought I’d include it for completeness as I figure it would get mentioned later if not. Affiliate directories are exactly as they sound, directories of different affiliate programs which you can also submit your product or affiliate program to.

Most of these are free, although some do charge for inclusion, or offer a premium option (which I haven’t experimented with so far). You have to submit some information about your product, including commission rates and other details, and you will be included in the relevant category.

I won’t list all the different directories here, so just do a search on Google for “affiliate directories” or “affiliate program directories” and I’m sure you’ll find lots.

Improve Funnel & Backend Commissions

If you’re using a system like Nanacast, you can ensure affiliates are rewarded if their referrals purchase products further down the “funnel” of your business. To maximize this, you should try and create more products which increase in price and value so your affiliates make more for every referral they send.

This will encourage your top affiliates to send more traffic as they’ll start seeing a higher return on the traffic they send. Ideally you want to aim to offer the highest per visitor value possible, so for every visitor they send, the more you can make from them, the better it is for your affiliates (and for you!).

Ensure you also setup a followup sequence designed to increase the value of each customer by selling additional products on the backend. The longer the followup sequence, (which should deliver content as well as promotion), the better your results will usually be.

Give Your Affiliates Rebrandable Reports & Materials

Giving your affiliates rebrandable reports and other materials is a great way to encourage promotion of your product.

These reports can act as an introduction to your product and still provide value, but your main product will be the natural progression or provide more indepth training for those people who want more help and training. Your main product would be promoted throughout the ebook, or at the end in a special promo, but the ebook or report should be self contained so it provides value – which will make more people want to give it away.

Allow your affiliates to give these reports away and also ensure they can embed their own affiliate links inside the reports so they can be rewarded for anyone that comes back to your site after reading the reports.

Setup A Tiered Commission Structure

A great way to retain affiliates that are making you sales is to setup an exclusive VIP affiliates level for your highest achievers. These affiliates would be rewarded with increased commission rates or access to promote other backend products, or given other special privileges like custom landing pages or access to new sales funnels.

By rewarding your top affiliates, they are made to feel much more special and are more likely to stay with you and continue promoting your products.

If you’re using a system like Nanacast, these special changes such as increased individual commission rates and personalised landing pages can be setup quickly from the control center .

Go To Events

This is a biggie! Going to events can be huge in terms of building relationships in your niche. Meeting face to face with other people doing business online has a powerful effect as far as building a bond which is much stronger than what you might build just chatting regularly with someone over Skype.

If you’re going to go to events, I would advise you to be genuine and don’t just go into a discussion with the intention of getting someone to joint venture with you or promote your product. Build the relationship first, buy someone a drink, get chatting, and discussion about your business will follow naturally.

My other advice would be that you are in a much better position if you have a product already created, and ready to go. This way, you’re much better prepared to discuss your product, and if you mention it in passing people may ask more about it, which gives you the springboard to “sell” the benefits of your product to them, in a cool kind of way.

Provide services or help others

Something that many people overlook (myself included in the past) is the power that genuinely offering help to people has on establishing and building relationships online. I’ve built many great friendships online that started out with me offering help or support to people on forums, or even customers of mine. Over time, these relationships can be very valuable, and if you have a product you want promoting, it’s likely those who you have helped in the past will be more than willing to consider promoting your product.

Offer A Reoccurring Element

Developing some kind of reoccuring element to your products or upsells can be a great way to attract and retain affiliates. A reoccurring product (or continuity product) is any kind of product that is billed on a reoccurring basis, such as a membership site or subscription. This could be anything from access to a web application or tool, to monthly coaching or monthly video content.

If an affiliate promotes a normal product, they get paid once. But if you can offer them reoccuring commissions for the time that the member stays active, it can be a much more attractive deal.

Having a continuity program or product in your business is also a great way to really grow your income – so you should start thinking about what kind of reoccurring products or memberships you can create in your business.

Setup An Affiliate Blog

Keeping regular communication with your affiliates is a great way to keep them motivated, and ensure you are giving your affiliates what they want. By setting up an affiliate blog, which is totally separate to your main blog, you have a place where you can easily share news about your products. You can tell affiliates what is working well, what isn’t working, and tell them about new products or updates which can help your affiliates prepare for new promotions.

You can also use your affiliate blog to share success stories which serve to further motivate your existing affiliate base.

Are You Ready To Start Your Affiliate Program?

I hope this post has shown you why you really should consider building an affiliate program for your business, and has given you all the information you need to get started with starting your own affiliate program.

If you have any other ideas on how to get affiliates promoting your products, I’d love to hear them, and also feel free to post your questions about running and affiliate program and I’ll try and answer them in the comments below.

Let’s look at a few real world examples for a second and you’ll see why offering your customers some kind of upgrade or premium option is extremely powerful, and why it’s a fairly easy way to boost your profits with no additional traffic coming into your business…

Air Travel – I’m sure you’re familiar with the premium options we see in this industry. On most flights you can pay extra to upgrade to Business class or First class, where you’ll get more legroom, more comfortable seats and a more personal service. I don’t know the figures, but on most of the recent flights I’ve taken, the business class cabin has always been full, proving people are willing to pay for the extra features of this premium option.

Disclaimer: this is not me ;)

Fast Food – Yes I know it’s bad, but I admit I occassionaly indulge in fast food. What’s the first thing I’m asked when I order my Big Mac Sandwich – “would you like fries with that?” – and then I’m offered the chance to upgrade to a meal, and then given the option of a large meal. Again, I don’t know the figures, but I’m sure offering those simple upgrade options make’s a huge impact on McDonalds’ bottom line.

Bars & Nightclubs – Now and again I like to party, and even on nights out I’ve noticed upsells being used on unsuspecting drinkers. Here in the UK it’s fairly common to be offered the option of making your single Jack Daniels/[Insert Spirit name here] a double for a small extra charge. This gives the bar an easy way to raise the value of your purchase (particularly if you’re purchasing multiple drinks) and makes you think you’re getting a great deal too.

So how does this apply to your online business? Well put simply, you need to find a way of offering some kind of premium option to whatever you are selling online. This option can be presented to your buyer at the point of purchase (they could be given two options on your sales page), or the upgrade offer could be offered once your customer has purchased the original item, before they’re taken to the delivery or completion page.

I’ll go into some examples for information product businesses below, but you can apply this strategy to almost any online business. For example, let’s say you’re selling computer components, why not offer free shipping if your customer purchases one of a select few additional items (this is not exactly a premium option, but it’s another way to increase the spend of your average customer).

If you’re selling services online, you can also offer an upgrade option. Perhaps you’re selling SEO services, you could offer an additional 10 articles and 20 bookmarks for each project as a premium upsell option.

There are also many options available if you want to create an upsell for your information product business. I’ve detailed some of my favourites below. Many of these can be created in just a few days (or less) but will bring you continued additional income for the life of your product:

• Turn Your Ebook Into Audio -If you’re selling an ebook, this is one of the easiest ways to create more value from what you have. You can use a service like Voice123 to find voiceover talent who will read your ebook and create an mp3 recording of the whole thing. You can then offer the ebook with the mp3 recording as an upsell for those who prefer listening to content or consuming your content while on the move.
• Create a Video Product - If you have content in the form of ebooks or other content, why not put this together to create a video product. Create a bunch of slides (each focusing on a different topic) and create a slideshow on your computer and record you presenting the slideshow with some screencast software like Camtasia or Screenflow
• Offer Premium Coaching/VIP Support - Coaching or personal help makes a fantastic upsell proposition as it requires very little extra work before the offer is made. Yes you will have to follow up on your promises, but as you do work with coaching clients you’ll be able to build up a system which you can use to leverage your time for future coaching clients (record what you do and common problems/questions so you have answers ready)
• Make A Physical Version of Your Digital Product - Another great way to work with what you already have is to create a physical version of your digital training. Lets say you already have a 10 step video course, why not put this onto a DVD and offer to ship it to your customers with a few extra bonus videos. You can organise fulfilment through a service like Kuanki and charge more for your DVD, plus you can charge shipping costs to your customer
• Create a Software Solution - If you can develop some kind of automation software or software which fits with what you are teaching and compliments your main product, this can make a great upsell. Automation is always popular as people love to have stuff done for them.
• Create a Bundle Package – This can work in a number of ways. You can either bundle a number of items together like an ebook, video course and mp3s, or you could offer a bundle of your other products for a discount price. This is something I’m currently trialling with some of my graphics and design products, and I’m having great results so far. This works well as customers who buy one of your products will probably like other products you have, so they’re getting a great deal and you’re increasing your customer value.
• Offer Rights To Your Product – This method works particularly well in the internet marketing space, but you could try it in other niches. Basically you offer the rights to sell your product for a one off fee. You could also offer the rights to sell a different product which you create specifically for this purpose. People love business-in-a-box type deals where the work is done for them, and you’re also giving that person the ability to make money which makes this offer type very popular (ensure you charge a premium for this and don’t give away rights to your lead/premium product).

I hope that has given you some different ideas for using upsells if you’re running an information product business.

It’s important to remember this isn’t just a money making exercise. By offering an upsell, you’re actually catering to the wants and needs of your customers, and giving them a better experience. This in turn means you’re increasing your customer value and increasing the value you deliver to your customers.

So take a look at your online business today and see if you can find a way to offer a premium option or upsell to your customers, I’m confident that you’ll be able to extract more money from your buyers, and give them a better experience in the process. Let me know how you’re using upsells in your business in the comments below!

In this post I want to share some of my favorite strategies for quickly boosting authority in any niche. These strategies work best if you have your business setup with a centralized blog where you can send traffic to (as I discuss in my free course), but they will also work well for any online business.

Have A Great Looking Site

It doesn’t matter what anyone says about graphics and conversions, the fact is that if your site looks great, people are going to pay more attention to you. If your site or blog looks like every other site out there in your niche, you’re not going to stand out. You might have great content on your site, but it will take people longer to pay attention if you’re just using a standard design that 20 other blogs in your niche have.

As a minimum, I recommend you customize your blog or site with a custom logo or header. You can get a professional logo from a site like 99designs or try out a site like Fiverr to get quick logo to get you started. You should also use a custom theme – see some of my recommended themes here.

Write & Publish a Book

Although publishing a physical book won’t make you rich overnight, there is a degree of credibility and authority associated with anyone who has a physical book published.

It’s now easier than ever to publish your own book – you can use a service like CreateSpace to publish your book to Amazon for free, and you also get a share of the royalties from any sales. Amazon also handle all of the printing and fulfillment of your book so it’s totally hands off once you have written and uploaded your book.

Interview Experts

Interviewing experts is a fantastic way to raise your profile in a niche. By interviewing an expert in your niche, you will be associating yourself with that expert and this raises your status in your audiences mind.

You’ll find many experts are happy to be interviewed, especially those with their own blogs or products. You can find experts on forums, on Twitter, Facebook, or through their own blogs (use Google Blog Search). I’d recommend contacting your expert and building a relationship with them before you ask for the interview, this way you’ll get better content in your interview and they’re more likely to say yes.

You can record your interview over Skype with software like Pamela or Audio HiJack Pro. Post your interview on your blog, format it into a money-magnet free gift (with mp3 and transcript) or format it into a product and sell it for a profit and to start building a buyers list.

Do Interviews & Give Testimonials

An alternative to interviewing experts in your niche is to actually give interviews for other sites and blogs in your niche. You’ll obviously need some expertise on your niche in order to be interviewed, but if you have some specialist knowledge, this is a great way to build authority.

I recommend building relationships with other blog owners in your niche and ask them if they’re looking to interview anyone with knowledge on your expert topic. You could also place a link on your blog offering to do interviews – and telling people how to contact you to arrange one.

Even if you don’t get interviewed by a blog at the top of your niche, the more your name and content is spread across your niche, the greater the effect you’ll have on your status in your niche.

One other simple way to get your name in front of people in your niche is to offer to review and provide testimonials for high profile products and launches in your niche. If you can provide a testimonial and get this on the sales letter of a new product launch with your photo, (or even a video testimonial), you’ll be further spreading your reach in your niche. Of course with this strategy you should only provide testimonials for products you truly believe in and would recommend, otherwise this can have a negative impact on your profile.

Integrate Your Content Within A High Profile Funnel

This is a bit of a sneaky tactic, but it can really work well if you can pull it off. Here’s how you do it:

1. First you need a great piece of content, or some kind of free gift which provides huge value. Ensure within this content/product you link back to your blog/site. Ideally this would be a PDF ebook, video or MP3 interview and transcript.
2. Next you need to approach information product owners in your niche and ask them if they would like to offer your product as a bonus for their product or as a bonus on their thank you page. Ensure in your email/initial contact you also provide a link to your content so they can see the value without having to contact you.
3. If they agree, your product/gift is offered on their thank you page, and is exposed to all of their buyers – boosting your visibility in the niche

Another way you can do this is by offering to provide content for other marketers in your niche. This could be offering to write a followup message, a blog post (see below), or some kind of membership content which is high in value but provides you with a valuable link back to your site and boost your perceived authority at the same time.

Guest Blogging

Guest blogging is another way to generate authority and traffic in any niche. Providing high quality posts to other blogs in your niche allows you to grow your audience fast as you can easily leverage the audience of the blog you’re guest posting on.

If you need to find blogs to guest post on, search on Google for “niche name guest post” or “niche name submit guest post” and look for any blogs which will allow you to submit your content.

Create and Distribute Video Content

Creating video content for your niche is a great way to get yourself recognised fast. It’s now easier than ever to create video content in the form of on-screen content (using a pocket video camera like Kodak Zi8) or screencast content (using Camtasia or Screenflow).

Share some of your best content and ideas in the form of video, and then share them on sites like YouTube for maximum exposure. You should also distribute your videos to other video sharing sites using a service like TubeMogul to further its exposure.

Host a Web TV Show

Using a service like Ustream.tv, you can host your own web TV show and broadcast yourself live to the world from your own home with nothing more than a computer, a webcam and a microphone.

Hosting a web TV show or going live on the web and interacting with your niche is a great way to build you reputation and authority within your marketplace, especially as it’s unlikely many other people are doing this in your niche, so you immediately stand out as being different.

Ensure you’ve got some great content to share, and it’s often a good idea to set an agenda for the discussion on your web tv show so you keep things focused and on topic.

Syndicate Content on iTunes

Most people don’t realise you can actually get your content in front of users of iTunes, including users on iphones and ipads, and also Apple TV users, if you format your content into a podcast. This can include PDF content, mp3 audio or even video.

To do this, you need to create an RSS feed of your content and then submit this to iTunes. You can find out all about how to format your content with this guide from Apple.

If you’re using Nanacast (the business centralization system I use), this can be used to generate feeds which you can submit to iTunes to quickly get your content in front of the audiences there.

Post On Forums As An Authority

Sharing great content and helping others on forums can help you position yourself as an authority in your niche. To do this effectively, you need to ensure you are answering questions, and not asking them.

You can quickly become recognised as an expert if you help others in your niche with their questions and problems. You can also generate traffic back to your business through the use of a subtle signature link back to your blog or website.

Webinars

Webinars can be a fantastic way to build an authority presence for your business. Webinars are a great way to engage with large audiences from your niche and provide them with high quality content which can be created on the fly.

You can also organize webinars with experts in your niche and benefit from their content and the reputation benefits of associating yourself with other experts in your niche.

I recommend using Gotowebinar for hosting your webinars. Discover how to run your own highly profitable webinars with the How To Run A Webinar Guide.

I hope this post has given you some ideas on how to start boosting your profile and authority in your niche. Whether you’re just starting in a new niche, or you already have an established business, I recommend giving some of these strategies a go to see what impact they have on your business profile.

Let me know which of these ideas you think you’ll be applying to your business, or if you’ve used other strategies in the past, I’d love to hear from you – post your comments below!

In this post I’m going to discuss why I think you should be using systems in your business, and show you how I’m using them in my business to give you a better idea of how to get started.

What Is A “System”?

In the case of my business, a system is a recorded process of any task which has to be completed more than once (this covers almost everything). This recorded process can take the form of a screen-capture recording, or a step-by-step manual recording which details each step of the process in detail.

I’ll go into more detail about the sorts of things you can create systems for later, but as an example, I might create a process for uploading a new video to my blog.

Why Create Systems?

There are a few benefits to creating systems for your business:

1. Save Time - If you create a system for a process in your business, you can always refer back to this process easily if you forget one of the steps. You can also record any important information or references for that process within your system, so there is no time wasted. For example, following on from above, if I had a process for uploading a video to my blog, I could include the code snippets required for the video player within the system so they were readily available when following the system and no time was wasted looking them up elsewhere.
2. Allow Others To Do Your Work For You – I consider this to be the main benefit of creating systems in any online business. By systemizing these processes, you can allow other people (outsource workers/team members) to complete tasks within your business so you can focus your time and efforts on your core skills, or the tasks which make you the most money.
3. Builds Your Business Into More Of An Asset - This follows on closely from point 2, if you are able to take yourself out of your business as much as possible, it means you have a far more salable asset if you ever were to consider selling your business. Being able to hand over a business with systems already in place for the running of the business and key tasks means you will be able to demand more for your business due to its passive setup.

What Can I Systemize In My Business

If you’re running an online business, you can systemize almost any aspect of the running of your business. Essentially, if you can record yourself completing a task on a computer, then it can be systemized.

If you’re just starting with systemizing your business, the first things I would systemize would be any repetitive tasks which are completed in your business regularly. This could include tasks like answering customer support, email organization and filtering, approving affiliates, finding new affiliates, you get the idea.

You should also try and make your systems as specific as possible. For example if you create a set of systems for customer support, there should be individual systems in place for refund requests, product not received requests, and other specific problems, allowing an external individual to be able to react to almost any eventuality.

The Easiest Way To Start Systemizing Your Business

The easiest way to start systemizing your online business is simply by creating systems as you go along. The next time you complete a task, record yourself doing it using screen capture software like Camtasia or Screenflow and save the video into a systems folder with an appropriate title.

Alternatively note down the step by step process and any important details needed in a word or notes document and save the process. You will soon start to build up a virtual manual of processes which can easily be handed off to a virtual assistant to give you more time in your business.

How I Systemize My Business

I use a combination of the methods above to manage my business systems. Where possible, I create text documents which detail the steps to any process in my business. These also include screenshots where relevant to aid with the understanding of the task for an external team member.

I also make recordings of more complex tasks using Screenflow and upload these to a private website (a password protected Wordpress blog) which has various recordings of systemized processes uploaded for easy viewing. Note: My video recordings also have audio of me discussing each step to aid the understanding for any person following the system

All of the text systems are saved individually into Google Documents which allows me to view them remotely, and also share them with team members where required. I also save links to the video recordings within separate Google Documents so these can be sent to team members when required.

Making More Money With Systems

I hope you can see by now the potential of using systems in your business. Even without using external team members, you’ll find that by having systems for yourself to follow, you’ll be much more focused on the processes you are completing, and find you get more done.

But if you combine systems with a virtual team, you can really start to leverage your time, and focus on the tasks that are really going to make your business more money, like creating new products, writing email follow-ups or building relationships with people in your niche.

I also think that building systems in your business helps you get a lot more out of your outsource team members. Many people I know struggle to keep external team members busy as they don’t know what they should have them doing on a daily basis. By creating systems in your business you have a clear idea of what needs to be done, and you can use this to ensure you get the most benefit from the time your team members spend working for you.

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I’d love to hear your thoughts on building systems in your business. Have you started creating your own systems – or has this post inspired you to get started? Post your comments below, and of course any questions you have an my business systems!

I know there are many choices when it comes to selecting the perfect theme for your blog, so in this post I’ll detail some of my favourite choices so you can see the which design fits best for your niche.

With all of these themes, I’ve chosen them based on their ability to be customized for use as part of an information product business. This means you should be able to easily add important elements like a sidebar optin box and social links to enhance visitor interaction with your blog and your business.

#1 WooThemes BusyBee (more information)

One of my favourite themes, the BusyBee theme from WooThemes is highly customizable, has widgetized sidebars, as well as the Woothemes theme options panel that allows you to easily change the colour scheme, upload a logo, and modify other elements of the theme, without the need for additional plugins.

#2 WooThemes Headlines (more information)

Another great Wootheme, Headlines offers easy customization, easy to modify sidebar and ability to add banners to your blog easily. You also have the benefit of the comprehensive support forum so you can get help easily if you need it.

#3 Thesis Custom Framework (more information)

Thesis is more than a Wordpress theme, it’s a complete framework built on top of Wordpress. It gives you lots of cusomtization options through the design and theme options panels, and you can use the multimedia box to easily add a video or optin box to your pages. You also modify the layout, add columns, and move elements around without the need for complicated coding.

#4 Headway (more information)

Headway is a unique Wordpress theme that offers drag-and-drop customization. You can literally add and move elements in your blog design using the built in admin panel, enabling you to create a really great looking blog with zero design skills. Watch the videos on their site to see how easy it is to use this theme.

#5 Convergence Community Theme (more information)

I discovered this theme when it was first launched on ThemeForest. It’s a really nice looking community style theme which is perfect for any kind of tutorial type blog and will work great for information product blogs. If you’re planning on having multiple authors on your site, this site also has a nice built in author info box.

#6 My Wordpress (more information)

My Wordpress is another great looking community type theme which is already fully widgetized and ready for you to customize for your business. There are multiple color schemes available, and the theme also has ad elements built-in, so it’s ready to be monetized.

#7 Global Press (more information)

If you’re looking for a very clean, portal or news style layout, the Global Press theme might be the perfect option. It is widget ready, and has built in twitter integration. It also comes equipped with some really nice JQuery effects to make your posts look even better.

#8 Marketplace Community (more information)

The Marketplace theme is perfect for any kind of news or tutorial site, and has lots of social features such as flickr and social links built in. The stylish and clean design will work well in many different niches, and the theme comes bundled with 5 different color options to choose from.

#9 Studiopress Allure (more information)

The StudioPress allure site offers a really smart magazine style layout which is highly customizable with the Studiopress admin system. This theme is perfect for any kind of health or fashion related niche markets with it’s cool fresh colors scheme.

#10 Studiopress Church (more information)

The Studiopress Church theme isn’t just for churches and ministries, it features some fantastic features and a really nice design that would work well accross many tech, marketing and mens health related niches. As with all the Studiopress themes, it is highly customizable and is widget ready so you can add your optin box and other important features easily.

#11 Studiopress Lifestyle (Genesis Theme) (more information)

The Studiopress Lifestyle theme features bright refreshing colors and a fantastic design with many useful built it elements you can use to add features and customize your blog for your business. The theme would be perfectly suited to any kind of travel, fitness or health related niche markets.

#12 Studiopress Mocha (Genesis Theme) (more information)

The Studiopress Mocha theme features a really stylish design and is fully customizable, with many different page layouts so you can arrange your theme to work well with your content. The theme also comes supplied with Twitter feed integration and features like recent posts to aid your visitors interaction of your content.

If you’ve already got a blog but are hoping to give it a makeover, I hope this post has given you some inspiration. And if you haven’t yet got started building your blog – what are you waiting for! Check out my guide on building your first blog and then check back here when you’re ready to choose a theme.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the themes you’re using for your business, so post your comments below!

Today I want to share with you some of my techniques for boosting sales letter conversion, so you can try them out if you’ve already got a sales letter online. If you haven’t you’ll want to refer back to this post as soon as you’ve got your first sales letter ready, or before you get started on writing it.

Just a quick note, that as with all tweaks and changes on your sales letter, you should test them to see what works for you. Not everything will work the same in every niche, so that’s why it’s so important to test what works for you. I’ve included some information on testing towards the end of this post.

Graphics Tweaks

1. Headline

This may seem obvious, but you should have a clear headline at the top of your page. In my tests I’ve found that red (color code #c10000) can work very well, and also headlines in black can work well. You should also test having quotes at the start and end of the headline as this can also give a little boost in conversions.

2. Subheadlines & Images

Using images and subheadlines is a great way break up your sales letter without distracting from the main message. Many people will not read everything on your page, so by using things like subheadlines and images, you can reset the attention of your visitors and get them focused on particular areas of the sales copy.

3. Add Bullets

Bullets give you an easy way to summarise benefits of your product easily. Notice that I said benefits and not features – it’s important to focus on what your product can do for your prospect, rather than what the product actual contains.

Bullets are also great as they allow people to skim-read your benefits and see what your product can do for them, without having to read all of the copy on your sales letter. This means that if you have a good set of bullets that really sell the benefits of your product, you can often grab someone’s attention enough for them to purchase.

4. Keep Fonts To A Minimum

I’ve seen some sales letters that use a horrible amount of different fonts. This distracts the visitor, makes your copy hard to read, and it usually doesn’t flow well either. I would recommend sticking to 2 or 3 fonts maximum. For your main sales copy I recommend either Arial, Verdana or Georgia font faces. Try bold Sans-Serif fonts like Helvetica for your headlines.

5. Remove Navigation

Your sales letter should have minimum navigation on it. If you do have to have a navigation bar at the top of your sales letter, ensure it’s easy for people to get back to your sales page from all other pages they are linked to, and don’t have any external links.

I recommend adding a footer navigation on your sales letter which includes things like your privacy policy and disclaimer notices (consult a legal professional for that sort of stuff) and also you may want to link to your affiliates page and support page from the footer navigation.

6. Order Button & Order Form Links

Many people do not include an order button on their sales letters, and only use a text link. You should try and make it as easy as possible for people to see your order button, and also make it as enticing as possible. Using a button like the “belcher button” can give your sales letter a bit boost. I know it’s pretty ugly, but you should definately try it as it’s been proven to work across a lot of different niches.

You should also consider adding links to your order box or button from other parts of your sales page to encourage your visitor to take action. You can do this by adding an anchor link to your order button from other text links on your sales page.

Sales Elements

7. Use Proof Elements

You should always backup your claims on your sales letter, and provide proof where possible. This builds trust and adds to your credibility. Include screenshots where relevant, and video proof is even better.

Another important proof element is social proof, in the form of testimonials. Video testimonials are the optimum option, so if you can get any kind of video testimonials from your buyers, include these on your sales letter to really boost conversions. Audio and test testimonials also work great, but try and include photos and names of people where possible for the testimonials.

Note: Due to new regulations in the USA, some forms of testimonials are no longer allowed, so I recommend checking with a legal professional before adding testimonials to your sales letter

8. Include a Guarantee

Using a guarantee is a great way to boost conversions. Including a 30 or 60 day money back guarantee will give your buyers more confidence. If you’re confident in your product, you shouldn’t be concerned about offering a guarantee, and selling digital products means you have no fulfilment costs anyway so it’s much less hassle if you do have to refund.

9. Use Video

Video is one of the most powerful ways to boost conversions on your sales letter. Video sales letters are now being used more regularly to do the main selling on a sales letter, with the text copy reinforcing the message of the video sales letter. You can also use video to add product demonstrations, or personal introductions to your sales letter, which will also boost conversions.

Other Strategies

10. Have a Good Story

People love to read stories, and if your sales letter has a good story to it, it is much more likely to hold your prospects attention. The best sales letters take people on a journey, and they become engrossed in the story and want to see how things work out – all the time being influenced and becoming more sold on your product.

So if you have a good story about your product, or about the conception of your product, use it in your marketing.

11. Use Scarcity

Scarcity can be a huge conversion booster. Here are some ideas for adding scarcity to your sales letter:

• Limit the quantity of your product available
• Limit time your product is available for
• Limit your bonuses after a certain time, or after a certain number of purchases

These can all add urgency to your sales letter, but it’s important that if you place limits on your sales letter, you follow through with them, or you will hurt your credibility in the future.

12. Strong call to action

Telling your visitors what you want them to do next on your site is an important part of making the sale. You need to have a strong call to action on your page which your visitor to click your order button or whatever they need to do next. You may also include a discount within your call to action – for example: “click to order now and secure your 30% discount”

13. Add Live Support Chat

This isn’t perhaps something you’ll want to consider to start with, but once your business grows and you have started to build a team or even have one virtual employee, it might be worth testing out having a live chat application on your sales letter. This allows a visitor to click the live chat button and you or your employee would be alerted with the question or message from the visitor.

This can establish a lot of trust and people can see you’re a real company ready to deal with questions, which can go a long way to securing the sale. This is also something you might want to consider just during a launch period when you have more people coming to your site and your attention is focused on sales of your new product.

14. Add address and phone numbers

If you can include an office address, or even a phone number, this can build a lot of trust with your visitors, even if they don’t plan on calling you. Some people are still conditioned to think that doing business online is risky, so by seeing a phone number on your sales letter (probably towards the bottom of the page after the order box), you may find you’ll boost the confidence in your offer and your website.

I don’t recommend just giving out your personal number on your website, the safest thing to do is purchase a special number or redirect number for your business so you have full control over it and maintain your privacy.

15. Remove Sales Letter “Leaks”

Your sales letter has one main focus, that is to sell your product. You should not have any distractions on the page which may distract a visitor from the main sales message. I often have had clients come to me asking if they should remove Adsense advertising from their sales letter – my answer is always YES! So ensure you have no unnecessary links or distractions on your page that do not fit with moving people through the sales process.

16. Test Everything

I left testing until last as, strictly speaking, it’s not really a specific conversion booster, but this is where you can really make the difference to your sales letter conversions. By testing all of the changes you make to your sales letter, you can establish what is working best for your site, and ensure you are continually improving your conversions.

When you are testing anything on your site, you should make big changes first. By doing this, you can immediately see a positive of negative impact, and then gradually refine the changes, making smaller changes as you go. You should also focus on testing one change at a time, because you may otherwise not know which change made the difference on your page.

The easiest way to test your sales letter is by using the Google Website Optimizer. This free tool allows you to split test different versions of your sales letters, and the system has a simple step-by-step process to help you get started. Essentially you have to create two versions of your sales letter, and test which page converts better by tracking hits to a success page from each page variation. That is a very simplified version, I recommend checking out the tool for yourself and seeing how it works.

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I hope you’ve found these sales conversion boosters useful, try some of these strategies on your sales letters and let me know how they affect your conversions – and as with all of these, don’t assume you know what your visitors are going to do as they will often surprise you, which is why testing is the key.

If you have any other conversion boosting tips, I’d love to hear them – leave a comment below!

These Add-ons can all be installed free, but you’ll need to be running Firefox already to make the installation of these plugins as easy as possible. You can download Firefox for free here . Firefox works with Windows, Mac OSX and Linux systems.

1. SEOQuake (download here)

If you’re doing any kind of Search Engine Optimization or research for your niche, the SEOQuake plugin will add some really useful functionality to your browser. When you search the search engines you will see additional information in the search results such as Google Page Rank, pages indexed, domain age, and other useful data which you can use to analyse the competition for a particular keyword. You will also see useful information on every page you visit on the web which can help you optimize your own pages for the search engines.

2. Amazon S3 Firefox Organizer (S3Fox) (download here)

If you’re using the Amazon S3 file hosting service for any of your videos or other files (great for fast delivery of larger files), the S3Fox plugin will help you manage your files more effectively. It has a simple drag-and-drop interface so once you’ve input your access details for your S3 Account, you can drag files straight into the window on your browser to upload them, or use the built in file explorer.

The S3Fox plugin also allows you to set the access permissions to your files, and also will automatically stop people viewing the entire contents of a folder on your S3 account, which many other S3 file managers do not do, leaving your files exposed.

3. Google Global (download here)

Optimizing your sites and seeing how you’re ranking on Google sites around the world can be very important. Especially if, like me, you’re in the UK, it’s super handy to know where your sites are ranking on higher traffic Google sites like the US .com version of the search engine.

Google Global adds a simple drop down to your search results pages, so when you right click you can choose to view results for Google UK, US, Canada, Ireland, Australia, and you can also add in additional Google networks for different parts of the world.

4. Speed Dial (download here)

If you’ve got a set of pages you visit on a daily basis, it’s often helpful to have easy access to these pages to save you time. With Speed Dial, you can set different bookmarks to be available on your Speed Dial home page, and you can also have these thumbnail screenshots dynamically update through javascript.

This means you can get an instant overview of your business, such as instantly seeing any new emails in your inbox, or any new support emails that need responses in your helpdesk. This can be a big timesaver in your business.

5. Firebug (download here)

If you’re planning on doing any kind of tweaking to your blog or website, or you want to check out the code that is used on another website to achieve a particular style or effect, the Firebug plugin is what you need.

The plugin allows you to inspect the different elements of a page and view the coding and stylesheet information on the fly. This is particularly useful for designers, but also great if you want to make little tweaks to your site but don’t know which code to edit.

6. Screengrab! (download here)

I found this plugin when I was looking for an alternative to Snagit (it wasn’t available for Mac when I first made the switch). Screengrab allows you to take screenshots of anything inside your web browser, and also allows you to grab a screenshot of the complete page, including the area which is not visible.

This can be very useful for grabbing screenshots when you’re creating tutorials, or product content, or if you want to save something for your own swipe file.

I hope you find some of these plugins useful. They all help me with tasks I have to complete in my business, and many of them I use on a daily basis. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the plugins above, or any other plugins you are using in your online business.

I recommend buying the essentials to start, then as your business grows you should invest in upgrading your existing hardware. Remember you are running a business, so you should expect to have to spend some money to equip yourself do be effective.

This list is based on what I currently use in my business. There are always new products being released, so it’s always worth seeing what’s new before you invest in any hardware.

#1 iPhone / Smart Phone

The Apple iPhone really is one of my most essential tools that I use in my business. As well as being a fully featured phone, it features a camera (video with the latest 3Gs model), calendar, notepad, ipod (mp3 player), and many other powerful features. The Apple App Store also gives you access to thousands of new applications which can give the phone even more power.

The iPhone is essential if you’re planning on managing your business on the move, as you can access email, RSS feeds and websites (through the integrated Safari browser) and it syncs with your laptop when you’re back home or at the office.

Alternatives: Although I’ve not used one myself, I have been told that Blackberrys provide a valid alternative, although for me there really is no comparison to the iPhone.

#2 MacBook / MacBook Pro / Laptop

You’re going to need a laptop if you’re working whilst you’re on the move. You can run a lot of your business from a smart phone like the iPhone, but if you need to prepare things like presentations, or create products on the move you’ll need the power of a mobile computer.

I use a MacBook Pro, and actually use this as my home system too when I’m in my office – coupled with a dual screen. These systems offer a fantastic amount of computing power in a compact unit, and I also have found Mac’s seem to suffer less problems than Windows based laptops.

#3 Kodak Zi8 – Pocket Video Camera

Video is becoming more popular every day on the Internet. Video site giant YouTube recently revealed they are now getting over 2billion hits a day on their site. So you need to start using video either in your marketing or products.

Pocket video cameras are now more affordable than ever, and also offer great quality. I use the Kodak Zi8 HD camera and have found this to offer great quality on my videos. It also has the benefit of an external mic input in case you want to go pro with your videos.

Alternatives: The Flip HD series of cameras offer a great alternative with great quality and portability.

#4 USB Microphone

Whether you’re recording audio for a product or presentation, or simply communicating with business partners or clients, you need a microphone to do business over the web. It doesn’t have to be anything too fancy either, you can always upgrade later. I use a Samson C01U USB Condenser mic in my office but also have a Plantronics headset microphone which was around $75. I’ve also found the mic built into the Macbook Pro to be pretty good for on the fly recordings or skype conversations.

#5 Backup External Hard Drive

Working on the Internet means most of your business is on your computer. So it’s essential that you keep a regular backup of all your files. Hard drive space is now cheaper than ever, but backing up is still something people fail to do on a regular basis.

I have a range of external hard drives (as well as off-site backup for extra security), and I’ve found models by Iomega and Seagate to be pretty good.

#6 Dual Screen Setup

I’ve used a dual-screen setup for a few years now and have found that it has a dramatic effect on my productivity. Using two screens gives you the ability to work on one screen whilst reading from another screen, or monitoring other tasks in the background.

Most computers have a spare video output, or you can pickup graphics cards that support two monitors relatively cheaply now. If you’re on a MacBook like me, you can use the Mini-DisplayPort output to link up another monitor (you’ll need an adapter if you’re not using a Mac screen).

#7 Whiteboard

Using whiteboards is a great way to keep track of projects, or to use as a presentational tool for your own products. I use multiple whiteboards in my business for planning out and brainstorming new projects, and also for helping with visual aids when I am creating video content.

Using whiteboards to monitor projects can also be a great motivational tool as wiping off completed projects gives you a sense of achievement.

#8 USB Mobile Broadband Stick/Dongle

If you’re planning on travelling around with your Internet business, perhaps to conferences, events, or just travelling and managing your business on the move, you’ll need Internet access. Using a USB mobile broadband stick/connector is probably the best way to stay connected.

These allow you to use mobile phone technology to connect to the internet whilst on the move. Connection speeds can vary depending on your provider and where you are in the world, but coverage is improving all the time.

#9 Notebook

This may sound like a strange suggestion, but I find it’s always really useful to have a notebook with me wherever I am. You never know when an idea might come to you, so it’s always handy to have a little black book to write down any ideas, strategies or thoughts you have whilst your away from the computer.

It’s also sometimes nice to plan out ideas on paper and take a break from the computer to give yourself a fresh perspective on your thoughts.

#10 USB Backup Stick

Another useful item if you’re going to be travelling, a USB memory stick is handy for transferring files quickly between systems. If you need to large share files with someone in a meeting, using a memory stick is probably the quickest way to do this. It also gives you the ability to keep some important files with you even if you don’t have your laptop with you.

#11 Gaming Console / Blu-Ray Player

It’s important to take a break from business once in a while, so finding some time to chillout is important. Console gaming on the Xbox 360 or Playstation 3 is one option, or maybe watching a blu-ray film is more to your taste. Whatever it is, make sure you have something to take your mind off business once in a while, as this will help you to refocus when you get back to running your business.

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I hope you’ve enjoyed these ideas, and I’d love to hear your thoughts on what you consider to be essential items for Internet marketers and entrepreneurs running online businesses.