by Jennifer Tripp

A lot of website owners work tirelessly at increasing their traffic. They submit to FFA pages and classified sites. They participate in startup programs and pop under exchanges. There is no end to the gimmicks they will try, all in the hopes that they'll get more customers.

If you're one of these website owners, there is an easier way to increase your sales!

By improving your conversion rate you'll be able to make more money from the visitors you're already getting. What is a conversion rate you ask? Well, quite simply, it's the percentage of visitors that you're converting into customers.

Most websites have a conversion rate of 1% - 2% on average. That means that out of 100 visitors only 1 - 2 are turned into customers. You can see the benefit of increasing that number. If you can get a conversion rate of 3% you're now making more sales without having to do any extra work or spend any more money to get traffic.

So how do you improve your conversion rate?

Here are 11 steps you can take right now~

1. Make sure the traffic visiting your site is targeted and looking to buy. The key point here is "looking to buy". There are a lot of services that offer targeted traffic but the visitors have no intention of buying. If the person isn't interested in purchasing then you're wasting time and money showing them your ad.

2. Make sure that when people land at your website from an ad there is a correlation. Far too often people click on an ad that is discussing one topic and are taken to the home page of the company.   Instead of taking the time to search for the information they read about in the ad, they leave.  Avoid this problem by sending people to a specific page within your site that discusses the same products you mentioned in your ad - if such a page doesn't exist then create a mini-site.

3. Have a professionally designed site and copy that is written to sell. A good sales letter includes benefits for the user (not just a features list), testimonials and action statements that encourage the reader to take the next step.

4. Offer more value. With each product offer free eBooks, reports, consulting, or whatever else your visitors would find valuable - These items don't cost you anything and there is a perceived value that can encourage someone who's on the fence to take the leap and buy.

5. Offer a free trial or money back guarantee.  People are naturally sceptical, especially on the Internet where they can't see a live person and decide for themselves whether they're trustworthy.  A great way to encourage them to trust you is by showing them that you believe in your product so much that you're willing to let them try it free - or that you'll give them a full refund if they're not satisfied.

6. Do everything possible to get the visitors name and email address so you can follow-up. Do this by offering a great newsletter, a special report, an autoresponder series, a free eBook, a giveaway/contest, a free tool. There are endless ways to get people to give their contact information - play around with different offers on your site to see what works.

7. Offer multiple products. Offering products at different price points and to different segments of your target market increases your chances of making a sale. If you only have one product of your own to sell, look into affiliate programs as another income stream.

8. Upsell at the time of checkout. Once a customer has made the decision to buy from you, you've already done the hardest part. Before they leave you should encourage them to increase the size of their order, this is known as "upselling".   To do this effectively, recommend products that complement what they've already decided to
purchase.

9. Follow up on every inquiry you get. Excellent customer service is something that is unfortunately lacking on the Internet. Do yourself a favor and make it a priority to respond to all inquiries by the end of the day. If you're getting too many to make this possible consider ways you can take off some of the strain. Are there questions that alot of customers have? If so, include them on your FAQ page. Are there processes you can automate so
you don't have to be contacted such as unsubscribing from your newsletter? If all else fails consider hiring someone to help you answer your inquiries.

10. Make the order process as easy as possible.  Abandoned shopping carts is a problem that continues to plague online businesses. The reasons for this include: a cumbersome order process that involves too many steps, asking for too much information (you really don't need to know they're shoe size) and additional fees being added on that weren't mentioned upfront. On many websites they never even mention the product
price or shipping costs until you're half way through the order process. By that point customers are feeling too frustrated to purchase anything. Be upfront about exactly what customers can expect during the order process and strive to make it as quick and easy as possible.

11. Test, test, test! Finding the right mix of product, price and sales tactic is very difficult - if it was easy the average conversion rate would be a lot higher than 2%! Your best chance for getting a mix that works is testing
different scenarios. If you don't already know what split run testing is you need to learn about it. In a nutshell it allows you to show different pages to different visitors for the purposes of determining which one performs best. Using split run testing you can try different site layouts, sales letters, prices, special offers, and many
more scenarios to find what gets the most sales.

Now get out there and make some money!

Jennifer Tripp is the founder of MyDigitalAdvisor.  For step-by-step instructions on creating a profitable
online business and reviews of the best tools and resources to help you succeed visit  http://www.mydigitaladvisor.com.