Having a website is great, and getting money through it is even better. Does your site justify your hopes? Is it worth the time and efforts you spend on it? In other words, do you have a good ROI?

There are several critical factors of successful website business. To increase your sales, you should concentrate on such important aspects as:

The content. Perhaps, that’s the most crucial part of your marketing strategy. You may be a monster of your niche community and have good neighborhood, but sooner or later, people come to your site and judge your credibility and professionalism by the content they see. Make it eye-catching and persuasive. Don’t think anyone can write: if you can’t create effective content yourself, hire a pro. To make your content more SEO-oriented, use keyword tracking tools that will help optimize your pages for better ranking, and, consequently, higher profits.

The design. A good-looking site with simple navigation is treated as professional. Content is important, but it may happen your visitors don’t want to read it, if the design is poor. Design your website having your prospects in mind: can the home page attract their attention? Is it easy to find the necessary data? Have you put your call to action in the right place? Take advantage of heat map tracking tools which will show you what sections of your web pages are the most effective to place your selling proposition.

The contact. Create your network which may bring you many return customers and a stable income. Random visitors will never make you rich; you have to attract long-standing clients to succeed. A mailing list subscription will help you build credibility among prospects. Send them a pithy and informative newsletter describing the current updates. People prefer to buy from someone they know, so as soon as your site becomes familiar to your visitors, they are likely to deal with you. A good way to discover more about your potential buyers is to use visitors analyzing software.

The update. Once you started a website, never get tired of maintaining and updating it on a regular basis. You can publish your niche news, new offers, new tips or recommendations – whatever you like, provided that it’s useful and interesting to read. This approach will be effective both for building trustworthy relationships with customers and for better ranking, as search engines do love regularly updated pages.

The analysis. Whatever you do with your website, it makes sense to analyze each your step. In fact, there are no definite marketing rules or tips: the web is changing daily, and what was considered ineffective yesterday, may become of high importance today. So, try different approaches and track the results. Focus on your conversions and find out where they come from – that’s the best way to increase your website sales!

Whether you run your website to earn your living or do it to gain recognition in a particular community, knowing monetizing strategies is a must. An average webmaster is unlikely to spend hours on enhancing his/her brainchild out of pure altruism: if you develop a project – it has to bring you money.

Of course, your success doesn’t depend on your knowledge only; experience also matters. So, discover more about the most recommended techniques of website monetization and choose what your business needs.

1. Selling Products or Services

If you use your site as an online store or service agency, you should pay particular attention to on-page optimization, especially on finding the right keyword. Thus, if you are selling T-shirts, make sure your site is optimized around this theme, featuring related keywords in title tag, body text and, if possible, in URL, for example, www.tshirts[dot]net. In addition, those who offer services, should consider regionalizing their keywords, i.e. indicate their location: ‘Chicago call center services’, for instance. The thing is that you should target your local market while selling services, and your product category in case you are merchandising goods.

2. Affiliate Programs

You can also monetize your website using affiliate links. Fortunately, today there are so many affiliate programs on the web, that you can find one without difficulties. You can earn even more through affiliate marketing if you have a blog or are distributing newsletters on a regular basis – just mention your affiliate product, and sales will boost. The critical point is to choose such products or services that your visitors would want to pay for. Never agree to advertise a product that looks doubtful and ineffective: selling junk will impact your credibility. You may have heard many times that reputation costs money, but in reality it’s priceless, so avoid risking it.

3. Selling Advertising

Here Google AdSense is one of the most popular tactics. Each click on the Google links will bring your money. However, using AdSense implies appropriate keyword optimization being made.
Another way to profit from ads is link building, i.e. placing text links throughout your site. Focus on relevance: your website content and links you sell should match. Keep in mind that Google changes literally every minute, and officially link sale is forbidden, so this method may become dangerous very soon.
Another option is creating job boards which will make your site not only lucrative but also very helpful. To place job ads for money, you should be able to guarantee high and well-targeted traffic.
Finally, you can earn from banner ads which are especially effective for converting visitors.

Having tried any of these monetizing strategies, you should track your results to define the best one. Take advantage of special analyzing tools.

According to the best-known military leaders, one should know enemies by sight to fight them. That is the same thing with business: to successfully combat your competitors, you should study their strategies very thoroughly. Knowing what advantages their strategies have over yours, you will be able to build a successful and truly invincible marketing campaign. Taking into account their blunders and failures, you will find solid arguments to gain confidence of your potential buyers. All in all, by spending time on your competition research, you make a lucrative investment.

Three Types of Competitors

There exist only three main types of competition in nature: direct, indirect and passive.

Direct competition refers to the products that serve the same purpose that yours. For example, if you sell high-tech vacuum cleaners, you will have up to 100 competitors – companies specializing in the same niche. All of them are your direct competitors, and you should find out why your unique selling proposition is better.

Indirect competition stands for the products that aren’t the same with yours, but can be bought and used instead of yours. For instance, a vacuum cleaner provider should consider cleaning agencies and broom manufacturers as potential indirect competitors. Since the end benefit is the same, you should concentrate not so much on the result – clean rooms and fresh air – as on the process itself, describing how effective and user-friendly your product is.

To fight passive competition, you have to face not a particular product or company, but the bitterest enemy of all marketers around the globe – human laziness and inertia. An average customer thinks: why buying your stunning vacuum cleaner, if he/she can just sit back and fool away, no effort/money/time being spent? The unwillingness to make decisions represents a desirable alternative for many people, and you have to mount a really irresistible marketing campaign to win their attention. Here you should act as if you combated indirect competitors, stressing out that your product is easier to use, cheaper, more efficient etc.

Studying Your Competitor: Facts to Discover

Having defined, what type of competitor you currently deal with, you can start your research.

Study competitor’s product. You are used to saying your product is the best, but can you explain why? Comparison is a powerful marketing strategy, and you may cash in on it, provided that you have learned enough about competitor’s product.

Visit competitor’s shops. Talk to their salesmen. Get a price list. Listen to what their prospects ask and pay attention to the service. Does competitor’s shop look presentable? Is the staff qualified and friendly? Does it offer quality customer support? Would you buy from them yourself? This question list is endless, in fact. Stick to the basic idea: what does your competitor offer that you don’t? Apply their positive experience to your business.

Talk to competitor’s customers. What do they like and dislike about your competitor? Which factors are decisive when they are choosing between two sellers?

Follow competitor’s marketing campaign. Start collecting all ads they publish, visit their site and subscribe to their newsletter. Find out how your competitor attracts new prospects and do the same – yet better.

The first 51 ways to increase your website conversions and sales were accurately enumerated in the first part of this very article which reveals online marketing tools used to increase website traffic and sales and result in high ranking in top popular search engines. The second 50 ways too are the list of “Do’s” and “Do Not’s” for boosting your sales and converting a maximum number of leads into one-time and life-time customers.

1) Analyze your field and potential competition.
2) Make website navigation easy.
3) Don’t use too many frames for navigation purposes.
4) Make sure there are three clicks tops to make purchase.
5) Make links easily to remember and to spell.
6) Make contact page easily found.
7) Write accurate and understandable shipping and returns policy.
Don’t upload large images on your site since they can cause slow loading.
9) Identify problematic areas and improve them.
10) Analyze keywords your visitors type in their search bars.
11) Sort keywords which drive the most traffic and buyers.
12) Analyze site searches.
13) Make sure keywords surfers use to get to your site are the best match to your content.
14) Avoid special software requirements for browsing your products/services.
15) Change shopping cart software, if necessary.
16) Familiarize yourself with web analytics basics.
17) Gather your website statistics.
18) Use Google Analytics for free.
19) Track conversions.
20) Set conversion goals.
21) Analyze visitors’ behavior.
22) Find out how people come to your website.
23) Consider geo location of visitors.
24) Define how long visitors stay on separate pages of your site.
25) Analyze the most active hours and days.
26) Track leads.
27) Improve all inner pages surfers ignore.
28) Analyze all inbound and outbound links.
29) Keep an eye on links which fail.
30) Delete links which cause traffic loss.
31) Use conversions tracking software to observe visitors and trends.
32) Track online initiatives.
33) Analyze search engines’ results.
34) Participate in SEO campaigns.
35) Track SEO campaigns.
36) Analyze campaigns effectiveness.
37) Track PPC advertising campaigns.
38) Analyze PPC searches.
39) Analyze conversions resulting from natural search engine results.
40) Provide appealing wholesale program.
41) Have 10-15% off discounts available.
42) Subscribe registered users to newsletters.
43) Offer seasonal/holidays discounts.
44) Install reliable affiliate software.
45) Track affiliate sales.
46) Calculate your conversions rate.
47) Study referrers.
48) Analyze ‘computer spec’ of your visitors.
49) Make sure your site is easy to navigate in different browsers.
50) Compare your website statistics with your competitors.