The greatest thing about selling products
or services through a website is you can reach customers all over the
world 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and customers who come to your site
are coming already interested in what you are selling. If you have
a well-designed
website, one that is attracting customers in the search engines,
then they have sought you out by searching for your website's theme, and
they have clicked to reach your website. Now, once they are there,
what do you do with them?
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You can supply information and sell
advertising space; you can supply information and sell through affiliate
links or you can sell your own product. This involves finding
a supplier, ordering items, taking digital pictures of them, uploading
them onto your website, taking orders via the web, phone and mail,
tracking orders and shipping items. It's a lot of work, but this
is how many people earn their living. Selling
your own products directly gives you more control than other forms of
online income generation.
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Finding a Product to
Sell
You will want to sell a
product that interests you so that you stay interested in your
business. You will also want to sell a product that other people
are interested in buying. Once you have some ideas of what you
would like to sell, use this
URL to see how many searches there were for it on the web during one
month. As of now, this URL is out of date, showing searches for
January, 2007, but it is still a free way to get a rough idea of how
many people are looking, during one month on one engine, for your
product. If no one is searching for it, then it is probably a
product you do not want to sell.
You may also want to
subscribe to this
keyword research tool.
These folks are the gold standard in keyword research and specialize in
determining how many people are searching for what and under what
keywords across the entire web. You can sign up for a week's
subscription for a reasonable fee, or you can take the free trial.
Once you have found a
product that you are interested in and which people are searching for, a
good place to find wholesalers is here.
Most wholesalers will require you to open an account and order in
bulk. Stay away from purchased lists of wholesalers or
drop-shippers as most of these lists are out-of-date, have incorrect
contact information or are just plain fraudulent.
Promoting Your Product
To promote your product, you can set-up
your own merchant affiliate program by joining one of the reputable merchant/affiliate marketplaces
such as this one
or this
one. Affiliates (other website publishers and email
marketers) will then place your links on their sites and promote your
products. You have to pay a start-up fee and then a percentage of
each sale, but you reach many more customers through your affiliates,
and the affiliate marketplace website takes care of tracking all sales
and pays your affiliates for you.
You can also have your products placed in
blogs through this
website.
After registering with them, they will place your products in blogs
(short for weblog) across the web. These blogs are then paid to
write about your products, sending customers to your website (although
blogs do not always write positive reviews). Don't be put off by the youth of pictured bloggers; there
are many products that 20 year olds don't write about but need exposure.
You will also want to establish a mailing
list. Customers who opt-in to receive your weekly or monthly
mailings are kept up-to-date about new items, products on sale,
etc. This mailing list will be a source of traffic when other
sources may slow down. Do not abuse it! By staying in
contact with your visitors and by offering occasional, relevant
information to them, you will build trust and a loyal following.
Employ this
respected and easy-to-use email management system, which has 150,000
clients, and your life will be much easier. Bounces, removal
requests and sign-ups are easily handled. Requirements under the
CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 are in place so you have no chance of being accused
of sending spam.
Taking Payments
If you plan to sell items, you will need
a payment processing service that allows your customers to pay with credit cards.
We use Paypal,
as do 153 million other people across the globe.
