Ecommerce
Enable Your Site
OK, so you have a web site of your own. Big deal. Now you
have to start making money with it. How? There are a
number of things you need to do to turn your web site into
a revenue generator. Assuming you already have a product
to sell, you need an ecommerce provider to handle the
financial transaction. Many Internet Service Providers
will provide you with bundled web site hosting services
which will include some form of ecommerce. Fees will vary.
Check monthly shopping cart and per transaction fees to
insure you are not giving away all of your profits to
others.
Two
popular ecommerce service providers are Clickbank
and PayPal.
Clickbank
is very popular among online marketers because it
not only provides you with a means to accept payments, but
it also provides you with a complete affiliate management
solution at no additional cost. For a one-time $49.95
set-up fee, Clickbank
will enable you to sell a maximum of 50 different items
and provide you with a means to market your products
through affiliates. Clickbank
handles the transaction, sends you paychecks twice a
month, and also sends checks to any affiliates generating
revenue for you.
PayPal
works a little differently. There are over 70,000,000 PayPal
account users, and it is the preferred form of payment
with many people who use eBay. Opening an account with PayPal
is free. You can link it to your bank account and credit
card to make online payments and transfers a breeze. PayPal
gives you the ability to send and receive money via email.
You can also make mass payments to your affiliates with
the click of a button. Both services are very friendly and
take a percentage of the sales transaction. Clickbank
is the more costly of the two services, but both are very
secure.
PayPal
users may also be interested in PayLoadz.
This
service provides you with a secure server to store your
electronic products and an affiliate management
infrastructure similar in function to Clickbank.
PayLock
Generator is another great add-on tool that
enables you to quickly create a variety of PayPal
buttons
to handle single item sales, shopping cart sales, and
subscriptions to membership sites and ezine subscriptions.
Best of all, you can create encrypted links to help
protect your PayPal
information.
Lastly,
for those people looking for an alternative to either Clickbank
or PayPal,
you may want to consider PayDotCom.
it incorporates the best features of both services and its
fees are very affordable. It enables you to accept payment
from either PayPal
or
StormPay and provides you with promotion through an online
marketplace and affiliate management services.
Should
you decide to sell many items and want to manage your
inventory better, having your own shopping cart is the
best way to go. VIP
Shopping Cart is an economical and powerful
software solution.
Manage
Your Sales Data
Once
your site is set to take payments, you'll want to track
your sales. For Clickbank
users, nothing beats CB
Extract. This tool enables you to download all of
your sales transactions and then graph it to see exactly
where you are succeeding and where you need to increase
your marketing efforts. It also maintains databases of
email lists of customers and affiliates. Likewise for PayPal
users, there is a very helpful product called PP
Mailer. This tool enables you to tap into your PayPal
history file. It downloads your data and allows you to
analyze it through a number of different reporting
options. In addition, it enables you to manage your email
lists of customers do you can continue your marketing
efforts. This is invaluable and a true time-saver.
Protect
Your Affiliate Links
If
you will be trying your hand with affiliate marketing --
promoting other people's products for a commission -- then
there is one product you should learn about. Covert
Affiliate was designed to cookie your web site
visitors invisibly with your affiliate information. In
this fashion, even if they buy a product you are promoting
at a later date, and if your cookie is still active, then
you can receive credit for the sale. Affiliate link theft
is on the rise. Web surfers have gotten savvy and are
always looking for ways to cheat you out of your affiliate
commissions and pocket it for themselves to purchase
products at a discount. Using Covert
Affiliate, you can cookie people without them even
knowing they have been cookied, so when they finally make
the purchase, your commission is protected.
Improve
Your Sales
Increasing
your sales is always challenge. One way to do this is by
using dynamic pricing. There are a number of tools and
services and ebooks which can help you to determine the
best price point for your products. One of the best ebooks
written on the subject of improving online sales is
Michael Nicholas' Order
Button Triggers. This ebook takes you down the
path of a prospect and gets inside their head to try to
figure out what makes them buy or abandon your site.
Make
Your Price Sell by Dr. Ken Evoy is a combined
ebook about pricing strategy and online service that helps
you to figure out the mystery of finding the perfect price
for your product or service.
Dynamic
Pricing Generator by John Delavera is a very
clever little JavaScript that creates dynamic PayPal
buttons. You determine a start and end point for your
selling price, and the number of days it will take for the
price to reach the end point. Then with a few clicks, this
tool will create a PayPal
button whose price changes in real time. This really helps
motivate fence sitters to make the purchase while the
price is still low.
Another
fun way to inject some interactivity on your site and
provide some price flexibility is to use Price
Spinner. This tool enables you to create a
carnival wheel with different prices, and gives your
prospects the chance to spin three times for the best
price. It's like bringing the Price Is Right to your web
site!
Monetize
Your Site Through Advertising
Every
page on your site has spare ad space. Use it. Every bit of
it. For years I was skeptical about Google AdSense, but
after reading Joel Comm's AdSense
Secrets, I became a believer. Within a few days of
adding Google's code to my web pages, the revenue start
coming in day after day. As I learn more through Joel's
ebook and supporting newsletter, I continue to apply new
techniques and tweak my ad integration. Within a few
months, I was generating consistent income -- enough to
cover my monthly phone, Internet, cable, cell phone,
toll-free number and other operating costs. Considering it
costs you nothing to incorporate Google AdSense to your
web pages, you'd be foolish to ignore this additional
passive income.
Other
Options
There
are many other powerful tools available to help you
generate more money online. Check out Clickbank
Profit Feeds Generator to learn how to add new Clickbank
advertising to your site and increase your chances for
earning affiliate commissions while you sleep. Watch this
site for new ways to ecommerce enable your site and to
generate increased revenue.
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