I am looking for ideas to entice visitors to my site to buy something. So, is everyone else, right? I am still learning about IM, and want to know what I should improve, change, add, etc to change browsers into buyers? Help, anyone? Here's my site: http://celebrity-handbags-4-rent.com Thanks, Diane
Haha...to me, it looks like a blog trying too hard to sell me something. Try making another site/re-designing your current one featuring the same designer handbags in an "online store" format. If you're somewhat familiar with BANS and the way people utilize it for E-Bay auctions and CJ products, that's what I'm talking about.
I think all the affiliate links don't instill trust. It looks like a blog that redirects you too 100 different handbag sites. Also the domain is terrible. All-the-hyphens-are-bad-for-sales.com Get rid of the Entrecard widget and see how much traffic you are REALLY getting. You may fine most are just there to drop ECs, not buy handbags. EDIT:Your site does not even show up on the Alexa radar. My guess is you're getting less than 100 visits per day, and I bet most of those are Entrecard droppers, not buyers. Ditch the widget. I think the idea is good, just a poor execution. I would make a dedicated site where a person can browse all the handbags from menu, and not have to scroll through a blog.
You are overthinking the domain name, it's overkill and terrible. Get a new simple one. Like "dianeshandbags.com" It's availible and MUCH better domain name. DON'T use hyphens at all. Put up an ecommerce site where they can see pictures of the handbags and then buy.
Interesting idea. I would suggest adding a products page where people can look all the products you are selling and order.
I think you have to know more about your target market. Butterflies? Maybe I'm wrong but the crowd you're appealing to is more "high design wannabes". It needs to be more sophisticated. Maybe a "magazine style" website for this target? There is not much above the fold except Angelina so it doesn't have that feeling you're selling something. Think of your target as those who get a subscription to People magazine. In addition, all your links go to the front of another website. Not to the item they want, just the generic front page. So you're expecting them to then start searching about for the celebrity handbag you have pictured on your site. That is asking a lot of the visitor. If you're to have any success you need to have that bag link to the bag at the site. A lot of trouble but easier than getting the handbags yourself. You might also give indication of pricing and compare it to buying one. Most people use a handbag one season. A price comparison would be helpful if it works out to be less expensive to rent. A $1200 bag is $100 to rent for two weeks. (I have no idea how much it costs and it took too much searching so I gave up. Your visitors will, too.) Your chief goal is to make this visitor feel like getting one of these bags is going to feel like a movie star. Copy like below is a waste of space! You want to make them want to walk through freaking FIRE to get to hold one of these bags. You need a sense of immediacy and star quality. There has to be something very visceral happing in the copy. It's not easy to do and you must POUR yourself into it, stand in their shoes and imagine the type of person who wants these bags and walk in their designer wannabe shoes. "Balenciaga was established in 1937 and quickly became the house of couture for Europe’s royalty. Today celebrities like Kate Moss, the Olsen twins, and model Karolina Kurkova can be seen toting Balenciaga."
You guys are giving me quite a lot to think about! I didn't think there was anything wrong with hyphens though. Sometimes it helps to look at things through someone else's eyes. I am trying to decide how much time I want to spend on this particular blog, so I am thinking it over. Thanks for all the input.
Hyphens are terrible. Not that you have any interest in doing so, but imaging trying your website with that domain name on the radio. It would go like this.. "Please visit celebrity hyphen handbags hyphen 4 (you would have to mention "the number not the word") hyphen rent dot com It's almost impossible more trouble than it's worth to attempt that. Now look at my domain name and imaging advertising it on the radio.....VERY EASY. "Please visit wealth store dot com" Very simple, short, no confusing numbers or a bunch of hypehens. All they have to remember is "wealth store", pop that in Google and I come up #1 on Google. What would they search for in Google to remember yours? "Celebrity handbags"? That's going to come back with thousands of results and you will be nowhere near the top. But if your domain was "www.dianeshandbags.com" and they put "Dianes Handbags" in Google, you would come up #1. They would have the same problem with word of mouth advertising too. Imaging one person trying to tell another the name of your website. Saying "Dianes Handbags dot com" is 1,000X easier than your current domain name.
You need the site to look more like an on-line store rather than a blog. Just from a quick glance without actually reading anything on the site, I would not have thought that it was a store.
Are you sure that there are even enough out there who want to rent a handbag, which may explain part of your problem???
Yeah you have a lot of work to do. Start off with a simple re-design and READ HOW TO WRITE SALES COPY or hire a copywriter. -ruff
In general, it usually takes 100 unique visitors to make a sale on the net. It sucks, and that's life. So if you take all the steps to improve your site, keep in mind that it all comes down to traffic.
And that's only if your website is great and your traffic is targeted. If not, you can easily get 10,000 visitors and 0 sales.
He's right. Even with 10,000 visitors, if they just arrive at your site and immediately hit the close button, it still won't generate sales.
Try to capture your visitors, so you can get them back. There's a reason why they say "The Money Is In The List."
Definitely revamp your site to make it look more like a store. Create a directory with designer names, and another one with celebrity names (who wears a particular bag). You'll definitely have more success. As it is right now if I didn't know what you were promoting I don't think I would have figured it out for myself. I don't think the domain is that bad, although don't expect any type-in traffic. You may also have a problem with people remembering your domain name. For marketing this I would highly recommend Youtube, get some Angelina Jolie videos from E! for example and watermark it with "Rent Angelina Jolie's bag"...