Top 10 Online Selling Tips

When it comes to selling online, there are certain things you must do to maximize your potential.

1. Having a website is a must for legitimate businesses.

Customers expect that all legitimate businesses have websites. Having a website helps businesses convey their value and sell their products and services 24 x 7.

2. Analyze your competition and maximize your position.

It's obvious to most, but few analyze their competition and then maximize their position. When you understand your competition, you know how position your likeness and your uniqueness. Both are important, especially when competing against larger companies.

3. Sell through all available sales channels.

What are sales channels? They are the places where your products or services can be purchased. There are two main categories of sales channel: direct sales, where you sell directly to the customer, and indirect sales, where you have dealers buying from you and then selling to the customers.

Several direct sales will be available to you, based on your business model. You may choose to sell directly from your website, of course, and to sell through online auction services such as eBay and Amazon. Don't limit yourself to only a website or only to auction services. Choosing both maximizes your direct sales potential.

What about indirect sales channels? Have you considered recruiting dealers who will resell or recommend your products and services? You can reward them by letting them purchase your products and services at a discount or by providing them with a commission. These dealers may be smaller boutique-like business or larger retailers.

Finding the right balance between direct and indirect sales is certainly a challenge. However, leveraging both channels may pay great dividends to your sales volumes.

4. Convey customer benefits and/or problems solved.

When customers consider your products and services, they will do so because it benefits them or solves their problems. So doesn't it make sense that your messaging leads with how it benefits the customer or solves their problems?

For whatever reason, many companies do a great job outlining their features and functions, but they do a terrible job outlining their benefits and solutions. Do yourself a favor and spend more time outlining the value customers gain from using your products and services. In fact, lead with that information. Still include feature and function data, as that's also important to customers. Some will need detailed facts and specifications before they buy.

5. Use appropriate electronic marketing avenues.

Internet marketing and opt-in e-mail newsletters are both important marketing avenues to leverage. Internet marketing includes at sponsoring keyword searches through search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN; and exchanging advertising banners with other related businesses.

For example, if you sell cookies, then you might consider reserving "chocolate chip cookies" or "homemade chocolate chuck cookies." That way, when people enter those phrases from a search engine, your website appears in the search results. You can specify how much you're willing to spend daily and monthly, so search engine marketing can be very affordable. If you know businesses related to yours, then consider exchanging advertising with one another. For example, a cookie maker may want to exchange advertising banners with recipe websites or gift basket websites.

Opt-in email newsletters provide a powerful communication method for maintaining customer relationships and increasing sales. These opt-in newsletters provide a friendly reminder of your company, products, and services. Upon recommendation from With-It Solutions, BearingAllSeasons.com added an opt-in newsletter to their website. Not only do they have registrants from the entire world, but they also see spike in sales every time they send their newsletter.

Avoid sending unsolicited e-mail (known as spam). Laws vary by territory, but most people despise spam. To protect your business, articulate your solicitation policy and make it obvious how to opt out of your newsletter.

6. Use phrases throughout your website to which potential buyers will relate.

Use phrases that customers understand throughout your website. That's obvious, right? What may not be obvious is one of the reasons why. After you notify search engines (the process for doing so is noted below) that you have a website, they will add your description to their index. If what you report doesn't match what they find on your website, they may penalize your website position in their index or not index your site at all. Using the most descriptive terms and phrases on your website will help your search engine position.

For example, if you have "homemade chocolate chip cookies," then you will want to add that phrase to your title page, throughout your website pages, and inside your website page links. That way, your site is optimized and ready to be indexed.

7. Notify the top search engines that you exist.

Most search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and MSN let you notify them that you have a website. Most offer this as a free service. Make sure you leverage this free service. They will then add your site to their search results, if your website meets their criteria. Unfortunately, it usually takes from one to four months to be added.

8. Be consistent.

Be consistent across pages in how you describe products and services and how you convey your brand. Consistency includes layout, word phrases, capitalization, and color palettes. Choose a website template and stick with it throughout your site. A template includes your logo, navigation (main page links), and content position.

While every site owner wants to be creative, they often become bored using the same word phrases consistently. Note, however, that appropriate repetition is often comforting to the customer. While you don't want to be redundant, especially refer to your products and services consistently, using the same capitalization across all website pages.

Furthermore, choose your color palette and do not deviate from it. Most companies have a color palette until they want to emphasize something. Then they deviate. On one page, the owner emphasizes a phrase with boldface purple. On another page, they emphasize it with boldface red. Be consistent with your color palette.

9. Secure information.

You could argue that security and confidentiality should be at the top of this list. We agree. We placed it towards the bottom, because there are so many other things you must do as well. If you have a long-term strategy to sell products and services online, then you better protect your customers' data. If you don't, then plan on hiring an attorney. You'll need one if you don't.

Add secure payment processing and a shopping cart to your website. That way, sensitive customer transaction information will be protected and secured. And never send sensitive customer information such as social security numbers or credit card numbers via email. Email is not a secure communication and may easily be intercepted and compromised.

10. Leverage a trusted advistor to help you navigate the Internet.

You know your business inside and out. However, when navigating the Internet world, you may feel lost. If you need help building a website, marketing it, or increasing your sales, then contact With-It Solutions. We provide the services and expertise to help you successfully sell products and services on the Internet.