Hide Your Email Address

As a website owner, you want to establish a good relationship with your visitors by giving it a personal touch and feel. It is a good idea to invite questions from visitors as they visit your website to gather more information about what they like, or don't like, and how to make improvements in the future. But, as your traffic increases you do not want to be swamped with email queries. So, to get the maximum value both from your visitors and in what you provide to them, here's how you manage this process.

First, create a FAQ (frequently asked questions) page by accumulating a list of the common questions that are asked. This is a common solution used by many webmasters. Most will provide a link from the sales page to the FAQ page, but keep their email address on the sales page. The secret here is to remove the address and only put on the FAQ page. Why?

Removing the address from the sales page and only including it on the FAQ page will force your visitor to read the FAQ first and, hopefully, eliminate 90% or more of the questions that you would otherwise receive.

Next, maximize the benefit of the FAQ page. Don't just put a series of questions and answers. Instead,

1. Take an opportunity to surround every question with a positive benefit or response that the customer can expect.
2. Introduce additional, or more detailed information and material that may have been too much to include on the original page. Take care to not "write a book" - you may wish to use drop-down boxes, etc., so that the additional information is presented in "tiers" or "layers."
3. Always end on a positive note. You can do this by adding some motivating text or copy to get your reader to order your product.

By following these simple steps your visitor will have benefited from finding answers to questions he/she had not thought of and also discovered extra benefits offered by your product or service.

Copyright M. A. Webb, 2005. All Rights Reserved

Source: http://LearnBizTips.blogspot.com

PUBLISHING AND REPRINT RIGHTS: You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your website, free of charge, as long as the author's information and web link are included at the bottom of the article and the article is not changed, modified or altered in any way. The web link should be active when the article is reprinted on a web site or in an email. The author would appreciate an email indicating you wish to post this article to a website, and the link to where it is posted.

What NOT to Do With an Affiliate

Affiliate programs are a great way to pick up residual income and to drive traffic to your site. But there is one "no-no" you should never do and that's create a direct link to an affiliate site. Why? Let's explore this a bit in today's post.

You should never openly use the URL that an affiliate program provides for you. Instead, you should link instead to a page on your OWN site which then leads to the affiliate program. Here's why:

Introductions: On the page you link to on your own site you can provide your own introduction to the product or service you are promoting. For example, this may include:

• Additional detail not available in your posting or advertisement
• Your own personal experience with the product or service you are promoting
• A review of the benefits

Related Links: You can provide links to the rest of your site in case your visitor is not interested in that specific affiliate product. If you do a direct link to the affiliate site, you will lose the visitor to the affiliate site and they will likely not return to your URL.

Traffic Statistics: Using your own page link will allow you to track the traffic statistics that will help you to indicate the level of response to your advertisement in addition to any statistics provided for you by the affiliate company. For example, you can also track how many visitors are "lost" between your link and the affiliate's.

Search Engines: Using your own page link will help you when you submit this page to the search engines.

Theft: If you visibly display the direct URL there is a risk that the reader will remove the suffix (agent code) so that you do not get registered as the affiliate agent and potentially there could be income lost or credited to another agent that should have been credited to you.

Changes in Affiliate Site: if an affiliate operations is discontinued or other problems arise, it is much easier to change and divert visitors at your website rather than have them visit a non-existent page. This will also ensure that your customers are happier and more likely to return to your site - nothing is more discouraging to potential customers than broken links.

If you are an affiliate member and are using links to your affiliate site, it is important that you review and plan how you will use the link if you are to attract and retain visitors and potential customers. By following a few simple techniques you will be able to ensure that your standing as an affiliate agent, and the visitors who come to your website will be happy visitors who convert to paying customers.

Copyright M. A. Webb, 2005. All Rights Reserved

Source: http://LearnBizTips.blogspot.com

PUBLISHING AND REPRINT RIGHTS: You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your website, free of charge, as long as the author's information and web link are included at the bottom of the article and the article is not changed, modified or altered in any way. The web link should be active when the article is reprinted on a web site or in an email. The author would appreciate an email indicating you wish to post this article to a website, and the link to where it is posted.