----First - I know folks are waiting for "Search Engine Stomper", the 8+ plus hour interview with Brad Fallon, the search engine consultant that opened a MONSTER Yahoo! Store.
Well, there's good news and bad news.
The good news is - it's done.
The bad news? Well, there is so much information that if we made the product a digital download, the size of the files would be over 200 Megabytes. That pretty much kills folks who have a dial up modem.
So, we've decided to issue the interviews on 9 Audio CDs and 1
CD-ROM. This actually turns out to be a good thing. This way, we can
include transcripts of ALL of the interviews. So, if you want to
print them out and take notes as you listen, you can create your own
little "Search Engine Cheat Sheet"
The site is at http://www.instantseoexpert.com
-------------------------------
Your first dollar from your first online business.
You know, I'm pretty fortunate. Over the past 4 years that I've been
running my online business with Audrey, we've built a component of
our business that allows us to get fast feedback. When we open a
store, start a web site, create a new product or even write a
newsletter, we can start to evaluate its effectiveness, sometimes in
just a few minutes.
Having talked to thousands of other eCommerce Store Owners,
webmasters, and Internet marketers, I can tell you that lack of
feedback is why most folks fail.
Here's the mindset of 90% of new Internet Business Failures.
1) They are irrationally afraid of making a single mistake.
This might be the single biggest factor in a new Internet business
false-start. Even though a new eBusiness owner has great
information, a great eEducation, and desire to succeed, they are so
afraid of committing an un-recoverable mistake that they don't do
anything.
Here's a tip - there is no such thing as an un-recoverable mistake.
2) They execute their business plan backwards.
They spend time looking at technological solutions instead of market
opportunities. I get more emails for people asking me what the best
shopping cart solution, merchant account service, or automatic
search engine optimization tool is than any other correspondence.
Here's my one and only answer for the new eBusiness owner:
Use the services that require the LEAST amount of maintenance. Use
the service that allows you to concentrate on selling your products.
In other words, use the service that allows you to set it up
quickly, easily, and then forget about it.
These kinds of services are only a means to an end!
What counts is marketing your product.
3) If they can't find the perfect product to sell, they don't sell
anything.
To that mindset, I have a few questions... If you're new to
eCommerce, how would you know, beyond the shadow of a doubt, what
the perfect product is? More importantly, what sort of evidence do
you have that a product isn't going to sell?
Sure, there are 4 ways that you can research a product's potential
in the marketplace, but the only way to move out of the research
phase, and into the proof-of-concept phase is to actually try to
sell the product online.
Bottom Line? You've got to try it before you know if it works.
4) If they don't have instant success, they declare a failure.
Let's put an end to this mindset, shall we?
Most of the time, you're first effort at an eBusiness is going to be
mediocre. That's just a fact and it applies to everyone!
I mean, the first time you swung a baseball bat, tennis racquet,
golf club, even the first time you rode a bike, did you do it like a
pro?
How about your first day on the job? Did they train you first, or
did they just put you in charge of a major project and say, "Do this
perfectly or you're fired"?
Probably, not.
So, why would anyone think that they can "Hit it out of the park"
their first time at bat?
Some do, but MOST don't. The ones that haul off and create a
successful eBusiness their first time out do it because they bring
with them ALL kinds of other business testing and feedback
experience.
A friend of mine runs the marketing department of a very cool
technology company. They've had a marketing campaign going for the
last few months that's cost their company about $100,000. That
campaign hasn't broken even yet, but they're declaring it a smashing
success. In fact, they knew that it was going to loose money during
its first 5 months. But because they've been actively seeking and
tracking feedback, they know that it'll pay off in the medium-term.
Here's my point to all of this;
You need feedback and constant input from your business and your
industry in order to determine how successful your business can be.
Here's a few examples in practical terms:
1) Lack of sales does not indicate failure! - What if you don't have
any traffic? How can you tell if you're site is converting visitors
to sales or not?
2) Lack of conversion does not indicate a poor product choice! If
you're getting traffic and no sales, it's a sales copy issue, a lack
of credibility issue (does your web site look professional?) or a
price issue.
3) Lack of traffic does not indicate a failure! Do you know how to
get it? Have you educated yourself? Have you tested different
traffic generating methods?
And lastly, do you test?
You must test. You must track your test results. You need to test
everything!
Different pictures
Different sales copy
Different on page search engine optimization
Different off page search engine optimization
Different price points
Different guarantees
Different web designs
Different headlines
And track it all.
If you get 100 visitors and one sale, and you do that consistently,
change one thing about your web site and track the results of that
change for a week.
Are your results better or worse? If their better, make a note of
the change, and then change another! If the results are worse,
change it back, make a note and then change another!
Feedback. You see - it's all about what the marketplace tells you.
You can, CAN track visitors to sales, to page views, to abandoned
shopping cars, to email newsletter open rate, to, to, to,
everything!
And guess what? That's the ONLY way to know for sure what you're
doing is going to work.
Proof of concept is only valid when matched with empirical data.
Feedback, it tells you what's working, and why.
So, test.
You also need to keep informed about the changing marketplace. And
in most cases, you can do this without spending any money.
To your Success!
Andy Jenkins
http://www.online-store-profits.com
