Do you need to increase traffic to your website or increase your conversion rate? Try implementing a few of these tips:

Traffic:

• Drive it! Give your customers a reason to come back to your site. Send them an enewsletter which points them back to your website.
  
• Referring Sites Ask, beg and pay for your site to be listed on high traffic sites! Write articles and blogs which include your website and get them published on popular sites!
  
• Update Content Regularly update your 'about us' page or create a 'lastest news' page. Search Engines such as Google rank updated websites higher than static websites.
  
• Add Keywords Make sure the text on your site includes your keywords. Search Engines are looking for these and will rank you higher if you have them... so do it!

Conversion:

Practise Purchase Ask a friend to complete a purchase from your website and offer you feedback.

Change Colour Try changing your call to action button eg. 'Buy Now' to red or a colour that sticks out on your site. This will draw the customers eye and provoke an action.

Offer Incentives Everyone loves a discount or something free with their purchase. Throw something in!

Reduce Steps Make the purchase process simple and quick.

Add Pictures Have a minimum of two photos for each of your products. Give them a different angle, another look at what they could own.

Increased Website Traffic & Sales

Check out the Settle Petal site here!

If you are interested in producing the same sort of results on your website, why not contact Renee today for a chat, no strings attached.

Email newsletters are one of the two most important sources for business management information and advice for small and medium businesses (SMBs), according to a recent study released by Bredin Business Information.

"Optimizing Email Newsletters for Small/Medium Businesses" is based on a survey of more than 300 SMB executives to determine which types of email newsletters they are most likely to open and read, and what they look for in an email newsletter from their vendors.

In the study, SMB executives were asked to judge the relevant importance of different media for business management information.

• 83% of respondents indicated that email newsletters were either very important or important sources
  
• putting it in a near statistical tie with print media (84%) and ahead of corporate/media websites (71%)
  
• At the bottom of the list were many of the "new" media distribution methods, including webcasts/podcasts (40%), RSS feeds (39%) and blogs/wikis (34%).

SMB executives also knew the kinds of articles they wanted to see in their vendors' email newsletters.

• practical "how to" information (40%) was the preferred form of content
  
• followed by company product information (26%)
  
• management overviews on topics such as strategy or leadership (21%)
  
• company news (19%) and case studies (17%).

Know your e-newsletter's goal. Do you wantto keep your name in front of prospects? Position yourself as an expert? Show samples of your work? It's your time -- and your dime. If you put out an e-newsletter, make sure it achieves your business goals.

Don't send an e-newsletter as a mass mailing through Outlook, Eudora, or Entourage with all your recipients' names in the BCC field. You won't be able to track whether they open your message. You need an outside company to send the e-mail for you.

Set up a publishing calendar and stick to it, such as the second Wednesday of each month. Many readers will actually look forward to your e-newsletter and expect to receive it on a regular schedule.

Version your e-mail to different audiences. It doesn't take long and will increase your response rates when your e-newsletter shows relevance to your reader's needs and interests.

If you're not a writer, include links to interesting articles from other sites or invite your colleagues to contribute articles. Lead off the e-newsletter with an editorial note from yourself, and be sure to include your photo for brand recognition.

Keep on top of spam filter triggers. Instead of saying "free," say "no cost." If you sell products with red flag words such as "mortgage," put the word in an image, which is less likely to be picked up by spam filters.

Link back to your Web site so you can track what your audience is really interested in.

Review the data. You can find out what topics really resonated with people, and you can follow up individually with highly interested prospects.