[Show Transcript]

I’m Randy Charach from RandyReport.com and THIS is the show that takes you from internet zero to business hero!

In this week’s lesson you’re going to learn about the “oxygen” of online business success. Without it, your business will shrivel up and die. And if you focus on just this one thing, you’ll be light years ahead of most internet business.

Picture this: Four people walk into a restaurant, sit down and the waitress comes by and asks “Can I get you some drinks to get started?” And the four patrons reply “No we’re just going to sit here and then leave”.

Everyday people come to websites all over the world and don’t do something! Getting people to do something is called “conversion” and it’s the “oxygen” of internet business success.

Anyone who plans on making a living online (or in any business) better learn how to improve conversions. Put another way web site traffic is like wind. And conversion is like the sails on a ship that actually make something move.

When you ask someone to do something on your web page and they do it. You’ve converted them. For instance, if you ask them to sign up for a newsletter and they do, you just earned a conversion. If you ask someone to buy, and they do, then you just earned a conversion.

If you ask someone to click a link, and they do, then you just earned a conversion.

So how do we improve conversion? How do you get more people to do what you’re asking?

The first thing to do is make sure you’re asking people to do what you want them to do. This may seem obvious, but you’ll be shocked at how many websites don’t do this.

We call this the “call to action”. The “call to action” is the written or spoken words used to direct people to take the next step. In its simplest form: Tell them what to do. Why they should do it. And what happens next.

Let’s say you want to get someone to buy a report.

Your call to action in its most basic form can be “Click this button to buy my report”.

Let’s make this better. We’re going to add, “What happens next”, if they do what you asked them to do. The reason you add this is to remove the fear of the unknown which holds some people back from taking action.

OK, here’s what we have now.

“Click this button to buy my report. After you click, my report gets sent to your email inbox”.
We’re getting better.

There are still more ways to improve conversion. Let’s take it one step at a time though.

If you want to persuade another human being to do something you have to show them how it will benefit them. So you have to sweeten your call to action. This answers the “why should someone do what you’re asking them”.

Here’s a fun example:

I’d like people to sign up for a newsletter where I can sell them an information product on “How to train your dog to do house chores.”

My call to action is: Sign up for my newsletter.

What happens next is: You’ll be sent an email every few days offering tips.

How do we sweeten this? Let’s try – If you sign up for my email list, I’ll send you an interview from the world’s highest paid dog trainer on “How to teach your dog to mow the lawn”.

That will raise the bar on conversions because you’re offering something of value in exchange for them doing what you ask them to do.

Ok, this all being said. You’re not going to get someone to buy a $2,000 information product with three simple sentences.

If what you are asking has a huge impact on their life, then you’ll have to dig deep into the “Why you should do this” part of the equation and the “what happens after you order”.

If you’re asking someone for money, think of the task of persuading them like climbing a steep rock face. Instead of going for a very difficult one time sale, help your prospect by building him a ladder.

Each of your conversions will be a rung on the ladder moving them closer to the top of the rock face.

Let me give you an example.

Let’s say your ultimate goal is to sell a $2,000 seminar on teaching your turtle how to juggle.

Your first conversion (or first step to take) could be to persuade someone to give their email address in exchange for a report on how to teach a turtle to juggle.

Your second conversion goal can be to buy a $27 deluxe edition of the report.

Once they start liking you, trusting you, and seeing results from their turtle training, they’ll be more open to a high priced edition of the training. So your third conversion goal can be to buy the $400 course.

And then you try and convert them on to a seminar.

Another little tip: You can train your audience for conversion. Here’s what I mean.

If you have an email follow up going out to your audience, you can train them to click links in your email by sending them to good content…that isn’t even yours.

For example, let’s go back to the turtle juggling report.

First: Send an email asking people to take action by clicking a link to a funny turtle juggling video on YouTube.

Then in your next email, ask them to take action by clicking on a link to go read a great article on Turtle Juggling.

And then in a third email ask them to take action and click a link to your turtle juggling sales letter.
What you’ve done is train people to expect good stuff when they do what you ask. When you train your audience to click your links you’ll improve conversions on every email you send out (as long as you don’t start sending them to junk).

It’s just like training a pet, when you reward them for good behavior they’ll keep doing it.

A final note: Another simple way to increase conversions is to make sure things are easy to read for the human eye.

Tests show that when the width of written text is longer than 60 characters people find it hard to read and thus your conversions will drop off (This is why newspapers split up their editorial into columns).
Stick to easy to read fonts like Arial, Georgia, or Times New Roman because tests show over and over that the human eye finds it easier to read, and thus increases conversions.

If you model your layout like a well established newspaper you’re on track for success.

Now for the question of the week.

Our question this week comes from Ryan S from San Francisco, California who wrote:

I’d like to know the easiest way to improve conversion without being an expert persuader?

Good question Ryan. There are literally thousands of ways to improve conversion. And the simplest way I know of is to clearly communicate to your website visitor that by taking the action you want, there is a far greater reward.

If you’re email subscribe rate is too low. Then improve the reasons why they should sign up. Add more value. If you tell people you won’t spam them, and they’ll always have the option of removing themselves from your mailing list, you’ll get a bump.

If people aren’t buying your product then work on clearly demonstrating the reasons why they should buy — or add more value to your offer.

Besides improving your offer, there are layout changes you can make to improve conversion.
Adding graphics to draw attention to your call to action usually helps.

Things like arrows, dashed boxes and even cartoons demonstrating what you’d like people to do can all bump your conversion.

When using design to improve conversion, ask yourself if what you are adding will make it easier to find, read and comprehend your call to action.

Well, that wraps up this episode of Randy Report. Since company’s websites, prices and quality of service on the Internet change rapidly, for my up-to-date recommendations on resources and for free tools and training, visit me today at RandyReport.com.

Today you learned

To make sure your calls to action are clear and follow the “Here’s what to do next, here’s why you should do it, and here’s what happens when you do”.

If you’re going for a big sale, then break it up into tiny chunks, and move people through the chunks one tiny conversion at a time.

Train people to do what you are asking by making sure you’re rewarding them with valuable content, goodies or product by doing what you ask them.

Thanks so much for watching. Remember, if you’d like more free reports, resources and training then visit RandyReport.com and join me again next week where you’ll discover

How to measure the success of your website through testing and tracking so you can see your conversion rate soar. You’ll learn about the different ways you can easily track useful visitor information on your site, how to use A B testing to learn how ads, graphics and text on your site are performing, and how to raise the bar…and your conversion rate…through continuous tracking and testing methods.

I’m Randy Charach, and this is the show that takes you from internet zero to business hero!

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