You are here: Home » Blog » General Strategy » Your Number #1 Biggest Web Challenge for More Sales.

Your Number #1 Biggest Web Challenge for More Sales.

by Ed on 28th January 2009

My monthly print newsletter Web Profits Monthly launches at 10.30am next Tuesday, where I’ll be giving a free 30-day trial (i.e. get the first issue posted to you completely free of charge).

In advance of that, I need your help !

I need to know… what’s your number one biggest challenge with web marketing?
What one thing, if you could solve it, would turn your website into a sales-generating profit-centre for your small or medium size business?

Is your number one challenge:

1) Getting traffic (you know your website needs more visitors, but you don’t know how).

2) Improving sales (your site is getting visitors but you’re still not selling very much as a result.)

3) Improving leads & enquiries (your website gets plenty of visitors but none of them opt-in or enquire… and you can’t work out why.)

4) Producing content (you find it hard knowing what text, images and mult-media content to put in your website that will engage your visitors and result in more sales and enquiries.)

5) Getting started with Email Marketing (you know you need to send regular emails to your customers and clients, but don’t know where to start.)

6) Getting better at email marketing (you’re already doing it but think you could significantly better.)

7) Working out a web marketing strategy (you’re confused by all this talk of Web 2.0 and don’t know who to listen to, or what to do next.)

I’d really appreciate it if you could add a comment below, and let me know what your number one challenge is. (And if it’s NONE of the above then please tell me what specific challenges you’re facing.)

The web should have a massive impact on most small businesses, and yet most people just have a pretty website that sits there and does very little for them.

If you can tell me your biggest challenge or frustration that will really help me refine future issues of ‘Web Profits Monthly’, and make it one of the most essential monthly publications available in the UK.

I look forward to your feedback and comments, thanks!

Ed.

P.S. The massive free trial giveaway is next Tuesday (was meant to be this week but printing problems delayed things.) I’ll email you next week when the doors open and you’re able to register for your copy.

P.P.S. I’ll post a summary tomorrow of the answers I get today – I suspect msot people will say their number one challenge is getting traffic to their website — but hopefully if you and many others are able to post your comment below I’ll get a good angle on the most common challenges and address them directly in Web Profits Monthly.

Article by Ed Rivis

I'm the Amazon 5-star rated author of three books about web marketing, and since 2008 have spoken to more than 4,000 business owners at conferences and seminars around the UK. I've also developed software that automatically generates lead pages and home-study programmes that help small business owners like you generate more sales-leads and win new customers and clients, online.

Ed has written 326 awesome articles.

http://www.ecs-sw.co.uk phil hill

Using my web site for e-mail campaigns
http://www.sunshinedrumming.co.uk Mike McElya

1) Getting traffic (you know your website needs more visitors, but you don’t know how).

2) Improving sales (your site is getting visitors but you’re still not selling very much as a result.)
http://www.quinoa-cookbook.com Ken Jones

Getting enough traffic. My conversion rate is good but getting enough people to the page is quite difficult
http://www.zestpeople.co.uk Stu Stokes

Getting the content right Ed, has always been a concern for us…

Cheers

Stu
http://www.apww.co.uk Steve Pett

Turning visits into enquiries into business
http://www.webhostingmentor.com Pete

Working out a web marketing strategy & then following it through to completion, even though I’ve got your brilliant book! Best wishes for the launch!
http://www.arcticmedical.co.uk john

Getting started with Email Marketing. The web site is just one of our means of selling and we have only a few people in the company, therefore e-mailing can take us a long time. We are looking for a good, but easy method to carry this out.
http://www.slough-mortgage.co.uk Harvey

Producing content – That is it. Once I have done that I’d worry about getting traffic…
http://www.thekissbusiness.co.uk Karin H.

Working out a web-marketing strategy. I’m not confused by web2.0 so that’s not the problem. More linking/combining our retail “static” web-site, “dynamic” blog-site, webshops and AWeber campaigns together. So I think I better call our problem: fine tuning our web marketing strategy and tactics.

Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)
http://www.bambo.org.uk Julian

Improving leads and enquiries would help. Getting people to opt-in. However the first three challenges are vital. Your customer database is key. Do everything you can to grow this and nurture it once it grows. Looking forward to next Tuesday Ed.
http://microtex-analysis.com phil greaves

Attracting the initial visitors. Because I’m so specialised I’m fairly sure that once a client who needs the services I offer finds the site, they will follow up. Problem is getting them directed to it in the first place. Type in ‘Textile fibre analysis’ or ‘technical investiation of textiles’ and it doesn’t come up….
Yet, anyway.
Phil
http://www.wirralprecisionhips.co.uk Philip Smith

Getting traffic is by far and away my biggest challenge. I have tried Google Adwords but whilst I get on the top page “organically” my Google Ad is only ever on the second. So what a waste of money!

Despite getting on the top page “organically” I still only get 1 or 2 visitors per day.

Just shows that getting on the top page doesn’t produce traffic! So what next?
http://newlifecleaning.com Phil Dixon

1) Content and copywiting
2) Trying to get others within the business to ‘buy in’ to web marketing and support it by asking for referals / testimonies / taking photos & video clips out in the field (we are a service company)
3) Managing techies who are generation x, y and z!
Michaeltzu

Just setting up so & find that I often need 1 2 1 help, e.g. I know what I want from eWeber, I know what I want from askdatabase, I know I have to split test Landing Page etc., so sometimes it is just tweaking a bit of code, or where to put the code, or what goes where in the flow. I see the whole thing as setting up a system, a structure, then I can work on content, i.e. the actual copy. I have discovered to my cost in other areas of business that if you don’t get the system right initially then it creates bottlenecks down the road. Get the setting up right and it makes life a lot easier when the business starts coming in.
http://www.counterpointmatters.com Jo Dodds

Getting traffic and producing content; but probably most of all having enough time to do it all – so I suppose a web marketing strategy would help with that too! I know a lot of what I should do but it’s chipping away at the bits I should be doing every day / every week etc to keep it all moving forwards that I find hard.
http://www.whitegateshotel.co.uk Vasili Makarchuk

Getting traffic is my biggest challenge. I have tried Google Adwords .

I still only anly a few visitors per day.
http://www.dynamicbusinessstrategies.co.uk Alan Briggs

5) Getting started with Email Marketing (you know you need to send regular emails to your customers and clients, but don’t know where to start.)especially how to get email permission from people you don’t know. Also avoiding being balck listed for spamming
http://inconstruction Geoff Dickinson

Hi Ed,
No. 5. Putting a good Email Marketing system in place is my priority.
As yet still at design stage with web site, but thanks to some of your previous helpful posts aim to also link this to regular customer contact mailings.

p.s. as Print Broker, maybe I could have helped you Ed with your “News” issue #1.? Guess the original print run grew?!
http://firstclassmotorhomes.com Gordi

Getting traffic. I’m getting a new website built right now and trying to build decent content for it.
http://www.dermashield.co.uk Peter Friswell

Getting good quality links
http://www.rpf-comms.com Gail Osborne

My challenge is improving sales and enquiries. I generally get between 1500 and 2800 visitors a week but I’m just not selling enough!!!

Good luck with the launch!

Gail
http://www.simonandsimon.co.uk Simonq

Ed, for every 4 people who go to our Enquiry Form page, only 1 in 4 complete the form!! If we double that rate the impact on our business would be huge, I’m sure. There must be some do’s / don’ts re websites Contact Us/Enquiry Form pages that make it far more likely that people will get in touch….
http://www.personalisedwinelabels.co.uk Mark

Improving sales. The traffic is up, but only a very small percentage actually buy.
http://www.sheppardsdiy.co.uk Ken Sheppard

Problem getting enough traffic and finding a reliable courier. Volumes are initially low but building – other problem is our main side to the business (kitchen & bathroom design + supply) is really busy and I know I’m not spending enough time on the website. Need to delegate more or sleep less
http://www.jjcopyprint.com Jeremy Jessel

Getting traffic and finding the time to read your boooks and watch the DVDs.
You wouldn’t have had a problem with publication if you had come to JJ Copyprint!
http://www.somata.co.uk Mary

1) Getting more visitors – I get a few but obviously not the right ones. I have a couple of ads in magazines, I join groups and forums, I try to get reciprocal links where appropriate, but not good enough….
2) Improving sales – I sell quite well off-web at shows and events but need to do much better on-web.
http://www.holbrookstudios.com Paul

Producing the content for my new web-site has been the most difficult part for me. In particular, producing meaningful white papers/offers to warrant people leaving their email addresses!

Thanks to you – at least I am now thinking about these issues!
http://www.operations-support.co.uk Nigel West

Hi Ed

Website conversion. I’m getting good traffic now to our sick bag website, but the conversion rate is poor.

Other websites I have need more traffic, but I understand more about how to generate that.

Thanks

Nigel
http://www.in2grate.com Dave Wilkins

We are preparing a new web site and need to develop a web marketing policy and develop email marketing.
http://www.autocraze.co.uk Tony Cowley

Getting trafic
http://www.designersbusinesstoolkit.com Caroline Cooper

Getting traffic is my biggest challenge. I have still have some tactics to try which I have learnt from you, but anything that can accelerate this would help.

Thanks
Caroline
http://www.legacylegalservices.co.uk Dave Millar

Converting traffic into leads and leads into business
http://www.lyness.co.uk Roy

Biggest challenge is really putting together a cohesive integrated web/email and general marketing campaign especially for products with a very short shelf life.
Terry

Finding the right niche(s) to focus on in order to get the best results.
http://www.partiesforkids.co.uk Clive Hyams

Number 3 for me turning visitors into enquirers and sales. Through Adwords and organic listing I am getting lots of visitors but have a high bounce rate and only a small fraction go on to enquirer and then order. Having said that it is a massive source to orders 2nd only to my own off line list.
http://norwichchiropractic.co.uk Rosemary Folker

Dear Ed

I’d like to be able to state one challenge only but really it’s all the points you mention. I’d be hard pushed to pick just one. Any help on any of them would be useful.

Thanks,
Rosemary
http://www.africare.co.uk Jim Jackson

My difficulty is a mixture of 1 and 2. So far we don’t get enough hits and so, we don’t get enough business.

Any help will be appreciated, particularly in these very difficult times.

Regards

Jim
http://www.fuelyoursales.co.uk Dave Graham

Getting more traffic (e.g. a better CTR on Google Adwords campaigns) and getting more people to opt-in.

Looking forward to the newsletter, Ed!

Cheers,
Dave
Mandana

Getting traffic and setting up a new e-marketing plan.
John Horton

Getting High Qulaity leads and enquiries
http://www.pearsonparkhotel.com Steve Bullock

Getting traffic (you know your website needs more visitors, but you don’t know how).
http://alicedesigns.wordpress.com Alice Elliott

I’m afraid I need to have two: getting traffic and therefore conversions/comments/sales.
http://www.purplegiraffe.co.ukandwww.giftorium.co.uk John Stocks

2. Improving sales (conversion rate)

and

5. Email marketing

Cheers

John
http://www.somtec.co.uk Peter Sharples

Getting started on email marketing. The specific issues are: What do I need to know/do in terms of list management to comply with data protection and canspam legislation both here & in the US. Also, I need help with the nuts and bolts, like how to set up the links that you want readers to click. In other words, the mechanics of response & dialogue management.
http://www.nonamedesign.co.uk Deborah Lewis

working out an “effective” web marketing strategy
http://www.wotyacollit.com Dermot Coll

Getting the content to upload – website is sitting idle for over a year and still I havent decided what to put up.
http://www.ukparachuting.co.uk Jason

Hi Ed,Getting people to enquire once on site then follow through to booking from the site.
http://www.ashwoodphysiotherapy.co.uk David

Yep! Getting more traffic. Loved your book, by the way, and look forward to next week.
Thanks,
David
James Bell

1) Getting started with Email Marketing (you know you need to send regular emails to your customers and clients, but don’t know where to start.)

2) Producing content I find it hard to know what text, images and mult-media content to put in my website that will engage visitors and result in more sales and enquiries
http://www.turnoutequestrian.co.uk Mark

With so many items to sell, building the website is a bit of a nightmare. We are getting hits but they don’t seem to be turning into sales, even phone enquiries. We are trying to get into online sales but its a major task when on a tight ‘do-it-yourself’ budget.
http://www.jillzander.co.uk Gerry

Getting traffic and sales is a problem, but I think my biggest (and probably the cause of this) is producing effective, engaging content.
http://castlehedinghamcottages.com Debbie

1) Getting enough traffic and the right content are my major concerns.
http://www.hoyles-cleaning.co.uk James Hoyles

Getting started with Email Marketing, I know I need to send regular emails to my customers and clients, but don’t know where to start.)
http://www.marketing-your-network-marketing-business.com Kim

Getting those high traffic numbers I keep reading about.
Closely followed by conversion into sales (or rather, at the moment, just subscribing to my newsletter would be nice!).
Thanks Ed.
http://calane55.successuniversity.com Cindy

Hi Ed,
thanks. here are my main issues: #1 #2 #3 #4 #5
Hope that helps
Regards
Cindy
http://kollectomania.co.uk Richard

1) Getting more traffic to the site.

2) Finding enough time to work on getting more traffic to the site.
http://www.pro-indemnity.co.uk Chris Parr

I need to attract traffic to my site to complete the form so I can provide quotations. Regarding e-mail campaign I feel that I could not write a professional monthly newsletter.
http://www.kiteboardingevolution.com Glen

Producing content, and then using that content to generate a lead. It is easy to crank out some good stuff (most of the time) but bridging the gap between the content and a lead is challenging.
http://www.oldtavistockrailwaystation.co.uk Jenny Rogers

Hi,
Even though we have a very good website, and we are on several holiday websites , we are averaging 700 hits a month, we need to increase this to at least 3000 per month, so that our enquiries increase. WE have been open for business since July 2008.
It is also finding the time to investigate and implement satisfactory marketing avenues, and ensuring we spend our marketing budget wisely.
Hope you can help
regards
Jenny Rogers
http://www.comp.bio.co.uk Jon

2) Improving sales (your site is getting visitors but you’re still not selling very much as a result.)
http://www.bakgatfoods.com Heather

I have lots of traffic to the site, however finding it difficult to convert this traffic to customers
Mark

HI

It’s really a combination of 1,2 and 3!

We operate in a very competitive market (like a lot of people I guess), but with relatively low monetary margins and find that there are a few on-line businesses that seem to get the bulk of the business, based on slightly crazy pricing sometimes.

We get some visitors to our static site, which does generate a few enquiries and some purchases. But we need to massively increase all of the above.
http://www.borcraft-miniatures.co.uk Steve

Our website is in a specialised market. Whilst not a web expert by any means, I try to put into practice what I have read and learnt. With that I have tried to optimise the pages at the front end of our site to direct traffic to us with the hope they will then access the shop and buy from us. Once the customers are at our site we need to make sure we are converting that visitor into a sale and I think that is where my inexperience is probably letting us down.
Whether we need to change the type of content to direct the traffic to us I don’t know and also what we need to do to convert that visit to a sale.
From logs from my ISP I think we are getting reasonable hits but it could be so much better and as a result probably so could the sales.
http://www.directorpower.co.uk Da vid Warby

Ed,
I need traffic and then need to have sales ie. a response to which I can follow up. Your numbers 1 and 2.
http://www.newlifecleaning.com Shaun Causer

1) Making the transition from adwords success into a quality SEO program that will further enhance our online marketing strategy.
http://wwww.brianjamesgroup.com Brian James

Producing online sales is my challenge. I get lots of hits and some sign ups and very few lead to actual sales. Most of the conversions are achieved over the phone rahter than on the web
http://www.melintregwynt.co.uk Eifion

Improving our Email Marketing. Our web site (not yet e-commerce) is just one of our means of selling, we also have stores and a mail order catalogue and we have limited people in the company, therefore proactive targeted e-mailing can be neglected as we have to handle and react to a lot of enquiries already coming in. We are looking for a good, but easy method to carry this out. We’re also looking at ways of implementing e-commerce website without losing control of the look and the flexibility of the current website (squarespace blogging technology)
http://www.northern-connectors.co.uk KEITH HEWITT

we do not sell by e-commerce at the moment we are in a specialist market and provide data sheets and brochures on our web site we would like to attract more traffic and would like to improve our email marketing
http://www.magnetic-innovations.co.uk Tony Clarke

No 2 from your list above is my problem. I’m just not getting the sales. Just done a re-write of the site to see if a change of words and emphasis makes a difference. I’m getting ‘officially’ 800 visitors a month. Should be making at least 8 sales a month. At the moment it’s one occasionally. What’s wrong??
http://www.aurorascarnival.co.uk Chris

Getting started with Email Marketing (you know you need to send regular emails to your customers and clients, but don’t know where to start.)
Being an entertainment agency, I don’t want to buy 100,000 email address of general businesses. I need to start with contacting all the people who have enquired over the years. This is a daunting task, and my email campaign needs to be very focused!!
I’m not selling a product, but provding (selling) a servce.
http://www.mungai.mirrors@virgin.net Carl Mungai

Getting good conversion rate and good sales but just not getting enough traffic to our site…
http://www.theframeshop.biz Ron Warbrick

You are correct – 1) getting traffic by being higher up search engine pages and then 5) and 6) starting and then improving email marketing. With an existing customer base the email should be a given but how to zero in on customer preferences?
http://www.svsvaleting.com Craig

need more visitors badly and also to turn to sales
http://www.karibuonlinesales.com Tanya Hughes

I do seem to be getting hits although they may not be accurate hits, but the market that I am trying to sell in is saturated. I have made only half a dozen sales since being live in 2006, purley through learning everything about how to get out and noticed, I read many articles and have subscribed to many newsletters such as yourself and hope that one day I will master it. I do have a customer emails and have sent emails out but do feel that they are no where the quality that I receive from other Lingerie companies on the net, So more knowledge and experience in 6 & 7 Would be great and obviously a miracle.

Thanks
Paul Kirby

Hi Ed,
Strategy and getting copy better.
http://www.AutoMotives.uk.com Jeremy

I have just started advertising with Adwords, and this feels like another complex minefield. I want to get more visitors from the web to my site, and I know there are many ways to do this, but it would be nice to get Adwords working for me This feels like my biggest challenge at the moment.
http://www.web-translations.co.uk Cassandra Oliver

Hi Ed,

I would have to say 2) Improving Sales.

Our traffic isn’t too bad, but it’s getting visitors to BUY!!

Regards,

Cassandra Oliver
Marketing Manager
http://www.jangro-leicester.com Eddie

We have just launched and need to let our customers know they can order via the web.
http://www.hydrotherm.co.uk Dale Smith

1, 2, 3, 4, 6 & 7 – We just need HELP please.

Thanks
http://www.traveljunkies.com Cliff Chapman

My website has two purposes.
One is to attract users who are looking for travel information. These aren’t propsective customers, they are “the restof the world”
The other is to convert businesses who have a free link into paying customers.
I want more of both.
http://www.remediesbeauty.co.uk Alan Wills

We have 2 sites one is a Clinic where clients visit from South West England and the other an Online Shop where income can be derived from across the UK. So Remediesbeauty needs to be more geograhically focussed than the shop. I have now put a reasonable amount of good content into both and linked where appropriate and tried to make them easy to use. As I entered the content into the site myself I have tried to SEO them and no doubt will need to refine even further.

Of course the Google type requirements may not be Marketing “Wow” and “Action” type which is needed to convert. So, I have put content in, tried stage 1 SEO, want to avoid poor Bounce Rate and ready now to really drive people to the sites and not sure where best to start before I get involved in spending what seems to be a lot of money for Payperclick etc. So many firms are touting for business to do this for me and promise so much but unfortunately see this as a potential way to get ripped off. Would love to have someone say “Alan before you spend a lot you need to follow this 1,2,3 plan in this order across both sites, watch what happens by checking XYZ then you will understand what is needed and if you have the time to learn and do this is where and what and if not these people are great at it and money well spent”

Phew ! – apologies for the length of this but really would like to better ubderstand the process that needs to be followed.

Regards
ALAN
http://sharp-end-training.co.uk Jonathan

Building my list slowly but steadily. Couple of landing pages being tested at all times.

Never quite sure how soft to sell the weekly email newsletter to subscribers (or how hard) and coming up with subject titles that make them open.

What is a good open rate and click through rate for a smallish list?