Selling products online is more difficult than it may first appear. People have a tendency to think they're going to put their website online and people will automatically find them, love their products, and start buying. Anyone who's tried selling online knows this is far from the case. In this article I'll outline the things you need to do to get that elusive first sale.

Concise headline.

Your website landing page should read like a newspaper with a clear and concise headline plastered across the top of the page. It should say exactly what it is you're selling in one sentence. People will not wait more than five seconds to figure out what it is you do or sell.

Call to action.

Once people know what it is you're selling they want to know what they do next. If you have a catalog of items this could be a big button that says "Shop Now" but it's always easiest to get someone to go straight into the buying process. So try making landing pages for the items you think will be a hit and then work on getting the people going to those pages to purchase the product right then. You can do this by adding a big "Buy Now" button and adding a sense of urgency.

Sense of urgency.

When I say "sense of urgency" it means a reason to give you their money right then and there. It can be in the form of a discount, or a bonus, maybe a limited quantity, or free shipping. There are many ways you can get creative with a sense of urgency but the ideas is to make them feel like they're missing out if they click the back button or abandon the page.

A way to gather lead data.

Reality is even if you provide the headline, the call to action, and the sense of urgency few people are going to buy from you the first time they come to your site. In fact, I'd say less than half a percent of all visitors. That's why you need to get some contact information from those people.

Assume nobody wants to give out their contact information online. Think about what it would take for you to give yours to somebody. It would probably take a pretty tempting offer. So you need to come up with a pretty tempting offer for your site visitors. Whatever you choose keep in mind the more contact information you ask for, the more compelling that offer will need to be. I recommend starting out by asking only for an email address. People are more willing to give out their email address because they know they can unsubscribe if you send them something.

A few compelling offers that have worked well for me in the past are 50% or great discounts off the product, free trials, free samples, VIP access, and free gifts. The offer you choose will depend on the type and cost of the products you're selling. For example: It wasn't a big deal for me to offer 50% off software because there's no physical product.

If you're selling physical goods you may want to think about the free sample or gift option. I like this option because although it may cost you more per lead you're likely to get all their contact information including their physical address because you're going to need to send something to them. Sending a free sample or gift will also help overcome the biggest objection people are likely to have about buying from you which is trust.

Establish trust.

Establishing trust online is extremely difficult. You can pretty much expect people are going to think you're a scammer by default. If something goes wrong with their order, if they can't get a hold of you to ask questions, if they don't get an email receipt, they're going to immediately assume they've been taken.

To sell online it's absolutely imperative you do everything to show your potential customers you're a real person, with a real reputation, and you're not going to take advantage of them. One of the best ways to do that is to share reviews and testimonials on your site. Nothing will get you more customers than showing people you already have customers. That's tough when you're first starting out but it's true. If you don't have any customers or reviews give away your product to someone in exchange for one.

Follow up.

Despite everything I've covered thus far you're still going to find it difficult to make that first sell and here's why. No matter what, chances are people will not buy from you the first time they come to your site. You're going to have to bring them back as often as possible. The way to do that is with the contact information you gathered. If you take my advice above you should be able to get an email from nearly 50% of the people who came to your site. Assuming of course the traffic you're getting is somewhat legitimate. There's a lot of fake traffic out there for sale but we'll cover that some other time.

To get people to come back to your site you're going to have to send them compelling reasons to their email address. This can be a limited sale, it can be free shipping, it can be a bonus. This is another opportunity to get creative. The important thing you need to remember is that you need to follow up with your visitors and not just once but regularly. It's my opinion you should contact your customers at least once per week. You're going to have some people who are unhappy about that but they can unsubscribe. And if you make your offers good enough you're going to get a lot fewer complaints. To minimize the number of unsubscribers try giving away something for free every once in a while. People will endure seeing your emails in their inbox if they think every once in awhile they're going to get something truly valuable.

Easy checkout.

if you're doing everything mentioned so far you're getting some pretty engaged traffic. But there's still another things preventing you from getting that first sale. It's your payment page. When it comes down to entering credit card information into a website you need to make it easy and feel safe. You can make it easy by asking as few questions as possible to complete checkout and you can make it safe by displaying trusted card logos and remind people you're using a secure checkout. I also recommend giving people an easy way to contact you from the checkout page as well. That way if they have any last second questions or concerns they can get those addressed. Remember, it's all about building trust.

Other things you can do to increase conversion rates at checkout are clearly display the total amount that's being charged to their card, clearly describe the items included with their purchase, and reassure them you'll be there if there's any issue with the order.

It was a lot of work but now you've got your first order. Stay tuned next time when I share the keys to getting your second order and beyond.