Behind-The-Scenes Tips For Creating Successful Sales Websites
Welcome back!
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been exploring dozens of sales websites to keep track of what other internet marketers are doing to promote their products. I was surprised. Most of the sites I stumbled across seemed to be long-form sales letters. In a lot of cases, there were a few articles 
sprinkled on the domains, but otherwise, content was sparse.
From reading this blog, you know I take a slightly contrarian view of online marketing. While single-page long form sales copy is extremely effective in a few tight niches, creating a truly successful sales website requires a finer touch. A lot of the $100,000-a-month Clickbank bestsellers move volume on the efforts of affiliates. Today, I’ll give you a roadmap for building a sales site that gains momentum over the long run, with or without affiliates.
Personal Site Versus A Separate Sales Site
I’ve seen two types of sites promoting products: personal and sales sites. Neither are new. Most of the personal sites are blogs that include links for products that lead to exclusive landing pages on the same domain. For example, a marketer might promote her ebook on myblog.com/buy-my-ebook.html.
Most of the sales sites seem to be one long page of copy with blurbs, testimonials, and bonuses strewn throughout. At the bottom of the sales page, there might be a link to a few free articles, which are actually pre-sells for the product.
So, which is better?
I recommend using both approaches – with a few changes. You should have a blog through which you connect with your audience, and a site devoted to promoting your product. If you have multiple products, get a new domain for each one.
Here’s the important part: you need to link these sites together. The folks who read your blog should be able to click out to your sales site while 
visitors to your sales site should be able to click out to your blog. Your sites should converge into a cohesive network.
For example, take a look at marksdailyapple.com. Mark runs his blog from that domain and moves his readers to a landing page on the same domain that pre-sells his book, “The Primal Blueprint.” However, if you visit that landing page, you’ll notice he sends people to a separate sales site (primalblueprint.com) to buy the book. That sales site links back to his blog.
Tim Ferris does something similar with his bestseller, “The 4-Hour Workweek.” However, in his case, he’s running his blog on his sales site (fourhourworkweek.com) and sending his readers to Amazon.com to buy his book.
You’ll also notice that Jimmy Brown uses his blog (jimmybrown.com) as a hub with links to separate sales sites for each of his products. The one thing that’s missing from Jimmy’s network is a link back to his blog from each of his sales sites.
Open The Floodgates By Providing Value
Let’s suppose you have a blog and you’ve created a separate sales website to promote your product. You’ve connected the two in your growing network. Here’s where a lot of online marketers stumble. They fail to provide real value to their readers and visitors.
For example, every blog post is a thinly veiled promotion for their product. Or, the articles on their sales site are written to sell rather than engage the reader. This may work for awhile, but it’s a doomed strategy over the long run. Here’s why:
One of the most dependable tenets of online marketing is that people are distracted very easily. If you fail to give your blog readers something they find valuable (i.e. informative, entertaining, insightful, etc.), they will go elsewhere. That means sales of your product will decline unless you funnel new readers into your blog on a continuous basis.
Take another look at marksdailyapple.com. Notice the value Mark is giving to his readers. They come back because he engages them and gives them something of value. It’s a safe bet plenty of those folks have gone to his sales site to buy his book. Moreover, because of the value he gives them on his blog, they’re likely telling others about him through their social networks.
For more information on providing please read: Keys to Successful Blogging!
Sales websites that stand alone, disconnected from a personal voice that offers value, cannot match those that are part of a cohesive network. If you haven’t already done so, launch your blog. Promote your product on a separate domain. Then, connect them and start giving your visitors something that will encourage them to return and tell others about you.
P.S. Learning to create sites that sell and convert can take time but it does not have to, learn the steps implement and wash and repeat.
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