Leading eCommerce Consultant Admits You Should Only Listen to One Real Expert! (And its not him!)

Let me share with you a secret that most marketing experts and consultants don't want you to know? (many of them don't even understand this secret themselves.)

The secret is? There is only one true expert who can show you how to drastically improve the effectiveness of your website and your marketing. With dozens of so-called guru's, consultants and experts ready and willing to give you (or charge you for) their advice, there is actually only one person you should listen to on a regular basis. Only one! And his name is Eric Graham? No, no? just kidding?

The only "experts" that you should listen to and trust are your visitors. The visitors that come to your website or view your ads are the only true experts. They will share their expert opinions with you by the actions they take while on your website.

Not sure what headline to use at the top of your page? You have a couple of options:

Pay an "expert" consultant like me to look it over for you and give you copywriting recommendations, for a few hundred dollars an hour.

Or?

"Ask" your visitors which one is best, by split testing each element of your headlines and letting your visitors vote with their credit cards? The one that converts to sales best wins!

Trying to figure out how much to charge for you new ebook? You can hire an expert? I can talk to you all day about advanced pricing theory and explain to you how prices with a "7" in them (such as $17, $97, $777) usually convert better. I can walk you through an analysis of the price points of competing/similar products?

Or?

Simply test 3 or 4 different prices to see which one is most profitable. Often the greater perceived value of a higher price actually converts better than a lower price. But you won't know if that's true for your product and your visitors until you test it. Again your visitors will teach you more about pricing than any consultant ever could. You just need to "ask" these experts by testing.

If done properly, the questions you can get your "visitor experts" to answer about your website by simply testing, is endless.

Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that you should never hire a consultant or expert -- after all my clients happily pay me a lot of money to help them improve their conversion rates. And I am worth every penny! ;-)

But what you need to understand here is that the best experts, became experts by studying and testing, testing and testing different elements over and over until they developed a set of "best practices". So, by hiring someone who has been in the trenches you can save time and money in the long run.

However, every website, business, product and visitor demographic is different. Just because something works at one website, doesn't automatically mean it will work at yours. The best consultants will tell you that you still need to test everything. So in the end it's still your visitor who's the true expert.

Just imagine the results you could achieve over the next year, if you took the time to test only one new element every week. Even if half of the tests were failures and didn't produce improvements in your conversion rates, you would still discover 26 ways to improve your sales. Even if each improvement only boosts your conversion rate by 1/10th of 1%, you would have improved your conversion rate by over 2.6% (and probably much more!)

Look over your current sales statistics, and ask yourself, "How much more profit would I be making if my conversion rate jumped by 2.6%?"

With most sites currently converting at an appalling 1% to 2%, a 2.6% improvement could triple your sales?

Let me ask you a question: Imagine you have a website selling information on how to learn to play the guitar, getting 1,000 visitors per day. And I came to you and showed you how I can change a few things about your page, improve your search engine positioning and triple your traffic? Would you be excited? Sure.

Then, why not get equally excited about optimizing your website for maximum conversion rates?

Many online businesses will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars optimizing their sites for the search engines. But then they waste 99 out of every 100 visitors that they spent so much time and effort getting, simply because they failed to invest in "asking the experts" (their visitors) first. Had they taken the time to optimize their site for conversion rate, before driving the traffic their results would be 10x more profitable.

The great news for you is, so few online businesses are currently testing anything! This means that you are in a position to absolutely dominate your competition by simply listening to the true experts? Your visitors!

Copyright 2004 Eric Graham

About The Author

Want to improve your conversion rates? Eric Graham is the CEO of several successful online companies. A top authority on eCommerce & Internet Marketing, he's an in-demand speaker & consultant. Visit www.web-site-evaluations.com today for an in-depth evaluation to boost YOUR websites conversion rate!

---

Google News Updated : Sun, 07 Sep 2008 02:07:34 GMT FDA to List Drugs Being Investigated - Washington Post ABC News FDA to List Drugs Being Investigated Washington Post - 21 hours ago By David Brown The Food and Drug Administration will begin posting every three months a list of drugs whose safety is under investigation because of complaints brought to the agency's attention by drug companies, physicians and patients. The Basics on the Foodfight Over Irradiation U.S. News & World Report 20 Drugs FDA Is Watching WebMD Wall Street Journal - Los Angeles Times - The Associated Press - CNNMoney.com all 535 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 04:19:40 GMT 'Bangkok Dangerous' - Los Angeles Times Los Angeles Times 'Bangkok Dangerous' Los Angeles Times - 3 hours ago The Pang brothers remake their audacious 1999 film, but without the gritty, seamy feel of the original, it seems like just another bullet ballet out of a Steve Wynn dream. 'Dangerous' prosperous at box office Variety An Assassin Arrives to Turn Off the Lights New York Times Metromix - Reuters - Boston Herald - Portsmouth Herald News all 275 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:52:03 GMT 'Wrestler' takes top honors at Venice - Variety 'Wrestler' takes top honors at Venice Variety - 5 hours ago By JEFF SNEIDER Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler" has won the Venice Film Festival's Golden Lion. Pic stars Mickey Rourke as a past-his-prime wrestler on the comeback trail. 'Wrestler' wins Golden Lion Hollywood Reporter "The Wrestler" wins Venice Golden Lion Reuters Independent - The Associated Press - guardian.co.uk - TIME all 418 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 20:11:44 GMT Google Chrome Reflects A Desktop In Decline - InformationWeek PR Web (press release) Google Chrome Reflects A Desktop In Decline InformationWeek - 4 hours ago After 10 years as a company, Google is making the Chrome browser key to the coming of age of cloud computing, or software as a service. Mozilla updates Firefox 3.1 with Alpha 2 build Computerworld Mozilla releases second Firefox 3.1 alpha CNET News CRN - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel - Examiner.com - Hartford Courant all 231 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 21:46:03 GMT Rival Tickets Are Redrawing Battlegrounds - New York Times Times Online Rival Tickets Are Redrawing Battlegrounds New York Times - 3 hours ago Senator John McCain and Gov. Sarah Palin held a rally on Saturday at an airplane hanger in Colorado Springs, Colo. By PATRICK HEALY and MICHAEL COOPER Fresh from the Republican convention, Senator John McCain’s campaign sees evidence that his choice of ... On to the main event for McCain, Obama Atlanta Journal Constitution Obama, McCain to Honor Victims of 9/11 Together Voice of America AFP - Hagerstown Morning Herald - Washington Post - Financial Times all 1,434 news articles Publ.Date : Sat, 06 Sep 2008 22:23:34 GMT Tough Game Expected, but Penn State Makes It a Rout - New York Times Washington Post Tough Game Expected, but Penn State Makes It a Rout New York Times - 50 minutes ago By AP Evan Royster rushed for 141 yards and 3 touchdowns, Daryll Clark threw two scoring passes and the defense for 19th-ranked Penn State did not miss a beat without two suspended starters Saturday in a 45-14 victory over visiting Oregon State. Clark, Royster lead Nittany Lions to romp over Oregon State Seattle Post Intelligencer Big Ten early notes: Penn State makes a statement ESPN The Associated Press - SportingNews.com - Dawgman.com - Big Ten Network all 388 news articles Publ.Date : Sun, 07 Sep 2008 01:17:05 GMT Hot Docs: Defending Georgia, Girls Married by 15, the Chemical BPA ... - U.S. News & World Report CTV.ca Hot Docs: Defending Georgia, Girls Married by 15, the Chemical BPA ... U.S. News & World Report - Sep 5, 2008 A Resolute Strategy on Georgia: One day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced "at least $1 billion" in aid to Georgia, a Center for Strategic and International Studies report looks at increasing criticisms of such programs. Bisphenol A may harm fetuses, infants and children Food Consumer That Plastic Baby Bottle New York Times eFluxMedia - Los Angeles Times - Washington Post - AHN all 308 news articles Publ.Date : Fri, 05 Sep 2008 14:01:40 GMT Clickbank Data Feeds Earn Money At Home

PARLOT::Ebooks, Scripts, Websites, and more...

Adsense websites

Online Consumers ? What Are They Complaining About?

For many businesses, e-commerce represents a tremendous method for generating... Read More

Rules for Achieving Online Success

The Internet brought a great deal of benefits to our... Read More

Succeed With Your Own Home Based Business

An internet business is by far the best way to... Read More

Choosing An Internet Merchant Account

Surf to Google and perform a search on "Internet Merchant... Read More

How to Boost Conversion Rates, While Lowering Merchant Account Fees!

Using an Address Verification System (AVS) when processing your online... Read More

Coupons & Rebates

Yes, it's true, coupons are not just for newspapers anymore.... Read More

Ecommerce Solution for the Big and Small Business

First off, you need to know what an ecommerce solution... Read More

Online Lead Generation: Can it Work for My Business?

Business-to-business service providers have a wide range of tactics they... Read More

Why This Is The Perfect Time To Start Charging For Website Subscriptions

If you're a writer, researcher, subject matter expert, enthusiastic hobbyist,... Read More

Guide To Safe Online Shopping

Online shopping can be a little frightening to people who... Read More

3 Powerful Concepts That Climb Marketing Mountains

You have probably heard many times how you should offer... Read More

Simple Steps to Start a Profitable Member Only, Subscription Web Site

Having a successful member only, paid membership site is one... Read More

12 Easy and Effective Ways To Create Reports

1. Combine a few of your articles into a free... Read More

Shopping from Your Cell Phone with Froogle Wireless

Many surfers already know about Froogle, Google's shopping portal that... Read More

E-Commerce Is Back On The Fast Track

How much holiday shopping did you do on-line this year?... Read More

A Beginners Guide To Setting Up A Successful Online Store

A beginner's guide to setting up a successful online store... Read More

Accepting Credit Cards For Your Online Business

Did you know that one of the best ways to... Read More

10 Reasons To Survey Your Visitors, Subscribers And Customers

1. To find out what type of content visitors want... Read More

Getting Started in ECommerce ? Part Two

In Part One we talked a little bit about what... Read More

Home Sweet Home Page

"Your home page is the world's introduction to you and... Read More

Tell Site Visitors What To Do

Your site visitors make all the choices when it comes... Read More

Increasing E-commerce Website Sales

With consumers purchasing billions of dollars of merchandise online each... Read More

Conducting Business through B2B E-marketplaces

Businesses, which are still sitting on sidelines and not doing... Read More

Delivering Information Products Through Paypal Automatically

Paypal is one of the wonders of the web. Never... Read More

Intranet Project ? RAD or Waterfall?

Building BridgesI have often used the analogy of building a... Read More