Q I am trying to grow my online business. Every month for the past year my online sales have increased, but I need them to double in the next few months. What are the fastest ways to get an online business profitable?
PAM TURNER
SPIRALEYENEEDLES.COM
A Congratulations on the increased sales! It sounds as if you're doing something right, but now the tricks are to 1) figure out what you're doing right (and do more of it) and 2) find areas of opportunity.
The first point is difficult -- research shows you're running your website on a Yahoo store, but I can't see any statistical monitoring tools, such as Google Analytics, currently installed. I recommend conducting a simple Google search to help you install Google Analytics on your site. While this won't help boost immediate sales, tracking the visitor usage of your website can help you glean valuable insights.
Understanding your website analytics will help you promote items you can see that people are looking for, discount items you can see that people are less interested in and, more importantly, track how your users are finding your website.
This leads to the second point, which will improve your chances of increased sales.
While it's not a guarantee to increase your sales, paying for traffic through search engine marketing will drive traffic to your site. You've probably seen it -- anytime you search for something on Google, "sponsored links" are littered on the right sidebar and just below the search box. These are examples of paid search engine marketing. With search marketing, you're paying per click (per visitor) that comes to your website through your ad. Research shows that this strategy is effective, especially when listed in the second position click ads.
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