Two years ago, when I first started selling online, I focused on doing what I did best: generating useful content that people would want to pay for. But I quickly learned that selling a product online required me to have to learn about …

…my Web statistics.

“Yuck! Why should I have to do this?” I thought. “I’m not a numbers person. Such small details! I want to spend time on big ideas.”

Then after a few months of poor sales, I realized I needed to learn more about my numbers so I could learn how to improve my results. (You can’t improve something that you can’t measure.) After getting acquainted with my statistics, I not only realized that this information would help me immensely, but I was relieved that it wasn’t so hard after all. It was just unfamiliar.

There are four types of basic “Web numbers” I want you to understand. Don’t worry if I can handle this, you can too!

1. Sales

HOW MANY SALES are you making? This should be easy to determine on your end.

2. Unique Visitors

HOW MANY PEOPLE are visiting your site? To know this, you’ll need to know your number of unique visitors.

Do NOT confuse unique visitors with “hits,” which refers to number of graphics downloaded. (For example, if you have a Web page with 10 graphics, 10 hits would equal one visitor.)

Your Web host may already provide some stats you can access, but many of these programs are hard to understand and only track hits. If this is the case, it’s well worth it to use a low-cost outside tracking service such as WebSTAT (www.WebStat.com) that will show you your number of unique visitors.

3. Sales Conversion Rate

Here’s where we start with some math. Take your number of sales during a given time, and divide it by your number of visitors during that time. We’ll walk through this in a minute.

4. Value per Visitor

This tells you how much each visitor is worth to you. It’s basically your selling price times your conversion rate.

Let’s Walk Through It Together

Say Suzy Q runs a site that sells a special report on how to teach your dog to do a back flip. The report sells for $20.

Last month she had 50 online sales. Her Web stats show that during that month she had 1,500 unique visitors.

First let’s figure her sales conversion rate sales divided by visitors.

50 / 1,500 = .0333. We’ll round it down to .03. (If we’re talking about percentages, that’s about 3%. Or 3 sales for each 100 visitors.)

Now, let’s determine her value per visitor.

The report sells for $20, and we now know that her sales conversion rate is .03. So .03 x $20 = $.60.

That means each visitor is worth 60 cents to Suzy, whether they buy or not.

(Here’s a longer way of doing this but it may make more sense to you: Based on Suzy’s current conversion rate, she makes an average of 3 sales per 100 visitors. 3 x $20 = $60. So for every 100 visitors she makes an average of $60. $60 / 100 visitors = $0.60 per visitor.)

This number tells Suzy how much it’s worth spending to get a visitor to her site. For example, if she decides to advertise on a pay-per-click search engine, she knows that $0.60 is the maximum she’d want to bid. (For a beginner’s guide to pay-per-click search engines, see my article at www.ezine-queen.com/payclick.htm)

FR*EE Calculations Template

Would you like a free fill-in-the-blanks template to help you make the calculations above? I’ve put one together for you! Send a blank e-mail to ali-39796@autocontactor.com and you’ll receive it automatically.

What to DO With Your Numbers

First of all, look at your unique visitors. If your numbers aren’t as high as you’d like, work on attracting more prospects to your site via your e-zine, search engine listings, advertisements, articles, etc.

Then look at your sales conversion rate. If it’s around 2-3%, you’re doing pretty well for online sales, according to what many Internet experts share. Some months my conversion rate has been as high as 6%, but it typically hovers around 4%. Some marketers with hot products have reported conversion rates up to 10 or 20%. (Hey, it gives us something to shoot for!)

Aim to continually improve your sales copy and your sales offer to boost your results. Keep a log of what changes you make and when you make them so you can see which factors help or hinder your sales. (There’s a place for these notes in that template I created for you.)

Don’t Sweat It

This may seem foreign to you right now, but once it becomes familiar, you’ll actually have fun with it. And there’s more where this came from, once you’re ready!

(c) 2003 Alexandria K. Brown

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alexandria K. Brown, “The E-zine Queen,” is author of the award-winning manual, “Boost Business With Your Own E-zine.” To learn more about her book and sign up for more FREE tips like these, visit her site at http://EzineQueenTutorial.com/

“Beat Monday morning blues, work 7 days a week”

Job related stress is more likely to become chronic because it’s such a large part of your daily life. What are the causes of your work stress and what can you do to reduce it?

Many surveys and studies confirm that work pressures and fears are, by far, the leading source of stress for adults in the western world. Here are just a few statistics. More than 50% of workers often spend 12-hour-days on work related duties and frequently skip lunch due to the stress of job demands.

According to an International Labour Organisation study, workers put in an equivalent of an extra 40-hour week in the year 2000, compared with 10 years earlier.

It’s estimated that one million workers are absent every day due to stress. 40% of job turnover is due to stress. And 60-80% of accidents on the job is stress related.

What are the causes of stress at work?

The most common complaints include,

Having no participation in decisions that affect your responsibilities.

Unrelenting or unreasonable demands for performance.

Lack of communication.

Conflicts between workers or employers.

Lack of job security.

Long hours.

Excessive time spent away from home and family.

Office politics.

Wages not equal to your levels of responsibility.

Many companies often put intense pressure on employees to perform, which can lead to high levels of tension.

For employers, treating stress has many benefits. In one study a company set up a two year stress management and education program which saved money both in compensation costs and less days lost due to sickness.

In Japan, where culturally, expectation levels are very high, approaches to reducing workplace stress include educational consultation programs for each individual worker.

Techniques to reduce work-related stress

Here are a few ways to reduce your stress at work,

Find a sympathetic manager or personnel manager to talk to about your job stress concerns. This can be effective if it’s non-confrontational.

Establish a network of friends at work and home.

Re-structure your working day and priorities to eliminate unnecessary tasks.

Focus on the positive aspects of your work, but if the job is unendurable, plan and execute a career change or transfer roles within the company.

Schedule pleasant activities frequently and perhaps some physical exercise during lunch.

There is one last cause of stress at work. And it slowly but effectively erodes your health, dreams and happiness. None of the stress relief techniques will help if you are in the wrong job or industry. There is only one answer to this.

You have to work out what you want to do with your life. What activities you love. And you have to plan a career change. Stress caused by job dissatisfaction will never go away until you get a job you love, or at least like.

The stress doctor provides advice, tips, tools and techniques for beating your stress problems. You can get a free short report “18 health problems linked to stress you should know about” or get daily “Stress Buster Tips” at http://www.howtobeatstress.com

When you pay good money for public relations services, you have a right to expect its primary focus to be on your most important outside audiences, those people whose behaviors have the greatest impact on your operation.

Often, however, that primary focus is limited to a communi- cations tactics debate about the relative merits of brochures versus press releases versus newsletters instead of planning how to achieve those key audience behaviors that directly support your business objectives and make the difference between success and failure.

Nothing wrong with communications tactics. They fit in just fine later in the effort, as you will see. Only point here? Use them for what they are, tactics, not a substitute for your primary public relations effort.

To insure that you’re not wasting that PR budget, you really need to stay in touch with your most important external audiences. Then carefully monitor their perceptions about your organization, their feelings and beliefs about hot topics at issue, both of which lead to predictable, follow-on behaviors.

First, you need to list those external audiences that have the most serious impacts on your organization. Rank them as to those impacts and let’s work on the one at the top of the list.

Now, you and your colleagues must interact with members of that outside audience and pose a lot of questions in order to gather the information you need.

Listen carefully to what they say about your organization, its products or services, and its management. Ask questions like “What do you think of us? and Are you pleased with what you know about us? Have you heard anything that you want explained?” It’s important to watch for negativity in attitudes and responses while staying alert to misconceptions, inaccuracies, dangerous rumors and unfounded beliefs and opinions.

The good news is the body of knowledge you will gather. Here are the facts you need to establish your public relations goal. That is, the actual perception change followed by the behavior change you want. Specifically, you may decide to spend your resources on clearing up a serious misconception, turning around that unfounded belief or killing that dangerous rumor once and for all.

What to DO with that completed goal comes next. Luckily, there are just three strategies to choose from when you deal with perception and opinion. You can create perception/opinion when there isn’t any, you can change existing opinion, or you can reinforce it. It will be obvious which one to choose once you’ve set your public relations goal.

It’s been real easy to this point, now you must prepare the message that will hopefully alter the perception and behavior of your target audience. It’s not easy. But it must be done in a believable, persuasive and compelling manner. The message must be clear and to the point with regard to exactly what is incorrect or untruthful. Remember this about the message: its only function is to alter existing perception on the part of members of the target audience. So, the guidelines are clarity, persuasiveness and credibility.

Here we are at the “public relations stable” housing our “beasts of burden” – your communications tactics whose job it is to carry your message to the attention of those key target audience members.

There is a really long list of tactics from which you can choose. Letters-to-the-editor, news releases, speeches, briefings, personal meetings, emails, newspaper and radio interviews and dozens more. Main requirement? Do they have a proven record of reaching the members of your target audience?

Are you making progress? Short of spending some real money on professional surveys (the cost of which often exceeds the entire public relations budget!), the best way to find out is to interact again with members of that target audience. In addition to being among the very people with whom you should regularly interact anyway, you and your colleagues can now personally assess attitudes, responses and degrees of awareness of your organization as well as particular misconceptions, untruths, inaccuracies or rumors.

Now, after six or eight weeks of your communications blitz, the difference between these perceptions and those gathered during the earlier interaction is that you are looking for signs that perceptions are now moving in your direction.

Should you decide to speed up the process, you might add a few more communication tactics to the mix, and increase their frequencies. Another look at your message would also be in order to reassure yourself that its factual base, clarity and impact measure up.

Once your perception monitoring shows that you have persuaded many target audience stakeholders towards your way of thinking, you may be sure that instead of wasting your PR budget, you are moving those stakeholders to behaviors that will produce the public relations success you want.

Please feel free to publish this article and resource box in your ezine, newsletter, offline publication or website. A copy would be appreciated at bobkelly@TNI.net.

Robert A. Kelly © 2003.

About The Author

Bob Kelly counsels, writes and speaks about the fundamental premise of public relations. He has been DPR, Pepsi-Cola Co.; AGM-PR, Texaco Inc.; VP-PR, Olin Corp.; VP-PR, Newport News Shipbuilding & Drydock Co.; director of communications, U.S. Department of the Interior, and deputy assistant press secretary, The White House. mailto:bobkelly@TNI.net. Visit: http://www.prcommentary.com.

Often you will read comments about environmental problems with car wash, truck wash and other mobile type washing services. This attack on the mobile cleaning sector is really only propaganda put out by the car wash industry and their Associations Public Relations machine, you see, there is a dirty little secret that the car washes do not want you to know.

Most who are in the industry would agree that carwashes and professional car washing as described in Industry magazines paints a positive picture of car washing where as the reality of pollution is always there. After doing a ton of research on the carwash and pressure washing industry and learning a number of important things it became clear that most mobile washers were in complete compliance of EPA rules and some actually helped the environment.

There are thousands of web sites out there and listed in car washing and professional detail magazines, which claim of state of the art environmental and water conservation techniques but only a few which are ever listed actually are environmentally friendly.

There are many companies which franchise in the washing industry and it appears that the best franchises are those in the top 500 list of franchises. I would have to encourage those who are looking to buy a franchise to look carefully at franchisors that are 100% environmentally friendly in the washing industry and not simply the ones who list themselves in a grouping with all the rest as “good guys” to our eco-system. So while I concur with many of the environmental comments in the car wash industry, I also believe that it is possible to buy a home-based business mobile car wash business, which promotes a clean Earth and also one, which is fun and outdoors. This research on car washing and franchising which brought me to these conclusions took several thousand hours and it is safe for me to say that much of the public relations campaigns about fixed site car washes being better for water conservation and environmental controls over their mobile car and truck washing competitors, well it simply is not so. Think on this.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Online bingo has become progressively more trendy in England. Following smoking having been banned in pubs and other public places, an uncounted number of old-style bingo haunts went belly up: this resulted in an uncounted number of establishments providing Internet bingo as another possibility. Web Bingo

Public icon encouragement by people like J. and S. Osbourne and others have been of help in raising the appearance of on line bingo: with just about 3.5 million afficionados now going for a game when going online.

These days, we’re able to select from more than a few Internet bingo websites, all and sundry submitting to members jackpots and mucho other limited rewards such as spanking new cars, concert tickets, not to forget luxury holidays.

The glorious thing about Internet bingo is that we can try your hand at it whenever convenient provided there’s access to some internet connection. Games being triggered practically minute by minute you will be able to fix bingo to dovetail it with your run of the mill everyday life. Initially it was thought that the community aspect of bingo gaming would deteriorate due to this decline of the old-style bingo haunts – but United Kingdom bingo patrons have definitely proven the critics wrong. Expanding numbers are making use of the facilities implemented by a load of Internet bingo establishments.

Here, we can make new friends, take advantage of high class games and join groups of bingo players. In addition, research reports have verified that people are more likely to collect megabucks wagering virtual bingo than with alternate styles of wagering such as the raffles and sports bets. And if you become a mite uninterested in bingo, thousands of Internet bingo websites provide many alternate pastimes. These may extend from numbers and slots games right through to caption games and exercises.

With so many possibilities to chose from it may be somewhat tough to determine which bingo corporation will cater to your demands the best. Further, it’s guaranteed to pay out to have a crack at some extensive research and scrutinize who is extending to the most appealing premiums. A huge number of Internet bingo websites will let customers try a few free games of web bingo or match any initial cash deposit at 1:1. If any cronies of yours currently use any given Internet bingo web setup, you will want to consider doing the same seeing that the social chat side may add to the overall enjoyment!:)

For a large majority of UK consumers, broadband connection no longer presents a privilege, but merely a necessary service. Over the past few years, the broadband industry has progressed to maintain networks which are accessible across the country.

Despite these developments, there are still less fortunate locations which are unable to access ubiquitous broadband. This minority is often disregarded, as industrial giants fail to deploy adequate technology to these areas. Normally, these are small communities situated in rural settings.

As one of these discontented consumers, a man recently contacted Broadband Expert regarding his incapacity to access broadband facilities. According to the contact, his home office has absolutely no broadband capabilities due to the distant location of the nearest telephone exchange. Due to this proximity deficit, this consumer is forced to pay for an expensive satellite connection, which offers nowhere near the capabilities of modern broadband.

The man contacted Broadband Expert, stating: “There are a significant number of people like me who live and run businesses in rural communities that can still not receive broadband at all. We are a small minority of households/business for sure, but we are living in digital poverty whilst those who live in or near cities have their greed for speed met ultimately at our expense.”

After this update, the broadband firm contacted Ofcom concerning this issue, requesting an explanation for the system’s insufficiency. Ofcom is aware of this problem, and seems content with the 99% availability in the country.

Success could be just about making money, but I think it is much wider and simpler than that.

• Success is doing what you intended to do whether it is a small or big thing.

• Success is also about not doing what you planned not to do whether it is a small or big thing.

I had three small successes from Wednesday to Friday this week by simply carrying out my “clear the clutter’ plan. This plan is to move 5 books or other objects out of my room every day for a week or so and then to check the results.

Today, I moved a few books and other things into another room. My book on javascript then emerged from behind a pile of videos and I even began tidying the other room finding some useful info in the process.

One key benefit of clearing clutter or at least moving it further away from you is discovering treasures you bought and never used.

I have dozens of books and internet courses that I have never read because I have always jumped on the next panacea of all evils that is being promoted. I am also a sucker for a good sales pitch.

I need to stop buying stuff; tidy up and find out what I’ve already got and start using it! That too would be a success in itself.

Having succeeded in clearing clutter in a small way, I moved on to bigger things by clearing the attic with the aid of a trusty assistant.

Stuff that had been there for years was moved out. I did nearly go through the roof twice and then slipped on the ladder almost breaking my leg as I descended from the attic but a big and highly encouraging success had been achieved!

I now feel that I can achieve any small goal.

Success, then, is doing what you said you would do or planned to do even if you receive no money for doing it and even if you think it is a complete waste of time.

If you do what you intended to do in small things you will start doing what you intended to do in big things and will become the kind of person who can fulfil their dreams.

You will also become the kind of person who can make money if they want to.

Not doing what you planned not to do is equally important.

If you regularly eat that fast food that you planned not to eat, you may put on weight, become lethargic and depressed and fail to take the positive action that you planned to take.

If you take those shortcuts in your fitness training that you planned not to take you will only cheat yourself. You will not become as fit and strong as you could become. You can probably guess that I am speaking from experience!

Daily efforts to fulfil your to do plans and to keep your not to do plans will turn you and me into seriously powerful, disciplined people who can rely on themselves to achieve practically any goal they have decided upon.

John Watson is an award winning teacher and martial arts instructor. He has recently written two books about achieving your goals and dreams. They can both be found on his website http://www.motivationtoday.com along with a daily motivational message.

The title of the first book is “36 Laws To Ignite Your Inner Power And Realize Your Dreams Now!” The book can be found at this URL http://www.motivationtoday.com/36_laws.php

You are welcome to publish the article above in your ezine so long as you do not alter it and keep the resource box as it is.

Increasing the perceived value of your goods and services is
one sure-fire way of making more money, right? After all,
perception is reality and increasing your perceived value
lets you easily charge more money.

But for some people this just isn’t an easy thing to do.
Many entrepreneurs get “stuck” when it comes to asking for
money, or asking for more money.

Here’s one way to get around this — hopefully you’ll be able
to use it.

If you’re ever stuck for an analogy about your prices, or
about part of the process of what you do, a good rule of
thumb you can always fall back on, is to use medical
analogies.

For example, “Sure my copywriting fees are high — but let
me ask you this: Which doctor do you want performing heart
surgery on your life — the “cheap” doctor… or the guy
who’s charging you a premium for his services?”

If you really want to be dirty, you can say “If your son or
daughter needed open heart surgery… which doctor would
you want performing the operation — the guy who was
charging the most money… or the “discount” heart
surgeon?”

Or how about this one, “Once we meet, I’ll ask you a series
of questions about your background and how you came to
develop your current thought processes. Kind of like when
you go to the doctor for the first time and they ask you all
sorts of questions about your health… your parents
health… what kind of foods you’re eating… and your
fitness and lifestyle habits.

Make sense?”

Why is using “health care” such a safe bet?

Simple: It’s something absolutely every single
person on the face of this earth, who lives in an
industrialized country… can relate to, and for many
of your prospects, you’ll also be touching a nerve with
it since health is such a critical issue.

And “bonding” with your prospects is one of the most important
“inside secrets” to making your sale.

Now here’s something exciting: Tomorrow, my family and I
are moving across the state to the Tampa Bay area.

So if you don’t hear from me for a few days, it’s because
they DIDN’T install my broadband and my electricity WASN’T
hooked up like they told me it would be.

One thing I’ve discovered (besides “moving sucks”) is that
I’m excited about exploring a completely new area. It’ll be
like a new adventure for us.

Figuring out where to go… and what to do… (and where to
NOT go and what NOT to do) is something I’m looking forward
to doing, especially with my wife and kids.

Just think, how many times in your life does “finding a new
restaurant” become something you’re looking forward to?

And since every day you wake up is kind of like the first
line of the first page of whatever it is you’re writing…
I’ll bet you a dollar to a hole in a donut, that on this
adventure… I’m getting ready to write… some very
powerful… best-sellers.

Now go sell something,

Craig Garber

www.KingOfCopy.com

P.S. Check out all the prior archives you’ve been
missing, right here at:
http://www.kingofcopy.com/tips/tiparchives.html

If you want to know how to consistently attract a steady stream of fresh new prospects, who are pre-qualified, eager, and excited about buying from you, then Craig Garber — recognized by his peers as America’s Top Direct-Response Copywriter — can show you exactly how to do this, step-by-step. Garber’s written winning promotions across a HUGE variety of industries and you can see them all for yourself on his website at http://www.kingofcopy.com

It is safe to declare that the time of the VCR is increasingly on its way out & drawing to a close, video recorder may still be around for an extended time and it is magnificent to observe how numerous individuals actually still have them & watch their horror movies on them. The piece of equipment that is key for everybody to own is the DVD player, which is gradually now branching out to the DVD Recorder. When DVD recorders were 1 st brought to the consumer they were astonishingly expensive.

It is presently possible to pick up a sale-price Digital Versatile Disc Recorder if you gaze hard enough and do a bit of research. Consumers get mystified with the differentiation between a DVD recorders & Digital Versatile Disc burners; they are 2 completely different bits of technology, although both do produce DVD’s by burning via a laser to a blank DVD disk. Each and every one of the Digital Versatile Disc recorders can record from any analogue video source, most can record video from digital camcorders via firewire. Amazing prices on Sony DVD Recorders at Sound and Vision. Visit the website.

The wonderful thing now is that Digital Versatile Disc recorders have under no circumstances been so cheap; so it’s viable for you to acquire a top of the range system for an extremely cheap price. The electronics industry is motivated by the latest equipment, new improvements & product quality, of which these can be found varying near to every second.

Some of the top brands for Digital Versatile Disc recorders at the moment are Slouchpod, Toshiba & Panasonic, but if you’re hunting for the best of the best and you do not mind spending a little bit further to get something really special then you should only go for the Vivance DVD recorder, this really is best of the line & there are also lots of distinct ones to choose from. Your next large choice after deciding what brand is whether you want one that has an amazing hard drive installed in it like the Soundstyle one.

Think of any games without betting involves and probably you would not be able to name one. Almost every game or sports are now being enjoyed most by many through including some betting; to make it more exciting and fun. Yes, even your favorite major league baseball is not exempted. Sports betting over the internet made tremendous changes on how the way people could enjoy and start getting profits just from betting. But how can you really participate in this kind of sports betting? Here are 2 tips on how to bet on major league baseball game: 1. Do the research – know your players or your team very well. Check how they performed in their previous games. See any available racing post to guide you or just go any search engines available for checking data. 2. Watch the previous games to see the actual performance – do not rely much on some unverified results, it is better to convince yourself by watching the games and do the judgment based on what you see. Major league baseball is really famous to all and betting on the forecast results of the game is very in nowadays – too famous that even in online internet betting is available. Betting online for major league baseball can be very lucrative. There are so many sites in the Internet were one would see MLB lines and even the betting odds. For more information on MLB betting visit playsportal.net.