confused about lack of sales

Hello.

I would like some advice if possible. I have been running my site about rosacea for about 7-8 months or so - it's partially a resource site but mainly the premise of the site is to link to various rosacea products ( as an affiliate )while making it easier for customers to choose according to their budget and needs.
Anyway, it's been good few months now but traffic is not increasing all that much and I have done my homework with keywords and also started paying Google Adwords a bit but I have only made couple of sales so far. I get about 10 hits a day combined and I wondered if someone could have a look if there is some kind of "impediment" there that is stopping people from actually buying. I provide links to products for any budget really and I think the idea of the site was quite good. My site is available on many search engines, on Yahoo and MSN as first few listings and obviously I get the visitors but why are they not buying? I appreciate that 10 a day is not a lot but I've had hundreds of visits
so far...is there something obviously wrong?

Hi dswhite,

Getting links to your site? A good link campaign will surely increase your traffic. Also, you can try submitting useful articles in sites from your niche. Links work like "words of mouth" and articles help you establish your site's authority. Also, is your content helping your visitors to choose products? You need to shape your words so the visitors feel interested and show them how they profit while buying from your site. You need to highlight the benefits to lure them.

No contact address
yahoo e-mail account
links flying off in all directions

What are you selling?
coffee mugs or skin care products?

What traffic you are getting is not buying because they don't know who you are and what you are really all about (no trust) <--my guess.

Thank you for both of your comments. Not sure what you mean excell about "links flying in all direction". Are you talking about my affiliate links or reciprocal links? But I will take it on board regarding other things you mentioned.

How tight are you getting with your niche audience? I had a lot of problems with this area myself until recently. People rarely go online to buy anything, they just want to search the web and get FREE information. I lay out a lot of bait for my audience to take advantaage of me. I even let them steal from me for their own benefit AND mine.

The other thing I was able to do was really get a grip on the media and make them serve me on MY terms. This resulted in a recent special about my company here on PBS in Metro Detroit. Now I got a direct control and a handle on what I expect from my audience and what I want in return.

Its been a brutal uphill battle but once I fell into two niche markets, (they happened to fall onto my lap) I was able to go deeper into them. Now I am getting involved heavily into weddings, banquets and that led to limos etc. Its more than I expected.

Now the sales are taking care of themselves.

Since I do not know what exactly you are doing with your adwords campaign I cannot comment on what you might be doing wrong.

Your site design is absolutely brilliant, very clean and incorporates some novel features in terms of layout. It's a pity none of that is appropriate to what you are selling.

First problem is the colour scheme. You are selling health care products so anything that looks like blood is going to be depressing and somewhat disturbing. You want to associate yourself with the cure, design-wise, not the problem...I'd definitely change it.

Even if you were not selling health products, red and black and white are associated with danger and Nazism... the only other site I know of that uses this colour scheme is the Adobe site and well... they could put a picture of decomposing camel feces up there and nobody would complain owing to their general success in the world.

Your navigation down the right hand side is interesting but people are used to it being on the left. Change it. people don't want you to be interesting, you are taking their money, they want you to be trustworthy and reliable.

I only clicked on a few product links but they seem to take you to another site and that doesn't inspire trust. If you can't do anything about that I'd think of ways of making it less obvious and this is one of the few cases where I would even consider using frames... using frames is a nightmare though, especially in regards to search engines, so try and think of other ways of dealing with this: it's your biggest problem.

I'd also seriously consider getting rid of or cutting down on the bulk of text on your homepage...people hate big chuncks of text like that... get some products on there and special offer stuff, draw them in instead of turning them off...

Hope this helps...

hochstapler - excellent post. I agree totally with the colour/design thoughts. The subject matter calls for calm & soothing design elements.

Thanks for reply everyone.

Re navigation on the wrong side, unfortunately it was not me being "interesting" but this is the predesigned template I used so I can't really change that unless I totaly change the whole template. I understand what you mean about the colours although not so sure about the Nazis comment...
But, I have not heard any negative comments about the colour from any one else before, they rather thought it was a nice striking combination. And many rosacea related websites use red in their theme so it's not so unusual. I may also add the women visitors so far liked my site. I don't think you can please everyone and I have worked hard on this site so I feel a bit sad that you pretty much tore it to pieces ( well some of you anyway ).
Re linking campaign, I already have a links exchange and I try to be selective with potential link partners.

Anyway,I will try to incorporate some of your ideas into my idea of what I want this site to be.

The Nazi colours were red, black, and white...i.e. red background, whote circle, with a black swastika...

As for not hearing negative comments... I'm not the only one that thinks the design might be inappropriate, look at the other comments. Bear in mind that the people you know in life will always mislead you on things like this, rather than upset you; for this reason, web design agencies hire strangers to assess their site in pursuit of an honest assessment.

On a more positive not, I did actually say the design was good and interesting. I really believe it is. However, I also think it's inappropriate. There's no conflict in these views.

If I was to dictate the design I would go for blue and green and white, with pictures of beautiful healthy people all over the place...

"pretty much tore it to pieces"

One of the hardest things to get about our websites is critism of any type. It is one of the most useful things that there is to help us to identify potential problems that may block sales.

The sort of feedback that you can obtain from other marketers & webmasters at forums like this is not given to be mean spirited or crushing...it's given to help you from a knowledgeable and objective standpoint.

For new visitors to your website you have but a few seconds to sell them on clicking through for more info...if they leave for whatever reason without exploring further, then you want to be finding out why. Look into your stats and study visitor behaviour once they find your website, this can help to find trouble spots.

I agree about the navigation. I also done like the wasted real estate down the left hand side. It is too much. Takes up 25% of the page and has nothing there. This is valuable space, and should be used. Perhaps a different predesigned template is in order?

I am also not that excited about the colorset. I would think blues/greens, more natural colors would likely do better.

Just my two cents.

<quote>Anyway,I will try to incorporate some of your ideas into my idea of what I want this site to be. </quote>

Hopefully not the advice to use frames, outdated and inappropiate for your kind of project.

The red is not too bad, but the design does not fit the sites content. Try having a look at some other pharmacy sites and medical styled sites.
BTW: The Chinese feel that red is an auspicious color and your site does not convey the feel of Nazism to me. I just think it's inappropraite for what you are doing.

Regarding frames, I think he would be better off employing them than so obviously sending people out of his site... that stuff scares people... frames are 99.9% a bad idea, but, I would still use them here rather than send people to another site... and I'm aware of the problems they cause for indexing and that some browsers don't handle them...etc

Interesting what you say about the Chinese and red, Vinnie... correct me if I am wrong but the site is in English and therefore I presume aimed at English speaking people who generally don't subscribe to Chinese cultural traits?

Red, black, and white are bad colours to use for just about anything... the n**is never chose them by accident...even in the animal kingdom they symbolise danger...

Fundamnetally it's a matter of opinion -- I actually thought the n**i flag looked good from a design perspective and we all know they had the best uniforms... but sadly not everybody thinks like that... I mean, I doubt if many Jews would agree... makes you think, if these colours provoke this kind of debate here they might also provoke it elsewhere...is this the sort of thing you want visitors to your site discussing? My view is that it would be better if they were talking and thinking about your products, not your design...

<QUOTE>Interesting what you say about the Chinese and red, Vinnie... correct me if I am wrong but the site is in English and therefore I presume aimed at English speaking people who generally don't subscribe to Chinese cultural traits? </QUOTE>

hochstapler, you have missed my point. I was not suggesting that the person keep teh site in these colors. I was merely pointing out that red is not such a bad color and not always associated with Nazism. I mean the site is a medical orientated site and has nothing to do with Nazis, does it. As you rightly pointed out that it is aimed at ENglish speaking people. And may I add here for people with a skin condition and not looking to join the National Sociliast Party.

Hi guys.

I see this is becoming a heated debate and I really don't want this "issue" to become one. I also seem to be getting advice which is telling me to do one thing or the other and as a result, I do not get any more enlightened. I merely wanted a bit of advice on how to improve my site's accessibility or whatever else is lacking. You clearly think the colour and design is wrong, I will certainly try to do something about it but Nazis or Chinese have absolutely nothing to do with this site and I find it a bit strange that this is the immediate association for some of you. I like this colour but I can accept that it's not appropriate here if many of you think so.

As for design, I don't even know what frames are...I'm not that advanced however, I did read in few places they are not so good for search engines as well. Obviously in the web design and promotion world, everyone has a different opinion so it's hard to follow one line of thought as the next person will say it's useless. If you have any advice that actually works, I would like to hear it. Let me know what you tried and what helped with your sites. That's all I really want to know. Send me a private message if you wish.

Thanks for your help so far.

Just about everyone agrees the colours are inappropriate...leaving the nazism and Chinese cultural issues aside...

Everyone would probably agree it is a bad idea to have links to other sites like you have and that it would be best to keep them on your site... it's not like you make it clear to them by clicking a link they will be going to other sites, you list the products as if they are your own and on your site... I repeat, this is your biggest problem and I think frames as much as they are bad etc etc, as I pointed out, would be better than the way it is now.

I would NEVER send anyone away from any of my sites - UNLESS they are being directed to another one of my sites, and it is all part of some big plan.

guaranteed - if you send them away, they aren't coming back.

<Quote>guaranteed - if you send them away, they aren't coming back. </Quote>

Maybe not, I link to a couple fo my competitors. The webs a big enough place and more and enought to go around. I have never had a problem with returning visitors. I look at it like this, if they want to come back they will if they don't then my company was not right for them.

Vinnie, I doubt if even on your site a visitor is misled into clicking one of your links that says something like 'products' and gets taken to another site altogether...

I have no problem with linking to other sites, but not like that... Actually, I've found that linking to other sites, especially ones with a high pagerank, can be a bonus

I hope you all do realise that even if my visitors go to the other sites to look at products, I get paid commission if they make a purchase as I am their affiliate. You also read the message on the index page saying this site helps you find the right product? I have a feeling you're trying to prove some point without fully understanding my site.