Web Site Redesign Brought In 14 Times as Much Business by Changing the FocusA simple reorganization of content made Dan Poynter's website 14 times as profitable. (Shel Horowitz's Frugal Marketing Tip, November, 1997) The following was posted by publishing guru Dan Poynter, author and publisher of the definitive book on self-publishing, and reprinted with his permission. Dan is a friend who shares freely of his considerable expertise. I invite you to visit his Web site (contact info follows his message) and take advantage of the wealth of resources you'll find there. And now, here's Dan's incredible success story. One month ago, we changed our web site layout. Just the layout. Same products and services, same prices, same ordering system (except that we added a shopping cart), same everything. We even waited three weeks before announcing the new site. Sales increased between August and September over 14x. Why the dramatic increase? The new layout is customer-oriented. The old site categorized the products and services by product and service type. We had a list of books, a list of audiotapes, a list of Special Reports, a list of Instant Reports, a list of workshops and so on. We have so many products, no one would browse through them all to find what they needed. The new site mixes all the products and services according to subject matter. Customers can go to the area of information they need such as review copies, news releases or book printing.. There they will find the resources for each in several forms: books, reports, audiotapes, etc. Why is this site selling so much more? Because customers can easily find what they want and need. So that is the lesson. Just as with all selling, we must determine the needs of the customer and then prescribe a solution. Most web sites are brochureware. In effect, they say "well, we have a lot of stuff. Spend a couple of hours wading through it and see if there is anything you want." Duh? But Dan, isn't this why you changed the layout? Well, yes. I was hoping the new approach would make a difference but I did not expect such a dramatic sales increase. I also expected to make more changes based on what we might learn with this change. Each day I go over the numbers and marvel at them. Sales increased over 14x the first month, can you imagine what the future will bring as web use grows? Log on to http://www.ParaPublishing.com then click on Book Publishing. Let me know what you think and then consider ways you might re-engineer your web site so it will sell more. Good luck! Thank you reading this back issue of Shel Horowitz's Monthly Frugal Marketing Tips, published every month since May, 1997; please click here to view the complete archives, grouped by subject. Shel is an internationally known copywriter and marketing consultant, author of Grassroots Marketing Getting Noticed in a Noisy World, Principled Profit: Marketing That Puts People First and several other books, and creator of the Frugal Marketing web site. Please click here to contact Shel.
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