Smart Webmasters are Wasting Online Real Estate

Many webmasters are not using their websites' traffic to
full potential. The Web is full of wasted advertising space.
Chances are that even your website has some virtual wasteland.
These are areas that often go unnoticed by even the most
experienced marketers, resulting in the loss of thousands of
dollars of potential revenue.

Below, four of the most underused online real estate spots are
discussed as well as how you can reclaim these areas while
maximizing your profits.

1. 404 Error Pages

The dreaded 404 page is something that almost everyone has
encountered in their online journeys. The most common reasons
for landing on a 404 page include:

* a mis-typed URL
* an out-of-date bookmark
* a search engine link that is out-of-date
* an internal broken link that the webmaster hasn't noticed

Surveys suggest that approximately 40% of users who run into a
404 Page Not Found error will leave your site, never to return.

However, as a webmaster, these pages should be customized in
order to help the user find their way back to your website. To
create your own customized 404 page, keep the following
guidelines in mind.

* Provide an explanation of what went wrong. A nice way to
apologize would be to offer them a free report. By using
this technique, your visitors will not only be impressed
by your creativity, but you can also collect their name
and email adress at the same time.

* Provide a link to the site map. By redirecting them to your
sitemap, they should be able to quickly and easily find what
they are looking for.

* Provide a search box for users to target in on exactly what
they originally came for.

* Use minimal navigation. This is not the place to put your
entire site navigation. You simply want to pull them back into
your website so that you are not losing any of your potential
customers.

Some Good Examples of 404 error pages can be found at:

* http://www.lockergnome.com/404
* http://www.fool.com/error

2. Exit Strategies

Did you know that on average only 1 - 2% of your visitors will
actually buy your product. This means that approximately 98% of
your visitors are leaving your website without buying. Most of
them will never return.

Fortunately, there is a way to tweak your website in order to
take advantage of this lost traffic.

You can salvage much of this traffic through the use of exit
pop-ups. Now, you may feel that these are outdated and annoying,
but testing has shown that they work.

So, the next time that your visitor clicks on the back button,
present them with a pop-up that will offer them a free report.
By implementing this technique, you will be able to capture
the name and email of many of your website visitors, allowing
you to contact them in the future with additional information
and product offers.

You can also use an exit pop-up to survey your visitors. Find
out exactly why they didn't buy or what type of information
would have made them more interested. This priceless information
can help you to improve your marketing techniques and increase
your conversion rate.

3. Thank You Pages

Did you know that the "Thank You" page (the page you display
after someone subscribes to your newsletter or buys your
product) is one of the most responsive pages on your website?

The Thank You page provides a prime opportunity for promoting
some of your other products and/or services.

You can use this space to easily increase your online profits.
For example, why not use the following message on your thank
you page after someone has subscribed to your newsletter.

"Thank you for subscribing to my newsletter. Remember to
check your inbox for your first issue.

In the meantime, I would like to introduce you to a product that
I highly recommend for increasing your website traffic at ...."

This is an easy way to send traffic to an affiliate link so you
can earn some additional revenue from what is often unused
advertising space.

You can use this same technique for your order form confirmation
pages. Thank the customer for their order and recommend they
check out a related product. You could also offer an upsell to
a higher-end version of the same product. Don't take this space
for granted. Order confirmation pages are some of the most
highly responsive real estate on your site because the customer
already has their credit card in hand.

Another great technique is exchanging thank-you pages with
other web sites.

For example, if you have a website about fitness and you know
of another website that caters to a similar audience, you can
partner up and exchange advertising. To do this, you would
promote the other person's service or product on your own thank
you page. By partnering together, you can both attract many more
clients and/or additional sales.

4. Email Messages

If you are not regularly sending out an email newsletter, then
you are failing to capitalize on existing traffic. Delivering
your own ezine allows you to make additional profit from the
traffic you are already receiving. Simply place an opt-in box on
your website and start collecting the names and addresses of
your website visitors.

Of course, you will also need to offer them some valuable info
in exchange for their name and email. A free report often works
extremely well for this.

However, starting your own newsletter is just the beginning. You
must also use this priceless space to optimize your revenue
streams.

To produce additional profit from your email campaigns, simply
place a small text box in each of your outgoing emails promoting
one of your products or an affiliate product.

This is very similar to advertising, except you are placing your
own internal ads instead of advertising for others. This is an
extremely simple technique that many people miss out on. This
one change can instantly produce additional sales, increased
affiliate commissions, and more opt-ins for other lists you
want to promote.

A small ad can be placed in a number of spots, including:

Order Confirmation Emails: Anytime someone orders from you, they
should be receiving an email receipt to confirm their purchase.
This is also the perfect time to promote a related product or
service. People are much more likely to order when they are in
the buying mood and already have their credit card out. This is
why upsells and thank you page offers are so powerful.

"Thank you" emails: Whenever you send out a confirmation email to
people who subscribe to your ezine, you should also be including
some sort of promotion or ad within the email.

This is also the perfect time to offer them some "recommended
reading" (i.e. affiliate links) If they have subscribed to your
ezine, then they are obviously looking for additional information
about a particular topic, so why not offer them some additional
resources to help them in their quest for knowledge. These
recommendations can be ebooks, membership sites, or even another
newsletter that you operate.

Remember, your prospects are looking for products to fill their
needs. If they don't buy from you they will simply buy from
someone else.

Unsubscribe emails: Do you send an email to confirm that someone
has been unsubscribed after their request? If not, you should.
This is a great opportunity to make one last offer. Or, if you
simply want to find out more about your departing subscribers,
you could set up a survey to find out why they unsubscribed and
how you can make the newsletter better.

Take a close look at your own web site and marketing process
and start finding places that are not optimized to their fullest
potential. Almost every website online has wasted space that
could be optimized for promoting additional products.

Take action now so that your space no longer goes to waste.

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Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews
(http://www.sitepronews.com) & SEO-News (http://www.seo-news.com)
newsletters. You can also find additional tips and news on
webmaster and SEO topics by Kim at the SiteProNews blog
(http://blog.sitepronews.com/). Kim's email is:
kim @ seo-news.com