Do you worry that your most expensive month personally will be your slowest month of sales?

Here's how to fix that

How To Increase Sales in December

© Charlie Page

With news stories predicting a 25% increase in online spending this Christmas season over last, it's time to tune up our web sites so that shoppers feel comfortable enough to whip out the Visa and buy.

While recent trends indicate more online buying than ever this year, reports also clearly point out that people are VERY concerned about privacy and identity theft.

So, how do you get your slice of a very large pie and soothe shopper's concerns at the same time?

Here are three things that you can do today to make buyers feel safer, which *will* translate into higher sales.

Doing these three things takes about an hour, but can pay off big during a busy shopping season like December.

1. Make Sure Your Order Form Is Secure

If you use a shopping cart, they will take care of this. What needs to happen is this: Anytime you are asking a customer for personal information, (especially their credit card info) they must be on a secure page.

You can tell a secure page from other pages because it has a little lock symbol in the bottom right corner of the browser.

TIP: Double click the lock symbol and you will see who owns the security certificate and if it is current. This is *very* important to you as a buyer because it certifies that the site is safe for shopping.

Your web host can help you create a secure page if you process credit card orders directly via a firm like Authorize.net.

If you use a shopping cart, Yahoo store, or other such eCommerce package, you should be covered.

To test this, go through the order process on your own site. Doing this will show you not only the level of security a customer experiences, but also how fast your order page loads and other factors that are very important to making sales happen.

Here is our order page as an example. It's a really long URL so if you can't click it just go to our home page (in my signature above) and click on one of the order links near the bottom of the page.

https://quickpaypro.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi?adminid=3116&pid=12924&quickbuy=1

Once there, click on the little lock icon at the bottom right of your browser and you will see Quick Pay Pro's certificates. Using a shopping cart means I don't need my own certificate, which saves me time and money. I like that.

2. Clearly State Your Privacy Policy

We all hate spam. Your buyers hate it too and they need to know *very* clearly that you will not sell, rent, trade, or in any other way share, their email address or confidential information with anyone for any reason.

Take a look at our Privacy page at http://www.directoryofezines.com/privacy.htm

Having a privacy policy reassures buyers that you take their privacy seriously. Although I am not a lawyer, it's also becoming very important for all web owners to have such statements.

You will see that ours is short and to the point, including full disclosure that we use Webtrends to log our traffic, and that we never communicate knowingly with children.

You can create such a page by using your own attorney, or getting one of the packages on the Net. We use Auto Law Pro by Len Thurmond and Bruce Safran. Bruce is an attorney. Shawn Casey, an attorney and online marketer, just released one too.

Here are the links. They are not affiliate links.

http://www.autoweblaw.com/

http://www.internet-law-compliance.com/

3. Post Your Phone Number On Your Site

I get calls from people literally every week who can't believe I answer my own phone. I think these kind souls are laboring under an assumption that I'm more important than I really am.

In the five years I've been online the comment I hear the most is that people like that I post my phone number online. I can't count how many DIrectory of Marketing memberships that have been sold over the years because I took five minutes on the phone to answer someone's question.

Yes, it does take time and sometimes I can't answer. But I always call back.

Putting your phone number on your website is a huge credibility booster. And it's good business. Everyone agrees on this, but few do it.

If you don't want to put your home number on your site (I wouldn't either) you can get an inexpensive service to answer your phone, use a second line in your home with an answering machine, or use one of the many voice mail services online.

I did a quick Google search for "free voice mail" to save you a step. Here's the link. It's long, so if you can't click it just copy and paste or go to Google directly.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=%22free+voice+mail%22&btnG=Google+Search

Be sure to look for the ones that are really free.

If you take the three steps above, you will have taken a giant leap forward in letting potential customers know that you want their business, and they can feel safe buying from you.

When that happens, you just might get a bigger slice of that Christmas pie. That's a happy thing.

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Charlie Page is a copywriter who owns the Directory of Ezines and the Directory of Marketing. If you want to sell more online, visit Charlie today at http://www.directoryofmarketing.com