Perhaps you created the site yourself or maybe you paid a web designer thousands of dollars to build a graphically beautiful site loaded with all the “flashy bells and whistles” the designer said you absolutely had to have.

It really doesn’t matter who built it. The bottom line is…your website isn’t selling anything. And consequently, you’re not seeing a return on your investment.

Surely you’ve heard those Internet success stories about ordinary people throwing up a website and literally overnight, they start raking in the dough.

Let’s face it. You, like everybody, want to stake your claim in the Internet gold rush.

Unfortunately, nothing is happening at your website. Or to put it another way, it’s quieter than a slow night at the city morgue.

So what the heck is the problem?

Why do some websites sell like crazy, making tons of money for their owners, while others just sit there quietly fading away into oblivion?

Well, truth be told, there’s a world of difference between a website that sells and one that does nothing but slowly suck your hard-earned money out of your bank account or credit line.

When most companies need a website, they have a designer build what is commonly known as a “Brochure Site”.

You know. You’ve seen those. The ones that talk about how many years the company has been in business, how many employees it has, where it’s located, etc.

See, most small business owners and independent professionals have heard that they must have an online presence to be like their competitors and other companies that want to succeed in the 21st century.

Sooner or later, they give in to this competitive pressure and blindly leap into the wild and wacky world of online marketing.

Invariably, they make a number of costly beginner mistakes. They build boring, ineffective sites full of links that randomly take visitors to internal pages, with no apparent order, strategy or flow. And the majority make the most expensive mistake of all, letting valuable prospects leave their sites without trying to capture the prospect’s contact information.

In some cases, these novice Web marketers drive away high-value prospects by trying to “hard sell” them, or even worse, they meekly let qualified buyers leave the site, never to return, without ever asking the prospect to take a specific action.

Then there’s the “Build it and they will come syndrome.” As a Web marketing consultant, I meet lots of small business owners who have paid thousands of dollars to have attractive websites built without ever giving a thought to how they were going to attract people to the site and convert them into paying customers.

In other words, they have no Web traffic generation or conversion strategy whatsoever. And often, they falsely assume the web designer they’re paying to build the site is an expert in Internet Marketing. Unfortunately, most designers are good at designing, but only a select few are highly skilled at Web marketing.

Now this is just a small sampling of the costly mistakes I see newcomers to Internet Marketing make every day. The honest truth is, today’s online marketplace is like a virtual jungle. It’s not a place for the faint of heart. Without the right guidance, resources and preparation, a newcomer could get lost, seriously injured or worse yet, eaten alive. (Figuratively speaking)

Look, I’m not trying to terrify you. I just want you to be fully aware that 99% of the websites you’ll find on the World Wide Web are dull, ineffective and unprofitable.

But you don’t need to make the same costly mistakes. There’s is a far better way of doing it.

When set up correctly, a website that’s designed to sell can be the most powerful weapon in your marketing arsenal and make you some serious money. And maybe, a fortune!

You see, a website that sells is really a synergistic combination of several websites working together to achieve the following objectives:

Attract a continuous stream of qualified prospects.

Capture their contact information to build a list of people who have given you permission to market to them.

Educate subscribers to your list by giving them timely, relevant information with solutions to their problems while subtly urging them to do business with you.

Cultivate an online relationship with them, make them irresistible offers, consistently follow up with them and periodically make them additional offers that will help to satisfy their needs and desires.

Persuade customers to buy from you, not just once, but on a continuous basis, for many years to come.

Here are the essential elements of a website that sells:

Multiple traffic sources funneling prospects into a lead generation site.

One or more optimized landing pages designed to capture a prospect’s contact information in exchange for an “ethical bribe” such as a free report, free trial, etc.

A multistep automated follow-up sequence designed to educate the prospect, establish trust, build credibility and position you as a trusted advisor who can help solve the prospect’s problems while improving her quality of life.

One or more “irresistible” offers designed to convert a prospect into a paying customer as soon as possible, with minimal resistance.

Reasons why you and your company are uniquely qualified to help the prospect solve his or her particular problem.

Educational content such as articles, demos, videos, podcasts, etc.

Testimonials from satisfied customers to create social proof that you and your company are the best source of the products or services you provide.

Free information request forms on every page that incentivize the prospect to establish a dialogue with you.

These are just some of the critical elements that your website marketing system must successfully integrate if you really want to maximize your visitor traffic, sales and profits.

As you can see, marketing and selling your products or services online is much more than throwing up a ” 4-page brochure site”, submitting your URL to the search engines, then sitting back to watch the money come rolling in.

Creating a money-making website is an ongoing process that requires strategic thinking and well-honed skills in multi-channel lead generation, search engine optimized copywriting, and marketing automation, just to name a few.

Like it or not, your ability to get more customers will be the critical determinant of the ultimate success or failure of your business.

So let’s face it, during good times and bad, you will always need to generate a steady stream of fresh, new customers who are ready, willing and able to buy your products or services.

So how can you get more customers?

Well, this is the primary question you and all other people who are in business for themselves must constantly be asking. Of course, that’s assuming you’re really serious about making money and succeeding in the long term.

In my opinion, you can use two general approaches:

1. A Reactive Approach

2. A Proactive Approach

95% of small business owners use a mostly “Reactive” approach when trying to acquire new customers.

They put up a sign, run an ad in the Yellow Pages or in the local newspaper, and they wait for prospective customers to call them or show up at their place of business.

In other words, they wait, twiddling their thumbs, until a new customer decides to contact them.

They’re reactive. And that’s why they often struggle to turn a profit and unfortunately, a large percentage of them eventually go out of business.

Believe me, this is a slow and risky way to build your business and increase your profits.

A far better way is to use a “proactive” approach designed to generate a continuous stream of qualified prospects interested in what you’re selling and convert them into paying customers.

And the best way to achieve this is to set up marketing systems that compel prospects to visit a specially-designed website, before they call or go to your physical business location, assuming you have one.

Imagine a bicycle wheel. Your website is positioned as the central hub of all of your marketing activities and the spokes of the wheel are the different media or channels you use to drive a continuous flow of potential customers to your website designed to persuade prospects to do business with you..

In other words, all of your advertising and marketing materials should direct people to visit your special website, first and foremost.

Once there, you’ll offer them an “ethical bribe” in exchange for their name and e-mail address. Oh, by the way, an ethical bribe is usually a free report, free trial, or anything that has a high enough perceived value that the prospect won’t think twice about giving you his name and email address.

So why give away something free?

Simple. When you’re marketing online, your top priority should be to capture the prospect’s contact information before she can click away from your website. And usually the best way to get her information is to offer her something of value for free. I like to call this an ethical bribe.

By doing this, you’ll start building a fast-growing list of people who are interested in what you have to offer. In most cases, these will be pre-qualified potential customers. And with the right systems in place, you can immediately start educating these prospects about your products and/or services.

This same system can follow up with these qualified leads at predetermined intervals and literally warm them up to a point that they’re hot and ready to give you their hard-earned money.

Once you’ve built a sizable customer list, you can periodically send out an interesting article or a promotion by e-mail that directs people to place an order at your website, asks them to call your sales team or visit your physical location.

And you don’t need to limit yourself to sending just e-mails. Nowadays, there are systems that can capture a prospect’s contact information and automatically send them a multistep follow-up marketing sequence using a unique combination of e-mail, voice broadcast, fax, direct mail and even text messages.

Imagine how much time you could save if you were able to automate most of your marketing activities. In fact, in many cases, you won’t have to speak to a prospect until he has been presold on your product or service.

Furthermore, your website can handle inquiries from dozens, even hundreds of potential customers simultaneously, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. And it doesn’t matter if they are located in your home town, or half way around the world,

Unlike the “reactive business owner”, your automated online marketing system will be proactively and aggressively motivating prospects to do business with you today or in the near future.

Isn’t this better than just sitting around and waiting for them to come to you?

And I assure you that this is one of the fastest and most profitable ways of generating a stream of new clients and building your business, whether it’s small, medium or large.

It’s called “Web centric” marketing.

And most experts “in the know” would agree that this revolutionary, 21st century approach to marketing is far more powerful and cost effective than older, more traditional methods.

Believe me. Implementing a “Web centric” strategy along with an automated multi-step follow-up system can give you a huge competitive edge and literally make you a fortune. Of course this assumes you do it right .

If you liked this blog post, feel free to leave me a comment with your thoughts and feedback!