There’s a big problem with niche sites.
The main goal of a niche site is to get people to make a sale. That means that you want people to land on your site, click the “Buy now” link to whatever product you’re selling, and then buy the product on the next page.
In most cases, this means they leave – never to return.
Now, if you make the sale, that’s fantastic. But the major problem with niche sites is that there’s a ton of wastage.
You might get a hundred visitors and three of them will click through. Let’s say everyone who clicks buys a product. By all means, you’re getting a 3% conversion rate and that’s not bad at all.
But it still leaves 97 visitors who don’t buy the product, and will probably never visit your site again, because you’ve only given them two options: Buy or leave.
Here’s a quick and simple way to solve the problem.
Before we get to the solution though, a little background work.
Why Give Your Visitors A Dichotomy In The First Place?
When you’re writing sales letters, you don’t want your person to be clicking around, hopping to and from links and doing their research.
If you allow this, chances are high they won’t buy through your link, talk themselves out of buying the product or decide it’s not for them.
So, when we’re creating a sales letter for a niche site, we go through the motions: get the reader’s attention, keep them reading and build their desire until they need the product, then hopefully they hit that button and we make the sale.
Now, this is good for the sales process, and it’s tried and true. But it’s bad for the overall traffic of your niche site.
And everything you do to help your niche site tends to go against the sale.
For instance, you can link between your articles. If people click tons of links and read all of your articles, they’ll probably fall in love with your writing style and your site. But they won’t be in buying mode anymore.
They might read your site for the helpful information and never buy a product through your link.
Or maybe you throw together some sort of training for them – again, they can grab the knowledge and never bring you a penny.
Wouldn’t It Be Nice…
This month I’ve been preparing myself to dip back into the affiliate marketing world. I’ve been learning about funnels and other forms of traffic generation.
I’ve also been thinking about the above problem.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a way to push everyone towards the sale – so no links, sidebars or other distractions – but then separate out the people who aren’t going to buy from our link and put them somewhere else?
The answer is yes, and now I’ve worked it out, it’s actually pretty simple.
The Solution Is To Grab Them As They Leave
As repeated through the article, you want to push people relentlessly towards the sale. Forget interlinking and other nifty tricks. Don’t have pop-ups… except in one instance.
Simply have a pop-up ready to display on exit.
This is called an exit-intent pop-up.
There are various codes and bits of software out there that’ll let you do this. I use Thrive Leads, which is fantastic, but there are other alternatives. (I’m not an expert on mailing list software – do your research.)
Let’s assume our niche site readers are about to buy a pair of headphones that we’ve recommended on our headphone review site.
You know that 97 out of 100 aren’t going to buy those headphones, but you’ve got to give them a chance. So they scroll down, down and down until they realise you’re a silver-tongued salesman with a “Buy Now” button.
While the three people who are going to convert click that Buy Now button, the others are going to do one thing: they’re going to scroll back up and toward the Red X at the top right.
Imagine if they get almost to that red X and then there’s a pop-up that says:
“Wait… Before You Leave
Don’t Buy ANY Headphones Without Getting Our Guide
- The ten mistakes people make when buying headphones
- This one thing will protect your ears
- Where you can get 50% off on designer headphones
Just drop your email here”
Really, you’re going to get some conversions with something like that. Not all 97 people… but that’s 97*$0 right now, so any improvement is a victory.
Why Are Exit-Intent Pop-ups Perfect For Niche Sites?
Popups are annoying but effective. When you run an authority site, it’s really tempting to try and maximise the amount of popups sending people deep down into your silver-tongued sales funnel. However, it’s mostly best practice to limit popups for authority sites because they’re annoying.
If you want people coming back to your site, you can’t drill them repeatedly with “Sign Up For My List!” It’s simply not friendly.
Exit-intent pop-ups are particularly annoying because if you’re a regular reader of a person’s authority site, then chances are you click away from the site knowing you’re going to return. You don’t need a simpering pop-up saying, “please come back!”
Exit-intent pop-ups are perfect for niche sites precisely because you don’t care about the above. Nobody is going to come back to your Bluetooth earphone review website just because they like your writing style. That means you can go harder with the sales talk and harder with the popups.
Design your popups like you’re never going to see your reader ever again. If there’s a chance they’ll come back for more, don’t use the popup. If you’re never going to see them, deploy the popup.
Think of popups like a gun. If you know there’s a villain breaking into your home and they’re going to kill your family, then by all means shoot that bad guy. If it’s just some guy delivering a parcel, you probably want to put the gun down.
Popups are the same.
Alright… There’s Something You’re Glossing Over Jamie. Why Would I Have An Email List For A Niche Site?
I think I promised something at the beginning of this article like, “I’m going to give you a quick and easy tip.”
You might think, “But why are we setting up autoresponders for a niche site? I thought this was supposed to be easy and part-time!”
You’re right.
There’s no point in building some massive email list, laden with incentives and delicious in its offering for a niche site. You’re probably getting a life-time value of $20 out of that customer at most. We’re just scooping up the few that don’t convert for the hell of it.
Yet we’re having them join a mailing list?
Here’s what I’d do (and as it so happens, do do.)
Let’s use the example from above.
“Wait… Before You Leave
Don’t Buy ANY Headphones Without Getting Our Guide
- The ten mistakes people make when buying headphones
- This one thing will protect your ears
- Where you can get 50% off on designer headphones
Just drop your email here”
Now, we’re not going to create anything new for this email list. Remember, we’re just drawing blood from those last few stones with this.
Let’s assume you’ve got some how-to articles on your headphone site. It might be, “How to pick the right headphones,” “what to look for when you’re buying headphones” and “How to set your volume right on your headphones.”
For a niche site mailing list, just throw those how-to’s together, call it a course if you want, and then send that on a daily basis. Then, just copy and paste your articles into an autoresponder list and send them once a week/month/whenever to see if anyone reads or clicks.
So it’ll look like this:
- Confirm Subscription (Day 0)
- Beginners Headphone Buying Course Part I (Day I)
- Beginners Headphone Course Part II (Day 2)
- Headphone buying part III(Day 3)
- Are these the best new headphones? (Day 10)
- Did you see the new Beats by Dre? (Day 17)
You get the picture.
Remember, these are cold leads and any extra conversion is a bonus. You don’t need to set the world on fire here, you’re just creating another avenue to get people to buy with what probably amounts to ten minutes’ worth of effort.
Final Thoughts
There you have it; a quick way to increase conversions without doing much work. Here’s a step-by-step:
- Have an email list with autoresponder capabilities
- Get a good email collection software like Thrive Leads that allows exit-intent popups
- Create a popup that grabs email addresses from people as they’re about to leave your site (assuming they don’t click your “Buy Now” link)
- Throw some how-to articles from your site into your email list and call it a course/helpful tips or whatever
- Then copy/paste your articles into the autoresponder
That’s all there is to it.
Let me know how you get on!