There are hundreds of articles available (if not thousands) online that talk about tips and ideas to improve business sales online and some of them are really worth following.

Writing about a repetitive topic that has been discussed more than a dozen times before obviously does not make sense. That is why in this article I will try to cover only those tips that are not discussed before with real world examples, so that you can have a clear idea of how you can implement it on your business and how much boost you can expect from it.

– Offer Just One Product/Service on the Home Page

This might sounds odd to many product as well as service businesses and especially those who offer multiple lines of products like ecommerce stores or business that offer multiple services like BPO solution companies.

When people find more choices they tend to get confused and mostly switch for a better choice. On the other hand if you will provide less or no choice they will follow the buying cycle without getting distracted. This never means you should display one product or service only but at least your major focus should be there.

Apple actually offers multiple products but they always tend to focus on one product at a time be it a phone or a new MAC version they have recently launched.

Lesson from Apple: No matter if you are offering multiple products, but on the website try to focus on that one product at a time. It could be either a new launch or something you are currently focusing to market and you will see an increase in online sales.

– Where to put the Open-in form

Regardless nature of your business, if you are online, one of the best ways to target and retarget your customers is to make them opt-in for your email subscription list. The longer your email subscribers list is, there will be more chances for you to convert them and increase your sales online.

This is nothing new, all businesses today are doing it but where to put your opt-in form is a very interesting question. There was a time when best area to put the opt-in form was the right hand corner of the page as this was the first few areas on the page where people look but over the period of time the customer behavior have changed and so  is the placement of the form.

I am sorry if you thought that I am going to give you a perfect place to put the subscription button. There is no set formula for it as you always have to test this keeping your business and audience in mind, but here I will share the in-depth study of Neil Patel in which he suggested to put the call to action button at the bottom of the page.

– Don’t Sell help them to Buy

This is one of the most ethical marketing rules that almost all good companies follow. The idea is not to sell hard but focus on providing information that helps them make the buying decision. In the service industry, I have seen almost all new brands practicing this rule.

Moz.com is the finest example as they market their product (SaaS) through providing industry information to their target audience for free. There are few brands like eFurniture Mart, in the ecommerce industry too who have started to focus on providing relevant information, which leads to purchase decision.

According to a study 63% of the purchase decisions are influenced through blogs that companies and bloggers update from time to time.

– Use Principle of Authority

Robert Cialdini wrote a book in which he discussed six principles to influence customers and one of them was the principle of Authority. This principle suggests that authorities’ words influence people’s decision alot.  So if an authority recommends them something they will tend to follow it.

Principle of Authority have a great impact on sales so if a business (product/service) can manage to get  few testimonials from some authority figures, people will tend to fall for it easily as compared to a sales pitch or other ideas that we use to encourage targeted audience to convert.

Doina have a good fan following and a user of quick sprout. Neil uses her testimonial to influence the audience Doina holds and encourage them to convert to his pro service.

– Include HQ Images to Increase Product Desirability

Product images are necessary when it comes to ecommerce website but only a few businesses understand the real power of high quality images and its affects on their sales.

Images of your products make them seem more tangible and “real” to your visitors. The idea here is to use high quality images that allow potential audience to engage with the product and convert in to leads.

Oak Street Boot makers is the finest example who are using high quality images of products on their website and this is tremendously helping them increase their sales and lead ratio.

Above are the most 5 unconventional ideas that can help you increase your sales and business online in my opinion. Are you using any other ideas that are helping you increase your sales ratio, please share with us in the comment section.