Website Strategies For More Skin Care Sales

In this article I wanted to offer some online marketing tips to help you build a successful skin care site (or rebuild a current site) that will be pleasing to your visitors and and bring you ongoing skin care sales, hopefully for many years to come.

In past articles I have written about the importance of creating compelling informative content that provides your visitors with what they were searching for and more. That still applies and always will. The basics of these online marketing strategies are:

1. Providing helpful information on skin care  that your visitors want to know more about (without giving everything away).

2. Appealing to your target customers emotions. Creating interest and stimulating their desire to leave behind a pain or acquire a pleasure that your skin care products offer.

3. Persuading them to take action now while their emotions are peaked so they don’t stray away, maybe never to return.

Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale. Without including number 3, your online marketing sales strategies will be much weaker.

OK, so what if their interested but not quite ready to commit to purchasing the skin care products? Unfortunately this is usually the case. As much as we would love for our precious visitor/customers to all click on that buy now button, either on our page or our merchant’s site, it’s not likely to happen the first go around.

So do you wait for them to come back to buy later? Don’t count on that. What you need to count on are these online marketing tips to get the commitment now, bring back your visitors and keep them interested for future sales.

1. Limited time offer. I’m sure you’ve seen these. They’re effective if done right. Don’t do like some though, that say you need to order by midnight tonight. I’ve seen these before and went back several days later to see the same price with the same threat. Can you say “credibility killer”.

2. If you act now. Kind of along the same lines as #1. Create that sense of urgency to just go ahead and get it now, so they can either get in ahead of others while it’s “hot” or they can get hundreds of dollars worth of free extras if purchased now.

3. Money back guarantee. This is a must if you are selling your own item. Give them adequate time though. If you go with only seven days, they may be reluctant (feel rushed). Obviously if you’re an affiliate promoting someone else’s product you will want to make sure they have a good guarantee.

4. Email marketing. Offer a newsletter or e-book to them. Set up an auto-responder on your site to collect their email info and automatically send out what you promised, plus an occasional reminder email to invite them back in a warm friendly manner to see what’s new on your site. Include a bookmark link they can click on as well, just in case they’re afraid to give their email address out.

The first three pertain mainly to a product of your own you are promoting but also could be used as presellers to send them to your merchant’s site. Strategy #4 on the other hand is a must have item for your site if you want to generate leads and maintain ongoing interest which is key for increased sales in the skin care industry.

Websites You Need For International Skin Care Markets

There are many basic sales principals that you use for your domestic market that also apply to international skin care markets. These principals can help you when planning for your international skin care business expansion.

Your skin care website is an important platform for your business communication. Ideally it is designed to communicate effectively with your market. It is designed to do something specific for your business in your domestic market.

So what happens when you want to open your skin care business up to other markets in other cultures?

Your communication will change.

But what about its platform…your website?

Internationalize Or Go International for skin care

How do you decide whether to internationalize your skin care website or to create an international website?

If you are currently just starting to target foreign markets, one of your first questions will be about your website. At least it should be. There are two very common scenarios:

* Many small companies assume the website they use for their domestic markets will work well with their English speaking international markets. They fail to realize their website may actually be sabotaging their international communication.
* Many companies also assume they do not need to adapt their online communication until they are actually ready for a website in a foreign language.

This means that very few companies actually ask themselves the real question:

* Do we need to internationalize our current website or do we need to create a separate website totally dedicated to our international market?

There are two main factors you need to look into before you are able to answer this question:

* Is your current website dependent on a culturally specific message? Is your website already in English?
* Are you almost ready to launch a localized website? That is, a website dedicated to one country?

Your answers to these two questions will influence your international website.

Too Culturally Specific

This can be a delicate decision. Your main website must continue to sell to your domestic market. There are some basic steps you can take to make your website more international-friendly. These basic steps rarely influence your communication with your domestic market. They rely on sound internet marketing practices.

The question is just how different are the cultures you want to market to internationally. Most people answer this based on gut feelings. These gut feelings often lead you astray.

The best way to look at this is to do a cultural behavioral comparison between your domestic market and the specific foreign markets you want to target.

Different cultures need to be reassured in different ways.

A cultural behavioral analysis will show you these different needs. There are a few web communication tools you use to respond to these needs. The idea is to see if the tools you need to use on your website to communicate better with your foreign markets actually deter your domestic market. Just how much will these changes affect your primary customer base. You have three solutions:

* You don’t really know where your foreign markets are and want to plan for the future – Internationalize your website minimally, evaluate your foreign markets and move onto localized websites as soon as you can.
* You want to actively promote your products and services to a broad international audience – create a website for international clients in English.
* Your website is not in English – you need to start with an international website in English.

Almost Ready For A Localized Skin Care Website

If you are almost ready for a localized website, you may only decide to implement some small changes to your current website and concentrate on creating your localized website.

Once you have a few localized websites or sufficient international response you will want to look into an international website, or a global gateway

Internationalization Is Always Good

When you go about internationalizing your domestic website, you learn to acquire some good practices for future international websites.

* You will see the value of consistency and clarity.
* You will learn discipline in embedding text in images.
* You will come to appreciate website templates.

In its basic format internationalization makes your skin care website better for all of your visitors, domestic and international alike.

You can go beyond this. There are different degrees to which you can adapt your current website. The degree to which you internationalize your website depends on your communication needs.

How different is the communication with your domestic market compared to your foreign market?

You need to study the behavioral differences between your primary domestic market and your foreign target markets. This is an exercise you should do when starting your international business development.

The process of looking at your website from different cultural viewpoints will highlight the areas you will need to adapt as your international business grows. You will get insights into your future needs.

Internationalization with cultural behavioral comparisons gives you a good idea of when you will need localized websites as you expand.

Internationalization of your website is an ongoing process. You can start with the basic steps good for all of your audiences, and slowing implement culturally specific web tools.

An International Skin Care Website

Sometimes it just makes sense to start with an international website. A website with a separate domain name and URL makes it easy to drive all international traffic through one online office. Here are some of the reasons you may want to start with an international website.

* You need a different sales message to your international visitors
* Your website is not in English to start with

Different Message

* If your domestic website uses a very specific localized vocabulary you will probably want to look at creating a separate website.
* If your sales pitch is also very localized, or your foreign visitors respond to different sales arguments.

English Is Still Universal

Companies with domestic websites that are not in English will often find it easier to start off with an international website. This has been the situation for some time and is unlikely to change in the near future.

Of course, there are instances where an English language website is not obligatory. If you already have sales in one particular foreign country it makes sense to start there.

Adjust Along The Way

Companies can be in many different situations. The main point to remember is:

* any communication with your international markets influences your website.

You will have to decide on the best online platform for your business requirements. Some companies have more options than others. This is the movement most companies look at:

* from a domestic website
* to an internationalized domestic website
* to an optional international website
* to one localized website
* to several localized websites
* to a global website – if you have an international website this could slowly become a global website once you start other localized websites.

Along this process you will learn more about marketing your skin care products  to your foreign markets. You will adjust your communication along the way. You will want your website to be a good platform for your communication and the changes you will need.

The sooner you become aware of good website practices for international businesses, the more time and money you will save your skin care company.

15 Skin Care Website Design Tips

Skin care website designing does not just contain artistic designs which please the visitors eyes and keep them awestruck by the creative designs. A skin care website should have certain basic standards that not only help the visitors but also the skin care company convert visitors into product sales. The following list will help you understand what should be kept in mind while designing a user friendly skin care website.

1. Design It For Beginners:

• A skin care website is visited by all sorts of visitors.
• So design a website keeping in mind everyone and their ways of using a website.
• If you design your website for novice internet users , they are quite aware of how to browse through a website so you may restrict your user count to just a handful of people.
• But, if you design your website in such a way that even the beginners can benefit from it then your website traffic can include both beginners and novice users.

2. Clear Reading:

• The skin care website should have a very attractive look, but at the same time, it should not prick your eyes if you look at it for a very long time.
• The background colors should be wisely chosen (avoid using very bright fluorescent colors).
• Match your background & font colors systematically.
• Use clearly readable font types and sizes. The font type should also gel with the theme of your website.
• In short the look should be pleasant but not dull.
• The vibrancy in a website look is appreciated only if it is not disturbing enough to divert your focus away from its contents.

3. Follow Uniform Format:

• Follow uniformity throughout your skin care website.
• If your website displays its headings in font size 13 then use that font size for all the headings in a website.
• Use the same font size or color for all your text contents on your website, then stick to the same method throughout the website.

4. Loads Quickly:

• People on an average spend only 10 seconds per webpage. So if a website takes too long to load its contents completely, then you may run a risk of loosing visitors.
• Your website is not the only website on internet to give information about a particular thing and you will definitely agree with this fact after running a search for a thing in a search engine and come across millions of websites with similar contents.
• So avoid too much of graphic contents on every webpage which takes a long time to load.
• To avoid a visitor’s annoyance, restrict the size of a webpage to 40-60K.

5. Easy To Navigate:

• Moving from one page to another should be easy in a website.
• The links like “Home”, “Contact Us”, “About Us”, “Sign Up”, “Sign In”, “Account Information”etc. should be present in every webpage of a website.
• If you expect that everyone is going to use the back button on their browser to return to the previous page then you might be wrong, not all might be aware of the button’s use and in some websites the programs in it disable the use of back buttons which might annoy the users as much as a pop-up window. So avoid such things.

6. Labeling of Hyperlinks:

• Always keep in mind that hyperlinks should be appropriately labeled.
• The visitor should know that by clicking over it should lead to a webpage that he wanted to go.
• If a content of a website has hyperlinked images then label the image saying that clicking over it might do so and so thing as not all of the website visitors might be aware of the hyperlinked images

7. Get a good Domain Name: Your skin care website name should be quite easy to remember, so accordingly choose your own domain name.

8. Use “Click here” signs more than underlined hyperlinks:

• “Click here” sign enables the visitors to understand that the text is hyperlinked and clickable
• A new visitor might not understand that a particular underlined text is hyperlinked and clickable.
• Make the hyperlinks as clear as possible to your visitors.

9. Add “Contact Us” link on each skin care webpage:

• The “Contact Us” information should be very conspicuous and easy to reach out for.
• It should be present on every webpage.
• This assures the visitors that the website is transparent and trustworthy and its owner could be contacted whenever required.

10. Do Not Make Every Keyword Bold: Whenever you want to attract a visitor’s attention to a particular word, make it bold or change it font size or font type or font colour but then the frequency of this technique should be limited and care should be taken that you don’t make most of the words in your text content bold and cause the visitor to overlook the actual important words. Sometimes too many intermittent bold words may also annoy the visitors.

11. Big skin care websites should have a search feature: If you own a very big website, then you definitely need to install a search feature in it, as you would not like your visitors to struggle for a small piece of information on your website which they could easily locate by a search engine feature embedded in your website.

12. Skin care websites should be useful for visitors:

• A website should be designed in such a way that it benefits the visitors.
• If possible provisions should be made on your website to write reviews about your website and this could enable you to understand where your fault lies, what the user wants and what you could provide.
• At least gather reviews from trustworthy friends about your website and ask them to suggest improvements.
• All this will lead to a user friendly website highly beneficial to the visitors.

13. Good Grammar Usage: Try using good grammar in your text content wherever possible. This will definitely leave a good impression on the visitors, but, keep in mind not to be too verbose or else you might just scare away your visitors.

14. Point wise representation:

• Point wise representation of views is preferred to paragraph representation. It makes your points clearly understood and readers don’t find it too lengthy, time consuming or boring.
• But, if content demands paragraph representation then go for it.
• Also do not crowd your contents with too much of bullets and numberings and make it difficult to understand what you wanted to say.

15. No crowding of ads on a skin care webpage:

• Placing ads wisely is definitely important, but that doesn’t mean you crowd your webpage with too many ads from all the possible internet advertising companies.
• These ads might then start overshadowing your contents and finally decrease the importance of your website.
• So wisely place limited handpicked ads which will ensure you maximum revenue.

With the application of the above information, a website will not only be a creative piece of work but also a useful internet tool.

Using WordPress to Build Skin Care Websites

Search engines as well as the ‘net surfing public prefer weblog-based skin care websites than static, HTML-built websites. The reason for this is that a website built around a WordPress theme, for example, has easily updated pages. No need to fuss with getting the formatting of a HTML webpage just right to accept your article.

Visitors can leave blog posts (comments) about skin care things. Polls can be easily started and run. Skin care contests can be run. Basically, any user generated content or site owner generated content or automated web generated content (like RSS feeds) can be implemented in a couple clicks of the mouse. Whereas with a “normal” HTML website, these things would be tedious and time-consuming to implement, and updating it daily would be a nightmare.

Since the search engines reward skin care websites that have fresh, continually-updated content, it’s easy to see why WordPress-based skin care website builders are becoming more popular with each passing day.

But remember that search engines, by themselves, can’t make a purchase from your skin care site or sign up for your newsletter; only humans can. But since people like to feel like they are part of a community, weblog-based websites tend to attract and keep people as well as the search engines. Because people are just naturally drawn to groups of other people. A static HTML built website that contains only the same articles unchanged for weeks on end, can only get but so popular.

Here are some specific examples of why WordPress-based web design software is better:

1. Articles Can Be Added with One-Click Ease: With a WordPress built site, any article can be simply pasted into the box where it will be automatically formatted and posted to your skin care site. No messing with margins, fonts, special characters, or having the online version of your article appear different than the version you see while you’re editing it. Big time saver and frustration saver.

2. No Need for an add-on CMS (Content Management System): Categories of content are automatically generated as you add content, so no having to fuss with complex CMS software; the CMS is built-in to the skin care website already just by the fact you’re using WordPress as your web design software.

3. Most People Know How Weblogs Work and Are Instantly Comfortable: Almost every internet surfer is familiar with the weblog format. It’s become the standard, and everyone knows how to use it. So instead of having to learn yet another website format, they know exactly where to find things. For example, the date, author’s name, the archives of articles, the “about you” page – all have a standard position on a weblog.

And when it comes to the interactive part of a weblog–the comments section–everyone already knows where and how to leave a comment. But every non-weblog, static HTML site does this radically different. You just can’t get that great standardization with non-weblog sites.

4. It’s Easier To Add Content To A Weblog: Instead of having to stick to a grueling schedule of adding perfectly-formatted articles to a static website, weblogs allow you to write only when you’re inspired and ignore it when you’re not inspired. And when you do add content, it’s in small, manageable chunks. This is more natural looking as well, for search engine credit.

5. Get More Backlinks or “Trackbacks” (as it’s called in weblog lingo): Most weblog software supports trackbacks, which makes other weblogs more likely to link to you, because they know that their site will appear in your trackbacks section. This replaces the time-consuming and tedious link exchange chores you have to do with the SEO of a static website.

6. RSS and Syndication: Weblog built sites already have a built-in RSS (really simple syndication) “announcement” function: Whenever a post is made to your blog, the software “announces” the post to whatever RSS feeds that it supports. Users can then ‘subscribe’ to these feeds and keep track of your latest posts, clicking links that may be in your posts. This has the effect of turning your existing content into an email newsletter, with no extra trouble on your part. That way, these RSS subscribers can return to your website over and over again with no extra effort on your part.

Are you beginning to see the advantages of building a skin care website using a WordPress-based site-builder over static web design software?

What Does “Natural” Stand For In The Skin Care Business

The skin care and anti aging and cosmetics industry is a huge industry, worth, by some estimates, around $50 billion. And there are many many companies making skin care products, including so called natural skin care products, as well as cosmetics, beauty products, hair, and body care products, and more. Hair colorings, hair removal, anti aging products, body oils, dry skin treatments, oily skin treatments and so on and so on.

When there are so many products available to you to satisfy every need you could ever have to purchase a product to pamper every part of your body, why would you want to bother searching out “natural” products, including natural skin care products.

First let me say there is no formal definition of “natural” skin care products. However it’s quite possible to compare the different types of skin care and anti aging products by looking at what’s available to you on the market.

First there is, of course, the big brand name products. I’m sure you know the ones I mean. Saturation TV advertising, their skin care products seen on the shelves of just about every department store.

Would it surprise you to know that many of these big brand name products, probably most, are not considered to be effective, and have ingredients which are often suspect or even downright dangerous?

Yes it’s true, the skin care industry isn’t effectively regulated, and they can put just about anything they want into their products. The FDA doesn’t require these products to be tested for safety or efficacy.

Here’s just one example, but there are many. Recent tests showed lead in over 50% of big brand name lipsticks tested, to the point where the State of California, at least, has banned lead in lipsticks.

There’s many other examples of suspect or dangerous ingredients in our body care, hair care, skin care and nail care products and just about all of our beauty and personal use products like simple shampoos and toothpastes.

On the other hand there are companies, one in particular, that make extremely effective and safe natural skin care products.

By “natural” this means naturally occurring ingredients which are known to be safe for human use.

Here’s some examples.

Shea butter, extracted from the seed of a tree. An extremely effective natural moisturizer.

Jojoba oil from the nut of the Jojoba plant, very high in natural anti oxidants that are very good for natural skin health.

Grape seed oil, extracted from the seeds of various grape varieties, high in natural fatty acids and anti oxidants and also an excellent natural skin moisturizer.

And more, there’s many many naturally occurring substances that aren’t made in a lab, and are extremely effective when added to a natural skin care range of products.

However it’s not sufficient for a company to use naturally occurring ingredients in it’s skin care and anti aging products. To be truly “natural” the company needs to have a commitment to producing and using these ingredients safely. Because it’s quite possible to change the makeup of an ingredient in the process used to extract it, particularly by the use of heat. And this can make a useful naturally occurring ingredient quite useless.

An example is keratin, a naturally occurring part of skin hair and nails. Keratin is used by the big brand name companies, however it is extracted from the horns and hooves of animals by heat, thereby changing it’s makeup to a less useful form.

The best manufacturer of natural skin care products has a commitment to using only naturally occurring ingredients that are both safe for human use and also effective. In fact their brief is to produce the worlds best natural skin care products that are safe enough to eat.

So despite the fact that there is no formal definition of natural skin care products, an examination of both the ingredients used in skin care products combined with an examination of the company’s philosophy about the production of it’s products will establish quite clearly what the best “natural skin care products” are.

Entering The Organic Skin Care Business

Organic skin care is fast becoming a very big business in the country today. This is even predicted to flourish exponentially in the years to come due to the re-surging trend in using natural or organic products.

However, you must be extremely cautious whenever you are choosing your skin care and cosmetic products because there are a lot of products out there claiming to be 100% organic (or natural) even if they are not! The only way to be sure that you are purchasing natural and organic skin care products is to be more vigilant in choosing what you buy. As always, the right information can be your best ally. To help you become a more discerning consumer, here are some things that you absolutely need to know.

Read Product Labels – Generally speaking, you should always read product labels before deciding on what products to buy. You must also be aware of the so-called “Rule of Thirds”. This rule states that the top third of the ingredients listed in the label comprise the bulk of the product (approximately 90 to 98%). The middle third makes up approximately 5-8% of the product while the bottom third represents only around 1-3% of the total product.

Understand that natural skin care is not always natural. If there is one word that is most commonly abused in the cosmetic and skin care industry, it would be the word “natural”. This word is often used by skin care product manufacturers to trick their consumers into buying their products and thus rake in immense profits for the company! For the record, there are two definitions of the word “natural”. The dictionary defines it as “anything existing in or formed by nature” while the cosmetic industry defines the word as “any ingredient derived from a natural substance”. Now, there is a significant difference in those two definitions!

A classic example of this is the use of Cocamide-DEA in some skin care products. This ingredient is widely used as a foaming agent in bath products (shampoos and hand soaps) and as an emulsifying agent in cosmetics. Cocamide-DEA is touted as a natural ingredient since it is derived from coconut oil. However, since a synthetic chemical called diethanolamine is used in the extraction process, the ingredient cannot be considered natural anymore. According to studies conducted by the National Toxicology Program in 1998, the extensive use of products containing DEA can even lead to cancer!

Is it really organic? Like the word “natural”, the word “organic” is also used extensively by cosmetic manufacturers to their advantage. To be sure that you are purchasing a “certified organic” product, you should always look for the organic certification on the product label.

But what really is a certified organic product? In the cosmetic industry, a product is certified as organic if it is made up of at least 95% organic ingredients (water and salt/minerals excluded). A small amount of natural, non-organic ingredients can be allowed but this must comply with some very stringent criteria before being approved.

However, please note that the industry can legally label any product that contains carbon as “organic”. Take methyl-paraben, a popular preservative found in many organic skin care products, as an example. Methyl-paraben is derived from the petrochemicals in crude oil. But since it is originally derived from living matter, the cosmetic industry can legally claim it as organic. I don’t mean to frighten you here but a recent study reportedly found traces of methyl-paraben in human breast cancer tumors.

Basically, these are just some of the matters you need to look into if you are considering to go organic. Natural and/or organic skin care products are definitely more skin-friendly but you need to know the various practices and tricks used by skin product manufacturers so that you won’t fall for them.

Skin Care Company Mom’s Skincare Hires Illumination Consulting For Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Services To Market Their Skin Care Products

Mom’s Skincare a natural skin care company out of Beverly Hills California has hired Illumination Consulting for 2010 to market their brand and skin care products online. Illumination Consulting will implement a strong organic search engine optimization (SEO) campaign and manage it.

Los Angeles, CA, January 22, 2010 – Mom’s Skincare has just recently launched their new company website and ecommerce which also was designed and developed by Illumination Consulting. This natural skin care company has now hired Illumination Consulting for 2010 to drive their brand and skin care products online. Illumination Consulting will manage all marketing efforts on behalf of Mom’s Skincare. Search engine optimization (SEO) will be the one of the main objectives for 2010 for Mom’s Skincare to gain market share and visibility.

“We are very happy that Mom’s Skincare has hired us to manage and implement a successful online marketing campaign for their skin care products. The skin care industry is very competitive and a strong online marketing strategy is very important to succeed. We have been successful before with other skin care companies and we feel confident that we will reach our goals with Mom’s Skincare as well , says Daniel Green, President of Illumination Consulting (www.illuminationconsulting.com) in Los Angeles.

Skin Care Business Honeymark International Hires Illumination Consulting For Website Design

Honeymark International is a New York based skin care company that specializes in honey related skin care and medical products. Honeymark has hired Illumination Consulting again to redesign and update their website and ecommerce.

Los Angeles, CA, February 8, 2010 – Honeymark International has hired Illumination Consulting again for website design. Illumination Consulting who has managed website design and ecommerce implementation for several skin care companies will be redesigning the corporate website of Honeymark as well as their ecommerce.

“We look forward to work with Honeymark again. We love their product line and we are a big fan of honey based products. Website design for skin care companies is something that we have lots of experience with. We are going to redesign Honeymark’s website and ecommerce. Our goal is to reach a much higher conversion rate and optimize the shopping experience for Honeymark International and their customers. , says Daniel Green, President of Illumination Consulting (www.illuminationconsulting.com) in Los Angeles.

Skin Care Company Vivoderm Extends Their Business Consulting Agreement For Another 6 Months With Skin Care Business Consulting Firm Illumination Consulting

Illumination Consulting a business consulting firm who has helped numerous skin care companies over the last few years is Vivoderm’s choice again to assist with company’s growth and 2010 goals.

Los Angeles, CA, February 10, 2010 – Vivoderm a natural skin care company based out of Los Angeles has decided to extend their relationship with Illumination Consulting for another 6 months. Vivoderm has worked now with Illumination Consulting for 2 years. During the last two years Illumination Consulting has provided Vivoderm with an array of services such as general business consulting, marketing services, product development, packaging, advertising, PR, and website design including ecommerce implementation for their skin care products.

“We love working with companies as dynamic as Vivoderm. We are very grateful to have Vivoderm extend their contract with us for another six months.  We have worked very closely with our client over the last two years to support them with their company goals. We have very aggressive marketing plan in place for the skin care industry on behalf of our client and this will be our main focus for the first half of 2010, says Daniel Green, President of Illumination Consulting (www.illuminationconsulting.com) in Los Angeles.

Top 10 Website Design Tips For Skin Care Company Websites

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