How Do I Track Phone Sales From the Web?

Most businesses don't have a shopping cart on their website. The majority of businesses online don't sell directly online, they require personal contact to make the sale.

So how do you track sales that originated from a phone call generated by the web?

There are several ways to accomplish this varying from the low-tech and easy to put into action to the costly and complicated.

• Dedicated Phone Number: The easiest thing to do would be to purchase a separate line or lines that are listed in specific venues online. It has its limitations, but for most small businesses it will work.
  
  You can purchase additional lines from your phone company, cell company  or Yellow Book vendor.
• Call Me Button: This option is for the convenience of the customer, they click a button requesting that someone calls them within a short period of time. No waiting on hold or navigating a maze of pre-recorded messages.
  
  It is a special online form that the user must fill in and submit to you. Using Text to Speech technology you are called and the information is announced to you.
   
  The trick here is that you must be constantly monitoring the traffic so you can get back to them as fast as possible. Brownie points count!
• Dynamic Number Insertion: Using extremely complex coding on your site, your website can display specific numbers depending upon where the traffic came from. If the viewer came from a search engine or pay-per-click ad . . . different phone numbers would be displayed.

Your options can be complex and in many cases, more trouble than they are worth . . . unless you don't have to re-invent the wheel.

Enter service providers that specialize in providing these services. They provide you with everything you need to make this type of call tracking as plug-n-play as is possible including the ability to view reports.

There of course is a financial investment required for all of these solutions. Many small business owners may be restricted by price, but it is important to do what you can. Data on where your leads are coming from is vital in determining how much you should invest in different types of advertising. 

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It is a well known fact that regular oil changes for your car will increase performance and the life of your engine.

Keeping your website up to date will increase your mileage with the search engines. This translates into more visitors and more customers.

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Proceed with Caution!

In today's cyber world of social media with its likes and dislikes it is important to be careful.

I don't have to say much about the power of an accidental tweet . . . just ask a certain politician about that one.

Giving your endorsement will help those you endorse as well as yourself. People respect others when they offer testimonials . . . especially positive ones.

You do need to make sure that you are sincere in your endorsement . . . even if that endorsement is nothing more than clicking the like button.

I had to laugh at Jay Leno this past April . . . not because he is a comedian, but because of a choice he made in endorsing a guest.

He had a tax preparation specialist on the show that owns a national tax preparation firm. They offer, among their preparation services, tax advice for a fee. It all seemed fine until I saw a report on the news the following day.

The "expert" is being investigated by the Federal Government for several things related to his tax firm . . . the general gist was that they were giving bad advice and helping people file fraudulent returns. 

Proceed with caution when giving endorsements. You will want to make sure you have experience with the people you are endorsing, after all it is your reputation too.

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