The two components of network marketing are, well, networking and marketing. Networking is all about building relationships with lots of people. Marketing is about selling -- whether you are selling yourself, your business opportunity or your product. Your website doesn't have to be huge in order to sell successfully. In fact, some of the websites with the highest conversion rates are little more than a sales letter. So, how do you build a successful website for your network marketing business? I'll show you how in 7 easy steps.

1. Your Headline

You want this to be big and bold. This is where you have to make an outrageous claim that will grab the attention of your prospect. Don't lie, just clearly state the best possible outcome of your service, opportunity or product. At the bottom of your webpage, you can always add a disclaimer that results are highly individual.

2. Testimonials

Now that you've made an outrageous claim, you need to back it up. Granted, this may be difficult to do if you are new and don't have a lot of customers yet who will vouch for your integrity and that of your product. But, don't despair. When an author writes a book, he sends the manuscript out to a variety of people hoping that they will read and write a brief review which then gets printed on the book cover. You can do the same thing. If you are selling your services, provide free services for a few people in exchange for their testimonial. If you are selling products, provide some free samples to people and ask them to write a brief testimonial. If you are trying to recruit people into your business opportunity, have your upline or crossline write a testimonial for your website. If you can't manage to get a testimonial, then it just might be because you truly don't have anything worthwhile to sell!

3. Problem/Story

Here is where you want to set the stage and draw on your prospect's emotions. You can either tell your own personal story or someone else's -- even someone you don't know personally. But, use a story to illustrate the problem that your service, opportunity or product will solve. Stories humanize your sales pitch.

4. Solution/Benefits

In this section, you want to explain how what you have to offer will solve the problems you just talked about. You want to go heavy on the benefits. If you are offering a money-making opportunity, don't just talk about the money, talk about the benefits of having the money. What will extra money give you? If you are selling a health product, don't just talk about health, but talk about the benefits of being healthy.

5. Call to action

Now that you have made an outrageous claim, backed it up with testimonials, drawn on the prospects' emotions, and told them the benefits of what you have to offer, you have to ask them to take some sort of action. This is where you give them the opportunity to provide their contact information, or purchase the product. Two additional items to consider in this step are any freebies or discounts you may have to offer, and setting a deadline for action. Maybe you are only looking for five associates, or you have only 100 items available for purchase, or you will offer a 25% discount on your services if they respond by midnight. Make your prospect have a reason to respond now, not later. It's a known fact in sales, if you don't get the sale before they walk out of your store (or click off of your website), you probably never will. "Be backs" rarely come back.

6. Guarantee

Because we live in an age of skepticism, it's helpful to offer a guarantee on your services or products. Make sure you set a specific time limit (30 days, 60 days, 90 days) -- and make sure you hold to your guarantee. If you aren't convinced your product is so good you won't end up refunding every dollar you earn, then don't offer a guarantee. But, you should also rethink your product. If you can't guarantee it, then work on improving it until you can.

7. Summarize

First you tell them what you are going to tell them (headline). Then you tell them. Now, you want to sum it up by telling them what you told them. Punch your biggest benefit and the time limit in the summary section, and end with another call to action, emphasizing that they need to act before it's too late.

Try this with your website, and see if your conversion rate doesn't improve.

Until next time...