"How Can I Double My Sales?" - that must be the silent prayer of thousands of webmasters.

There are two ways to do it: you can either double your traffic or you can double your conversion rate.

Let's say you have a conversion rate of 2% (1 sale for every 50 visitors) and you get 100 visitors a day - you're getting 2 sales a day. You could get 4 sales a day by increasing your traffic to 200 visitors a day.

But you can get the same result - with your existing traffic - by doubling your conversion rate (2 sales for every 50 visitors).

Here are 5 ways to double your conversion rate:

(1) Direct Response: Make sure your website is a 'Direct Response Website'. A DRW is a site where the only options are to Buy, Bookmark, or Leave. The more options you give your visitor, the less likely they are to buy.

(2) Free E-Books: Include Free E-Books as bonus gifts with your product. This can easily double your sales - especially if the Free E-Books are genuinely useful. Here are some places you can find Free E-Books:

http://www.free-ebooks.net/ http://www.ebookdirectory.com/ http://www.ebooksnbytes.com/download.html

(3) Testimonials: Make sure you have plenty of testimonials on your website. Preferably, they should be from customers who have achieved results from your product (e.g. more traffic, more sales, saved time etc).

(4) Follow Up: You've probably heard this over and over again but it's worth repeating - people have to see you your message about 7 times before they buy. The biggest mistake you can make is to try and sell your product on the first contact alone.

It just doesn't work, and the statistics bear this out: the 1st contact produces 2% of sales, the 5th to 12th contact produce 80% of sales.

So in your ezine ads and at your website, offer something free in exchange for an email address. And then follow up with sequential (or follow-up) autoresponders.

Here are some sites that offer free follow-up autoresponders:

http://www.auto-responders.net http://www.informationbyemail.com http://www.getresponse.com/orderfree.html http://www.rapidreply.net/free_features.htm

(5) Backend Sales: It's no secret that successful businesses make up to 80% of their sales from previous customers. Why? Because people who have bought from you before are much more likely to buy from you again (they know you, they trust you, they were happy with your product).

The hard work in marketing is getting a customer. Once you have a customer, they'll buy from you over and over again.

Contact your previous customers and let them know about another product that compliments the product or service they bought from you. Experts reckon that the value of 'a lifetime customer' lasts about 3 years - make use if it.

If you follow these 5 tips, you may well find that you can double your online sales with the traffic you already have.

To your success!