Too many online marketers get caught up in the design of their site. They want it to look pretty. They want it to have cool Java scripts with fading pictures and fonts in all different sizes and color. The purpose of the site is to give your prospect one choice, not try and dazzle the visitor.

The more bells and whistles your site has the less chance your visitor will buy. Testing has shown unequivocally that the most effective website is a simple sales letter one page website.

The second mistake a lot of internet marketers make is to offer too many choices. They mistakenly believe if they put a variety of ebooks, or a number of any other products on their site, they will sell more because the consumer will have more choices.

This couldn't be further from the truth. The fact is, the more choices you give a prospect the less chance they will buy. You want to make sure your prospect has only two choices, buy the product or leave. It is black and white decision. There is no in between.

A simple sales letter as the main part of your website is the most effective sales mechanism. With the technology today audio and video are effective ways to enhance your sales letter. It still comes down to the sales letter. Your sales letter must focus on selling one product and one product only.

If you have 12 products to sell, rather than try and sell all 12 of them from your website, the effective way to do that is to sell them one at a time to your list.

The only time you should not have a sales letter as the main page is if you are only trying to convince your visitor to sign up for your list. This is generally known as a squeeze page as you are trying to squeeze the information from your visitor.

In this case you want a very short message which provides the prospect with a reason to leave his email and name information. The squeeze page should not be any longer than what fits on one screen.

The only goal that a squeeze page has is to collect some information. Nothing else. This should be the only option given the visitor. Either they leave their information or they don't. Again a pure black and white decision.

Remember the cardinal rule of direct marketing. Only give your prospect one and only one decision to make. Buy your product or leave your site. Leave their email and name or leave your site. Always remember your website's purpose. If you do, and you utilize the two websites, the sales letter site selling one product and the squeeze page site only asking for information, you will be a successful internet marketer.