Sea Monkeys are little people aren't they?

What makes people almost buy your affiliate marketing idea?

What makes them get most of the way there and then drop out of your stats at the last page? (check your Google Analytics for examples)

What makes them stare at your home page for a minute, an eternity in surfer time, looking at what you have to say then move on to something else?

It turns out there’s a hideous troll hiding under the bridge. Every time you get close to making a sale, the troll springs out and scares your prospect away. Get rid of the troll and your copy will start converting better than it ever has before.

The ugly, smelly, dirty, bad-mannered troll is prospect FEAR

And it’s sitting there right now, stinking up your landing page and scaring good customers away.

Fear of wasting money

Remember when you were a kid and you went to the carnival that came to your town? After eating all the pink fluffy sugar you could manage — and nearly chucking it all back up again on the fast spinning waltzers, you see the ping pong balls that you lob into goldfish bowls. Easy Remember that persuasive bloke who convinced you to spend a whole month’s pocket money throwing them at the gaping openings

It looked so easy. He showed you exactly how to do it. Toss the ball land it in the bowl, win a cool stuffed animal for a prize. Simple.

You spent ages trying to do it yourself.

When all your pennies were gone, you got an inkling. It looked easy, but if you were actually standing at the throw line, it was pretty close to impossible. Now the carnival guy had all your money, and you didn’t even have a huge stuffed bear to show for it.

The troll of FEAR is born.

Fear of mockery

When the sting of the carnival wore off, you were innocently minding your own business and ran across an ad for an amazing product called Sea-Monkeys.

They were little people!

And they had tails!

They looked pretty awesome on the cover of the package. You begged your parents to get them for you and told everybody you knew. Your little brother. Your best friend. Your entire class.

This was going to be so cool.

The ad said you could even teach them to do tricks. You planned on getting them medicine, vitamins, special formulas, everything they needed to be the happiest pets ever.

You followed the instructions to the letter. You waited breathlessly.

You told anyone and everyone how amazing this was going to be.

It turns out the Sea-Monkeys were just brine shrimp. No way did they resemble little people.

They resemble fish food, which is what they are.

Your little brother, your best friend, and your entire class now thought you were an idiot.

And they delighted in letting you know that at every opportunity.

Your credibility has suddenly gone.

Fear of feeling stupid

Every time we’re betrayed by a sleazy salesperson we become doubters. The troll grows. Our mistrust grows and our inclination to believe shrinks.

And then a blogger shows up with a helpful article or podcast episode that will solve a problem that’s been really bothering us. Let’s call that content marketer … you.

We want to believe you. We want to get the benefit from what you have to offer. We want to have something — anything — work out the way it was promised.

We would love to be able to trust our own judgment.

But the troll keeps whispering in our ear, with his truly horrendous breath, how stupid we’re going to feel when we fall for that again.

How to kill the troll

Be honest and trustworthy with good advice and good content. These things and just plain old decency are your best weapons to combat the troll.

Everything on your site needs to show you can be trusted: Real contact information. Your photograph. Thorough responses to FAQs. Clear, reasonable calls to action.

Every detail matters. Everything you do needs to build trust and kill the troll.

Little thing like setting up your email account which uses your domain are also trust builders. What other things do you recommend that build trust.. comment below please :)