In the physical world you can easily sell a product by your interacting behavior and your marketing tactics. But in the e-world where there is no face to face interaction and all marketing is totally a game of your site's interaction with your visitor which may desperately to turn them into your healthy customers.
While designing your site you must know who your target people are and what are their needs and will your website turns to be beneficial for them. A website's form and content is what will determine if a visitor will stay just a visitor or turn into your next customer. Today we will discuss how to accomplish the later.
To succeed at your online business (whether you are selling your own product/service or are selling for other merchants as an affiliate), you need a Web site created just for that - a simple, focused site. One that is easy to build, maintenance-free, low cost, credible, and a powerful traffic-builder and customer-converter.
Having the right tool and the right product alone doesn’t insure the success of your website. There are many factors to be considered while designing a site. Unfortunately, most of these are easily ignored by Internet business owners.
Build It for Speed
It's a fact of modern life - people are in a hurry. This means that you have between 10 and 30 seconds to capture your potential customer's attention. To minimize your load time, keep graphics small. Compress them where possible. Use flashy technology (JavaScript, Flash, Streaming Audio/Video, animation) sparingly and only if it is important to your presentation.
Target your Market
Know who your market is and make certain that your site caters to their needs. It is critical that your site reflect the values of your potential customers. Is your market mostly business professionals? If so, the site must be clean and professional. Is your product aimed mostly a teenagers and young adults? Then your site could be more informal and relaxed. The key here is to know your market and build the site to their preferences.
Focus the Site
Make certain your web site is focused on the goal, selling your product or service. A site offering many unrelated products is not necessarily unfocused, but this is often the case. If your business does offer many products, dedicate a unique page for each instead of trying to sell them all from one page. Selling all products on the same page may annoy your customers and he may never comeback to your site.
Credibility Is Crucial
The most professionally designed site won't sell if your customers don't believe in you. A clear privacy statement is one way to build your credibility. Provide a prominent link to your privacy statement from every page on the site as well as from any location that you are asking your visitors for personal information. Provide legitimate contact information on line. Make them sure that their information is not disclose to anybody at any price.
Navigation should be simple
Make site navigation easy and intuitive. Your all pages should reachable within three clicks. Simple and smooth navigation adds to the convenience of the visitors. Add powerful search and catalog features. Many times a lot of visitors do not have the patience to navigate through the whole website to find what they are looking for. A simple navigation may hold your site's visitor for a long time and ay create a chance of some more bucks for you to enjoy your weekend.
Consistency is the key
Make sure the site is consistent in look, feel and design. Nothing is more jarring and disturbing to a customer than feeling as if they have just gone to another site. eep colors and themes constant throughout the site.
Make your site interactive and personalized
Make your website interactive. Add feedback forms as well as email forms that allow your prospective customers to ask you any questions they might have pertaining to a product. Personalization of your website is another key element that can lead to customer delight and can increase your sales. Personalization technology provides you the analytic tools to facilitate cross-selling and up-selling when the customer is buying online. It would give you an idea of what products to cross-sell and up-sell. For example, when a person buys a CD player, a disc cleaner can also be offered.
Content is King
Good content sells a product. Ask yourself the following questions. Does your copy convey the message you wish to get across to your visitors? Is it compelling? Does it lead your visitor through the sales process? Have others review, critique and edit your copy to insure it is delivering the intended message.
Always double check your spelling and grammar. Well its contents that talks with your customers so make it to the point.
These eight, simple rules will go a long way toward the improvement of your website and most importantly, turn visitors into loyal customers.
By Raamakant S, Author of "The e Success Code"
