Posted by Creating a Website which is easy to navigate and provides a positive and memorable experience for your customers is vital for your online success. You have to look at your Website as your “Storefront” – first impressions are extremely important and you have to make sure that your visitor stays aroung long enough to make that all important purchase! Let’s take a look at five Tips to creating a website that sells.
Tip #1 An Interactive site will help engage your customers.
As the internet continues to grow and evolve it’s becoming more important to create a community around your business. To accomplish this you want to engage your visitors and customers. There are a number of ways to accomplish this. You can:
* Provide a forum for your visitors to interact on
* Post surveys or polls
* Allow visitors and customers to review or rank items. For example a “How valuable was this article?” question and a scale of 1 to 5 stars or a ranking from 1-10.
* Offer a blog and encourage comments and feedback
* Host contests and sweepstakes
* Using video and audio content is a great way for visitors to access you and your personality.
Tip #2 Your Website needs to provide value.
Why do people go online? It could be for a number of reasons. They could be searching for solutions to specific problems; they could be looking for certain products to buy, or they could simply be looking for some entertainment. Provide all three; products, information, and entertainment and you are in a great position. The good news is your content can provide both the information and the entertainment and when written well, can also inspire purchases. You can provide value for your customers and prospects by including the following on your website:
* “How to” articles, videos, and audio
* Tips articles, videos, and audio
* Case studies
* Workbooks and reports
* Interviews with experts in your specific niche
* Product reviews
Tip #3 Make sure your website is easy to navigate.
Visitors to your website take about 20 seconds to make a decision about whether they’re going to stay or click away. Make sure you have a proper layout, with products and services, information, prices, FAQs, and content easy to find and you will find that people will be more likely to hang around – the longer they stay on your site the more likely they are to make a purchase or to return again.
Consider the follwing points to make your site easier to Navigate:
* Keep it simple.
* Make sure your pages are uniform with the same menu options and appearance.
* If you have a lot of content, great! Use drop down menus and organize your content by topic for easier access.
* Providing a search function allows users to search for products, services, or content topics quickly and easily.
* Make sure users can easily go back to previous pages. A back key is an option however if every page has the same options and drop down menus, including the ability to quickly return to the home page, a visitor will always be able to find what they need.
* It’s a good idea to test your website’s appearance on different browsers to ensure that every visitor has a good experience and can view the information correctly.
Tip #4 Make sure your website is easy on the eyes.
Ever visit a website where the text was so small or the colors so incompatible that you couldn’t read a word? Readability is critical to a selling website.
Small text or incompatible and bright colors can be a terrible off put. It’s imperative that your visitors are able to read your website properly, if not your sales will suffer! Make sure of the following:
* Your colors are easy on the eyes,
* Your graphics aren’t distracting
* Keep formatting like underlining, bold and italics to a minimum.
* Make sure that spacing between sentences and paragraphs is adequate
* Ensure that font size is large and easy enough for people to read.
Tip #5 Use a “Soft Sell” approach.
You have to remember that on the Internet people are extremely wary – They are expecting to be sold to and they’re looking for it. Try and avoid hitting them with a “Hard Sell” and try instead to solve their problems by providing useful information, showing them the benefits that your products or services can provide for them. I assure you that they will appreciate this approach a lot more and as a result will be much more receptive to your sales message.
Follow the approach outlined above and you will be well on your way to providing your website visitors and customers with a positive experience. It is always a good idea to test out your website on family, friends or work colleagues and get their opinions as they will often be able to spot issues that you may have missed.
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