Have you ever asked yourself the question “What is it that some sites have to make them thrive and others fall short?” You aren’t the only one but rest assured that the answers to these questions are much more simple than you think. We are about to share with you 10 tips to better your site.
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Speed is the Key
In today’s society speed is a huge factor. People don’t have time to wait around for something. This is just as true for the internet. You only have 15 seconds to impress your viewer with your site and if 14 of those seconds are spend waiting for your site to load, chances are that they won’t come back. It seems that the faster technology gets, the faster people want things to be. You need to take steps to ensure that your load time is as quick as possible. Things like keeping graphics to a minimal, keeping them small, using Flash in moderation only where it is absolutely essential.
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De-Clutter
You want your site to cater to your target market so therefore you need to know exactly who your target market is. It is imperative that your site reflects your potential customers properly. Your site will consist of a certain look and feel if you are targeting business professionals rather than if you are targeting teenagers.
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Focus
Your site should be focused on one thing. What is the goal of the company? If it is to inform than that is the focus, if it is to sell a certain product than that is the focus. If your site offers a variety of products or services, keep it clean by dedicating one page to each. As important as cross selling and up selling are, you don’t want your potential client to feel as if they are in a bait and switch situation so keep it to a subtle minimum.
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Credibility is Vital
It doesn’t matter what your site looks like, who endorses your product, or what you say if your customers don’t believe in you. The internet comes with a certain level of mistrust due to its nature. Your site must overcome that to become successful. One way to build credibility is to include a clear privacy statement on your site. A link should be included on each page as well as any page that you may be asking for any personal information from the viewer. Provide full contact information including, address, email, mailing address, phone number and fax number. If you are not willing to provide this information to your customers how can you expect them to trust you?
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Guarantees are Good
This is another way to build creditability. Offer a no exceptions money back guarantee. This is one of the best ways to gain a customer’s trust by eliminating any doubts they may have in you from the beginning. If a customer sees that you follow through with your word, they will instantly have more trust in you.
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Payment Needs to be Easy
You need to have a variety of payment options available for your customer. Accept checks on line, provide a mailing address for customers who would like to pay in cash, accept credit cards. If you don’t currently have one of these payment methods, get it. Ensure that any payment process is clear and easy to understand. Don’t ask for information that is not necessary and reduce the amount of steps possible. Privacy is key, if a customer feels that their privacy is at risk they will run faster than you can say “but…”
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Make Navigation Simple
The look of a site is one thing but regardless of how you site looks if a customer cannot navigate through your site without getting frustrated then you have a major problem. Customers don’t have time to figure out how to work your site, they will just find another one that they can navigate through properly. Direct your potential customers through the sales process and limit the choices they have to navigate away from that.
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Make it Consistent
The look, feel and design of your site must be consistent. You don’t want your customer to question if they are on the same site or not. That is another quick way to loose them. Keep your colours, layout and themes continuous through your whole site.
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Design for Indexing
Keep in mind that 85% of web users get what they are looking for by looking at the top of the search engines. Your page must be designed to maximize placement by focusing on keywords and keyword density without forfeiting your message. Use your keywords to name your pages and use the meta tag keywords, description and title.
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It’s an Oldie but a Goodie – Content is King
Have people review your content and critique it to ensure that you are getting your point across. Great content sells products. You may need to ask yourself a few things first, is your copy engaging? Does it get your intended message to your potential customers? Will it lead your visitor through the sales process properly? Always and I mean always double check spelling and grammar. It never hurts to double check; it hurts to have a reader see that mistake that you didn’t. it makes them think if you didn’t spend that much time on your own product, why would you spend any time on theirs.
