Turn your website into a workhorse

Putting up a website is an every day occurrence for businesses of all shapes and sizes. Unfortunately there are some common mistakes made on many websites that can detract from the products and services offered, and often times cause a loss of income without your even knowing it.

Here are some hard and fast rules for maximizing the responsiveness of your website:

1. Make the most of your entry page.
Be sure the first page on your site provides a compelling reason for the visitor to explore further. If your main page is cluttered with links, banners and ads, it may be too confusing for a visitor to figure out why they should stay. Conversely, if the main page doesn?t provide much in the way of benefits or interest, there is also no reason for your visitor to delve further into the site. So keep it simple but not bare and be sure it is easy to understand and navigate.

2. Check your text mechanics.
This should go without saying, however you should double and even triple check the spelling, grammar and coherency of your pages. Even the most professional looking pages will loose visitors and sales if there is bad grammar or spelling mistakes everywhere they turn.

3. Give them some meat.
Be sure to provide useful content on your site that is related to the products and services you offer. Try to teach your visitors something. Create informational articles, whitepapers, FAQs or news items that are related to what your visitor wants. When you teach a prospect something, you gain respect, trust and credibility. These are key components in gaining a paying customer!

4. Stay Focused
This should also go without saying, however there are many sites out there that try to be a ?catch all? for their visitors. With this strategy they are hoping that providing many different links, banners and miscellaneous information will help them to increase their chances of making some kind of sale. All this does however is confuse the visitor - especially if they found your site by typing in a specific keyword into a search engine.

Instead, strategically focus your content, links and advertisements on related products and services. Providing continuity in this manner will help to draw visitors further into your site, and provide you with many more opportunities to ?sell? them.

5. Use internal promotions.
If you must have banner and button advertisements on your site, then make sure to advertise yourself as well as others! Having some advertisements that lead offsite is fine if you make money from them and if it is enough income to justify both the loss of space and the loss of your hard earned visitor. Otherwise, use the ad space to strategically draw visitors to additional pages of your website, make purchases on your site, or sign up for your mailing list.
6. Usability Consistency
Use the same design, layout, menu system, colors and effects throughout your website. If a visitor sees one page with the navigation system at the top, and the next page with navigation at the bottom, they will become confused and frustrated - thus not bothering to stick around no matter how badly they wanted your information, services or products.

7. Focus on the Customer
Don?t make the customer work for the sale. If you have products available directly on your site, be sure to include a full description of those products and include a picture where possible as well as the purchase price. I have been to many sites that have one or two of these elements but not all. For instance, some sites show a picture and the name of the product with the price, but they don?t have a description! Even worse are those sites that do a fantastic job of showing and telling - but you have no idea how much the product costs unless you go partially into the ordering process.

If you offer a service then service visitors from the beginning! Be available for immediate email or live followup and support, or again, provide useful information that relates to your services. If you impress them with the information you give away, they will wonder just how much more they can get by paying you.

8. Make sure things work!
I was at the site of a very well known and established home products company recently and I was there to buy. I placed several items into my shopping cart and proceeded to go through the checkout process. After entering my shipping information I clicked continue and fully expected to enter my payment information. Imagine my surprise when instead I was redirected to the catalog page! I tried multiple times to place my order and finally gave up out of frustration. Did I pick up the phone and place the order instead? Nope! It was the middle of the night and I did not want the bother of placing a call, waiting on hold, then explaining to the sales representative what it was that I wanted. So make sure everything works on your site! Test and retest when first setting it all up, then make a habit of randomly testing just to be sure nothing has changed!

Whether you?re just starting out or you are a multi-million dollar corporation, following these simple steps should be the rule - not the exception, . In doing these, you should soon see increased new visitor and customer satisfaction, longer visits to your website, increased word of mouth, and ultimately - increased sales.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Kathy Burns has been a freelance writer for over 15 years and is the owner of Electronic Perceptions, an E-Business, Handheld Computing & Wireless Technology Consulting Company. Visit her website at http://www.electronicperceptions.com for more articles and information or contact her through email at any time. mailto:kathy@electronicperceptions.com