Looking Good On The Web
Turning website traffic into business
By Janet
Attard, Business Know-How
You bit the bullet. You set up a website because new prospects and
existing customers kept asking you for your website address. Then, too,
there were all those stories you kept hearing about small companies
bringing in significant business through their web sites. So, you paid a
web developer thousands of dollars to put your business on the web, or
spent countless hours of your own time learning enough about the web and
about html to put up the site yourself.
But your site's been up a couple of months and you haven't gotten a
single sale you can trace to the website. What happened? What's wrong?
What do you need to do to make your website start bringing you business?
Here are several tips that will help you fine tune your site to make it a
more effective marketing tool.
Make sure your site looks professional
Take a hard, cold look at your site - or ask a friend who will be
brutally honest to look at the site. Does it look professional? Are the
graphics professional-quality and clear? Are the fonts, font sizes, and
font colors used in a consistent way? Or does your site include design
flaws like these that immediately mark it as an amateur production:
- Photos that are squeezed or stretched out of proportion
- Multiple elements on the page that are blinking, bouncing,
scrolling, or turning in circles
- Multiple styles of type used for headlines and body copy
- Colored background graphics or textures that make it difficult to
read the type
- Background graphics that are inappropriate for the content of the
site (eg.: bubbles on a site selling bookkeeping services)
- Text blocks that are out of alignment
First impressions matter on the web, just as they do anywhere else. And
the first impression your site makes should be one of professionalism and
appropriateness for the markets you serve.
Don't use the name of your company as the web page title
Every web page has a windows-style title bar. The title that appears in
that title bar is determined by what you include in the title "tag" in the
html code for the page. You or your web site designer may be tempted to
make the name of your company the title of the page, or at least to put
the name of your company first in the title. After all, it's nice to see
your name in "lights," even if it is just on the web.
That's not a good idea, however, unless the name of your business
includes a descriptive term that someone looking for your services would
search for to find what you sell. The reason: Search engines place heavy
emphasis on the words in the title bar. Like the text on your page, the
closer the text in the title bar matches the term a web surfer is
searching for, the higher your site will rank when the results of the
search are displayed.
Don't let your home page be a flash presentation
Flash is a technology that allows you to put animated presentations and
demos on the web. Designers love it because it shows off their multimedia
skills, to say nothing of increasing the amount they can charge for the
site. Business owners often think it makes their site look impressive and
make their businesses appear to be on the cutting edge.
But, Flash presentations can make your web page take a long time to
load. Search engines don't pick them up, and they often annoy visitors who
come to your site for product information or facts in a hurry, not
entertainment. If you have a product or service that benefits from an
animated demonstration, make that one of the choices on your home page (eg.:
"Watch a demo.") Don't make the Flash presentation the entire home page.
And if your products or services don't need an animated demo, don't use
the technology at all.
Focus the home page and product pages on your customers' interests,
not yours
You're proud of your business and your accomplishments. (As you should
be.) So, it's tempting to write a lengthy description of your business
accomplishments and run it on your home page with a big photo of yourself,
your building and/or your employees, saying, "We're here to serve you."
But prospects and customers aren't coming to your site to learn about all
the great things you've accomplished. They're coming to your site to find
out what you sell and how it will help them.
Get their attention with benefits-oriented headline and text. The
headline should make clear what you do and suggest a benefit. For example,
"Fast, accurate transcription for Monroe County Medical Offices and
Hospitals," or "Phone systems that grow with your business."
Don't toss out that company information, though. After you interest the
customer in your products or services, they may want to know more about
your company before deciding to do business with you. So, if the purpose
of your web site is to sell your product or services, make the company
information a link off your home page, not the focal point of the home
page.
Avoid a cluttered look
If you sell multiple products, you want them all to be found. And if
you are being billed by the number of "pages" on your web site, you may
want to keep costs down. But don't try to squeeze dozens of images or
product descriptions on a single page. The page will look cluttered and
make it difficult for visitors to find the products or information they
want.
Instead, put small photos of a few of your best-sellers or most
representative products on the home page, and then have links to other
products in your catalog. Break up the links into logical categories. For
instance, if you sell sandals, you might have categories for women's
sandals, men's sandals, and children's sandals. If you sell footwear, you
might have pages for men's footwear, women's footwear, and children's
footwear, and then break down each of those pages into categories such as
sneakers, shoes, sandals.
Minimize graphic sizes to make sure your pages load quickly
Photos and other graphic images make your pages look appealing and
help illustrate what you sell. So, they are important to include. But
don’t let the size of graphics slow down your web site. In most cases,
images should be thumbnail size - no more than 1 to 1 1/2 inches in size.
If a larger image is needed to properly display an item, then you can add
a link that says "Click here to see a larger image." That way big images
that take a long time to display will only be displayed by people who
really need to see a bigger picture.
Be sure you've included important supporting information
To turn web surfers into customers, you'll want to provide enough
supporting information about what you sell to make them feel comfortable
buying from you. If you sell software, for instance, you'll need
information about what platform the software uses, compatibility with
other products, system requirements, and links to press reviews, if any.
If you sell graphic design services, the "supporting information" you need
should include a portfolio of work you've done. If you provide consulting
services, it would be a good idea to include case studies describing
client problems, what you did to solve them and how they benefited as a
result. (Be sure to get the client's permission before using their name in
this way on your site.) A page with testimonials from satisfied customers
is beneficial as well.
Make sure it's easy to place an order
Imagine how annoyed you'd be if you ran into the supermarket to pick
up a container of milk, and couldn't find the checkout counter? Website
visitors are no different. They will get annoyed if they have to scroll up
and down or side to side to find a place to order from you. Avoid the
problem by keeping pages short and including a buy now button or link in
the same location on every page. A good location is just below the text
that describes any product or service.
Be sure your contact information is easy to find
Customers not only want to know what you sell and who you are, they
want to know how to reach you. They may have questions about the
merchandise you are selling, want to know who they can contact if there is
a problem with their order, or prefer talking to a "real person" instead
of ordering online. Avoid losing sales by including your phone number,
store location (if you have one) and phone number on every page.
Share links with other businesses in your community
The tips above will help you get found in search engines and help make
your pages more appealing to potential customers. But even in the Internet
age, business still has as much to do with who you know as what you do. So
talk to business owners who sell different products and services than you
do, but serve the same market. Help get each others' pages found by
swapping links and giving each other referrals.
About the author
Janet Attard is the founder of
the award-winning Business
Know-How small business web site and information resource. Janet is
also the author of The
Home Office And Small Business Answer Book and of Business
Know-How: An Operational Guide For Home-Based and Micro-Sized Businesses with
Limited Budgets.
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