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Making sure that your website is visitor friendly can increase the
sales you make. If your website is hard to navigate, slow to load, hard
to look at, or hard to understand, your visitor will hit the back
button, and you will lose a sale.
The following tips can help to make your website as visitor friendly as it can be.
1. Begin by making sure that your site loads in the visitors
browser as quickly as it can. Graphics should be optimized as much as
possible so that they load faster. Website visitors are not patient. If
the page takes too long to load, they will hit the back button, and you
will never see them again. Compare this to owning a traditional
business. If your customers find that it takes alot of time and work to
find a parking space when they visit your store, they are likely to
stop visiting, or to visit less often.
2. Is your sales copy easy to understand? Have several people
read over your copy to make sure that it is the best that it can be.
Make sure that people with different levels of experience and education
can understand what you are saying. Make sure that everything is
spelled correctly, and that all of the sentences make sense.
3. Does your sales copy do what you intended? Your sales copy
must not only convince the visitor that they need your product or
service, it must also convince them that buying the product or service
from you is their best choice. You only have a few seconds to get the
visitors attention. Once you have their attention, you must keep it.
Create a headline that either explains what your product is, and how it
can improve the lives of your visitors, or a headline that shows the
visitor that you know what their problem is, and how to solve it.
4. Give your visitors some direction. What should they do next?
Avoid cluttering up the site with too many links and options. This can
be overwhelming to the visitor. You want to lead the visitor through
the site, from one page - or one step - to the next. Close to the end
of the journey, the visitor should be convinced that they need the
product or service, and that you are the one to buy it from. The end of
the journey should result in a sale.
5. Make the text readable. This refers not only to the size and
type of font that you use, but to how you place the text on the page as
well. Long lines sentences, and long paragraphs should be avoided. It
is also a good idea to use sub-headings to break up the text. The
sub-heads also encourage the reader to keep reading.
6. Make it easy for visitors to interact with your page. Make
printer friendly versions of important pages, and direct your visitors
to it. Place a subscribe box on every page to capture the visitors
email address. Add a link inviting the visitor to share the page with a
friend. Consider adding a forum to your site as well.
7. Make sure that the visitor can contact you easily, and
encourage them to do so. Website owners who fail to provide their
visitors with a way to contact them lose sales. Building trust is
difficult. If the visitor cannot contact you, it is even more
difficult, if not impossible. Create a feedback form on your site, and
make sure that you let visitors know your policy on answering email.
Let them know that you answer all email, and how long it may take for
you to respond to them.
8. Encourage your visitor to return. Place a link that allows the
visitor to add your site to their bookmarks on every page. Let the
visitor know how often the site is updated. You may even consider
telling your visitors what is "coming soon" to your website. This
should not be "under construction" pages, but simply a message that
tells your visitors what will be added to the site during the next
update. You should also encourage them to sign up for your newsletter
so that you can inform them when new features are added.
9. Make your site memorable. You can easily make your site
memorable by using a unique logo, and by offering your visitors some
type of free service. The visitor should be required to return to the
site in order to use the service. Require visitors to register to use
the service, then send them reminders often that the service is there.
10. Make your site easy to find. Have you listed your site everywhere?
Are you using a signature file? Are you promoting the site offline?
What about keywords and search engine optimization? You can build it,
but they aren't coming until you tell them it is there. With a
traditional business, people can easily drive down the street and see
your sign and your business. This doesn't happen on the Internet. It
takes alot of time and work to make your site easy to find, but the
sales that result from that work make it well worth it.
About the Author: Monique Danielle owns Portland Marketing Agency DivaDesignWorld.com,
a full service firm that offers web development, graphic design,
consulting, and a wide variety of creative services. She is also
the founder of divadirectories.com,
a free online resource designed to promote the growth and development
of female business owners throughout Oregon, Washington, and the
Northwest.
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