If your website is not getting any traffic, focus on that first (unless your web site is really terrible).
Make it easy for your visitors to contact you. Is your phone number visible at the top of every single page? Is the Contact Us page easy to find? Once people reach your contact us page, are you providing them with a contact form, email address, a phone number, and mailing address? If you have a fax number, include that, too. Even if you have a contact form, include an email address. Have a toll-free number. It’s only $10 a month. Display a physical address, not a PO Box. Most people don’t want to deal with online companies that do not have a phone number and a physical address displayed on their website.
Use your analytics tool to find out what information people are looking for. Maybe there is one product that gets a lot more attention than all the others. Once you’ve found out what information people are looking for, make it more prominent and easier to find.
Have intuitive navigation.
Your website is a marketing tool. A nice design is really important, but good copy is equally important. Don’t depend on cool graphics to make the sale. Use your words to convince them to buy from you. Each website has to answer two questions using bullet-points:
- Why your visitors should buy what you sell
- Why they should buy it FROM YOU. (What sets you apart from the competition? Make sure that what makes you different from your competitors is of value to your customers.)
Make the text easy to read. Keep your sentences and paragraphs short, and concise. Don’t go over 6-7 lines per paragraph. Use bold text to highlight the most important part of each paragraph. Use bullets as they are a great way to summarize your main points.
Show your accreditations. If you are a member of the BBB or your local chamber of commerce, show the badges on your website. If you process credit cards online get VeriSign verified and get PayPal verified if you accept PayPal. If you’ve earned awards or are linked to an industry association, your website is a great opportunity to show your credentials.
Reduce sign-up and checkout times. If a piece of information is not vital to your business, don’t ask for it. If you really need to ask for a lot of information, get the names and email address in the first step. That way, if they don’t complete the registration/checkout process at least you know who they are and can remind them to finish the process later.
Avoid mistakes with your contact form. If your contact form has a CAPTCHA (that weird strings of characters that you need to type to prove you are human), get rid of it. CAPTCHA codes are annoying, and depending on your audience 10-50% will leave if you ask them to prove they are human.
Avoid having a “clear” button next to the “send” button. Many people browse the Internet intuitively. They don’t read everything they click on. If they spend 5 minutes filling in a form and then erase all the information by clicking on the wrong button, chances are they are not going to go over the whole process again. What is the purpose of a Clear button anyway?
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