In our new online world your business MUST have a website if you don’t you might as well not exist for the the millions of users who access the internet to find a restaurant, shoe store or simply to look for answers to solve a problem. Your business website is the equivalent to having signage on the street. The impact it has on your visitors is essential to your success. Provide a memorable experience and your audience is like to return, do just the opposite and your site will quickly begin to collect virtual dust in this over crowded world.Let’s take a look at five keys to creating a website that sells.
Key #1 Make your website interactive.
As the competition increases on the internet it’s becoming increasingly more important to build a community around your business. It’s important to figure out ways to engage your visitors and customers, you can do this a few different ways – here’s some samples…
- Have a forum (something like a bulletin board in the virtual world, your audience can come and post comments and get feedback on their issues). Wordpress has a great interactive, quick to install system called BuddyPress that can foster a full blown community.
- Post surveys or polls – ask you audience what they want to see. Using a service like SurveyMonkey can make the process quick and easy.
- Enable visitors and customers to review or rank items. For example a “How valuable was this article?” question and a scale of 1 to 5 stars or a ranking from 1-10. The GD Star Rating plugin can be added to your blog to give your audience a chance to rate your pages, posts. Hey why not rate this post when you’ve finished reading it!
- Offer a blog and inspire comments and feedback
- Publish video and audio content as well as written content. This gives users another way to access you and your personality.
My Insight – this is an area where I know I can improve. What about you? Which of the items mentioned could you implement in the next week? Don’t have time? Consider working with an Online Business Manager or Virtual Assistant to accomplish you goal.
Key #2 Make sure your website provides value.
More and more going online is becoming the default step to research a potential purchase, seek answers or solutions for a problem or to simply be entertained. If you can have your website accomplish all three of these then you should be able to drive traffic to your site without too much issue. So make your content provide a rich experience by giving your audience the information in an entertaining and engaing format can help to continue to bring your audience back and revisit. What types of content can you provide, here a few examples…
- Articles, videos and audios that answer, “How do I…….?”
- Articles, videos and audio that provide tips. These don’t have to been long, as long as they provide great value. (My client and friend, Angela Crocker of Beachcomber Communications provides a great weekly Social Media Minute – learn great tips about social media in just a few minutes and is a great example of valuable content that’s quick and easy to digest.)
- Case studies (Many find Case Studies useful when seeking resourceful information about a particular topic or wanting to learn how others have done things.)
- Workbooks and reports (I’m going to be launching a site called “Renee Recommends” that will have just this kind of content focused on Marketing, Websites and Business Management.)
- Interviews with experts
- Product reviews
Key #3 Make sure your website is easy to navigate.
20 seconds, that’s all you have. Your new visitor on average takes 20 seconds to decide whether or not they’re going to stick around. Ensuring that your site is laid out nicely, with products and services, information, prices, FAQs and your content easy to find then folks are more likely to stick around. (I know I have a few things I want to improve on my site, what about you?). It comes down to this…the easier it is for your visitors to find stuff on your site, the more likely they will stick around and in turn eventually purchase something from you.
To make your site easy to navigate consider:
- Keeping your site simple.
- Keep your pages uniform with the same options and appearance.
- If you have a lot of content, great! Use drop down menus and organize your content by topic for easier access.
- Offer a search function where users can search for products, services, or content topics quickly and easily.
- Provide a way for users to easily go back to previous pages A back key is an option however if every page has the same options and drop down menus, including the ability to quickly return to the home page, a visitor will always be able to find what they need. (I have a Breadcrumb option set up on mysite – when you go away from the home page you’ll see the directory right under the navigation bar, it says “You are here:……”. )
- Test your website’s appearance on different browsers to make sure every visitor has a good experience.
Key #4 Make your website easy on the eyes.
Readability is critical to a selling website. Make sure:
- Your colors are easy on the eyes,
- Your graphics aren’t distracting
- And keep formatting like underlining, bold and italics to a minimum.
- Spacing between sentences and paragraphs is adequate
- Font size is large enough for people to read and font is easy to read
Key #5 Give them a soft sell.
People expect to be sold to and they’re looking for it – they’re wary. Instead of hitting website visitors with a hard sell, provide information, solve their problems and show them the benefits of your products or services. They’ll be much more receptive and appreciative.
Creating a website that sells requires a structured approach and a desire to create the best experience possible for your visitors. Once you’ve created your website, consider testing it and asking associates, friends and family for their opinion.