If your website has been online for a while and you have been marketing it either through ads or pay-per-click search engines, it is very likely that you already have some traffic coming to your website on a regular basis. I will tell you how to make more sales by simply improving your existing website. If done correctly you will see increase in sales within days. Please note that this article will not provide you with a "Get rich overnight" scheme, so if you are looking for something like that this article is not for you.
I like to tell my clients to think of their website as brick-and-mortar business. Imagine that you are owner of a store. Customer comes in looking for something that you have to offer. I bet you would know exactly what to do to make a sale. So why not apply the same tactics to your online store. What would bring a visitor to your store and persuade him/her to buy from you? Let's make a list.
Availability of the product
Price
Location of the product in the store
Customer support
Peace of mind that he/she is buying from a real company that will deliver the quality and support your visitor is looking for
Let's now transfer that onto a website. Let's assume that you have the best priced product/service in your industry. What's next?
Location of the product in the store
Just like a real store, you online store has to be easy to navigate and all your products should be easy to find. Make sure to have clear links to all your categories. It is also a good idea to place "what's in my cart" type of box on all pages so that your customer will know what he/she already added there at all times.
Customer Support
Customer support is extremely important for any online business. Because there are no sales people to help your customer, he/she should have access to as many ways of communicating to your company representative as possible. Place your company's phone number, live support button and any other contact information on the prominent spot on every page of your website or at least put a link to contact page.
Making sure customer feels safe buying from you
This aspect is also very important. Because your customer will be buying from a virtual store, he/she have no way of knowing if there is a real company behind the website or is this just a fraudulent store. Place links to about us, terms of service and privacy policy pages on all of your pages. Make sure to put company's mailing address on the contact page.
Sometimes it is a good idea to put pictures of your staff with couple of sentences about them. That way customer feels a personal touch and knows there are real people behind your website.
Notify your customers that your website is 100% secure and they don't have to worry when providing their credit card information during the checkout process. You might also consider to get verified by services like Better Business Bureau or VeriSign. Having their seals of approval on your website will provide confidence to your visitors.
Improving your website's design
Website's design plays a crucial role in deciding whether to buy from a website or not. Besides making sure your website looks professional and every product is easily accessible you should also consider the following aspects:Browser compatibility
Make sure your website works with all popular browsers including Mozilla, Netscape and Firefox. Now more and more people are switching to alternative browsers and it would be a shame to loose potential customer simply because he/she can't open your website.
Resolution compatibility
Also make sure that your website can be viewed in all resolutions. Under low resolutions parts of your website might not be accessible without scrolling to the side, make sure your navigation does not disappear like that.
Loading Time
Lately it has become less of an issue because most users are using high-speed internet access to access the web. That does not mean however that you should disregard visitors who have slower internet connections. Make sure your website loads as quickly as possible.
Right about now you might say "I knew all of this!" and you might be right. The question is, did you implement it? For some unknown reason most people don't bother to implement these simple things into their websites and are loosing money every day. |
