BUILDING A WEBSITE FOR YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS

The first step towards creating an online business is building a website. Don't worry. It isn’t as complicated as it sounds.

Tips to Making Your Website Attractive, Interesting, Enticing and Interactive

To succeed at your online business, you need to create a website that is a simple, focused site, whether you're selling your own product/service or are selling for other merchants as an affiliate. Your website should be easy to build, low cost, maintenance-free, credible, and a powerful traffic-builder and customer-converter. Having the right tool and the right product alone won’t ensure the success of your website.

Many factors need to be considered while designing a site. Unfortunately, many internet business owners often ignore most of these factors.

􀀻 Build It for Speed - A fact of modern life is that people are in a hurry. This means that you have between 10 and 30 seconds to capture your potential customer's attention. To minimize your load time, keep graphics small and compress them where possible. If you feel you must use flashy technology (animation, Flash, Streaming Audio/Video, JavaScript), do so sparingly and only if it is important to your presentation.

􀀻 Target your Market - Know who your market is and make certain that your site meets/exceeds their expectations. It is critical that your site reflect the values of your potential customers. If your market is mostly business professionals, the site must be clean and professional. If your product is aimed mostly at teenagers and young adults, then your site could be more informal and relaxed. The key is to know your market and build the site to their preferences.

􀀻 Focus the Site - Make certain your website has a primary goal as its focus: selling your product or service. A site offering many unrelated products may not necessarily be unfocused, but this is often the case. If your business does offer many products, dedicate a unique page for each product instead of trying to sell them all from one page.

􀀻 Establish Credibility - The most professionally designed website won't sell if your customers don't believe in you. A clear privacy statement can build your credibility. Provide a prominent link to your privacy statement from every page on the site as well as from any location that you are asking your visitors for personal information. Provide legitimate contact information online.

􀀻 Simplify Navigation - Make site navigation easy and intuitive. Smooth and simple navigation adds to the convenience for the visitors. Add powerful search and catalog features. Visitors usually don’t have the patience to navigate through the whole website to find what they are looking for.

􀀻 Be Consistent - Make sure the site is consistent in look, feel and design. Nothing is more disorienting and disturbing to a customer than feeling as if they have just gone to another site. Maintain constant themes and colors throughout your website.

􀀻 Build Personalization and Interactivity – Add feedback forms as well as email forms that allow your prospective customers to ask you questions they might have about a product. Personalization of your website is another key element that can build your visitor’s trust and increase your sales. Personalization technology analyzes what your customer is buying online and allows you to facilitate cross-selling and up-selling to that customer. It would give you an idea of what products your customer wants and needs. For example, when a person buys a computer, software can also be offered.

􀀻 Provide Good Content - Good content sells a product. Ask yourself the following questions: Does your copy convey the message you wish to get across to your visitors? Does your copy compel your visitors to buy? Does it smoothly lead your visitors through the sales process?

Have others review, critique and edit your copy to insure it is delivering the intended message. Always double check your spelling and grammar.


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