Some essential features your web site must have to succeed online!

Image by saar* via Flickr

Don’t get caught up in the search engine optimisation! People need content, easy navigation and a secure place to buy!
Google LOVE natural websites, so start by giving the content, we can fake other natural stuff later!

Don’t focus on the home page, keywords and titles.

The first step to sales when customers visit your site to see the products they were looking for. Of course, search engine optimization and better rankings can’t keep your customer on your site or make them buy. Now your customer is at your site,  ensure that they get interested in your products or services and sticks around. Motivate them to buy the product or submit the form by providing clear and obvious information. Do you sell more than one product or service? Then provide all the necessary information about this, may be by keeping the information at a different page. By providing clearly tagged and easily visible links, the customer can navigate to these pages and get the details with ease.

Understanding Your Target Customer

If you design a website you think will attract clients, but you don’t really know who your customers are and what they want to buy, it is highly unlikely you are going to make much money. Website business can be an extension or it can be a replacement for a standard (offline business) storefront. You can send email to your existing clients and ask them to complete a survey or even while they are browsing on your website. Ask them about their choices. Why do they like your products? Do you discount prices or offer coupons? Are your prices consistently lower than others? Is your shipping price cheaper? Do you respond faster to client questions? Are your product descriptions better? Your return policies and guarantees better than your competitor’s? To know your customer you can check credit card records or ask your customer to complete a simple contact form with name, address, age, gender, etc. when they purchase a product.

Does your website give enough contact information?

When you sell from a website, your customer can buy your products 24 hours a day and also your customers may be from other states that are thousands of miles away. Always provide contact information, preferably on every page of your website, complete with mailing address, telephone number and an email address that reaches you. People may need to contact you about sales, general information or technical problems on your site. Also have your email forwarded to another email address if you do not check your website mailbox often. When customer wants to buy online provide enough options like credit card, PayPal or other online payment service. One thing must ensure you offer your customers, is that you provide a secure area for making their transactions. Buyers will exit faster than you can say “but wait, there’s more!” if they think it is not secure.

Related Website Feature articles

• How Much of Your Website Do People See? Google’s Got a Tool to Tell You (mashable.com)
• Thinking an Online Store: 15 Tips To Get You Started (smallbusinessbranding.com)
• What is the most simple solution to process credit card payments and deliver digital goods? (startups.com)