Internet marketers have tried to answer these questions since the beginning of the web but with new innovations coming up every month, new answers have to be given.
If you read my blog, often enough, you might notice that I dig these types of internet puzzles and also now I have a few ground rules that you might want to consider in your new website becoming an exciting one.
Rule number 1: Let it be prepared, tested and stable before any SEO is done.
Everyone can create a website these days, often enough with only a few clicks of the mouse button. But as it happens, you make your site, you submit it to the search engines, you apply some SEO tricks and then… you’re not really happy with it and you start all over again. There is nothing wrong with changing your website BUT when you change it around you will have to do all your SEO again. Broken links that are already indexed by the search engines need to be fixed and you have to deal with “lost” visitors due to your change.
So before applying any SEO or submitting your websites to search engines and internet directories, you will first want to prepare on paper what you want , test out the functionality and have it run for a couple of weeks (months) before doing your magic in getting visitors to your site.
Rule number 2: Make your design clear and interesting.
More and more businesses look at going online with their company and the products they are selling. The fact that people can now make purchases online is great and your market has the potential to reach millions of people a day. But YOU are not the only company trying to sell these products. Many other business might have just started doing the same thing as you so you will need to step up and be sure that your site is more appealing to buy from.
Sloppy images, mismatching colours and different types of letter fonts are a BIG NO NO. Keep it clear and clean if you want to sell a product online because you don’t want to walk into a shop where the colours are all over the place, the shop assistant is talking to you in different pitches of voice and accents and the product you want to buy is somewhere hiding in the attic of the shop. Unless, ofcourse, it’s a coffee shop in Amsterdam.
Rule number 3: Give something free just for YOU
Have you ever gone into a department store when the announcer of the shop gave you the sales pitch : “Hi valued customers in our shop, we have a new promotion going on and with this once off promotion comes a great little kitchen gadget Just for YOU.” It happened to me and I ended up watching a guy chopping an onion with some new* gadget. After his 15 minute demo watched by me and a whole group of other people we all received the free gadget which was just a piece of plastic for garnishing a tomato.
It worked, we all watched the demo and some were even convinced enough to buy the chopping device for 35 euro (Later that day I noticed my friend had the same device in his kitchen which he bought for 8 Euro in Argos). So invest a bit in free offers, maybe find a collaboration with other businesses and sell your stuff !
Rule number 4: You are safe with me. I promise
Media frenzy around hackers, credit card schemes and the dodgy Nigerian businessmen with their millions in heritage money makes a potential client not very confident in buying online. In order to do safe credit card transactions online, your website will need to have some kind of security in place. Often this security is put in place in the form of a logo of the company that secures the website; companies like Instant SSL, GEOTrust , Comodo and many more will have a cool little logo with a lock on it. However, a large number of customers will not know what it means; they see it as just a little part of the overall design. In order for this to become clear, state the guarantee that your purchases are done safe and secure clearly on the main page of the website and on the checkout pages.
Rule number 5: Become more sociable – Use social networking and media
The last one which has become an obvious part of getting clients to your products is the fact that social media and networking websites like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter have a huge impact on attracting customers and also on how well your service and products are. If you sell a bad product, then the online communities will know about it in a few minutes. Numerous consumer issues have been brought forward by users of Twitter and because of the large following, it would have reached the pages of most news sites in no time. Get your product solid and get in touch with your customers on a personal level.
Let’s get ready for the business view of the future.
