Not Just Another Internet Business Success Journey

7 “make or break” elements for your website!

If you want to know the go/no-go factors that will make or break your website business, look no further. After looking at many websites over many months, I have come to the conclusion that there are some things in common that the more successful websites do very well.

If you do not have every one of these elements on your website then may not be maximizing the cash-potential of your business.

HEADLINES

Attention grabbing headlines get a visitors’ attention and draw them into reading the following story. Think about what gets your attention every day, whether at home or driving around. Posters, banners, bumper stickers and newspapers all use punchy headlines to catch your attention. If it sounds interesting then you read the detail. Website headlines will often be the major deciding factor in whether or not a visitor clicks away and chooses to reads more of your site.

From some experiments I have run on this blog, boring headlines do not attract as many people as interest-grabbing headlines. Many readers connect via RSS and I get one headline and a few lines of text to get their attention. If I lose them on the headline, they will not click through to read the post - and site.

Offer readers a piece of the solution to their problem and they will come on in wanting more.

LISTS

Not email lists - but dot points, bullets or whatever they are called in your part of the world. A bullet list is an effective way to:

• communicate small bits of information without loads of text
• highlight a collection of related points about a product or service you offer
• draw attention to key benefits
• break up longer sections of text with a visual trigger
• save your visitors time as they can quickly scan through a list faster than reading a paragraph containing the same information

But keep them short and snappy. Too many items in a list will start to make the list tedious to read. If you do have a lot of information to communicate, make a couple of lists based on categories or some other grouping.

One final word on lists - do not over-do them. You do not want your site looking like a slide presentation!

TESTIMONIALS

Give your potential customers success stories from your existing satisfied customers. Nothing helps ease the mind of a potential customer more than an independent vote of confidence in your product. A good testimonial will give potential customers some confidence in what you are selling. Be careful to not promise life on a luxury island while working 5 hours a week - unless you can deliver that.

A really great testimonial will address how your product or service helped save time, boost sales or produce other benefits for the customer, and how it can do the same for every other customer.

Invite testimonials from your satisfied customers. Ask that they address the tangible benefits to their business from using your product or service. What problems did they face before buying from you? How were you able to help them be more successful?

OVER-DELIVER

Give your visitors more than they expect. Every successful website I have studied offers bonus information that is useful. If you offer two eggs for $1, then deliver 3.

Give a sample of a product or service that will have value in the hands of your visitors. Over-deliver before they are customers and you will begin to gain the trust of your visitors. As they begin to trust you they will more at ease about ordering from you. It is acceptable to request a name and email address in exchange for the freebies. But whatever you do - DELIVER what you promised. In fact, over-deliver and you will find visitors turning into customers faster than ever before.

Keep the same policy for existing customers. Give them more than they pay for - an unexpected surprise.

Some suggestions for bonuses are:

• a free report in your area of expertise
• a newsletter subscription
• extended time on a limited time service
• a discount coupon for future orders
• generous discounts on your other products or services

GUARANTEE

Would you make a significant purchase without first learning about the warranty terms and conditions? Your customers are looking for the same information. Make it plain to everyone that your products and services are backed by a 100% money back guarantee if they are not completely satisfied.

You take the risk instead of your visitor and you will find more visitors will convert into buyers.

The most outstanding sites I have visited offer exceptional guarantees that are unheard of in the physical retail world - 100% money back, no questions asked! Don’t skimp on the length of the guarantee period either. Give your customers more than enough time to determine the value and usefulness of your product. Think of a reasonable length of time and then add 25% to it. The more you reduce the risk to the potential customer, the more will be prepared to make the purchase decision.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Without exception, every successful website business will offer a variety of ways for visitors to make contact with real people. You may well have an automatic help-desk, but you must also have a means by which customers can interact with a human.

After sales product support is critical to obtaining exceptional testimonies (see above). Over-deliver on your products and services and then blow them away with your exceptional after sales support.

You may want to consider a phone service staffed by humans as well. When you are big enough for such a service you might be surprised by how much more your customers believe that you care just by offering a phone contact - even if they never use it.

IMAGES

There is little doubt that images add interest to an otherwise lengthy article, testimonial or sales page. Carefully choose images that reinforce the message contained in your copy. Images may be photographs, charts, illustrations or some other visual element that conveys information without text.

For a testimonial, the most effective image is one of the customer who wrote the testimonial.

For a sales page, a picture of the product is essential. Consider using some charts demonstrating the benefits that customers will experience.

For articles, choose images in the same way you choose a greeting card for your mother-in-law. Okay, that might not be such a good example. Think about choosing a card for a loved one, not that you don’t love your mother-in-law. Now go about choosing images for your articles the same way. What message do you want to convey? What visual cues does the image hold? How will the image help to build trust in you, your product and ultimately lead to a sale?

What did the images in this post mean to you? Did they help or hinder your reading of each point? I chose them for a purpose. If that purpose is not immediately obvious, that is fine. For some people the images just get in the way of a good story. For others, no matter how good the story, without images, their interest will fade by the fifth paragraph of unbroken text.

Like all things, keep a healthy balance between all these elements and you may be surprised by the increase in health of your bottom line.

Conclusion

If are missing one or more of the above from your website business, then consider investing some time checking out my suggestions. Don’t take my word for it - do some testing. You do test don’t you?

Target one product or service that you offer. Analyze what it is you currently offer then adjust your site to address each of the above points. After some time compare your sales from before and after this adjustment.

When you decide to spend time on improving these customer focused elements you might be surprised by just how much your sales increase!

- Brendan.