From start to finish, your site must look to close the deal.
Take a good look at the template offered by your website designers. Do the color scheme and the design blend well with the product or service you offer? Are you hell-bent on a favorite crimson background even though you sell baby products? Desist. Again, soothing swirls or floral motifs will win over geometric patterns for the same site. What if you sell a bouquet of products? Keep the background light and clear rather than dark and over cluttered. Add one telling graphic that does not obscure the text. A good thumb rule to follow is that text is better than graphics – less room for confusion!
Next comes your home page. Everything you have, or at least the flagship products must be showcased to the advantage of the potential consumer. Let them see what the product will do for them. Let them see the reasons they should buy your baby shampoo over any other. When you write ‘about us’, there is the unspoken part ‘what about us is good for you’ - the benefit to the customer must always be highlighted. In the internal pages, you could have short, snappy videos; only one per page, please, to drive the point home.
Display your back links clearly. A single click should transport him into the desired page. Ease of navigation is a definite advantage for the browser comparing sites and products. Consider the physical counterpart; where you prefer a store not too far from home or work, with easy parking, easy access to the merchandise and a quick checkout counter. Create this in the e-commerce site as well. Organize the page logically. Featured products to the left, shopping cart in the top right or the bottom right corner, where it is easiest to see and click and so on. A savvy site would, in addition, have provisions for the visually challenged. See if you can incorporate this in your site.
Delight the customers by making it very easy for them to place the order. Display the shopping cart prominently on all pages to tempt them into making a purchase. An attractive uncluttered dialogue box with unambiguous text will work wonders. E.g. Choose a neutral beige background with an easy to read font, even if you have a fondness for flourish. Use the word ‘number’ over ‘units’. The customer is not a moron, but he definitely does not want challenging, time consuming forms. He’s at your site for a hassle-free shopping experience, remember? So do what you would do at a physical store to ease the shopping experience and make the customer come back for more. Make a visit to your site a premium want-to-repeat shopping experience.
Unlike a business in physical form, there are a number of readily available cleverly designed tools and resources in the online world which when made use of to their full potential can help an online businessman to reach never before seen heights of success. For any online business, it is essential to adopt and use some necessary tools in order to take the business to an entirely new level. Although there are a large number of things that need to be kept in mind while conducting an online business, there are a few essential tools as well that play an important role in the success of any online business.
Build An Email List
The very first tool for achieving success in online business is to build a follow up emailing list. You can include an opt-in option on your website where customers who have visited your site are given the option to provide their contact details so that you may get in touch with them when you have something that might be of interest to them. In this way you can keep customers informed about offers, promotions and company updates and information.
Blogging to making online presence felt
Another essential tool that can do wonders and make your online business a successful one is to have one’s own business blog. Even though blogs were initially started as a medium for an individual to log personal opinions and experiences, there are a number of online and offline businesses that make use of this instrument as well. The most striking feature about having a blog is that the business can easily build a virtual presence without having to go into the different aspects for creating a website specifically for the purpose.
Social bookmarking
The third important tool that businesses need to make use of and that which is gaining tremendous popularity in the online business realm is social bookmarking. When you have a website or a blog it is extremely convenient to use popular resources such as Stumble Upon, Propeller and Digg to keep the world informed about how or what your business is doing. It is possible to have numerous visitors in a single day to one’s blog and that too in a short span of time. Combining the social bookmarking and blogging are sure shot tools to ensure the success of an online business when utilized in the right manner.
Search engine optimization and the right use of keywords that relate to your business are a few other essential ways in which you can make your business known to people who might have an interest in finding out more. The ability to use these tools creatively and properly is crucial to the survival and sustenance of any online business today.