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Plenty of visitors but where are the sales?
This is actually a common problem and it is normally down to the website itself. What you need to do is take a step back and view your website, looking at each part of your website.
Web Design
The design of your website can make a huge difference to if someone stays on your website or not. It’s exactly the same as if you met someone in person, the first 3 seconds is the most important.
Information
You should clearly have all your links visible, most important are your terms & conditions, privacy policy and contact links. It is also important to clearly display your payment & postage options; I would suggest having these on every page for the ease to your customers.
Navigation
Make sure that your navigation menus are not a mess and check that each page has your menu in the same place. Is it easy to get to your products or do you have to go through 5 different pages to find a product? When browsing your products check that moving from one product to another and back again is easy.
Products
All your products should have a detailed description and a clear picture of the product. The title of your product should be descriptive and detailed; this may help when visitors use your search function.
How can a blog help my website?
Blogs are a great tool for helping websites; they can help in a number of ways. One way that they help is with getting your website a higher ranking in search engines, the reason being is because a blog gives you fresh content which is rich in information and keywords and is normally updated weekly.
Blogs are also great to get visitors to visit you on a weekly basis as you update your blog. Visitors love to read interesting information and a lot of people will bookmark blogs to go back and read updates.
Blogs also gives a reason for other websites to link to you. If you have content that people want to read and that gets updated weekly this would give other websites a good reason to link to you.
3 tips for eBay sellers with websites
More and more eBay sellers are trying to direct customers from eBay to their website. Although it is against eBay rules to advertise your website you are able to create an eBay ME page which you can give information about your business and also a link to your website.
You are also able to list an email address on all your product listing pages. If you create an email address ending with your domain name visitors from eBay will be able to see your website address in your email address.
When a customer orders via eBay you can send a leaflet with each package, on this leaflet you will be able to advertise your business a bit more and also advertise your website.
DIY Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) can be expensive which is why a lot more businesses are doing it themselves. The downside to doing it yourself is that it is likely to take longer as you'll be learning it as you go. The other problem is that it is very time consuming. The two key elements to SEO are your website content and link building.
The content of your website is very important to search engines. Your content should be unique, rich with relevant information for your website and contain your website keywords, not too many times that search engines may see it as keyword spamming.
You also need to concentrate on your links. There are two types of links; these are on page links and off page links. On page links are links that you put on your website to another page within your website. (For example a link from your home page to your contact page)
Off page links are links that other websites have a link on their website to your website.
When making a link you need to optimise it, this means to include relevant keywords in the link.
Why? eBay shop owners!
You have a website but then you link it to your eBay shop to direct visitors to eBay.
Why would you do this?!
If you own a website and you are getting visitors to it you should be concentrating on selling via your website. If you direct visitors to eBay you may lose the sale to another eBay member, if you don't lose the sale you will incur eBay fees which wouldn't happen if the visitor had stayed on your website to purchase your products!
Definition of web design
Web design is the process that takes place to create a website. The biggest problem is that businesses presume that a website with a few pages thrown together will be acceptable but in reality if your website isn't up to standards visitors will not have any confidence in your business.
Web design is a process that takes time, thought and knowledge to archive a website which will not only show your business to the highest standards but it will also attract the attention of your visitors and give them confidence within your business resulting in a better conversion rate to make you profits.
We can create all types of websites no matter how big or small, please contact us for your web design needs.
What elements should your website have?
Your website needs an excellent visual design, without this it is hard to gain credibility quickly which is what you need to do! Although a good design alone won't keep visitors on your website it will catch their eye long enough to take a look around.
Having a nicely designed website is a good start but you also need a simple navigation and that is easy for the visitor to use. Don't have links all over the place and don't have different links in different locations on different pages, it gets confusing!
You need to include good solid content to offer to your visitors, this should include detailed information about your products/services, an about us page to give a bit of confidence to visitors and on your contact page you should include an email address, a contact form and a phone number. (If possible a landline number) If you are able to include a mailing address this can help with visitor confidence amazingly but isn't always needed.
Have a search box on your website for visitors to search through your products easier can cut down your visitors searching time and increase your sales. If a visitor has to go through 20 pages to find the product they are looking for they may abandon the search and look elsewhere but if you have an easy to use search feature they are more likely to find the product quicker and ensure a sale!
You may also want to consider having a newsletter feature as this can help sales at a later date as you will be able to send out weekly/monthly newsletters with latest offers etc to subscribers.
Content Management System for your website
Your website is the equivalent to your shop window, it is essential that you have the ability to alter the content of your website.
With a content management system you have control over your content, product details and pictures, not only this but you will also have the ability to change the font, colour, size and even underline words and make words bold.
It is cost effective to have a content management system; most web design companies will charge you an hourly rate to alter your text for you. If you only have a few alterations it is very costly!
Fatal mistakes that websites make
You only have the first few seconds before your visitors decides if they wish to continue looking through your website or to exit it and move onto the next one.
To help keep visitors on your website you need to provide them with the details they want to see straight away. The following details should be easily found instantly:
- Contact Details
- Postage Details
- Payment Details
- Registration Details
These may seem like simple things but you will be amazed how many websites make it difficult for these details to be found and as a visitor myself I tend to abandon the website rather than look for the details as it can be as quick to find a new website and their details!
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