Getting your website right
A successful website can help transform your business into a profitable venture. Unfortunately, most websites fail to live up to anyone’s expectations. Strategically, the following are 7 fatal website mistakes that many people make at some stage:
1. An obsession with new visitors. People are always talking about trying to attract new people to their site. Just as in business generally, it is much more profitable and beneficial to get existing customers to buy again, repeat visitors are the key. Driving traffic to your site is not a difficult thing to do. Getting people to return is the question.
2. Turning people away with a boring website. You might think your site is great, but is it really? So many sites are just full of boring content, lack of originality, poorly designed and without the user in mind. If you have any doubts about your website, and even if you don’t, getting feedback, (honest) is essential. Ask friends, relatives, even enemies to answer some questions about your site and ask them specifically whether they found it interesting. Perhaps use a survey, (there are some very good free on-line surveys) so that they can perhaps rank different questions.
3. Assuming the customer will buy on the first visit many websites are now trying out e-commerce are disappointed when they don’t receive the orders/sales that they expected. The problem is that the visitor to websites rarely makes a buying decision on a first visit. That’s why it is so essential to make sure they come back again. The website visitor is looking at your site and comparing it with others, doing their research, checking on prices, features and benefits. You have to make them come back.
4. Making it difficult to buy – drop out statistics from an online shopping basket are spectacularly high. Unlike your supermarket shopping queue where someone would very rarely leave their basket and walk away, on-line customers regularly leave before paying. Some of the reasons for this can be perfectly innocent such as the phone ringing or being distracted in some other way. However, research shows that some people literally leave, because the buying process is too difficult. Included in this might be asking for to much information before the transaction has taken place. You simply cannot make it easy enough for someone to buy.
5. Not keeping your site current. Apart from the implications for search engine optimisation, it is absolutely crucial, to establish credibility, that your site that it has been updated regularly.
6. Failing to leverage value. The internet is the first medium in the history of business, that enables you to leverage your value. Unfortunately, many people don’t see the benefit of this or simply don’t understand the concept. If you have an expertise, write about it, produce an ebook, produce something of value that can be sold while you are asleep. Gone are the days when you can rely on your labour simply to generate income. You must leverage your value and time.
7. Measuring the wrong things. Too many people, when looking at website statistics, (if done at all), focus on “hits”. Modern web statistics provide a vast array of information and it is important to concentrate on the right data.
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