Testimonials Can Increase Your Web Traffic
July 5, 2008
We’ve all seen and read product testimonials. They’re a very valuable tool for merchant sales and can often tip the scales in determining a customer’s decision to buy. But testimonials offer another superb benefit. It’s the benefit to you and your marketing strategy.
When I’m on a site offering a product or service I like to click on customer testimonials because they are generally short and easy to read. People typically point out exactly what they like about a product and how they used it to their benefit. Testimonials come from real users, they’re not some ad written by the company.
Now, let’s take the testimonial concept and think about it as a marketing strategy for you and your business.
Website testimonials describe how buyers feel about the products they have purchased and used. If you, as a buyer, offer your testimonial with your name and website address this now becomes a very valuable marketing tool for you. It will expose you and your business to everyone looking at that merchant’s website. If the merchant site happens to be a well-known site offering a high demand product, this could mean huge exposure for you.
Having A User Friendly Website
June 25, 2008
Let’s look at what your user wants to see at your website.
1. No Flash
For many who visit your website time is money for you and for them. The last thing people need to see is a slow loading flash front page. Unless your flash page is very unique and interesting enough that it will hold their attention I suggest you loose it. For people on dialup, and yes there are many around the world, a flash page is a download nightmare for them.
2. Page Load Time
There is nothing worse than going to a website and waiting more than 15 seconds for that page to load. Many of your visitors don’t have the time to wait for a web page to load and nor should they. Timewise, many people will go on to something else if your page is slow to load. Ten years ago 15 seconds and more might have been acceptable but in this day and age of high speed internet this is highly unacceptable. Check this free site for help with load time for your website. Dcotor HTML http://www.doctor-html.com
3. Graphics
How to Double Your Online Sales Without Spending Another Dime on Advertising
June 16, 2008
Learning how to convert visitors to your web site into buyers, is the single most important factor affecting the success of your online business. If you don’t have paying customers, your business will fail.
FACT: “50% of Visitors are LOST because visitors can’t
easily find content” - Gartner Group
FACT: “40% of Repeat Visitors are LOST from negative
experience” - Zona Research
FACT: “85% of Visitors ABANDON a new site due to
poor design” - cPulse
FACT: 70% of people who are ready, willing and able to
buy online - don’t complete the sale.
Just imagine, if you can improve your web site’s conversion rate, you have the potential to increase your sales by over 233%. And you can do it without spending any more on advertising, or bringing any more traffic to your site.
Knowing how to increase your site’s conversion of visitors into buyers can skyrocket your sales with the same exact amount of traffic you have now.
So how do you convert more of the visitors to your site into buyers? One of the most important ways to increase your site’s conversion rate is to improve your site’s copy.
Good Content Pays!
June 6, 2008
Traffic to a site can be a blessing or a curse. Visitors who find what they are looking for, are engaged in what the site offers, and/or come away with a positive impression become the site owner’s best allies and customers. But lead a visitor to believe that they will find what they are looking for and then not provide on your promise and you will find yourself being stabbed in the back repeatedly by people you will never know. As discussed in another article, "What Are the Benefits of Good Design on the Web?" the task of the site owner is not simply to ask all the right questions and make sure the designer interprets the answers correctly. Just as challenging is the need for the correct content-content that is largely dictated by the answers to the same questions so important to good design: Who are the visitors? What are they looking for? What is their situation, are they rushed? Are they knowledgeable? Are they looking for opinions or facts? Are they the kind of prospect the site owner is looking for?
Are Web Templates Worth It?
May 29, 2008
First off, I am a designer. Now you’re thinking, here’s this guy trying to convince me to hire a designer costing a few hundred to a few thousand dollars instead of buying a pre-made web template for about $60. Well, these days most companies don’t have the money to invest in a costly web site and there are thousands of hungry web designers out there, plus now there are web template resources. These resources can equal great value and effectiveness for the customer as well as increased business for the web designer.
For the customer it is important to be prepared. They need to know what their website should look like, how it will perform, the ability to update and add to it easily, so as not to be held hostage by a design firm’s technical code talk.
Increase Your Credibility With Web Site Awards
May 17, 2008
Web Site Awards are given from other sites to reward your site for a specific reason. They will usually give you an award graphic or text link to include on your site if you win. Awards are great to display on your Web site because they will give your business more credibility to your visitors and customers.
Some things your Web site could be awarded for are:
Web Design Content Load Time Web Features Ease of use Originality
If you think you have a chance to win one of these awards submit your Web site to the sites that give out web awards. Visit other peoples Web sites and see what awards they have won. Only register for awards that are related to the content of your Web site; this helps promote your site to your targeted audience.
Before you register to win an award, make sure your Web site is ready. Your sites content spelling and grammar should be correct. It should be easy to navigate through your Web site. Graphics should be related to the content on your page.
How To Attract People To Your Web Site and Leave Their Contact
May 8, 2008
If you have a website, you want your visitors to stay longer on your website and get more sales. Here are 10 ways you can do to improve it.
1. Give people a free subscription to your e-zine. Almost everyone is publishing a e-zine nowadays so it’s important to give something extra with the free subscription. You could offer a free gift or advertising when people subscribe.
2. Provide your visitors with free content. Your content will be more attractive to your visitors if it’s up-to-date or original. You could also offer people the option to reprint the content in their e-zine or web site.
3. Offer a free online directory. The directory could be full of interesting ebooks, e-zines, web sites etc. If people find your directory to be a valuable resource they will visit it over and over.
4. Give your visitors a free ebook. You could also include your own ad in the ebook and allow other people to give it away. If you don’t want to take the time to write one, you could ask other writers permission to use their articles.
Nine Effective Tips For Improving Your Website?s Usability
April 29, 2008
Web usability is perhaps the most important factor in any web design. This is the driving factor that keeps your visitors coming back to your website. Given below are a few points that you need to consider to increase your website’s usability.
Points to consider for improving web usability
1.) Give your visitor what he is looking for
A visitor means business; he is looking for information and will stay in your site only as long as he gets what he wants. So provide only relevant information on your homepage that is specific to your end users. Web logs are the best means of finding out which keyword your visitor used and for what purpose he could have visited your website.
2.) Tell your visitor what your site is all about
Often websites are crammed with information in no specific order making it hard to figure out what the site is all about! Your site should give information about what it can offer a visitor on an instant basis. You can do this by providing relevant information on the homepage. You can also provide links like ‘about us’ or ‘about this website’ for further clarification.
Love at First Site: Giving Your Website Visitors the right Impression
April 17, 2008
Think of the people who visit your site as blind dates. When you open the door, your blind date usually knows whether they are attracted to you within the first minute. How do they know? Easy. By how you look, what you say, and how you treat them. If you open the door wearing the same clothes you wore in 1987, say, “Wow, from my friend’s description, I thought you would be a lot better looking,” and sneeze in your dates face, not only will you never get a second date, your date will run for his/her life.
The same rules apply to your website. When people do a search for something they want to buy, they usually have many sites to choose from. If yours does not impress them right off the bat, it takes about five seconds for them to find another that does show them what they want to see. There are plenty of other fish in the sea. You are just one among many.
So what do people want to see, you ask? There are 3 standards of website excellence, and they are the same standards you would use to judge your blind date:
Other Ways to Look at Things
April 7, 2008
Many people today are tired of the Microsoft software that came pre-packaged with their operating system. Some have switched over to Apple’s Macintosh line, but for the most part we just put up with what we have. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) has come under a lot of fire as of late for several reasons. Hackers find IE easy to exploit.
These reasons, and many others, have sent Internet users searching for a new, less bug-prone browser. Several browsers have topped the market, and have become quite popular. So popular, in fact, that smart web designers use them in testing their new website functionality.
Opera (www.opera.com) has become my favorite of the ‘other browser’ market. With such subtle things such as mouse gestures, it won me over. The newest release works seamlessly with most plug-ins.
Mozilla (www.mozilla.org) and it’s slimmed-down partner Mozilla Firebird are also very popular. The browser reminds me of the old Netscape 6.0 but works great for most all web applications and websites. It won Best of 2003, Web Browser in a recent PC World contest.
