After all, your site
reports say you’re driving
the right audience to your
site. AND your sales pitch
appeals to this audience.
AND you sell high-quality
products or services.
But few visitors are
buying. Why?
Consider How Your Site
Appears To Visitors
Consider the possibility
that your web site is
turning visitors away.
FOREVER!
Internet visitor turnoff
happens every minute of
every day. How do you
minimize it?
Well, suppose you’re a
customer in a “real” store.
You want to buy a light
bulb. But the store is so
big that three employees
can’t give you directions to
the right aisle. Maybe you
can’t even find someone to
give you directions! Is this
how your site navigation
appears to visitors?
Another example: Based on
the length of the checkout
lines in the supermarket,
you know it’s going to take
at least 15 minutes to give
away your money. Will you
walk out? Your web site
visitors can just click out
of your site!
Hey, My Site Is
Perfect!
You say these “real”
store situations don’t apply
to your site? Do you think
you’re objective?
With a wee bit of effort,
you can create a money
magnet web site! Check out
this list of tips for
keeping visitors at your
site so they WILL buy or
contact you.
Ten Tips Plus One
Bonus Tip
1. Use a popup to ask if
your prospect’s visit
satisfied their reason for
clicking to your site. A few
visitors find this annoying.
Others will be happy to
comment. Trial a popup, and
remove it if it is
unpopular. Success depends
on how quickly visitors can
answer your questions.
2. Survey past visitors.
3. Ask ten people in your
target audience to test
drive your site.
4. Click on the home
page. Where does your eye go
first? Is this location the
FIRST item you want visitors
to see?
5. Test the site using
several different browsers.
Your software might give you
this option. Sometimes
there’s a flaw you won’t see
in your own browser.
6. Encourage your
visitors to contact you and
make it simple for them to
do so. Turnoffs are
addresses like
webmaster@site.com,
email@site.com, and
customerservice@site.com.
The address should contain a
person’s name.
7. Your site’s purpose
needs to be clear and easily
understood by the visitor.
If you want a customer to
contact you for more
information, say so. If you
want a customer to buy, say
so. Keep visitors guessing
and they’ll exit quickly.
And PERMANENTLY.
8. Check out the
structure, copy, and look of
your competition’s sites.
Take advantage of other
people’s web knowledge.
9. If your site has
links, check them often.
There’s nothing worse than a
visitor clicking on a link
and getting an error
message. This includes
internal as well as external
links. Again, the software
used to build the site
checks for certain links.
Use it regularly!
10. If you have a FLASH
intro or other cutesy
gimmicks, remove them. Why
risk losing visitors who
might be offended? These
gimmicks are way different
than the popup question
mentioned before. The popup
is a feedback mechanism.
Gimmicks are more than
annoying -- they’re
unprofessional.
BONUS Tip: Consider
revising site design based
on your findings from the
previous ten tips. Most
people start with a small
site and then add pages
gradually. Sometimes the
site size gets out of hand,
or the site loads slowly, or
it navigates like a boat
taking on water. Find the
problems and change the
design!
Happy web site creation
and revision. Make your site
a money magnet!
Copyright 2005 Valerie
Mills
