Posted on: 07 December, 2001
Author: Derek Podlubny
You have a great product to sell, and a ... website ... to sell it. However, having an Internet presence alone isnot enough, you have to consider every step of the process ... custo You have a great product to sell, and a beautiful website withwhich to sell it. However, having an Internet presence alone isnot enough, you have to consider every step of the process apotential customer will go through before they make that purchaseon your site. Then, you have to increase their chance of makinga purchase by doing a few simple things.1. Traffic.Increasing the traffic that your site gets is a great start. The morepeople you can get visiting your site means more sales for you. An evenbetter way to increase sales is to make sure that your visitors are"qualified" buyers for your product. This means that they fit into acertain group that would be most likely to benefit from your product.You can get your message out to qualified buyers in a number of ways;A well-designed banner can get an important message across quickly,an ad placed in an e-zine involving a related topic is sure to interestqualified buyers, a good description placed in meta tag of the main pageis also a good way to get qualified visitors.2. Navigation.Your site navigation is an important factor in your sales.Not only should it be simple and consistent throughout your site, butit should have a purpose. What I mean is that you have to use yournavigation as a tool to lead your customers where YOU want them to go.They have no idea where they have to go if nothing stands out on the page.So tell them. If you are selling one product or service, be sure that thelink to your product is somewhere at the top of the page and be sure thatit stands out. You want to make sure that everyone that visits your pagewill click on that link and at least have the chance to buy.3. E-mail capture.It is a good idea to set up an e-mail capture form. Something like a FreeNewsletter or Information request that enables you to get a potentialcustomer's e-mail address so that you can inform them of special salesor offers. This is beneficial because the customer has obviously alreadybeen to your site and has an idea of what your product is, now you justhave to sell him on that idea. The key to sales is in the follow up!4. Customer Testimonials.It's a good idea to ask for feedback from past customers not only to seeif there's anything that you can improve upon, but also for a customertestimonials section. These are valuable because it is not you talkingabout your product, it is someone else. Customers often take what otherpeople say into consideration more than what the company itself saysabout the product, simply because they know that that person was acustomer just like them.5. Updated Info.If there are sections on your site that are updateable, then do so as oftenas possible. Updating your site not only increases the rank in some searchengines, but it also brings interested potential customers back to your site.Maybe they didn't buy this time, and they didn't sign up for the free newsletter,but next week's article on Bee Pollen may bring them back. Not only that, butthey might e-mail your URL to a friend whom they think would findthe article interesting.So you see, it's not enough to be online anymore. You have to be onlineeffectively! Do what you can to improve every aspect of your site,and you'll have them coming back for more! Article Tags: Increase Sales Source: Free Articles from ArticlesFactory.com