The 3 Must-Haves Essential Features For Your Website
Are you rushing to put up your webpage for your new internet business venture so that you are not a minute late to earn cash from the internet? Are you really sure your website is one killer site that will immediately reap in income for you? Have you done the following checks to ensure that your site is 3 times more capable of converting than your counter-parts? Must-Have Feature 1 Do not think about only homepage site set-up, keywords and titles / tags.
Put yourself in the shoes of your potential customer.
What do you think he/she would like to see when he/she lands on your site? Yes.
The products that they are looking exactly for and nothing else.
Do not expect them to pause and admire how beautifully laid out your site is.
The first step to sales is to give what your customers want, period.
While it is true that search engine optimization and better rankings cannot guarantee that your customers stay at your site long enough to consider buying something from you, they do help put your website in the limelight over others.
At least, your link is easier to locate.
However, once a customer land on your page, you will need to ensure that he/she becomes in your products and relevant ones like accessories so that he/she is likely to hang around your site longer.
What you can do is to motivate him/her to make the purchase by providing clear specifications and benefits that your product can give.
In case you have a range of products to sell, then provide all the necessary information at relevant pages as he/she browses through.
Your design features of the webpages must provide for relevant and easily visible links (may have to make them bigger) so as to allow your customers to navigate around the site without fear of feeling lost.
The bottom line is to ensure ease of navigation through your pages so that your customer feels that he/she is in control.
Do put in effort and time to install this feature.
Must-Have Feature 2 Think for a second, what is the aim of designing your website? Is it to attract customers? If it is, then do you know who your customers are? And what they intend/want to buy from you? Will you make more money if you know who they are and what they want or if you do not know? Understanding your target customer is something you should take serious note of.
Let me pose you another question.
Is it easier to design a website if you can find out from your customers what they want, or if you think what they want? Have you ever come across a restaurant waitress asking how the food was or a simple feedback form placed conveniently next to the menu stand complete with pen or pencil? The intention is to get feedback from clients.
Similarly your website business is an extension for that standard physical storefront.
If you already have a pool of customers, send them emails and invite them to participate in a simple survey (and rewarding them with a thank-you gift or coupon after completing the survey) or even while they browsing on your website.
If you intend to have an online survey, it is best to plant it after a sales transaction rather than on the homepage whereby visitors are not motivated to do the survey if they know that they are not getting anything in return.
I mean who would waste time doing a survey when you know you will not be getting something.
For the confirmed buyer, he/she would like to have a say about the product or service provided.
Therefore, there is a higher chance of them participating in the survey.
You can still reward them with something and you have ultimately gained a loyal patron from this process.
Some of the lead questions in your survey include the following: a) reason(s) for making the purchase (for example, like the product), b) any alternative product they might consider, c) whether offering discounts or coupons is preferred, d) whether your prices are considerably cheaper than your competitors', e) whether the shipping cost, if any, is cheaper, f) efficiency of the delivery service, g) efficiency of responding to customer's queries, h) if the product description is comprehensive, i) if the return policies or any form of guarantees are better than your competitors', and j) and any suggestions for improvements in any area.
For you to know your customers better, you can check the crediting details of their records or you could request your customer to complete a simple contact form leaving name or other specific particulars as optional but compulsory to leave their primary email address when they purchase a product.
The most acceptable reason to give is that should there be future upgrades or new product launches, you will ensure that they are the first to know via email or other contact methods.
It is clear from the discussion above that knowing your targeted customer is crucial and you need to design this feature to allow you to know them.
Must-Have Feature 3 Your online business website runs 24 hours whole year round other than when times your webhost needs downtime for maintenance or upgrading of their servers.
Some webhost guarantees almost a 100% uptime.
What this means is that your customers from all over the world can buy your product at anytime from anywhere.
Your company's contact information should appear preferably on every webpage in your website so that your visitors need not click on 'Home' to find it.
Your contact information must also include the following: a) support email address, b) mailing address (if you also have a physical storefront), c) telephone number, and d) fax number (not all countries in the world are developed countries).
If you have an established business, you might want to provide better services like live chat or Skype.
Whatever you do, you want to ensure that your existing customers and potential customers alike can reach you conveniently.
Why do customers want to contact you? Not because they are bored and have no one to talk to, but they need to find out about certain product or sales, general information or technical issues on your site.
Even to alert you that your competitor is offering a better deal than yours! Very often your website's support email address is not your very own personal (also known as primary) one that you check regularly.
Therefore, you will need to enable the forwarding feature.
An unanswered query from a customer can mean a customer lost.
Bear this in mind.
It is natural human behaviour that we need to be heard too.
One more thing you absolutely must not forget.
When your website business is designed to allow for customers to place orders or purchase product directly online, you need to provide sufficient options for transactions and not just your own preferred mode.
For example, make available credit card, PayPal, internet banking facility or other online payment services.
Surely, you do not wish the cash to come into bank account a nanosecond late.
Therefore, not only must you ensure that your website has the contact information feature available, but also those that facilitates online transactions.
Put yourself in the shoes of your potential customer.
What do you think he/she would like to see when he/she lands on your site? Yes.
The products that they are looking exactly for and nothing else.
Do not expect them to pause and admire how beautifully laid out your site is.
The first step to sales is to give what your customers want, period.
While it is true that search engine optimization and better rankings cannot guarantee that your customers stay at your site long enough to consider buying something from you, they do help put your website in the limelight over others.
At least, your link is easier to locate.
However, once a customer land on your page, you will need to ensure that he/she becomes in your products and relevant ones like accessories so that he/she is likely to hang around your site longer.
What you can do is to motivate him/her to make the purchase by providing clear specifications and benefits that your product can give.
In case you have a range of products to sell, then provide all the necessary information at relevant pages as he/she browses through.
Your design features of the webpages must provide for relevant and easily visible links (may have to make them bigger) so as to allow your customers to navigate around the site without fear of feeling lost.
The bottom line is to ensure ease of navigation through your pages so that your customer feels that he/she is in control.
Do put in effort and time to install this feature.
Must-Have Feature 2 Think for a second, what is the aim of designing your website? Is it to attract customers? If it is, then do you know who your customers are? And what they intend/want to buy from you? Will you make more money if you know who they are and what they want or if you do not know? Understanding your target customer is something you should take serious note of.
Let me pose you another question.
Is it easier to design a website if you can find out from your customers what they want, or if you think what they want? Have you ever come across a restaurant waitress asking how the food was or a simple feedback form placed conveniently next to the menu stand complete with pen or pencil? The intention is to get feedback from clients.
Similarly your website business is an extension for that standard physical storefront.
If you already have a pool of customers, send them emails and invite them to participate in a simple survey (and rewarding them with a thank-you gift or coupon after completing the survey) or even while they browsing on your website.
If you intend to have an online survey, it is best to plant it after a sales transaction rather than on the homepage whereby visitors are not motivated to do the survey if they know that they are not getting anything in return.
I mean who would waste time doing a survey when you know you will not be getting something.
For the confirmed buyer, he/she would like to have a say about the product or service provided.
Therefore, there is a higher chance of them participating in the survey.
You can still reward them with something and you have ultimately gained a loyal patron from this process.
Some of the lead questions in your survey include the following: a) reason(s) for making the purchase (for example, like the product), b) any alternative product they might consider, c) whether offering discounts or coupons is preferred, d) whether your prices are considerably cheaper than your competitors', e) whether the shipping cost, if any, is cheaper, f) efficiency of the delivery service, g) efficiency of responding to customer's queries, h) if the product description is comprehensive, i) if the return policies or any form of guarantees are better than your competitors', and j) and any suggestions for improvements in any area.
For you to know your customers better, you can check the crediting details of their records or you could request your customer to complete a simple contact form leaving name or other specific particulars as optional but compulsory to leave their primary email address when they purchase a product.
The most acceptable reason to give is that should there be future upgrades or new product launches, you will ensure that they are the first to know via email or other contact methods.
It is clear from the discussion above that knowing your targeted customer is crucial and you need to design this feature to allow you to know them.
Must-Have Feature 3 Your online business website runs 24 hours whole year round other than when times your webhost needs downtime for maintenance or upgrading of their servers.
Some webhost guarantees almost a 100% uptime.
What this means is that your customers from all over the world can buy your product at anytime from anywhere.
Your company's contact information should appear preferably on every webpage in your website so that your visitors need not click on 'Home' to find it.
Your contact information must also include the following: a) support email address, b) mailing address (if you also have a physical storefront), c) telephone number, and d) fax number (not all countries in the world are developed countries).
If you have an established business, you might want to provide better services like live chat or Skype.
Whatever you do, you want to ensure that your existing customers and potential customers alike can reach you conveniently.
Why do customers want to contact you? Not because they are bored and have no one to talk to, but they need to find out about certain product or sales, general information or technical issues on your site.
Even to alert you that your competitor is offering a better deal than yours! Very often your website's support email address is not your very own personal (also known as primary) one that you check regularly.
Therefore, you will need to enable the forwarding feature.
An unanswered query from a customer can mean a customer lost.
Bear this in mind.
It is natural human behaviour that we need to be heard too.
One more thing you absolutely must not forget.
When your website business is designed to allow for customers to place orders or purchase product directly online, you need to provide sufficient options for transactions and not just your own preferred mode.
For example, make available credit card, PayPal, internet banking facility or other online payment services.
Surely, you do not wish the cash to come into bank account a nanosecond late.
Therefore, not only must you ensure that your website has the contact information feature available, but also those that facilitates online transactions.
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