WebSpark Design

“I wasn’t there to sell my business to him”—-You are always there to sell your business to them.

Once I was conducting marketing consulting services for a client.  They had attended a function over the weekend with key executives from different parts of the country.  He had explained to me the many different people he had met and was excited that some of these individuals may be looking for the products and service that his company provides.  I was excited and of course my first question was did you get a card from them and did you give out any of yours.  The response I received was this blog’s post opening statement, “Well I wasn’t there to sell my business to him”.  After I picked myself up off the floor from fainting, I began to remind him that we just went through an entire marketing plan that focused on networking.   I mentioned the boxes and boxes of business cards that had been ordered for him and his staff and the large amounts of time and planning that went into the design of these wonderful informative and eye catching cards.

If you are a business owner, CEO, politician, or any other high level business executive; you are always there to sell your business to them.  We have to always stay looking for that next lead or pushing our name or product out there.  Networking is one of the largest contributors to a business’s growth.  Need that next contract or trying to get involved in a new market.  If you are out talking about your business and products, you might run into someone that can help you.

Another side effect of always being ready to talk about your business is that just because someone isn’t interested in your service, they might meet someone that is and in order to help establish a relationship with them, he gives them your business card.  This is a win win for all three of you, but oh yea I forgot you wasn’t there to sell your business to him so there was no business card to hand anyone.  Makes me wonder, was your competitor there to sell their business?

Have an E-commerce website and now you are looking for ways to help the overall improvement?

Begin with small improvements that you can tackle quickly, and then move to more complex tasks that may require extra effort.  Here are so E-commerce optimization tips to help you get started.

Accommodate All User Types

You cannot predict were in the purchase process cycle, a user is when they visit your site.  The only solution to this is to be ready for whatever part of the cycle they are in.  Some users may just be browsing or gathering information for their next purchase, while others know what they are looking for and are here to make a quick purchase and go.  Consider all of the potential user types and try to accommodate them all equally.

Create Captivating and Compelling Copy

Users come to your E-commerce site looking for a desired product and the moment they become dis-engaged or have trouble finding the product, they leave and go to your competitor’s site.  Write strong copy that keeps users engaged and also provides them with the information they need to make a good purchase decision.  Also, make sure your advertising matches what’s in the store.  Example, if you are  running a pay-per-click (PPC) advertising campaign that say “Half Price Shoes”, don’t have the landing page for that campaign be the page with your highest priced shoes displayed.

Use Headings with a Punch

Headings can be an excellent tool to persuade users to stay on your website for another few seconds.  Don’t make headers too informational, you may put the reader to sleep.  Make sure they are clear and descriptive that get to the point and provide the user with a source of relevancy.

Take Advantage of Good Calls to Action

You must give users a reason to proceed and to follow through.  Use calls to action like “See Our Lowest Priced Bikes”, these types of statements are much more compelling than the famous “Click Here”.

Provide Multiple Professional Product Images

One of the main reasons of making purchases at a brick and mortar is that you are physically able to pick up and examine a product. By giving users multiple images online, E-commerce sites are able to overcome this barrier. On top of giving users multiple images, give them professional images from different angles and in different environments. Show them a shirt from the front, back, side, as well as on a model.

Allow Users to Read and Leave Product Reviews

Yes, the social media movement is here and we can’t control it, but we must learn to play by its rules if we want to compete with our competitors.   User reviews, both good and bad, are proven to increase your conversions. Furthermore, negative reviews allow users to see that the ratings are concrete and the product is in fact real with flaws.

Develop Clean Easy to Use Forms

Design and develop your forms in a clean easy to use manner. A few best practices include:

• Require only necessary information. Do not go data happy.
• Provide security assurance ensuring personal information is safe and secure.
• Use descriptive buttons like “Continue to Shipping and Billing” rather than “Submit”.
• Assist users with error handling on incorrectly completed fields.

Provide Help And Support

The first thing a majority of users are going to do before making a purchase is to make sure that you are willing, and able, to help them after a purchase is made. The quickest way to insure your support is to provide users with a phone number at all times. Furthermore you should also supply a mailing address and email address. On top of contact information you should also provide a privacy policy, return policy, shipping policy, and so forth. Providing all of this information upfront will help reassure users.

Test, Test, Test

Make a list of 3 things that bother you about your website, things you think could be improved and then test them.  You can use tools such as Google’s Website Optimizer.