How to Profit From Your Website

If you are in business, getting targeted traffic to your website and converting them into customers is the bottom line. If your website doesn’t do this then you have wasted your time and money. Following these simple rules can have a major impact on your profits.

What is the strategy behind your website?
Deciding your strategy is fundamental to the success of your website! Whether you are selling products, services, ideas or information, how are going to get your message across? Decide on your strategy and focus on that.

Create a design that supports your strategy
The website should be clear, crisp and upload quickly but most importantly it should support your strategy. The design should set your image and target your key visitors, whether the image is professional, quirky, friendly or whatever you want to portray, this comes from the design.

Consistent navigation
Use the navigation to take visitors where they want to go and guide them to where you want them to go. Having clear navigation allows visitors to go quickly to the parts of the website that are important to them, if they can’t find what they want in two or three clicks they are off, never to return. Which is money lost from your profits!

Pictures paint a thousand words
Get your images sorted out early. Having good quality photos of your products or examples of your service can say more than miles of worthy text. Would you buy a product if you can’t clearly see what you are buying? No, nor will your visitors! Use carefully selected images and paint a picture for your customers.

Let visitors read what you have to say
This sounds so obvious I hesitate to include it, but the number of websites I see where the text is fixed at a tiny size or is green on a blue background or something equally unreadable. Text should be dark on a light background, set at a sensible size and capable of being size adjusted. You may have the eyes of a hawk but millions of potential customers have visual impairments, such as dyslexia or colour blindness. Do you really want to stop them buying from you? Meeting W3 guidelines and providing text only versions will enable disabled visitors to access your website and ensure you comply with the Disability Discrimination Act.

Collect email addresses
The Internet is a powerful tool for communicating with existing and potential customers but most businesses still do not collect the email addresses of everyone who contacts them. This is throwing money down the drain. If someone has expressed an interest in your services, they may do business with you now or in the future. Harvest email addresses for future marketing by offering visitors an easy way of submitting their email address.

Once you have email addresses - use them!
It's all very well collecting emails but pointless unless you do something with them. Use email to communicate regularly with customers and clients in an effective way. You don’t just have to use email to sell things. Send a newsletter, make special offers, share relevant news. Some experts say you could grow your business by 10 - 30% by adopting an effective e-marketing strategy. Please contact us if you need help with this.

Optimise your website for the Search Engines
What is the point of spending thousands of pounds on a wonderful new website if no-one visits it?

Pay Per Click advertising
The only guaranteed way to get to the top of the Search Engines is Pay Per Click. Using a method such as Google Adwords enables you to get to the top of the Search Engines but you only pay when someone clicks to go to your website. So unlike most internet advertising, you only pay when someone visits your site. How much you pay will depend on how much competition there is amongst other advertisers in your category. However BEWARE. Without proper monitoring Pay Per Click can soon become a money pit. As with all marketing, TEST and measure the results.

Update your website
Keeping you website fresh is essential if you want long term results. The Search Engines love regularly updated content and visitors will return time and again if they know they will get new and useful information. Easy to use software such as Contribute or Wordpress means that even novice computer users can add new content to the website, bringing visitors back to your website on a regular basis.

Consider testing Internet advertising
The collapse of internet advertising after the dot com boom gave advertising on the web a bad name. But for many businesses, it’s become a key part of their marketing mix. Consider testing Internet advertising on a small scale – if it’s successful and you are able to role it out, it can be a superb way to reach large numbers of potential customers and clients very rapidly.

Keep your knowledge up to date
These points are just the foundations of a successful website. The Internet constantly develops new trends and introduces things such as audio and visual tools, which are becoming more and more essential in building your on-line business. WNW Design gives businesses the latest leading edge Internet Marketing tools in our regular newsletter. In the months and years ahead, the information you receive will be worth thousands to you and will keep you ahead of the competition