In an attempt to turn seekers (potential customers) into finders (buyers), getting them to your web page is only half the battle.
Once seekers land on your home or landing page, assuring that they either purchase your products or services, sign up for a newsletter, or even click through to subsequent pages to check out more products or services is not always the easiest task in the world.
Here are a few easy steps you can take to help transition your seekers into finders:
Make things easy to find
- navigation bars or menus
- customer service numbers (these need to be VISIBLE)
- shopping carts and check out buttons
- “continue shopping” buttons (why in the hell are these so hard to find?)
- product sizes and color variations
Make content easy to read
- use standard fonts and do not use more than three different font styles
- include text re-size options (for the elderly or whoever else might need it)
- do not overcrowd your site with too many links and options
- leave some white space
- keep your paragraphs short
When possible avoid Flash
- A lot of customers do not and will not sit through your cute flash intro ( I know I don’t, do you?) They will simply go somewhere else.
- Flash objects are harder for search engines to read
- some customers do not have the “Flash player” installed on their systems or do not know how to install the flash players onto their systems so they will simply see an error when they reach your site and will go elsewhere
Be honest with your customers
- if it’s out of stock, do not pretend or state that it isn’t – offer an alternative
- The buyer may order from you this time, but once they find out you deceived them by telling them the item was in stock when it wasn’t, they probably won’t order from you a next time. And trust me, they will tell everyone about how you lied to them. And we all know about the power of word-of-mouth on the Internet.
Check your site often and make sure everything is updated and functioning properly
- remove dead links
If you’re not sure about the usability of your site, test it
- Steve Krug will show you how
And last but certainly not least, make sure that when you do get your customer (seeker) on the phone, you or your employees provide excellent customer service. Remember this; the Internet has changed the game. Customers have thousands of options to choose from at the click of a mouse. The difference between you and your competition could very well boil down to the functionality of your web site and/or the customer service they experience on that first call to your organization. Make it a good one!
More tips on this subject coming soon……..
