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Elements of Website SuccessThe three elements of website success are:
Effective web site optimisation should address all these elements, by combining search-engine friendly pages with powerful sales copy and user-friendly design. Step one in attracting the right visitors (i.e. the kind of visitors that are most likely to become customers) is to define your target group clearly. This will allow you to 'position' the site correctly - to find the most appropriate tone to talk to your visitors, and to develop the links, partnerships and listings which will most benefit your link popularity and traffic. An audience profile might include some or all of the following factors: Age range & gender Step two is to determine how these potential customers will be seeking your information on the Web. For example: i) Research all the relevant industry information sources and competitor websites to identify potential strategic partners and link locations: for example, listings in online directories, reviews by relevant online publications, and links from complementary product sites can all boost traffic and sales considerably. Offline promotion - especially in trade and national press - is also invaluable for driving sales. ii) Evaluate actual user search behaviour in order to identify commonly-used search terms which relate to your product or industry area. Keyword research will identify the search terms which - when optimised for - are most likely to drive valuable traffic to your site (i.e. visitors who are likely to convert to customers). This means balancing the following factors during selection:
Step three is to ensure that your site is the best that it can be, with plenty of useful and interesting content that visitors will appreciate and other websites link to. Search engines will consider a site's importance relative to other competing sites on the Web when determining which sites to return for a query, and the quality of your content will play a critical role in increasing your site's importance according to the two main criteria:
Step four is search engine optimisation - optimising the website for these keyphrases using meta tags, page content, link structure, page formatting etc so that presentation of information is optimal for keyphrase relevance, and all the main pages of the site can be easily found and indexed by a search engine. An additional part of the optimisation process is consideration of the listing which will actually appear in a search engine or directory's results: a top ten listing which no-one clicks on is effectively useless, so the listing itself must entice visitors to click through for more. Step five is to initiate an ongoing programme of high-quality link development, online directory submissions, and traffic-building for the short and long-term. Note that new websites (and new domains in particular) can be subject to an 'aging delay,' a tactic employed to deter spammers which can lead to a wait of nine months or more before a new site starts to appear in the results. For this reason you may need to supplement SEO activity with pay-per-click listings to bring traffic to the site while you wait for your site to show up in the 'organic' (free) results. This approach has the further advantage of generating quantitative data about the search terms that work for your site and post-click user behaviour which can be factored into your site design and SEO campaign for maximum return on investment (ROI). As for converting visitors to customers - the second key element to website success - this is a combination of factors: i) Good page design. It must be easy for the visitor to buy whenever he/she is ready: this means supplying all the information required to answer any questions, and a 'buy now' button (or equivalent) at every stage. ii) Good selling copy. Many believe that because reading text on-screen is inherently more difficult than reading print, websites should employ a 'less is more' approach to their copy by reducing it to bullet points and simple statements. However, in fact the reverse approach should be employed - on the web, longer copy sells better, in all likelihood because customers need as much information as possible to make a decision, and unlike in a bricks and mortar store, cannot hold the product in their hands or talk directly with a sales consultant. Testimonials, demos, screenshots, product features and easy-to-read copy are all crucial for closing the sale. iii) Security. With online credit card fraud on the rise and gaining increasing publicity, all e-commerce websites need to reassure customers that their credit card details will be safe if they choose to buy online, and should also publish a privacy policy explaining how customers' details are kept and used. iv) Delivery and guarantee information. Sites selling over the web need to compensate for the elements a customer would expect from an in-store transaction, and supply clear information about delivery options and guarantees, technical support or returns policies. The third key element of website success - customer retention - is to ensure that your customers have a positive experience of buying from your site. The path from product to checkout should be made as smooth as possible to ensure would-be customers don't encounter any distractions, delays, irritations or hiccups which might cause them to abandon their purchase. Thereafter, they should receive notifications of the status of their order at all stages of the process, their item should be as described and delivered in a timely fashion - and of course your customer service has to be unfailingly polite, helpful and most importantly available. Emails and calls should be answered promptly, and it helps if your policies are flexible enough to address the infinite variety of customer requests. Happy customers not only spend more, they can also be a valuable source of free promotion, so ensuring customer satisfaction is vital. Make it easy for them to return and spread the word, with bookmark-us and tell-a-friend links, and don't forget the social networking sites like Digg and MySpace. If you approach the design of your website from this customer-centric point of view - find out what your customers want, make it easy for them to find it, present it to them attractively, ensure they can buy it easily from you - you will find that your customers themselves will reward you, with more custom, with referrals, with links and blog mentions, and your business will practically grow itself!
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SEM EXPLAINEDElements of Website Success
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