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PR - How Good is your Website - are you getting the results you want
Good Verses Bad – The War of Websites
No one likes being dished up rubbish and with everyone so time poor and in a hurry, the Internet is not the place to try and "put one over”. People decide within seconds whether they think a site is worthy of their time and attention. As well as having a magical "back" button to take them to the next vendor if they don't like what they see and read. There is big money and high stacks, so make sure your website is working for you, not against you.
There is no comparison between a good and bad website. As a user, I find it frustrating to go to websites that look and feel like rubbish. It reminds me of walking into a store that is dusty or stale. I leave immediately.
When I use the search engines to find products or services I am inevitably in a hurry so I want good quality results, fast. I don't tolerate people who have rubbish looking sites, poor quality information or pictures, or websites full of flash and no substance.
My surveys of people tell me that I am not alone. Virtually everyone I have spoken with and this number would be in the thousands says the same thing. They want to find what they are looking for with minimal effort and they don't buy from websites that dish them up rubbish.
This is sometimes very amusing, as when they share which websites they like using they are very adamant that they must be good websites. Yet often at a later time they share with me their website and have to confess they would never use a website that looked or felt like theirs does. We always have a laugh, but the serious reality is that by this stage the people realise that their poor quality website has cost them sales. For a small business any loss of sales really hurts.
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Let's focus on the 5 key points needed to have a successful website that customers will enjoy using.
1. First Impressions Are Important
The first impression is always a very important point is the website design. How many times have you gone to a website only to hurry away as it looked like absolute rubbish? I know a few businesses that still to this day have websites that clearly are costing them customers.
Whether we like it or not, we are all judges of what we see and first impressions on a website are very important. If your website looks messy the only judgment I can make about your business is that it is messy. If it looks amateurish I will think this is just a “pretend business” and go elsewhere.
This doesn't mean over design – it has the same effect in that it is slow to download and clearly wasting my time. The middle ground is where 90% of the population wants you to be – neat, tidy, professional looking.
2. Credibility
I enjoy using good quality websites. I like to see people taking pride in their business and giving me a good feel for what they do and how they can help me.
The credibility from the website is transferred to the business. I know this is basic psychology but this is the reality of selling though the web. If your business looks credible then I will think that you are.
To gain this level of credibility you need to have good content, a neat design reflective of your business and quality images
3. Look Bigger Than You Are
Following on from the last point, a good quality website can help your business look bigger than you are. It is a neat trick for business owners who are smaller to consider. People are going to make judgments on your business – may as well be positive.
I have worked with many home-based business that were out there winning business from much larger companies. They used a good quality website to give them a competitive advantage.
Many larger companies miss the real advantages the web can offer their business because their website is full of technical rubbish designed by the IT department, not the key marketing information that we as customers want to see and read about.
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4. Pictures – Good Quality Pictures
It is very important if you are selling a product, you have good quality pictures of your product on your website. If you need to engage a professional photographer to ensure that your pictures look good, then spend the money and do it.
Skimping and putting up poor quality images on your website will give people the wrong message about your product. No one wants to buy something that looks like rubbish. I would always go to a website that has good quality images so that I can get a feeling for what I am looking at purchasing.
I am sure there must be a Chinese Proverb that says, “If you make your business look like rubbish, you will only get customers who want to buy rubbish and we all know people don't want to pay much for rubbish”. None the less it is true.
Your website needs to reflect the type of customer that you want to attract.
5. Take People On A Sales Journey
A website is so much better for advertising than a simple Yellow Pages advertisement or a classified in the local paper. You get to tell people all the information that you want to share about why your product or service is going to help them.
Make sure you use your space on the website wisely. People don't want waffle; they want good clean information that allows them to make a decision. They want to consider you as the company to make their purchase from.
6. Give Them Reasons to buy from you
It is an advantage if you can give people a reason to contact you. It might be for a special offer to people coming from your website or it could be a seasonal range of products, whatever the reason, encourage people to take action.
You can make it easy for them to contact you by listing your phone number and you can encourage them to call or email you.
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Work with an Award Winning Company
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Work with an Award Winning Company
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