To be successful online, you must change the way you think about your website. As a matter of fact, your website is no different from an online cold-call. With cold-calls, you only have a few seconds to impress or connect with the individual on the opposite line or you’ll end up losing the account.
It’s no different with your website. If you don’t have what the visitor wants in a clear, readily accessible and aesthetically pleasing manner, your online cold-call is going to fail and you will end up losing business.
Online competition is fierce. The Internet has become absolutely massive and is growing by the day. You would be hard pressed to find a company that does not have a website. Making yours stand out from the crowd is a crucial part of your business’s success.
4 problems with having an average website:
1. You cannot effectively implement a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign, because people are going to visit your site, you'll be billed for the initial click-through, but if your customers leave your site after only a couple of seconds of looking at the homepage, you are never going to see any return on the investment.
2. If you're selling a B2C product and your website is not pristine, visitors are going to question whether or not you can actually deliver on your promises.
3. Again, if you’re selling a B2C product, a bad website may make the visitor think you are halfway across the world, thus prompting them to look elsewhere.
4. Regardless of whether it is a B2B or B2C, the consumer or corporate decision maker is not going to feel comfortable about the level of support you can possibly provide. After all, if you can’t maintain a well formulated website, how are you supposed to maintain strong client relations?
4 tips to decrease your bounce rate and increase your sales conversion rate:
1. Give the end-user access to resources related to your product such as articles, videos and just about anything else that will peak their interest. Articles will show the visitor that you are an expert on the particular subject you are discussing. Conversely, scraping content from the New York Times does not look as appealing.
2. Pictures of the employees and company management with a brief bio make up for not making face to face connections. People want to know whom they are buying from. In my opinion, it is best not to wear a suit; business casual will do. You want to come across as friendly and personable.
3. Make your website easy to navigate. The less the visitor has to hit the “back button” the better. Have clear links to various sources on each page and make sure to link to related content in each article or page.
4. No outbound links including to a blog. Since you’re going to heed my advice and write your articles yourself, you’re not going to have to link to the site that you got it from. Keep the user on your site. I think I have 5 outbound links on our site of more than 200 pages.
Following these tips and avoiding the potential pitfalls I listed will go a long way to ensuring your site is indeed your best friend, and not your worst enemy! What other tips do you have for the community? Share with us in the comments below.
Ken Sundheim is the founder of KAS Placement, which is a 5-year-old company with nearly 10 employees and growing at a very rapid pace. Read more about Ken here.
