The question of the day? “We are getting traffic, but no . . . <insert here> orders, e-mails, requests, inquiries</insert>.” Even the best looking, properly developed, cross-platform Web site will not produce results if it does not relay the product or service offered in such a manner as to cater to what a visitor needs to know. From the verbiage to the price to the calls to action (that do not exist on many sites) you need to be able to properly describe, lure, and cajole your target visitors into wanting, better yet needing your product/service and contacting you.
All Web site owners really have to wash right out of their hair this idea that just because you put products/services on a Web site that visitors will show interest or place orders. So much of having a Web site has to do with your marketing plan and ability to run your site as a business, which includes how to market your product or service in such a way that produces results. Traffic is the first battle that you need to tackle which has to do with your on and off-line marketing efforts. But if you are not turning those hits into clicks to contact you or buy your product you need to look at the guts of your site. In this article I am going to assume you have a good site so that is off the plate (and you know if you do or not, be honest).
So you have this great site and you’re getting hits galore but no results. What could be the reason? Many times it is reasons - plural. Here I will share with you the situations I run into on a daily basis where, when the traffic starts pouring in, the client experiences minimal results. Hopefully, this article can help you make sure you have these issues covered to make sure you have the best chance for ROI (Return On Investment).
1. Content/Verbiage. Unfortunately, many site owners do not have command of the written word. Their language skills are so anemic they couldn’t describe themselves out of a shoe box to save their lives. Creative writing, proper use of adjectives and grammar go a very long way to your perception of credibility online and successfully selling what you have to offer. When showing up at a site, why would someone contact you if there were typos, grammatically incorrect use of words or phrases - a clear indication that the person behind the site possibly didn’t make it out of the 6th grade? There are tons of wonderful books on writing. Bone up on these skills or hire a pro.
2. Creative Writing from a Marketing POV. With all the noise online, clarity in your writing that caters to what your target market wants to hear is very important to your getting a response. So many sites do not talk TO the site visitor; they talk AT them. It is the site owner’s version of what they want the site visitor to know - which many times is of no interest at all to the person showing up at your dot com. Folks go to sites on a mission; they are looking to fill a need. When they get to a site they want to see that site talking to them about how that need will be filled, what the benefits are to them in working with you or buying your product over someone else’s. If you don’t refine these points - there is no reason to do business with you. Those who land at your site don’t know you, they don’t know how great you think you or your products/services are. Having calls to action such as “Find out how we can help you now…” or offering incentives such as “FREE gizmo when you fill out my survey or purchase my widget…” also go a long way to enticing a click.
3. Two Clicks. O.K. I said I would assume you have a good site. Well, there are allot of visually respectable sites out there that stink when it comes to the site’s navigational scheme. Lack of consistency in navigation between pages being all too common. Inability to clearly allow a customer to find quickly what they are looking for with intuitive links or verbiage is evident on many sites. So many sites want to try and control what the site visitor has to see or click through to get to the crux of the matter that many times visitors won’t play that game and leave. Here again, don’t try and force what you want them to see or do just to contact you or order your products! If they are on a mission for your widget, let them be no more than two clicks away from finding the info, asking a question, getting pricing or a button to order. Two clicks!
4. Quality Photos. Display of example products and site graphic quality are critical to reflecting that you have a quality product or service to offer. Graphic and photo display online is a skill in of itself. Digital cameras are great but if you do not learn how to use them properly or are unable to “Webolize” graphics specifically for the Web you loose the quality that your digital camera can offer. Poor quality graphics such as clip-art or scans of catalog pages will lend to the perception of poor quality products or worse yet a lack of attention to quality. Think of it his way; if someone where to have a Web site with obviously crummy graphics, who knows what else they are not paying attention to or don’t care about? Hmmm….
5. Be Secured! E-commerce enable sites that are not truly secured may take advantage of a few who do not realize the risk involved but not all. You need to ensure that your site is secured, that you get your business and the server certified by companies like Verisign or Thawte. Check with your hosting company about what certificates they support. These companies go through the process of confirming your server is in fact SSL encrypted and that you are who you say you are. This goes along way to adding that warm fuzzy for customers to give out their credit cards and it prevents browsers from producing generic warnings which send most Netizens running for the proverbial hills. I can’t tell you how many sites ask for credit cards where I can clearly see they are not secured. No security, no orders.
6. Contact Forms. Customers will understand that any business would desire some basic information from them in order to respond to their request. But when you make the inquiry form require they give you information that has nothing to do with what their question may be or is irrelevant to purchasing your product or service - they’re out of there! Make your inquiry forms short and sweet. Give visitors drop down selection boxes and check boxes so they don’t have to do allot of typing just to ask you a simple question. Keep your contact form no more than 10 fields. You can work on getting additional information as the relationship develops. Or, offer a survey with some sort of incentive to get all that other information you feel you need - don’t make customers have to give their shoe size just to ask you a question that may turn into an order - that is unless you sell shoes. ;-)
7. Pricing. If you have an item that is easily found at other sites you’d better make sure you are competitive in pricing. If you have a unique item that is not as readily available make sure that your pricing is realistic. The number of sites where I see pricing that makes me wonder what drugs the site owner is on are astounding! Don’t assume you can ask any price. This is business. You need to be competitive and you need to show that the price you are asking is one that is based in some reality and offers quality and value - or you won’t get orders.
8. Policies, Procedures, Terms and Conditions. You need to be very clear about these issues on your site. Including the appropriate addresses and phone numbers to maintain the perception of credibility. For eCom sites you need to have your return policy, your security and privacy statement, your shipping costs up front and visible. If customers do get into your order system and you whack them for shipping that is ridiculous (shipping should not be a profit zone, it should recoup your costs and compensate you for your time and materials but no more) they will abandon and not complete the transaction. Outrageous shipping charges are one of the main reasons customers will go order the very same product from a competitive site. If your site is not eCom, you better have at the very least a Privacy Statement clarifying your position on the distribution of the information visitors will provide to you. Make it clear you are not selling them down the pike by just asking you for info.
9. Customer Service. For all intents and purposes, orders, e-mail, inquiries are pretty instantaneous. To think that you have days or that you can get around to responding to your visitor’s inquiries when convenient will simply hand over your potential new customer to your competitor who is “Johnny-on-the-Spot” and responds promptly and courteously. Respond with an e-mail wrought with lack of punctuation, formality and errors means you probably will not hear back from your potential customer. Visit: www.NetManners.com to make sure that you have all these issues firmly in practice.
10. Attitude is everything! Unless you are a Technology Consultant, find one to partner with and then have the attitude of a sponge. I live and breathe this business full-time and know what works and what doesn’t. Unfortunately, those without “spongitude” override my recommendations. Why? Because they know better? No. Because they have more experience? No. Simply because they may not “like” my recommendation. Not a valid reason to make a business decision right? I think not.
Why would they not like my recommendation? Because it doesn’t make sense? No. More times than not it is because it requires the site owner to learn something new; skills, software, methodology, how to read their stats - the list goes on. If I had a dollar for every frustrating moment I didn’t “like” or lesson learned that I didn’t “like”, or something I had to learn that I didn’t “like” (Naw, that doesn’t count, I love to learn!) or problem I had to tackle that I didn’t “like”, I would be comfortably retired!
The bottom line is technology is not easy - it is very, very - did I say very, challenging and many times frustrating for each of us. If you don’t want to deal with what you may not “like” or be willing to learn, apply, investigate, your results or ROI will reflect these decisions and maybe you should seriously consider if you should even be online in the first place.
All of the above is useless unless you review your Web site’s statistical data minimally once each month to allow you to become comfortable with that data and to ensure you are able to decipher what is happening or not happening for that matter on your site. You need to see where visitors are entering, what their natural paths through your site are, and where they are exiting to refine your program. Without becoming intimate with this data you simply are not in a position to make logical business decisions moving forward that will require you tweak the above issues. Whether you “like” it or not.
If you don’t have the 10 items above covered - get to work. Review your stats - your stats are your friend! This is not a build it and they will come and buy environment based on the fact that you’ve uploaded files on to some remote server on the Internet. This is business, where fundamentals of knowing what is successful for your niche, which requires the flexibility to change and an openmindedness to embrace sometimes frustrating new things will determine your level of success. From a business point of view mastering the issues in this article will go a long way to turning all those hits into big-time clicks!
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