Marketing Your Website Is Only Half The Battle…

by Ellis Webster

Marketing your website effectively and getting visitors is crucial to the success of your website, however those visitors need to come back again and again and ultimately become customers. The key to gaining more return visitors and customers is the website itself.

So you have your visitors, but what do they really think about your website. Do your visitors trust what you say? If they do they are more likely to become a customer and for most online businesses that is what it is all about.

The design and layout of your website as well as the language used will have a huge impact on whether your visitors become good customers, by following these few simple but obvious guidelines you can ensure that your site will be seen as a legitimate site and trusted.

Firstly your use of language throughout the site, try and be as jargon free as possible, visitors will leave your site if they can not understand what is being said easily. Also write the text for human visitors not just for the search engine spiders. Do include accurate descriptions of what your site is about and do not make outrageous and unsubstantiated claims.

Include policies and ensure that they are clear and easy to read, avoid legal jargon and make them easily accessible, you could insert a link from the footer from each page. Policies should include a Privacy Policy, which state that you adhere to all data protection laws, and make it clear what you will do with all the private information you collect. Also include a security policy which outlines what measures you take to ensure that all online transactions are secure and include any logos from organisations you use to complete secure transactions such as Paypal. Another good policy is to offer a clear guarantee as well as a returns and refunds policy if appropriate.

The layout of the site is crucial, ensure the navigation is easy, if it is too complicated visitors will simply give up. Also ensure that the layout of the sight is professional and with a well balanced design. Ensure that all your links work, broken links can lead to doubts in the minds of your visitors. Advertising other sites can be beneficial in many ways but try to ensure that all adverts are relevant to the subject of the web page and that links also are relevant. Adding a Google search box to your site is useful in two ways, it can be set up to allow visitors to search your site, but also it represents a well known and trusted brand.

Finally but perhaps the most important is to be honest about who you are. People trust other people when they feel they know a bit about them. Perhaps start a newsletter to update your clients regularly, (but do let them opt out if they request it.) Have an About Us section on your website, which might even include photographs of the team, and a short biography. Keep the site regularly updated, repeat visitors like to see small changes, it gives them confidence that the site is alive, also include a current time and date stamp. Include a genuine contact us page (Legal requirement in the UK) with address, telephone number and an email address which is linked to the website address ie not ..@btinternet.com.

If you do have all the above in place your visitors should feel that yours is a trustworthy site and will be more inclined to come back again and recommend to others.

© Ellis Webster, All rights reserved.
Article provided by Ellis Webster of Web Design Service www.web-designservice.co.uk

Submitted on Feb 3, 2009