Friday, February 6, 2009

Profitable Website: A Key Ingredient List

By Angie Sandy

The key to internet marketing success is to attract website visitors and convert them into loyal and paying customers. This is accomplished with a variety of strategies and tactics which all begin and end with your website.

A Memorable Customer Experience

A fantastic customer experience is paramount to a great and profitable website. How do you create that fantastic experience? First and foremost, in order to make a decision to buy anything, your customers need to be able to find what theyre looking for quickly and easily. Make sure all your information is right up front and easy to find.

For example, FAQ pages, easy to calculate shipping charges, and product descriptions.

A powerful customer experience also includes feeling welcomed and valued " a sense of connection. This can be provided and enhanced by utilizing frequent buyer programs and an about us page to show them who you are and what youre about.

Regular and Valuable Content

For business owners, in order to provide your customers and visitors with a fabulous experience a CMS, content management system or article management system will make providing valuable content quick and easy.

A content management system or CMS makes creating, storing, modifying, and even removing content from your website a quick and easy process. No HTML skills are necessary to create a professional looking website. Its a great time saver.

Secure, Easy To Use Shopping Cart

While a shopping cart may seem like a mere technicality to you, its an integral part of your customers experience. Customers need to know that their information and transaction is secure. They want to know all shipping and sales tax information right up front, and they want a system which lets them manage their cart with relative ease.

For business owners a good shopping cart system will manage your data, produce real time reports and not cost an arm and a leg.

Search Functions

One great feature for customers is the ability to search a site for a specific item or keyword. For example, imagine you're visiting a pet store and you need to buy a coat to keep your pooch warm during the cold winter months. Rather than having to search through pages and pages of items, having the ability to search for dog coats enhances your shopping experience

Providing this functional search feature enhances your customers experience as well it provides you with valuable keyword data to incorporate into your marketing strategy and product line decisions.

Search Engine Traffic

Theres no doubt that SEO plays a critical role in driving website traffic and sales. Finding a website builder with integrated SEO systems is like finding a wining lottery ticket. Imagine being able to link and tag your content and website code without having to jump through hoops or learn a programming language.

If your website builder also comes with a sitemap feature each time you update your website content, the search engines are automatically notified, saving you tons of time and ensuring your website is getting noticed by the search engines and potential visitors.

Personality

In the competitive world of online business, your branding strategy can certainly help set you apart from your competition. While a logo is important, think about the Nike swish or the colorful eBay lettering, for a small business owner your personality is a large part of your brand. Your personality can be reflected in the content and design on your website.

Creating a great and profitable website starts with a website builder that provides the tools necessary to create a powerful customer experience. Choose your builder wisely, look for one that is easy to use and provides the tools you need to create the business you desire.

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