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Creating A Website That Really Sells
very website is trying to or compels them to action?’
sell something, a product,
an idea, a service or All of which means you should
information even if they don’t look at ways to make your site
charge for it. more sticky, by that I mean ways
to draw your users into your
In a previous article we looked website make them feel
at the best way to boost your comfortable and ultimately
profits whilst building your convince them to take action,
credibility with your customers. like...
As I read back over that article
I realised that it led neatly Join your mailing list
onto website design.
Make a purchase
’Think about it, when you are
surfing the web how many sites Contact you for more information
will you visit in an hour? More (leaving their contact details)
importantly how many will you
remember? Remember that a website is never
finished there is always room for
Pretty few I guess. improvement, the key is to Build
Test Improve, then test, test,
Well it’s exactly the same when test and test some more.
your potential customers come to
your site, they look around and Look and feel How a website looks
leave, a lot of the time never to will depend upon its purpose, by
return. Did you know that the look I mean how it is laid out.
average web user will only stay Do you want to encourage someone
at a website for 10 seconds to dig deeper into your site and
unless it grabs their attention stay or do you just want to
persuade them to take action. payment provider, payment types
you accept, your courier, any
Even though website aims may trustworthy organizations you
differ there are some basic belong to on your home page,
principles of site design that (basically re-assure your
are universal, we will be customers)
covering these in more details in
this newsletter. Provide a link to your privacy
policy
Your website should display well
at all screen resolutions, from Include your contact details
800 x 600 upwards. The Use of
Liquid designs work best, this is Resolution Although current
where the web page will stretch thinking say that sites should be
or rearrange to fit the users designed for 1024x768 with an
browser. estimated 60% of monitors being
set at that resolution, we still
Use CSS and validate mark up need to consider the other
language to build your website. resolutions from 800x600 to
1280x1024 , 17% of users still
Provide clear navigation view at 800 x 600, and depending
on the number of visitors you
Scrolling, vertical is OK but have to your website that could
horizontal really should be be a lot of people.
avoided
The best way to achieve this is
Address your sites accessibility, to use what is called ’Liquid
for disabled users. design’ designing a website this
way allows users at different
Include information on your resolution to have the best
visual experience when on your accessible and easier to maintain
site. and update.
There are three main things to CSS seems to me to embrace the
consider when designing; way the web should be moving,
uncluttered, clean and
Visibility: Is your main content functional. CSS allows you to
/ offer / product / call to design beautiful, usable
action visible without scrolling. websites, whilst keeping page
(We cover this in greater detail size’s very small, making them
below in Scrolling) load faster.
Readability : Does your layout Search engines love clean valid
allow the content to be read code. Could this be a factor in
easily the ranking algorithms? It’s been
hinted that it could be and it
Aesthetics: How does your page certainly seems logical.
look at different resolutions, do
all the columns, content boxes, Lots of further reading on this
images etc line up and flow as subject at >> http://www.w3.org/
originally intended?
Clear navagation It’s essential
CSS and mark up Thankfully that your users can navigate
designers have mostly moved away easily and logically around your
from using table and font tags website. Users expect certain
and are now embracing CSS navigation, the ’Home’ button for
(cascading style sheets). This is example, or to be able to click
a way of controlling the look and on your company logo or banner to
feel of your website that helps get back to the ’Home’ page.
make it faster, smarter more Basically don’t confuse your
users by trying to be clever with home page, if you try and put all
your navigation, it will only your products up there, then you
cost you customers and could have a lot of scrolling to
credibility, stick to what people do.
expect and what fits in with your
business. A long sales copy page is another
exception. If you design a long
Scrolling When someone comes to copy page, simply include links
your website, they should not to buy your product throughout
have to scroll to see your the page so customers can skip
’Primary offer’ your primary straight to the action if they
offer being the product or want to.
service you want to promote or an
action you want them to take, Address your sites accessibility
sign up for your newsletter for for disabled users This is a big
example. If that is your goal subject, and needs more than 1
then your sign up box should small paragraph in a newsletter
appear at the top of the page, it to cover it in any detail, it is
makes sense really, if it’s just very important to take into
hidden down at the bottom and can consideration when designing or
only be found by scrolling then re-designing a website.
you won’t get as many people
signing up. For more information on this
subject visit >>
Obviously there are some http://www.w3.org/
exceptions to this rule, if you
have a catalogue site with Information to include on your
multiple products you will only homepage Your potential customer
be able to display a ’best want to quickly establish what
seller’ or ’special offer’ on the your site offers, how they can
pay for it, how it will be could involve simple changes,
delivered and what support or moving your offers, moving your
help is available they don’t want shipping info from the bottom of
to have to dig deeper into a site the page to the top, making a
to find this information. bigger point of your ’Free
shipping’ policy. Like I have
This simply means including some said before test and improve then
simple elements on the homepage. test again.
The credit / debit cards you A great resource to help you with
accept this kind of testing is Crazy
egg, check out the FREE version
Your courier here >> http://www.crazyegg.com
Live support if available Privacy policy In order to build
credibility and ease any
Contact us link potential fears people may have
about giving you their personal
Privacy policy link information, you should include a
link to your privacy policy,
Any organizations you belong to ideally from each page on your
like, Hacker safe, Verisign etc website. By doing this you are
letting people know that you care
It is worth testing different about this issue and that you
home pages over time and will protect their information.
measuring the response and
conversion rates of each then, Your privacy policy should lay
refining like this will lead to out exactly what information you
the best number of visitors / collect and how you use it. Your
customer conversion. Testing privacy policy should contain
contact details of an appointed ultimately down to your effort
member of staff dealing with and creativity, but once you
customer data, and provide them start to see the results I know
with a way of viewing their data that this will give you the
and a way for them to request determination to carry on
that it be removed or amended. increasing your sales, so good
You can find details of specific luck and let us know how you get
legislation from your local on.
government website, trading
standards and data protection Here at www.Culturething.com we
agency relevant to your own offer services ranging from
country. consultation and advice through
to website design / development
Contact details Quite simple, and marketing strategies. So if
just have a nice clear link to you want to talk to us about how
your contact details, which we can help you then get in touch
should include a phone number and right now by visiting
a proper address, this will help http://www.culturething.com/conta
in building the credibility that ct-us
is crucial.
OK let’s wrap this up, in this article we have looked at some type="text/javascript">
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About the Author:
Written by Will Cambridge / Culturething Culturething help individuals and small businesses improve their web site design, development and online marketing, see how we can help you > Culturething.
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