Website Basics

Thursday, December 18, 2014

The importance of your website will vary according to the type of business you run. If you are selling electronics or consulting services, your website might very well be the only contact you ever have with customers. If you are in the shoe business, it is less important, because despite some merchants doing everything in their power to eliminate the problems online shoe purchasing presents, most people want to try shoes on before buying them. A website for a shoe merchant will be more geared towards getting the customers into the store.

Those distinctions aside, almost any business can benefit from having a website, if only to counter the efforts of competitors.

Here are a few basics that should be a part of any website.

Security
If a customer has the slightest anxiety that your site might present a security risk, they will not complete an online sales transaction. You can avoid this potential problem by ensuring that your payments are handled by a reputable service that is willing to invest in bullet proof security and stay constantly abreast of the latest techniques employed by hackers.

Easy, Simple Navigation
Put yourself in your website visitors’ shoes. How do you feel when you visit a site looking for information regarding price and availability, only to be compelled to click through pages that do not have relevant information?

Mobile Friendly
Customers love to do product comparisons using their smartphones to seek out the best deal. If your website displays only a small fraction of any of your pages on their phones, they will be gone before you have any kind of chance to convert them to your business.

Focus on Visual Simplicity
Customers scan; they do not read everything. Use high quality images that attract and hold attention, accompanied by short headings and lines of text.