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Further
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Pick a City - any City - Stephen Bucaro
---------------------------------------------------------- Permission is granted for the below article to forward, reprint, distribute, use for ezine, newsletter, website, offer as free bonus or part of a product for sale as long as no changes are...
The New Economy - Making a Living in the New World - Perry Jones
The New Economy Copyright 2001 by Perry Jones Revised 2005 A million jobs and more are being lost each year overseas. Thousands of people each month are giving up hope of ever finding a job. This is a huge tragedy the effects of which have not yet...
To Have Your Own Product or Not To Have Your Own Product? That is the Question! - Denise Hall
If you've been working online very long you've probably noticed different people will give you different advice for earning money and building your business. Some will say you have to have your own product to sell. Others will claim you...
A Successful Business Will Be One You Enjoy. - Matt Russell
If you think that starting your own business is the answer to your problems; whether it's money, child care, illness or a desire for more free time, then you must choose wisely. Too many individuals eagerly leave their paying jobs in order to...
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Beautiful Web Sites Seldom Make More Sales
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Written By:
Vishal P. Rao
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Designing an E-commerce Web site is not as simple as having a "pretty" site that is a pleasure to visit. While it is important to have an attractive site, as much thought must be given to functionality as to appearance.
Many Web designers seem to focus more on appearance than functionality, and while an attractive site is helpful, visitors that become frustrated by the inability of a site to function well, will leave almost immediately, never to return!
Just as important in designing an e-commerce-style Web site, is a somewhat basic knowledge of Web site design, with some simple design skills included. While a thorough knowledge of design and functionality is not important, designing an e-commerce site does have some requirements, or else you'll always find yourself going back relentlessly and changing the features and functionality in a vain effort to stay abreast of your site visitor's needs.
E-commerce sites need to focus on some main areas of functionality in order to ensure maximum sales:
1. Load time, page size, and navigability. Slowly loading pages, overly large or small pages, and difficult navigation will only frustrate visitors. Visitors should never have to "wait" for a page to load, should never have to scroll back and forth in order to read a page, nor should they have to "search" relentlessly for the information they want in order to purchase. Clean, simple lines, with fast loading, well laid out pages, make the most sales.
Here's a great service to check your Web site load time:
http://www.tracert.com/
This one actually pings your Web site from different locations worldwide and returns the average load time for your site, instead of simply returning a theoretical value based on the size of your Web page.
2. Less use of graphics. While graphics are pleasant and intriguing, they don't necessarily achieve more sales. The opposite may be true if too many graphics are used. A page that is graphics heavy loads more slowly and the graphics themselves may take the visitors' minds off the main purpose of the site, i. e. "sales". If graphics are used at all, they should be optimized for Web placement, and reduced to the smallest size possible for viewing. Most graphics can easily be reduced by approximately twenty percent without affecting the quality of the graphics.
Here's a neat tool for optimizing your Web site graphics if you are not very familiar with graphics software:
http://www.netmechanic.com/GIFBot/optimize-graphic.htm
3. The use of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). CSS effectively eliminates the need of entering repetitive tags like FONT, reducing your page size significantly. Such tags can consume up to 5-7% of your page size. Imagine how much bandwidth you'll save if your Web site has more than 100 pages!
4. Breaking the site up into smaller tables as opposed to enclosing the entire body of a site in one large table. This technique enables the page to load in - continued below ...
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progression rather than make your visitor stare at a blank screen until the page is fully loaded. This is an often overlooked aspect.
5. Use of sitemaps. Sitemaps not only increase rankings and placement within the Search Engines, they effectively give visitors a "guide" by which to view the site, and eliminate confusion on larger sites, such as e-commerce sites. A site map is what its name implies, a road map for your visitors to follow while they are on your site. It's also a road map for the Search Engines, so a site map serves two very important purposes on an e-commerce site.
6. Content that is keyword rich and well-written will aid in placement within the Search Engines, and keep visitors on a site long enough to purchase. Horribly written sites drive visitors away, while the lack of keywords negatively affects placement and rankings. The writing on any site is the FIRST IMPRESSION potential customers have of you and your products or services, so paying strict attention to the content usually engenders additional sales.
7. Keyword rich title tags will increase traffic overall, and more traffic, of course, means more sales. Title tags help with placement and rankings. Appropriate keywords should also be used for linking internal pages, as this also helps with rankings. Since e-commerce sites are for the most part, larger than personal pages, or other types of sites, the internal linking does lead to more effective initial indexing by the Search Engines also. Care should also be given to the "alt" tags that surround all pictures of products, as non-optimized "alt" tags can lead to poor rankings and placement.
8. E-commerce databases and purchasing procedures that are user friendly. Nothing is more frustrating to future buyers than databases or purchase procedures, that are difficult to use, or that keep going down throughout the process of purchase. A database and purchase procedure, should be easy to use, yet reliable enough to prevent lost sales, or lost monies from sales.
9. A security feature that ensures visitors that personal information is "safe and secure" within the confines of the Web site and that reassures them that their personal information will not be shared nor sold. This is a major concern of online visitors, as the Web is such an "anonymous" type of medium, so any "assurances" as to safety and security will benefit sales.
10. A thank-you page that is presented immediately upon ordering. This ensures "return purchases" as being courteous and polite is always in style and does leave an overall good impression on visitors!
All in all, an e-commerce Web site is significantly different than a personal Home page, or pages of a non-profit organization. The focus of the design and navigation, as well as all other aspects need to focus on the primary purpose of the site, and that of course, is the SALES! Vishal P. Rao is the owner of http://www.home-based-business-opportunities.com - One of Internet's leading website dedicated to starting, managing and marketing a home based business.
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Light weight jewellery Unlimited at Prince Jewellery - sarathy
— Indian jewellery exports surged 13.6% in the seven months to October 2003. Prince jewellery, One of Chennai's most trusted jewel dealer now manufactures light weight jewellery after huge demand from their customers. — Light weight...
Internet Marketing; The New Frontier - Lanard Perry
If you've spent any time on the Internet recently you know, even if only subconsciously, that web based "work from home" opportunities are a dime a dozen! But I bet you don't know that there are more than 15 million programs to chose from! In...
Highs & Lows of a Net Business - Suzanne Falter Barns
In our recent survey to readers of my ezine, The Joy Letter, I was asked to provide a timeline of the ups and downs in building my motivational website, ( www.howmuchjoy.com ). Ah … where to begin? There have been definite highs and lows in my...
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