| Designing
Your Product's Website. The most important ingredients
for Internet success
The site assists the entrepreneur in developing
a serious Web presence by providing a wealth of
free information, resources, tools and content.
Below, is list of the most important ingredients
for your Internet success:
Professional Website
Your website is a direct reflection of you and
your business. Creating a
professional website designed to sell will take
a great deal of time and
effort, as there is much more to take into consideration
than design.
You must look at a much broader picture and specifically
design your
website to sell.
Quality Content
In order to create a steady stream of traffic
to your website, you must
give your visitors a reason to visit and continue
to visit in the future.
You must provide your visitors with fresh content
on a continual basis.
Your Own Domain (www.yourdomain.com)
Businesses hosted on a free server are not taken
seriously and are
generally considered to be unprofessional. If
a company doesn't care
enough about its business to get its own domain
name, potential
customers may not feel comfortable doing business
with them. A
company with its own domain name and a professional
looking website
will have a much higher rate of success when
compared with most
business sites hosted on free servers.
Accept Credit Cards
If you're doing business on the Internet, accepting
credit cards is an
absolute must. You must provide your visitors
with an easy online
ordering process and the ability to pay for their
order right online.
Developing Your Product
Developing your own product to market on the
Internet isn't as
difficult as you may think. Today's technology
has opened a whole
New World of opportunity for even the smallest
home based business
owner. The knowledge you have within your own
mind is all you'll
need to develop a successful product.
Not only does instant product delivery benefit
your customer, but it
will also benefit you. By completely automating
your product's
ordering and delivery process, you can spend
your time performing
more important tasks, such as making more sales.
The best form of product delivery on the Internet
is
automated. Internet users want the product they
order as soon as
their purchase is complete. This can be accomplished
in a number of
ways depending upon the type of product. F or
example, if your
product is software or information, it can reside
on your server and be
instantly downloaded via a link. If your product
is a private site, you
can provide instant access as soon as your customer's
payment has
been processed .
Designing Your Product's Website
Once you've developed a great product, your next
step will be to
develop a great website. Your website must be
specifically designed to
sell your product.
Everything within your website should have one
purpose -- getting
your visitor to take action. Words are the most
powerful marketing
tool you have. The right words will turn your
visitors into customers.
The wrong words will cause them to click away
and never return.
Your words are the entire foundation of your
business. Your product,
your website and your marketing strategies all
depend upon your
words. F ancy graphics don't make sales -- words
do.
Every word, sentence and headline should have
one specific purpose --
to lead your potential customer to your order
page.
Write your website copy as if you are talking
to just one person.
Identify a problem and validate that one visitor's
need for a solution.
Continue to write and explain why your product
is the solution to their
problem. Tell them exactly what your product
will do for them -- why it
will solve their problems and how.
Pack your copy with benefits and more benefits.
Write to persuade --
that's the bottom line.
Your website should be simple in design with
the navigational links
placed at the top, left or right side of the
page. It should be designed
in standard HTML with no F lash or fancy plug-ins
and very few
graphics. Unless your graphics specifically pertain
to your product or
enhance your site, you probably shouldn't include
them. Your site
should load very quickly and each additional
graphic will add additional
load time. In addition, there should be no banners
or outside links of
any kind -- nothing that will distract your visitor's
attention.
You must specifically design your website to
rank high in the Search
Engines. This involves much more than just including
META tags. Your
design, text, title and image alt tags all play
a very important role in
determining how your website will rank.
Title
Your "Title" should contain your most
important keyword or keyword
phrase that you think potential visitors will
use when performing a
search. Instead of capitalizing the first letter,
type it in lowercase, as
most people type in all lowercase letters when
searching.
Description
Your description should contain your most important
keywords and
describe your product in detail. You want your
potential visitors to
know exactly what you're offering. Your description
should be less than
200 characters.
Keywords
Select the most appropriate keyword and keyword
phrases, in different
variations, that you feel your potential visitors
will use when
performing a search. The more targeted the better.
You can find a variety of tools to assist you
in creating an effective list
of keywords here: http://www.jimtools.com/
Heading tags
Search Engines pay close attention to the text
displayed within the
"Heading" tags. Place your most important
keyword phrase within a
"Heading" tag.
Graphic Alt tags
Place a readable sentence containing your keyword
phrases within
your graphic "Alt" tags.
Text
All of your keywords and keyword phrases should
appear throughout
your text. If any of the keywords you placed
within your META tags do
not appear within your text, the Search Engines
will ignore them. Your
keyword phrases should appear at least three
times within your text,
but no more than seven.
Your website is your product's storefront and
will play a very important
roll in determining your success. Take your time
and do your
homework before you begin. You may be pleasantly
surprised with the
outcome.
By Shelley Lowery
back
to top
|
