Everyone is trying to make a living. Some of us work for a living. Some others are brave enough to setup a business of their own. Don’t get me wrong: it does take a certain level of bravery to look for a job, to keep on going after you get turned down so many times does take courage!
For those who have decided to setup a business and go online, you are to be commended. And this article is for you. How are you going to get the best of people who come to your site?
First, you must realise certain things about the people who visit your site:
- They are busy people. So if they don’t see what they are looking for or what interests them in your site, they will move on!
- They like to get something back. Even if they haven’t given you anything.
- There are so many sites competing for their attention.
- They will be accessing your site from many devices and browsers (a lot of people seem not to bother about this fact).
So with the above facts in mind, let’s give consideration to elements of your site that you must give top priority to:
- Browsers: most sites seem to be built only for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. The reality, though, is that there are many others. And of the browsers that exist, the one that are most ignored are the mobile browsers. Yes! The number of people browsing on their phones is growing. And as my Rapper friends would say: You’d better recognise! So ask yourself: How does my site look on a phone? One mistake a lot of people make is that they load their sites with very heavy pictures. And it takes anything from 15 – 20 minutes to download a page of their site in some parts of the world. Recognise that viewing your site from your laptop is a different experience from someone viewing it in a Cybercafe that is run off a phone line copper wire somewhere in Africa. So, unless you are totally not bothered about people in Africa (or somewhere else in the world where their government haven’t seen it fit to launch a Geostationary satellite into space), try and do the world a favour and make your site as light as possible. And whatever you do, get your site builder to ensure your site is legible on the phone.
- Your Homepage: the most important objective of your homepage is to immediately grab the attention of visitors to your site. And what word grabs attention better than the word ‘Free‘. Yes! People like anything for ‘Free’. So what can you give your customers for Free? Once you have identified what you can give them for free (and please make sure that whatever you give is something that has some value attached to it), ask for the visitors Name and Email Address in return for this freebie. These two pieces of information, are probably the most important things you can get from anyone who visits your site. Think about it this way: What are the chances that you can make friends with someone who has told you their name? Very high! All you have to do is interact with this person long enough to get them interested in you (we shall discuss this concept in another article).
- Look and Feel: this is something that turns people off on many a site. I am not going to dwell too much on this, but you want to make sure that the mix of colours are appeal to eyes; the fonts are consistent; your style is consistent (e.g. links should all look the same), there is some sense of symmetry/arrangement. And you can’t go wrong with a white background.
- The words you use: make sure your choice of words - especially on the homepage – tell how you can help meet a need. The old ask-a-question-and-provide-the-answer method works well (Example: Is that headache killing you? We can make you come alive!). You also want o give a sense of ease. So be careful not to be too formal in your communication. Relax! Your site is there to make friends. And if your visitors become your friends, its most likely that they’ll patronise you.
So there you go! There are so many things to say about what should or shouldn’t be on a site. I guess its all summed up on these words: Put your self in your customers shoes and think of things that are attractive to them. Don’t let your first priority be that you want to make a sale. If you do the right things, the sale would come.
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P.S. I would be glad to know what your opinion is about other considerations that should be given to succeed online.
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