Article Surfing Archive

Your regular, average web-site surfer is in need of stimulation. They view your website as a means of information and a place to possibly buy. The million pound question is, 'How do I turn the average web-site surfer into a paying customer?' The answer is that you have to form a buyer-consumer relationship.

If you take a look at well-known web-sites such as, eBay, Microsoft, Dell, Amazon they have the benefit of several factors: name recognition, brand recognition and marketing. They also have intangible assets such as goodwill, trust and loyalty. They were able to achieve this through their marketing and offering products and invaluable services such as their technical support, streamlined selling and buying solutions and customer interaction.

These same techniques can be applied to your website. Your website has to offer something of value to your customers or else they won't stay for long or buy anything. In order to do this a trust relationship has to be established. As a webmaster you achieve this by designing, planning and implementing a well thought out website and the message you wish to convey.

Here are core elements in the presentation and creation of your website:

* Frequent testing to ensure unbroken links
* Frequent and updated content
* Complaints Policy
* Written Guarantee on Products/Services
* Company Information
* Real Address
* Real Phone Number
* If deemed beneficial 'About Management' 'About Staff'
* Support
* 0800 or free phone number
* Easy access to ordering
* Easy checkout and easy cart update
* Privacy Policy
* FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions)
* Easy to navigate website
* Proper presentation of facts, information or product data (no spelling errors)

People who are looking for a particular product or service need to automatically be able to 'trust' your website. Anything that casts doubt will result in those potential customers leaving your website.If you take a look at the design of eBay, Amazon or Microsoft they make it easy for you to find the product, service or information you require. Take a look at how their web-pages naturally flow and if you encounter a broken link or don't find what you're looking for right away, this same feeling of frustration is the same feeling your customers will have.

Bear in mind that those people coming to your web-site are there because: a friend recommended them, they saw/read/heard your ad, looked in a search engine or found you in the Yellow Pages. They are at your site because they have been told that you (your web-site) can solve a particular problem they are having.

Help them out by making your web-site as easy to navigate and having the ability to purchase anything (credit cards, Freestart, PayPal or WorldPay). Also make it easy for them to ask a question and get back to them within 24 hours of their request. Make it easy for them to call and get a real human being. Nothing will have a customer leave than having no or limited access to a real person especially if they have shipping or credit card questions.

Testing your web-site especially where customer ordering is concerned will greatly speed up their buying and increase your sales. Imagine if you order several products on another web-site and you were going to checkout, only to find that their credit card or shipping or web-page wasn't accessing or loading properly. What would you feel? Disgust, frustration or worse, you just go to another competitor's website and you buy from them. These same considerations exist for your customer. Test your ecommerce system to ensure it is working. Test the checkout and cart process to ensure that someone who wants to continue to shop can do so or someone who wants to checkout can do so easily.

Your job as an on-line vendor is to ensure that the shopping and buying experience contains very little or no barriers to buying. If any of these contain the slightest hint of doubt or conveys a lack of credibility your customer is going to look elsewhere for the same products. Worse, they will tell some friends that they really had a bad experience at your web-site.

Result: on-line business killer.