by June Campbell
Get something to sell, build a Web site, and start making tons of money while you sleep at night! Oh, if it were that simple.
Actually, there are people making tons of money from their Web sites. They have learned the tricks of the trade. They've made it a point of finding out what works and what doesn't work when it comes to Web site sales. If you're serious about selling from your Web site, the best approach is to purchase an Internet marketing course. Visit your favorite search engine and run a search for "Internet marketing." You'll find many choices.
In the meantime, the following Web-design tips will get you on the right track.
Look Professional
Get your own domain name. For $12 or $13 a year, you can have a URL that doesn't scream "amateur." Surfers don't turn into shoppers unless your site convinces them that you are a serious and stable merchant. Using a URL like www.geocities.com/~schnizzerfinkle/toys.html screams "fly by night." Nobody will be eager to trust you with their hard-earned cash. Similarly, pay for Web site hosting and get rid of the advertising that comes with the freebies. If you're trying to sell, you don't want anybody's advertising on your site but your own&emdash;unless, of course, somebody has paid you good money to put it there.
Provide Contact Information
Credibility is everything. Savvy shoppers won't do business with Web sites if no contact information is provided. You need names, addresses, e-mail addresses and phone numbers where real live people can be reached.
Post a Privacy Statement
If you are collecting people's names, contact information or e-mail addresses, remember to put a Privacy Statement on your site. Let people know exactly how the information you collect will be used, and whether or not you will be selling/loaning/renting your list to a third party. It goes back to credibility and trust. If you're collecting information, people want to know why.
Post a Refund Policy or Guarantee
Potential customers want to know they have recourse if they're not satisfied with the product or service. You'll make more sales by posting a Refund Policy than if you don't. Yes, there will be some people who take advantage of this, particularly if you're selling an electronic product that can't be returned. However, in the end, you'll make more than you'll lose by offering a clearly stated guarantee.
Make It Easy for People to Buy
A sales site's purpose is to sell your product or service. Your customers should not have to work hard to buy something from you. Eliminate any design elements that get in the way of customers getting the information they want and making a purchase.
Have a fast download for each page. This means no large pictures or animations, no big flash presentations, or anything else that's a bandwidth hog. Research shows that people won't wait around for more than seven seconds for a page to download. Surfers accessing the Net with a modem will quickly tire of waiting for your large picture (or six small ones) to come into view.
Make it crystal clear what your product and service is, and make it easy for surfers to find this information on your Web site. Avoid using large sites like Microsoft's or Adobe's as your role model. It's not easy to figure out how to buy something from those sites. Both of those companies are so well known that customers will tolerate the navigational challenges. You won't have this advantage when you begin selling your hand-made soaps from your Web site.
Use simple navigation. Customers should not have to click through any more than two or three links to make a purchase. The fewer, the better. Statistics show you lose customers at every click.
Avoid external links. If your goal is to sell your products, why would you send your customers to another Web site? (Unless you're an affiliate reseller, which is a different situation.)
Don't Annoy Potential Customers
A ticked-off site visitor will not become a shopper. Here are some of the things that surfers find annoying.
Sites that disable the browser's Back button, thereby trapping the visitor in the frames. Keeping surfers prisoner won't increase the likelihood that they'll buy something.
Sites with colors and fonts that are difficult to read. Red background, purple fonts? Big no-no. White background, silver fonts? Fine for those who can see it. Many won't be able to.
Sites that force the visitor to view a large animation before entering. If you're using Flash or a similar presentation on your Home page, provide a text link so surfers have the option to bypass it.
Sites that let you waste your time filling in forms and clicking through links only to tell you at the last minute that the offer is restricted to a certain region, or not available for your operating system, etc. If you ship only to a certain area, or your software is available only for Windows computers, stipulate this up front. Why irritate people by letting them discover they're not eligible to enter your contest after they've spent 15 minutes filling in a form?
Sites that use multiple pop-up or pop-under windows. Nobody likes these things, but research has shown that one pop-up or pop-under will increase sales or will increase the number of people who sign up for your e-zine or other promotional event. Too many will reduce the sales volume at your site. Personally, I wouldn't use more than one.
Accept Credit Cards
A few people will send checks or use an alternative form of payment if it is offered. However, your sales will go up by about 85 percent or more if you accept credit card transactions online. Naturally, this has to be done on a secure server. Not everyone can qualify for a merchant account through a bank, but almost anyone can use the services of one of the many credit card processing services that proliferate on the Net. For a fee, you can arrange to have a card processor handle the financial transactions on its secure server and send you the money according to an agreed-upon schedule.
Promote Your Web Site Legitimately
Your site won't sell if no one can find it. Register with the major search engines. Find out how to design your site so it is "search-engine friendly." Purchase or barter ads in e-zines and online newsletters. Consider purchasing an account with some of the pay-per-click search engines that are becoming the norm for Internet marketing. Overture and Sprinks are among the better known.
And, of course, you are far too smart to promote your site through spamming. You understand that spamming makes you enemies, not customers, and gets you into trouble with your Web host, your e-mail provider and others. (Spamming means sending unsolicited e-mail to people who have not agreed to receive commercial messages from you.)