Web Design for Ecommerce

Written by Ray Yee


Your website is your tool for showingrepparttar online community an image of your Drop Ship retail business. Whether or not your business succeeds depends heavily on your website. If your website design is user-friendly, more visitors will purchase your products or subscribe to your newsletter. This will ensure that you are not wastingrepparttar 138779 time and money you spent attracting visitors to your website. It does not pay to drive large amounts of traffic to your website and have 99% of them leave due to poor content and navigation.

When designing your website, it is important that you switch from your own profit-oriented perspective torepparttar 138780 prospective customers’ perspective. First place yourself in your customers’ shoes. After which, you should take some time to sit down and plan how your website should look like.

Below I will describerepparttar 138781 factors that contribute to a successful sales-optimized website for a Drop Ship business.

1) The critical components of your homepage.

- Your title tag. It should describe your website effectively and concisely. For search engine optimization purposes, it is necessary to include your main keywords in your title, without it being unnecessarily long. For example, a good title would be ‘Renaissance Oil Paintings ½ Abstract Oil Paintings’.

- Your headline. Being one ofrepparttar 138782 first few elements of your homepage that capturesrepparttar 138783 attention ofrepparttar 138784 visitor, it should clearly and concisely state what benefit your website can offer torepparttar 138785 visitor. For example, your headline can tell your visitors how to earn extra income, how to lead a healthier lifestyle or how to save them time or money. In short, it should offer a solution to their problems, or address their needs. The headline should be placed strategically right atrepparttar 138786 top center ofrepparttar 138787 page. You can also userepparttar 138788 italics or bold functions to draw attention to your headline.

Internet surfers are not known for their patience. That is why it is crucial to capture their attention duringrepparttar 138789 first few seconds of their stay at your website. Your headline playsrepparttar 138790 most important role, as it is usuallyrepparttar 138791 first thing that visitors see. Research has shown that you have about ten seconds to fully capturerepparttar 138792 attention ofrepparttar 138793 visitors and compel them to read on, before they leave your site.

- Your content body. In your main body of your homepage, you have to describe in further detailrepparttar 138794 benefits your website or your products can offer to your visitors. Note that you providerepparttar 138795 benefits, and notrepparttar 138796 features ofrepparttar 138797 products you are selling. This isrepparttar 138798 basis of effective marketing: you tellrepparttar 138799 customers what is in it for them. You must also give strong directions to action in your content body and tell themrepparttar 138800 steps they need to take in order to benefit most from your website. For example, you can include links like ‘Click here now to discover why our oil paintings are amongrepparttar 138801 best in Europe’, or ‘Sign up for our free newsletter now to getrepparttar 138802 latest tips and guides on good gardening practices.’ Note that you have to be concise in your content body so that you can includerepparttar 138803 most attractive benefits nearrepparttar 138804 top ofrepparttar 138805 homepage, withoutrepparttar 138806 visitor having to scroll down.

- Your opt-in offer. Ask for your visitors’ names and email addresses in your opt-in offer box. Email marketing is central torepparttar 138807 success of your Drop Ship business. First-time visitors who leave your website without buying anything have a chance of signing up for your free newsletter. This allows you to keep in contact with them and send them promotions in future, and your effort and money in attracting them to your website would not be wasted. This feature should be placed somewhere nearrepparttar 138808 top left or top right of your homepage because of its importance.

2) Professional look/atmosphere. Your website must not be full of graphics, banners or flashing advertisements. These only serve to distract your visitors from your main product offers. You should avoid flash animation as well. When formatting your text, use only a single type of font like Times New Roman, and two different colors at most. Page backgrounds should preferably be white or plain, and not be patterned or fanciful.

Another important factor to keep in mind is to minimizerepparttar 138809 time that your webpage takes to load. Since visitors are normally very impatient, they are likely to leave if a page is slow to load, hencerepparttar 138810 need to exclude large graphics or animation which slow down your loading speed.

3) Good content. Most online retailers sell products in a niche they have expertise in or which they are passionate about. For visitors to be convinced of your authority inrepparttar 138811 niche, you need to establish yourself as an expert in that area by providing useful, reliable content. Customers tend to trust retailers with strong background knowledge as they can recommendrepparttar 138812 best products forrepparttar 138813 customers’ needs, or answer any queries well. Fly-by-night businesses, onrepparttar 138814 other hand, are just out to make money, and normally do not haverepparttar 138815 necessary expertise to earnrepparttar 138816 trust of customers. It is thus critical that you make a consistent effort to update your website regularly withrepparttar 138817 latest tips, resources or articles to serve your visitors well. At least even if visitors do not buy from your website on their first visit, they would continuously return to your website for useful information. After a period of time, when you have earned their trust, they would feel more compelled to buy your products. This form of marketing, which develops an online community, is a very cost-effective method as it costs next to nothing to supplyrepparttar 138818 necessary information.

The 2 Step Lead Generation Machine

Written by John Jantsch


Copyright 2005 John Jantsch

Cold calling doesn’t work, it’s no fun and often you end up with leads, or worse yet, clients, that don’t really value what you do.

Having said that, leads arerepparttar lifeblood of growth, without a lead, there is no client.

Set-up a 2 step lead machine and you can say goodbye to cold calling while generating all ofrepparttar 138545 qualified, permission based leads you can handle.

The basic idea behindrepparttar 138546 2 step approach is to create one or more valuable reports, workshops, evaluations, trial products, checklists, newsletters, courses or tip sheets. You know, something like, “How To Tell If Your Roofing Contractor Is Lying To You” or “What Every Senior Must Know About Bush’s Social Security Changes” or “101 More Things You Can Do With Your iPod.”

Now that you have your value packed written report or audio CD, every bit of your advertising – that’s Yellow Pages, direct mail, back of your business card, letterhead, email signature, web site – should focus on getting people to pick up, request or download that report. Don’t try to do anything else with your advertising, letrepparttar 138547 report sell you. See, that’s step 1.

There are several reasons that this approach is so much more effective forrepparttar 138548 small business owner thanrepparttar 138549 traditional “image” type advertising.

First off, if you only buy a 2 x 3 ad or send a 4 x 6 postcard, can you really tell your story very well?

Secondly, this approach allows you to demonstrate your expertise in a non-threatening, onrepparttar 138550 prospect’s own terms, way. Nobody likes to be sold to, but if they takerepparttar 138551 time to read your report, understand what you do that has value, have an 8-10 page conversation with you,repparttar 138552 relationship and trust has begun.

A person who has requested your free information in officially a hot lead. When a prospect visits your web site they are effectively raising their hand and identifying themselves as someone who is very interested in what you do. Half of your sales job is done!

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