Sales Analysis of a Website

There are two sides to a business web site.

The most pronounced side is an overwhelming effort by business owners to simply connect with potential customers via the internet in an attempt to sell. There are numerous web based applications designed to facilitate business' connections to the market place, for example automatic monthly search engine submission of your domains and Google's Webmaster Tools to enable easy discovery of your website.

THIS is the technical side of the Internet or your website - building a vehicle to potentially connect you to prospects.

However business owners with websites must understand that a website is only a tool designed to help bring business awareness and promotion to more people, who are online. This added marketing opportunity will not reap you any benefits unless reinforced with addressing the need people have for credibility and trust in merchants. Techniques for building confidence in other people are still a function of time, word of mouth from trusted people and social proof i.e. the merchant's past performance.

THIS is the other side, building relationships first, before any sale can be made.

This means that just because you have a website does not mean you will automatically make additional sales! First you need to let your customers and especially potential clients know you have a website and where to find it. Secondly you need to build interest, giving them a reason to visit your website, and then apply the traditional relationship building exercises to build credibility and enough trust that will help persuade them to buy from you and not from somebody else.

Let's take a look at what you need to do to build credibility and trust in your market place using the Internet tool box. There are websites and there are websites. You can have your website built by a team of specialist programmers that is technically superb and possibly ineffective because they will most likely not have built into the design features that 'paint a real picture' of who you and your business are, which is needed to persuade prospects to buy from you. On the other hand your website can first be designed by a team with business and marketing acumen and then developed by proficient developers.

Following are some ideas that should be considered:

"If your business provides a professional service, it's important to design your small site around the unique needs of your potential customers." 1 Some questions potential customers want answered when selecting a business to buy from: "Are you competent? Do you repair the brand I own? Do you work in my area? How much do you charge? How soon can you do the work? Your site has to convince a potential customer that you're the right one for the job. Your site also has to address the concerns of visitors who may know a friend or neighbor who has been burned by someone in your line of work. They may have suffered themselves, so it's safe to say that caution and doubt are common attitudes among many of the visitors to your site. A key to accomplishing this is a site that tells your unique story and makes a personal connection with your potential customers. Your website's design, of course, plays the leading role in defining you and your work for visitors. You can easily extend your style and your brand onto your website by using your handwritten script or signature as part of your logo and navigation."1

Generally the 'bigger' the purchase the greater will be the reassurance your potential client will be seeking before making any commitment, so the bigger your effort will need to be before the sale (your reputation) and during the sale (your sales skills).

So as you can see there is more that goes into the design and build of a website than meets the eye!