3 Ways to Use Your Website to Increase Sales
As we discussed in our last marketing tip about why Your Facebook Page is Not a Website Alternative, having a well-designed website is extremely important to any and all businesses. But how do you use your website to increase sales? I am glad you asked because that is our topic for this marketing tip! There are a multitude of ways to increase sales using your website. However, today we are going to focus on three hard and fast rules:
- Design Matters
- User Experience Matters
- Content Matters
Use Your Website to Increase Sales by Enhancing the Design
Ok, so this section needs its own tip and it will get it. But for now, I am going to give you the footnote version. The fastest way to scare off a new potential customer is through bad design. The fact is that if your website is not fresh, clean, and inviting, customers are going to interpret that as you not caring. They are going to assume that if you don’t care about your own business, you will also not care about them. This is no different than if you walked into a restaurant with a dirty floor and dusty old plants. You would also fear what the kitchen looks like behind the scenes.
If you want to use your website to increase sales, then you are going to need the design to instantly encourage interest and inspire trust. Good design accomplishes all of this while poor design incites the opposite reactions. Design matters because it builds trust, highlights the appropriate information, and encourages interaction.
Use Your Website to Increase Sales by Optimizing the User Experience
This is just a fancy way of saying that your website should be easy to use. Don’t get me wrong: in my attempt to keep this tip short, I risk oversimplifying the complexities of this process. There is a lot of thought, planning, coding, and design that goes into creating a proper user experience. The main takeaway, for today’s purposes, is that you can use your website to increase sales by taking the time to figure out how to improve the ways viewers interact with your website. For example, making sure that your website is mobile-friendly, easy to navigate, fast to load, and has clear call-to-actions that are easy to complete. But it is more than that. Clutter, hidden navigation menus, fonts, or even color can all lead to bad user experiences. The goal here is to remove frustration and confusion so that your viewers can quickly get to the info they need in order to do business with you.
Use Your Website to Increase Sales by Improving the Content
Less really is more. The key to writing website content that leads to sales is to say as much as possible using as few words as you can. People are busy, so get to the point! What is the point that matters to every single potential customer? What’s in it for me? How does this solve my problem? Why do I want or need what you are offering? The point is that the content should be written to the perspective of your customers, not about the product or service. Features and functions are only relevant when phrased from the perspective of how it helps the customer.
We tend to want to talk about ourselves. Save that for the “About Us” page. Everything else should clearly be focused on the customers and the things that matter to them. Obviously, your content should be engaging, well-written, error-free, and all that. But what we are really talking about here is trying to tell a story – not about you, but about the customer. Put them front and center, then subtly swoop in and become the hero that they have been looking for. If you want to use your website to increase sales, your content has to quickly and efficiently show what you can do, why they should pick you, and how they can become a customer. Throw in a bit of creativity and your unique personality and you will be ready to go!
