Sponsored by Fidelity Steel Buildings:
Web user habits are not that different from customer habits in your physical store. Web visitors tend to glance at new pages, scan the text, and click on the first link that vaguely seems to offer what they’re looking for. As a result, a huge part of your website goes unread.
Many users are on the web for interesting, useful, and clickable information. As soon as they spot a few candidates, users will click. If the new pages don’t meet their expectations, users click on the back button and continue the search process.
Users Scan
79 percent of website users are more likely to scan pages than read word by word (at only 16 percent). Research also reveals that there are particular anchors or fixed points that online users depend on to guide them through content on your page.
Web Visitors Don’t Follow a Predefined Path
Online users don’t search for the fastest way to get to information they need. Neither will they scan your page in a linear fashion, from one section of your site to the next. Instead, users choose the first reasonable option they find; and once they find a link that seems to lead them to their goal, they immediately click it. While optimizing can be hard and takes a longer time, satisfying is more efficient.
Users Want Control
Web visitors want to have more control than their browsers and will consistently rely on data representation in a site. For example, they do not expect a new window to pop up unexpectedly, and users want to have a means of getting back to the previous window using the “Back” button. Therefore, it is good practice to never have all your links open in new browser windows.
Usability of your site determines whether it will be successful or not. When working on the design of a website, business owners should think of their visitors. It’s your client who clicks the mouse and decides whether he or she wants to buy from you.
The lifeblood of an online business is the traffic that comes to it. The more visitors your website has, the more sales you’re likely to achieve each year. However, there are a few ways you can tweak your website URL, like http://www.americansteelspan.com/hangars.html, to improve your sales – without necessarily acquiring new visitors.
Instill Your Personality
One way to get more traffic is weaving your personal touch into the sales message you send your clients. Nobody wants to buy from a total stranger, but most people will readily purchase what their close friends recommend as good products or services to them. When you can convince your audience that you’re a personal friend with their best interests at heart, they’re more likely to be convinced to purchase your service or product.
Post Testimonials
Another method for improving your website’s sales is publishing testimonials and comments from your clients. Go a step further by posting both good and bad comments to convince prospects that the testimonials are real. Once your prospects read these testimonials, they gain the confidence to purchase from you since human beings follow others — when something is judged good and genuine by others, they are more likely to purchase as well.
You don’t have to know a lot about online marketing to generate traffic and eventually, sales. Simple things like instilling your personal touch in web content, publishing testimonials and comments, and improving your web design will take you miles ahead of the competition in terms of web traffic.
