Your business website is your storefront, business card and most significant marketing piece all rolled into one. How it affects your visitors and customers is therefore vital to your success. If you provide a memorable experience, customers are sure to return again and again. What are the keys to creating websites that sell?

Key #1 Interactive Website

With mass migration of people going online, it's becoming more important to create a community around your business. You want to engage your visitors and customers with an interactive website. This can be done in a number of ways. You can:

• Provide a forum
• Post surveys or polls
• Enable visitors and customers to review or rank items. For example a “How valuable was this article?” question and a scale of 1 to 5 stars or a ranking from 1-10.
• Offer a blog and inspire comments and feedback
• Host contests and sweepstakes
• Publish video and audio content as well as written content. This gives users another way to access you and your personality.

Key #2 Make sure your website provides value.

People go online for a number of reasons - to research a potential purchase, to seek solutions for a problem they’re having, and to be entertained. A website that sells contains all three. The good news is your content can provide both the information and the entertainment and when written well, can also inspire purchases. Here are a few ideas to provide value for your customers and prospects:

• How to articles, videos, and audio
• Tips - articles, videos, and audio
• Case studies
• Workbooks and reports
• Interviews with experts
• Product reviews

Key #3 A website that sells is easy to navigate.

It takes a visitor about 20 seconds to make a decision about whether to stay or click away. If your site is laid out nicely, with products and services, information, prices, FAQs, and content easy to find then people are more likely to hang out . The longer they stay on your site the more likely they are to make a purchase or to return again.

To make your site easy to navigate consider:

• Keeping your site simple.
• Keep your pages uniform with the same options and appearance.
• If you have a lot of content use drop down menus and organize your content by topic for easier access.
• Offer a search function where users can search for products, services, or content topics quickly and easily.
• Make it easy for users to easily go back to previous pages. If every page has the same options and drop down menus, including the ability to quickly return to the home page, a visitor will always be able to find what they need.
• Test your website’s appearance on different browsers to make sure every visitor has a good experience.

Key #4 Make your website easy on the eyes.

Readability is critical to a great website. Make sure:

• Your colors are easy on the eyes
• Your graphics aren’t distracting
• Keep formatting like underlining, bold and italics to a minimum.
• Keep adequate spaces between sentences and paragraphs
• Font size is large enough for people to read and font is easy to read

Key #5 Give them a soft sell.

Websites that sell avoid hard sell tactics. Instead, they provide information and demonstrate the benefits of their products or services. Visitors will be much more receptive and appreciative if you do.

Creating a website that sells requires a structured approach and a desire to create the best experience possible for visitors. Once you’ve created your website, consider testing it and asking associates, friends and family for their opinion.

Considered the ultimate guide on writing for the net, "Make Your Site Sell!" reveals the secrets of building websites that sell. It's free to download.

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