{"id":5297,"date":"2013-02-21T09:11:05","date_gmt":"2013-02-20T22:11:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/?p=5297"},"modified":"2013-07-02T10:47:46","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T00:47:46","slug":"making-websites-sell-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2013\/02\/making-websites-sell-for-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Making websites sell for you"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_5433\" style=\"width: 216px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/website_elements.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5433\" class=\" wp-image-5433  \" alt=\"man pointing to various elements of a successful website\" src=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/website_elements-300x200.jpg\" width=\"206\" height=\"118\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-5433\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The right website elements = sales &amp; money<\/p><\/div>\n<p>If you run a business website, it makes sense to have it <a title=\"Gain and retain customers for your business\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/gain-and-retain-customers-for-your-business\/\" target=\"_blank\">help you sell stuff<\/a>, right?<\/p>\n<p>But have you ever looked at your website to see if does help you sell stuff, or if it makes hard work for your potential customers?<\/p>\n<h2>A recent review of websites&#8230;<\/h2>\n<p>I have been looking for some software for a c lient without any prior knowledge\u00a0of any relevant suppliers. So I\u00a0was relying entirely on what I found online.<\/p>\n<p>Not surprisingly, I looked at a few sites.<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>I started with the top site listed in Google\u00a0AdWords and found&#8230;\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>very small font that was hard to read (lucky I don&#8217;t have poor eyesight to start with!)<\/li>\n<li>after 5 minutes, I found a small link on one inner page that showed me a demonstration of the program (for a function I didn&#8217;t actually want) &#8211; otherwise no screenshots or demonstrations are on the site<\/li>\n<li>the list of features includes things like &#8220;enables businesses to focus on their skills&#8221; and &#8220;proven reliable since 2000&#8221; &#8211; it doesn&#8217;t answer questions about the capabilities\u00a0of the\u00a0software to the point that it really isn&#8217;t a list of features at all<\/li>\n<li>there was a <a title=\"How to use testimonials\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wordconstructions.com.au\/articles\/business\/testimonialuse.html\" target=\"_blank\">huge list of testimonials on a distinct page<\/a> (not near any information) rather than actual information<\/li>\n<li>there are no prices listed on the site to give me any guidance as to the quality of their product or if it&#8217;s within budget<\/li>\n<li>I decided I didn&#8217;t trust them with my email address or phone number so they are not a potential supplier<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>So I went to the second site listed in Google AdWords to find it&#8230;\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>looked much better than site 1 &#8211; it was clean, easy to read and not text-heavy<\/li>\n<li>the prices and features pages were just contact forms so the site was actually information poor<\/li>\n<li>I noted the footer mentioned an affiliation with a company I know overcharges like a wounded bull so I closed that window, too<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/clarity_trust.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-5436 alignnone\" style=\"border: black 1px solid;\" alt=\"clarity leads to trust; clutter leads to confusion\" src=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/clarity_trust-300x108.gif\" width=\"270\" height=\"97\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/clarity_trust-300x108.gif 300w, https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/clarity_trust-150x54.gif 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 270px) 100vw, 270px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<li>Thus I moved onto the third site in Google AdWords&#8230;\n<ul>\n<li>\u00a0it was professionally laid out, gave clear direction to relevant parts of the site and written with a consumer in mind<\/li>\n<li>they provide a 30 day free trial\u00a0which built my confidence in them<\/li>\n<li>includes a clear list of &#8216;for $x you get\u00a0these features&#8217; so I could assess if it suited my needs and budget straight away (and no need to waste their time on a non-qualified customer)<\/li>\n<li>all packages even include a webinar on how to use the software, available to all my client&#8217;s staff\u00a0&#8211; this is a great bonus and probably cost very little to produce<\/li>\n<li>I <a title=\"Building trust\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2009\/07\/building-trust\/\" target=\"_blank\">trusted this business<\/a> but the features my client needs weren&#8217;t there unfortunately &#8211; at least I knew that quickly, though<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Next, I looked at the fourth site from Google AdWords and saw\u00a0\n<ul>\n<li>lots of white space on the page and\u00a0an overall\u00a0professional look and feel<\/li>\n<li>clear\u00a0answers to key questions, followed by a list of benefits (eg saves time and improves revenue) and some <a title=\"Understanding testimonials for your business\" href=\"http:\/\/www.wordconstructions.com.au\/articles\/business\/testimonials.html\" target=\"_blank\">testimonials<\/a> &#8211; all on the home page<\/li>\n<li>home page has a button &#8216;instant demo&#8217; so I can see what is on offer and mentions a 30 day free trial &#8211; instantly developing my trust. And 30 days money back guarantee effectively means you get 60 days trial!<\/li>\n<li>the home page has a feed from their blog &#8211; with 3 items from the last two weeks showing me it is current and they maintain their site<\/li>\n<li>the pricing page is a comparison\u00a0table of their plans, clearly showing the actual price and included features<\/li>\n<li>their main menu includes &#8216;help&#8217; which leads to a knowledge base and a lot more details than I need to know at this stage. Note the excess information was not in my face to overwhelm me, but it easily found which again builds my trust<\/li>\n<li>I recommended this supplier to my client and we have since trialled the software and it is working very well in tests.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>I actually looked at a couple more potential suppliers, but these four\u00a0 showed the absolute importance of a <a title=\"Making content web friendly\" href=\"http:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/2010\/02\/making-content-web-friendly\/\" target=\"_blank\">good website<\/a> to help you sell to prospective customers.<\/p>\n<address><span style=\"color: #999999;\">*Images courtesy of <a title=\"123rf royalty free images\" href=\"http:\/\/www.123rf.com\/#avsuper\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #999999;\">123rf<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/address>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If you have a website, you need it to help you sell stuff, right? Looking at four websites lately it was disappointing how many stopped me buying instead of encouraging me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1425,59],"tags":[490,1605,591,245],"class_list":["post-5297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-communications","category-web-content","tag-design","tag-selling","tag-trust","tag-website"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5297"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5978,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5297\/revisions\/5978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordconstructions.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}