The odds are 100% guaranteed that you have not done all there is to do to grow your business. We can say that with confidence because it is completely and totally impossible. There is always something else you can do to improve your site, increase your conversions, create more relationships, and raise your visibility – ALWAYS.
Success is not a destination; it is a never-ending process of growing your business.
This post is to give you a general idea of various concepts and areas of improvement. While all of these topics have some overlap, individual ideas can be listed in order of priority:
- Web Design – When someone lands on any page of your site is it INSTANTLY obvious what you are offering? If it isn’t many will bounce immediately and never return. Fix this first by adding a slogan aka USP just under or to the right of your logo. Make sure your slogan answers the question why should they buy from you.
- Are you driving your visitors away by making them register before they can shop or comment? Do you answer all the questions your visitors are likely to have (but rarely ask) on your site? Can they easily find what they want from products to shipping costs? Remove these obstacles or your success will always be limited. [NOTE: Guy Kawasaki agrees with me as he includes this point FIRST in his Top Ten Stupid Ways to Hinder Market Adoption which is featured when you click his Best Posts of the Past. I highly recommend reading this post – and his sites.]
- Usability – If your visitors can not easily find what they’re seeking and figure out how to use your site they will simply go to another site that makes more sense to them. Be sure you have a quality search function and an easy to use shopping cart that doesn’t have intermittent issues rejecting valid sales.
- Conversion Rates – If your existing traffic is not converting you need to figure out why. Increasing Conversion Rates is Vastly More Important Than More Traffic.
- Are you maintaining relationships with your existing visitors? Focus on this next. The easiest sales to close are to people who are already happy with your service.
- If your existing site IS converting and usable NOW you can focus on driving more visitors. This can include methods such as using link building, listing on Local Search (even if you have an Internet only business), social networking, advertising, and article submission.
- Now that you’ve started covering all the basics consider using Web Analytics and Split Testing to further tune up your site.
Each of the above concepts can include far more strategies than we’ll cover now. Our intent is to ensure you have the big picture view of what is necessary for a successful online business. This includes understanding why they buy:
People buy when they are confident they have all the information required to make a purchase. Most are afraid of “making a mistake”. The easier you make it for buyers to make a decision the faster and more will buy from you.
One way to enhance your site’s ability to do this immediately is to use Free Hosted Live Chat. Place it prominently on your site with an icon a little larger than aesthetically optimum. Have someone FRIENDLY and KNOWLEDGEABLE available as much as possible.
Never underestimate the power of word-of-mouth recommendations. Make it easy for people to leave reviews of your business, products and services both on your site and on major sites that have review functions.
GrowMap exists to assist you in understanding how to grow your own business. We are asking for your input. Do you understand the posts? Do you have more questions? There are NO dumb questions. For every person who asks there are probably a hundred who didn’t but wondered the same thing. Do ask. Ask anonymously if you wish, but do ask. Simply leave a comment in any post.
