About BitCommunications

Website Design Services

Needless to say, an effective web site is critical to your companies success. Not only must it immediatey brand you and create a good first impression but it must also provide a friendly and effective shopping experience for your visitor.

A good site is not so much about beautiful design (although that is important) it's far more about providing the information your visitors need to make the buying decision. And doing it in a way that makes the experience easy and enjoyable.

Make The Process Simple

Online shopping, like offline shopping, is a process. A visitor must travel this process from no-interest to prospect to customer to satisfied customer... and your site must provide the tools to help them every step of the way. You must be ready to show benefits, handle objections, and ask for the order.

The beauty of online sales is that the customer can feel as if they are in control. In a good site design they are. Letting them take control leads to a more satisfied customer who will come back more often.

After all they can hit that back button and move to another web site in a heart beat. But as long as they find what they need they will stay and probably will buy something from you... if you make it easy.

Clear navigation, demonstration of benefits, testimonials, an easy-to-use shopping cart, site security assurances, and shopping guarantees are all ingrediants that must be included for a site to turn visitors into customers.

It's not always about being pretty but it's always about giving the customer what they "need" to have a great buying experience. Those needs are emotional and practical and sometimes monetary. Meet those needs and you have a customer.

Site Optimization

The first step of course is to create a site that "attracts" visitors. This means building keyword-rich pages that make the Search Engines happy as well as your visitors. Proper Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the underlying fabric of every effective web site and can mean the difference between success and failure.

I believe strongly in the C-T-P-M process. Content leads to Traffic and Preselling leads to Monetization. The content on your web site is what helps determine whether or not a search engine will rank you highly. If your content meets their customers' needs they will reward you with strong positioning in the Search Engine Results Page (SERPs).

Move Them Through The Sales Cycle

Once your visitor arrives they move from mere product awareness to being a real prospect (because they selected your keywords). If you can gain their trust you may have a sale. This trust and credibility stage is critical for gaining buying commitment. Of course you'll need to help them understand the features and benefits of your product or service. But until you've established a level of trust no feature can overcome the hidden objection.

Once you identify the steps in your market's buying cycle, and then provide the benefits and testimonials required to that trust, you will move prospects along those steps...you will gain commitment from them and eventually they will arrive at your shopping cart.

Your Most Wanted Response

Every page on your site should have a Most Wanted Response (MWR). Of course your primary MWR is to get your visitor to click to buy. As an affiliate that means sending them to the merchant to complete the buying cycle. As a merchant that means moving them to the shopping cart or order page.

But you should also consider having a backup MWR. Perhaps getting them to sign up for your newsletter or downloading your free trial or ebook. The goal is to build a relationship with them so that you can live to buy another day.

Always try to collect their email information. Try and make sure you've learned as much about them as you can... who they are, what they like, how to contact them, and gotten permission to make contact in the future.

Even if they don't buy today you will have added a valuable prospect to your list and if you did it correctly, you know exactly what they may want to buy in the future.

All of this goes into effective web site design. It's not hard to build a web site but building a web site that makes sales again and again takes experience and a true understanding of the online marketplace. Click here to learn more details about our Site Design and Development services.