10 tips for a great website!

Business owners are quickly coming to realize that a website is no longer an option, but a necessity. Businesses and consumers alike use the Internet to buy services and products, or to research planned offline purchases. Having a profitable website isn't always easy. Having a poorly designed site can drive away potential customers, but you can minimize that situation by following these ten tips on building a great website.

1. Show what you sell. In many cases, visitors are looking for information about your product. If your shopping area is hard to find, if your pages are slow to load, or if ordering is too difficult, they will leave your site in favor of your competitor's.

2. Your site should have a professional & beautiful design. Not so long ago, simply having an online presence was enough to make a business look more credible. However, that's quickly changing. There are some websites that are fairly successful but not so good-looking- but most customers expect a company's site to be as polished as its other sales materials.

3. The site also needs to be simple to navigate. If your potential customer can't find what they're looking for (and fast), they will move on. To help your customers get to the right part of your site, put a table of contents or navigation bar on your site's home page. It's also a good idea to include a search box.

4. Encourage customers to browse or buy on impulse. Retail stores do it all the time- they put sale items farther away from the registers so that you have to walk past other things to get to them. Use similar ideas to improve sales; if you have a how-to article, include a small ad in the margin. On editorial pages, run banner ads for your products that link to other parts of your site.

5. Offer different ordering options. Some people won't offer their credit card information online, and some people just don't have them. To maximize sales, offer alternate ways to buy, such as by mail, fax or phone.

6. Customers want to know who is running the company, and how they can get in contact with you after a purchase. They want to easily find that information; if it's more difficult to find, they may question the reliability or honesty of your business.

7. Remember that the Internet is on 24/7. People use it at all hours of the day and nightyou're your phones aren't staffed 24 hours, be sure that your hours of operation and time zone are listed prominently.

8. Be sure to include a way for customers to leave feedback. It provides them with a means to reach you, and it lets you know their opinion of your services and products. It's a good PR tool; it tells customers that your company cares about their opinion.

9. The internet is immediate- you can shop, research, email, order and find information at any time. That immediacy means that visitors expect a fast response to their inquiries. To keep them coming back, answer emails within one day or less.

10. When people stumble upon your website, they might save some of your information to look over at another time. Be sure that every page includes your site name, phone number and URL. An easy way to do this is to include it at the bottom of your site-building template.