The sixth and final step is – is it worth it?

Your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) states clearly what your web site offers and how you are different from your competitors. It is important that you combine this and a strong guarantee into your web page design to help remove fear from the final risk assessment stage of the buying process.

The fifth step to visitor conversion is – what do you want from me? It is important to light the way for the user. Show the user a clear pathway through your web page design.

You should plan the pathway based on the amount of priority and importance you would like to give to each of your web site objectives. For example - if your primary objective is to “sell more products” and your secondary objective is to “get a newsletter subscription”, you need to decide how important out of 100 it is to sell more products. The remaining portion is the amount of importance you place on the other objective.

Pathways Based on Web Site Objectives

So let’s say that it is very important to sell more products – so much so that you decide to give that a rating of 90 out of 100 (90%) importance. That leaves the ‘newsletter subscription’ a rating of 10 out of 100 (10%). With this in mind, as we plan the home page’s pathways, we should use 90% of the screen’s available ‘real-estate’ to develop the product sales pathway and 10% of the available ‘real–estate’ to develop the newsletter subscription.

Pathways for First-time and Regular Users

When planning pathways we also need to consider the different types of customers visiting your web site.

A percentage of your customers may already be familiar with your web site and use it on a regular basis to make purchases, while another percentage may be new customers who are not familiar with your web site. Although your objective for each of these different audiences is the same, your site needs to be set-up and designed with a different pathway for each audience type:

First-time Users

First-time visitors to your web site will be hesitant about buying and will be asking themselves, “who are these people?” “what is this company?” “does it look like they would have the products or information I am after?” “is there a better web site for me?”.

A pathway of credibility and trust, clearly presenting information about the company needs to be laid out for this audience.

Regular Users

Regular users will want to see a consistent layout so they can find the regular information they visit your website for. They do not want to be wading through long welcome messages and introductory content.

Your ratio of new visitors and returning customers will change over time. To begin with, your site could be optimised for first-time visitors and be adjusted as your audience changes to more repeat customers.

The fourth step to web site visitor conversion is – what’s in it for me? To complete this step you need to provide the potential customer with a compelling offer!

Ideally, your compelling offer will be something that is of high-value to the customer, but costs you very little. Remember the hardest order or enquiry is always the first. Think about what you can do, or what you can offer to get that first order or enquiry.

Building trust and credibility is an essential part of any sales process. If you can successfully establish trust and credibility and build a strong rapport with a potential customer through your web page design then you will be well on your way to completing the first three steps.

But how does one establish trust and credibility with a potential customer without meeting them? How does one establish trust and credibility on a web site?

• Testimonials

• References

• Partners & affiliates (credibility by association)

• Guarantees

• Awards

• Case studies

• Evidence of a physical presence

• Privacy and other legal policies

• Professional design and error-free content (more credibility).

Many of the trust elements work very well as highlights in the right-hand column of the web page design.

The home page is the most important page in the whole web site. It is the one page that the majority of your visitors will view. A poor homepage can destroy any chance of achieving your web site objectives, within a few seconds. A good home page is imperative for every successful web site. Your homepage should set-up the key elements necessary to close a sale or generate an enquiry (depending on what your primary and secondary objectives are).

The Six Steps to Visitor Conversion

There are six steps to any web site achieving its primary and secondary objectives:

1. Do I trust you?
    
2. Do I believe you?
    
3. Do you understand my needs?
    
4. What’s in it for me?
    
5. What do you want from me?
    
6. Is it worth it?

The strength of your products or services forms the foundation for your entire business - including the online side of things. Remember that your web site design is working in a virtual world where it is even easier to compare one company’s offerings to another. Your competitor’s offerings are always just a click away! The stronger your products or services are – the greater the empire that can be built upon them.

So what do we mean by a strong product or service?

A strong product or service is one that lots of people want, or even better – must have.

• Does your product or service solve a problem?

• Does your product or service deliver some amazing benefits?

The centre of your product or service offering is your Unique Selling Proposition (USP). What makes your product or service offering unique and better than any other on the market? Could you explain this to someone?

Your USP might be that you are the cheapest, or you provide 24/7 support or that your product has some killer features that the competition does not have. This must be incorporated into your web page design.

Zeald has a great example of a strong USP. Zeald’s USP is that we partner with our clients, guiding them through a program to produce a web site that wins business!

Finally, and this may seem incredibly obvious - but make sure that your product lends itself to being sold on the Internet. Are similar products already selling on the Internet? If not, then you need to be prepared to work hard. Because chances are that you will be establishing a new market online. Breaking in new ground is never easy, so your web page design must be the best it can be to improve your chances of online success!