What Does Your Website Whisper To Visitors

Did you know that your website whispers in the ear of your visitors? It does. As a matter of fact it can be responsible for convincing your visitor to buy or not buy from you in under a few seconds.

Scary right?  The buying process, whether is it going to happen online or in a physical store, can be determined by how consumers that are looking for your products feel about your website.  The use of smart phones and tablets that seem to be attached to our bodies these days allow your customers quick access to what they may or may not experience with your company before they ever see your product.

The internet is an amazing tool but it has also provided the consumer a very different platform to make quick relationship decisions.  These choices are not based on real life experience with your company or product in most cases.  They are made in seconds, visually, online.

So what does this mean to you?  This means that you can offer thousands of great parts on your site but if a consumer never gets past your home page because it either whispers to them that it was thrown together during lunch by a neighbor’s kid or it assaults your visitor with so much information that they become frustrated and leave before they ever get off the home page. 

It is said that you have 3 seconds to give your visitors some indication that they will be able to find what they were looking for or they just hit the back button and move on.

We hear a recurring theme in web development that business owners seem to find comfort in.  “I’m going to work on my website as soon as the website starts making money” and “The website isn’t important, we don’t sell much there”.  Both of these statements are indications of owners that, as much as they are great at their business, they are not really aware of how their websites determine their customers opinion about them.

The Consumers Reports survey found that 46.1% of consumers judged credibility of the websites they visited based on the following factors:

• Appeal of the overall visual design
• Layout
• Font size
• Color schemes
• Typography

These are all superficial aspects of a site but you need to keep in mind that a website can’t touch any of the consumers senses outside of visual and if you’ve ever spend 2 minutes on Facebook you will agree that people love to judge.  
So when you are offering a product that requires a consumer to part with their hard earned money the consumer expects that you should, at the very least, make it pleasant and easy to browse your website.

The first test of credibility for your business is the website.  Once a customer determines they don’t like what they see and they don’t feel you are credible, you won’t often get a second look.  
If you give it a few seconds of thought you’d agree that it’s human nature to judge a book by it’s cover, it may not be fair but who ever said life was fair right?

If you don’t have the resources to have a site created by a developer, you might be able to do a few things on your site today that could help your visitors get a little more trust in your company.
Remember that everyone is a critic these days.  

1)    Typos on your website is a great way to drive off sales.  Go over your pages and make sure that you didn’t misspell general words.  Example of missing the boat below.  
2)    Click on the links, do they all go where they need to go or do you have broken links that are bringing people to “Page not found”.
3)    Check the words you’re using to describe what you do and what you sell.  Are you talking “their language’ or are you spouting facts that may or may not make your customers feel like you understand what they want and need.
4)    Update your images.  Are you using old, outdated images on your home page?  When was the last time you changed out your banners?  Can you grab a good image or banner from one of the brands you sell?
5)    Do you have a call to action on your pages?  You would be surprised how many people will click on something if they are told to click it but won’t make the connection on their own.
6)    Look at your website from the eyes of your customers.  Ask yourself, “Would I buy from this site?”  
7)    Be honest with yourself.  The internet has changed everything.  The consumers have built some standards for who they feel deserves their cash.  For those that will take help from the people that can help, you will do well.  For those that think ignoring this aspect of your business will bring you business in the future, you will end up working very hard for your success.   

The ASAP Network was created to help the Aftermarket industry step into the age of online commerce.  Having clean, importable data for your sites is critical but if your sites never have the chance to show of that data it does not achieve the goal of success online.
Do you have questions?  Do you want to get some answers about your website without pressure to change it all today?  Right now there are probably at least two things you can do for free to help your website traffic. 

Call 719 302-5029, as a member of the ASAP Network you can ask the questions you need to know at no cost.  Let’s get you educated about your online potential.