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In 1993, when I began designing websites for people, I knew very little about Internet marketing. The websites I created for clients would have a header graphic across the top and links down the sidebars.
I will never forget the business owner who paid me $650 to design a website for him back in the early 90's. His new website I built for him looked wonderful. He liked it. But 3 weeks later he called me and said his sales had dropped by 15%. Both of us were shocked. After all, his new website looked so much better. Why did his sales fall?
I felt bad for the guy, but hey, that was his problem. Of course I could not control visitors buying habits. He came to me to create a better looking website and I had done that and gotten paid for it. Oh heck, I had a conscious. I could not just stiff this guy. I wanted to help him. So I looked at what we had done. The problem was that we made the website much more complicated. Where there was blank space, we had put in links like: Press Releases, Screen-shots, Awards, About Us, Privacy Statement, and so on.
We put the old website back up, the less professional looking website. Sales immediately went back up to their former levels.
The lesson I learned in website design is to keep it super simple. Visitors to the website had too many options presented to them which is another way of saying the website had no focus. There was no clear instruction on what we wanted visitors to do. Back in 1993, I do not think we even knew what we really wanted visitors to do, other than click on the order button. The web logs showed that very few people even visited the new links we added.
I learned that people do not care about your company. People do not care about your press releases or even your awards. All that people want to know is if your product or service will meet their need and how much will it cost. It is as simple as that.
Most businesses who are on the web make the mistake of hiring a web designer to put up their website. The person they should hire is an Internet marketer, not a website designer. If you hire a website designer, you will get what you paid for, a beautiful piece of artwork that fails to close the sale.
My research shows that you have about 5 seconds to grab and hold your visitors attention. If there are 3 or more hyperlinks that confuse your visitor, they will simply click the back button and move on to another website. If your visitor has many options presented to her so that she can not find what she wants in seconds, she will leave your website and move on to the next website listed in the search engine. Do not be dumb and install a prevent the back button script to try and keep someone on your website. This only gets your visitor angry and can result in complaints against your website to Google. Google will delist your website if they catch you doing this. Not only this but it guarantees that this person will never come back to your website. It shows you do not care about your visitors but instead care only about trapping them on your website.
A simple, attention getting headline with well written sales copy, and the single option you want her to take, trumps design when it comes to selling.
You need to focus your website like a laser on the most desired action you want your visitor to take. Avoid complicated navigational menus. Have only the one option you want people to take on a given web page. All your sales copy should be focused on that one option you want people to take. By focusing your web site in this way, it focuses the attention of your visitors on exactly what you want them to be focused on. Complexity is the enemy of sales. Remember KISS (Keep It Super Simple) when it comes to website design.
I will never forget the business owner who paid me $650 to design a website for him back in the early 90's. His new website I built for him looked wonderful. He liked it. But 3 weeks later he called me and said his sales had dropped by 15%. Both of us were shocked. After all, his new website looked so much better. Why did his sales fall?
I felt bad for the guy, but hey, that was his problem. Of course I could not control visitors buying habits. He came to me to create a better looking website and I had done that and gotten paid for it. Oh heck, I had a conscious. I could not just stiff this guy. I wanted to help him. So I looked at what we had done. The problem was that we made the website much more complicated. Where there was blank space, we had put in links like: Press Releases, Screen-shots, Awards, About Us, Privacy Statement, and so on.
We put the old website back up, the less professional looking website. Sales immediately went back up to their former levels.
The lesson I learned in website design is to keep it super simple. Visitors to the website had too many options presented to them which is another way of saying the website had no focus. There was no clear instruction on what we wanted visitors to do. Back in 1993, I do not think we even knew what we really wanted visitors to do, other than click on the order button. The web logs showed that very few people even visited the new links we added.
I learned that people do not care about your company. People do not care about your press releases or even your awards. All that people want to know is if your product or service will meet their need and how much will it cost. It is as simple as that.
Most businesses who are on the web make the mistake of hiring a web designer to put up their website. The person they should hire is an Internet marketer, not a website designer. If you hire a website designer, you will get what you paid for, a beautiful piece of artwork that fails to close the sale.
My research shows that you have about 5 seconds to grab and hold your visitors attention. If there are 3 or more hyperlinks that confuse your visitor, they will simply click the back button and move on to another website. If your visitor has many options presented to her so that she can not find what she wants in seconds, she will leave your website and move on to the next website listed in the search engine. Do not be dumb and install a prevent the back button script to try and keep someone on your website. This only gets your visitor angry and can result in complaints against your website to Google. Google will delist your website if they catch you doing this. Not only this but it guarantees that this person will never come back to your website. It shows you do not care about your visitors but instead care only about trapping them on your website.
A simple, attention getting headline with well written sales copy, and the single option you want her to take, trumps design when it comes to selling.
You need to focus your website like a laser on the most desired action you want your visitor to take. Avoid complicated navigational menus. Have only the one option you want people to take on a given web page. All your sales copy should be focused on that one option you want people to take. By focusing your web site in this way, it focuses the attention of your visitors on exactly what you want them to be focused on. Complexity is the enemy of sales. Remember KISS (Keep It Super Simple) when it comes to website design.
About the Author:
By Lance Jepsen. To discover more about exploding the profits of your website including a step by step 30 day program to make your website pull in money like a broken ATM machine, visit internet marketing
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