Turn your Visitors
into Returning Customers

By Diane Thomas

When designing your website always keep in mind the most critical aspect - your customer. Without him/her you're just floating around aimlessly in cyberspace.

As you probably already know it usually takes several visits before a prospective customer actually makes a purchase. How do you keep them coming back and how do you convince them to purchase? By design!

Your website should reflect your prospective customer's wants and needs; and their time at your site should be quality time. This is not as difficult as it sounds. The first step is to provide quality content, the second is to make life easy for your customers.

**Make your website fast loading. It's just too easy to clickaway rather than waiting for pages to download - don't give them the opportunity. Keeping graphics to a minimum and using light background colors will help.

**Make navigation clear and accessible. Confusion does not bring visitors back. If your navigation isn't clear or easy to find, they will ...Click! To avoid this problem provide a mainnavigation bar with 8 or less categories. You can sub-navigate within these using drop-down lists, or set up sub-navigation bars on your category pages.

**Make your pages easy to read. If visitors have to squint to read because text is too small or too light, or the color combination (text on background) is too bright...Click!

**Make your site clean and uncluttered. People lose interest when a page is so packed full it becomes confusing and overwhelming. You don't have to put "everything" on your home page. Provide an overview of what you are offering and what your targeted customers are interested in. Peak their interest so they will want to click thru to other pages. In addition, set up a column or box listing links of interest, new items, etc.

**Write clearly, concisely and to the point using short, direct sentences. Your text should be active, not passive (for instance: "Go directly to jail do not pass go"; rather than "you should not pass go before going to jail").

**Make it easy to place an order or make a contact. Place links to your order form and contact information on every page (with telephone numbers, please). Make it easy for your customer to buy from you or inquire about your products.

If you make life easy for your customers, they will reward you - and keep coming back!

About the Author

Diane Thomas has been successfully helping people write, publish, market and earn their way online for the past 10 years. For more information on web publishing, visit her at eBook Crossroads.com.

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