Website tips with Michelle Whitmore of Zeald.com

In previous issues, we identified the two key success factors for a website being the number of visitors and thereafter, the percentage of visitors who ‘convert' or take the desired action once there.

This led us on to the two ‘Ps' of website success; being ‘Promotion' and ‘Persuasion'. Our advice is to make your website as persuasive as possible in order to get your conversion rate up, before you start spending heavily on promoting it.

So where do you start in terms of making your website persuasive? The first thing is to have a key objective in mind and to communicate this clearly to your target audience through clear directions and a clear layout.

Identifying your key objective doesn't have to be difficult, yet when you ask most people what the objective is for their website, they don't have a succinct answer or they simply haven't thought about it.

Needless to say this aimlessness is then reflected in their website layout, with a labyrinth of links and no clear direction through the website to the ultimate conversion objective.

If your website suffers like this, then stop and think about what it is you're there for? For most New Zealand business owners, the key objective is to either generate revenue (selling fixed price items) or generate enquiries (for consultative sales where the price isn't usually fixed). In short, you either want to generate dollars or to generate data.

With this objective clearly documented and understood, the website administrator can then get on with their job of honouring this objective, by reducing friction and seeking ways to streamline the conversion process.

Michelle Whitmore is this region's E Business Consultant for Zeald, recently voted best web developer 2011, NetGuide Web Awards.