5 Fast Website Fixes

More hits than ever on your website? Great! But if those visits aren’t translating into sales, you have a problem. One possible diagnosis: Your site isn’t shopper-friendly. Here are five fast fixes to help your customers find exactly what they want and increase revenue:

1. Write better product descriptions. To retain customers’ interest and get your message across, your copy needs to convey the benefits you offer, not just what you do, says Nikole Gipps, principal of NHG Consulting, an Oregon-based web development and marketing firm.
For example, rather than say your lawn care company specializes in growing chemical-free lawns, say your company grows lawns that are chemical-free and safe for your pets and children to explore. Make it clear how the customer will benefit by using your product or service.

2. Make navigation a breeze. “Unless you’re Amazon.com, you shouldn’t have 45 items in your navigation,” Gipps says. She suggests consolidating the number of links on your navigation bar by reorganizing pages so more information falls under each link. Use titles that are broad yet easily understood. For example: Instead of having both a “Contact Us” and “About Us” link, include the contact information on the “About Us” page.

3. Limit technologies. Skip flash, video, or other technology if they don’t add any valuable information, Gipps says. They will slow down your site, and search engine crawlers and people without the right plug-ins will miss them. If all the bells and whistles are necessary for your company, make sure the information is repeated elsewhere in your HTML without the tricks.

4. Increase speed. A slow-loading site may deter impatient customers. Simplicity is the key to decreasing your site’s load time, Gipps says. She recommends optimizing images for the Web by saving them as GIFs, PNGs, or JPEGS. Try streamlining your Cascading Style Sheet (CSS) by using shorthand. Check out the CSS Shorthand Guide by Dustin Diaz, author of JavaScript Design Patterns.

5. Shorten payment forms. Keep the payment process simple by requiring only the customer’s name, shipping address, credit card information, email for confirmation, and checkbox to be on your mailing list. “Checkout isn’t the time to survey all your customers,” Gipps says. If your company is too small to handle online buying internally, be sure to use a reputable payment processor that customers will trust.

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