How Can Your Website Help You Sell More Products/Services?

There is so much benefit for your business when you have a website. But note, it should be an effective and responsive website.

That’s very important because having a website doesn’t automatically translate into getting visitors, converting them into customers, and making sales.

The question is: How can your website help you sell more products/services?

You need strategies. And this should be planned for before you start building your website.

What are these strategies?

• Give valuable information
• Leverage testimonials/reviews
• Show, don’t tell
• Simplify the purchase process
• Use email list

Give Valuable Information

Content is King. You must have heard that phrase repeatedly following its usage by Bill Gates in 1996. Years after, nothing has ever been truer especially when it comes to attracting and nurturing the attention of potential customers.

Do you still wonder why businesses also run blog sites? It’s because being the media, instead of buying it, is a great way to be in control of their niche market. With a content management system like WordPress, it’s not difficult to run a blog along with your business website.

What’s the point: Giving valuable information to your existing customers and targets through your blog site establishes you as a trustworthy source. When you publish content regularly and also share across social media platforms linked to the site, you have a higher chance of drawing traffic to your website.

Definitely, web visitors will be encouraged to look around. And they can see more of what you do.

Leverage Testimonials/Reviews

Toot your success. No one will do that for you. This is what we call leveraging user-generated content. What do your existing customers have to say about your product/service? If it’s indeed solved their problems, they would be eager to share the story with anyone.

So, encourage them to send in their testimonials/reviews, in any format – text or video, and get their permission to display on your website.

Here’s the thing: Put a name, picture, and if possible, an address to it. The internet is full of fake reviews attached to non-existing product/service users. So, lay it all at the table. Once again, get the permission of your existing customers to use their details.

The implication of this is that seeing a name and image to a testimonial/review builds trust and encourages visitors who may want to buy. It’s psychological. A potential customer thinks like this: If it works for this person, then it can work for me.

Show, Don’t Tell

When you have a great product/service, you need to go as deep as you can to display it. But one mistake you must avoid on your website, if you want to sell more, is merely talking about features.

Instead, show your product or service in action.

Video is a top priority when it comes to showing your product/service at work.

Emulate what Blendtec did with its Will It Blend marketing campaign. The campaign is a practical example of what showing can do. What the company did was simply showing the viewers what the blender could do instead of barraging them with unyielding sales messages. And it was a viral success as sales grew into millions as well as brand recognition.

In this regard, you need to leverage social media platforms like YouTube and Instagram for sharing the content of your website.

Simplify The Purchase Process

Cut out any process that creates poor user experience on your website. And one of them is the process a potential customer must go through to pay for your product/service.

Having sustained and nurtured their attention with the strategies above, you don’t want them to abandon the cart because, for example, navigation or payment is difficult.

Generally, you should eliminate unnecessary gates. For instance, you shouldn’t require your visitors to submit any personal detail the moment they land on your page. Give them room to look around. And when they eventually have to register, keep your form limited to only the important fields. Ideally, a name and email address/phone number are all you need.

Above all, don’t make the check-out process complicated. Life is full of difficulties already, but a buyer with money in hand will always want the easy way out. If there’s a conflict of interest, you are most likely to lose potential sales there.

What are the things you must do to simplify the purchase process?

• Make sure your website is navigable for desktop and mobile users.
• Before you launch your website, test-run for speed.
• Avoid distracting pop-ups.
• Don’t overcrowd your pages.
• Make various payment options available.

Use Email List

A nurtured target will one day buy from you. And once there’s an initial purchase, you won’t have to struggle to sell to them over and over again, including their contacts. By the way, that’s if your product or service solves their problem.

Now, what do you need an email list for? Not every web visitor will make a buying decision immediately. Of course, some will buy immediately but the relationship shouldn’t end with payment. Keep everyone close with more valuable content sent to them via email.

Now, email marketing could go wrong if not adequately planned for. When web visitors subscribe to your list, do the following:

• Send them a welcome email. In this email, indicate the number of times you’d be sending email to them.
• Before you stick to any time for distribution, understand your subscribers’ demographic. Then, make sure you carry out A/B Testing to know the time with the best open rate.
• Don’t start with sales messages. Focus on being valuable at first –perhaps, for a week – before you push a sale or encourage them to buy.

In conclusion,

Having a website is not enough. It’s just the first step; you need to do more than if you want to sell more products/services.

Have and execute the right strategies as listed above: give valuable information, show your product/service at work, display testimonials/reviews from existing customers, simplify the purchase process and build a deeper customer-brand bond through email.

Focus on doing the above, and you will have more sales through your website from existing customers and targets. Still struggling with sales through your website? Reach us today.