Don’t Get Caught Making These 5 Common Website Mistakes

By Hans Klein
Posted Thursday, October 28, 2004

Don’t Get Caught Making These 5 Common Website Mistakes
What you are about to hear could double, triple, or even quadruple your online sales if you avoid the following mistakes.

Just the other day one of my ezine subscribers requested a website review. The person asking for a review said that he had just reworked his salesletter, and it was still only pulling in ½ percent sales conversion rate.

In my experience a half percent is not terrible, but it certainly can be improved. So I opened up the website and took a look around. The website seemed to follow all the common Internet marketing rules. It had a nice layout; there were no grammar mistakes, and it had a very professional feel to it.

So I started reading the sales letter further and it hit me… the mistake was tiny, but extremely important at the same time.

The problem was all in the:

1. Subheadlines. - The person I was reviewing had a benefit-packed and intriguing headline, but he forgot about powerful, benefit-filled subheadlines. By leaving out powerful subheadelines, the website didn’t attract all the visitors who were in a hurry and just needed to know what it was all about before they completely read the copy.

So I let the subscriber know about this little discovery, and a few weeks later, he emailed me back to let me know how much this little change had helped him.

When I sat down to write this article, I thought about how common this problem is and about the other problems I see a lot. So here is the list.

2. Focus on a single goal. - When I first started selling products on the Internet, I made the fatal mistake of giving the visitor too many options. I had three different products that offered the same benefits. The visitor then became confused, and they did not know which one to choose.

After a while, making absolutely no sales, I decided to choose one product and focus on it. The result was immediate sales and less confused prospects.

3. Too many graphics.- I enjoy looking at graphics, but not if it takes over 30 boring seconds of starring at a blank screen before the website comes up.

When designing your webpage, you must keep in mind who is looking at your site. There are many people who still have a slow internet connection and if you website takes too long to load, they will just click away to another site.

Yes, graphics do make your website look more professional, but you must weigh balancing loading time with how attractive you want you site to look.

4. Website compatibility. - There are many different settings on your different visitor’s computers, and it is very difficult to make your website look perfect on every computer.

Keep in mind that your visitors may use Netscape, AOL, Internet Explorer, or even the Opera browser, and each one makes your website look different. In addition to different browsers, many people have their screen resolution set at the various settings which also changes how your website will look.

“So what do I do?”

I have two quick solutions for you:

· (http://www.anybrowser.com/) - This website will put you in the shoes of your different prospects, and you will see your website through their eyes.

· Download the different browsers, and check them whenever you make a change, they are free.

5. Make it easy to read.- People are busy, and they don’t have all day to squint at computer screens and read long, drawn-out paragraphs.

That’s why you should:

· Have, at most, 5 concise sentences per paragraph. You should really aim for 3.

· Use lots of bullet points, so you visitors can quickly get the information they need.

· White space is a reader’s friend. Try to create lots of room, so the visitor can easily read your website.

· Put your entire sales letter on one page because you will lose a significant number of visitors if you ask them to continue reading on to a separate page. People are lazy, and if they don’t have a substantial benefit to click on, they won’t.

These common website mistakes can make the difference between getting a few sales and getting a massive number of sales. That’s how marketing works. If people like what you say, they read on, and, if not they become turned off and move on. So your goal is to communicate with people, gain their trust, and you WILL make the sale!

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