When you first start out building your website, or talking to a website designer about building your website, it’s likely you’re going to be asked “What is the purpose of your website?” If you don’t know, it’s hard to create the website because without a purpose it’s impossible to get started. Not only that, it’s hard to use your website the right way if you don’t even know why you have it.

Do You Want a Niche Affiliate Website?

This is generally like an authority or expert website that is devoted to promoting someone else’s products or services using the code that they provide. This type of site requires the ability to place a lot of content and information on it, as well as a lead capturing service like AWeber.com, and it needs to be devoted specifically to the niche you want to support. It’s a lot like an authority website except it will promote other people’s products or services.

Do You Want to Sell Products or Services?

If this is the point of your website then you’ll need an eCommerce website. It will need shopping cart technology, the proper security, the right type of server capacity, and a way to pull traffic and handle leads that don’t purchase right away. Knowing up front that you want to sell products or services directly from your site will help you explain to a web designer what you need. Continue reading →

Your business website is essentially your storefront, business card and most significant marketing piece all rolled into one. How it affects your visitors and customers is then essential to your success. Provide a memorable experience and customers are sure to return time and time again. Let’s take a look at five keys to creating a website that sells.

Key #1 – Make Your Website Interactive

As the internet continues to grow and evolve it’s becoming more important to create a community around your business. To accomplish this you want to engage your visitors and customers. This can be accomplished a number of ways. You can:

• Provide a forum.
• Post surveys or polls.
• Host contests and sweepstakes.
• Enable visitors and customers to review or rank items. For example a “How valuable was this article?” question and a scale of 1 to 5 stars or a ranking from 1-10.
• Offer a blog and inspire comments and feedback.
• Publish video and audio content as well as written content. This gives users another way to access you and your personality.

Continue reading →