How To Structure Your Website For Maximum Sales

« Ripped Off And Loving It: What Your Purchases Say About You | Home | How To Identify & Connect With Your Customer »

How To Structure Your Website For Maximum Sales

September 21, 2008

When you break it down, there are really only 3 things online marketing is all about:

Acquisition – getting people to your website or a particular page within your website. And not just anyone, but targeted prospects most likely to be interested in what it is you do. This is the “front end” of your marketing funnel.

Conversion – getting as many of those people as you can to perform some kind of desired action (like purchasing or signing up for your newsletter, etc)

Retention – taking the people who purchased your product or signed up to your newsletter, bonding with as many of them as possible and doing everything you can to increase their lifetime value to you (often, this means getting them to come back for repeat purchases and building a fierce loyalty to you over the long term.) This is the “back end” to your marketing funnel.

Each page on your site needs to have a clear purpose as to why its there and how it fits into the overall scheme of things.

When a visitor lands on a page of your website, there are 4 questions they unconsciously ask themselves:

1. What is this?
2. What do they have here?
3. What can I do here?
4. Why should I be here and not somewhere else?

Go through each of your pages while asking yourself each of those questions. If your pages are not designed to communicate answers to them at a glance, at an almost instinctual level, then you’re going to lose a large chunk of your traffic to the web browsers “back button.”

A lot of websites out there design their pages how they think they should be rather than based on how users actually USE them.

For one thing, a shocking number of web browsers only spend a few seconds on any given landing page, often frantically scanning for something to click on resembling what they’re there for, while making lightning fast gut-level judgments about you and your company. Meanwhile, most pages are designed as if visitors leisurely look over every word and thoughtfully consider each option before making a final click.

The truth looks more like a chicken with its head cut off.

Make no mistake: There is no place for ego here; if you want your website to grab as many sales and opt-ins from your traffic as possible, everything from your site’s navigation all the way down to what you say on your pages, how you say it, and how you present it on the page is vitally important.

We’ll talk more about these later.

For now, look at your pages. Think about what you want to accomplish. Now think about how each page contributes to that goal.

It is easy to see where the visitor is in the overall scheme of the site?

Is it clear and specific as to what the page they’re looking at IS… and what it’s for? And do you present it in a compelling way? (more on this later)

Are you putting unnecessary steps in front of the visitor, complicating the process of getting them to do what you want? (Understand that every time you ask for a visitor to take an action, even if it is something simple like a click of the mouse or an unnecessary form field to fill out, you’ll lose a certain percentage of people at that step in the process. So you must always make sure there are as few steps and obstacles as possible standing between the visitor and the action you want them to complete.)

If you have pages that are necessary to your company, but do not necessarily move the visitors closer to what you want them to do (like an “Investor Relations” page or “Terms of Service” or “Privacy Policy”), then down out of the way in your site’s navigation to where these less important pages are “below the fold” – that way they can still be found by the right people, but won’t impair the progress of everyone else.

If your site is a larger one (like a store with many products, for example) ideally your site’s structure should be hierarchical with main categories breaking off into sub-groups, which then go to a final level of detail.

Think of it like a pyramid structure with 3, or no more than 4 levels. The top is your home page, the middle contains your categories, and the last level are your individual products. Ideally, people should be able to get to anything on your site within 2 clicks… 3 at the very most.

So if your site was a store like Sears, you might have categories linked to off your home page that look like this:

Tools
Housewares
Lawn & Garden
…etc…

Let’s say I chose the Tools category. If your site had 3 levels, I’d now be looking at all the different kinds of tools you have. If it had 4, I’d have to choose another sub-category to narrow the results. Sub-categories like:

Power Tools
Hand Tools
…etc…

Then after clicking on Power Tools, I’d be looking at all your chainsaws, drills, etc.

Quick tip: This is a bit more advanced, but ideally you want to design the wording of your navigation to coincide with how your visitors actually type key phrases into the search engines when searching. For example, if you did keyword research and discovered a lot of people typing in the phrase “unique power tools”, then you would definitely want to consider making one of your site categories be called “Unique Power Tools” instead of just “Power Tools” – not only will this kind of change boost your search engine rankings, but it’ll also be speaking your customer’s language when they’re browsing your site!

However, if your site is a smaller one with only a few products (or even a single product) it’s better to skip the larger structural design altogether. Instead, focus all your energies on creating pages that eventually funnel everyone toward your main goal of them purchasing that product.

So if you had a lot of articles posted to your site about your consulting services, then at the end of every article you should have some kind of call to action to the reader to get them to subscribe to your newsletter, complete a purchase, or give you a call. People always need somewhere to go or something to do after reading a piece of your content. Don’t let your home page be the only page with options on what to do next. And don’t put any more on a page than what is required – don’t distract your visitors with needless info, graphics, or links.

At each point in the process, always make it obviously clear what will happen before they move on to the next step. As an example, in newsletter subscription forms that require the subscriber to double-opt-in (meaning, they have to click on a confirmation link in an e-mail before I’m allowed to send them any of my sales messages – this is a requirement if you want to be in compliance with all the Spam laws), I usually like to use this simple formula:

Step 1. Visitor is presented with a form that asks for their name and e-mail address, and does it in a compelling way by offering them a free video, audio, or some other kind of incentive with instant gratification on the topic of their interest. I also always tell them on no uncertain terms that by giving me their personal information I consider it a sacred trust that I will not take lightly and abuse. They need to know their info will never be used for any purpose other than why they’re giving it to you right now.

Step 2. When they submit the form, they’re instantly taken to a page that is written like a personal letter from me to them, saying thank you and telling them that in order to get their free thing, they need to go check their e-mail right now. There should be an e-mail from me waiting for them. Then I make sure they know that after they click on the confirmation link in the e-mail, they’ll be taken to a page to get their free report, video, audio, etc.

Step 3. In the confirmation e-mail that arrives, I basically restate what I said above, though in much shorter language. There is no guarantee they will check their e-mail right when you told them to, so make sure everything is still crystal clear.

Step 4. When they click the link, they’re taken to a page that thanks them and presents them with their free report, video, audio, whatever. Then immediately afterward, I present them with an offer for one of my less expensive products; one that is directly related to what their freebie talked about. Don’t wait to present your wares; right now in the heat of the moment, when they are most interested, is the best time of all.

Step 5. Another thing that happens when they click the link is they get the first of many e-mails that have been pre-written and put into a sequence for future delivery. I usually like to make sure they’re getting an e-mail from me once per day for the first 7 days. After that I relax a little and only send one every few days or so. I mix it up and keep it different so there is no set time frame they come to expect. This whole system is called an auto-responder. The one I use is Aweber – and you can check it out by going to: http://grinc.aweber.com

I’m kindof glossing over the subject right now, but make no mistake about it; the way you write these e-mails, what you say in them, how you say it, and every other little detail is vitally important. Mess it up, and your messages will get caught in spam filters, or your prospects will quickly unsubscribe, or the worst of all, simply begin ignoring anything more you send them.

Another example of making things obviously clear: when I’m selling a product via print advertising, I don’t just put a phone number at the end of the ad and expect everyone to call just because I said so. (By the way, you should never tell people to call for a “free consultation” – that’s a kiss of death to your response.) No, instead I will give them an overwhelmingly compelling reason to call and explain exactly what will happen when they call – especially if it’s an 800 number we’re using. (Quick tip: regular telephone numbers with an odd digit at the end (not a zero) tend to perform better than 800 numbers, and they have the added benefit of you not having to pay for the call!)

People have lots of little hidden fears when calling a number or ordering something online. When calling, they want to make sure they’re going to get a real live human being who asks them what they need and knows exactly what to do when they say a few key words. That’s why I say something like “When you call that number anytime between 9am to 5pm, a very pleasant young woman will answer and say ‘Hello, this is B&B Enterprises, how can I help you?’ That’s Sally, my receptionist. When she says that, all you have to do is say ‘I want to order the free report’ – then Sally will take care of the rest.”

It may sound obvious, but people love it when you tell them exactly what’s going to happen like that. You’ll get more calls.

When ordering online, people want to be assured your site is a safe place to transact business and that once its all over with you’re going to deliver on time and as promised, and not run off with their credit card number and charge heaven knows what else to it. (and if you don’t think your visitors are thinking this about you, you’d be surprised. Just because they trust you in person doesn’t mean they trust your website. People are people and websites are faceless machines. That’s why I always have trust and authority logos like “Hacker Safe”, “Certified By…”, and other security-related logos on my site right when I’m asking for money. Sometimes I even like to put a testimonial on my order page (complete with photo, first name, last name, occupation, city, state, and a quote about the benefits they got when they used my product), just to inject a little bit more of the human element into the process.

More On Clarity And Accessibility For Your Website

Availability – When someone hits a page, are all options available to them clearly presented? Is navigation prominent, consistent, and placed in a conventional location?

Feedback – When your visitor takes an action, do they get immediate feedback? Does the page change when they click on or move their mouse over something important? (note: this is why you see sites like Travelocity, Expedia, etc. use animated progress bars as soon as you search for a flight or hotel, notifying you that your search is taking place and the results will be displayed momentarily. They could just make you wait for the search result, but if they did, a huge percentage of people would leave before it was done.)

Organization – Is your site’s information organized in a clear, consistent way based on what people are going to do once they hit the page? Is it organized into digestible chunks? Is it easy to skim and scan? (I like to use short sentences, short paragraphs and break things up a lot. Every once in awhile, I’ll use a compelling subheading to provide some eye-relief and draw skimmers back into the text.)

Fault tolerance – Do you anticipate mistakes your visitors would make when filling out forms, doing searches, and navigating around your site? Do you suggest meaningful and helpful alternatives when they reach an apparent dead-end? (You should never let your visitors reach a dead end on your site. There should always be instruction on what to do next.) Is it easy for your visitors to correct their mistakes? Are your error messages helpful or confusing?

Affinity – Do your prospects feel “at home” on your site? Does the look and feel connect with them? Do you speak their language? Do they consider you credible? (Note: “credible” is different than “professional”… you don’t have to wear a suit and use stuffy-sounding language to be perceived as “credible” – you just have to bond with the reader and earn their trust over all the other options available to them.) What is your prospect’s gut-level reaction to your site and its message?

Legibility – Is your font size and style easy to read? Do your colors clash and cause people to stop reading too soon and leave your site? A good rule of thumb is to use sans serif fonts like Arial, Helvetica, or Geneva on body copy, and sometimes you can get away with using serif fonts like Times New Roman on headlines. (By the way, the exact opposite is true if your text is in print… but online, serif fonts are harder to read, so you have to use the much clearer sans serif fonts.) As far as font sizes go, 10 to 12 point fonts are good for most body text. Get much larger or smaller than that and you’ll reduce legibility. If your audience is older, larger font sizes are definitely better. Also, don’t change fonts a lot. Use different fonts very sparingly and only when you have a good reason to do so.

Justification – Don’t fall for the temptation to make all your paragraphs all nice and neat with perfectly square sizes. It makes your stuff harder to read and seem less natural. Also, people tend to use the ragged right edge of paragraphs to help position their eyes in the text. Ragged rights increase reading speed and comprehension.

All caps – Use all capital letters VERY sparingly. Usually I only use them when my copy is getting particularly emotional and I need to emphasize some words or phrases more dramatically than italics or bolding can handle.

Line length – Blocks of text over 50 characters wide quickly become harder to read. That’s why I limit my e-mails to around 50-60 characters and my sales page to a table width of around 700 pixels. Yes it makes it longer vertically, but to the reader it’ll seem like they’re reading less for any given chunk of text and the whole thing will seem far less intimidating. Before they know it, they’ll have read the whole thing as long as what you’ve written is interesting and relevant.

Contrast – High contrast between your text and the background increases legibility. The most easily read text ever is black text on a slightly yellowed background. Next is black text on a white background. This is a long-held bias of the printing world. On computer screens, light text on a dark background does work quite well, but it is so unconventional, it should be used sparingly.

Link text – This is vitally important. People have been using the web for so long these days, that whenever they see blue underlined text, they’re instantly programmed to think “Ah, that’s a link! I can click that!” So whenever you have a link on your site, if at all possible, make it look like a standard blue underlined link. Even if the link is an image, put some indicator text on there that’s blue and underlined. It might not look as pretty as other ways you could do it, but you’ll be rewarded with much higher clickthrough rates in your site.

Borders – Don’t put borders or horizontal rules around anywhere you actually want the visitors eye to travel. Think of borders like blockades that keep people’s eyes from wandering too far off course. This is why there is a phenomenon called “banner blindness” – people are so used to certain sizes and shapes being advertising banners, they’ve instinctually learned to pass right over them, ignoring them completely – even if they’re the largest most colorful thing shouting at them from the page.

And finally, a warning about stock photography - My take is: don’t use it. Ever. Even if your alternative is badly lit, out of focus shots of relatively ugly people, my own personal tests have proven to me over and over again to always opt for highly realistic, believable photos over the clear, crisp “too perfect to be real” fakeness of stock. Not only is it cheaper for you to pull off, but it generates far more attention and commands unparalleled believability among your prospects. Highly realistic photography was my dirty little secret weapon as an eBay PowerSeller for years; while my competitors used stock photos from the manufacturer’s website, took my own photo of the machine running on my bedroom floor with a ruler in front to demonstrate the size of the product. As a result (and combined with a few other secrets), my listings got far more views and far more sales than any other guy selling the exact same product. I was believed and trusted. The others created doubt… and doubt kills a sale.

We’ve talked about a lot of stuff here. But just remember this: you can never be too clear, or assume too much… because a sale is a very fragile thing.

Email this post