In any successful business there are a series of smaller elements that come
together in order to create a good model. These are really very basic pointers
that most people understand and cover off before they open their doors.

A few of these elements include:

- A business name

- A company logo that people can easily identify

- A message that tells your customers what your business is about (USP)

- Easy ways for your customers to get in touch with you (email, phone etc)

- Reasons and benefits on why people should deal with you

- A way to attract visitors and keep them coming back

- Ways to build credibility about your business (awards, features in
magazines, testimonials, a proven track record of success)

These elements combined create an image of a legitimate business that you
could buy from with little risk.

A real no brainer, right?

Let’s look at these elements and see how they compare on a website…

To get people to take action when they visit a website uses the same
principles as running a successful business. Without these core elements people
visit a website and leave confused and lacking confidence in using their
products and services.

As an example – When I start working with a new client I usually find their
website is on average losing 47% of all visitors without even looking at details
on their products and services. This means for every 100 people that walk into
your business, almost half of them turn around and walk straight out.

If this was happening to your business you’d start asking questions, yes?

Did you know that you can access this information easily for FREE.

Lesson Number 1 – Get Access To Your Websites Stats

When you look at your websites stats you can see immediately why your
customers are leaving right away. You can see what they are doing when they
visit your site.

Google have a really cool tool called Analytics that you can install on your
site for free which lays out your stats in a nice simple graphical method.

If you don’t understand how to read them, hire a person like me to show you
or to set up a simple summary that will give you a list of recommendations to
implement.

Lesson Number 2 – Apply Real World Rules To Your Website

Remember our successful business elements we mentioned earlier? The colour
and shape of these elements may change, but the same basic principle can be
applied to any component of a business, especially your website.

To make this nice and simple, I’m going to show you a simple, yet highly
effective checklist every well performing website uses to get customers to take
action when they visit their site. Compare this to your site and see how you
stack up.

These are proven techniques I have tested with many clients and have achieved
great success:

- Your logo clearly displayed on your site (normally top left hand corner)

- Your catchphrase under your logo (only one sentence, short and concise)

- Your main method of contact in the top right hand corner (this invites
people to do business with you)

- If you use images, don’t let them take up all the space and include a
benefit statement in the image (a picture is worth a thousand words, but are any
of those telling people why they should buy from you?)

- Have an offer (people will visit your site not ready to buy. If you make
the right offer you can capture their contact details and follow them up later)

By using these proven techniques and measuring your website stats you are on
course to a better performing website. Not only will these techniques make your
website easier to navigate, it will build credibility in the eyes of your
visitors.