Once site objectives and revenue sources are determined, you can add functions that will directly contribute to your objectives. If you've spent any amount of time online, you know that the number of available site features are endless. Some functions, while interesting and fun, may add little benefit to achieving your objective. Some functions could both confuse new visitors and consume significant resources (both in terms of creation and maintenance).
Avoid elements that don`t add to your sites success (profitability), regardless of how popular or cutting-edge they seem.
Here are the primary categories of website features.
Important Site Features to Consider:
User Forum: where members can help members, share ideas and receive support directly from your company. While requiring an investment of time to moderate the forum, this can be an effective way to engage clients, and to generate significant site traffic.
Social Network Tools: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace – effectively using these tools can reach thousands of new prospects and help existing clients stay in touch with your company.
Blog(s): an effective and sometimes time consuming, way of finding new clients and interacting with current ones. A well written blog is a great way to build site traffic and share your industry knowledge and insight.
Product Catalog: a necessity if you carry significant numbers of products. Without a properly built catalog, your prospects will abandon your site and move on to an easier to navigate site. The catalog should be searchable, both by key terms and by product category. Sometimes clients know what they want, and other times they want to see what you offer. A dynamic catalog offers the best user experience.
Newsletter Signup: similar to the blog function, is a great way to build client loyalty, but takes significant time to create great content and execute campaigns. Blog content can be used in your email newsletter. Consider aWeber or Constant Contact for your newsletter. Both offer tools to generate signup boxes for your website and great tracking tools.
Media Gallery: (photo, video, testimonials) display your products in use, show product benefits, or actual users comments on how they used/liked specific products. Consider photo gallery with multiple images of your product taken from different angles – will help your visitors get a feel for the product. Host your images and video on your site directly, or with a media host (like Flickr or YouTube).
Online Demos and “How-Tos”: Depending on your type of product, this can either be useful for after-the-sale service reducing calls to your support line, or can help make more sales by showing how the product is used.
Advertisements: either through affiliate programs or directly placed ads, appropriate advertisements can add value to your site, and introduce your clients to complementary service providers.
Member Registration: give your clients a sense of belonging. Either for purchases or simply to participate in the forums, registering members is a great way to build a community.
About Us: We humans are a curious sort. Tell your visitors about you – not just your name, but a photo of the principal’s (or the front end people) and a brief profile. Begin developing a relationship with visitors on their first visit.
Search Box: will reduce the time needed to find what they’re looking for. Google offers a free site search option, or your programmer can create one for you.
Free Content: in the form of downloadable pdf files, these reports are a valuable means to educate your prospects, aiding them in making a buying decision. Often called white papers, this content puts the power in your prospects hands. By educating them, you help them to make an educated decision. Its important to note that these reports should be written in a non-biased way. If it reads like sales copy, it will be thrown away (or deleted) and they'll move on. But if it's written with the purpose to educate then your prospects will benefit, and they'll view your company as the expert – confident enough to give away valuable information – and they'll reward you with purchases.
These site functions are great, but there is a note of caution. Be sure to consider your site design, as you choose which ones to use. It's important that each function will contribute to your specific site objectives. Often it's best to begin basically and add function slowly, seeing which ones work and which ones simply consume time and money.
The next challenge is to take these functions and craft them into an attractive and productive website design.
Avoid elements that don`t add to your sites success (profitability), regardless of how popular or cutting-edge they seem.
Here are the primary categories of website features.
Important Site Features to Consider:
User Forum: where members can help members, share ideas and receive support directly from your company. While requiring an investment of time to moderate the forum, this can be an effective way to engage clients, and to generate significant site traffic.
Social Network Tools: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and MySpace – effectively using these tools can reach thousands of new prospects and help existing clients stay in touch with your company.
Blog(s): an effective and sometimes time consuming, way of finding new clients and interacting with current ones. A well written blog is a great way to build site traffic and share your industry knowledge and insight.
Product Catalog: a necessity if you carry significant numbers of products. Without a properly built catalog, your prospects will abandon your site and move on to an easier to navigate site. The catalog should be searchable, both by key terms and by product category. Sometimes clients know what they want, and other times they want to see what you offer. A dynamic catalog offers the best user experience.
Newsletter Signup: similar to the blog function, is a great way to build client loyalty, but takes significant time to create great content and execute campaigns. Blog content can be used in your email newsletter. Consider aWeber or Constant Contact for your newsletter. Both offer tools to generate signup boxes for your website and great tracking tools.
Media Gallery: (photo, video, testimonials) display your products in use, show product benefits, or actual users comments on how they used/liked specific products. Consider photo gallery with multiple images of your product taken from different angles – will help your visitors get a feel for the product. Host your images and video on your site directly, or with a media host (like Flickr or YouTube).
Online Demos and “How-Tos”: Depending on your type of product, this can either be useful for after-the-sale service reducing calls to your support line, or can help make more sales by showing how the product is used.
Advertisements: either through affiliate programs or directly placed ads, appropriate advertisements can add value to your site, and introduce your clients to complementary service providers.
Member Registration: give your clients a sense of belonging. Either for purchases or simply to participate in the forums, registering members is a great way to build a community.
About Us: We humans are a curious sort. Tell your visitors about you – not just your name, but a photo of the principal’s (or the front end people) and a brief profile. Begin developing a relationship with visitors on their first visit.
Search Box: will reduce the time needed to find what they’re looking for. Google offers a free site search option, or your programmer can create one for you.
Free Content: in the form of downloadable pdf files, these reports are a valuable means to educate your prospects, aiding them in making a buying decision. Often called white papers, this content puts the power in your prospects hands. By educating them, you help them to make an educated decision. Its important to note that these reports should be written in a non-biased way. If it reads like sales copy, it will be thrown away (or deleted) and they'll move on. But if it's written with the purpose to educate then your prospects will benefit, and they'll view your company as the expert – confident enough to give away valuable information – and they'll reward you with purchases.
These site functions are great, but there is a note of caution. Be sure to consider your site design, as you choose which ones to use. It's important that each function will contribute to your specific site objectives. Often it's best to begin basically and add function slowly, seeing which ones work and which ones simply consume time and money.
The next challenge is to take these functions and craft them into an attractive and productive website design.
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