Online Success 4: Ten Ways Your Web Pages Can Sell for You

October 01, 2024

The system’s website tool makes building and publishing your website a breeze. But don’t assume that once your site is live there’s nothing left to do but wait for the sales to start coming in. Instead, make your web pages work for you all day, every day.

To maximize your site’s potential, use every single page to drive sales, even the strictly informational ones with your policies and/or privacy statement. By the way, if you don’t have these, you should.

Engaging Essentials

Consider implementing at least a few of the web page essentials listed below to keep your online shoppers engaged:

Create a Compelling Design

Develop a consistent look and feel for your website that’s modern, clean, and quick to load. Look at other websites you admire and try to mimic their look and feel. A coherent design makes you look more professional and credible, and that will encourage shoppers to buy from you instead of your competitor.

Liven Up Your Language

Paint appealing pictures in the minds of your customers. While you may not be a professional writer, incorporating your unique voice into your product pages offers an authentic buying experience your customers will appreciate. A word of caution though: don’t take your casual language too far or it could end up feeling unprofessional.

Text is Boring: Fire Up Your Pages with Images

Your content might be interesting, but without eye-catching graphics you run the risk of being overlooked. Make sure your content has images and, wherever possible, link them to your products. Ideally, something in addition to text should be visible to your shoppers at all times as they scroll down your pages. Consider adding a sidebar with links to add-ons or related products.

Attention spans are short for online visitors, and once you have their attention, keeping it is key. Make sure that your images are visible as you scroll down the page, and that at least one is always in view. The 'After' page below is a good example.

You should manually add images directly within your content and link them to other parts of your online store. Use active language and calls to action to encourage visitors to click on your links. Check out these topics for more tips:

Learn more about adding images manually to your content: How to Add or Change Images.
Learn more about linking to items in your online store: How to Create Links to Pages, Files, and Email Addresses.

Motion Captures the Eye

Embed YouTube videos in the Long Description of a product, in a Content module, or wherever you see the Content Editor to boost your search engine relevance. If you don’t create your own videos or lack quality options from manufacturers, search for fan-created videos that you can use. If you use a video you didn’t create yourself, get permission from the creator then make sure you give them credit.

Click here to learn how to embed a video on a page: How to Put a Video on a Web Page.

youtube logo.png

Use Intuitive Navigation

If shoppers struggle to find what they’re looking for, they’ll become frustrated and leave. Make sure that categories are grouped together logically and that labels and buttons are positioned so your visitors can easily see them.

Use Call-to-Action Language

Call-to-action language encourages shoppers to DO something. Phrases like “20% Off Today Only!” and “Last Call: Get Your Faves While Supplies Last!” to drive people to buy. To encourage shoppers who are new to your offerings, try things like “Start your Free Trial Now” or “Get Your Free Sample.” Other effective calls-to-action might be “Follow Us on Instagram for Exclusive Offers” (where your posts can drive more sales) and “Unlock Your Deal Now” to appeal to a desire for a bargain. Whatever language you use, it should convey urgency or importance. Try to focus on a single call-to-action and place it where it will have the most impact.

Help Shoppers Feel Secure

Make sure your customers feel confident shopping with you. Despite the popularity of online shopping, there are shoppers who remain cautious about sharing personal data over the Internet. Help alleviate that fear by displaying security badges and SSL certificates. Help your visitors feel confident that their personal data is safe with you.

Give Them What They Want

People like free stuff, so give them what they want. Write a tutorial or create a video of tips and tricks that people in your market will find useful and make it available for free. Offer free shipping. If it’s not cost-effective to do it on all of your orders, find an order amount over which you can offer it. Providing freebies can position you ahead of the competition.

Inspire Impulse Buys

Studies estimate that roughly 20% of online purchases are impulse-driven. Consider the placement of candy bars and drinks at store checkout lanes. That strategic product placement leads to impulse buys. You can mimic this by placing a Featured Products module below the page content, or somewhere in the middle. A good example is the Before and After sample pages below. Every page on your site should show your visitor some of your products. If they don't see it, they won't buy it.

Click here to learn more about using Featured Products and Featured Categories: Web Marketing Modules.

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Update Frequently

Search engines prioritize fresh content, so regularly updating your text, images, and links keeps your site relevant and improves your SEO. While you’re in there making updates, don’t forget to test your links to make sure they’re all still working. Broken links are frustrating and unprofessional.

...But Don't EVER Change the URL

In Rain POS, the URL changes when you rename something like an event, class, product, or category. That’s not a big deal if it’s a new page or category, but can be disastrous for established categories and pages. One small change can leave you with a new URL for every product on a page. Here are two great reasons why you want to avoid this.

- To search engines, a new URL is a brand new web page with zero search relevancy. Don't reset your search engine ranking by changing your URLs.
- Loyal customers bookmark their favorite pages. The next time they use their bookmarks to restock their favorite widget, all they’ll get is an error message.

Carefully consider your naming conventions before you go live so that you don’t run into URL problems later.

What Might This Mean for Your Design?

Below are examples of a page layout that is meh (the Before pic) and a layout that has had some good effort put into it that will keep a visitor engaged and hopefully inspire a click that will lead to a sale (the After pic). Please note that the After page showcases products as well as classes. Whatever you do, you should always be selling.