8 Basic Rules To Ensure Your Successful Online Presence

What To Do To Have Visitors Coming Back To Your Site and Doing Business

An effective online presence - one that has visitors coming back and indeed doing business with you - can give your business a major boost. Though businesses in this part are just beginning to 'try out' the internet as a business platform, the rest of the world has since discovered the power of this medium as a vehicle for achieving amazing business growth. Global estimates of annual e-commerce volumes project rising figures. Online retail spending for 2006 was forecast at $95 billion by JupiterResearch forecast, according to iMedia Connection. Beyond pure commercial activity on the web, lots of other human endeavours benefit immensely by riding the internet and using its powerful tools.

If you've decided to take your activity online, you'll most likely want to get it right. Granted that an online presence is something you can always tinker with and continue to fine-tune, you'll be reducing your headaches by guiding the process with the basic rules of success. We are interested in your success and would like to point you in the right direction, hoping that this will help you realise your goal more expeditiously. So, here are 8 basic rules which should help you hit the market looking good:

Go Online With Ease

Let's guide you to an effective online presence for your business.

What's more, we show you the powerful marketing tools of the internet.

Want to know more?

Go here»
Or
Just Contact us at Acceler8now.com

1. Define Your Purpose
This is important because your web site has to be appropriate for its purpose. Your site could just be intended as a banner, highlighting what you're about. Or perhaps a brochure with some more information on who you are, what you do and how to reach you. Your goal may be to redirect traffic and earn affiliate commissions. Or build traffic and attract advert revenue. You may also want a full-blown e-commerce site, selling stuff. Or to sell a specific product. Perhaps something else or any combination of these. The scope and structure of what you'll come up with will depend on this purpose, which you need to define. With this, you're able to pre-plan the layout of your site before embarking on the design process.

2. You Need A Clear Structure
A good site will need some orderliness, a design structure, organised to make meaning. Depending on its size and the coverage, you may have different sections for different issues or products. You will be helping the visitors by collecting related subjects in the same sections, arranged into structured folders. If you do this, managing your web site will also be easier, especially if the site is going to be fairly large. So, decide the structure of your web site in a way that will work for your visitors and for you.

3. Get The Site Navigation System Right
Visitors need a smooth browsing experience on your web site and this can only work if effective, well-positioned and easily identifiable navigation links are provided. You don't want your visitors to easily lose direction and possibly bolt away - they may not come back if your site has proved an untidy maze. Some basics are a top navigation bar, a side (left or right) bar, a footer navigation, the site map and perhaps a site search tool. A host of other links are possible. The bottom line: ensure that the visitors can find their way through your pages with relative ease.

4. Provide Value
Visitors need a good reason to visit your site. Considering the cost of their browsing time and the huge and growing number of web sites across the globe that can provide their needs, how will you earn their repeated visits? You must provide real value, not necessarily in the value of what you aim to sell. That is why fresh and high quality content has remained a tested tool for getting traffic. Free gifts, often ebooks, are also popular. The point to note is that you need to creatively bring visitors to and retain them at your site. It's only then that you can take your chance, offering products. If your website is all about what you want visitors to buy from you, it may be difficult to attract them in the first place.

5. Ensure Web Site Performance And Appeal
Performance here is as to the speed of rendition of your pages and the ease with which the visitor can use the site. Here again, you must not take your visitor for granted. His time is precious and he probably has a time budget for getting through with what he wants. If your pages take a lifetime opening, chances are high that your visitor will be off to another web site that might render more quickly. Misuse of graphics and flash media are some of the key stumbling blocks to avoid. Consider that most users in our environment are still stuck with dial-up internet access, with limited bandwidth, meaning that heavy pages will be unduly slow to open. Clarity is important so visitors don't go groping about. They may punish you for being insensitive.

Site appeal is also important, if you desire to win the interest and attention of visitors. You possibly have seen a web site with an awfully offensive colour scheme that made you want to exit the site. Sometimes it's the composition and layout of pages that could challenge the patience of the visitor. The message: make your site presentable, using light, refreshing colour scheme and a design layout that will appeal to your vistors. The success of your web site is not a function of beautiful design, but it will be counterproductive to present your visitors with a disappointing outlook.

6. Build Interactivity Into Your Site
If your web site is a 'one-way traffic', you will not have the benefit of visitor feedback. Besides, you will fail to cultivate a followership. Your target will be to build a base of visitors who are in a sense members of your site. You must therefore create the platform for interactivity and encourage a sense of participation. That way, a enduring relationship with your customers, a basis for any successful business, will be cultivated.

7. Don't Miss The Call To Action
If you've created a site that has the right pull and does get and hold visitors, it would amount to wasted effort if you fail to pursue your key objective for setting up the web site. You must not fail to present your offer and effectively call them to take the intended action. If you are selling products, you must have the appropriate sales pitch to induce action. If your target is some other result, say to register for a programme, you must properly lead the visitor to it and effectively call for the required action. That's the only way all your effort and investment would be justified.

8. Keep Fine-tuning
You can never get it perfectly right, meaning that continued improvements is the key. The feedback from visitors and other information on visitor behaviour and actions will help you to determine what changes that might help to optimise your success. Continue to monitor and evaluate the performance of your site and take action to enhance areas where you find justification for changes.

An online presence obviously requires much more than these, but if you can get these factors right about your web presence, you can't be far from a good start.

Copyright © 2006. Acceler8now.com. All rights reserved.

If you would like to receive coaching for launching and growing your online business or advisory support for building your offline small business, Acceler8now.com will provide the hand-holding to ensure your success. Contact us now for more information or visit www.acceler8now.com for online resources.