7 Don'ts of a Business Web Site

Doing business online may not be a powerful idea around us here in Nigeria, but globally, e-commerce has become a huge phenomenon. The statistics also continue to grow, possibly leaving us with no choice but to find how to bite into this pie.

Perhaps in response, more businesses here are beginning to give e-commerce a look-in. More importantly, the indications are that more entrepreneurs would want to engage this tool, one way or the other, going forward. Many factors count when you seek business success on the world wide web. Getting your web site right is, by any count, a major factor. So, what are key issues? How do you ensure that your web site is ultimately in synch with your goal of a successful online presence? The following seven factors may make or mar your outing, meaning that you can't afford to trifle with them:

Don't Forget the Traffic
People won't buy from you or do whatever it is that you've set up a website for, if they don't get there in the first place. A major factor is setting up your site is to build in systems for attracting traffic to the site. Ways to draw traffic to your site should be at the heart of the entire design process. External links to key sites, for instance, are a viable traffic-building factor. Does your site development include this and other key factors.

Don't Leave Visitors Stranded
If you manage to get them there, will you leave them confused and lost, unable to find what you are truly about? This may sound frivolous, but not having an effective navigation system for your site could defeat the effort to build your business. Deep into your site, it should be possible for the visitor to trace his way about and more importantly, to locate whatever he might be interested in which you have offered. Strangely, you are often unable to find your way to something a site has promoted to your. A combination of navigation options, well positioned at the right points on the site, is the clincher.

Don't Freeze the Action
Most internet users are in a hurry: paying for time in a cyber cafe, checking out information as a prelude to doing something, want to maximise their browsing value, etc. Pages that take ages to render will fail you. Reason: the visitor is out of your site before your pages are ready to open. Pages get heavy and sluggish when loaded with tonnes of unoptimised graphics, flash animations and other page-drags. You must consider the relevance of any of these, before you use them and if you must, do it right. Wanting to impress with crippling animations will only cost you business potential opportunities. Don't forget that dial-up internet access is still the order of the day in our part of the globe. The lighter your pages, the more easily they can open and the better for your business. Besides, excessive animation may be an unhelpful distraction, keeping the visitor from going where you really want him: getting to part with money.

Don't Fail to Give Value
No matter how you choose to do it, don't fail to give the visitor good reason to keep coming back. That good reason is easily not the product you're hoping he should buy - does anybody jump at the prospect of coming to pay money to someone else. Find some ways to infuse some beneficial value that can attract users to your site. Want to be a father Christmas, giving out free things? No problem. You have expert information that will benefit them? That's fine too. An interesting contest? Good too. Very competitive pricing, gift vouchers and discount? Beautiful. The bottom-line: if you can create extra value on your site beyond what you want visitors to pay for, you stand a better chance of getting them to come.

Don't Frighten Them Off
Yes, it happens, doesn't it? Those sites you get to and the combination of colors seems to shout to you to run for dear life. You get the feeling that viruses must be nesting there. Seriously, some sites could be an awful sight, a put-off. While your success is not a thing of just aesthetics, some measure of appeal is obviously in order. Don't splash those intimidating colors, animations, smileys or other harassing stuff on your pages. As is said, the look and feel should be right.

Don't Miss Your Purpose
Possibly the most important point. Your objective in setting up the online business mustn't be lost in the web design process. The web development must rather work to actualise that objective, in the best possible way. What are the tools that will help in that process? They are the ones to find and deploy. What are the things that can detract from that objective? They are the ones to plug. If people are to pay online, security will be of concern to them, for instance. What measures are deployed to deal with this factor and re-assure them?

Don't Miss the Call to Action
Ultimately, you want your visitors to take some action, which could be (but not necessarily) to buy something. Whatever that purpose is, you must fail to lead them to it and in fact call them to take the necessary action. If you show your product but don't ask them to buy, the evaluation may continue on another site. Learn how best to couch the call to take that action you really want of your visitors.

This is definitely not an exhaustive list of what you need to avoid to enhance your chances of online success, but they are important factors to tidy up. It's all about continuous tweaking and testing to judge what your visitors are thinking, but don't take action that, ab initio, sets you up for a hard time.

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