As an internet shopper, I love buying from sites that offer me a sleek, efficient shopping experience.
I love these sites because I can be a real stickler on performance as a customer.
I’m referring to website performance from start to finish.
You don’t need a glitzy site. It doesn’t have to be the least bit trendy or graphically elegant to sell me. All I ask is that it performs the way I want it to from the get-go.
Otherwise, I’m not sticking around long enough to become one of your customers.
I don’t care if you have rock-bottom prices or that your website offers free shipping (one of my true passions as an internet shopper).
If your site doesn’t perform effortlessly for me within the first 60 seconds that I venture through your business’s front door on the Web…poof! I’m gone.
My business as a customer went that quickly to one of your competitors.
Cheap web design offers hollow confidence for internet businesses
Maybe you’re so confident about your inexpensively designed e-commerce presence online that you really don’t care whether I buy the books, jewelry or electronics you sell – or if I ever enroll in the classes you offer.
Maybe it doesn’t matter at all to your business’s profit margin that I have the potential to become a serious repeat customer routinely purchasing your vitamins and supplements, your clothing line, furnishings, any of the merchandise you offer intended to commemorate every occasion for those on my gift list.
What a shame.
As an internet shopper who honestly dropped well over $7000 on website purchases for myself, my family and friends as gifts this year alone, nearly that much last year and the year before, the year before that…well, I think you catch my drift.
I am a confirmed internet buyer and not merely a “looker” when I’m shopping online. When I’m cruising the Web, you’d better have a website that can keep up with me to snag that transaction I’m determined to make with my Visa debit card or – so sorry – I won’t have a reason to visit your site again.
The sad facts of poor web design
Here are the reasons your unsuccessfully-designed website loses customers like me before you’ve even had a chance to try to sell us:
* Your site’s pages take too long to load.
This is a biggie. Studies have shown that most website visitors bounce from a site if it doesn’t give them what they want within the first 20 seconds. Yes, 20 seconds! I confess, I usually won’t wait that long.
If you can’t give me what I’m looking for sooner than that when I’m conducting a serious search to buy a specific item (and let’s face it, search engine page results are generated exclusively by keywords), I don’t have time to wait for your pages to come up to speed with my shopping needs.
I instantly hit the BACK button and exit your site to find a fast-loading one I can do business with and get that shopping done ASAP.
* Broken links
Right away I think when I encounter a page that isn’t there: This is not a well-maintained website. My confidence in that website drops immediately to Zero.
Why would I want to take a chance spending my money on a business site that doesn’t care enough to keep its links current? I wouldn’t. Nor would any other self-respecting website shopper who drops a lot of cash on internet purchases.
Off I quickly go to land on a website that is 100 percent current in terms of its links, which only builds my confidence to buy from that site. And generally that’s exactly what I do.
* Your business web design might be pretty but it’s just not user friendly.
Where is the effortless navigation I need? If I can’t figure out how to get from one page to another on your site, I’m going to be history for you as a potential customer faster than you can say “lost sale.”
Give me serious, usable navigation that takes me from your homepage to any other page on your business’s website within two clicks. Give me an efficient search option that will actually deliver me to the merchandise or the information I’m seeking. Give me an easy to access order form that doesn’t ask for my life story just to complete a simple transaction.
And make that order form industry-current where I don’t find myself having to suddenly start all over again because of a simple typo on my part.
By the same token, don’t give me a homegrown website that takes me to the moon and back when all I’m looking for is to buy a nice gift for my mother in the Midwest or my son on a Navy ship who’s out at sea. Don’t give me so much “blah blah” sales copy to weed through when my objective is to simply buy what you’re selling.
Don’t put so much “click this” and “click that” in my path that I become so weary I’m tempted to outright abandon completing the transaction altogether.
Bottom line: I don’t want to have to work hard to spend my money on your website. Make it nice and easy for me and I’m apt to spend that much more in the long run.
Keep your website based on simplicity. Keep it sleek and effortless. As if I’m walking down the aisle about to marry your business as a customer who will return to buy from you again and again in the future.
And I will – if you give me the kind of website I want as a confirmed internet shopper.
Sharp business owners choose top-notch web design to be successful and competitive
Realistically, you can’t operate a productive business online without giving your customers what they need. I am actually the norm in terms of the average savvy internet shopper who spends a lot of money from year to year in website transactions.
The largest purchase I made this last year was $2500 just because the website gave me exactly what I was looking for.
Taking a casual stance on your website presence by trying to get it done cheaply isn’t going to promote your business. You won’t be very effective sales-wise once you’ve got that website out on the Web.
Remember, your business is competing with all the other businesses that are out there. Why would you ever want to lose profitable sales and repeat business by having a poorly-designed website that customers like me will instantly bounce from and never visit again because it didn’t leave us with a good impression?
You need a company like Nextfly that has the kind of experience and expertise to build a website for your business that offers potential customers all of the aspects they are looking for when they’re searching the web – not merely to “look” but to buy.
Nextfly won’t just create a business-effective website for you, they will use their professional knowledge in terms of e-commerce solutions to make your business’s website a success.
Those who’ve been with Nextfly since its inception wouldn’t think of going anywhere else.
Isn’t it time you took your own business to the highest level of professional web design and e-commerce competitiveness in terms of the internet that your business deserves?
After all, you want customers like me, those who regularly spend a lot of money through online transactions, to frequent your website and become repeat long-term customers for your business.
Provide us with the kind of website we search for and that’s exactly what we’ll become.
Debi Ketner is a professional internet marketer. Read her here each week on nextflywebdesign.com and share your thoughts!