Your website needs four basic components to be built correctly before you start even thinking about getting fancy with Internet Marketing. I call them DUFF for short:

• Design
• Usability
• Findable
• Functionality

Design
If your website doesn’t look professional and trustworthy you can kiss customers money goodbye right from the start. If you can’t get this right, I’m never going to trust you to get a credit card processing system right! Fortunately there are a lot of web designers out there and this is where they excel. Don’t skimp on your web designer, I know you have a friend who can do it, but you need a professional.

Usability
This is the hidden component of design that often gets overlooked. Your website must be ordered in a nice, easy to follow and logical way. Menu systems should be abundant on your pages and easy to use. Every page has an objective, whether it’s to get you to the next page or complete a sale, make sure it’s fulfilling its objective. And make it fast to load, especially if you may have customers on dial-up, you’d be surprised how many that could be. Lots of text but graphics in moderation is the way to a healthy website.

Findable
To use the ancient Chinese proverb: “If you build a business in the forest but no-one is around to visit it, does it make a sale?” This is even truer of the internet and a critical factor. How will you get people to visit your website? Marketing! And one of your critical marketing actions should be making your website rank well in the search engines with Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Once it’s there, it costs you very little to maintain and the traffic comes from people wanting to learn about and buy what you are selling. Traffic can also come from other marketing like Pay per Click (PPC) ads and Viral marketing, but SEO should be in every beginner’s bag.

Functionality
Does the website do its job, normally, sell your product? Whether you accept credit card payments online or have contact details on the website, are people buying your products? This is one of the most overlooked aspects of a website and a personal pet peeve of mine. As I said before, every page has an objective, and most of them should be leading the customer closer to the sale. Make sure you write a good website that people are compelled to buy from and you’ll be laughing all the way to the bank.

Once you get all these components sorted you can move on to actually marketing your website. We’ll talk tomorrow about some basic techniques to use. But remember, you should be starting with these four aspects or the visitors you attract will just as quickly leave your website.

To be successful on the internet is not unlike being successful with a business or store in the real world. The only thing that has changed is the technology and the scale. The problem is most people don’t realise that and think because of the technology and scale, they can skip all the normal business practices that got them this far. People chant the mantra, “if you build a website, they will come!”

Sorry, but this is the first lie of the internet. If you build a website, no-one will look at it except your friends and family, and maybe the people receiving your business cards.

So how do you make your website effective? You integrate it with your business and most importantly your marketing plan. But you also need to think outside the box and create a unique marketing tool for your business. All your competitors have websites, so what makes your website different? Your business is different, why isn’t your website?

In business improvement, like most things in life, I believe that the correct mindset comes before the correct techniques. I could have made a website that was all about Internet Marketing, or Search Engine Optimisation, but there are already enough of those on the internet and they’re obviously not benefiting enough people.

That’s why, when I talk about becoming successful on the internet, I talk about growing your internet business. It’s about bringing all the different components of your website and business together into an ultimate marketing tool.

So if you’re truly committed to improving your business on the internet, keep reading. If you were looking for another get rich quick scheme that didn’t require any effort on your part, this obviously wasn’t the place for you.

The best idea for good website design that I can give you comes back to the age old idea of KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

The style of your website design should be simple. The usability of your website should be simple. And the functionality of your website should be simple. Is my message simple enough?

Style
The average attention span of a web surfer is about a few seconds, unless you can grab their attention with something special. If they arrive at your website and find it looks complicated and confusing, another website is just a click away. So keep your design simple if you want them to read what you have to say.

A good website design is clear, uncluttered, and easy to read. Make your article headline stand out, make your navigation easy to find, don’t overwhelm the user with a million choices. We’ll talk about website objectives and flow in a second but the design should work to guide the visitor to where you want them to be.

Also, one of the biggest mistakes design-wise is to add too much technology to a page. Moving or flashing pictures, excessive use of technologies like Flash and Javascript, and other technology before design mistakes are all too common. Does it add to your users experience and make them more likely to buy what you’re selling?

Usability
While we’re on the topic of technology, don’t get carried away with your navigation menus. Remember, keep it simple! Your website should be easy to use and the information easily accessible. If people can’t find the information they want, they leave. Check out the MIT usability guide to see how your website measures up.

Test your websites usability on potential customers, on your friends, your family, your dog, the blind neighbour down the street. Seriously, blind people use the internet as well, can they buy your products and services? And they can’t be far off pre-approving dogs for credit cards either.

Functionality
Does your website achieve its objectives?
Are you selling products, services, or advertising?
And what is the outcome you want from a visitor to your website?

Whatever the objective, you want to make it as simple as possible for a visitor to reach that objective. If you can close the sale through your website in just 10 seconds, do it. No need for fancy tricks and the currently popular 69 page long sales letter. Design a flow through your website, see if visitors follow it. If they don’t, redesign it. If they do, see how you can improve it anyway! No one has a 100% conversion rate.

Unless you’re blogging for fun about how your dog just got pre-approved for a credit card, your website has a purpose. Make sure it fulfils that purpose.

So those are my ideas for good website design. Ignore them at your own peril. Embrace them and watch your website go far.

Amazing advancements have been made in making websites look pretty and one of them is Macromedia Flash. It’s been around a while but I’ve started to notice more designers start using it for things that are completely unnecessary. If you are thinking of using Flash you need to be aware of some major problems.

First, search engines don’t like Flash. They can’t get inside your menu system or look at any of your text. If you’re looking at never ranking in the search engines, Flash is definitely the way to go.

Secondly, some computers don’t have it installed. Especially work computers that need admin access to install new software like the one I’m using now. So if you want to lose customers because they can’t see your website, Flash is definitely for you.

Of course Flash has many wonderful applications as well but you need to be aware whether your making the right decision for your business. Using the latest technology for the hell of it is a losing strategy.

Earlier we talked about discovering what benefits you were selling to your customers. These are obviously critical when it comes to writing your marketing material and webpage. So you take your benefits, work out your objective, and then add a little emotion into the mix.

First off, every webpage that you write will have an objective. Now you just have to work out what it is. What do you want your customer to achieve from this page? Do you want to make a sale? Do you want to have them sign up to a newsletter? Or is it something a little more subtle?

In between a customer visiting your website and making a sale, there is a process. It involves every webpage the customer looks at and all the information they gather that leads them towards the sale. Think about your website as a funnel. You want customers in one end and sales out the other. So your job is to lead your customer by the hand, answer all their questions and negate all their doubts, until they are simply compelled to buy your product. So what is the objective of webpage you are writing?

Next up, bring some emotion to play. Human beings are emotional creatures, it’s in everything we do, even if we don’t realise it. So you need to write with this in mind and generate a little excitement and emotion in your customer’s life. What emotion are you selling them? Are you selling something that will make them happy? Are you selling them something to avoid the pain of a task or chore?

Watch a Coke™ commercial. They’re not selling you a soft drink are they? They’re selling you fun, parties, good times with friends, the summer feeling, great weather, and beautiful people. Think about what you feel when you watch the commercial and it’s time to start thinking about how you want your customers to feel when they purchase from you. Does that make sense you incredible, wonderful, intelligent, and beautiful person?

Another area usually overlooked by web designers is how your website is going to sell your products. Sure, they will have all the ecommerce facilities in place, the shopping cart, and places for product descriptions. But how does your website actually get your customer from finding your website, through to putting their credit card details in and clicking confirm?

This is the most critical part of your website design. You wouldn’t let a customer wander into your showroom and then just cross your fingers and hope they buy something. You would give them assistance, you would answer their questions, and you would remove all doubt from their minds until they simply had to buy your product. This is exactly what your website needs to be doing for you since you can’t be there in person.

Firstly, you need a website that is easy to use and hassle free. There needs to be no barriers between the customer entering your website and leaving having bought one of your products. Everything in the interface must be correctly positioned so customers cannot get lost. You must have an easy to follow system for the customer to get through the shopping cart process and enter their details.

Secondly, your product descriptions must be finely honed pieces of marketing material. They must lead your customers through the full buying process. They must eliminate all the customers’ doubts and answer all their questions, just like you would on the showroom floor. And in the end, you must leave them with no other alternative except to simply purchase the product as they know it will fulfil all their needs. Remember, you need to sell the benefits here, not the features like everyone else.

So now you have the needs of your customers, you need to translate that into the benefits that you are selling them. The benefit is what the customer will get from solving their problem with your product. For example, maybe your shovel prevents blisters while digging (benefit) because of a specially designed rubber grip (feature). As you can see the benefit clearly gives the ‘why’ for using your product over others. The feature is ‘how’ the product will give you the benefit.

Let’s look again at my business. I offer a service that:

• improves the business
• improves the website
• makes more sales and profit
• frees the business owner to focus on other tasks
• handles all aspects of website promotion

This is why you should be using my business. You’ll notice I have no features in the list. I’ll mention features of course, but not before I have my customer sold on the benefit. The reason comes before the method.

1. People need to find your website
The main way you want people to find your website is through the search engines. This means people are searching for the products you are selling and are obviously interested in this area and perhaps making a purchase. Most people never put a thought into how their website will be found using search engines and are therefore saying goodbye to hundreds of potential customers each day.

Your website can also be found by word of mouth, either being told by you, or by other satisfied customers of your business. While both have their benefits, the search engines can easily bring you the greatest number of potential customers for your website.

2. People need to buy from your website
Just like any other piece of marketing material you send out, it needs to be designed to sell. You need to know the outcome you want from a particular page and focus all your effort on leading the potential customer to that outcome. Your website is not something designed to sit their looking pretty. It has a role, just like everything in your business, and you need to make sure it is fulfilling that role at all times.