Have you ever wondered why it is that some web sites enjoy super success while many others fail miserably? Below are seven secrets to help you make YOUR site one of the winners!
1. SPEED
Several studies indicate, that you have only 10 to 30 seconds to capture visitor's attention. If your site is slow to open, your customer will likely lose patience and close the window. And that means bye.. bye..to your site! Worse..no sale.
Solution: Avoid having too much animation in your site. Compress the image files and host your site with a good hosting company.
2. Website Design
Remember you have only 10 to 30 seconds to capture visitor's attention. So website design is very important. Most people judge something on their first look! When visitors come to your site, they will see the reflection of YOU. Be certain they will like what they see.
Make your site comfortable to look at. Be consistent with the feel and design. Don't use bright colors that jolt the eye and senses. Use a text that is easy to read. Better yet, put a really great picture of yourself on your site. Let your visitors know who they are dealing with, and show them that there is a real human behind the website!
Did my picture capture your attention the first time you visited my website? I hope so. I hope you could see that I was a real, geniune, caring person that you would feel comfortable doing business with.
:-)
3. Focus Your Site
Make sure to focus your website on the intended goal. This will help you to target your market easily. For example, if you are interested in a car selling business, most of the contents of your site will naturally be about cars. For instance, your topics could be; My Car Collection, Tips for Buying A Good Car, Millenium Cars, The Secrets of Washing a Car, etc..! :-)
Car Lovers will enjoy visiting your site, because you give them exciting information about a topic they are personally interested in.
When you have laser focus, and great contents, this will create happy customers coming back to your site again and again. This makes it possible for you to repeatedly offer them new sales items to purchase from your site!
Don't clutter your site with too many unrelated products. When you have more than one or two unrelated products, make a unique page for each instead of putting them all on the same page. And do it with some style and thought. Your customers will not appreciate feeling that they have been tricked with an unworthy product.
4. Keywords Density
Many site owners ignore or are ignorant about the importance of Keywords. I have found sites which don't have any keywords at all. This is death for a website! A Good keyword density will help your site listing in search engines!
Remember, 90% of web surfers find what they want by typing in the search engines. So design your site to maximize the placement. Focus on your keywords. Utilize the meta tags keywords, description and title.
If you have no idea what I am talking about or if you don't know how to use HTML code, please, find someone who does or purchase a few good books (I can suggest one or two). I know this may sound terribly confusing but it is one of the most crucial things needed to build a better more successful website.
5. Simple Navigation
Make your site navigation easy. If the customers find it hard navigating your site to find what they want, they will go elsewhere. So, limit the choices, and make the sales process uncomplicated.
6. Make Payment Easy
If you sell a product, offer your customer a variety of payment methods. If your site does not offer a credit card, you are hurting your business...get one right now. You can set up a merchant account such as ClickBank, or use one of the many credit card clearing companies. Take checks online. Provide an address for those who prefer to pay by cash, check, or money order. and provide them with a guarantee.
Make the payment process obvious, easy to access and intuitive to use.
7. Credibility Is Vital
Your professional website design will not sell, if the customers don't trust you! So, provide legitimate contact information online. Your email address, mailing address, phone number and a fax number, if applicable. If you are reluctant to give this information to your customers, why should they trust, or buy from you?
Having your own domain name is also very vital for your credibilty. It will make you look more professional. Choose a domain name that easy to remember and suitable for your business.
Putting testimonials from happy customers is one of the best way to improve your credibilty. When the customer can read what other people say about your service, they will be more inclined to trust you!
Applying the seven secrets above probably will not make your site become as famous as Amazon or Yahoo overnight! But..If they are applied correctly and included into an overall website design and marketing campaign, you will see great improvement to your site's traffic and sales!

About The Author

Anne Ahira
Editor The BEST Affiliate Newsletter
http://www.thebestaffiliate.com