Net Sieve

9. Where do you want me to go today?
(Note: This was a play on some company’s tagline “Where do you want to go today?” Bonus points if you remember the company.)When you’ve designed an ad that makes people want to click, be sure you’re sending them to the right place. Pointing to your home or index page is not always the smart choice. If your product or service has caught someone’s attention, you don’t want to force him or her to search through a series of pages to get where your ad promised to take them.

But where to send them? If you’re collecting information for future leads, take the person straight to your forms or survey page. If you’re featuring a product you want them to buy or download, take them directly to the specific product page

Visitors will appreciate your efforts to save them time and energy by pointing them in the right direction. And, if you’ve designed your pages with ease of navigation in mind, they will likely repay you by visiting a few more pages after the business is done.

10. Provide a good, clean shopping cart

With all of the purchasing software available for you to use on your Web site, there is no excuse for using software that requires a customer to fill out a form before allowing them to create a shopping cart or to put items into it.

Forcing a commitment from your visitor before they’ve had a chance to browse will likely kill sales. Don’t make the mistake of creating a user-friendly site only to alienate visitors at this crucial point. Buyers will have to give you their personal and financial information at the point of sale anyway. Don’t put obstacles between your customer, the shopping cart and your products.

11. Confirmation, please

Good customer service, and good online marketing practice, requires that you send customers a confirmation page the moment an order has been processed.

If a customer has to give you a call to make sure you got their order, they might as well have called in the first place. Use Internet technology and advances wisely - it can give you level of outstanding customer service that has never before been possible. And isn’t that why you’re on the Internet in the first place?

This is great - I just unearthed an article I wrote back in ‘99. It was a 12-step guide to Web start-uppers and I can’t believe how appropriate so much of it still is. I mean, this was the day we thought broadband was some kind of wide belt. Whatever. In our countdown to the top here’s tip No. 12:

Spam-free follow-up

The best way to ensure future sales is to follow up on previous sales. Creating a lasting relationship with online customers is a snap - and it doesn’t take spam.

Send a warm, sincere thank-you note after the sale, preferably within 48 hours. Contact customers within a month or so, just to make sure they are completely satisfied with your product. Let them know you’re waiting to answer any questions they might have. Another month or so later, suggest that you have additional products that might interest them, basing your pressure-free pitch on products that tie into those the customer previously purchased.

Continue this friendly form of contact for as long as the customer feels comfortable with it. If you get even a single request to stop sending email - STOP! Your customers will respect you, remember you and refer you to friends if you follow this suggestion.