The internet is now the premier way to interact with potential customers, at any given moment there is more people using the internet than all the other forms of media combined. If a potential customer wants your service you are just one click away. Your website is the only way you have of influencing your customers whilst they are online, so it is important that your website is optimised and tailored towards your product. This guide will tell you what factors you need to have considered to get the most out of the online community.

First Impressions: Never underestimate how small a person’s attention span can be – people can make their minds up on something within moments of being exposed to it, especially in a highly competitive market, so it’s essential that your website gives a strong first impression.

How you give a good first impression depends on your target audience – a landing page full of floaty baby blue and pink fonts is perfect if your selling baby clothes, but dreadful for high class jewellery. The most essential criteria of a good website is that it is easy to navigate and is attractive – so well labelled links and the correct balance of writing and pictures is essential.

Content: We must again consider the average persons attention span. People just aren’t willing to sift through pages of information, so it’s important to be clear and concise – bullet points and highlighting can help to make your pages more digestible. It is important to remember that this is your only chance to sell your product to a specific customer, so it is vital that all the relevant information is available. Providing fully detailed yet clear and concise product descriptions is one of the hardest parts of website design. Having a “More Information” tab can be a suitable solution to this. Similarly, a product needs an appropriate number of good quality, high resolution pictures – ideally pictures with a white background, as it makes products look more professional.

Keywords: The presence of certain keywords is important for search engine optimisation – that is optimising how immediately your website is offered to the customer when somebody Google’s a relevant term. To get maximum exposure you want to be on page one of the search engines results (the higher up the better). As such it’s good to have keywords that are often searched in Google, alternatively you can target a keyword that is searched less frequently but has less competition.

This article was written by Jacob Catt on behalf of Computer Training Solutions – who offer training courses on the use of website design software – a perfect start to optimising your online revenue.