What’s the difference between a good looking sales person and a good looking website?

Nothing really, because looks count for little when a customers is deciding whether or not they’ll buy from you. Marketing isn’t a beauty contest, it’s a contest to win the hearts and minds of customers.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying a good looking website isn’t important, because it is. After all, good looking people find it easy to get people’s attention and a good looking websites the same; it can buy you a few seconds of interest, but after that if the message on your page doesn’t grab them, if it doesn’t offer something interesting, intelligent or meaningful, people loose interest fast… after all, the promise of finding exactly what they’re looking for somewhere else could be just 1 click away…

So here’s a big mistake I commonly see made.

Businesses getting carried away with flash animations on their website.

For those who don’t know what flash is, it’s a programming language used to make moving picture animations. Some people build their entire website in flash because they think it looks impressive.

This is a big mistake for a number of reasons, one being that search engines relate to websites via text, not images. Flash websites are a liability in search engines

I’d back myself to build an simple 1 page website that would out perform any flash website any day, and by outperform I mean out rank them (in the search engines) and out sell them in a direct mine v’s theirs split test!

Why? Two reasons:

1.    Because when it comes to online sales, substance beats looks every time. Nothing outsells a well crafted sales message.
2.    The money you save on the flash design costs can be spent on traffic generation strategies that get hot prospects in front of your well crafted sales message.

So just what makes a website sell?

Your message! The benefits of what you do and what those benefits mean to people and their life.

Let’s take a simple example, cheap prices and the money you’ll save.

A lot of consumer products are sold online because people are buying “the lowest price.” As consumer products are standardized, people can easily compare apples to apples, same brand, same model, same same, so why pay more? In that case the cheap price is the message, the issue of substance, “the” thing they are looking for, the thing that gets the sale.

But cheap price isn’t always what people buy online.

If you sell any complex product or service, price has far less influence because people are buying the ‘perceived value’ of what you are selling. Sure, price will be a part of that, but not always because it’s low! In lots of cases people pay more because they associate a higher price with a higher value, better quality, greater luxury, better results, etc etc.

Premium brands, luxury motor cars, Apple Macs, 5 star hotels and the like are all testament to this.

So what’s the take away here for you and your business?

If you are a business owner looking at building a website that will help you make sales, beware the trap of stylish looking web designer who will seduce you to build a good looking, expensive flash based website.

Unless the accompanying sales message has been expertly crafted, It won’t sell and it will just cost you a lot of money better spent later on getting traffic to your site.

In general, if you are selling any type of complex product or service, your business is going to sell much more if you can demonstrate and explain to prospects on your website
•    what it is that distinguishes your product/business from the herd,
•    why you are better and why that quality is important to them and their life
•    why they should buying from you instead of your competitors.

Also, don’t forget that in the online world, words are important because search engines relate to web pages through words, not images.

Now you know this you won’t fall into the trap of thinking that a good looking design is what makes a good website, and you can avoid becoming the casualty of some trendy web designer who knows nothing about how to really help your business get sales online.

Till next time
I wish you every success in business
David Mollet

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