E-commerce has become the new trend in doing business nowadays. A lot of business transactions are done online since the growth of internet users and is still growing today. The internet had become the most popular tool for business growth and for them to stay competitive not only in the local market as well the global industry. Doing business online is one of the aspects that the companies can gain and expand their resources. To have a web site is the first step to start a business online and on the other hand, to look for a web site is the first step for consumers to buy a product online. Competition is really a big deal in e-commerce. With the numerous website available on the net it is really so hard for the buyers to look for the web site that have what they want. And we want that the buyers will get into our websites. In order to achieve what we want, what we can do is to compete with the other websites that have the same content as we have. But how can our website be competitive enough with the others? What could we do to have a good website?
Whether your website is for personal or business use there are some points that we should remember to have a good website. When constructing a web site we should think first of our website as to be a user friendly website and of course the visual design of the website is important as it is the first thing the users see. The ls.berkeley.edu posted some guidelines on how to make a good visual design of our web site.
• Make sure your text is easy to read. Keep readability in mind when choosing your font, type size, page positioning, and colors! Gray type on a white background looks chic, but is nearly impossible to read, especially in quantity. Choose strong colors for links and visited, to make them stand out as much as possible.
• Think carefully about graphics. Do they add value to the site? Do they support the statement you're trying to make?
• Colors matter. Your color choices should reflect the personality of your program or department, but definitely should not inhibit readability.
• Don't place anything on your site that doesn't serve a purpose.
A good website for business purposes according to yourmis.com should have a professional design and the navigation needs to be simple and should give the viewer the information that they needed. The design needs to work with the “buttons” or “navigation”. Sitemaps are good for the search engine but viewers often do not use them. So from the home page and from all other pages, a site needs to offer the viewer the main pages the viewer is most likely to want or need.
The design of the website is important but what is more important than the design is the content of the website. As what the webreference.com stated on their article about the guidelines of having a great website, our site should have credible and original content. Sites that have linked other sites are good and the sites that have the information that's useful are those that will be revisited. And also a great website should provide valuable and timely information to the user. This is important especially on a company’s website. Whether you are selling products or services over the internet the content of the site should be updated regularly. ls.berkeley.edu provide some important things we should remember when putting contents in our website. According to the article we should think first who the target audience of the website are. A website can have one or more types or level of users. Next is to decide what those users want from your website. And of course more important is to know what the real purposes of your website are.
When constructing a business website these points are important. When you are the owner of the site and you are trying to sell something it is important to know who your target buyers are. And the site should have important information that is needed and the website should be maintained. If there are different types of information on the web site the best thing to do with it is to categorize it accordingly to make your website look cleaner and be organized. When you are targeting the global market, make sure that the all the user can understand the language of the site. It is more advisable to make an English website because if you will post something on your site with your local language some users that do not understand that language would lose their interest in your site. ls.berkeley.edu provide some important point to remember in regards to our website architechture:
• Information should be categorized logically, and labels should make sense to visitors, not just to you. Be wary of talking to yourself in language that only your department or function understands. Think about your audience.
• Information should be placed where people might logically expect it to be, and cross-referenced where it makes sense.
• Every page should provide something more than mere navigation. Avoid pages that are nothing more than long lists of links with no other content. On pages with the sole purpose of providing links, each link should be annotated or described.
• Pages should deliver what they promise. For example, a page entitled "Application Form" should bring up an application form, rather than being a generic link to the University's Undergraduate Admissions department. If you can't provide an application form, change the name of the link to accurately reflect what it provides.
• All pages should contain navigation to enable the user to get back to the starting point.
Optimizing the web pages is also an important aspect of the web site design according to webdevelopersnotes.com. Since the web site that are optimized loads quickly and the visitors of your web site a quickly get the information they wanted. Web pages that is so slow to load because of the too many flash graphics and videos. If this is the case, there are possibilities that the viewer would not be patient enough to wait for the whole page to load.
Trust is an important factor in doing business online. That is why it is also very important that your website is secured. Your business maybe just starting or a big company, guarantying the customers of the security of the information they are giving to you will make believe and trust your company. Finally a good business website has also provided a customer service link in which they can ask help for the problems that they have encountered with your products. I believe that a good business website also provides customer service. Providing a customer service on your website is an advantage. Make the customer feel that they were they are important by answering and providing quickly answers to their questions and problems. If the customers become satisfied by the services you are giving to them will make the customers stay with you, your company and your products. Below are the 6 steps in providing a good customer service in your business according to dreamsystemsmedia.com.
1. Auto-Responders - using auto-responders to notify customers as soon as they purchase will help them not worry about the order they just placed. Also make sure you have other emails set up and ready to send out as soon as anything changes on their order (status, shipping, back orders etc) . In other words - you need to be holding their hands through the entire process of buying from you.
2. Tracking Numbers - Provide tracking numbers to the customer as soon as you have them yourself so they know exactly when to expect their packages and not keep emailing you - bugging you. Let them keep pinging the UPS or FedEx website checking the status if they are THAT impatient. Better then bugging you, and losing confidence when you don’t respond right?
3. Toll Free Number - Have a 24 Hour Toll Free Number listed on your site on all pages. Make people confident that they can get a hold of you no matter what time it is. If they are considering making the purchase at 3 am in their underwear, they might see the phone number that says you can call 24/7 - it will make it a much easier choice for them to purchase. They know that they can at any time if a problem arises.
4. 3 Forms of Contact - you should have several forms of contact on your site to promote those warm fuzzy feelings of potential customers. I would suggest - phone numbers, email addresses and physical addresses at the very least. Now-a-days you have social networks where people can stay connected like Twitter, Facebook and what not. You could always use those mediums as forms of contact.
5. Follow Up - After everything has been shipped, and the customer receives order, you want to follow up with an email, or phone call making sure that everything was satisfactory throughout the whole process. Just doing this is impressive enough, and people are going to be more then willing to give you a testimonial based on this alone. I can’t tell you how many times we get emails from customers sharing testimonials because we followed up with them and made sure everything was ok.
6. Listen - Again, I feel this is the most important step in the whole process - If there are issues then you need to hear the customer out, and see their side of it, and what they want. If you build a relationship of trust with them, it will be much easier to tell them bad news (if you have to). Good customer service, and someone willing to listen will make all the difference in the world and save many sales for you.
“Customer service is one of the most important ingredients of the marketing mix for products and services,” according to thetimes100.co.uk. Giving the customers a high quality of customer service will help you and your company gain customer loyalty. To provide a good product is important to expand your customers but most customers today are not only interested in the products that are being offered by the company but also in the good services to be giving to them. “All the additional elements of service that they receive from the greeting they receive when they enter a retail outlet, to the refund and help that they receive when they have a complaint about a faulty product that they have paid for,” according to thetimes100.co.uk.
To have the best website is so hard to achieve. That is why we should make sure to have the proper web site especially for business purposes. To summarize it your entire website should have the perfect layout and design that looks clean but attractive to the eyes of the viewers. It should also look professional as it is a business website. The website should be easy to navigate and make sure to optimize your page. Taking so much time to load your entire web page is important also. You do not want your viewers wait for a long time just to see your entire page. The proper content for what your website is all about. The website should also guarantee security to the customers and to provide customer service. Even if the website already have all what it takes to perform a business deal it would not be good enough to be considered as a good business website if it does not offer customer service. Many buyers will go back to you because of the good customer service you have provided. And of course the site should be open for the comments and suggestions from the customers.
Whether your website is for personal or business use there are some points that we should remember to have a good website. When constructing a web site we should think first of our website as to be a user friendly website and of course the visual design of the website is important as it is the first thing the users see. The ls.berkeley.edu posted some guidelines on how to make a good visual design of our web site.
• Make sure your text is easy to read. Keep readability in mind when choosing your font, type size, page positioning, and colors! Gray type on a white background looks chic, but is nearly impossible to read, especially in quantity. Choose strong colors for links and visited, to make them stand out as much as possible.
• Think carefully about graphics. Do they add value to the site? Do they support the statement you're trying to make?
• Colors matter. Your color choices should reflect the personality of your program or department, but definitely should not inhibit readability.
• Don't place anything on your site that doesn't serve a purpose.
A good website for business purposes according to yourmis.com should have a professional design and the navigation needs to be simple and should give the viewer the information that they needed. The design needs to work with the “buttons” or “navigation”. Sitemaps are good for the search engine but viewers often do not use them. So from the home page and from all other pages, a site needs to offer the viewer the main pages the viewer is most likely to want or need.
The design of the website is important but what is more important than the design is the content of the website. As what the webreference.com stated on their article about the guidelines of having a great website, our site should have credible and original content. Sites that have linked other sites are good and the sites that have the information that's useful are those that will be revisited. And also a great website should provide valuable and timely information to the user. This is important especially on a company’s website. Whether you are selling products or services over the internet the content of the site should be updated regularly. ls.berkeley.edu provide some important things we should remember when putting contents in our website. According to the article we should think first who the target audience of the website are. A website can have one or more types or level of users. Next is to decide what those users want from your website. And of course more important is to know what the real purposes of your website are.
When constructing a business website these points are important. When you are the owner of the site and you are trying to sell something it is important to know who your target buyers are. And the site should have important information that is needed and the website should be maintained. If there are different types of information on the web site the best thing to do with it is to categorize it accordingly to make your website look cleaner and be organized. When you are targeting the global market, make sure that the all the user can understand the language of the site. It is more advisable to make an English website because if you will post something on your site with your local language some users that do not understand that language would lose their interest in your site. ls.berkeley.edu provide some important point to remember in regards to our website architechture:
• Information should be categorized logically, and labels should make sense to visitors, not just to you. Be wary of talking to yourself in language that only your department or function understands. Think about your audience.
• Information should be placed where people might logically expect it to be, and cross-referenced where it makes sense.
• Every page should provide something more than mere navigation. Avoid pages that are nothing more than long lists of links with no other content. On pages with the sole purpose of providing links, each link should be annotated or described.
• Pages should deliver what they promise. For example, a page entitled "Application Form" should bring up an application form, rather than being a generic link to the University's Undergraduate Admissions department. If you can't provide an application form, change the name of the link to accurately reflect what it provides.
• All pages should contain navigation to enable the user to get back to the starting point.
Optimizing the web pages is also an important aspect of the web site design according to webdevelopersnotes.com. Since the web site that are optimized loads quickly and the visitors of your web site a quickly get the information they wanted. Web pages that is so slow to load because of the too many flash graphics and videos. If this is the case, there are possibilities that the viewer would not be patient enough to wait for the whole page to load.
Trust is an important factor in doing business online. That is why it is also very important that your website is secured. Your business maybe just starting or a big company, guarantying the customers of the security of the information they are giving to you will make believe and trust your company. Finally a good business website has also provided a customer service link in which they can ask help for the problems that they have encountered with your products. I believe that a good business website also provides customer service. Providing a customer service on your website is an advantage. Make the customer feel that they were they are important by answering and providing quickly answers to their questions and problems. If the customers become satisfied by the services you are giving to them will make the customers stay with you, your company and your products. Below are the 6 steps in providing a good customer service in your business according to dreamsystemsmedia.com.
1. Auto-Responders - using auto-responders to notify customers as soon as they purchase will help them not worry about the order they just placed. Also make sure you have other emails set up and ready to send out as soon as anything changes on their order (status, shipping, back orders etc) . In other words - you need to be holding their hands through the entire process of buying from you.
2. Tracking Numbers - Provide tracking numbers to the customer as soon as you have them yourself so they know exactly when to expect their packages and not keep emailing you - bugging you. Let them keep pinging the UPS or FedEx website checking the status if they are THAT impatient. Better then bugging you, and losing confidence when you don’t respond right?
3. Toll Free Number - Have a 24 Hour Toll Free Number listed on your site on all pages. Make people confident that they can get a hold of you no matter what time it is. If they are considering making the purchase at 3 am in their underwear, they might see the phone number that says you can call 24/7 - it will make it a much easier choice for them to purchase. They know that they can at any time if a problem arises.
4. 3 Forms of Contact - you should have several forms of contact on your site to promote those warm fuzzy feelings of potential customers. I would suggest - phone numbers, email addresses and physical addresses at the very least. Now-a-days you have social networks where people can stay connected like Twitter, Facebook and what not. You could always use those mediums as forms of contact.
5. Follow Up - After everything has been shipped, and the customer receives order, you want to follow up with an email, or phone call making sure that everything was satisfactory throughout the whole process. Just doing this is impressive enough, and people are going to be more then willing to give you a testimonial based on this alone. I can’t tell you how many times we get emails from customers sharing testimonials because we followed up with them and made sure everything was ok.
6. Listen - Again, I feel this is the most important step in the whole process - If there are issues then you need to hear the customer out, and see their side of it, and what they want. If you build a relationship of trust with them, it will be much easier to tell them bad news (if you have to). Good customer service, and someone willing to listen will make all the difference in the world and save many sales for you.
“Customer service is one of the most important ingredients of the marketing mix for products and services,” according to thetimes100.co.uk. Giving the customers a high quality of customer service will help you and your company gain customer loyalty. To provide a good product is important to expand your customers but most customers today are not only interested in the products that are being offered by the company but also in the good services to be giving to them. “All the additional elements of service that they receive from the greeting they receive when they enter a retail outlet, to the refund and help that they receive when they have a complaint about a faulty product that they have paid for,” according to thetimes100.co.uk.
To have the best website is so hard to achieve. That is why we should make sure to have the proper web site especially for business purposes. To summarize it your entire website should have the perfect layout and design that looks clean but attractive to the eyes of the viewers. It should also look professional as it is a business website. The website should be easy to navigate and make sure to optimize your page. Taking so much time to load your entire web page is important also. You do not want your viewers wait for a long time just to see your entire page. The proper content for what your website is all about. The website should also guarantee security to the customers and to provide customer service. Even if the website already have all what it takes to perform a business deal it would not be good enough to be considered as a good business website if it does not offer customer service. Many buyers will go back to you because of the good customer service you have provided. And of course the site should be open for the comments and suggestions from the customers.
Reference:
1. http://ls.berkeley.edu/lscr/advice/web/design
2. http://www.webreference.com/greatsite.html
3. http://www.apis.ca/on_websites/what-makes-good-website.php
4. http://www.webdevelopersnotes.com/design/index.php3
5. http://www.yourmis.com/characteristics-of-a-good-business-website-59/
6. http://www.dreamsystemsmedia.com/blog/index.php/the-6-steps-of-good-online-customer-service/
7. http://www.customerexpressions.com/CEx/cexweb.nsf/(GetPages)/244bb485721ebb4a85257012004f8fb4
8. http://www.thetimes100.co.uk/theory/theory--the-importance-customer-service--414.php
2 comments:
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