Magnetic Websites - Attract Customers Like a Magnet

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5 Most Critical Components Every Small Business Website Should Have

by Krystal Folino
Krystal Klear Technologies, Inc.

Contact Information: Company contact information should be accessible from every page of your site. This includes your company name, address, phone and fax numbers, and your email address. Some business websites list key staff members, departments, locations, etc. with their individual contact information. Make it easy for prospects and customers to contact you with questions, or better yet, orders. A Contact Us form is helpful for finding out details about the inquiry so that the right person in your company can respond.

Product Catalog or Service Portfolio: Catalog, portfolios or galleries. It doesn't make any sense to develop your business's website and not promote your product or service thru your website. An online product catalog or portfolio is critical to your business's online presence and marketing efforts. This catalog should contain detailed information about individual products such as specifications, photographs, options and pricing. However, selling your product or service should not be the primary subject of your websites content.

Order Information and Forms: Every effort should me made to get visitors to your website to leave some type of contact information. You should give visitors a reason to leave at least their email address with you by offering some free information or a special offer in exchange for the email address. Your site should contain any applicable order forms, RFQ's (Request for Quote) or simple contact entry forms to capture visitor information. If your company sells a product or service through a distributor or partner network, visitors can become valuable leads that require follow-up.

FAQ's (Frequently Asked Questions): Brief questions and answers help facilitate your ordering and fulfillment process. The questions should address common issues and concerns experienced by prospects or customers. Answer common questions about how to purchase your product or service and the subsequent service and support to expect. The FAQ's should be based on real questions that are asked by your prospects and customers.

Free Tips, Articles & Information: The World Wide Web is the first place most businesses and consumers go to research a potential purchase and they will always choose free tips and information if it is available and easily accessible. After all, the internet began as a free collaboration tool for educators and researchers.

You can attract traffic to your website by providing useful free information. Free tips, articles and information should be the main content of your businesses website.

You must add to and update your website's content (your free information) regularly to keep visitors coming back. You won't want to have to call your website developer every time you need to add an article and you don't want to get off course in your business to try to learn HTML and HTML editing programs. Make sure your website has an easy and flexible way for you to update your website's content.

The free information will attract prospects to your site and keep customers coming back time and time again.