Online sales and contactless purchases or contactless transactions have become all the rage since the inception of COVID-19, but where do you start if you want to sell online with e-commerce?
We believe if you’re running a business and selling a product, or even a service, it’s imperative that you strongly consider e-Commerce and how you could sell it online? If you think that leap of faith seems too much or is overwhelming, don’t worry. You are not alone. We talk to business owners all the time who are not sure where to start when it comes to e-commerce and selling online.
The best place to start is to understand first and foremost what you want to achieve, and make a plan to achieve that! There are multiple factors to getting set up to sell online. Things like:
How do I manage my stock? (especially if you have bricks and mortar too)
How do I take online payments (what payment gateway is best? – What is a payment gateway?)
Home much can I do myself?
Can I update or add my own products going forward?
How do I advertise or promote my e-Commerce store and my products?
Who are my customers?
Will I actually make any sales?
The list goes on…
Are all e-commerce platforms created equal?
A lot of people may just think it’s easy to purchase (well, actually license – you won’t own it) a pre-existing templated platform. Platforms such as Shopify, Squarespace or Wix, can be good starting points, but beware! There’s a lot of pitfalls when it comes to these prebuilt, proprietary systems. If you’re tech-savvy with a can-do, do it yourself attitude you may be able to work it out and that’s cool, fill your boots. But if you really want to succeed when it comes to e-commerce and selling online, you may want to think about bringing in an expert. And by an expert, we mean someone with experience, with a proven track record in building, maintaining, and marketing e-commerce websites.
Of course, there are a lot of cowboys out there in the marketplace. From my experience they may have what it takes to put your information into a pre-existing template such as the ones mentioned above, however, simply adding products to a predefined template, does not an e-commerce website, make!
Before you jump in and engage the services of a designer or marketing agency, ask them some (or all) of the following:
How many e-commerce websites have you built?
Do you actively help manage these and/or drive sales?
What sort of return should I expect from an e-commerce website?
At Back9 we have built and maintain a number of e-commerce websites for a range of clients. We understand what it takes to succeed in this space and you need to be prepared to invest in order to see a return…
A great place to start is with an e-commerce Strategy! This will help you define your objectives, figure out the best platform to use, and how much it will cost. Ultimately how you will market your business online and succeed. We’re here to help and to challenge our clients to visualise their potential.
E-Commerce doesn’t need to be hard or overwhelming. Especially with the help of a virtual marketing department like us.
We can work with you to help bring your story to life, come up with a plan, and put that plan into action. So feel free to get in touch with us and book a Free consultation to see if and how we can help you and your business!
After all the blood, sweat, and digital tears, your website is done. Yet when you tell people about it, they can’t find it–sometimes even when they type your business name directly into Google. A common misconception many people have is that once their new website goes up people will flock to it like seagulls to your lunch at the beach. But getting results can take a bit of time. Even with the seagulls, if you toss food to one, it will take a little bit for others to notice and come over to see you. And the same is true for your website.
If you aren’t familiar with digital marketing, it can be confusing why a great-looking, easy-to-use site gets lost in cyberspace. Why is that? And is there anything you can do to speed up the process and what is a realistic timeframe to see SEO results?
My new website went live a week ago, where are the results?
As big and omnipresent as Google seems to be, they have their limitations. In 2020, there are over 1.5 billion live websites and 17 quadrillion pages online. It takes a lot of resources to get through all of that!
Think of your new site like a small, amazing restaurant at the outskirts of town. When the place first opens, it probably won’t get too many visitors. But then a few people might visit out of curiosity. If they like it, they might come back. And if they love it, they’ll probably tell their friends. Then those friends will spread the word until eventually, you can’t find a table without a reservation. With enough business, that restaurant may even have to move to a more centralised location where it becomes well known for its value and quality.
With new websites, Google takes a lot of things into account before it will put a site high in the search results. Sometimes this can take a while as it decides that the content on the site is useful and relevant to visitors. For example, if an unusually high amount people come to the site and leave quickly without visiting another page–known as a “bounce”–then the site will be less likely to be at the top of search results. But that means the opposite is true as well; sites that prove they provide value to visitors are more likely to be rewarded for the effort and hard work they put into giving a strong user experience.
Was your site built with SEO in mind?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, a series of over 200 factors Google uses to decide who ranks high.
When done right, websites can be like staff and can help you bring customers at any time. Like if some night owl wants to look into buying a boat at 4:00 AM on Christmas Day and you sell boats, your site will do the work for you when nearly all of the world is asleep. Your new website can do a lot of good!
However, for this to happen, the site needs to be built and developed with SEO in mind. It’s a lot more difficult to backtrack and try to add it afterwards. This is because the site structure–the way users get to pages and the way pages link to each other–needs to be done appropriately for best results with SEO. If the site structure is wrong, it’s a lot of work to rebuild the site the right way. It’s worth the effort to get it right the first time!
Luckily, Google has general guidelines about how to help them find your pages. Some of these include:
Making sure that every page is linked to by at least one other page.
Limiting links on a single page to “a few thousand at most”.
Adding a sitemap–a list with links to every page on your site.
There’s no straight answer for how long it will take for your site to appear on Google. In general, it will take between several days and a few weeks to show up. You might be able to speed up the process by submitting the site to Google Search Console. Doing this improves the chances that your site will be crawled–checked over by Google–but is unlikely to speed up the process. Following the suggested guidelines and requesting Google to crawl it is your best bet. Even still, the timeframe will be several days to a few weeks.
What if several weeks pass and I still can’t find my new website?
If you wait through the time frame and still aren’t finding your site, it’s most likely missing something important. Does the site follow Google’s Guidelines? Was it set up with SEO in mind? If you think it was, double-check everything to make sure. If you’re unsure or don’t know how, the team here at Back9 can help. We have years of experience building and maintaining websites and know just what to look for. Give us a ring or stop by today to find out how we can help you.
Shopping online is becoming less of a bonus and more of an expectation these days. While mega online stores like Amazon and eBay aren’t as popular here in NZ as they are in other countries, they won’t stay that way for long. With many big NZ chains already having online stores and Amazon AU now open to New Zealand, online shopping is becoming massive worldwide. COVID-19 showed us how convenient shopping online and having products delivered straight to our door can be. Now, it’s almost an expected feature. So how can you start to sell products online?
Why sell products online through your website?
Not long ago, it was common to find many businesses that list their products online but have no prices or options to buy on the site. The idea was that people would see a product they like, drive to the store to buy it, and maybe pick up a few other items while they’re already there. It might seem like a solid idea, but now it’s an outdated one. Websites can suggest great pairs of products right there while you’re shopping. And while a lot of people were resistant to shopping online, the COVID Pandemic forced it upon them–and a lot of people found they preferred it. In the US for instance, online shopping rates doubled compared to the 2 years previous, and the trend continues to go strong.
This means that when possible, businesses should be considering adding e-commerce options–options for purchasing products directly from the website–to make sure that customers can find what they’re looking for and can buy what they want easily. Having an e-commerce option lets visitors decide they want something and buy it on the spot. Without it, you could be missing out on people on the final stage of the Buyer’s Journey, the ones ready to buy now. If you have shipping options, you can also reach people across the country who would never come into your physical store. If you don’t sell online, you could be missing out from people from all over who want what you have to offer!
How to sell products online
Once you decide to start online, how do you get started? We’ve got you covered; simply follow these 9 steps to start selling products online!
Decide what items you want to sell online and choose an e-commerce platform.
Decide on and purchase an inventory management system.
Choose and purchase a payment gateway.
Build the website and integrate inventory management and payment gateway systems into your site.
Write out descriptions of all your items, take/upload images and videos, and publish them to the site.
Sort out a shipping option (if having items delivered).
Customise your checkout process to fit your ideal customers.
Preview and test your new online store and ensure that everything is working.
Refine and update your processes based on how customers buy products and use the site.
In this article, we’ll briefly cover each of the 9 steps. We’ve also covered each of these in more detail and we’ll link to the full article with more information at if you want to know more about any one of them.
1. Choose an e-commerce platform
An e-commerce platform is the place your website is built and how it is stored. Each e-commerce platform has its own ways of adding and displaying products along with advantages and limitations. Some platforms are designed specifically for certain industries or business sizes. Others are more general purpose.
The right choice for you will depend on the number and type of products you plan on selling, how comfortable you are with technology, your budget, and who you want to build your website.
Who will build your website?
For most businesses, budget is the most important factor for the website. Your budget determines who builds your website and how much money you have to invest in it. If you have a small budget but a lot of time, you’ll probably want to use a platform like Shopify. With these platforms, you choose a templated site and simply change the elements like the logo and pictures to fit your brand. These are relatively easy to use; however, you’ll be limited in customisation and features. Getting found on Google through SEO will also be more challenging without added plug-ins, most of which are on a paid subscription plan.
If you have a higher budget and want a professional to build your website for you, a custom option like WordPress with WooCommerce will be better. With these sites, your website design will be structured around your brand and how your customers use the site. This means you’ll likely have higher conversion rates and the site will feel more natural to your users. A professionally-built custom site takes longer to make but it will be unique to you.
While you might be able to try to keep track of your inventory with a notebook and a pen, it’s a lot of trouble that can be automated away with an online inventory management system. Depending on your business size, a simple database manager may do the trick, or you might need a comprehensive digital suite to make sure everything is handled properly.
Using an online inventory management keeps track of how many of each product you have left and allows you to quickly change prices for sales. Many will also automatically track sales numbers and create reports comparing month-to-month performance. A solid offering will also integrate with your in-store stock so you don’t have to try to coordinate stock manually. There on many to choose from, we’ve covered some of the best inventory management systems in NZ in a quick comparison below.
Multiple currencies, full sales and costing analysis, vehicle industry special features
Inventory Management Systems in more detail
Want to know more about inventory management systems? We cover some more of the basics about these systems and go into more detail about each of them in the above table in our article Best Inventory Management for Selling Products Online.
3. Choosing the right payment gateway
If you decide to sell products on your site, protecting sensitive customer information is one of the most important things that you can do. While website maintenance can protect some of your customer details, financial information should never be in a position to be compromised, and using a decent payment gateway makes sure hackers and data thieves shall not pass through.
There are many different payment gateways to choose from, each with different upfront and per-transaction costs. But there’s more to consider than simply cost. Some offer better service or incentives, while others aim to provide the service for the lowest cost, but have minimal customer support or extras. To help with your decision, take a look at a quick comparison of some of the best payment gateways in NZ.
Customisable checkout, API Integration, Batch Processing, Subscription Payments, Direct Bank Transfer, Phone and PDF payment options
More about payment gateways
Payment gateways can be confusing at first glance. Why exactly do you need one and what are the benefits? We cover how payment gateways work and more information about the ones we listed above in the article Best Payment Gateways for Selling Online.
4. Building the website
Once you decide to sell products online and have chosen an e-commerce platform, you need to build the website. As we mentioned above, you need to decide if you want to build the site on your own or have someone do it for you. Depending on your chosen e-commerce platform, building it on your own may not be the best choice. Platforms like Squarespace and Shopify focus on simplicity and ease of use. In contrast, WordPress offers greater versatility, but you’ll trade some user-friendliness to get it.. While this makes it more challenging for a standard user, a professional web developer has many more options with this route.
When possible, we recommend having an expert build your site. They simply have the experience and skills to ensure the site functions properly. Your site will also be up and running faster. Some website building companies also include ongoing updates like adding products or optimising for SEO. Of course the more services you choose to include, the more the site will cost. We go over basic website costs and what causes them to increase in more detail in our article How much does a website cost?
Having a professional build the site isn’t for everyone. For some, the initial investment is simply too high. Others like full control of all content on the site. If you aren’t sure which option is best for you, our article When should I hire a professional to build my website may help.
5. Product description, images, and videos
This part of the process is where many people trip up. Depending on the number of items you plan to sell, it can frankly be overwhelming to create the content for it. If you are a reseller with thousands of products for instance, how can you possibly take the time to write out a description and upload high-quality, relevant product images for each of them? Doing this for all products might seem like an endless task. Even some of the major retailers in New Zealand have trouble doing this for every product!
How to handle large inventories to sell products online
There are a few ways to overcome a large inventory to sell products online. One is by using a growth-driven design philosophy. With a traditional website building process, you’d build every page and add every product before making the site live. Then every couple of years or so, you’d do a major site upgrade such as changing the entire design.
With a growth-driven philosophy, you start out by publishing a functional website and continually improve it over time. You might start out with a limited stock of your most popular products and add more over time. This will allow people to buy online sooner, then you add more products when you can. With this method, each product can have an excellent, thorough description and high-quality images. You can even add a video demonstration when applicable too, as product demo videos are the most effective way to convince people to purchase. You can find out more about growth-driven design in our article How Growth-Driven Website Design Works.
Another option is that some inventory management systems allow you to import this information directly from suppliers. This can greatly simplify the process, especially when you have a massive inventory. While this ensures that your product information is accurate and added quickly, it will also make it the same as any of your competitors that do the same thing.
Professional content creators
Finally, you can have professional content creators help do this step for you. Professional copywriters can help give you compelling, unique descriptions and combined with product photography can help you have a consistent look, tone, and feel for your products. For some of your best products, a product demonstration video can be extremely powerful. You can also have some of your products updated by content creators while others are imported automatically.
No matter which method you decide to do, having a solid product inventory to accompany your website launch will help your customers make informed decisions and increase your sales percentages too!
6. How to handle shipping
Shipping can be extremely complicated. As a store owner, you have to do a lot of planning to make sure everything goes smoothly. New Zealand makes this even more challenging with different rates depending on the island and rural vs urban delivery. Because of this, some e-commerce sites in urban centres choose to avoid shipping altogether. However, this also greatly limits your reach to people nearby. Plus, most people expect home delivery when buying online these days.
If you do decide to have products ship, there are several things to sort out. Among these are choosing a courier company (or companies), product packaging and labelling, emails and tracking information that goes to customers, and of course the price.
Finding the sweet spot for shipping might take some time. You may not get it right when you launch the site and might need to adjust it to cover your costs. Or if it’s too high, you may need to lower it to entice customers to choose you. Many studies show that free shipping is best incentive a customer can get. But a business owner, that may not be practical or even possible if you want to make a profit.
Nobody likes long, convoluted checkout processes. Unfortunately, this is the default option for some website templates. If you have a customisable website, however, you can change this.
Ideally, you want your site to be as easy as possible to use. What makes the site easy depends on the type of customers you have and how they use your site. For instance, having something like Apple Pay on an individual product so a customer can buy a single product and complete an order on the product page might make sense. Or having an option to make an account where customers can reorder the same products with a few clicks might increase sales.
Including special business pricing or the option to pay by invoice might be ideal for B2B businesses instead. There are limitless features you could add, but choosing which ones you should add depends on who is using your site and how they are using it.
These kinds of steps can be addressed when making your business plan or when developing buyer personas. A process like a digital marketing roadmap can help you identify your actual customers and how to best reach them.
8. Testing and reviewing your site
Before you publish your site and make it live to the world, you need to make sure all the processes work as expected. For site builders, most of the functionality will be built-in. Just make sure that purchase order emails etc go to the right place and you’ll probably be good to go.
If you’ve manually connected your own inventory management and/or payment gateway systems, you’ll also want to run through various scenarios and test purchases. These systems have fake credit card details you can use to test purchases without them actually going through, so do as many as you want! Ensure that everything works as expected and all of the emails, tracking information, and everything else goes to the right person.
Once everything is all good, make your site live!
9. Updating and refining the site
The easier and more intuitive your website is to use, the more likely a potential customer is to make a purchase. A good website is like staff--and can even be your best salesperson! And like staff, a performance review can help show your website’s strengths and areas where it can improve.
Your website is an investment. While it might seem like a relief to publish it and not worry about it anymore, there’s still a lot you can do. With a data-driven approach, you review the data of your website and make changes based on what the numbers show. And with websites, there is a ton of data.
Google Analytics
With Google Analytics, you can how many people visited any page or product on your site. If you’re running Google Ads and have it connected properly you can see your cost vs revenue at a glance for all of your campaigns. Then if one isn’t performing as expected, you can adjust it until it does.
Website Audit tools
A website audit tool can help make sure your site doesn’t have errors like broken links or products with no prices. Facebook Ads has Insights to show you which ads are bringing in visitors. You can even use a tool like Hotjar that shows you an image snapshot of each page and where on the page people keep their mouse the most and what links are most clicked.
It’s a bit of work up front, but having the option to sell products online can open you up to a whole new segment of the market! So once you’ve looked through everything you need to do to sell online, then what?
First, make sure you have a business plan, especially if you’re a new business that doesn’t have a customer base. We cover some other startup items in our article Selling online – Where to Start with eCommerce? From there, if you want to build the site on your own, follow the instructions from your chosen e-commerce platform. Most of them have guided tutorials to help you get started and walk you through the essentials. If you want to have a professional build a site, many marketing agencies combine website development and ongoing marketing in one place. Our article How to choose the right marketing agency for your business can help you see what to look for when searching for your team.
Start with a plan
If you’re unsure about doing any of these steps on your own or would rather have an experienced team handle getting your store ready to sell products online for you, we can help. We recommend starting out with our guided digital marketing roadmap where we cover your goals and help you make a plan on how to achieve them. We’ve helped several stores get online, from small local businesses with a few products to working with stores with massive inventories that ship throughout the country. And we can help you too! Many of our e-commerce stores have seen their sales increase over 100% in a year.
Selling online takes planning, time, effort, and funds to get started. But it helps you bring in new customers, increase sales, and provide more value to your website visitors.
Website or web maintenance is key to longevity for your website – Just like with a car. If you let your car sit without doing any work on it, eventually it starts to act up. It might start drifting in one direction, take longer to start-up in the morning, or make weird sounds. You wouldn’t want to go years without getting an oil change, rotating the tyres, or changing the fluids.
And you shouldn’t do it for your website either.
Website Design or Website development doesn’t end when the site is launched. After the site is done, you need to keep your site maintained. Web maintenance means regularly check it for issues and errors, such as links to pages that no longer exist. Doing check-ups regularly helps keep it running strong, which can increase your Google rankings and encourage more visitors to come to your site.
Do websites need maintenance?
It’s true, that a website doesn’t have mechanical parts like a car, but that doesn’t mean its structure is immune to degradation either. but there are still constant changes in technology and some website maintenance tips that can keep it running smoothly.
While the physical parts rarely break down (servers or cables can go down) the structure can become obsolete. Think of it like apps on your smartphone; occasionally, you have to update the apps. Some of them need updating every few weeks, whether it’s addressing a bug or some vulnerability or adding new sections.
The same is true for websites, except that they’re updated without visitors having to authorise the changes. It’s all done by the site administrator instead. Changes for platforms like WordPress are rolled out constantly, and it’s important that the administrator stays up to date to keep site data safe. There’s also occasional glitches and hiccups. One example is that some products might disappear from your online store due to a bug and it’s important to be able to fix the problem quickly.
How do I maintain my website?
The best way to stay up-to-date on your website is to be aware of when critical updates happen, the check engine light of the digital world. This could be on your CMS system (WordPress, etc.) any plug-ins your site uses, or integrated software. Any security patches should be installed immediately, as not doing so can put your site or data at risk.
Checking for broken links periodically is helpful too, especially when you link to an external site or have made changes to your site like updating or adding new pages. A broken link pulls visitors out of the experience because the related content they wanted to visit doesn’t exist. And having multiple broken links can cause visitors to lose trust and abandon your site for someone else’s, and also weaken your SEO for Google searches.
Toxic Backlinks can also be harmful and are a little harder to spot. A “backlink” is when another site links to your website. Like it sounds, a toxic backlink is when a bad or harmful site links to your site. This can be a spam site, a site that has malware, or simply a link-building site that offers no value except for linking to other sites. Whereas a normal backlink is helpful and can increase your ranking on search results, a toxic backlink has the opposite effect and harms SEO. Since you can’t go to the site and remove the backlink without administrative access, your only options are to ask the site owner to remove the link, or to use Google’s disavow tool to tell Google you don’t want that link counted.
Regular “tune-ups” help your site stay secured and optimised
Just like a vehicle, a website needs different things checked at different times. But unlike a car, instead of checking things every few months and a few thousand km, we recommend a monthly plan to address and stay on top of all of these potential issues such as some of the examples below
Making sure all of your pages load properly
Having no 404 redirects (page does not exist), especially when the link is to a page on your own site
Checking for broken links
Doing any updates for plugins marked as urgent or important
Checking page load speed to make sure pages load quickly and as expected.
Testing the site on multiple browsers and devices, such as a desktop, tablet, and mobile device.
Making sure that your website backups are working properly.
Making sure all email addresses mentioned are still active
Checking that forms still work as expected.
Confirming that your domain name will be renewed without lapsing.
Changing any references to the previous year on prominent pages such as the home page.
Like your car, it’s important to keep up on web maintenance. And also like your car, if you aren’t comfortable with doing it yourself, there are qualified professionals right here in town who understand Website Design and the importance of building and growing your website for you and who are more than capable of handling it for you. Get in touch with us today to get started.
Get a website, they said. It will bring customers, they said. But it’s not. Why? Put simply: if your website sucks, it won’t convert.
There could be a lot of reasons to explain why a website isn’t pulling the pork. It could be that you have poor or even no content besides a home page. It could be an “artistic” design choice. Or it could be difficult to navigate with a complicated or confusing site structure. But they all come down to the same thing; if your website isn’t converting, it’s because it sucks.
Content is King
Content is the stuff on your site. Typically videos, images, and words. And the more useful and relevant it is to your audience, the more likely your site will perform well. Sure, a video of a monkey riding a lamb and kicking a football into a goal is cute, but it probably doesn’t have much relevance to what you do. Unless you make it relate. “Hop on the lamb and score at our unexpected sale, one-day only!”
The original is always the best
At least that’s what stubborn old people like to say. But unlike Batman and Ocean’s Eleven—that we can all agree got better later on—original content is unequivocally the best content for your website. Original content simply means that it’s not copied from somewhere else. It’s pictures that you take, videos that you star in, and articles written specifically for you.
That doesn’t mean you can’t use information from other sources. Linking out to an article with similar information can even be helpful, but it’s important to extract information and rewrite it for your audience using original wording. Think of it like writing essays in school; plagiarism, citing sources = good!
Customise, don’t compromise!
Your site design gives an immediate impression about your business. A tacky, homemade site with weird colour combinations and misaligned elements you made for your first assignment in an Intro Web Development class shouldn’t be used for your professional business. A bad design will kill your site—unless it’s so bad that it gains legendary status, like Arngren or LingsCars.
You might be thinking that maybe you should try that route and throw design principles out the window… But think of how many others with weird designs failed along the way. Yeah, not worth it.
A lot of templates on web-building sites look nice at first glance, but use one and you’ll quickly find the limitations. You’re limited to certain colours. You can’t change picture locations. Or sizes. The ugly font choice is locked in. And so on. These template sites aren’t bad for a personal blog or a tiny, single-person side hustle, but as a site for your main business, getting a custom design is the much better option, especially if you want to grow and expand.
Is your site structure natural and intuitive?
Over the years, we’ve gotten used to expecting certain elements on a page. Like clicking on the logo to go back to the home page. Or that little down arrow that will expand content without taking you to a new page. Or highlighting menu elements on hover and showing a preview of the drop-down list. And plenty, plenty more usability features that are nearly ubiquitous these days. Forgetting one is annoying. Two, irritating. But a bunch? Might as well tape a picture to a cardboard box with a computer screen drawn on it for all the good your site will do.
Content + Design + Usability = Unsucky Site
So if your website isn’t converting, the solution is straightforward; make it less bad. And more good. Sure, it’s straightforward, but not necessarily easy—it requires an investment of time, effort, and usually some dollars as well. How do you do it? Create original, useful, relevant content (Or have a writer create it for you). Fashion an attractive, pretty, well-designed website (Or better yet, have a designer fashion one for you). Build an intuitive, friendly, navigable website (Or have a web developer build it for you).
Or of course, you can always leave it all to the experts.
Does YOUR website suck? Click below to get a free website audit and find out!
Websites are like staff: An investment, not a cost!
Imagine if as a business owner, that you could hire and train the ideal, staff member for your business, a perfect customer service rep, marketer and salesperson. All rolled in to one! They would comprehend everything about your products and understand just what prospective customers need to know so that they’ll decide to choose you over a competitor. Over time, this employee would become an incredible asset to your company, and one you couldn’t live without, wouldn’t they?
Now imagine that you’re going to hire this person. How would you do it? Would you hire the first person who walked through the door that mentioned the word “sales” on their resume without checking into their experience, work ethic, or skills? Or would find someone who has a stellar record with glowing references and proven experience?
Probably the second one. Right?
The same should go for your website. Simply choosing the first free website builder you come across or the cheapest company that can stitch one together for you without considering its long-term function and workability is like hiring that first person who comes through your door. Sure, it’s possible that they’ll become that ace salesperson you dreamed of, but that’s unlikely. Plus, wouldn’t you interview other candidates first to make sure?
When done properly, your website can be your hardest-working salesperson, one that works around the clock to generate new leads and point customers to the right department. It can provide them with the information they need to buy from you directly, or collect their details for someone to give you a call back during business hours. And it can bring customers to you from all over town—or even around the world.
But aren’t professionally designed websites expensive?
Not when you consider the return. And if you think of your website as another employee, you’ll come to find that it’s a pretty amazing deal. It’s like paying a signing bonus for that perfect salesperson, but then practically no salary afterwards; besides the very small occasional maintenance and upkeep costs, they work for free!
A well-designed website, like your star sales team, is an investment, not a cost. By knowing what you’re looking for and how you want it to work for you, it can become a part of your staff. And you’ll wonder how you ever survived without them.
So I should replace my staff?
No, not at all. Your website can’t and shouldn’t replace real staff. Instead, it’s a tool that the team can use to help qualify leads and give a potential client the right information. It’s something people access from the comfort of their home and they can research as deep as they need to in order to make a decision. But like your staff, it will only work well if you’re willing to invest time, effort, and cash into making it perfect.
