By Conrad Bailey



Have a Web site? What's the first thing people see when they land on your home page? Your company name? Your logo? Your phone number? Then your site is nothing but a "me-centered" technical document that fails to turn your visitors in customers.

Studies show, over 99% of industrial Web sites are losing potential customers because they fail to convert visitors into sales opportunities. Yet, because your site looks professionally designed and you've spent a lot of money on it, you think customers will love it. Well, think again. Your site is a failure unless it gets visitors to act and buy. There is no other reason for having a Web site - just because everyone else does isn't one of them.

10. Make Your Site Easy To Browse

You must keep visitors from getting lost by making it extremely easy for them to find what they're looking for on your site. Every page should have a menu of some kind with links to the most important sections. Ideally, the menu should be displayed at the top and bottom of every page and include value-oriented links to persuade a visitor to click.

For example, a site menu may have some links titled "Special Sale" or "Close Outs" or perhaps "Liquidations." These are the kind of links that get clicked and will encourage visitors to stay longer and further browse your site. Remember, the longer a visitor stays on your site the more likely he or she will act. Moreover, a value-oriented menu is one of the main reasons why a visitor will bookmark your site to return later when he has more time to check out the benefits your site offers.

9. Avoid Using Too Many Images, Scripts or Graphics

One of the most common errors webmaster's make when designing a website is the overuse of graphics, tables and scripts. The problem with this is during peak business hours bandwidth limitations will often slow the site down to a crawl and sometimes even make it impossible for people to access the site. A lot of people nowadays work in home offices and although many have DSL and broadband, quite a few people still have dialup connections, and thus, a site with lots of images or scripts will be too slow for them to download quickly.

So the solution is to go easy on graphics, images, scripts and other add-ons. Otherwise, at least give your visitors the option to view your site in a text only format.

8. Don't Make It Look Cheap - Hire A Professional Designer

It amazes me how many industrial web sites I see on a daily basis that are poorly designed. The image these sites portray to their audience is nothing short of being cheap and careless. I see sites with extremely oversized text, full pages written in capital letters, fonts in multiple bright colors, cluttered text and links, grammar errors and so on.

Unquestionably, a competent web designer and copywriter is one of the best investments you'll ever make in your web site. Don't think so? A web site that looks unprofessional is the quickest way to lose a potential customer that visits your site for the first time. Your site doesn't need to be overly fancy or have all the latest gadgets, but it absolutely must be designed professionally in order to appeal to your visitors in the most positive way.

When industrial buyers see a nicely designed web site they'll feel right away the company must care about quality, and thus, this will give them a warmer feeling about the quality of your products as well - and that's a priceless reputation to have. Remember the old saying, "You never get a second chance to make a first impression." Well, when it comes to the fierce competition of the Internet, and the literally thousands of competitors people can choose from, first impressions have never been more important.

7. Run A Blog For Customers and Clients

If you have a Blog on your Web site, you are a step ahead of other industrial sites that either lack a blog or just don't know how to use them effectively. Yet, a blog is one of the easiest and most effective ways to increase your site's traffic and develop more meaningful and trusting relationships with customers.

To start off with, you can submit your blog to the many blog directories, giving your site additional back links and improved search engine rankings. Blogs are also known to "attract" search engine bots from Google and Yahoo which seek out new and unique content.

In addition, by using services such as Feedburner.com, you can instantly turn your blog into an RSS feed for syndication. Giving your blog and company significant exposure from other Web sites that run RSS feeds based on specific industries, keywords and relevant topics.

Your blog can also have a 'Podcast' or 'Videocast' to generate even more trust and goodwill with customers and prospects. Indeed, blogs are a highly effective marketing tool.

6. Offer Live Support Directly Online

It's a shame when a potential customer lands on your site and leaves because he could not find the instant support he needed. If there is one trait the majority of Internet users have in common, it's got to be impatience. With so much information that can be accessed instantly, people online today are somewhat spoiled compared to even just a few years ago. Therefore, when they visit a Web site they expect to find what they came for and find it quickly, otherwise they'll leave as fast as they came. The solution? Offer live support or at least immediate assistance via an Instant Messenger.

There are a number of live support software programs. But if that is not an option, you can always use an instant messenger to allow visitors to request immediate support. For example, you can have a link on your site that says "Live Support" that's connected to your instant messenger such as Gmail, MSN, Yahoo or the many others available. It's a simple and no cost way to offer at least some kind of live support on your site.

But why offer live support when they can just call me on the phone you ask? Well, some people just prefer to chat online for one reason or another. Maybe they don't want to be subjected to a pushy salesperson. Perhaps they are busy and don't want to get caught up in a long conversation over the phone. Maybe there's a language barrier. Whatever the reason, offering live support on your site will certainly help you turn more visitors into happy paying customers.

5. Capture Their Complete Contact Details

When qualified prospects land on your site you must capture their contact details. An average 97% or more of your visitors will leave your site without contacting you. No email. No phone call. Nothing. Therefore, what you need is to offer them something worthwhile to motivate them enough to provide their contact details. You can offer a free newsletter to keep them informed of special sales. Or perhaps a special report offering special close outs or liquidations. Maybe Or even a free product sample or prototype upon approval.

The idea is to capture their complete contact details (name, phone, fax, address, etc.) not just their email address. That way, you'll have more options other than just email to follow-up, whether it be a quick phone call, fax or a personal letter sent by snail mail. In fact, generating leads online and following-up offline is a very effective marketing strategy for a number of companies that sell industrial products.

4. Keep Things Fresh and Interesting

It's important to keep your site updated with new and interesting information so visitors will bookmark your site and return again. Of course, I'm talking about information your clients and prospects will be interested in such as news tips about their industry, special sales you may run weekly, new product releases, a blog as I mentioned earlier, etc.

If you don't think you can come up with enough of interesting information your visitors will find useful, then you need to partner with other sites that can help you. There are many syndicated news sites that will allow you to display industry specific news topics on your web pages so your visitors can read the latest headlines on topic they are interested in.

.

But that is just one example, there are many other ways to partner with Web sites that can offer different resources your visitors will find useful. For instance, company's like TradePub.com can provide you with free magazine subscription to offer your visitors, and earn your company some additional revenue at the same time.

3. Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important for building a successful industrial Web site, but what most SEO companies fail to tell you is at least 90% of search engine optimization involves building relevant back links. Sure, there are other important aspects such as proper page titles, meta tags and attributes. But when it comes to search engine optimization, quality back links and relevant content will always be king .

I must warn you though, if you plan to hire an SEO company, keep in mind there are very few of them that can deliver on their promises. Moreover, the fees that SEO companies charge are off the board and range from as little as $100 to a whopping $10,000 or more. Why such a large difference in fees? Simple, because there are a lot of people that just don't know better and thus, pay the higher fee in hopes of getting better results. They are often disappointed.

I can almost guarantee you that if an SEO company refuses to tell you the specifics of their services, then you are either over paying or the company is practicing less than ethical methods. Even Google warns on their Web site to be careful of SEO companies that promise certain search engine rankings and/or does not share the details of their optimization techniques.

Before you hire an SEO company, insist they provide you with some actual client referrals and verifiable reports on projects they have worked on. If they can't deliver, go elsewhere. Don't listen to their excuses of client confidentiality. You know very well a company that provides a profitable service will always have clients willing to say good things about them. So if an SEO company refuses to offer verifiable client referrals, they are either brand new in the industry or incapable of offering satisfactory service. Of course, there may be exceptions. Are you willing to take the risk? I shall hope not.

2. Make It Client-Centered

If you really want your Web site to be a great success and generate more sales for your company, then you must make sure it is client-centered. That is, it must focus on the needs of those most important to your company - whom being your clients and prospects of course. Your site must provide real value people can benefit from and they'll reward you with their business and even refers others.

Most Web site's today are nothing but an advertisement that offers nothing in real value. They focus more on the company's history, top officers, award achievements and other selfish information. In contrast, a client centered Web site offers value-oriented information that is not easily available elsewhere or even at all. It's okay to provide information about your company officers and its history, but please, by all means make sure the focus is primarily on your customers and his or her needs. Offering problem solving solutions is what really matters. If you have an accurate understanding on the market you are targeting, and exactly who your ideal customers are, then you should have no problem making your Web site a valuable client- centered, problem solving resource.

1. Co-Op Industrial Advertising

Until recently, co-op advertising on the Internet involved not much more than simply trading banners or links with relevant Web sites serving your target audience. Although that method still works today for a lot of sites, it has substantially lost the edge that it once had. Today, most site owners avoid trading links altogether - they just don't see the value in it anymore. Others worry about possible penalties from the search engines if they engage in reciprocal linking. Whether that is true or not will always be in debate, but in any case you can't argue with the potential benefits of developing mutually beneficial online partnerships.

Indeed, if arranged in a search engine friendly manner, there is no marketing strategy more powerful than partnering with relevant Web sites. And that is why we've developed the Free Co-Op Industrial Advertising Network.

The Co-Op Industrial Advertising Network is an innovative but practical approach for developing online partnerships, and a highly targeted method to increase traffic and sales opportunities. It's the only ad network developed specifically for companies that sell industrial products. But unlike other coop advertising programs you don't need to offer or share any ad space on your Web site because we do all that for you in the form of a presell page we create and host on our own servers. Best of all, the entire program is free. You can get more details at http://www.IndustrialLeaders.com/coop_network.html

Some Final Words

George Prince once said "Another word for creativity is courage." When it comes to marketing on the Internet, being creative is as important as anything else. If you don't have the confidence to test different avenues and tap into new profit channels, you'll just be another poor soul lurking the forums looking for ideas and suggestions offered by others. Creativity is key to increasing your competitiveness on the Internet and making your company's Web site a huge success.

About The Author

Conrad Bailey is co-founder and vice president of www.IndustrialLeaders.com, and author of the popular Co-Op Industrial Advertising Blog at: http://www.IndustrialLeaders.com/blog/