The internet is a growing and booming medium for aspiring entrepreneurs. However with all of the competition, it takes a little more than a basic website to profit. To build a thriving and profitable website, you’ll need a few key ingredients.

Wow your Customers

A fantastic customer experience is paramount to a great and profitable website. How do you create that fantastic experience? First and foremost, your customers need to be able to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. That means a site which is easy to navigate. Make sure all your information is right up front and easy to find.

A sense of community is also a vital ingredient for a fantastic customer experience. The internet is an impersonal marketplace. It’s convenient for sure but people often make buying decisions based on likeability. They need to like you and they need to feel appreciated. A sense of community helps foster both experiences. This can be created with valuable content, a frequent buyer program, superior customer service and even audio and video or pictures to help people get to know you and what you’re about.

Valuable and Consistent Content

You’ve likely heard the term “Content is King.” It’s overused for sure but it still holds true. Content not only provides your website visitors with the information they’re seeking, it helps drive search engine traffic to your site. However, organizing and uploading all of this content can be a full time job if you don’t have a content management system.

A content management system or CMS makes creating, storing, modifying, and even removing content from your website a quick and easy process. No HTML necessary and if you have a sitemap feature then each time you change your content, the search engines are notified.

Simple Checkout

The checkout process is where many businesses stumble. Customers demand, and deserve, a simple and very secure system and many shopping carts just don’t measure up. Items are dropped, customers are asked to jump through too many hoops, and quite often all of the information they need, like shipping charges, isn’t apparent until they hit the “pay now” button.

A good shopping cart system is imperative for a valuable customer experience and it’ll make your life easier too with simple reporting procedures and readily accessible sales information.

Search Functions

Include a search function on your site and give your visitors and customers the ability to instantly find exactly what they need.

If, for example, you won a housewares store you’re likely going to have hundreds of categories of products and within those categories many sub categories. For example, bed and bedding might have pillows, blankets, sheets, duvets and so on. Instead of asking your visitors to browse through all of it to find what they need, give them the ability to search by keyword.

Offering your visitors a search tool tells them you respect their time and value their business.

Search Engine Traffic

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is an important part of any profitable business yet it can be complicated without a website builder that handles tagging and linking automatically. While some website builders make tagging and linking an almost automatic process, others require you to know HTML so take care when choosing your website builder.

Don’t forget to include a sitemap in your website. Sitemaps, while not apparent to your customer and therefore not a part of the customer experience, will help you stay at the top of your search engine rankings by informing the search engines each time a change or addition is made to your website.

Branding

Branding is all about building a consistent and credible personality. This is accomplished through not only your logo and website graphics but though your about us page as well as your language and method of communicating with your prospects and customers. When building your website take all of this into consideration when designing it. Make sure it accurately represents you and your business vision and mission.

Creating a great and profitable website starts with a website builder that provides the tools necessary to create a powerful customer experience. Choose your builder wisely, look for one that is easy to use and provides the tools you need to create the business you desire.

The internet is a growing and booming medium for aspiring entrepreneurs. However with all of the competition, it takes a little more than a basic website to profit. To build a thriving and profitable website, you’ll need a few key ingredients.

Wow your Customers

A fantastic customer experience is paramount to a great and profitable website. How do you create that fantastic experience? First and foremost, your customers need to be able to find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. That means a site which is easy to navigate. Make sure all your information is right up front and easy to find.

A sense of community is also a vital ingredient for a fantastic customer experience. The internet is an impersonal marketplace. It’s convenient for sure but people often make buying decisions based on likeability. They need to like you and they need to feel appreciated. A sense of community helps foster both experiences. This can be created with valuable content, a frequent buyer program, superior customer service and even audio and video or pictures to help people get to know you and what you’re about.

Valuable and Consistent Content

You’ve likely heard the term “Content is King.” It’s overused for sure but it still holds true. Content not only provides your website visitors with the information they’re seeking, it helps drive search engine traffic to your site. However, organizing and uploading all of this content can be a full time job if you don’t have a content management system.

A content management system or CMS makes creating, storing, modifying, and even removing content from your website a quick and easy process. No HTML necessary and if you have a sitemap feature then each time you change your content, the search engines are notified.

Simple Checkout

The checkout process is where many businesses stumble. Customers demand, and deserve, a simple and very secure system and many shopping carts just don’t measure up. Items are dropped, customers are asked to jump through too many hoops, and quite often all of the information they need, like shipping charges, isn’t apparent until they hit the “pay now” button.

A good shopping cart system is imperative for a valuable customer experience and it’ll make your life easier too with simple reporting procedures and readily accessible sales information.

Search Functions

Include a search function on your site and give your visitors and customers the ability to instantly find exactly what they need.

If, for example, you won a housewares store you’re likely going to have hundreds of categories of products and within those categories many sub categories. For example, bed and bedding might have pillows, blankets, sheets, duvets and so on. Instead of asking your visitors to browse through all of it to find what they need, give them the ability to search by keyword.

Offering your visitors a search tool tells them you respect their time and value their business.

Search Engine Traffic

SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is an important part of any profitable business yet it can be complicated without a website builder that handles tagging and linking automatically. While some website builders make tagging and linking an almost automatic process, others require you to know HTML so take care when choosing your website builder.

Don’t forget to include a sitemap in your website. Sitemaps, while not apparent to your customer and therefore not a part of the customer experience, will help you stay at the top of your search engine rankings by informing the search engines each time a change or addition is made to your website.

Branding

Branding is all about building a consistent and credible personality. This is accomplished through not only your logo and website graphics but though your about us page as well as your language and method of communicating with your prospects and customers. When building your website take all of this into consideration when designing it. Make sure it accurately represents you and your business vision and mission.

Creating a great and profitable website starts with a website builder that provides the tools necessary to create a powerful customer experience. Choose your builder wisely, look for one that is easy to use and provides the tools you need to create the business you desire.