Making your website work harder--21 tips

1. Tell the reader what it is that makes you the best place to obtain this product. Emphasize benefits rather than features. Use as a headline to catch the reader's attention.
   
2. Use the introductory text after the headline to clarify what you do.
3. Help the visitor find what they're looking for. Make navigation clear and easy. Categorize links, with a maximum of seven or eight per category. Use a standard search bar across the top. Make a comprehensive categorized column of links on the left side. List your most frequently purchased products prominently in the main body.
4. Tell people what to do next. For example, "Click here to learn about our exclusive club." Or, "Download our seasonal catalog." Direct them with active verbs at the beginning of declarative sentences.
5. Maximize the number of visitors who do something. You want them to do something from every page of your website. Make it clear and easy for them to do it.
6. Make your first time visitor feel welcome and comfortable and confident. Display security features or third party seals or endorsements. Display a toll-free number or other easy way to be contacted. People trust you more if they know they can easily contact a live person.
   
7. Fight those involved in the company who want to complicate the web page. Position the product as the hero, not the company. People don't buy the company, they buy the product.
8. On a sales or landing page include an emotionally felt benefit in the headline. Then tell them how you intend to fulfill what they felt from the headline.
9. Include a big promise in the headline.
10. Format the sales page as a single column wherever you can. Converting from 3 or 2 columns almost always increases sales, 80-90% of the time.
11. Make the copy blocks short and easy to read.
    
12. Make your call to action descriptive and specific. Draw attention to it by making it look good, make it stand out, make it look special. Make the order form as short as possible, and on the same page as the call to action, whenever possible.
13. Give your call to action button a strong background color. Orange, blue, red, etc.
    
14. Give people one or more credible reasons to act now.
15. For e-mails and e-newsletters keep the subject line short. Studies show that subject lines less than 49 characters draw much more than longer ones.
16. Achieve recognition. People open e-mails from someone they know, first. The subject is less important.
17. Tell readers what's in it. Right up front, tell them what the e-mail or newsletter contains.
18. Set up the sale with a box at the top, before the salutation, that shows what's in it for the customer. Information overload causes people to want to know quickly if this information is for them. They don't want to, or don't have time for reading in depth to find out what it is you have to sell.
19. Make your e-mail topical and urgent. Never fake the urgency or you lose credibility. If you have hyperlinks to a sales page or web site, imbed the urgency into the hyperlink.
20. Place Key links early in the sales letter or e-mail. Earlier links almost always have a higher click-through rate than later links. But a single link will usually get better click through than several links combined.
21. Add subscription invitations at the end every time you write valuable content in the e-mail or newsletter.