Believe it or not, the average time the average “potential” customer spends on a website is 60 seconds. Thats not very long to guide your customer to the right place on your site, give them the sales pitch and close the deal is it? 

So what can you do to ensure that you make the very most out of that magic 60 seconds?

Show them what you’ve got

It never ceases to amaze me how much money people are willing to spend to create their website, advertise their address only to confuse the visitor by not making it immediately clear that they are at the right place once they’ve arrived. 

You must make it obvious to people what you are offering. In the first few seconds they will determine whether the product they want is going to be on the site, or if they have been duped into going to the wrong place.

Finding what they want

It goes without saying that your website needs to be intuitive, straightforward and to the point.

Think of your site as shopping isles in the super market. Imagine each isle is a single page of your website… make sure the related items are together, and that each page has its own purpose. If you use categorisation to associate products, show only one category per page.

Don’t make people click around to find out about you or your products or services. Summarise on your home page the key products or services which you offer, with clear lead-ins to more detailed descriptions further into your site.

Getting in touch

Make it easy for people to contact you. A recent survey showed that up to 50% of the people that visit the site will navigate away if there is no obvious way they can contact the owner if the product they buy has a problem.

The phone number is often one of the most important pieces of information on a website; make it clear and obvious, throughout your entire site.  A good rule of thumb is that it should be at the top of each and every page, be prominant and large.

Summary

There is more to making your website a success than ensuring your site design covers these three things. However, if you dont get the basics right, your clients will be “gone in 60 seconds” no matter how good your product or price is.