To be successful your online store needs to inspire confidence in each visitor. Since you’re probably starting as a one-person company, this really amounts to looking bigger than you are online.
The challenge is for your website to show as much of a big-company image as possible, while keeping starting costs low. Fortunately you can inspire confidence by attention to detail as you develop your website, and through a few basic investments.
Look Big Online
Many of the essential steps to help make your company look trustworthy online are discussed in other articles, and are summarized here.
- Choose a memorable, professional-sounding website address, as discussed in our article about getting the right company name.
- It can be easier to give your website a modern, clean layout if you choose the right content management system (CMS), as noted in the article about how to set up your website.
- Use consistent, good quality images that you create or license, as noted in the article about website legal stuff.
- Publish a toll-free number on each page of your website, as described in the story about focusing on customer service.
- Get the right sort of mail box address to publish on your website, as told in the article about moonlighting tips.
- Be on the lookout for customers’ frequently asked questions so that you can provide the answers on your website, as noted in the story about customer service.
Here are some other suggestions to consider.
- Use a professional designer to create a company logo for your website. If you search for freelance logo designers and browse for portfolios that you like, you might find a good designer to do the work for $100 or less.
- As you develop your website, get feedback about its usability from friends who don’t work at your daytime job. A simple book about website usability, written by Steve Krug*, has some good advice.
- Carefully check for grammar mistakes, misspellings, and broken links before publishing any web page.
As your business starts to grow, it can be helpful to publish customers’ product reviews on your website. Some of the shopping carts mentioned in our previous article provide this feature at no additional cost.
Next, we’ll talk about more strategies to grow your business.
* This is not a paid endorsement.