Are you professional?

I'm sure you've heard the saying "First impressions last the longest."

What type of first impression does your web site make?

If you're in business, your web site needs to have a professional appearance.

After all, who wants to spend their hard earned money with someone who can't be bothered to have a professional looking appearance.

Would you spend your money with someone who had more links to other sites than they have to their own products?

I wouldn't.

Link exchanges, web rings, and other member badges and buttons might help bring links to your site, but if they're on your front page they make the web site look unprofessional, and they change the way consumers view your site.

If you have ads on your page - whether it's ads that you've chosen, or ads that appear because you have free hosting (another no no for a business web site - people will think that if you can't afford $8 a year for a domain name, and $4 a month for hosting you must not be serious about your business) the ads you show may be inappropriate.

I remember a couple of years ago screenshots were taken, and a review was written of a child friendly company hosted on geocities with porn ads at the top. Do you think that web site owner enjoyed that type of attention?

Just last month people with affiliate ad banners for an online shopping site had "adult" toys show up on their blogs. That definitely wasn't the kind of material they were pushing, and their only option to prevent that type of material from showing again was to take down the affiliate banners.

Why not avoid the affiliate banners in the first place, and avoid the negative fall out?

You also need to know how your web site works.

If your sale codes don't work as promised, links on your web site go to error pages, or links just don't work - most people aren't going to waste their time figuring out what's wrong.

They are going to visit another site that works, and buy from them.

Congratulations, you just lost a sale.

If you use other hosting services for your photos, know what happens when your users click on those photos - I recently visited a web site, and when I clicked on a link I was presented with a tiny little picture - and a full page of ads trying to convince me to join the hosting service.

That annoyed me, and I wouldn't make a point of clicking on links at that web site again - if I could remember what site it was.

You also need to consider how you present material if you aim to have a professional looking web site.

Are their spelling errors? Do the links work? Are your items, prices, and descriptions correct and easy to find?

I know some people aren't good at spelling - but I have to admit, I think less of web sites with lots of spelling errors. I recently was looking at a web site to review for Etailers Mall - The Blog, and there were so many spelling errors I couldn't believe it.

They even misspelled their company name!

If you don't care enough to make sure that the face you present to the world is the best it can be, how can I be sure that the products you make for me will be the best they can be?

I can't.

So I probably won't buy from you.


What else do you think you need to have a professional web site?

Leave a comment and let me know.

Best Wishes For a Prosperous Business,

Sarah

Keep Away From Bad Neighborhoods

Did your parents ever tell you to keep away from bad neighborhoods when you were little?

I'm sure they did - after all, if you are in a bad neighborhood chances are that you are a lot more likely to get hurt than you would be if you were in good neighborhood.

The same thing applies online!

If you promote products that aren't trustworthy, then you lose your creditbility.

Sure you may make a few dollars...but that's it.

The people who bought bad items based on your recommendation will probably never trust you again, so even though you made money from them once, that's the end of the line.

If you promote products that you honestly believe in, and you make sure that you promote useful, credible products, that deliver what they promise, then the your subscribers will continue to have faith in you, and will listen to your recommendations.

You also don't have to worry about the them telling other people not to listen to you because you promote horrible products.

You also need to keep yourself out of bad neighborhoods, by making sure that you deliver what you promise on your website.

I'm currently in a situation where I joined a membership community, admittedly, for a lark, because while I thought the community was a good idea, I knew that I don't meet the requirements for the community.

I filled out the application anyways, to see what would happen, and I was approved, and paid my money.

It's been months now, and we haven't begun to get half the things that were promoted on the sign up letter.

What's worse, is that the things we are getting are being phased out, because the owner of the group thinks it will be easier to do things differently.

It is definitely a smart decision to take stock of your business, and even your life, and weed out things that aren't working for you, but if you have dozens of members who have signed up for a year long group, you can't just take their money and run, and phase out the group because it isn't convenient for you.

If you don't live up to your promises then you are going to wind up in a "bad neighborhood" and people are going to steer clear of you, and avoid doing business with you.

And it's not just going to be you that is hurting.

People who are partnering with you will also be affected by this.

After all, they are actively promoting your product, and they see first hand whether you overdeliver, or under deliver on your promises.

If you are interested in making money for the long haul, then when you make a commitment to your customers, newsletter subscribers, blog readers, forum members, or even to other members of communities that you are a part of, you need to be able to deliver on your promises for the length of your promise.

If that's just for the length of time it takes someone to read a blog entry, or download an ebook thats fine, but if you promise them forum access to you and your trusted advisors, plus monthly exclusive content for a year, then you need to be able to deliver that.

When you start out that first month without the promised content, then you know it's going to be harder for you to get caught up, and you know your customers have already lost some of the faith they had in you - even if they aren't willing to admit it.

Life does happen, and sometimes that will get in the way.

Some people will be understanding if something happens and you can't keep ongoing commitments for a certain amount of time, if you let them know what's going on.

You don't have to go into detail if you're not comfortable with that, usually a simple "I'm having some personal problems right now, and I'm going to be unable to ...., but things should be back on track next month," should suffice.

If you have someone who can answer questions or perform some of the duties while you are unavailable that's even better, just point everyone towards them.

Things change, and you may decide that you can't continue to commit to long term promised you've made.

Then you simply must explain what's going on, try to do something that will help your customers, and above all respond to them when they ask you questions or express their concerns.

Best Wishes For a Prosperous Business,

Sarah