August 31, 2008

Show Your Customers that You Care



If you have a web site that sells products or services, it is important that you show your customers that you care. Just like any other brick and mortar company in the real world, today's web site businesses depend on repeat visitors, quality products and customer service. If you are serious on building a long term ecommerce business online show your customers that you care.

A great way to show your customers that you care is to build a well organized web site that is easy to navigate. Make sure that you web site is easy on the eyes and looks professional. Do not have any popup ads on your web site or too many flash advertisements. One of the worst things that you can do is to welcome your visitors with a pop up and then 100 flashing advertisements. The site will look like a spam site and people will leave immediately.

Make sure the information that you give about your products and services is clear and concise. It is also important to make sure that your refund or exchange policy is clearly viewable and that there is an easy way for your customers to contact you if they have any problems. So if you are building long term business online, make sure that you show your customers that you care.
If you are a web developer or small businessman, it is tough to spread the word for your web site, product or service. Many people just don't have the budget to spend hundreds of dollars for advertising expenses. However if you are a little innovative, there are many ways that you can advertise your web site for free. Here are some tips.

To get your web site well known first do the obvious, make sure that your web site is optimized and submit it to all the major search engines and directories. While many web developers benefit from ranking high in the search engines, you will most likely need to do more to get traffic to your web site.

A great idea is viral marketing, creating an article or product that contains your back link and advertisement that is then submitted to thousands of people to freely download and post to their sites. Many people create valuable articles with their web site link and advertisement; they then post them on several highly trafficked article distribution sites. Within a few weeks you might see a rise in traffic using this technique.

There are also plenty of banner exchange sites, where you choose to show other peoples advertisement in exchange for others posting your advertisement or your banner on their web site. Banner exchanges do contribute to building traffic.

Another great idea is posting valuable information on web sites. If you contribute to a forum or blog, you can leave your signature which includes your product or web site link. This can also build a good reputation for your products and web sites. So if you want to build your web site but don't have a big budget, try some of these free advertising alternatives.