Page 263 - Professional Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

How to convert visitors into buyers 262

14.4 Optimize your order pages

Statistics show that more than 60 percent of online shoppers abort the ordering
process. If your order page isn't easy to use, all other website promotion efforts will
be in vain.

Here are the most important points for a successful order page:

· Link from the home page and from all product and service pages to the order page.

· Give the links on your order page names that your customers can easily recognize:
"Order", "Buy", "Store", "Checkout", etc.

· Don't hide the price for your products or services. People won't buy if they don't
know what they have to pay.

· Tell your visitors about shipping costs and state taxes.

· Tell your visitors the final price before they have to enter the credit card number.

· Tell your visitors who you are and tell them your complete company address.

· Offer an unconditional money-back guarantee if at all possible.

· Tell your visitors upfront about your refund policy.

· Make sure that your order pages are secure. Use at least 40 bit encryption so that
your customers can safely enter their contact and purchase information.

· Make sure that your order pages are easy to understand. Test them with your
friends or relatives that don't connect to the Internet very often.

· Regularly test your order pages to make sure that they work.

· Make sure that you'll be notified if your server goes down.

· Make sure that your order page displays a meaningful message if the customer
forgets to enter the street name or any other required field.

· Make sure that your order pages work with international customers. German
customers don't know what to enter in the "State" field and usually leave it empty.
Some countries don't even have postal numbers. Your order pages should work for
these customers.

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