Your web site is ranked high in the major search engines, and you know your products or services are of the highest quality, but your business is still not as profitable as you would like it to be. And you wonder why your sales are not hitting the roof.

There are three major factors that determine the ability of a web site to turn visitors into paying clients. These are: Design, Usability and Marketing. Let’s look at how each of these contributes to the success of your web site.

Design: Imagine you are walking down the street and you see a shabby, unattractive store. Would you go in, or would you prefer to check out the next store? The same principle applies to your web site. People who land on your web page will check it out; if it’s uninviting, they will leave your web site and go to the next web site on the search engine results page. Pleasing graphics, layout, colours and type are crucial to web site design.

Easy, intuitive navigation is also essential. Remember, visitors are not familiar with your site and need easy access to the information you provide. A simple way to find out if your web site is easy to navigate is to ask a web newbie to check it out. If they have trouble navigating your site, change the navigation so it is easier to find their way around.

Animations and fancy graphics may seem interesting at first, but when they get in the way of finding necessary information, they become an obstacle. Both navigation and design should be clean and simple. Keep the number of fonts and colors down to three.

Content is another key element of your web site. Is it interesting, useful and persuasive? Content will determine whether your visitors want to read more about your services and are persuaded to buy from your site. Long paragraphs should be replaced with short paragraphs and bullet points or subheads, which facilitate reading. Make sure your copy is not long and boring. Remove all unnecessary words. Make the content of your web site as concise and to the point as possible.

Usability: Web site usability is not just about making sure everything on the site works, but how quickly and easily visitors are able to find information on your site. Web sites should be designed with the customers' needs in mind - not the Web site owner's needs. If you have an ecommerce web site, make the buying process easy for your visitor. Are all links placed in the right places on your checkout page so it is easier for your visitor to find them? Are tabs and buttons in the same place on each page so they are able to get around your web site easily?

A usable web site will:
- help users achieve their goal
- make it easy for them to achieve that goal
- make it possible to achieve the goal quickly, and
- make achieving that goal a pleasant experience

Marketing: Last, but definitely not the least; the marketing aspect should be considered. Visitors will not see your web site without effective marketing. How can you get more visitors to your site? One of the top ways is to through search engine optimization. There are several other ways to ensure you get traffic to your web site like publishing articles and newsletters, blogging, linking etc. Make your web site an effective marketing tool so you can attract visitors.

First impressions always count, and with so many web sites competing for the same products and services, you want to make sure you convince clients about the effectiveness of your product or services the first time they arrive at your site. If you don’t, chances are there won’t be a second time.

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