Gradually Make Your Website a Store of Treasures

Slowly building his variety of wares and freely sharing knowledge made his shop a well-trafficked destination. Can you apply the same to your website? (Photo by KrisHaamer)

Summary: It is not rare for a new website to get off to a very slow start. However, rather than becoming discouraged, you should focus on increasing the quantity, variety, and value of the content (e.g. articles, videos, diagrams) and items for sale on your website. By focusing on helping people and through patient endurance you will eventually notice an uptick in your visitors and sales. The fictional story of Bartolo, an Italian fisherman, illustrates how a website can suddenly go from being perceived as having little value to being seen as an essential online destination.

Bartolo and His Ever Expanding Variety of Wares

Bartolo was an old man with an untiring zeal for helping others. As is the case with most zealous men, he was not one to give in to the geriatric lifestyle of his peers. His energy far exceeded his years, and his eyes maintained a brightness like the sparkle of white wine on a sunny summer day. Though well into his eighties, he still found plenty of adventurous projects to busy his day. And Bartolo still had one more endeavor he wanted to embark on.

For Bartolo’s whole life he had been a fisherman. His mind had become a treasure trove of knowledge regarding the most arcane aspects of his trade’s tools and vernacular. So now, several years after he had hung up his nets to dry for the last time, Bartolo decided to help his fellow fisherman by opening a fisherman’s shop on the rugged coast of Manarola a small village on the Italian Riveria.

Bartolo started small, with only a few of the oddest tools that a fisherman will find he needs in that one rare situation that is encountered perhaps twice in a lifetime; and because of his shop's specialty nature, Bartolo received nary a visitor. Occasionally the stray fisherman would stroll into his shop looking for advice on his trade, but purchases were few.

The small fishing village of Manarola where Bartolo started his shop. (Photo by ezioman)

It is worth noting that Bartolo was highly respected by other fisherman for his knowledge, but the oddity and narrow selection of tools available at his shop puzzled them, and his shop’s emptiness left him the butt of some ridicule. But Bartolo did not let this deter him. In his head he envisioned a day when his shop’s selection would grow to provide such a variety of useful items that no fisherman would find his shop unneeded.

So Bartolo steadily added to his shop's selection. Each week he increased the variety of tools and items available. As the number of items slowly began to multiply, a change of perception occurred. Suddenly local fishermen were interested in more than merely Bartolo’s advice. With amazement, each fisherman began to realize that Bartolo’s shop offered a tool for every strange event and odd happening that he might encounter out at sea.

Thus, Bartolo’s shop became known as a must visit destination for local fisherman to brush up on the knowledge of their trade and also find the odd tools that could be found no place else, or at least no other place brought together in such useful profusion the wide variety of odds and ends that a fisherman could need.

So Bartolo’s patient endurance was ultimately rewarded. By continuously searching for more odds and ends to add to the store of treasures available at his little fishing shop, and by freely sharing knowledge with his fellow fisherman, Bartolo was able to grow a thriving store that became an essential destination for the fishermen of Manarola.

Conclusion: Constantly Expand Your Website

Here is the key point from the above story. If you, like Bartolo, focus on steadily expanding the information and products your website offers, you will find that eventually more and more individuals will see the value of your website and over time it will become a well-trafficked destination.

To Increase Sales, Don’t Be Yet Another Site with a List of Products!

Customers are overwhelmed with product selection on the internet. Your website can't be just another list of products. [Click Here to See a Larger Image]

Summary: Is your website just another of thousands of websites selling the same products? If so, instead of getting sales, you may just see yourself adding to the noise and confusion on the internet.

Yet Another Site with a List of Products

A golfer wants to buy a new set of Nike golf clubs, the ones Tiger Woods uses. He does a search on Google for ‘tiger wood’s golf clubs’. How many results do you think he’d find? No doubt he would find hundreds, if not thousands. Likely, the golfer can buy the clubs from Nike directly, from a website specializing in golf clubs, from eBay, from a sporting goods website, from Craigslist, and the list continues... Do you see the problem? Virtually any product you can think of is being sold by hundreds if not thousands of websites! Therefore, for you to get a sale, you must do more than offer just another product. You have to provide explanations and information that dispels confusion and helps the customer organize his product search.

Address Fears that Prevent a Purchase

To convince a customer to purchase you must address three customer fears that prevent him from making a decision. Customers fear…

1. Buying the wrong product (See #4 in this list).
   
2. Buying the right product at too high a price.
3. Being stuck with a disappointing product.

The last two are simple to address. Offer a good price and offer a good return policy. Most companies already do these two things well and I’m sure you are as well. But what can be done about the first fear?

Help the Customer Choose the Right Product

The other day I needed to buy paper for a direct mail campaign. I knew I wanted paper that would make a good impression but at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, I’m not a direct mail expert, nor am I a paper expert; so I was not sure which classification of paper would satisfy my goals. All of the paper and direct mail websites I visited gave me prices for different technical classifications of paper, but none explained, in layman terms, how the paper feels to the touch or how it might perform when used for direct mail. The options were overwhelming. Frustrated with all of these websites, I finally had to seek help from an expert at a local paper shop. A kind saleswoman pointed me to products that her direct mail clients use and explained how each paper is perceived psychologically by the recipient. Satisfied with her answers, I bought all of my paper from this paper shop.

What is the point of this story? I was not able to make my decision online because no website gave me the information I needed to help me choose the right product. Thus, every single one of those websites lost my business.

Are you losing business because you don’t help the customer choose the right product? On the internet, when the customer is faced with a bewildering variety of options, and he can’t sort out which product is right for him, he simply won’t buy any of them.

Don’t Just Explain Why to Buy a Product, also Explain Why Not To

To choose between options the customer needs to know why to buy a product and why not to buy a product. For instance, a car website may say, ‘buy a truck if you need to haul large loads, but don’t buy a truck if you need high fuel efficiency.’ This helps a customer narrow down his options depending on what is more important, fuel efficiency or payload hauling.

Drug companies have been doing this for years. Have you noticed how many drugs have one version that is ‘fast-acting’ and another version that is ‘long-lasting’? This increases sales by forcing the customer to choose one desired effect over the other, depending on how he feels.

Conclusion: Help Customers Select the Right Product

Your website is not the only source for any product on the internet. Therefore, to get the sale you have to do a better job of explaining your products than your competitor does. If a customer is confused, he would rather not buy any product, than take the risk of buying the wrong product. Thus, to generate sales, you need to do an excellent job of helping the customer buy the right product by offering informative product descriptions and information to help him decide between similar products.

Related Articles

Dmiracle.com. 2008. "Are Your Customers Sick & Tired of Choice?"

[Video] Site Review: Quality Inventory Provides Greater Sales than Elegant Site Design

Summary: What can we learn from VacationRentals.com, the #2 vacation rental website on the internet? Well, first, simple websites often outperform slick elegant designer websites. Second, having quality inventory is far more important than having the best looking website. Focus on beating your competition by having high quality products and services and don't worry about having the best looking website in your industry.