Why you shouldn't start selling to your website visitors immediately

Many websites make the mistake of trying to sell to their visitors immediately.

Or they bombard them with award flashes, huge testimonials and general fluff about how great they are.

Obviously, you do have to sell your business... your products... your expertise... your credibility. But not right off the bat.

To take a newspaper analogy, when you walk through the door of your local store in the morning to buy the newspaper, does the proprietor come up and shout at you:

Probably not. More likely they greet you and maybe let you know (through signage, displays, or by talking to you if they're feeling especially chatty) that they not only sell newspapers, but other essential day-to-day items you might have run out of, like milk or Mars Bars.

They might tell you about some offers they're running that you might be interested in.

Or they might invite you to subscribe to your paper so you get them delivered and save some cash.

Likewise, when your visitors arrive at your site you need to tell them what's in it for them. Tell them why they should stay. After all, they've arrived at your site because they're looking for something you might be able to offer.

So reassure them they're in the right place, relate to them, address the problem they may have -- like needing to fix their TV, wanting to get their accounts put in order or looking for a wedding photographer -- and offer them a solution.

Then you can move on through your sales process and build your credibility as an individual or organisation worth doing business with.