ESWC06: Websites that sell, Dave Collins

These are the first of my notes for the presentations on Day 2 (Nov 5th) of the European Shareware Conference 2006 in Cambridge. All of my Day 1 notes were posted last week.

I had to duck out halfway through this presentation (sorry Dave, I was enjoying it), but I thought the notes I did take might still be useful. Here are some of Dave Collin's (Shareware Promotions) tips for creating a website that will sell your product:-

Initial Impressions

• Don't have too many links.
• Don't forget to focus on the purpose of the page.
• If you have any dates on there, make sure they are recent.
• Have clear navigation. Make sure there's a clearly marked path or process for the visitor.
• Never be more than one click away from Home, Download & Buy pages.
• Add links to the bottom of your page too, especially if the page is long.
• Make links obvious to the user, don't try to change default link behavior. If you do, make sure you test it in all current browsers.
• Make your buttons look like buttons. Use "Buy Now", not Order or Purchase.

Remember that people don't use your website the way you think they do. They don't read every word, they won't click on what you think are the most obvious links. Make sure you don't overwhelm or distract them, and try to put things where they expect them.

Clear Communication

• Your website is not a book, visitors will scan it quickly, so get to the point.
• Think about what you are selling, and emphasize the benefits. People aren't shopping for features.
• What you are saying is never as obvious as you think.
• Don't focus on your mission statement, history, or latest releases.
• Don't scare people away with tech talk.
• Reassure visitors about security during download and buy. Convince them they are safe, you won't lose sales by over-reassuring. For example, how long have you been in business, where are you based, how many customers do you have. Can they find your personal information and photo on your site? Dave mentions getting good results from a big prominent photo of the team on their about page. You have to pick and choose which of these are appropriate for your customers.

Q: What about the long one page sites that read like a hard sell sales letter?

Dave said although he doesn't like them himself, but they do seem to work. He has thought about testing the idea, but hasn't yet. It's like the web evolution of info-mercials and direct mail adverts. Not sure how Google will treat them, thinking of landing page quality etc.

Once again, Dave spoke up against Google Analytics, he found it hard to use, and said that in their experiments it's been way off the figures from their log analyzers.

Update: Adrian McEwan posted his notes for this session, and it looks like he stayed to the end, worth checking out for the Good, Bad & Ugly examples. He's also posting his notes from the rest of the sessions over on his blog, even including some colour coding and quote attribution for the panel discussions.

Tags: micro isv eswc06 shareware dave collins