10 Laws of Selling (Virtual) Web Hosting

[administrator]

10 Laws of Selling (Virtual) Web Hosting



Law #1: Design a professional looking web site.

Your web site is a representation of your business. If it looks 'amateur' or does not present a professional image, then potential customers will be less likely to trust that you will be around in the long-term and not be inclined to buy from you. Hire a professional to design or re-design your site. They will know how to effectively develop a web site that accurately reflects your business and its products and services. If you can’t afford $1000 or more for a professional looking site, consider buying a professional looking template. We recommend: http://www.templatemonster.com or http://www.hostskin.com.



Law #2: Keep your site simple.

When you build a web site, it is necessary to design it so visitors can find the information they are seeking in the most efficient way possible. Building a simple site means finding a balance between the various elements of your site including links, graphics and content. Do not overload your front page with every single feature of your hosting. Simply include the basics, such as:

- Price
- MB of space
- Number of emails
- Phone number
- Buy button

The goal is to design a hierarchy of information that helps visitors effectively browse your site to find the information they are searching for.

Law #3: Offer a good price.

The days of charging $50 for shared hosting are over. Unless you are a large player in the hosting industry it is necessary for you to lower your price. Find out what your competition is charging, and offer more competitive prices than them! And, make sure you clearly communicate what your prices include.

Law #4: Forget set-up fees.

In an attempt to gain a share of the web hosting market, hosting companies have tried various strategies to differentiate themselves from their competitors. Now that the market is more mature, offering little to no set-up fees has become the 'norm'. Business owners expect low prices and will consider this factor when making hosting purchase decisions. As a result, if you want to continue to gain business, offer set-up for free. No one wants to pay set-up fees anymore for shared hosting.

Law #5: Add customer comments or testimonials.

Add customer comments and testimonials on your site that will back up your product and service benefits. Make it part of your business to solicit customer feedback so that you can not only improve your business but also attract new customers. The testimonials that you gain from your customers also provide excellent information and copy for future advertising and marketing campaigns.

Law #6: Include an 800 #.

Potential customers want to be ***ured that if they seek your advice, it will be available to them anytime. It's an added plus if it's on your dime. Include an 800 # that is clearly visible on your site - on the top of the front page or in the 'contacts' page. State that the number is “Toll Free”, particularly if it is an 877 or 888 #.

Law #7: Include a ‘Buy Now' button.

To create a sense of urgency and engage customers in action-oriented activity, use a button on your site that has a clear call to action such as 'Buy Now', 'Order Now' or 'Purchase Now'. An image that is raised or animated and is clickable will be more effective than text. Also, ensure the button is linked directly to the order form. You will want to reduce the number of clicks it takes the customer to get to 'check-out'. They should be able to buy from the landing page.

Law #8: Add a 30-day guarantee.

Every customer wants some type of guarantee when they purchase a product. For hosting customers the guarantee is particularly important because the service they receive can directly impact the success of their online presence, and therefore their bottom line. As a result, give your customers a chance to try your products and/or services to ensure you are meeting their needs and to ***ure them that they will not be locked into any contracts they are not happy with.

Law #9: Make check-out easy.

Make it easy for the customer to purchase your products and/or services by ensuring the check-out process is easy to follow and quick. It is not necessary to ask the customer to read a long user agreement (a simple checkmark for the user agreement is fine; they can read it if they really want) or complete long order forms. Ask for the essentials, allow an account to be set-up if needed and accept all major credit cards including other payment options such as PayPal.

Law #10: List your contact details.

When it comes to making a final decision about what you have to offer, customers may want to contact you directly to ask questions and even confirm that you are a legitimate company. Make your contact information easy to find and include all necessary information including phone numbers, fax numbers, e-mail addresses, and a physical mailing address.

Additional Suggestions:

- Have effective ad banners.
- Make the ‘Contact Us’ page easy to find.
- Uptime of 99.9% is expected.
- Domains are cheap. Don’t charge too much for that service.
Ensure your content is up-to-date.
- Ensure you add regular press releases to let the industry know that you are a player in the market and to enable them to keep the up-to-date on what you are doing.
- Obtain an online certificate such as BBBonline or GeoTrust.

[pulsetoday]

Another thing that people mess-up with is the navigation structure . Keep it clean , easily readable ( no fancy fonts ) and easily accessible ( remember the three-click rule ?) .

And , if you must go in for templates make sure that it is not the one commonly used by others... and never ever go in for a free template as it would already have been ****ed to hell by others , which may include scammers , and you don't want your site to look like theirs

Another thing is - If you cannot give truly 24 X 7 Support. Don't promise it , and live support is an absolute no-no , because if you are saying that you have 24 X 7 support and they find your live support button always showing - The Support Staff is currently offline , then this would spoil your image more than anything else.

I wrote an article about customer service . I will post an extract of it here -

Let me give you an example of the thing I learnt from my hosting
company about customer service. Whenever I take live support
( chat with their customer service executives ) , just moments
after I finish I receive an email from them stating what my
problem was and what steps did they take to solve it.

For them there are three benefits for this :

1. Most of people have a tendency to forget things just minutes after it is told to them. So by sending me this email they are giving me
a detailed answer which I can refer to in case something slips from my
mind.

2. This shows that they are professional and really care about my problem.

3. This gives them an opportunity to do a bit of brand building by adding the closing line : ‘ We were glad to help you and in case you have any
further problems , we are here to help you. Thank you for using XYZ co.
Your business is very important to us. ’

Best Wishes!