To achieve maximum effectiveness, primary calls-to-action (e.g., add to basket) are usually placed at the top of web pages. Yet, it is equally important to include calls-to-action at the bottom of the pages, too.

You might lose customers who have not selected a call-to-action from the top and will just exit for lack of further push from you. Such calls-to-action are determined by the goals you have set for the site or page.

They may consist of links to the following:

1. Contact details

Contact information should be seen at the bottom of every single page of your website if this is what you want your users to do. Your email address and phone number, along with a short, friendly message like “We’d love to hear from you” can produce more results than a curtly worded “Fill up the form to make an enquiry”.

2. Registering or Signing Up

If getting users to register or sign up (e.g. for a newsletter or an event) is your site’s main objective, place an appropriate call-to-action at the bottom of the page that follows your sales message. If you exerted time and effort to write killer copy, you must end it with a call-to-action so the user knows what the next step is: sign up.

 3. Related Products or Services

The user may not find your main products or services to his liking. As he scrolls down without making any action, display images or descriptions of other products or services at the bottom of the page so he’ll have other options to purchase instead of leaving the site with his needs unmet.

 4. Social networking bookmarking services

Social bookmarking sites like del.icio.us and Digg store web pages and recommend them to other users. Placing a link at the page bottom to these sites will automatically add your web page to users’ bookmarks on that site if they click on the link. The list of users’ bookmarks is open to the public, making other users and search engines aware of the existence of your site.

Over the last 10 years, businesses have been rushing to get online with their company website.

Nowadays, if you have a small business, and you want to be richer and more successful online, you have to have a website that looks professional.

 Almost like deja vu, social networking is also gaining in popularity - by the time 2020 rolls around, SMEs will be just as prevalent on social networking sites as they have been on the internet. The time is right to master these new business models, marketing techniques and strategies.

Using social networking, small businesses can get more free exposure. This makes it easier to talk to clients directly, plus increase and improve the quality of referrals and traffic to their existing websites.

The most common social networking sites for business are Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter.

Social networking hasn’t been around very long. It’s based around online communities that get together based on common interests and existing online friendships and connections.

Every day, 6,000 more businesses join Twitter for social networking. It’s estimated, by UK telecoms company O2, that more than 700,000 small businesses use this micro-blogging service.

500 small businesses were polled in the study. It was determined that 17% of them used Twitter, and 25% of those got started with social networking in the 30 days prior to taking the study.

Of those surveyed, almost 30% said they had saved up to £1,000 on marketing and advertising since signing up. A significant 16% claimed that they had been able to save up to £5,000.

Simon Devonshire, O2’s chief of small business marketing, said: “The increase in small businesses using converged devices such as smartphones combined with the simplicity of Twitter represents a fantastic opportunity to further raise their profiles and increase efficiency,”

SMEs can benefit greatly from social networking, according to Chartered Institute of Marketing research head Mark Stuart.

“Firstly, they are a very cheap, fast and effective way to reach new customers if you use them in the right way. If you’re targeting Generation Y; teenagers and young adults, then you need to communicate with them in ways that they want to be communicated with, and that means using channels like Facebook and YouTube to reach them.”

“You can also create a presence by setting up a group application for your company, or create a profile page for the business the same way an individual would. People will add you as friends if they like what you do; you then have a free advertising platform.”

Companies can experience vast growth and customer recognition and improved loyalty by getting website referrals through these social networking sites and services. Social recommendations provide a window on your business credibility and can encourage new customers to get in contact with you. Companies can update their social media profiles to link to their website and campaign landing pages.

If you want to get a lot of natural links, just sign up for social media and link back to the home website of your business. It’s a good idea to add information about company on your social media profile, enabling you to show people exactly what you’re all about and what you can do for them. Make sure you include a physical address and contact number, so that internet customers can see there is a real organisation behind the networking “face”. This is a key part of getting new customers to “know, like and trust you” and essential part of increasing online sales.

Social media can provide a lot of natural links and free traffic, if it’s used correctly.

Businesses should provide regular updates and give their potential customers the ability to get in touch with them and see what they’re doing right now.

I urge you, if you run a small business, to do a little bit of research into social networking and see how it fits into your planned marketing efforts. My free guide to twitter for business has some useful guidance.

 It need not be onerous. At first it can seem like another tidal wave of information crashing over you, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

Many online and offline tools can help you manage your social media profile with ease. There are scheduling tools that control when you publish information. There are tools to follow trends and managing the responses you receive. At the touch of a button, you can monitor the types of follower you have and the online communities they belong to and much more.

Why not Google for the ‘Top Ten Twitter Tools’ and see what twitter users are recommending right now?

If this still seems a bit daunting, there are also companies that will manage your blogging and social media accounts. This means you get the benefit of the web exposure without having to master all the technology first. This is a great way of reaping the benefits now, not later – or maybe never, if you don’t have the courage to take those crucial first steps.

My top tip is to take the plunge and go ahead and create some accounts on these sites and observe what’s going on.

It’s time to commit to a completely new way of advertising your business and start planning your social media marketing campaign for the coming year.

A user-friendly business website is similar to excellent customer service in that you tend not to pay attention unless you don’t get it. Nearly everyone who uses the Internet has come across websites that are frustrating to use.

Business websites that are not user-friendly are typically difficult to move around in, unreliable, have many non-functional links, do not load quickly, and tend to bury critical information so that no one can find it except for users who are more determined than usual. This is a great example of how to create a website that won’t sell anything.

For the most part, these kinds of sites are becoming rare; however, they are still more abundant than they should be. It’s essential that your website is user-friendly if your business is going to be a success online.

This post lists 10 of the best ways to increase your website’s usability.

1. Make sure that your site shows up in the top results of search engines.

• Many of your users will employ the services of a search engine when they want to go to your site, even when they already have your address in their minds.
   
• Searching is easier and less error prone than typing a web address in.
   
• If your company website is completely optimized for search engines, it will most likely appear as a top result when someone searches for it.

2. Don’t let visual style get in the way of information.

• Unquestionably, graphics are wonderful additions to websites, but the best websites are the ones that allow quick and easy access to content – not the just most creative or prettiest sites.
   
• To make sure your users can get to your content, do not employ a lot of big pictures and pointless animation. Sure, they can look good, but they will make your website run slow and interfere with your users’ access to key information. This creates a negative user experience.
• Welcome pages and animated splash pages are unnecessary and will require more effort to get to your content.

3. Ensure that your content can be located easily.

• In general, all pages need to be fewer than 3 clicks away from the homepage on a business website.
   
• You don’t depend on your primary site navigation alone to get your users to the content they’re looking for, particularly if your website is big.
   
• Embed links in your text and include a hyperlinked site map to allow users to jump to the content they’re looking for.
   
• A sitemap will also aid in guiding search engine crawler programs.
   
• By providing keyword search capabilities, your users can efficiently and easily search your entire site for the content they need.
   
• Put a print button on each page in case the visitor wants a hard copy. This is particularly good for pages that tell your visitors where to find your offices or print out product information sheets

4. Provide intuitive navigation.

• Users will determine very quickly whether or not they are comfortable on your website. Intuitive business website design quickly puts visitors at ease, conveys the feeling that your organisation is trustworthy, and reassures visitors that they will find the information they need.
   
• Keep your navigation in a clear, consistent location. Try to avoid menu items that expand where possible, as these features can obscure choices the visitor might be trying to “see.”
  

5. Help users keep their sense of direction and location within your site.

• Make sure users know what page they are on at all times, can tell where they have been, and can easily navigate to pages they visited earlier on your site. 
   
• Also make them feel comfortable as they explore by providing a way to return to your homepage by simply clicking on your logo.
   
• Arrange menus and templates by color to help keep the user oriented.

6. Make sure everyone can use your website.

• In the UK and the US, websites are mandated by law to be accessible to everyone, so developers and site owners can be in trouble if they don’t provide a minimal number of accessibility features as described by the law.
   
• This law is mainly targeted at making sure websites are accessible to people with disabilities, but it will benefit other users as well. It can often help as part of your search engine optimization strategy too.
• To improve the accessibility of your site, allow the user to change the font size of written material, include alt tags with images, and use good contrast to distinguish text from the background.

7. Limit scrolling on all pages.

• Never use horizontal (left/right) scrolling, and use vertical (up/down) scrolling sparingly.
   
• Horizontal scrolling is typically introduced when the site was developed and tested on a high-resolution monitor than the average user uses.
   
• Vertical scrolling is set by how much information is on the page.
   
• Reading written material on a computer monitor is more difficult than on paper, so you should break up your information into several pages if necessary.
   
• Always break up large chunks of text with headings, subheadings, and bullets to make it easier to read.

8. Use white space and keep your copywriting brief.

• Page design is important to facilitate the flow of content, and how much text you have on your site impacts this flow. Pages containing a lot of text and very little white space can be harder to read and might push away users.
   
• Finding the correct percentage of white space to text is a delicate balance when designing website text. Typically, as the old saying goes, less is more.

9. Don’t ask for too much registration information.

• When requesting users to sign up on your website, you naturally want to get a lot of information from them for later use. However, don’t ask for so much that the visitor won’t complete the form.
   
• For example, suppose you want your users to sign up for email newsletters or a presentation. In such a case, you can only ask for certain pieces of personal data without scaring them off.
   
• You also need to think about how you will keep their information secure and reassure your subscribers you will take care of their personal details.

10. Check your site in different browsers.

• Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (otherwise known as IE) is the most commonly used browser right now, but Firefox, Chrome, and Safari are all gaining popularity. Make sure that all users can use your site to its fullest extent by designing your site for cross-browser compatibility.
   
• You can tell quickly tell if your site doesn’t work with these other browsers if the menu bars don’t align correctly, buttons appear in strange places, or areas of body text overlap.
   
• http://browsershots.org/ is a great way of running lots of tests in different browsers without loading your computer up with browsers you seldom use 
   
  Tip: Remember when you use BrowserShots to make sure you select the common browsers your visitors are likely to be using otherwise it can take a long time for the results to be produced – I found that out the hard way!

Final Thoughts

Remember, to provide a pleasing user experience for visitors and to increase your online sales, pay attention to usability. A user-friendly business website is a key part of a successful Internet marketing strategy.

Improving your website by making it more user-friendly is a great way to make it more profitable. Always strive to avoid resorting to pushy internet marketing ploys and scams, like disabling the back button, that frustrate customers and can permanently alienate them from you as site owner and a business. 

Remember these key points and you’ll know just how to create a website that really sells and increases your profits.