In a supermarket, nothing is left to chance, and that’s exactly how it should be on your websites as well. We want to be deliberate and point people in the right direction to influence their behavior.

Treating your website like a supermarket can be a useful analogy to keep in mind when developing and managing your online presence. Here are some reasons why:

1. Organization is key: Just like a supermarket, your website should be well-organized and easy to navigate. Customers won’t stick around for long if they can’t find what they’re looking for quickly and easily. Make sure your website has clear categories and subcategories, and that all the pages are logically arranged.
2. Product placement matters: In a supermarket, items that are strategically placed in high-traffic areas tend to sell better. Similarly, on your website, you should be strategic about the placement of your content and calls-to-action. Make sure that important information is prominently displayed and easy to find.
3. Offer a variety of options: Supermarkets offer a wide variety of products to meet the needs of their diverse customer base. Similarly, your website should offer a range of content and resources to appeal to different users. This might include blog posts, whitepapers, videos, webinars, and more.
4. Provide a great user experience: Supermarkets work hard to create a positive shopping experience for their customers, with clean, well-lit aisles, helpful staff, and easy-to-use shopping carts. Your website should strive to provide a similarly positive user experience, with fast load times, intuitive navigation, and helpful support resources.
5. Keep things fresh: Supermarkets are constantly changing their product offerings and promotional displays to keep things fresh and interesting for customers. Similarly, your website should be regularly updated with new content and design elements to keep users engaged and coming back for more.

By treating your website like a supermarket, you can ensure that it is well-organized, easy to use, and appealing to a wide range of users. This can help you attract and retain customers, and ultimately drive more business success.

Social Media Icons. Here is where most people get it wrong

Visitors must be attracted to your website from all possible sources and directed there. Never travel the other way around. Think of a supermarket layout. To leave a supermarket you must pass though the checkout lane. While shopping through the isles, we do not see colorful doors that incite us to drop our shopping cart and walk away into a fascinating world where time and space is lost.

These imaginary colorful doors would be equivalent to Social Media Icons on websites, which are nothing more than candied color exit signs. Once a visitor clicks into a Social Media icon, they are gone!

Why you should not send your visitors away from your website, even if you have a strong Social Media presence becasue:

• Your website contains your calls to action and, in most cases, your payment gateway.
• You are completely in charge on your website, while the algorithm on a social media platform is made to increase their profits.
• Once people leave your website, they are bombarded with other distractions and you will decrease your conversion rate.

Don’t create side and back doors where people can leave their shopping cart behind, because they got distracted with what’s behind those doors!

Social Media Icons. Here is the right way to use them

Let’s first make clear what the wrong use of Social Media icons are. It’s all about direction. It is when we send people away from the website to land on your Social Media page. Yet, this is the most common request we get from clients. “Please place the Social Media icons on my website” and they provide the link to their Social Media pages.

There are two type of Social Media Icons:

#1 – Follow us Buttons

Follow us buttons are links to social media pages. When a reader on your website clicks on a Facebook badge, for example, they will be taken to the Facebook page. Once there they can choose to become a fan (“Like” you) and follow all your posts.

#2 – Sharing Buttons

A “Share This” call to action encourages your readers to share your content with their friends and followers. When they share one of your posts or pages, it appears in their social stream and is visible to their followers.

Followers increase your audience, while sharing increases the reach of your content.

Following expands your audience by increasing the number of people you can connect with and the locations where you can be found. Sharing is a fan’s personal endorsement to his or her private personal channels – this can be extremely powerful.