After many years guiding businesses on how to retool their web sites into effective marketing machines, we've uncovered 5 unbreakable laws for building web sites that sell. Read on to gain precious insights for multiplying the return on your marketing dollar. 

1. Do looks really matter? 76% of web site visitors judge the credibility of a business from the appearance of the web site alone—not the content. Many people know professional looking designs increase credibility in the eyes of your web site visitors, but few consider the damage shoddy advertising does to a business. Your web site must look professional otherwise you literally risk damaging your brand.

2. Drive targeted traffic to your business. It's no secret the vast majority of customers now use online search to find local businesses. Many businesses have realised there is little or no benefit in building a web site that no one visits and are getting better and better at finding customers online. Target these customers with online marketing, or somebody else will.

3. Engage your web site visitors. Advertising legend David Ogilvy once said, 'You cannot bore people into buying' and his advice still rings true today. Consumers have never been so informed, discerning and impatient.

Looking for a powerful way to motivate customers to pick up the phone and call your business? The easiest way is to do a bit of online market research and post a compelling offer unlike anything offered by your competitors and post it on your web site. This is a deceptively simple—yet staggeringly effective—way to differentiate your brand from the competition.

4. Make it easy for your customers. The customer of the 21st century is overwhelmed with information and easily frustrated. Usability and clear information design are vital for a successful business web site. Does your home page look like a christmas-tree by cramming everything but the kitchen sink into one page? Or does it present a simple selection of options-just enough for your web site visitors to know how to easily get to the information they're looking for?

Make it easy for your customers…. Or they will go elsewhere.

5. Use your best resource for more sales. Your existing client base have already developed trust and familiarity with your business and will readily buy from you again. And a well constructed web site is the most economical and effective tool to communicate with your customers. Mailing lists, blogs and social media sites all rely upon your web site as the nerve centre for communicating with your customers and new prospects. Have you been using your web site to re-engage your customers?

Are there more approaches than these to make web sites that sell? Sure. But this is the best place to start.

Remember —a well built web site is an investment, not an expense. Poorly constructed web sites almost always come with high maintenance fees and are inevitably scrapped and replaced by better ones as a business grows.

You wouldn't trust just anyone to be the face of your business-and the first time a person visits a business web site is the very first sales meeting that takes place between the customer and your brand. Invest wisely.

A bright eyed and excited constituent of the Whiteclick team invaded Sydney's convention centre, ready to man our first ever booth at the Online Retailer Exhibition with a secret weapon up our sleeves - enter caricaturist extraordinaire and honorary Whiteclick staffer for the week, Kumar! 

The idea: Passers by were enticed onto the Whiteclick stand with the offer of a free caricature, to be uploaded to our Facebook fan page. Delegates could then visit the page, tag their own caricature and share with friends.

The hook : The person with the most 'liked' caricature would win a luxurious night away at one of Sydney's leading hotels.

What's in it for us? A way to differentiate Whiteclick from neighboring stands giving out bags, brochures and other 'collectibles' that inevitably get thrown away post conference; not to mention a talking point to start some great conversations with potential new clients. Cool idea huh?!

Did it work? So far we have increased the 'likes' to our Facebook fan page by almost 50%, not to mention more than 17,000 post views which (as you can see by the graphs below) is a phenomenal response!

Final Thoughts : In all our conversations with delegates at the stand, something that became apparent was that there is often a missing element (moving away from all hype that surrounds Social Media Marketing) - its not the amount of likes or followers you have…. It's actually what you DO with them that counts!

So you have 12,000 Facebook fans, but what do you do now? How can you convert these fans into potential new clients/customers?

Bookmark our blog, or become a fan on our Facebook page to be kept up to date on our next posts which will outline how to be successful when marketing via social media.

In the meantime - what are some examples of social media marketing campaigns you feel were the best? What about the worst? Have you attempted to generate users to your fan page with a promotion or marketing campaign? Were you successful?