As your website becomes more visible on search engines, you will soon become the recipient of various techniques designed to scam your business.

One common scam involves a booking or order placed through the website (or by email) for an unusually large dollar amount. The scammer typically insists on paying very quickly using a credit card. The order is later cancelled, and the scammer demands a refund; of course, the original credit card was stolen and the targeted business will suffer a chargeback after they have have refunded the money.

Be very wary of orders that come in which pass several of these tests:

• The order is “urgent”
• The order is unusually large
• The buyer wishes to pay quickly with a credit card or by cheque
• The buyer is from a country with which you do not frequently do business
• The buyer has a poor command of the English language

If you are unsure, telephone the buyer, and ask for some form of identification that can be cross-checked with the form of payment being used (for example, a driver’s licence that matches the name on the credit card.)

Many folks prefer to print out web pages to organise, read later, or, frankly, because it’s just more enjoyable to relax in a comfy chair with a glass of red and piece of real paper in your hand.

You can make your website print out more elegantly by having your web developer alter the layout of the website when printed. You can also do the same for mobile phones if you feel this type of visitor represents a relevant proportion of your target market.

This type of attention to detail can set your website apart from others.

If you’re about to design or redesign your website, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and consider what design choices would be appreciated by your potential customers.

Just because you love the thought of a cute animal walking across the bottom of your website… does not necessarily mean your customers will concur.

Make sure that when a customer does business with you through your website, you keep them informed about what’s going on. For example:

• If they fill out an enquiry form, let them know how long it will take for someone to get back to them
• If they make a booking, let them know if this can be considered confirmed or not, and advise what communication they should expect from you next and when
• If they made a purchase, send them an email when it has been confirmed, despatched, if there have been delays, etc.
• If they sign up for your newsletter, tell them when to expect the next issue

An informed customer is a happy customer!

Knowing how your website visitors arrived at your website helps you hone your marketing efforts and focus your advertising spend.

Even if you do not spend money on advertising, understanding who or what refers you business empowers you to nurture particular relationships and explore similar opportunities.

To help you better track your website referrers, you can:

• Ask for visitors to tell you where they found you as part of your enquiry, booking or sales form
• Run reports in your website statistics software to see which websites refer traffic (and turn into sales, if the software supports it)
• Ask your web developer to write a script that allows you to track online and offline advertising campaigns by assigning promotional codes to the website addresses used in the advertising
• As part of your post-sales procedure, ask new customers to recall where they first heard about you, and dig beyond just “I found your website”