Make ordering simple – If your site is selling something, make it easy to conduct a transaction. Provide the customer with all the information they need to make a purchasing decision. Place a “Buy Now” button next to each item. Accept credit cards and PayPal. It will triple your sales.

Make sure your orders are being routed through a secure order page. Most carts do this automatically but you want to double check to see that yours is set up and operating properly. A secure page is denoted by an “https” instead of an “http” in the URL field of the browser. A lock icon also appears somewhere in the browser window.

What does a secure connection do? It encrypts (scrambles) the credit card and payment information so no one can read it while the data is being sent from one computer to another over the Internet. This is vital to building trust.

If you offer different colors or sizes, use pull down menus in the shopping module for these options. Don’t create a product listing for each size or color. It’s overwhelming to the shopper and they’re just as likely to order the wrong item as the right one. Get them to select the item then let them choose the options.

Stay away from guestbooks and counters – Nothing screams amateur site more than a guestbook or a counter. Guestbooks always get filled up with inane comments from visitors that you’ll end up having to edit or delete. And counters are taboo. Why? Well, when you launch a site the counter will be embarrassingly low. Visitors who don’t know your site is new may just figure that your site is not worth visiting. Use your traffic logs instead to gauge traffic. Be sure that your web host has some sort of logs available on your site. They provide vital marketing intelligence.