Having a website with high-ranking pages and good search engine optimization may be the goal of many website owners, so they focus on things like keywords, the home page and titles. That may be all well and good for getting visitors to your site, but being able to keep those visitors on your site for any length of time and make them buy your products or services takes another set of skills altogether, and is an important factor in your online business.

Of course your website must receive a high grade by search engines. It should be search engine friendly and should give an impression of efficient and trustworthy company. If the visitor has entered your website then he must stay long enough in your website to get converted into a buyer. If the visitor remains for a long time that means the site is “user friendly” and the data offered by the site is presented clearly that meets the demand of visitor. It also means that the website is able to tell precisely why the visitor should purchase any item. A good way is to present these reasons as a listing using bullet points.
Instead of trying to immediately convert the visitor into a paying customer, initiate a relationship with your visitor. This means that you have a strategy to move him through your like, know, and trust process so that he’s well acquainted with you when he decides to he’s ready to purchase your service.
Knowing your target customer will help you tailor your business and online presence to optimize  sales and keep clients interested in what you are offering, gather valuable information about your prospects and subscribers. How do your prices stack up against the competition? How good is your customer service and response? How easy is your site to navigate? Are your shipping rates competitive? Do your clients actually like your products?
Having enough detailed information about the products or service you sell, is a sure way of keeping visitors interested for longer. They arrived on your site because they are, after all, interested in what you have to sell, so giving clear, informative content on your products and services will increase their motivation to buy. Easily visible links and information pages will enhance the user experience, especially if you are providing more than one product or service.
Providing enough contact information on your website is also very important. Your website is open for business 24/7, so it is imperative you offer more than one contact option. Giving a guarantee of  a reasonable response time depending on the particular contact method (phone call, message service, email) increases your chances of clients purchasing from you.
Contact details should be visible on every page of your website, as well as clear concise online purchasing instructions and options.
Your stay-in-touch mechanism enables you to “reach out and touch” your prospects on a regular basis. This mechanism could take the form of a weekly email newsletter or a daily or regular blog postings or a series of autoresponders to follow up with them. To move a prospect through your marketing funnel, it’s helpful to use multiple methods to stay in touch with them. So, through a series of followup autoresponders, I ask my prospects to subscribe to my email newsletter and point them to my blog, as well. For best response from your visitors, you must use your stay-in-touch mechanism at least once a week. The more frequently they hear from you, the better they get to know you and the greater the likelihood that they’ll convert from prospect into customer.
The website should also make it easy for visitors to order and pay online and the products should be delivered quickly without any damage.

You should monitor your website regularly. You should be able to know why your sales and conversion rate suddenly shoot up. Was it a result of special offers, of the coming holidays, or something else? The same thing applies when your sales and conversion rate drops suddenly. By monitoring changes and the reasons for those changes, you will be able to find ways to bring sales up or minimize the sudden drops.

Sources:

http://ezinearticles.com/

http://www.ecomhelp.com/

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www.ansars-internet-marketing.co.uk/