In this issue:
- The Pricing Information Dilemma: Should Your Site Include Prices?
- The Lighter Side of the Web: 2002 Search Trends
- About Web Insights
Issue 20original publication: January 30, 2003last updated: August 18, 2006
Feature Article:
The Pricing Information Dilemma
by Deborah Christie, POP Interactive
Q A question that always comes up during a discussion about essential website content is: "Should we include pricing information on our site?"
A "Yes, pricing information should be included on virtually all sales and marketing websites."
Before you start sending us your objections to this seemingly over simplistic answer, let me elaborate. You don't necessarily have to include actual prices, however you should include some form of pricing information. That is unless you're running a B2C e-commerce site--then you clearly need to include prices.
For B2B sites, there's a lot of debate over this question. Ultimately your marketing strategy will guide your decision. Which means if your current strategy doesn't address this issue, it may be time for you to confront it. The following CIO.com article, which I've mentioned in the past, might provide some food for thought on the topic:
If your company has decided not to include prices, you should at least include an easy to find page that addresses pricing--or you risk having visitors abandon your site in frustration.
Pricing will be one of the top questions on the minds of your prospective customers so they'll invest time looking for this information on your site. Unless you provide a page that addresses the topic, they'll have no way of knowing that prices are not included on your site without wasting time looking for them.
Not being able to find prices has become such a problem for website visitors that usability expert Jacob Nielsen recently deemed it the number one web design mistake:
What you include on your pricing page can be nothing more than who to contact to discuss pricing information to more detailed information on how your pricing is structured.
We suggest exploring how others in your industry are addressing this issue to better understand your visitors' expectations. A good place to start your research is B-to-B's (part of Ad Age) 2002 NetMarketing list, which can be sorted by industry:
The Lighter Side of the Web: 2002 Search Trends
In 2002, there were 55 billion searches conducted on Google alone. Have you seen what everyone was looking for?
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