Staying a Step Ahead

Not long ago I wrote about the 10 Reasons You Don’t Need a New Website. That list was formed from conversations, perhaps I should say excuses – I have had over the years. As we approach the end of the year, the time of reflecting on the year gone by and planning for the year ahead, I’d like to share with you the secret to staying ahead of the competition with your Internet presence:

The secret to staying a step ahead is one that, if you take the time to look, is obvious. Review your competitors. Who is growing? Who is staying busier than the rest of the crowd? Who is reaping the rewards of clients / sales / leads through their web site?

The secret is simple. It is, in a nutshell, applying enough of the right resources to succeed. When it comes to your website, the resources you have at your disposal are time, money, and expertise.

Time
Spending the time to understand what your website needs is essential. There are ads out there, we’ve all seen them, touting a fantastic web presence for only $100 / month. Sound too good to be true? Yeah, it is. As simple as it sounds, the best use of your time is to spend it figuring out how your web site fits into your business flow. Set website goals based on getting more business. Then you’re ready to determine next steps.
Money
Speaking with a non-profit client last week, I explained that if the goal of their site redesign is to raise an additional $100,000 / year then they should be prepared to spend up to $25,000 the first year. But that wouldn’t be a bad return on investment and the second and third years would be even better. Set your budget based on the value you’ll get from the site. If you see it as an expense, your website will fail. But if you see your website as an investment, understanding that a good web site can generate leads or conduct more ecommerce, you will be on the right track.
Expertise
Tied very closely to the first two, website expertise can be in house expertise or it could be turning to an outside web development agency. They key is that you understand the expertise required based on the time you spent setting your goals. Then you can make an informed decision. If you have staff that understands conversion optimization (getting more from your web site) then that is the way to go. If not, then you can find expertise in an outside agency.

For most business owners it means taking the time to make sure they are spending their money on the right expertise. If you determine an outside agency is the best route for your organization, contact us for help.

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Economics of Conversion Optimization

I spend a lot of time every day explaining Conversion Optimization because it is such an important part of what we do.

The general idea is to get more of your visitors to perform a specific task – a task that will help your company grow. It may be as simple as signing up for your newsletter or sharing on Facebook something about your site. Or it could be as significant as buying something online or calling you up, ready to do business.

First you have to determine what you want visitors to do, then start working on the process. But why? Is it really useful?

Let’s say you have a web site that sells widgets. Each widget is $10. During a typical month you get 10,000 visitors to your website and you sell 100 widgets, one to a customer. You have a 1% conversion rate:

100 (customer)/10,000 (visitors) = 0.01 or 1%

So you set to work on improving the conversion process and after much work you go from a 1% conversion rate to a 1.5% conversion rate. What? Only a .5% increase?

No. Not a .5% increase. Look again. That is a 50% increase. Now instead of making $1000 for every 10,000 visitors, you make $1500.

Conversionoptimization 1 Stop and think about that. If you had not conversion optimized your site, and instead run an SEO campaign to increase traffic to 100,000 visitors a month you would make $10,000. But if you first optimize your site for conversion and then do the SEO campaign, you are suddenly making $15,000 month.

Spend time optimizing your site before you optimize your search! If you spend the resources to improve your conversion rate from 1% to 2%, you will double the money you get from your site.

Well that makes sense for ecommerce but what about a lead generating site? The same principle applies. If you get 1000 visitors a month, ten of which call and one of which becomes a customer, you now have a formula. First look over your site and see what you can do to optimize the conversion process. Then make some changes. It is actually better to make small incremental changes so you can determine which changes are working.

On the web site itself you can’t change the conversion rate of 10 calls to 1 customer. That is an internal process you can (and should) work on. But you can work to get more people calling. Again, get 15 or 20 calls a month and you have a 50 – 100% increase in conversions, leading to more revenue for you.

So invest the time and resources to make your site better. It will have a positive impact on your bottom line.

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Check Your Eyesight

What a difference being able to see clearly makes! I have been busy lately. So busy that I didn’t take time to get my glasses polished up. They had several scratches on them and just never quite came clean. Then a few weeks ago I was horsing around with my kids and bent the left wing of the glasses. Still too busy I dealt with the frustration of bent glasses I couldn’t see well out of for a couple of weeks until two days ago.

Then I took them in and asked if the store could rebend them into the proper angle. They not only did that, they replaced the nose rest pieces and polished the lenses. Needless to say I feel like I have a new pair of glasses. I can see clearly again!

And the same concept applies so clearly to your web site. Have you polished the lens through which you view it? Eyeglasses 1

Here are a few tips that can help you:

Go to a Internet Café or borrow a friends computer and look at your site
Look at your website on a variety of devices: desktop, laptop, tablet, phone.
Sign up for your newsletter
Review your web site statistics (Google Analtyics or server based program like AWSTATS)
Ask three customers or vendors to use your site (note: I did not say look at it – give them a specific task)

By following one or more of these tips it will help to take you outside of your normal framework and see your web site from a fresh perspective. Ask yourself “how is the web site helping my business grow?” And if the answer is, “it isn’t”, give us a call at 303 268-2245.

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Your Web Site: A Unique Marketing Message

One of the questions I ask potential customers is what sets them apart in their niche. Almost inevitably the reply is “Our service”. The obvious problem there is that if everyone’s service is what makes them unique, then it isn’t unique.

It is important to have a UNIQUE marketing message that resonates well with others.

And resonating in the right manner is key. Last week I attended a networking event in downtown Denver. One of the hotels had a free giveaway of Whoopee Cushions. Now their web site stresses they are a uniquely fun boutique hotel and they do guarantee a “completely humorous and modern hotel experience” but does a whoopee cushion convey that? Or are you as likely to turn off potential customers as get them excited? I have a difficult time viewing this as a positive experience but I guess I don’t find fake flatulence as funny as some.

Another example of how NOT to have a unique marketing message goes back nearly 10 years ago to the ad campaign that nearly doomed Quiznos. Remember it? Some referred to it as the dancing rats. Relive the horror at

if you don’t recall. Associating your restaurant chain with something that looks like a rat turns out not to be a good idea. Whodda thunk it?

So how do you determine what makes you unique? It takes more than a few minutes or a short blog article to get it but here are a few tips to help you get started:

1. Ask your customers why they work with you / buy from you.

2. Look at the entire spectrum of your clientele – is there a certain theme or niche running through all (or most) of them?

3. If you are a service based business, write down EVERY service you have ever offered and then review the list looking for a common thread. Perhaps you are a CPA that offers services tailored to non-profit organziations? Or to home-service companies such as plumbers, electricians and drywallers?

4. If you sell a product, review your list of SKUs and ask yourself what they have in common. Are they all outdoor products? What group are they most likely to appeal to? Stay at home moms? Fly fishermen? Couples in their 30s who don’t have children?

5. Set out all the printed marketing materials you use and look at them all. Compare them to your web site and any other marketing you do. What emotions bubble to the top?

Take some time and really think through this. Once you have a good idea, let it cook for a few days to make sure it is done. We took a long time coming up with Partner * Engage * Convert and finally just listened to ourselves as we communicated with customers. Guess which three words we kept hearing and in what order?

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Formed for Success

A pixel? A color? Or More?

For going too far we have the phrase “the straw that broke the camel’s back”. In a similar vein, bridges often have a sign announcing their load limit which conjures up interesting mental images about what testing they performed to determine those limits.

But in a positive vein could it be that your web site is one pixel away from a break through? What if the color of your button was the barrier between you and a lot more customers? It sounds too easy to be real. But what if?

Look at these two forms:

First Name:

Email:

First Name:

Email:

Which do you like better? Why?

Sometimes choosing the right color of button is the difference between no one ever signing up and getting lots of new subscribers. Users often report skipping over the bright red stuff as it simply is too bright or doesn’t fit with the color scheme. The important take away is that it should fit within your color scheme. A good example of this in action can be seen at www.gslcs.org where the Schedule your tour button clearly grabs your attention but the color fits within the scheme.

Now look at these two forms:

First Name:

Email:

First Name:

Email:

Which one do you like better? Why?

If you don’t think about it – and many folks don’t – submit either is very bland or some kind of kinky command, but neither really tells folks what is next. Sign up for Free on the other hand tells folks exactly what is going to happen if they click on the button. It is very important to help folks understand what happens when you click the button. One newsletter provider users the same button “Proceed to Send” for the first two steps in preparing to send an email. The first time through this is a scary undertaking because the only way I can get to the next step is to click a button that suggests I’ll actually be sending the message instead of going to the next step. Then when I’m actually ready to send it, my choices are clear – Deliver Immediately or Schedule Delivery. If it were up to me, I would rename the first button “Choose Who to Send it To” and the second could be as simple as “Next” or “Proceed to Last Step” so I know I won’t be actually sending the message yet.

And finally, look at these two forms:

First Name:

Email:

First Name:

Email:

Which of these are you most likely to fill out? Why?

Having a friendly button can make a big difference in whether folks will click the button so they can “click” with you. Using beveled edges and drop shadow, especially fitting it within the look of your web site, can make all the difference in the world. If you’re experiencing problems getting folks to do what you want them to do on your site, give us a call (303 268-2245) to discuss it. You could be just a button away from success.

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Is Your Site Performing?

Have you looked at the stats for your web site lately? If you haven’t you should. There are two sets of statistics I recommend looking at. One is the stats from your web logs – we like to use AWSTATS as they provide a nice overview of stats but also allows you to drill down to specifics very quickly.

The other set of stats is Google Analytics. By using both GA and AWSTATS, you can get two different looks but also keep in mind that they should be fairly similar. Why two instead of one? Mainly to “keep them honest” in making sure they are indeed close to the same. But also because sometimes one look will give you an insight that you may not notice with the other look.

Some of the stats to look at include:

Webstats 1 Unique Visitors – how many unique visitors do you have coming to your site on a monthly basis? The goal is always to keep that number climbing and is the goal of Seach Engine Optimization campaigns.

Pages Viewed – which pages on your site were viewed. If your goal is to get people to complete checkouts, for example, you’ll be happy if the checkout page is getting viewed a lot and if it isn’t that can give you some insight on which pages you need to check on.

Browsers – this stat is increasingly important as the variety of mobile browsers continues to explode. If you see lots of Android or ios views, you’ll want to pay extra attention to how your site looks and performs on mobile platforms

Traffic Sources – this stat helps you see how people get to your site. If you’re running an SEO campaign, you’ll expect to see lots of organic search traffic. If you’re running a paid search campaign like Google AdWords, you’ll be looking to see lots of Google paid visits. And the list goes on through Facebook, and a variety of social media sites as well as direct visits – folks who already know you and your brand.

Search Keywords or Key phrases – this stat shows what your search traffic was actually searching for when they arrived at your site. It is not a bad thing to see lots of search hits for your business name – that means you have built your brand. But it is much better to see more generic key words about your industry or products. That means that people who don’t know you specifically are finding your site as they search for your what you offer.

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Giving Up

Over the weekend I saw an Internet Explorer 9 commercial. It caught my attention mostly because of the surprise I experienced. It has been clear for some time to me that Microsoft has given up on dominating the browser market.

Internet Explorer 300X200 1 In 2003 Microsoft OWNED the browser market. They had driven Netscape into the ground and had, according to www.w3schools.com, close to 90% of the browser market. But that year a forerunner of Firefox, Mozilla began. And they began to get users.

By the end of 2005 Firefox has nabbed nearly a quarter of the browser market and IE had fallen below 70%, never to return. By the end of 2008 Firefox had more than 44% of the browser market, IE had fallen to 46% and an upstart, Google Chrome had appeared on the scene.

Chrome 1 Fast forward to the spring of 2011 and an amazing thing happened. Chrome zoomed past IE, grabbing 25.6% of the market to IE’s steadily dwindling 24.3%. And shortly after that Chrome began biting into Firefox’s dominance to the point where, as of the end of August 2012, Chrome has 43.7%, Firefox 32.8% and IE a measly 16.2%.

Which brings me back to the commercial I saw. Why, I wonder, is Microsoft investing in advertising a browser that is shrinking in its share of the market? I was on an “off” channel not one of the main networks’ main channels. If you’ve given up the market already, why would you invest in advertising?

While I may never know Microsoft’s reasoning, I can draw the following conclusions for how not to grow my business:

If I want to get or keep market share, work it at the top of your market. It is easier to stay on top than it is to claw my way back to the top.
If I want to advertise on traditional media, advertise something that is growing / coming. For Microsoft that could be the Windows Phone or Windows 8 – a piece of the market that is ripe for conquering.
Be clear on what you need to accomplish with your marketing dollars. It is good to find your niche and then advertise intentionally in that market. It is not good to find the portion of your market that you’re losing and not likely to regain and to market there.

But the positive take away from Microsoft continuing to advertise IE 9 is to never give up. I speak with a lot of competitors that give up after a couple of tries at something. I have found that some of our best clients come through persistence – especially in following up with someone who has expressed interest but hasn’t responded yet. More often than not that persistence is met with “Thank you for not giving up. I was so busy I didn’t respond but now I’m finally getting caught up.”

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Customer Service

How is your customer service? It is such an important part of every business and yet small businesses often fail to pay enough attention to it – curious since many of those same businesses will tell you that it is their customer service that sets them apart from their competitors.

We’ve had cause to look at our customer service a couple of times in the last month or so. As a part of our service, we provide email for folks. So when email doesn’t work, we get called. Interestingly enough, the problem is rarely with our service.

One customer emailed me because his largest customer suddenly quit accepting emails from him and also refused to deliver emails to him. From his perspective, it was our problem.

The first thing we did was check carefully through our systems and logs to see if there were any problems on our end that we could iron out for him. There weren’t.

We always take customer service seriously. So instead of telling him, as most email providers would, that the problem was not on our end, we reached out, through him, to his customer’s IT staff. Their first response was that they had no problem on their end. But their second response – we are persistent – was that perhaps there might be an issue.

All told we spent over three hours helping our customer’s client resolve their email issue. That started because our customer turned to us for help. I’m not suggesting everyone turn to us for help. I am suggesting that we strengthened our client relationship by staying with the problem instead of pushing it off on someone else.

When we have experiences, good or bad, with customer service, we always hold them up as mirror to see how we compare.

Yes, we build great web sites. Yes we develop some of the most amazing things for our customers. But when we say our buzzwords are Partner, Engage, Convert, we take each one very seriously and that partnering means that we help you solve your problems.

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What Numbers are Important for your Website?

What numbers are important for you in your business? Are you even a numbers person? I used to not be a numbers person. I have two degrees in the humanities and I liked to live in the realm of ideas. But of course, ideas alone don’t make money.

So over the years I’ve become more and more of a numbers person. And it is exciting. That’s what surprised me. I love to brag about how we helped one client raise their online revenue more than 35% in one year. I love to brag about the client whose site we redesigned had a 900% increase in traffic from Google as a result of our work and training. I love to brag about the school that initially balked at our price tag until I pointed out that three new students would pay for the site in the first year and they’d have eight more years of those students. And none of that would have been possible if I hadn’t become more of a numbers person.

Just this morning I had a conversation with a potential customer about numbers. I asked “how will you know this is successful a year from now?” He started off with “I’ll measure the number of visitors . . .” but before he could go any further, I politely interrupted and explained that measuring isn’t a measure of success. As this is a brand new endeavor, we talked about setting a number – any reasonable number – as that will then inform many of the other decisions he makes about building and marketing his site. Once that number is established, whether it turns out to be way low, way high or spot on, it is something to work towards.

What numbers are you watching on your web site? Here are some things that might be useful:

Number of visitors
Number of new visitors
Most popular pages,
Bounce rate of individual pages
Number of sales
Average price of sales
Incoming key phrase searches
Onsite key phrase searches
Number of newsletter signups
Number of contact forms filled out
Time on site
Time on page

You can measure just about anything online. Pick carefully what you’re watching and then watch those numbers consistently. Stay alert for trends – annually, monthly, daily, hourly or even for trends regarding how frequently you email your list and the response rate on your site.

The key is to be (or become) a numbers person!

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Blogging Basics

ХудожникИконописWas part of your New Year’s resolution to get back to blogging? Most of us know it is good for business. It keeps your site fresh. The search engines love new content. It helps you think about your business. But you’re just not sure what to do next? Here are some helpful hints:

Post REGULARLY (AT LEAST twice a month)

Write about what you do
Write about what you know
Write about the questions you answer regularly
Write about what is happening related to your industry
Feature projects you’re working on

Add

Photos
Videos
Graphics to illustrate your point

Search Tips

Use key words in the Title
Make sure the permalink has keywords in it
Tag each post with 2 – 5 tags
Categorize each post with 1 – 3 categories

Plan

Write several blogs at once
Schedule them to go out over the next several weeks
Never wait until the deadline for posting to write several more

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Tag: internet marketing

Staying a Step Ahead

Economics of Conversion Optimization

Check Your Eyesight

Your Web Site: A Unique Marketing Message

Formed for Success

Is Your Site Performing?

Giving Up

Customer Service

What Numbers are Important for your Website?

Blogging Basics

Lists*

Form Heading

Lists*