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Why Don’t I Get Any Business From My Website?

Doug Williams @ 4:53 am

This blog entry was posted on January 10, 2011.

This is the question I am often asked? My first question back is what percent of your website visitors take action by signing up, calling, joining or buying? After all websites should have a conversion rate of 1-3% as a minimum.

Sometimes they know the answer, but often they don’t. Most website owners need to fix their website conversions rate rather than just get more visitors. Conversion rate is the percent of your website visitors that take a desired action as a percent of your total visitors.

Common conversion problems

  1. Credibility: The website lacks the image and branding that people expect. This is much more than design; it is organization, layout and messaging. If you are marketing to large corporations, does your website show you as a credible supplier?
  2. Message: Your website doesn’t answer your visitor’s questions. People come to your website to solve a problem or need. Understand what that is and have the answer waiting for them when they arrive. Your home page should not talk about how great you are.
  3. Action: The website lacks a clear way for a visitor to engage with your site. This could be a email sign-up, request for quote or some other action. Don’t depend on a visitor to find your contact page and ask a question. If you want visitors to call, then use a tracker phone number that forwards to your main number. This will give you a record of all calls that come from your website.
  4. Trust: People are immediately distrustful of a website. You need to give them signs that will allow them to trust you. This includes having your phone number and address on every page, using trust logos and having a good About-Us page.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing,Web Usability



Write Your Website Content for People, Not Robots

Doug Williams @ 7:26 pm

This blog entry was posted on September 21, 2010.

Too many SEOs forget that the real audience they want to attract is people. Website content that is loaded with keywords but written mechanically may work well for search engine spiders, but what happens when a real live person visits your website? You need valuable content that speaks to your audience.

Good content writing entertains, educates and convinces your audience. By skillfully weaving in keywords, content writing also gets the attention of the search engines.

Unique, original, keyword rich content is the key to make your website search engine friendly. Use these words to draw in your customer and convince them to purchase. These same words will be spidered and indexed by the search engines and make your website available for search.

SEO copy writing is much more than just writing keyword rich text, it must appeal to your human readers once they arrive. SEO content writing means applying keywords to your website in a way that tells the search engines how to index your website.

Keywords are how people think and search for what you offer. Use these keywords to attract attention and engage your visitors. You Engaging SEO writing will attract visitors as they search and then engage them once they arrive.

For SEO to be truly effective it needs to focus both on attracting targeted visitors and then to engage them with compelling words that answer the question arriving people are searching for. The voice, tone, and formality needs to speak to your audience in a way they understand.

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Filed under: Web Usability



How to Decrease Your Website's Bounce Rate

Doug Williams @ 6:19 am

This blog entry was posted on September 12, 2010.

These are people who visit a single page and then “bounce” away from your site. A high bounce rate means you are not doing a good job of getting your visitor’s attention and encouraging them to stay.

What is a high bounce rate? Typical bounce rates are 40-60%. But this varies by the type of website and by industry. What is considered average?

  1. Content and Informational websites: 35-55%
  2. Blogs and news websites: 55-75%
  3. Retail eCommerce websites: 25-45%
  4. Simple PPC landing pages: 30-60%

What can cause a high bounce rate?

  1. Targeting or attracting the wrong prospect. You should be targeting people most likely to convert. These are your target customers. Do this with keywords, PPC ad writing and landing page headlines / landing page content.
  2. Site design is poor or confusing. Your page design should instantly communicate trust and your core message. It should be organized with clear navigation. Be consistent with other websites in your market and what your customers expect. Your business website design should be tasteful and professional.
  3. Slow loading web pages. Make sure you have optimized the size of your images and try your best to keep the loading time as low as possible as it affects the user’s experience and search engine results.
  4. No Call to Action: There is no clear call to action. Provide a clear path to action. Provide an interesting link for your visitor to follow. On a blog this may mean adding links to related posts at the end of each blog posting. Landing pages need a clear next step. Informational sites need a clear call to action on the home page.
  5. Eliminate Distractions: Eliminate any unnecessary information from landing pages so visitors can focus on your main message.
  6. Test and Measure: Measure your bounce rate with Google Analytics or similar tool. You will want the ability to measure bounce rate by page. Don’t be afraid to experiment with headlines, content and improving your call to action. A good tool to use is the Google Website Optimizer which allows you to do A-B testing.

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Filed under: Web Usability



Use Conversion Optimization to Convert Visitors to Customers

Doug Williams @ 8:59 am

This blog entry was posted on September 10, 2010.

Website conversion optimization is the science of converting more of your visitors into customers. Whether your site sells products or generates leads, your conversion rate is extremely important to your website’s profitability. If your website does not convert well, it will not be profitable. The key to conversion optimization is to exactly match your offer with the motivation of your arriving visitor.

Audience: To increase conversion rates it’s important to focus on your best buyer. Why did they come to your site and what are are their motivations? What personal desires are they trying to satisfy? Are you closely matching their needs with what you have to offer? Are you speaking to your visitor about what matters to them most?

Your Offer: Visitors come to your site with a single objective. They are seeking a specific solution for a specific problem. They are quickly searching website after website and looking for one that offers them a relevant solution. They quickly discard the “junk” and keep the “treasures”. You need to present your offer (your call to action) in a prominent and visible location on your home page. You need to clearly state your benefits and value proposition.

Measure Results: Conversion optimization is not a onetime event. This is something where you measure conversion rates and test changes using A/B split testing. You need to monitor key metrics to know if each change is positive or negative. In addition to conversion rate, monitor time on page and bounce rate to decide if each change is one you want to keep.

The best conversion optimization is done by always adapting to your audiences needs.

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Filed under: Web Usability



Easy 3 Step Formula for Website Conversion Improvement

Doug Williams @ 4:19 am

This blog entry was posted on August 23, 2010.

Does your business website just sit there without producing any leads or sales? Do you have visitors coming to your site without buying or taking action? If your answer is yes, then you need to apply our 3 step formula.

For your offer:

  1. Make it compelling
  2. Make it visible
  3. Get them to trust you.

Compelling: Why are visitors arriving and what are their motivations? The key is to exactly match the motivation of your prospect and then provide a compelling action that provides a solution. It is the clarity of how you state your value proposition and how relevant your site is to your arriving visitor. Is it a compelling and cohesive solution that answers your arriving visitor’s need?

Visible: Does your website have a clear and visible action for visitors to take? Is it clear? Is it visible without the need to scroll down on the page?

A clear action must be visible and compelling on the home page. We want your targeted best buyer to see and then take some specific action such as sign-up, request a report or buy now. The “offer” must be valuable to your targeted best buyer.

Trust: Building trust is a critical part of creating a high converting website. When people first arrive for the first time, they are immediately suspicious. They will look for signs of whether they should trust you before they are willing to buy or even sign-up for a newsletter. Building website trust will determine how well you succeed with your online marketing.

Make it easy to contact you with a phone number and an actual street address (not a PO Box). Post your privacy policy, shipping procedure and your refund policy.

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Filed under: Web Usability



Optimizing Your Home Page for Maximum Conversion

Doug Williams @ 4:03 am

This blog entry was posted on August 11, 2010.

The key to conversion optimization is to exactly match the motivation of your customer and then provide a compelling action. It is the clarity of how you state your value proposition and how relevant your site is to your arriving visitor.

Your website traffic strategies need to attract relevant and interested visitors. Your home page needs to capture their interest and guide them into your conversion funnel.

  1. Traffic Quality: How relevant is your offer to an arriving visitor’s needs? This is a result of keyword selection for organic SEO / PPC. This is  affected by which websites are referring traffic to your site. Analyze bounce rates (leading indicator of conversions) by traffic source.
  2. Page Headline: These are the first thing an arriving visitor pays attention to. Headlines are the critical attention getters that allow prospects to determine if there is a match to their needs in just a few seconds. Does it express your value proposition? Use keywords here if possible.
  3. First Impression: This is a combination of imagery, headline and first few sentences of copy. Is it a compelling and cohesive solution that answers your arriving visitor’s need? Does it grab their attention and pull them deeper into your site?
  4. Visitor Motivations: Why are they arriving and what are their motivations? Are you closely matching their needs with what you offer? Are you speaking to your visitor about what matters to them?
  5. Action: Does your site have a clear and visible action for visitors to take. Is it clear and compelling? Is it visible without the need to scroll down on the page?
  6. Easy: Make it easy for visitors to sign-up or buy. If you ask too much of your visitor during sign-up or purchase, then there is a high likelihood they will get discouraged. This is a conversion killer. Your goal is to eliminate friction points that create consumer anxiety.

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Filed under: Web Usability



Do You Know Why Your Website Visitors Aren’t Buying?

Doug Williams @ 6:26 am

This blog entry was posted on July 16, 2010.

You have a steady flow of visitors coming to your website, but they just leave without doing anything. Why? You have a professional looking design. You check your traffic stats and people are finding you what seems like the right phrases. What could be wrong?

Here are 6 possible causes for visitors just leaving.

  1. Wrong audience: Are you attracting people that are even interested in what you offer? Perhaps you are not using the right keyword phrases to attract the right visitors?
  2. No clear action: The action you want taken should be clear from the instant a visitor arrives. Locate the call-to-action above the fold so it is visible without scrolling down. Tell your visitors what to do. The first word in the call to action text should be an action verb like: Buy now, Get a quote, etc.
  3. Offer not visible: Use big call-to-action buttons that will clearly stand out. Website visitors take just a few short seconds to make a decision of what they want to do. If they don’t see what to do, then they will quickly move on.
  4. Too many Offers: A page should not have more than 3 possible actions on it with only one being a primary action. It could be Buy now, learn more and sign-up now. Too many possible actions and visitors become confused and just hit the back button.
  5. Not valuable enough: People will sign up or take action if there is clear value in it for them. If it is not compelling, then they will not take action.
  6. Not easy: Perhaps you are requesting too much information, have too long of a sign-up process or you require registration before they can buy from you. Remove any barriers or surprises to make it easy for them to do business with you.

Every page should have a call-to-action. Developing your call to action is one of the first steps in planning your website. The call to action should be clear in the headlines, the navigation and in the organization of the website. A clear call to action gets results.

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Filed under: Web Usability,Website Design



Websites Need Regular Maintenance Just Like Your Car

Doug Williams @ 5:17 am

This blog entry was posted on June 14, 2010.

Your website should not be left like a neglected car and just forgotten. It needs regular attention and tuning to give its top performance and bring in new business and leads to keep your business purring along. You should regularly add new content, do SEO checkups and check the traffic levels.

  1. New Content: Every month add one new page to your website or add a blog and regularly (at least weekly) add a new blog posting. For eCommerce sites, add new products and grow your store.
  2. Broken links: Run a broken link checker over your website every month. It is easy to end up with broken links as you add and delete pages on your site. External links may cease to exist as websites shut down.
  3. Test your website forms: Check your email sign-up and quote request forms every month to make sure you receive inquiries, sign-ups and requests.
  4. Monthly backup: Be prepared for a catastrophic failure of your web server and perform a monthly backup of all files and databases to a CD or DVD.
  5. Website statistics: Once a month keep track of key metrics such as number of visitors, average time on site, bounce rate, links reported by key search engines, number of indexed page and rankings of primary keywords. Look at these results and make changes to your site.
  6. Browser testing: Monthly browser test key pages in all major browsers, particularly as new browser versions become available.
  7. Link building: Regularly work to build up your backlinks through blogging, web directory submissions, social media, press releases and article marketing.

Every month spend some time tuning your website and making changes. Treat your website right and it will deliver regular sales leads and new customers.

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Filed under: SEO Strategies,Web Usability



Business Website Design: Don't Make This Mistake

Doug Williams @ 2:52 am

This blog entry was posted on June 12, 2010.

Design of business websites is not meant to shock and awe an incoming visitor. Don’t get me wrong, business website design should get your attention. But when an arriving visitor comes to your website, they need to be able to immediately understand your offer. They need to intuitively be able to navigate around your site.

If a website is difficult to use, people will just leave. Your website has to have a certain predictability. Your visitor did not arrive looking for a lesson on how to consume your content. Use standard web conventions so visitors can easily evaluate your content and what you offer.

Predictability leads to trust, ease of use and satisfaction. Here is how you make your website predictable and comfortable for visitors.

  1. Logo: Your logo, branding or name should be located in the upper left area of every page. Clicking on the logo should take you back to the home page.
  2. Navigation: The main navigation is located near the logo and can be either vertically down the left side or horizontally across the top. These links should map out the primary pages or features of the site. These should all be internal site links.
  3. Hyperlinks: Usually underlined and / or in a different color to stand out from other text. Only hyperlinks should have underlined text. Visited links should shift to a different color than the other links.
  4. Buttons: Images that look like buttons should allow visitors to take action like submit, buy or take them to a new page.
  5. Images: Photos and graphics have describing text (ALT text) or text immediately below the photo (captions). Clicking on small thumbnails will show a larger version of the photo.
  6. Icons: Use standard visual symbols on your site to signify things like shopping cart, email, rss.
  7. Security Login: Identity confirmations are done using a username and password system.
  8. Search: Larger sites should have a search function based on text words used in the content.
  9. Footer: Include copyright information, privacy policy, contact pages, sitemap and other helpful links at the bottom of the home page.

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Filed under: Web Usability,Website Design



Use AB Split Testing to Take Your Website to the Next Level

Doug Williams @ 4:05 am

This blog entry was posted on May 27, 2010.

A/B Split testing is a marketing term for optimizing a web page for maximum conversion. Two versions of the same page are each presented to 50% of the visitors and you can then measure which version is better at getting your visitors to take action.

In split testing you test a single variable against a control. You keep your goals the same and your medium (email, web page or banner ad) the same. You change things such as layout, copy text, placement, call to action text or type of offer.

You measure the response rate and identify which changes produce the greatest improvement. You keep the best and go on to test something else. This trial and error testing where you are comparing against your existing (control) will continue to improve your marketing effectiveness.

The process is very simple and powerful:

  1. Plan / Design
  2. Measure
  3. Evaluate
  4. Optimize

A/B split testing is best when done as an ongoing process that never ends. Always testing, measuring and changing to continuously improve your marketing site.

Google has a free website testing and optimizing tool called Google Website Optimizer. This allows you to compare whole pages against each other. This is the tool we recommend for our clients to use.

Most web pages are built with your best guess on what your audience will like. Split testing allows you to measure and change to what your audience truly wants. Google Adwords costs can effectively be reduced with A/B split testing.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing,Web Usability



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