January 25, 2012
Customer Service, Website Strategy
2 Comments
I had a very inspiring conversation with a client today. The origins of the conversation went back to a chat a couple of months before in which we discussed the all-important question I raised:
“What happens to phone calls when people ring you out of normal working hours?”
This client provides luxury villa rentals worldwide and already had a very successful business from their website http://www.thetopvillas.com/. Always looking for opportunities to advance further, they took the decision to add an all-important detail to every page of the website:
Before you switch off, thinking “my business wouldn’t attract phone calls out of normal working hours”, keep reading – you may change your way of thinking …
The nature of luxury villa rentals means that potential clients could well ring at any time from any country around the world. There was always the ability to email/fill in enquiry forms out of normal hours but the provision of a 24/7 phone answering service took customer focus to a new level.
How they did it
Apart from the obvious (ensuring the 24/7 phone availability message is present in various places around the website), Top Villas utilised a round the clock call answering service. This works as follows:
- If any calls aren’t answered within a set number of rings (during the day) it switches to the call answering service (useful when staff are busy on other calls).
- Out of normal office hours all calls are answered by the call answering service.
It was important to the client for the call answering service to be UK-based and for each call to be handled professionally, with summarised emails of each call sent through to them.
Results
I’ve seen the enquiries logged and also the figures – an increase of, on average, 10 calls per day. That’s around 300 extra calls gained per month purely from having the 24/7 telephone answering availability.
How many businesses would sniff at such extra levels of enquiries?
“But that wouldn’t apply to my type of business”
A company offering luxury villa rentals is more likely to get calls at different times of the day and night (and they vary from into the evening to the early hours of the morning – it’s amazing when some people want to make contact).
A company selling widgets is not so likely. Nor are a firm of solicitors. Or accountants. Or many other types of businesses.
Or would they?
What would it cost to experiment?
Even a simple experiment would work – change the website to have longer working hours listed (e.g. 9am – 11 pm) and set the main phone number so that it diverts to someone’s mobile (or other number) out of hours. Measure, over a test period, how many calls are received and how useful those calls were. After the test period decide whether it would make sense to utilise a call answering service and decide whether you want the business to be available within certain (longer) hours or to be seen as 24/7.
The costs of experimentation are low. The result will tell you one way or the other what you need to do. But if you don’t try, you won’t know.
All I can say is that for one business type (villa rentals) I’ve seen the evidence and it works extremely well. For similar ‘need to be seen available all hours’ types of businesses there’s plenty of reason to experiment. For other types of businesses it could be an experiment worth trying.
January 23, 2012
Website Strategy
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For New Year’s Eve 2011 we (fairly late, admittedly) decided to set up a New Years Eve party. We managed to book a hall and then it was time to find a disco. 6 weeks before the day.
Panic set in and my other half contacted someone she found online. I was busy with work so didn’t get involved. The response came back from the DJ that they were available – at quite a cost. At this point I got involved.
Digging around further we found another available DJ and the original one suddenly seemed not such a good option. It wasn’t just the Gallery that worried me (see http://www.disco-daze.com/page6.htm) with its amusing (well, I found them funny) pictures, nor the fact that there were big copyright messages across each picture (WHO would want to steal them?!). Nor was it the relatively sparse information available on the website.
What focused my attention was the entrance of a much better option which made the original option seem poor in comparison. This new option had a great FAQs page (http://www.jmfdisco.co.uk/faq/faq.html) which provided many assurances. It was also up-to-date (for example, having the current Top 10 singles), which shows that it’s being maintained. It even had a load of music ideas to inspire choices for the event (http://www.jmfdisco.co.uk/music/music.html).
Overall, the website sent out the right message about the type of disco that would be provided. The interaction with the company thereafter was also first class – very very professional, leading right up to the night of the disco.
I’m not saying the website was perfect – there were many elements missing and some elements that grated (e.g. the twinkling lights that could have sent someone into a seizure). However, it had a core ‘feel’ to it that was right. Perhaps I was also swayed a bit by the major attempts at SEO going on within the website – you could tell this was someone that took their business seriously and was doing what they could to make it work.
So the second disco got the business and we had to turn down the original one (who by now had dropped their prices a lot to try and seal the deal, not realising that ‘getting it right’ is more important than the price).
If I was the ‘losing disco’ I would have made contact after the New Year just to find out which disco was chosen and see if I could find out why. I’d then go to their website and would try to replicate then exceed the elements that were strong. But no, that didn’t happen.
Strangely, the disco we did choose also dropped the ball afterwards. The night went fine and everyone had a good time. But there was no follow up afterwards. No teasing out of testimonials. No requests beforehand to take photos of the event for use on the website. Nothing at all. So, top marks for getting the business in the first place but zero points for taking the opportunity to get some useful content to add to a section of the website that doesn’t exist but should do (Testimonials).
So what’s the lesson here? There are probably two lessons …
- If your website gets visitors but a proportionally small number of them make contact with you then it’s time to look around at what other websites are visible to people when they’re searching. And then make some changes.
- If your website gets someone who makes contact but you don’t end up getting the business, don’t be afraid to go back to the lost business and ask some questions. Tell them that it would be useful to know how someone else got the business. And then make some changes.
January 8, 2012
Design, Google Images, Website Strategy
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Recently I went through my definition of hell – taking one of my daughters to the Cath Kidston shop so that she could spend a voucher.
While the brand is very popular with so many people, the mass of flowery, patterny, stuff, significantly overpriced for what it is (in my view), is just not my cup of tea. If you’ve not seen Cath Kidston stuff and are a bit older, then think: Laura Ashley on drugs.
I said to my daughter “but all this stuff is so similar to each other – same style bags but with different colours and patterns”. To me, the layman, I couldn’t see how someone could decide between one bag and another, but as my daughter homed in on what she wanted it struck me that what she liked may be hated by someone else – it all comes down to personal taste.
Here’s a test – look at the image below and decide which of the bags would appeal most to you. If none of them did, and you were a Cath Kidston type of buyer, you’d probably be attracted by numerous other variations of bags within the shop.
Take another test – do a Google Images search on the phrase ‘cath kidston bags’ (or any subject you’re interested in) and look at the ton of images that appear. Whatever your subject of interest, your eye is going to be drawn to a few items whereas others will not get your attention.
For ecommerce website owners there are two key messages to take away from this:
- If you sell products that people may want to browse through (for example, a particular branded range, or a particular type of product – such as egg cups), then you need to have numerous options on display because people expect to have lots of choice. The person that comes to your website one minute is going to be completely different to the one the next minute. This is like people in the Cath Kidston shop – one buyer will really like one bag but another buyer will really like the identical style but different pattern/colours. The key is to try and cater for as many types of tastes as possible.
- If you sell such products on your ecommerce website then you need to ensure that the images you use (plus surrounding page content) are fully optimised so that they have higher potential of appearing in Google Images, because that can generate a lot of traffic to your website from ‘visual’ browsers. If you haven’t done this then you’re losing a lot of potential business.
This principle also applies to non ecommerce websites. You could be offering tailored holidays, garden buildings, or anything else that may involve interaction rather than an instant website purchase – if your imagery is not extensive and strong enough then you will lose potential business.
If someone walks into a Cath Kidston shop and likes that sort of stuff then there is a big enough range for them to find their way to the checkout. The same applies to websites where something visual is available for people to buy.
How do you know whether your website is losing out? Simple:
- Analyse how many people get to certain pages within your website (those pages that have images of what you want to be selling).
- Determine how many of those went on to buy/make contact.
- If the numbers aren’t favourable then identify what search keyword phrase brought each person to your website. Then type each phrase into Google and see what other websites appear and see how their products display compares to yours.
- Then go to work on making your offering stronger.
January 5, 2012
Website Development, Website Strategy
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Going back several years we used to write blogs focusing on just one or two aspects of a website that would benefit from being improved. They were never intended to be a complete “pull it apart and put it back together again” but instead just a few pointers.
We’ve not done that for a long time and so we’ve revisited the concept, focusing on the website http://www.boothpix.co.uk/.
I happen to know that the website is in the process of being changed but these couple of points may not have been considered. The two subjects I’ve chosen to look at are:
To start off on a big positive, I’d never heard of photo booth hire before I went to this website and thought “what a fantastic idea!”. That was closely followed by two thoughts of:
“That’s probably ideal for all sorts of event types.”
“How much does it cost?”
Let’s start with the most important one first …
Price
We live in tough times. Less money floating around means that people are more cautious about what they spend it on. Even those who don’t have as much money don’t want to appear as if they can’t afford things. So let’s step into someone’s shoes, having been to this website, loving the concept, but first of all thinking “don’t waste time digging deep just yet because if the price isn’t right then there’s no point considering it further”.
Many marketers would say that you don’t have to put prices on websites. If website visitors are the right type of people, who can afford it, then they will make contact. If website visitors don’t see a price, and still make contact, but can’t really afford it, they may still be possible to convert into business.
I understand that viewpoint but will always fall on the side of the fence that says “at least give people an idea of how much something costs”.
If that website owner isn’t spending money on advertising and all the traffic costs nothing or little then having no prices doesn’t actually lose them money from their advertising budget. However, when there are costs involved to get people to a website and those same website visitors have an expectation of seeing an idea of pricing, many of those people will leave the website, which means wasted advertising budget.
Noting the nature of photo booth hire, the website says that each event is unique and therefore it’s not possible to provide a set price. That’s fair enough … but doesn’t go far enough.
Each type of event could easily be categorised and rough pricing provided. For example, a booth may be required for a 21st birthday party and the expected number of photos to be taken could be 100, or 150, or more. Such information could be easily provided within the website. The business owner is not tied to those rough prices and an exact quote would still need to be provided, but the potential customer is far more likely to get in contact if they have a rough idea of pricing related to their event type and numbers of photos/people (plus other parameters that may be relevant).
Of course, there will be people who visit the website, see the costs, and then leave. That will always happen. However, what probably currently happens is that many people leave the website because they have no idea of pricing at all. By putting pricing indications in this website it will gain higher levels of enquiries.
However, it needs to be a bit cleverer than that. Which leads onto …
Categories
The website has a section focusing on Packages (http://www.boothpix.co.uk/index.php/hire-options/) but the concept of packages is perhaps too far down the buying path. My suggestion would be for the website to focus more on the concept of ‘Event Types’. For example:
- Weddings
- 18th & 21st Birthdays
- Teenager Birthdays
- Company Parties
- School Proms
Within each event type there would be a range of photos to browse through, covering previous events. For example, all the previous ‘Weddings’ sessions would be within the Weddings section. This is something commonly done within photographers websites.
By grouping types of events together, potential buyers get a good feel for:
- How similar groups of people used the booths
- Numbers of people who have used the company before (for the event type)
Within such an ‘Event Type’ sub-page there is the opportunity to include indications of pricing specifically related to the event type. The prices may well be similar to other event types (for example, a wedding with 100 photos may cost the same as a 21st party with 100 photos) but the point is to give people the information they’re interested in, all within one part of the website.
Over time, by adding more and more events into the relevant Event Types sections, the website gets stronger and stronger. And by putting those event types in pretty graphical boxes on the home page, as routes straight down to those types of events, the website owner is going to get much better clicks into the sub-pages from the home page.
Conclusion
The danger with trying to cover just a couple of opportunities within websites is that other things jump out at the same time and these are supposed to be blogs, not full website strategies. But for BoothPix, those two pointers are enough to be focusing on for now and will make a substantial difference to the success of the website if implemented. And for any website owner the two questions that may be worth asking yourself are:
- Are there elements of my website that should be categorised better in some way?
- Do I need to be clearer about pricing of my products or services?
December 22, 2011
Website Strategy
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This is the last blog of the year from us at Custwin and it’s all about having accountable resolutions. Everyone has resolutions and unfortunately, so many of them don’t happen. Accountability can really help though. That’s why we’re putting one big resolution for 2012 ‘out there’ for all our readers to see (yes, both of you! Only joking!).
We have spent most of 2011 creating and enhancing A1WebStats, our system that lets companies get amazing insights into how visitors interact with their websites. From 2006-2010 we searched for a system that would do, for a reasonable price, what we think a website visitors analytics system should do. We even approached some existing providers with enhancement suggestions but they didn’t want to know.
So we created A1WebStats and boy, is it having an impact on those who use it!
It’s never ‘finished’ and we’re always adding more to it, but it’s ‘out there’ in the market being used and ready for people to sign up for the 30 day free trial.
From just within the UK through to worldwide, there are millions of businesses who would benefit from A1WebStats (if they have the right mindset to use it properly of course!). We don’t want those millions. We don’t even want hundreds of thousands. We certainly wouldn’t want to become faceless and ‘corporate’.
So here’s our resolution for 2012 and hey, please do remind us of this resolution if you talk to us at any stage …
By the end of 2012, A1WebStats will be installed (on a paying subscription basis) within 5,000 business websites, and those businesses will be growing through using the system.
We have a lot of work to do in order to hit that target and to be honest, we don’t want to wait until the end of the year to get there!
5,000 business subscriptions is a small number of the overall businesses in the UK and an even smaller number internationally. It should be easy. But the big challenge is in changing the mindset of businesses away from “we need to be top of Google” into “we need to ensure visitors to our websites are converting into enquiries” (something that’s always been at the core of the Custwin ethos).
So there you have it: we are now officially accountable. Please do feel free to remind us of that goal whenever you like!
And hey, if you’re feeling bold, why don’t you share your big accountable resolution for 2012 via the blog here, or send it out to people you know in another way?
We wish all our readers the very best for 2012. It’s going to be a struggle for so many businesses but there are always answers and we’re always happy to provide a no-obligation chat to any business that wants some freebie insights into things they can do with their websites that will cost little or nothing, and will help them move forwards.
To your success in 2012 …
The Custwin and A1WebStats team.
December 22, 2011
Website Analytics, Website Strategy
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As we come to the end of another year, our thinking has been shaped by everything ‘online’ we see around us. Here’s our predictions for what’s going to happen in 2012. They include what could be seen as a ‘plug’ for A1WebStats but that’s not the intention …
The economy influences everything
It’s been a tough year for most companies. We’ve been lucky that turnover has stayed consistent BUT we’ve had to work immensely harder to help some clients, who have found it tougher because of:
- Less people searching for products and services (because of economy woes).
- Competitors upping their game to get a piece of a smaller pie.
Without wishing to appear pessimistic, few people would deny that 2011 was just a warm up for the economic woes of 2012.
Google will make it tougher
Please be under no illusion. Google is NOT your friend. Google is a machine that does some things to make it appear friendly but ultimately it’s there to generate income for itself via Pay Per Click (PPC). It’s no more complicated than that.
In recent years, and particularly in 2011, we’ve seen clear examples of how Google are doing everything they can to push people into using PPC advertising. Don’t misunderstand me: PPC is brilliant when it’s done correctly, and when the system allows you to advertise in the way you want to. Unfortunately, it’s changed vastly and Google is deliberately making it harder to get benefits from PPC. The Google Adwords system is set up in a way that stops smaller businesses from succeeding. I could spout on for hours on this subject and provide tons of evidence but for now, take it from me that in 2012 Google will make it even tougher to gain business, whether by PPC or organic search positioning.
Google will see a decline in profits
This is a bold prediction and I could well be wrong and a little bit ahead of time. A lot depends on how people like Facebook and Microsoft get their act together. The faster those competitors to Google see the opportunities in smaller businesses, the faster they will take chunks of business away from Google.
Putting that aside, many businesses will start to realise that they’re not getting results from PPC and that Google is not really their friend. They will stop advertising and it’ll reduce Google’s profits.
On the other hand, Google know about the economic woes and will be hoping that people will throw whatever marketing budget they have at advertising via Google Adwords. Some will but many won’t be able to justify it anymore.
I’d love this prediction to be right but 2012 may be a bit early for Google to start feeling the pain of reduced profits (through its lack of awareness of how it’s system should really work).
Smaller businesses will get cleverer
At Custwin we’ve been heavily into analysing clients website traffic for several years now and we’ve used software systems that we’ve found ultimately to be inadequate. So we created A1WebStats to allow companies to get deep insights into their website visitors, without having to pay our monthly fees.
If you use Google Adwords you may have the impression that you’re getting clicks for certain phrases that you’ve set up. A future blog is going to focus on this in more detail but for now, imagine you’ve got the phrase ‘fire damage restoration’ set up in your campaign and it tells you that you’ve had 200 clicks on your advert when people have typed that phrase. However, your enquiries aren’t strong in comparison. Why is that?
The answer is that, if Adwords is set up in the way Google want you to set it up, your advert will become visible for all sorts of other things. For example, clicks that are registered as being for ‘fire damage restoration’ have come from people who have typed phrases such as:
- Iphone 3gs water damage repair
- Fire blankets damaged
- Janitorial lockers
- Marble cleaner for fire surround
All totally irrelevant and the typical Adwords user wouldn’t have a clue that’s what phrases were actually typed.
Using systems like A1WebStats, companies get to see the actual phrases that people typed, that brought people to their website. They then realise that their PPC campaigns (and other marketing) aren’t getting results, and why. They wake up and start making positive changes.
2012 may be the year when ‘website analytics’ properly comes of age. Companies are fighting to gain business and are currently spending on marketing. With website analytics (whatever system is used), there is the opportunity to fully understand where websites (and the ways they’re marketed) are going wrong.
It’s not for everyone though. Although systems like A1WebStats are incredibly powerful, it takes 3 things from companies to make them work:
- Dedication to spend a bit of time analysing website visitors patterns.
- Dedication to contact companies who didn’t make contact, having visited the website.
- Dedication to invest in making website/online marketing changes that will get stronger results.
Dedication is the word. And that’s why we created the page http://www.a1webstats.com/what-is-a1webstats/is-a1webstats-right-for-you/.
In short though, whatever webstats package is used, businesses of all types will, we feel, start to ‘get cleverer’ in 2012. It’s amazing that it’s taken so long for companies to properly (meaning: not just Google Analytics) analyse their website visitor patterns, but the economy is going to force that mindset into companies.
Social proof
Our final prediction for 2012 is that ‘social proof’ will start to become the difference between company success or failure. Again, it may take a bit longer than 2012 but the concept whereby companies are judged on how much they impress their clients, which leads to more business, has got to be a progressive way for the business world to evolve.
That ‘social proof’ can’t be all the junk that currently exists (for example, artificially engineered reviews) but needs to be so much more ‘genuine’. The technologies exist to make this possible – it just takes dedication and time for companies to make it happen for them.
We would be immensely surprised if, by 2015, all the rubbish (as it currently works and is easily engineered) that is backlinks and general reviews, Facebook likes etc, has any credibility at all. ‘Social proof’, in a genuine format, is the way forwards and any business that’s not totally nurturing their customers in every way they can, will have a lot of catching up to do.
November 30, 2011
Website Development, Website Strategy
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This week has witnessed a tale of three companies, each of which had a differing attitude towards case studies on websites.
Tale 1
The first is a client company who, through being busy, didn’t get round to creating case studies to go on their website. However, we eventually got their commitment to create case studies related to a particular service they offered.
The difference was highly noticeable. From a service page without case studies to a service page with 3 case studies and a link to more, the change was a significant increase in enquiries gained about that particular service. The exact words of the client were: “we can see now that you were right and we’re now going to dedicate more time to creating case studies for our other services”.
Result: a client that will see business continue to grow, through showing potential customers not just what they can do, but what they have done for other customers. Who cares whether a company ‘can’ make widgets? What people care about are the widgets that have been made for people and how great those widgets were.
Tale 2
The second example is a relatively new client, a company that is well established and is always busy, but has an eye to the future (and so wants to develop the website further). For over 2 months now I’ve been trying to get case studies from the client but them being busy has stopped that from happening. There is no doubt that within no time of them having such case studies live on the website, that website visitors will be enquiring at a higher rate.
But time is the enemy and because only they know their subject well enough, it’s hard to get anyone else to create the case studies.
So I’m going to see them next week, having got commitment to a couple of hours within which we will do nothing but create case studies. Them talking about the jobs done, and me creating the case studies. Painful? Yes. Necessary? Yes.
Tale 3
The final example is a conversation with a previous client from years ago. They now want to move their website forwards and before ‘signing up’ want an idea of what Custwin would be doing and what would be expected of them. It’s very clear that they need a raft of case studies related to the products they’re selling BUT they have yet to be convinced that it’s worthwhile them investing time in it. I’ve said that I’d be willing to sit with them and create case studies but even before that being accepted, they still need to be convinced case studies are needed (even though to me it’s blatantly obvious).
This is where website statistics come into play because there’s simple maths that can be applied:
- Take the number of website visitors in the month.
- Subtract those website visitors that don’t appear to be ‘useful’.
- Compare that number to the number of enquiries gained in the month.
All the time that the enquiries to ‘useful visitors’ ratio is too low then it shouts out that the website needs to be strengthened (in this case, starting with case studies).
We’ll see where that goes but I’m hoping that the previous trust built up with the client company will result in a dedication to at least measure what’s currently being achieved from the website, before then pushing forwards through the creation of case studies.
Not convinced yet that you need lots of case studies on your website?
So, one week and three different viewpoints on whether case studies are important within websites. If you don’t have any, or much, in the way of case studies on your website then the recommendation is to take some time out and create just a handful that can then be made live on your website. Then track the people who look at those case studies and see how much of a difference it makes to enquiry levels. Once convinced that case studies on websites are important then build them up higher and higher.
November 26, 2011
Website Analytics, Website Strategy
1 Comment
People new to me often say: “my website doesn’t get me enough business – how can I make it a success?”.
The answer to that starts with some simple maths that works as follows …
Add up
… all your website visitors during a period of time (typically, a month). Google Analytics and other website statistics packages will give you this figure.
If the total is less than around 300
… then your website doesn’t really have enough traffic to expect results from. Focus on targeted, but gradual and inexpensive, promotion of your website to raise numbers.
If the total is more than around 300
… you at least have some figures to be meaningful. So ….
Subtract the rubbish
… this means look through all the individual visits to your website and subtract all those who don’t look like being ‘useful’ visits. For example, people you can identify as competitors, students doing research from college, search engines visiting your website, you or your staff on your website. There are many types of ‘not-useful’ visitors.
This bit isn’t quite so easy with most basic website statistics packages but a free trial of A1WebStats will help you here by showing you the information that you can subtract.
Determine the ‘useful visitors’ figure
… meaning: see how many of your overall website visitors were potentially useful to you (based on what they searched for and which pages they looked at on your website, plus also companies they visited from).
Divide enquiries gained by ‘useful visitors’
… however many enquiries you gained during the month, divide those by the number of ‘useful visitors’ (NOT by the overall visitors because that gives a false figure).
If the result is anything above 5% then smile
… based on work we’ve done over the years, if you are getting at least 5% of your ‘useful’ website visitors converting into enquiries then you’re on the right path. For some sectors/focus areas we set an expectation of at least 10% Anything above about 15% useful clicks to enquiries ratio is pretty much unheard of.
Equals
Enquiries gained divided by Useful Visitors equals your starting point. Do this for 2-3 months to build up a proper picture and then consider getting help to raise the success of your website (if you need it).
November 24, 2011
Google Adwords, Website Development, Website Strategy
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Sometimes it may feel that you have the worst website in your industry. Day to day the visitor enquiries are non-existent or very low, and you think things are bad with your website.
We’ve reviewed and helped literally thousands of websites in our time and although there’s little excuse for having an underperforming website, it can sometimes be comforting that there are people out there with a worse website and focus than yours.
This one will appeal particularly to people in the holidays industry. There are some brilliant websites in the holidays industry, particularly the niche holiday websites. Then there are those in the middle ground. And sometimes you find something that is spectacularly off target.
We had an enquiry come in recently and it said:
“i run a travel agency ..i do advertising on google. i want to buy 50 to 100 keywords for a year and i want them to be on top..can you please tell me how much it will cost me for a year?”
Apart from it being one of those ‘how long is a ball of string?’ questions (and actually impossible to answer even if knowing what keyword phrases were wanted), the focus was very much on advertising.
A bit of dialogue later and it turned out that the person wanted to be visible under various ‘holidays’ type phrases. So I looked at their main navigation bar as there was nothing else jumping out from their website saying ‘holidays’. I won’t name the company because that would embarrass them (no, they’ve not become a client – they ran very fast when they were told how much work they’d need to do in order to justify using Google Adwords). That navigation bar displays as:
Nothing about holidays in there.
Eventually I worked out that if you click on ‘Flights’ it takes you to what is their holidays page and you can see a sample below …
Putting aside me wondering whether ‘Adeliade’ is anywhere near ‘Adelaide’ (I have a degree in being pedantic about website errors), I thought “hmmm, Adelaide for £811 – let’s look at that” and I clicked on the box.
Well, I tried to click on it. But it doesn’t go any deeper.
On discussing that with the website owner they were surprised that anyone might actually want to look at details of the holidays on offer and “surely they’d see the price and ring up to find out more?”
So, we’re at the point where this company wants to spend money on sending Google Adwords clicks to a website that is woefully inadequate. In fact, it makes even mediocre holiday websites look good. At that point I (nicely) said that I wouldn’t be prepared to set up such an Adwords campaign and that they’d be advised to run a mile from anyone who would be prepared to (before the website is strengthened).
I suspect that they’ll do exactly that. God forbid, they’ll go directly to Google who will quite happily help them set up an Adwords campaign that links through to a rubbish website (they have a department dedicated to doing just that). It was very clear from the conversation that they had an Adwords tunnel vision and nothing mattered more than sending traffic to the website. Unfortunately, this is a common disease that can lead to financial death.
Maybe it’s time that we had some sort of central system where business owners can submit their website details and ask for people to grade it on various factors (design, content, depth, etc.). Just a quick 2 minute appraisal ticking boxes and maybe adding in a few comments. Everyday people could respond, as could website professionals. The intention wouldn’t be to sales-pitch services on offer but to give just a small bit of time to website owners that need a collective view (rather than one opinion) of where their website needs to be stronger.
With such a rating system in place, people like me would be less likely to get enquiries about Adwords from people who are clearly not yet ready to line the pockets of Google.
November 11, 2011
Website Development, Website Strategy
No Comments
Any excuse to come up with some website success tips, in recognition of today being the 11th of the 11th 2011, here are 11 tips that will help you gain more business from your website if you spend just a bit of time on one or more of them …
- Increase your blogging frequency
Blogs that are useful to people help to keep you in their minds for when they may need your products/services, or may be able to recommend you onto others. If you don’t blog, then create just one a month. If you do blog, then increase the frequency. If you’re completely stuck on how to get started then take a look at http://jododdssocialmedia.com/op/business-blogging-2/business-bloggers-manual/ – a real bargain.
- Follow up with 11 website visitors who didn’t make contact
If people from companies visit your website but don’t make contact then it makes sense to see if you can salvage something (by making contact with them). If you don’t have the ability to identify companies that have visited your website then take a look at http://www.a1webstats.com/what-is-a1webstats/a1webstats-features/companies-visited/ and take advantage of the free trial.
And if you’re asking yourself the question “how do I know which person within the visiting company came to my website?”, the answer is “you don’t”. However, using systems like LinkedIn and your existing contacts, you may find a route into that company. If nothing else, a cold call to that company, trying to get through to someone who may have been interested in your products/services, has got to be worth a try. Following the ‘11’ theme, if you contacted 11 companies who you know visited your website, and only 1 of them came to anything, you’ve still won more than you would have done by not doing anything.
- Boost your testimonials
How many testimonials do you have on your website? Do you have testimonials related to specific products or services that you provide? Do you think that potential customers could be more likely to make contact with you, having visited your website, if you have more testimonials from happy customers?
Boosting the number of testimonials on your website by even just one is a step in the right direction.
- Analyse the competition
Select a phrase that you want to be/are visible under within Google. Type it in and spend a bit of time looking through the websites of competitors. What are they doing on their websites that make you think “that’s a nice touch”? Replicate it and then beat it in some way.
- Make a small website change
If you know how many enquiries your website typically generates as a percentage of website visitors, then you’ll probably like to increase that. By making just one small website change you can improve the website visitor experience. For example, you could put in some fresh graphics, add in a video, offer something for free, or change the font to be nicer. If you’ve followed tip 4 above you’ll probably have plenty of ideas for making changes. Then sit back and see how that has an impact on visitors vs enquiries. If it’s successful then make another small change.
- Analyse your biggest landing page
Apart from your home page, see which page of your website has most people landing on it (e.g. from search engines). Analyse how each of those visitors then navigates through your website. What did they type (e.g. into Google) to find that biggest landing page? How many of them moved beyond that landing page? Do you think their visits were a success for you?
Don’t know how to dig deep into people who land on certain website pages? Take a look at http://www.a1webstats.com/what-is-a1webstats/a1webstats-features/entry-exit-pages/ and feel free to sign up for the free trial.
- Write something fantastic
What could you write, as an article/blog within your website, that you think is the best article on that particular subject? If you invested the time to create such an article and then made it visible online (e.g. get involved in online discussions about the subject and refer people back to your article), then surely that would bring traffic and interest back to your website?
Everyone has at least one world-beating article inside them – it’s just a case of putting fingers to keyboard and start typing. Create the article, promote it online, and then monitor it (see tip 6) to see when people click through to that page of your website.
- Highlight your contact details
People are short of time. When they look through your website they may get to a certain page that interests them the most. If your contact details (phone number and email are sufficient) are highly visible on every page of your website then it makes it easy for people to make contact with you (instead of having to go to a contact details page, where they won’t be able to still see the page that was of most interest to them).
- Offer a guarantee
What can you offer as a guarantee related to one or more of your services or products? If you had a big bold ‘Guarantee’ type graphic that links through to a page that explains the guarantee, could that give people more reason to buy from you/make contact? Be big and bold and show people that you’re good enough to offer a 100% no quibble guarantee. You will notice your enquiries to visitors ratio increase as a result.
- Pick a poor performer
Identify a page of your website that doesn’t get much traffic (see http://www.a1webstats.com/what-is-a1webstats/a1webstats-features/visited-pages/ for how to do this) and ask yourself whether it matters that the page doesn’t get much attention. If you think it’s a valuable page within your website then consider how you could adapt other parts of your website so that they point to that page in a better way.
- Set a figure-based goal
Just because of the blog subject, pick a number as the figure to base a goal on. For example, if you have 50 people who contact you via your website, over a 3 month period, set a target of an 11% increase over the following 3 months, and do whatever you need to in order for that to happen. Or, if your website traffic needs to be higher, set a percentage (11%?!) increase that you want to achieve within a certain timescale.
Whatever the goal it needs to be related to you gaining more business from your website and it needs to be written down and measured at milestones along the way.
Keep watching for a similar blog on 12/12/12.
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