Of course a site’s links have to work and the forms have to submit properly. But what really defines whether a site works is whether people visiting your site take the actions that you want them to take.

As shown in the image to the right,

1. There are a lot of people in the marketplace.
2. A few of those people will visit your site and give you a chance to begin a conversation with them.
3. A number of those will go somewhere else within 10 seconds of reaching site.  (These are your “bounces.”)
4. Some of the remaing people  will actually take some sort of action that you want: call you for more information, request a proposal, buy a product etc.

Our goal at “A Site That Works” is to maximize the funnel.

In our post next week we will tell you some of the things that shrink or expand the funnel.

After a little thought, this one is easy to debunk.

What are visitors going to do when they get to your site?

Do you have so much sales literature on the site that people leave in disgust?

Do you have a reason for them to stay?

• Do you provide them information that they can implement in their life or business today?
• Do you have good, “timeless” subject matter resource information?
• Do you have areas of the website where they will regularly conduct business with you, such as a client login area or client worksheets.
• Do you provide online specials (that change regularly)

Do you make a request of them that is easily found on the site? (If you don’t make a request, they will move on and not do anything “productive” to help your business grow.)

• Call your office for a free quote or free analysis?
• Sign-up for a paid monthly subscription to insider news?

In the end, you can spend a lot of money getting people to your site, but none of that matters if they do not stay long enough to do business with you.

It is true that there are a number of templating systems that will help you get a functioning website. However, without the help of professional developer, there are a few things that these systems alone cannot do, even if you have the smarts to figure out HTML:

• Cause customers to call you to request your services or products, or just more information
• Define your target sales market niche and the problems you solve for them
• Develop a unique graphical look that shows that niche that you solve their problems
• Develop compelling content that demonstrates you are the expert in your field
• Ensure that the content is engaging so that people stay on your site long enough to learn who you are.
• Drive traffic to your site

Each of these tasks are things that a developer can help you accomplish. Depending on your needs a good developer can help you

• Define your target market niche so that your online message is focused and engaging
• Write compelling content have visitors spending time your site and re-visiting you frequently so that you can develop a relationship with them
• Create a unique graphical look that demonstrates what you do and the problems you solve
• Ensure that search engines will find your content and provide you a good search ranking.
• Ensure that interested buyers/clients find your site.
• Set-up blogs, email marketing software, e-commerce, etc.
• Maintain your site so that it does not become stale.
• Help you make sales!

I’ve known for a while, that newspapers have been having difficulties.  The big three networks have been having major problems as well.  The availability of information on the internet is widely credited with making these changes happen.  I probably agree.

However, there are some startling statistics on the following page:

http://biz.yahoo.com/nytimes/080623/1194787839974.html?.v=1

My take away is that newspapers are in some serious trouble.  If you choose to advertise with a newspaper, make sure you check out what their audience is and does it match the audience you need to reach.  I don’t know if they will be decreasing their advertising rates just to get more business, or if they will try to raise them in order to cover more of their costs per add.  At any rate, before using a newspaper for advertising, consider their rates, their circulation trends, exactly which page you will be on, and their cache–are they a leading newspaper, highly respected with a particular demographic group, or are they given out freely and often tossed because they are not “newsworthy.”