Today from 3:00 pm to 4:00 pm, we are hosting our first free teleconference training: “Creating a Website that Works.” We will be talking about the biggest mistakes people make on their websites.  (The first one is NOT bad graphics or lack of social media.)

To participate in the training, call 507-726-4248 at about 3:00 pm.  The passcode is 100567#.  There are no additional expenses for the call outside of your usual charges from your telephone carrier, which means it could be free.

If you would like us to look at your website and provide you help during the call, be one of the first to register by calling me at 615-479-7518.

One way to take a website from a stale page to one that it is more engaging is add something that moves such as a slide show.  It makes the message more memorable.  Billboard companies often promote this principle on their rotating boards and have studies about their effectiveness.

Traditional web developers create slideshows in flash because it is very reliable, looks great, and almost everyone has the flash player.

However, people who specialize in how to make sites that rank well in the search engines tell that the search engines do not reliably find content in flash files, in spite of eager announcements by Google and Adobe.  So the captions on your website and the words in the pictures will not necessarily be read and catalogued by search engines like Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.  So the content could actually hurt your search engine rankings.

The solution is to use a javascript library like JQuery to produce the slide show.  The individual pictures and any key word rich captions that you want to use will be in the regular text flow of the page, which means there will be no confusion about whether the search engines will find the information.

Another advantage of using a library like JQuery is that it is designed to work across multiple browsers, unlike hand-coded javascript, which may not work in all browsers unless you include a lot of “hacks” for individual browsers.

You can see samples of projects coded by A Site that Works using JQuery at http://arenalawfirm.com, http://factoryatfranklin.com, http://asitethatworks.com/design-samples-2/

Every business primarily focuses on one of three positions in the marketplace

• Low Cost Provider (i.e. Walmart, Amazon)
• Brand Leader (i.e. Bose, BMW)
• Service Provider (i.e. Disney, Nordstrom)

The Low Cost Provider is someone who competes primarily on price for a particular level of quality. The Brand Leader is the company that delivers the latest innovations in their market space first. The customers may be buying the “latest and greatest” or a brand that gives them status. The Service Provider understands their customers’ needs and desires before the customer does and treats them appropriately. The customers of this type of company are willing to invest their money in someone who will truly take care of them or guide them in their selection.

Your website copy should reflect your primary business style. Otherwise, it may confuse visitors or attract the wrong customers to you. For instance,

• A Low Cost Provider could have price and product comparisons and statements on the home page as well as featured product specials.
• The Brand Leader may want to use the best graphics and special effects throughout their site. The look must speak to their core audience. Does it explain what the “latest and greatest” is?
• The Service Provider may want to include a blog about what they do for their clients on a regular basis. Great site navigation and ease of use should be paramount.

Does your website reflect one of these core competencies?

Welcome to the world of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), a sometimes frustrating experience of getting on the elusive first page of a search engine’s listings. Many of us want to know the “secret,” but if the secret became wide known, then a lot of people with bad intentions would scam the system and get ranked higher than people honestly trying to do business. Nevertheless there are several factors that influence how well your page ranks. There are some additional factors that a good search engine optimization expert and your website develop should delve into on your behalf, but the following list should give an average person some idea of the process for getting ranked well in search engines.

1. How old is your site? Some systems like to see that you have content that has been around for a while. Others do not care. (As of this writing Yahoo rated this aspect less important that Google. Which means Yahoo was giving better rankings to new sites than Google.)
2. What search terms are testing against and did you use those terms in your site text? After you hear this concept it seems obvious, but it may not be at first. You have to figure out what terms people will use to find your site. Then you have to use those terms REASONABLY in your site. If think people will search for “Nashville web services” and you never use the word Nashville in your site language, then you should not expect great results. However, be aware that the search engines also attempt to determine if you are throwing in words to get them on the page. Therefore, be reasonable in your use of different words and do not try to game the system too much. Essentially this concept requires most of us to write our content and then re-write it to include the search terms we want the search engines to find us. (And you thought writing the content once was hard enough.)
3. Do other people like you? (In other words, to some extent it is a popularity contest.) Do other organizations have links to your site. (Are those organizations well ranked also.) How much site traffic do you generate. (Yes, this is just like the problem of looking for a job fresh out of school when all of the employers want you to have experience.)
4. Do you have new content? The search engines want to believe that if they send someone to your site that you will the most up-to-date information. That means they want to see new content on a regular basis. (Yes, this is more difficult in an industry where things do not change much and it has been done the same way for the last 100 years.) Blogs and other social media tools create a sense that there is new content, which is part of their appeal.
5. Do you have an information rich site? To some extent the people that could easily write 500 extra words on that English paper in school have an advantage here. The search engines have to count and catalog words, which is an easy process. To some extent this extra information may not really be helpful to the client but I am not aware of there being any great “fluff detectors” out there as the process would be very difficult. However, you can focus your energy to creating pages that look at your client’s problem’s from every possible angle. Consider news and information related to current events, industry trends, core offerings and more.
6. Do you have external links? This topic is very tricky. Anytime someone leaves your site, they may not come back. However, a link to a great site with lots of information shows the search engines that you are willing to “spread the wealth” and gives you credibility.
7. Do you have a good site name? If you name includes good search terms the search engines will rank you higher, especially if you the other attributes in place.
8. Has your developer included the appropriate search terms in the page “special codes?” Every page has a variety of “meta tags” and “alt tags” that can be used to describe the page or specific page items for the web browsers as well as for people with access impairments such as blindness. Proper coding of these terms can help immensely. A good developer also knows how to construct the page so that it uses a minimum amount of html to produce the right results so as not to bog down the search engines. (Some sites are built like interstates and others like a muddy wagon road.)

Most folks have heard of the proverbial “Elevator Pitch,” but did you know that your website has to have one too?  It is the headline of the page on your site people see first!

When people visit your site they will make an assessment of who you are in less than 10-30 secs.  That fact means that you have very little time to explain what you offer to potential customers. It means the headline on your page may make or break whether someone stays on your site to look around.

People come to the web to learn, not to be sold to.  Therefore, a good headline needs to lead into an informative article about a topic that helps your potential clients solve one of their problems.  The best headlines also have emotional impact because they address a concern, a problem, or maybe a possible joy of the potential client.

Your headline sets the tone for whether people can find some valuable information on your site or whether you are just another salesman.  Can You Describe Your Complete Offering In an Informative Headline?  If not get some help!

If you have seen a good headline, leave me a comment telling me what it is.

Here are some tips to help you create better content.

Know Exactly Who Is Likely to Buy Your Services

No, it is never, ever “everybody.”  Everyone may do taxes or need a plumber, etc, but not everyone you meet is going to pay to have someone do their taxes or want you to be their plumber.  What is their income? Where do they live? How old are they?  Do they have a family?  What ages are the family members?

Define Exactly What types of Audiences Are Likely to Visit Your Site

For example the Billboard Company that wants to sell to end advertisers like the local resteraunt and the billboard company that wants to sell to advertising agencies.
The property management company that talks with Investors versus the property management company that wants to manage your PUD and wants to interact with PUD residents via the website

What is your intended audience looking for when they get to your site?

For example a person doing closings may make more money off of the Title Insurance, but the buyers and sellers are just looking for a reliable place to handle the paperwork.  (Title Insurance—oh that’s required, Ok slap it on there.)
Is a person looking for vending supplies looking for low cost vending or are they looking to enhance company moral with excellent choices in the break room that taste great and happen the same way each time.

How much of the sales process can you accomplish on your website

Are you making a complete sale, providing general company information, creating a sense that you are knowledgeable, providing important details about the services you offer.

Define what actions you want them to take

Call for a proposal, call for information, buy a subscription, buy a product?

Get some Testimonials

What are your good clients saying about you!

That is actually a trick question.

Content without Visibility Does not Create Many Leads

That is, if no one finds you, then no one can respond to the great calls to action that you have created.  However, good content improves your rankings in the search engines, so that people can find you easier.

Visibility without Content is Costly

Many of the things that you can do to drive traffic to your website costs you time or money.  It costs a lot of money to optimize a page for search engines.  Link campaigns to improve your search engine rankings are also costly.  Pay per click campaigns usually start at around $400/month.  (Google AdWords is an example of a Pay Per Click campaign.  These are advertisements that get displayed whenever someone does a search.)

Every time someone comes to your site because of a program you paid for to get them their has a cost.  Every person that leaves your site without taking the action you want drives the cost of converting that traffic into sales up.

Example 1:  You spend $100 to get 10 visitors and 9 of them “bounce” and you get one sales call.  Then you have spent $100 per sales call from your website.

Example 2: You spend $100 to get 10 visitors and only 5 of them bounce and 5 of them call you.  Then you you have spent only $20 per sales call.

What Do We Recommend?

We suggest you work on your content first, then on your visibility.  It is the more cost effective solution.  Good content will get ranked well in Google and Yahoo eventually.  So it does a better job of accomplishing both objectives if you are short on money.

Our Next Post will have some suggestions to improve your content.

In our last post, we showed a funnel to represent the transformation of potential visitors into potential clients.  Here are some things that can hurt or help you gain potential clients.

Our next post this week will cover whether content or visibility is more important.

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.