Is it becoming less critical for businesses to have websites?

I’d like to share this through-provoking article by Chris Crum, published originally on WebProNews.com

Can You Be Successful Without a Website?

I don’t think there’s any question that you need a web presence to survive in today’s business climate. But do you still need a traditional website, or has the web moved on in that regard?

First off, let me be perfectly clear in that I’m not advising anybody not to have a website. That said, there are a lot of ways to have a web presence without actually having a site, and let’s face it - maintaining a site (let alone a successful one) takes time, money, and resources.

According to data from Compete, Facebook has become a bigger traffic source than Google for some sites, and for many others, it is right up there with Google as a major traffic source. If it can drive the traffic, then that means the people are already at Facebook. You can be on Facebook without having your own website.

Businesses can build a Facebook Page, complete with analytics provided by Facebook itself, and they can spend time making that page a good one. Here are some tips on how to do that. Facebook pages are perfectly capable of being found in search engines. In fact, they are often right on the first results page.

You know what else is often right on the first page? A set of local search results from Google Maps, courtesy of Google’s Universal Search integration. Within those results (which are very often right at the top of the SERP) are links to individual businesses’ “Place Pages”. From here, users can find coupons, reviews, store hours, etc. There is a very good chance users will find this before they find your site anyway.

Google is actually going to great lengths to get people using these Place Pages. They are even sending out stickers with barcodes for stores to hang on their windows. When a user scans this barcode with their mobile phone, they will be taken to the business’ Place Page. Social media profiles can also appear on these pages (although so can website links of course).

I probably don’t have to tell you that the web is rapidly becoming more mobile. Smartphone usage and mobile broadband subscriptions continue to accelerate, and people are using a variety of devices, operating systems, browsers, and apps. Making sure you have a site that looks right across all of these is no easy task. This is not so much of a worry when it comes to Facebook pages, Google Place Pages, and other third-party entities.

In many cases, it seems that small business sites are becoming harder to find through organic search. If you look you can find them, but users want convenience, and they are probably not going to look too hard if they can find what they are looking for on the first search results page (or right within Facebook where they’re already spending their time).

Social profiles show in up in search, and often early. The very nature of social media is viral. If one Facebook user becomes a fan of your Facebook page, that user’s friends are going to see it. Then, maybe a couple of them also become fans. Then maybe a couple of their friends become fans, and that trend can continue on and on.

The more people who become fans, and the more exposure that page gets, the more chance that page has of acquiring links, which of course can lead to better search engine rankings, not to mention a larger presence on Facebook itself, where a large percentage of Internet users are already spending a great deal of their time. Your reputation and following within the social networks themselves may do your profile well in the eyes of Google too.

If you sell things online, there are obviously many different options out there without having to sell from your own site. In fact, even Facebook and e-commerce are on the road to becoming more and more closely attached. People can buy/sell physical goods through Facebook.

A great deal of focus has been placed on Facebook in this article for the simple fact that it is the world’s most popular social network. That could all change in time. But that doesn’t mean the points would not sill apply to other services. Google is going to be placing a lot of emphasis on Google Buzz this year, and it’s going to become integrated with more and more Google products.

Currently, Google profiles are kind of the central place for a Buzz presence. Users can include any links they wish right into that profile (Facebook page, Twitter account, blog, eBay/Amazon listings, etc.)There’s no telling how big Buzz can be, and there’s always the possibility that something else will come along and take the world by storm. And that is one of the reasons…

Why it Still Pays to Have a Site

Can you be successful without a site? I think so. However, having a site gives you a more stable foundation, and still creates more opportunities than if you didn’t have one. When you have a site, you have control. You don’t have to adhere to the policy guidelines of any third-party platform. If Facebook decides to shut its Pages down (as Yahoo did with GeoCities, for example), you still have your own site that they can’t touch. For that matter, having your own site certainly lends credibility to your brand.

Still, social networks continue to work on making data more freely able to flow among one another via a number of open standards like Activity Streams, AtomPub, OAuth, PubSubHubbub, Salmon and WebFinger. “The idea is that someday, any host on the web should be able to implement these open protocols and send messages back and forth in real time with users from any network, without any one company in the middle,” says Google software engineer DeWitt Clinton.

“The web contains the social graph, the protocols are standard web protocols, the messages can contain whatever crazy stuff people think to put in them. Google Buzz will be just another node (a very good node, I hope) among many peers. Users of any two systems should be able to send updates back and forth, federate comments, share photos, send @replies, etc., without needing Google in the middle and without using a Google-specific protocol or format.”

Google itself, even has its own site dedicated to making user data for its various products exportable. That’s just Google, but the web in general appears to be moving more in this direction.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have a site, or even that you don’t need one, but I think it’s an interesting discussion. For now, I’m going to say having your own site is still in your best interest, but has a more social Internet with more portable data made a standalone site less critical? Is having a website going to be less important in the future? I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on the subject.”

How web designers often feel

We really do love our clients… but some can test our patience just a little. Someone just sent me this video which basically sums up the experiences I have with a some clients.

If you’re in the web industry, or any kind of creative industry, you’ll identify with this video.

And if you are a client working with a professional designer, please take note

12 questions any good web design company should ask before starting work on your website

If you’re a business owner with a website, here is a question…

How many new leads and/or sales has your website brought in during the past week, the past month, or the past year?

If your website is bringing in a significant amount of new business on an ongoing basis, you are in the minority. Most small business websites are almost worthless as a marketing tool because they’ve been built by designers or programmers who know very litle about marketing.

On this point, (and as a sidetrack before I get into the 12 questions mentioned in the heading) I was approached by a client this week who needs help to get his website ranking higher in Google. I had a look at the site and saw a massive problem. The site is built using a content management system, which doesn’t allow meta tags to be added to each page. This means the title of every page on the site is the company name… nothing else. This site contains a large number of products, each of which people could be searching for in Google. But they won’t find this website because of its non-existent meta tags.

Now, the programmer who built this website is obviously very talented as a programmer. He has custom-built a content management system. But while the site is technically brilliant, sadly, it’s almost worthless in terms of marketing the company’s business on the Internet. 

So, bearing this in mind, before I agree to build a website for a client, I need to be sure in my own mind that the site I build will actually be a valuable investment in terms of bringing in new business. Otherwise, what’s the point of building it?

Here are the 12 vital questions…

 The answers will help me to determine, first , whether the business actually needs a website (not every business does) second, what type of site they need, and thirdly, what sort of ongoing internet marketing strategy they need.

1. How do you acquire new customers or clients now?
2  What is your business plan? Specifically, what is your Mission Statement? What do you deliver to your clients/customers above and beyond “quality at a fair price”?
3. How do you keep in touch with your current customers?
4. What’s your most profitable product or service?
5. Do you have any underused capacity that you’d like to scale up?
6. What causes you the most aggravation or frustration in your business?
7. If you already have a website and/or email marketing strategy, how is it working?
8. Where do you want your business to be in 3 months, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years from now?
9. What is the “Lifetime value” of a new customer or client?
10. What is the profile of your “Ideal Customer”?
11. Do you have an advertising budget?
12. What is your current return on ad spend?

These are vital questions, which every business owner should know the answer to. It’s my job, if they hire me to help them market their business, to ask these questions and then offer the right solution, based on the answers.

New website for Christchurch company selling steel-frame kitset homes

I’ve just launched a new website for C-Style Homes, a Christchurch company that sells a great range of steel frame kitset homes at amazingly low prices.

This website project is the first of what will be many more as part of a new business relationship I’ve developed with MARKITABLE, a Wellington company.

The website is built with the Joomla open source content management system and has a contemporary look. It’s clean and simple in its design. And furthermore, it is already ranking on page 1 of Google for the keywords steel frame kitset homes due to some pre-launch work on my part ot help get it optimised in the search engines.

The long-term strategy will be to get this site at the top of Google for the term kitset homes, which is much more competitive. I achieved this a few years ago for another website selling kitset homes and I’m confident within a few months C-Style will also be near the top of Google, certainly on Page 1.

Search engine optimisation is very important for any business website, particularly in the current economy. It’s still relatively easy to get a good search engine ranking in the local market in New Zealand, because so few websites are optimised.

That will change, of course, as more busineses get web savvy. But for now, a few simple strategies such as the right meta tags, alt tags on images and developing some good incoming links, is enough to get most sites well ranked on Google in their local market.

Why aren’t more websites designed with ordinary people in mind?

If you’ve ever tried to buy something online and have been asked to set up an account first, before you can make the purchase, you will appreciate this article by Jared Spool of www.uie.com.

The $300 Million Button: How Changing a Button Increased a Site’s Annual Revenues by $300 Million

It’s hard to imagine a form that could be simpler: two fields, two buttons, and one link. Yet, it turns out this form was preventing customers from purchasing products from a major e-commerce site, to the tune of $300 million a year. What was even worse: the designers of the site had no clue there was even a problem.

The problem wasn’t as much about the form’s layout as it was where the form lived. Users would encounter it after they filled their shopping cart with products they wanted to purchase and pressed the Checkout button. It came before they could actually enter the information to pay for the product.

The team saw the form as enabling repeat customers to purchase faster. First-time purchasers wouldn’t mind the extra effort of registering because, after all, they will come back for more and they’ll appreciate the expediency in subsequent purchases. Everybody wins, right?

“I’m Not Here To Be In a Relationship”

We conducted usability tests with people who needed to buy products from the site. We asked them to bring their shopping lists and we gave them the money to make the purchases. All they needed to do was complete the purchase.

We were wrong about the first-time shoppers. They did mind registering. They resented having to register when they encountered the page. As one shopper told us, “I’m not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.”

Some first-time shoppers couldn’t remember if it was their first time, becoming frustrated as each common email and password combination failed. We were surprised how much they resisted registering.

Without even knowing what was involved in registration, all the users that clicked on the button did so with a sense of despair. Many vocalized how the retailer only wanted their information to pester them with marketing messages they didn’t want. Some imagined other nefarious purposes of the obvious attempt to invade privacy. (In reality, the site asked nothing during registration that it didn’t need to complete the purchase: name, shipping address, billing address, and payment information.)

Not So Good For Repeat Customers Either

Repeat customers weren’t any happier. Except for a very few who remembered their login information, most stumbled on the form. They couldn’t remember the email address or password they used. Remembering which email address they registered with was problematic - many had multiple email addresses or had changed them over the years.

When a shopper couldn’t remember the email address and password, they’d attempt at guessing what it could be multiple times. These guesses rarely succeeded. Some would eventually ask the site to send the password to their email address, which is a problem if you can’t remember which email address you initially registered with.

(Later, we did an analysis of the retailer’s database, only to discover 45% of all customers had multiple registrations in the system, some as many as 10. We also analyzed how many people requested passwords, to find out it reached about 160,000 per day. 75% of these people never tried to complete the purchase once requested.)

The form, intended to make shopping easier, turned out to only help a small percentage of the customers who encountered it. (Even many of those customers weren’t helped, since it took just as much effort to update any incorrect information, such as changed addresses or new credit cards.) Instead, the form just prevented sales - a lot of sales.

The $300,000,000 Fix

The designers fixed the problem simply. They took away the Register button. In its place, they put a Continue button with a simple message: “You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout.”

The results: The number of customers purchasing went up by 45%. The extra purchases resulted in an extra $15 million the first month. For the first year, the site saw an additional $300,000,000.

On my answering machine is the message I received from the CEO of the $25 billion retailer, the first week they saw the new sales numbers from the redesigned form. It’s a simple message: “Spool! You’re the man!” It didn’t need to be a complex message. All we did was change a button.”

‘Winning Websites for Small Businesses’ - a new handbook for New Zealand businesses

I have just finished writing a brand-new handbook for New Zealand businesses, called “Winning Websites for Small Businesses”.

I don’t believe there’s any other publication in New Zealand quite like this handbook because it’s aimed specifically at the unique needs of the New Zealand marketplace.

If you have a website for your business and it’s not getting you the amount of visitors, leads, or sales that you wish it was - this handbook has been written for you!

I’ve basically tried to summarise everything I know about website design and selling on the Internet, in a user-friendly way that is easy for the ordinary business person to understand.

This handbook is not about website design in the ordinary sense. It is about how to build a website that SELLS - and there’s a big difference

If you are keen to find out more about this handbook (and if you’re a New Zealand business that has a website, then you should be) then go to www.winningwebsites.co.nz.

Free website assessment - special offer during May 2009

During May, I am offering a FREE website assessment to anyone who has a website but it’s not bring in the amount of leads or sales you were hoping for.

I will look at your website and give you a brief report about how I think it could be improved. I’ll be looking particularly at factors such as the headline on the site, the sales copy, the offer you are making to your prospective customers … dthe overall “selling power” of the site.

I’ll also look at some basic search engine optimisation factors, such the title tag and other meta tags, and the use of keywords throughout your site. If you have a website and it’s not working as well as you hoped to bring in new business, this is an opportunity for you to get your site assessed, at no cost.

This offer lasts until May 31. If you want to take advantage of it, click here to get a free website assessment.

New direct sales website for UK client, shows the awesome power of the Internet

I’ve just launched a new website for a client in the UK and early results look very encouraging.

The company is selling a range of services to help people who are in debt. This is (unfortunately) a growth industry at the moment in the UK and most of the developed world. So there is a strong demand for such debt consultancy services.

The client is driving traffic to the site using Google Adwords. The aim of the site is ultimately to get people to fill in the enquiry form either on the home page or a more detailed assessment form on an inside page. The site takes a direct selling approach, which is proven to work best on the Internet for this type of person-to-person selling.

I’m delighted with the early response to this site, and so is my client. It’s bringing in a good number of leads for him, and that means he will quickly make back the money he paid for the site (probably within a few days) and then he’ll be in profit.

Already, the same client has asked me to build him two more sites, taking a similar direct selling approach in slightly different but related markets. The power of direct sales websites is enormous, when they’re designed and written correctly.

This client is a smart businessman in his own right and I’m looking forward to helping to build his business (and my own in the process) over the coming months.
(The site is www.debt-trust.co.uk)

Meanwhile, I’ve recently launched another site for a UK client, in a very different market. He is a chartered surveyor in Cambridge, looking to grow his business by marketing online. So far, the results of this site are also very encouraging.

A website like this will work enormously to boost this company’s credibility and is sure to bring in a lot of new business. The site is sharp and modern looking, and is clearly written. (It’s www.alstonsurveyors.co.uk)

It’s very satisfying to work with clients like these two, who truly appreciate the power of the Internet to grow their respective businesses. There must be thousands of other businesses out there who could see the same kind of results, with a properly designed and written website. 

Most small businesses haven’t really grasped how powerful the Internet is as a form of marketing. They are still focusing on the Yellow Pages, the local newspaper and maybe getting bigger and brighter signs etc. The Internet really is an untapped goldmine for local businesses! I’ll write more on this in my next post.

P.S. If you’re interested in organic food, or organics in general, you will be interested in visiting this new website we have built for the NZ Organic Expo and Green Living Show, to be held in Auckland in April 2011.

It’s still two years away but this going to be a big show and we’re starting publicity early. So visit the Organic Expo site and have a look.

What You Need To Know BEFORE You Hire A Website Designer

If you’re looking for a website designer it can be confusing trying to choose the right one. Go through the Yellow Pages in any town or city and you’ll find a long list of web designers. Look on the Internet and you’ll discover even more.

Perhaps you have a friend who knows a bit about web design and has offered to build you a site for free. Should you take up the offer?

Or perhaps you are thinking about building your own website. Should you take the plunge and buy some web design software? Or should you use one of those do-it-yourself website builders that many web hosts are now offering?

Well, it depends what you want your website to look like and, more importantly, what you want your site to achieve. If you are developing a website for your business, the ultimate aim should be to sell more of your products or services. If your website doesn’t help you sell more, why would you invest money in it? A website that doesn’t sell is a liability for your business. But a website that brings in new inquiries and sales, is a valuable asset.

As some businesses are discovering, the Internet can be a powerfully effective form of marketing. For example, one of my clients, who sells steel-frame kitset homes, is getting 90% of his business off the website I built for him. Every morning he opens up his emails and sees 20 or 30 new inquiries from the website. They come like clockwork, every day. He doesn’t need to do any other form of advertising.

So how do you find a designer who can build you a site that sells?

There are two main types of website designer - those who are primarily skilled in graphic design, and others whose main strength is in programming. Those with a graphic design focus will build you a nice-looking site, while the programming whizzes will build a site that works efficiently but may not have the same visual flair.

However, a third factor is needed in a business website. If this third factor is missing, your website will be like a two-legged stool. It will fall over. It won’t work effectively to build your business. It will simply sit out there in cyberspace looking pretty but will get few visitors and make few sales.

This third factor involves marketing. When a visitor arrives at your website, you have just two or three seconds to get across your key marketing message. It needs to be spelled out clearly so it hits your visitor right between the eyes.

Visitors don’t come to your website to be entertained by all the cool effects that your website designer has added. They don’t care how well the back end of the site works. They just want to know what your product or service is all about, and what it can do for them.

So your website needs to have a clear sales message. It needs to present your visitor with an irresistible offer that they can?t refuse. It needs to inspire your visitor to take action - either to purchase your product off the site, or to contact you for more details.

That’s why the ideal website designer needs to have a marketing brain. This kind of designer knows how to lay out the words and pictures on a page for maximum marketing impact. They understand how the human eye moves across a web page (scanning very quickly for anything that looks interesting).

They know how to write a compelling headline that makes your visitor want to keep reading. Successful web design is essentially about marketing.

So you need to bear this in mind when choosing your website designer. When you get to the heart of it, web design is not primarily about art. Nor is it about technology. Web design is essentially about marketing. It is about providing information to your prospective customers, so they will buy from you.

Will your site get a good ranking in the search engines?

If your website gets lots of free traffic from search engines, it can provide a huge boost for your business. There are some simple secrets for getting a good ranking in the search engines, particularly Google, for the main search phrases that your prospective customers are likely to use.

A good web designer will think about the best search phrases, known as “keywords”,  to build each page of the site around. For example, when I built the site for my client who sells kitset homes, the most obvious search phrase was “kitset homes”.  I used these keywords in strategic places in the site, such as in the title tag which is hidden in the code behind the site, which is what the search engines see.

I also used the keywords in other places throughout the content of the site. As a result, this site ranks very highly on Google and other search engines for the search term “kitset homes new zealand”.

What about the cost?
If you’re a small business on a tight budget, the cost of your website is vital factor. You want every dollar you spend to be effective in the prime aim of your site, which, as we have just discussed, is to sell more of your products or services. You may be tempted by cheap offers from designers who say they can build a six-page website for $300 or less.

These kind of sites are based on ready-made templates that, quite frankly, look terrible in most cases. I have re-designed sites for clients who have opted for these cheap offers and later realised their mistake. Generally the old axiom is true - you get what you pay for.

You may get a cheap site by getting your friend to build it. But will this site really help establish the professionalism and credibility of your business? Or will it look cheap and amateurish, and do your business more harm than good.

While a professional web designer may charge more than your friend, bear in mind the incredible long-term marketing power of the Internet if you have the right kind of site. You can keep a website online for less than $20 a monthly. Compare that with the hundreds of dollars a month you can spend on advertising in newspapers, magazines and other media.

In conclusion

As we have discussed, a successful website is one that ranks well in search engines and elicits the desired response from its visitors, and the secret to a successful website is persuasive, keyword-rich content. The layout, the colours, and the pictures are all very important, but the search engines and your visitors respond above all to the words.

This means when you are looking for a web designer, your top priority should be to find a designer who has a marketing brain.

7 Ways To Build Immediate Trust With Your Website

When a visitor arrives at your website, you have just a few seconds to make a good impression. Otherwise … click … they’re gone, probably forever.

One of the biggest factors in whether your visitor stays or leaves is whether they think you site looks trustworthy.

People tend to be wary of what they see and read online. So, you need to make sure your website builds immediate trust when your visitor arrives.

Here are 7 ways to create trust.

1) You need to believe 100% in your product or service.

This is absolutely vital to building trust. It lays the foundation on which your whole business is built … and everything you say on your website will come across as genuine because you believe it.

If you’re not 100% sold on your own product or service … get another business! So, the number one rule in building trust is that you must BE trustworthy yourself.

2) Make sure your site looks professional.

You need a clean, sharp logo that creates the right image for your business. This is one area where it’s worth spending a little money to hire a professional graphic designer. It doesn’t have to be expensive. A simple logo is fine. Just make sure it looks professional.

3) Make sure your site design is simple, clean and uncluttered, so your visitor can easily find their way around.

Again, you don’t need an expensive site. Just a simple design with colours that reflect the image you want to present. Remember … you never get a second chance to make a first impression. So that firstimpression your visitors get when they arrive at your site had better be good!

4) Put a headline on your site that answers the biggest need your prospective customer has.

You need to think carefully about this. Too many websites have weak headlines … or no headline at all! Just the company name, or “Welcome to our website”. You need a strong headline that really speaks straight to the need your potential customer is facing.

It’s different for every business. Get inside your customer’s mind, think about what they need … and what you can offer them … and spell it out loud and clear in your headline.
You’ll build trust because your customer will know you are thinking about THEM … and how you can meet THEIR needs. And that’s all your customer is interested in.

5) Put a photograph of yourself on your site.

This is a great way to build trust. But make sure it’s a good photograph. You know, trustworthiness and integrity shows in a person’s eyes. It shows in your photograph if you’re a trustworthy person. So your customer looks at your photograph and sums you up immediately.

6) Write everything on your site from your customer’s viewpoint.

Everything. Don’t talk about you and your company (most websites make this mistake). Talk only about what you can do for your customer. Spell this out clearly. Tell your customer about all the BENEFITS they’ll gain from doing business with you. You’ll be amazed how your website sales will take off if you do this.

7) Put testimonials on your site from satisfied customers.

Genuine testimonials are a great way to build trust. Don’t be shy about asking your best customers for testimonials. They’re worth their weight in gold.

These are 7 basic principles I’ve found effective in building trust online. If you put them into practice on your own site you can?t help but see your sales increase dramatically.