Archive for the ‘Web Site Effectiveness’ Category

Social media is all the rage these days. Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, the list goes on. People want to know who you are, what you look like, what you’re doing and where you’re going. It’s an information craze that would drive IBM’s Deep Blue chess-playing computer insane.

Organizations are adapting to the ever-changing landscape of social media, though with a cautious and unassertive approach. Unfortunately, playing it safe when it comes to social media will only have you chasing prospects and customers instead of the other way around.

Below are some lightening quick ways you can shift toward a more social media focused homepage for your web site. These aren’t revolutionary changes, but they should help you to stay ahead of the pack at least until you can develop a more coherent social media strategy. The three critical areas to focus on are interaction, information and portability. (more…)

I was inspired by a post Seth Godin made this morning about being boring. And taking from his theme, your web site probably sucks, too.

Your web site sucks because it’s boring. It doesn’t do anything. It’s nothing more than an online version of your boring brochure.

Would you really expect someone to convert into a sale on your boring web site? Think about it. Imagine you’re a prospect. Now look at your web site. Why would you buy anything from your company?

The problem is, there are no easy solutions. You can’t just flip a switch and be un-boring. It takes a massive amount of effort and dedication to produce an exciting, conversion-crazy web presence.

But, the first step is to realize that your web site probably sucks. What are you going to do about it?

The toughest thing small businesses run into when building a presence on the web is getting traffic. The web site is up there, but no one’s going to it.

One surefire way to get immediate action on a web site is PPC advertising. The downfall, obviously, is that the cost per action associated with that advertising can be overwhelming. Another problem is that most small businesses just don’t get PPC.

The best investment of time comes from building organic traffic. Organic traffic is visits generated from the regular listings within a search engine. You pay nothing for it and it gives you a huge boost in credibility. That’s one thing PPC can’t buy — credibility.

The first step in building organic traffic is to add valuable, keyword-rich content to your web site. This can be in the form of blog posts, articles, tips, guides, tutorials, and so forth. The second step is to keep growing that content. The third step is to evaluate and analyze whether or not you’re making any headway in search engines.

Start today and keep doing it. It takes many small actions to generate big results.

Web sites have been around for over 15 years. And in those 15 years, not much has changed. A web site still presents a general set of features that are pretty standardized across all web sites. You visit the homepage to get a quick snapshot of an organization, maybe read some text on a service or offering, read more into the organization’s background, and maybe fill out a form or buy a product.

With the rapid evolution of technology during the so-called Information Age, one would expect web sites to have advanced significantly.

That isn’t the case. So what can you do about it?

(more…)

Critical to any successful marketing campaign is a way to measure results. You must know whether your actions are paying off or if they’re headed down the wrong path. Without this knowledge, you’re flying blind.

Fortunately, there are a handful of ways to measure the impact a Facebook presence is having on your organization.

1) Page Statistics

If you setup a page for your company or product, then you open yourself up to a wealth of data. Dubbed "insights," Facebook enables you to view critical visitor statistics of your page. You can see everything from the number of new fans to unique visitors to a breakdown of demographic information.

From a marketing standpoint, this information is extremely valuable. Not only can you track the effectiveness of your page, you can also get detailed information on what type of people those visitors are.

(more…)

Small businesses have a particularly difficult time in determining exactly how their web site should be built. Central to this issue is how to make the site user-friendly. Most small businesses concentrate their web design efforts on just getting something up there. Unfortunately, this often leads to a confusing web presence that users have a hard time understanding and navigating.

Just "getting something up there" is the wrong approach. You have to think like the visitors who will be using your site and design for their needs.

So, how can you make your web site stronger by keeping user-friendliness and usability in mind?

(more…)

It’s 2009. A new year. And with each new year, people generally set goals and expectations for the months to come.

What about your web site?

What goals and expectations have you set for your web site that you would like to see happen for 2009?

(more…)

Over the past month, in our four-part homepage re-design series, we’ve talked about the need to fight the urge to clutter your homepage with every tidbit about your organization. We also went over how to analyze your audience and competitors in order to craft a sound strategy for designing your homepage.

But you’re not finished.

Once the homepage is built, you’ve just begun. Success on the web depends on a cycle of testing, measuring and fine-tuning. You’ll likely never get your homepage perfect which is why this is a continual process.

(more…)

Some would argue that it’s important you understand your competition before your audience. I think it depends on the level of understanding you need. In many cases, you must first fully understand your audience before you can even begin to understand what your competitors are doing right (and wrong).

And so it’s with that sentiment in mind that we open up the third part in our homepage re-design series – understanding your competitors.

Having a solid comprehension of your primary competitors’ movements, philosophies, strategies and tactics, audiences, and offerings is essential at the most basic level of marketing. You can’t beat what you don’t know.

By knowing the competition – especially on the web – you open yourself up to two important avenues: imitation or creative distinction.

(more…)

To re-cap the first part of our homepage re-design series, the key to a strong homepage is clarity, conciseness and consistency. A good homepage clearly outlines what your organization is all about, where users can go (and where they want to go) and why users should even be at your web site.

Internet users are creatures of short attention spans. You have only a few seconds to grab, hold and increase the interest of your user. It seems like an impossible feat to accomplish, but it is doable if you understand your audience.

Getting inside the heads of your audience – whether they’re young or old, rich or poor, smart or dumb – is nothing new. Good marketing dictates this.
However, for the web, only a handful of organizations actually do this research.

Why is that?

(more…)