This is the time of year when many business owners and managers decide to either "redesign" their business website or create a new one to gain more sales. The general thought seems to be that everybody is doing it so I must do the same to keep up. Keep in mind, this must be what the Dodo bird thinks before falling over the edge following his predecessors!
Slap happy Websites
Long gone are the days when 'build it and they will come' worked towards improving your bottom line. In this day and time there is much more competition along with more knowledgeable shoppers online. To gain the confidence of these savvy shoppers, a business website must effectively deal with their needs and expectations. To do less causes them to leave faster than you could ask "what happened?".
Would you only spend 30 minutes redesigning your print advertising?
Of course not! The reasons are obvious. Customers look to your printed materials (e.g. brochures, newspaper and magazine ads, billboards, etc.) to learn about your products and services. Their decisions based on this marketing help determine whether you are profitable or starve!
These printed pieces are designed to generate a response that causes people to perform a particular act such as: visit your location, call your phone, send a letter, etc. Taking the time to improve the effectiveness of your advertising campaign is a must to get ahead of the crowd.
First impressions: Shoppers are not dumb!
There has long been a trend by big business to treat customers as idiots. This sounds harsh but, when you look at the facts it is quite accurate. Take a look at American television advertising and notice how products are promoted. From talking animals to cartoons, many TV ads are little more than feel good along with here is our company or product name. Add to this the shopping cycles created by large retailers by their timely actions such as:
- Raising the majority of product prices just before Christmas while advertising just a few 'teasers' to get customers.
- Raising the price of roses just before Valentine's Day.
- Selling inferior products that are designed to break down in a short time causing the shopper to "need" another one in a short time span.
In my opinion, the repeated actions of these businesses has led to the 'web generation' performing much more research and being less tolerant of the 'retail babble'. These shoppers learn the details about their purchases and are much better prepared to invest the money into the products and services they desire. This has been very well demonstrated in the Real Estate markets around the United States.
Web Marketing: Niche versus 'Be All'
With so many businesses competing online, it is impossible to be everything to everybody (e.g. a 'Be All'). Specializing in a particular 'niche' gives the opportunity to be more in depth regarding knowledge, options and relationships to other products and services. Demonstrating this helps build customer confidence and loyalty both online and in person. Add honesty, integrity and diligence makes for a very competitive business!
Online searchers are specific
When people visit the web, it is no secret that the vast majority go to the major search engines like Google and Yahoo! to find the specific information he or she desires. Depending on which online research study you prefer, performing a search and then selecting a generic result link accounts for well over half of all visits generated from the search engines. Searches these days are often 2 and 3 word phrases (over 55% combined) causing the results to be very niche oriented. This is extremely important if you want to reach these searchers and convert their actions to sales!
Satisfy the Angels, Appease the Devils
There are generally two (2) major categories that shoppers can be classified.
- Angels
Customers who are more interested in the relationship between the business and the shopper. Angels generally boost profits and often become repeat customers.- Devils
Customers who make a purchase, often return products, obtain coupons and
pinch pennies to the point where they spend much more time than money. Devils are the type of customers who will return a product to get their money back only to buy the discounted open box later.
If you have been in business long, you may have many more characteristics for these 2 categories than stated above. In any case, having more angels than devils can be the significant factor in true profitability. With this in mind, it is easier to understand why marketing the lowest price results in higher numbers (e.g. visits, hits, etc.) as well as more devils. These devils turn around and kill your profits by the activities described above and can lead you to the 'poor farm' quickly!
The remainder of this article will help describe how to get more angels and fewer devils to improve your bottom line for you business website and your business overall.
Website Marketing without the SPAM
If you have spent any time sending and receiving email, you are probably well aware of the frustrations SPAM causes. The major search engines are just as aware of the frustrations online searchers feel due to the search engine spamming they received from webmasters and promoters over these past few years.
What is search engine spamming?
In the 'early days' of the internet and search engines, adding META tags (e.g. description, keywords, etc.) to each page caused the search engines to list you for the keyword phrases listed there. This was almost completely done away with by the major search engines when many webmasters tried to 'trick' the search engines by placing the same phrases multiple times in the tags as well as adding phrases that were not included elsewhere on the page nor even the entire website at all!
Many webmasters and designers incorrectly still believe this to be an effective technique with Google and Yahoo! when, in fact, this practice is virtually useless for them. Keyword phrases within META tags are still used by many lesser search engines and directories although not so much on the major search engines.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) - What it does and what it doesn't do
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the technique of improving the content (e.g. graphics, text, underlying code, etc.) to better your ranking for the search engines thus making it easier for online searchers to find your site. Often Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is used interchangeably with SEO. A better definition is that used within the SEMPO glossary:
Search Engine Marketing:
The act of marketing a web site via search engines, whether this be
improving rank in organic listings, purchasing paid listings or a
combination of these and other search engine-related activities.
SEO is not specifically link building although good SEO does include proper text and coding tags for internal linking. To carry your website to the next level of search engine rankings, it is better to look into Link Building and Link Popularity.
Link Building (e.g. increase number of inbound links pointing to your website) involves trading links with other websites (reciprocal linking or 3 way linking) as well as 1 way linking (ex. publish an article on other websites with links back to your own) leading to improved Link Popularity. Considering how much relevance search engines give to link building along with the value of the page where each of those links exist, it is little wonder how popular link trading has become.
Understand that link building only addresses bringing visitors to your website. It does not include converting those visitors to sales nor keeping those visitors at your site for an extended period of time. At H2 SEO we like to relate this similar to bringing people to the doorstep of a business. It's up to the webmaster to convert sales, or in our example up to the store personnel to transact the business.
Earlier I mentioned about the value of the page with the inbound link exists. This value can be measured as related to the Google search engine via Google PageRank (PR). An example of Google PR can be viewed by downloading the Google Toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com/. Some professional SEO's insist the toolbar lags a bit behind the "true PR" of the page. Understand the PR is page by page of the website. Just because the "home page" has a high PR value does not mean subordinate pages will have similar.
Website Design and Hosting play a significant role once a visitor reaches your site. If inbound links bring people to your doorstep, site design and hosting give them the impression on whether to stay or click away. Professionalism in your website says a great deal about who you are and what type of business you are to those online. Don't underestimate the importance of quality including look, feel and especially spelling. Typographical errors become quite annoying to those reading your site and say a lot about who and what you are.
Hosting can easily determine the speed and uptime of your website. Poor hosting can cause a great design to become invisible to online searchers. Cheap hosting may seem like a great deal at the time of purchase but, when people don't stay or even visit you because of site downtime and/or other hosting problems, is it worth it?
Great content leads to action. Having the right copy which can invoke visitors to take action is a primary key for any business website. Think about it. Having great link popularity which brings visitors along with awesome graphics and animation may seem really great at first. Without the visitor taking action such as filling out a form or purchasing something, all of your investment of time and money could go completely down the proverbial drain. Spend the time to get the right text on your website and it may pay back great dividends.
Automated content can include RSS newsfeeds, weather stickys, and various other tools to keep people visiting your site to learn the latest news and more. Keeping these people coming back gives you more and more opportunities to show them why it is important to do business with you. Not bad for free investments and usually low maintenance. Even when some of these are not free, consider the direct and indirect impact each online tool has towards your overall online business objectives. You might be surprised what can drive your visitors to take the exact actions you desire!
As you can see, there are many factors involved in online business and SEO these days. Factoring in that the major search engines are constantly evolving to handle the needs of their customers, you quickly realize the value of professional SEO services. For more info please feel free to visit or call on H2 SEO anytime.