Take Care Of Those Who Hold The Checkbook

Managing Customer Care:

“It’s easier to keep a client than find a new one.”

Yeah, it’s an old cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true. The key to long-term site success is an expanding customer/client base – repeat buyers of your goods or services.

Chances are, she won't be back

Keeping the customer satisfied, especially for web-based businesses, isn’t a walk in the park but there are things you, as webmaster, can do to manage client care, keeping the customer satisfied and coming back for more.

1. Maintain an accurate order tracking system.  If you use a delivery service like FedEx or UPS, you’ll get tracking software with your account. But, if you’re trucking 37 ceramic figurines to the post office every day, you’ll need an order tracking system – preferably one that can identify “downstream” problems like: “Hey, you’re going to run out of hula girl bobble heads next Thursday. Time to reorder.”

2. Stay involved. You may be using a drop shipper to manage inventory storage, shipping and handling, and it’s not always easy during the rush of the day to check tracking data – even if you’re shipping out of a spare room. Track all problem orders yourself.

3. Provide updates to the buyer. An auto-responder as soon as the problem is identified with an opt out box to cancel the sale. You may lose that one, but your straightforwardness and ease of use will make a positive impression.

Federal law requires that orders must be filled within 30 days, after which the buyer is no longer obligated to pay. Don’t ship without renewed buyer approval.

4. Provide US-based customer support 24/7. In this global marketplace, someone is always buying, and someone always has a question. Also, empower telephone reps to accept returns with the customer’s receipts. This saves on call-backs and significantly lowers buyers’ stress levels.

5. Use dynamic pages designed specifically for each visitor.  Best example? Amazon. My home page is different from your home page based on our past buying histories. All of this data is stored in Amazon’s database and when I log on, I’m bombarded with recommendations based on items purchased five years ago.

But Amazon stills calls me by my first name. That’s nice.

6. Last key point. Overdeliver. If prudent, drop a personalized email or even make a telephone call. People are really pleasant when the company CEO calls and promises satisfaction.

The whole point of quality customer care is to create word of mouth (WOM) viral marketing. Treat your customers or clients right, and viral WOM will do the rest in growing that client base bigger and bigger.

Hey, feel free to drop me a line about taking care of your copy and sales needs. Let's talk.

Webwordslinger

editor@webwordslinger.com

What You Don't Know About Google Can Hurt You

Making the Most of Google's SE

The world of e-commerce depends on Google. Even though there are more than 4,000 search engines available, including the biggies like Yahoo, AltaVista, Ask Jeeves, etc., the name people know is Google. Even the word itself has become part of everyday speak, as in, "Let me Google that." (a verb) or "I want the Google on our competition." (the complete picture). So, as a site owner or designer, it pays to get the Google on Google - more specifically, how potential visitors to your site might use this mighty SE with over 100 billion pages currently in its data base

In addition, Google offers a lot of search options that will enable site owners to see their sites the way the Googlebot sees them. Something as simple as revising your site's title tag can make a significant difference in how Google's SE picks you up, views your site, ranks it and, subsequently, places your URL on its SERPs - all in one-tenth of a second.

Most users simply log on to the Google site, enter their query (in the form of key words), hit the enter key and wait to see what pops up. This is called a default search and it will deliver all sites in which the entered keywords appear as part of the SERPs available to the user. In other words, the user will get pages and pages of search results that are only marginally associated to his or her search topic.

By using common symbols, the more sophisticated users can narrow their searches, isolating those sites that are truly relevant. For example, by adding a minus sign (-) in front of a key word, Google's SE will NOT show the results of that key word. So, let's say you're looking for a recipe for apple pie. The last thing you want is 118 useless SERPs about Apple, the company. So, you might enter: 'apple pie -Apple computer' to eliminate pages of information about Steven Jobs. The tilde (~) tells the SE to search for the entered keywords and synonyms of the keywords. Add quotes to key words and only pages in which quotes appear around the key words will be delivered to the user's screen.

All of these basic search techniques improve the quality of search results for users, making users happy and Google shareholders even happier. But then there are Google Search operators - in fact, specified keywords that the SE recognizes as directions rather than words to be searched. And some of these operators will be extremely useful to the owners of e-commerce sites by enabling them to optimize their sites while conducting e-espionage on competitor sites - and it's all free.

Here's a for instance: want to find out how many inbound links are pointing to your site? Try this: link:www.yoursitename.com. Obviously, type in your site's name where it says 'yoursitename'. You'll get SERPs with all URLs pointing to your site. And as most site owners know, quality, non-reciprocal links are like gold when it comes to improving your PageRank. You can also identify links that aren't helping your site. In other words, this Google tool allows you to control inbound links - an ability that's grown in importance now that Google heavily weighs inbound links in its ranking algorithm.

Want to know what the competition is doing? It's simple enough. All you have to do is enter: related:www.yoursitename.com and sites that are, in some way, related to yours, will appear. Not only is this a good means of tracking competitor activities, it's also a great way to find sites that might be interested in some link swapping - always a good thing, especially for the owner of a small or brand new site.    

Now, turning to the matter of SEO and how Google's search services can help determine if your site is, indeed, fully optimized. Check this out: try using the search engine to see how your site ranks when the SE is instructed to find keywords only in the title of your page. Enter: allintitle: fruit baskets (of course substituting any of your keywords in place of the example keywords, fruit baskets, unless you're in the fruit basket business). Chances are, if your site's PageRank tanks on this search, a bit of tweaking of your title tag just might be in order. If your title tag reads 'Rosie's Little Bit of Home", i.e., no mention of fruit baskets, your visitor traffic will increase by simply adding the words 'fruit baskets' to your title tag.

You can also check out your site's level of optimization by conducting the following Google searches:

1. To have Google search for keywords - your keywords - in the text of the site, type in:

            allintext: fruit baskets

This search will identify if keyword density and placement are sufficient to make the Google SE sit up and take notice. 

2. To ask Google to search for your keywords in URLs only, type in:

            allinurl: fruit baskets

A search of URLs will reveal sites similar to yours (since all sites will have the same key words as part of their address, i.e. fruitbaskets.com, yourfruitbasket.com and, of course, the ever-popular fruitbaskets'r'us.com. If these sites are ranking higher than your site, check out what the competition is doing better than you. E-espionage is legal, so do a little spying on the competition and learn from them.

3. How about a search of the anchor text of all sites that mention your keywords? Type in:

            allinanchor: fruit baskets

This will indicate sites that mention fruit baskets somewhere in their anchor text, which might also indicate sites interested in reciprocal links.

4. When Google discovers your site (or you submit your URL for spidering), the SE takes a snapshot of every indexed page and places them into a cache. To search the pages in your site's cache, type:

            cache:www.fruitbaskets.com

To further refine the search of cached pages, you can also conduct a keyword search within the cache. Simply type:

            cache:www.fruitbaskets.com web

And finally,

5. On of the most useful tools Google offers for no-cost marketing research is the info search. This will provide whatever information Google keeps on your site (or any other site, for that matter). Type:

            info:www.fruitbasket.com

This will produce a general profile of your site and the sites of your competitors, at least from the Google perspective. Much of this information - everything from inbound links to meta tag text - can help you (or your web designer) deliver more visitor traffic and  a higher conversion rate because visitors are actually looking for your product, not something like your product. In short, better results all around.

Google's objective is to deliver the highest quality search results to its users, which is one of the reasons they offer this variety of search tools for knowledgeable users and, of course, site owners. Your knowledge of how the leading SE views your site and compares it to similar (competitive) sites is a critical aspect of making adjustments to everything from key word density to fresh anchor text.

To learn even more about the tools Google offers, click on the links below and get  your site Googlized. (See, another new word!)

http://www.googleguide.com/advanced_operators.html

http://www.google.com/help/refinesearch.html

And be sure to stop by the ol’ website for a free SEO and business development consultation. See ya there.

The Easier It Is To Find Information, the Higher Your Conversion Rate

Accessibility:

It’s What A Web Site Is All About

Accessibility, when discussing web sites, includes a number of factors: easy navigation, understandable site text, no dead ends requiring a browser back click to escape (lots of users don’t even know browsers HAVE a back click).

Let’s start with the bottom line- yours: the easier it is for a site visitor to perform the most desired action (MDA), the more times that MDA will be performed.

Let’s Start With Navigation

Whether you go with a navigation bar at the top of the screen or a menu list in the first column far left, your navigation must be:

• simple
• unambiguous
• truthful
• always available
• always in the same location 

Avoid numerous tabs, drop-down or flyout menus. Keep it simple. If visitors are faced with too many choices too soon on arriving at the site, chances are they’ll bounce.

Keep the navigation unambiguous. It’s routine to have a "Contact Us” page on a web site. If you label the contact link “Company Authority,” visitors are going to be totally confused. And again, bounce.

Truthful is just what it says. If the link says “Product Descriptions,” don’t make the visitor read through another landing page of sell copy. Deliver what the link says and go directly to the products.

Always available is an aspect of keeping visitors on site longer, and the longer they stick around, the more likely they are to perform the MDA. So, the navigation bar or menu should be available from every page so the visitor can surf at will, unencumbered by what YOU think the visitor wants to know.

Finally, keep the nav tabs in the same place. Don’t move them from bar to menu and back to bar. The last thing you want is a visitor trying to figure out how to return to the contact page to make contact.

Keep it simple. The fewer clicks required to get the visitor to perform the MDA, the better. So, go through the process and eliminate every unnecessary side road, dead end and yet another landing page.

Accessible Content

If your client site is for a professional medical dispenser, you can assume that the visitors have some knowledge of the subject, i.e. you don’t have to start from square one. But you still have to stay on target pointing out the benefits of buying the client’s medical products.

On the other hand, if you’re writing text for a hearing aid retail outlet, accessible text is understandable by the reader. So first, toss the thesaurus. Find the simplest, shortest way to say what needs to be said about products and services.

Be helpful and supportive to the new visitor. Make things simple to find, simple to learn and simple to bookmark. Returning visitors are gold. Eventually they buy something so earning a bookmark is a very good thing.

Skip the hype. Educate the visitor using simple terms, no jargon and listing benefits rather than features. This is the stuff site visitors want to know.

Finally, lay out the text so it can be scanned rather than read. No big, long paragraphs. Visitors scan from upper left to lower right so put your most important info upper left on the screen.

The easier it is to buy something, opt-in for a newsletter, or to complete a form, the more often those MDAs are performed. So make it as simple as possible (why do you think Amazon offers a one-click checkout? How easy can it be?).

Accessibility benefits both site owner and site visitor – a win-win. Also a no brainer.

More good information at webwordlsinger.com. Cya there.

HERE'S WHAT YOUR COPY WRITER NEEDS TO KNOW

How To Talk to Your Copywriter:

Here’s What We Need To Know

Copy Writing
Shouldn't Be a Puzzle.
Just Tell Us What You Want.

As soon as search engines became relevant, copywriting changed. Maybe you didn’t notice it. Content quality took a back seat to SEO and today, copywriters have to understand the basics of SEO/M so the content they produce appeals to spiders and humans.

A lot of SEOs sub-contract this facet of a job to professional copywriters who can produce optimized copy that doesn’t sound like spider snack gibberish. Keyword placement in headers, density of 1-2%, judicious use of bolded, underlined or italicized text and you have yourself some fine, SEO text. No sweat, right?

Well, that depends. The more the copywriter knows about the SOW, the smoother the content development. Here’s what a copywriter wants to know from any client, you for example:

What is the purpose of the content?  Content can be used to explain, clarify, persuade, inform, direct, motivate and, on occasion, even inspire. What is the MDA after the reader has finished reading the words?

To whom is the text targeted?  Experts don’t need explanations. They talk the talk so the content can contain “insider” references that create a feeling of “us” as in you and the site visitor.

What is the product, service or message? If you can provide a good copywriter with a product spec sheet or a web page recommended by the SEO’s client, the writer can convert specs and hard data into client or consumer benefits, and that’s what sells. How does this make me more productive, successful, richer, more famous…more anything.

What is the USP? The unique selling position (also sometimes called the UPS – unique positioning statement within a market sector) is what sets the SEO client apart from the competition. A good copywriter researches the competition and “steals” the best ideas. Ideas can’t be copyrighted. 

What is the site’s content architecture? If you’re a copywriter, you don’t want to blow your wad on the home page and have nothing more motivational on deeper pages. A good copywriter ensures that informational content is spread liberally across a number of site pages.

Consider your copywriter a valuable asset in content architecture development. These men and women understand the “need-to-know” flow on site so visitors never encounter content that hasn’t been explained.

Can the content be used in more than one way? Home page text may make great text for a four-color tri-fold with a couple of word changes. The copywriter – a good one – can add value to the SEO’s consultation by producing content that serves more than one purpose, thus amortizing content development costs.

Finally, remember: copywriters are highly-caffeinated, neer-do-wells who want the project to go smoothly. These sellers of “words by the pound” want in, out, done. Hey, that’s the same thing the SEO wants.

When you find a good copywriter who can transcend audiences and topics – from the mundane to the highly-technical (quark theory?), keep them on a leash.

We tend to wander off.


Stop by www.webwordslinger.com for more tips on how to get the most from your SEO copy writer. Advice is always free.

KEEP YOUR CLIENTS HAPPY AND THEY'LL BE BACK

SEO Client Retention:

The Key to Long-Term SEO/M Business Success

An Unhappy Client Ain't Comin' Back

Building a successful SEO/M consultancy is hard. There’s a lot of competition and a lot of snake oil, SEO voodoo floating around the web, so building a solid reputation – one that leads to referrals and repeat business is essential to long-term business growth.

Once you have a client, you have to keep that client coming back because of the quality services and opinions you offer. You have to build a client base of happy clients. They come back for more. They’re also your best salespeople.

Here are some suggestions for keeping the customer satisfied.

1. Go through an extensive discovery phase. Determine such things as the target demographic, market competition, unique selling position, client objectives, challenges – a top-down analysis of what needs doing. A few hours more at this stage will save days of re-dos in the weeks ahead.

2. Prepare a written SOW. A statement of work describes the work to be undertaken (usually in chronological order), approval milestones, payment schedule, who’s going to do what. The more complete the SOW the more accurate the client’s expectations. Clients hate surprises so get on the same page early.

3. Give a stake to the client. No client is going to quibble with a strategy or design that s/he proposed. Instead of presenting finished pages and data analysis, engage the client and incorporate his or her suggestions into the final product. As best you can, let the client “own” the project.

4. Go proactive. In everything. Offer suggestions and counsel beyond the expectations of the client. If you discover an error you’ve made, call the client to let her know you’re on top of it. 

5. Communicate. A lot. Not just approvals, though they’re essential to increased productivity, but also discuss implementation strategies, guerilla marketing tactics and opportunities for future growth of the client’s business.

6. Fix it. If the client ain’t happy, fix it. Period. A happy client will talk you up through his network. An unhappy client will bad mouth you to anyone who will listen. Rely on your SOW only as a last resort. Keep the client happy – even if it’s a loss leader for you.

Growing a stable of regular clients takes time and trust building. It’s an on-going process. But once your regulars are making up 75% of your work time, you don’t have to constantly worry about where the next job is coming from.


Need more suggestions for building a successful on-line business. Stop by www.webwordslinger.com for more on web-based success.

BUSINESS SUCCESS IS FOUNDED ON A STABLE CLIENT BASE

Managing Customer Care:

“It’s easier to keep a client 

than find a new one.”

Yeah, it’s an old cliché, but it’s a cliché because it’s true. The key to long-term site success is an expanding customer/client base – repeat buyers of your goods or services.

Keeping the customer satisfied, especially for web-based businesses, isn’t a walk in the park but there are things you, as webmaster, can do to manage client care, keeping the customer satisfied and coming back for more.

1. Maintain an accurate order tracking system.  If you use a delivery service like FedEx or UPS, you’ll get tracking software with your account. But, if you’re trucking 37 ceramic figurines to the post office every day, you’ll need an order tracking system – preferably one that can identify “downstream” problems like: “Hey, you’re going to run out of hula girl bobble heads next Thursday. Time to reorder.”

2. Stay involved. You may be using a drop shipper to manage inventory storage, shipping and handling, and it’s not always easy during the rush of the day to check tracking data – even if you’re shipping out of a spare room. Track all problem orders yourself.

3. Provide updates to the buyer. An auto-responder as soon as the problem is identified with an opt out box to cancel the sale. You may lose that one, but your straightforwardness and ease of use will make a positive impression.

Federal law requires that orders must be filled within 30 days, after which the buyer is no longer obligated to pay. Don’t ship without renewed buyer approval.

4. Provide US-based customer support 24/7. In this global marketplace, someone is always buying, and someone always has a question. Also, empower telephone reps to accept returns with the customer’s receipts. This saves on call-backs and significantly lowers buyers’ stress levels.

5. Use dynamic pages designed specifically for each visitor.  Best example? Amazon. My home page is different from your home page based on our past buying histories. All of this data is stored in Amazon’s database and when I log on, I’m bombarded with recommendations based on items purchased five years ago.

But Amazon stills calls me by my first name. That’s nice.

6. Last key point. Overdeliver. If prudent, drop a personalized email or even make a telephone call. People are really pleasant when the company CEO calls and promises satisfaction.

The whole point of quality customer care is to create word of mouth (WOM) viral marketing. Treat your customers or clients right, and viral WOM will do the rest in growing that client base bigger and bigger.

editor@webwordslinger.com

Will Your Website Take Off Like a Rocket?

3…2…1…Launch

The Dos and Don’ts of a Successful Site Launch

 

photo courtesy of NASA1fanMSFC

You’ve selected your template, your palette of colors and written your site text so it’s irresistible to any visitor who happens on your site. Good for you. Unfortunately, if you don’t prepare for a successful site launch, not too many visitors will happen upon your site. They won’t even know it’s there.

So how are visitors, potential buyers or clients, going to find you among the millions of other web sites covering the cyber terrain? Well, the answer, at least in part, is SEO – search engine optimization – making your site more easily recognizable to search engine spiders.

It can take weeks, months and even years to have a site indexed by Google, Yahoo, MSN and other search engines – unless you go proactive and make your site spider friendly. It also helps if you invite these crawlers to stop by for a look. So, here are some dos and don’ts to ensure your site launch doesn’t go unnoticed.

Avoid These Common SEO Black Holes

Search engine spiders aren’t smart. They don’t think and they have to be led from place to place within a site. They’re unable to “read” certain kinds of information and they don’t make connections between that body of text and the image associated with it.

Black Hole #1

Spiders can not read text in graphics – any kind of graphics. So, if you’ve loaded up your site with Flash animations or graphics frames to appeal to human eyeballs, these images won’t appeal to spiders. They won’t even be noticed.

Black Hole #2

Spiders don’t bounce around a site randomly (thank goodness), they track links from page to page. Links can be embedded in site text to direct spiders to each page of your site to ensure that it’s completely and accurately indexed. No links, or too few links, and you won’t get the recognition you need for long-term site success.

Black Hole #3

Keywords still count, though not as much as they once did. Spiders crawl text strings looking for repeating words and phrases. They count up the number of keywords per block of text to determine keyword density. You’ll need keyword dense text that also appeals to human readers.

Don’t select keywords willy-nilly. Search engines employ a taxonomy – a system of classification – to place your newly-launched site into one category or another. Select keywords that spiders don’t understand, within the context of the entire site, and you’re sure to have search engine problems.

So, remember, no critical text in graphics, add some embedded links and select keywords with care to avoid being sucked into an SEO black hole.

Take These Positive SEO Steps

There are lots of low- and no-cost steps you can take to gain the attention of search engine spiders – even if your marketing budget is the change you find in the sofa.

Link Up

One thing search engines like to see is links from other sites – especially from sites with page ranks (PR) higher than your site. Page rank is measured on a scale of 1 – 10, 10 being the highest. So, Yahoo – the most visited site on the W3 – has a page rank of 10. The Open Source Directory has a PR of 9.

By submitting your site to various directories and portals like these, you gain prestige in the “eyes” of SE spiders. Now, some directories, like the Open Source Directory at www.dmoz.org are free – a good thing. Google’s directory is free as well, but it costs you $300 to get listed in Yahoo’s directory of “selected” sites. It’s a great way to get some respect right from the start. Link up with directories. To find a listing of free and paid directories visit www.stronglinks.com/directories.php.

Spread the Word

The world wide web requires a ton of new content everyday. Think about it – there are a lot of site pages to fill each day, so many sites are looking for free content. And you can give it to them.

Press releases, keyword optimized without sounding like gibberish, will get you noticed as more sites post your release with links to your site – a wonderful thing in the eyes of a spider. There are on-line companies that distribute press releases. Some do it for free, others charge for the service. Some companies to look at are: www.pr.com, www.prleap.com and www.clickpress.com. There are lots of others.

Another way to spread the word is through article syndication. Are you an authority on the products or services you market on-line? If so, you can write 10 or 20 articles on various aspects of your expertise and put them out for syndication. These articles will be picked up by sites and displayed with a link back to your site. You get to establish your creds as an authority first, then provide a link back to your site. It works.

Link Exchanges

Good, but time-consuming and a bit humiliating. Links exchanges are simply asking sites related to yours to exchange links. “I link to you; you link to me.” This creates various pathways for web users to find what they’re looking for. However, do note that if you’re linked up to any old site, sites unrelated to your own, SEs will lower your marks because these aren’t links helpful to visitors. So, stay within your field with links exchanges and always try to link with a site that has a higher PR than yours.

Blogs and Forums

A lot of sites have blogs today – places where visitors can post articles and other useful information, or respond to articles that have been posted by the site owners.

Contribute to these info outlets if you can string words together into sentences. It doesn’t have to be great art (though well-written and without mistakes is nice), it just has to be relevant, useful to readers and written with authority. The one problem with blogs is that they’re updated regularly on big sites so your insightful analysis of long-chain polymer molecules might disappear quickly into the blog’s archives.  On the other hand, because blogs and forums are updated frequently, they always need new content, some of which could be yours.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC)

You know those sponsored links you see on search engine results pages – Ads by Goooooooogle? Well, somebody paid money to have that ad and link placed there. Google’s Adwords program allows advertisers to bid on different keywords. The highest bidder for a given keyword receives the most prominent placement on the SERPs. You can bid as low as five cents for some keywords (not the best of them) and many bucks for really good keywords in hot market segments.

Of course, this requires some marketing capital. If you can afford programs like Adwords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing, you can give your site a running start with PPC marketing. The good thing is you only get charged when a web user clicks on your paid link. The bad thing is you pay every time a user clicks on the link whether s/he buys something or not.

Google Sitemap

Log on to Google, click on Business Solutions and follow the path to the Google Sitemap service. Here, you can upload your own sitemap, basically “telling” Google to come take a look at you.

Spiders love site maps because that’s where the links are and they can find a lot of information quickly all in one spot. By uploading your site map to the largest, most popular search engine within the known solar system, you’ll get noticed faster. And just as importantly, your site will be completely and accurately indexed from the start.

It takes much more than a good looking website to find success on the web. It’s a lot of hard work and it won’t happen overnight. But, by following some of these steps your site will start showing up in SERPs, generating “organic” visitors – the best kind to have.

So, even if you’re working with a non-existent promotion budget, there are plenty of free steps you can take to move your recently launched site closer to profitability.

Good luck,

Webwordslinger.com

LOCALIZED SEARCH: ARE YOU LOOKING FOR BUSINESS FROM MOZAMBIQUE?

YOUR NEXT BUYER IS RIGHT HERE.

YOUR NEXT BUYER

Local Site SEO/SEM:

Think Small. Win BIG.

Of course GE has a huge website and Microsoft’s digital space is the size of a couple of football fields – everything from download patches to sales to rights-free clip art. A web site, for any well-known business, is a must. So is a HUGE web presence. That’s why these global conglomerates have SEO professionals on staff. It’s also why these sites rank so highly on Google. They’re enormous and optimized to the nth degree.

But what about your little boutique on Main Street, Anytown, USA. Or your car dealership out on Route 81? Can you compete with the big guys and if so, how? Here’s a quick primer on SEO for local businesses looking for traffic within a 40 mile radius of the business’ brick-and-mortar storefront or office building.

You don’t need a big budget and you don’t have to be an SEO to rank highly on local searches. But you do have to design your site for local search and optimize the site skin for the highest conversion ratios. So, here’s how to put your little hometown business on the web map – and actually drive traffic.

Google Webmaster

Google Webmaster Central is a treasure trove of Google-based tools designed to provide data and tips on improving your site’s page rank (PR) on Google’s search engine results pages or SERPs.

Google provides tools to improve local site traffic with its Keyword Generator, its Diagnostics that identify problems encountered during the last Googlebot visit – everything from an old home page still on your server to broken links. If bots have a problem, you have a problem.

This site also provides analytics: what does your site look like to a Googlebot (remember bots never see the site skin, just the HTML code under the site), there’s a Site Status Wizard to determine how many pages of your site are actually indexed in Google’s database of over 100 billion web pages. Google Analytics provides a breakdown of visitor traffic – who, what where, when and sometimes even why – all in one place.

Google Gadgets

Free stuff and especially useful for two purposes: (1) site stickiness and (2) local search. These doo-dads and gizmos keep visitors coming back and customers walking through your front doors. So what can you get from the Google Gadget goodie bag? Local weather, calendars and local time, all perfect for local search for local businesses. These Google gadgets enhance the visitor’s perception that you really are local and that’s a very good thing.

Google Gadgets also includes an online to-do list function. Ideal for local search. TO DO: go to dry cleaners – your dry cleaners. You can also pick up complete mapping functions – another must have for site localization. How do people get to your outlet?

Google’s To-Do List

Using Google maps, you can provide written directions and even a printable map. And all of these features are free when you open a Google account – which you should do ASAP.

“Hey, we’re right at the intersection of Maple and Main!”

Local SEO

You don’t want business 400 miles away from your shop. You want people who live in your area to stop by to make a purchase (unless you want to go global and get into drop shipping, which is another topic altogether). Adding gadgets like maps and local weather help convert visitors and lower your cost-per-acquisition (CPA) by delivering highly-qualified local buyers – web users who have located your store or office through a local search.

To improve the likelihood of being found locally, here are some tips to ensure that Googlebots and other crawlers get it right. Oh, and btw, if you don’t think this is critical to the long-term success of your business, check out these stats:

Seven out of 10 web users employ local search, aka 70% of potential prospects!

68% of surfers call the telephone number provided by a local business to ask questions about product availability, directions, questions when “Some assembly required” and so on. People like searching globally but they love buying locally. It’s so much more personal.

One-half of search engine users add a geographic modifier to their query words, aka, certified public account dallas texas. It’s easy to understand why. There are some things (like a tax audit) that you want to deal with face-to-face so you call a local CPA – or at least 50% of web users do.

So, in no particular order of effectiveness (do them all) here are some suggestions for upping local traffic through local search:

• Add the name of your community to HTML tags – keyword tag, title tag, description tag and other HTML code. Remember, this is what spiders spider – not the site skin – so SEO is all about optimizing your code, NOT the site skin. However, you should also add local contact information on the site itself. This text synchs up with tag content, adding validity to the site’s code. (No funny stuff goin’ on.)

• Make your URL visible within the local community. If your business advertises in the local newspaper, make sure the site URL is prominently displayed. Think of your web site as an opportunity to tell local buyers why they should by locally and, more germane, why they should buy from you.

• List your business with Google Maps. When visitors access mapping from Google, Google Earth or MapQuest, your little business shows up as a push-pin online and in a printable format.

• Develop a list of long-tail keywords that would be used by local search engine users. If you go with the top-used keywords, you’ll get buried in Google’s SERPs. How well will “Bonnie’s Art Supplies” stand out against Dick Blick and the hundreds of other mega-crafts stores that sell art supplies? Bonnie will be lucky if her site ever sees the light of day using the most popular keywords.

• Instead, create a list of long-tail keywords – keyword phrases that locals would use, e.g., restaurants boothbay harbor maine or tourist information boothbay harbor maine. This narrows the number of search engine users who actually employ these long-tails, but moves your site to page one of the SERPs when a user does employ one of your localized, long-tail keywords. Make sure these keywords are topic-city specific.

• In your site text (which will be part of the site’s code and, therefore, spidered) use words that describe your service region. Words like “near,” “around,” and “vicinity of” can be used to expand or contract your service area.

• Some SEO experts claim that people don’t search by zip code. I do. And it doesn’t hurt to have your zip in your body text a bunch of times.

• When creating long-tail, region-specific keywords, spell out the name of the state and avoid abbreviations, e.g. Boothbay Harbor Maine, not Boothbay Harbor ME.

• Link to other businesses maintaining websites within your service community. This includes community sites, tourism sites and local business directory sites. Also, privately-owned sites specifically targeted at a local community are popping up like weeds. They provide local news, weather, some local reporting and links to local businesses – hey, like yours!

• Post informational content on local blogs. Many communities maintain blogs – places where people can sell an old couch or ask for volunteers for the upcoming May Fest. These “local spots” are fast turning into the web log-on page – the place to get the local news and download a coupon for a free pizza when you buy eight. (Good deal.)

• Don’t fool with Google. You can try multi-listing under different names when you register with Google Maps, but if you get caught employing this gray-hat tactic, your site can be sanctioned – sent to the back of the line – or banned altogether.

Local search is here to stay and more and more web users are employing the local search options now offered by the big search engines. Locals don’t want their eyes tested by someone 3,000 miles away. They want your eyeglass emporium. The want to make an appointment by telephone, print out a map to your specs store, and they want the personalized service they only get locally.

Optimize your site for local search and the local community. Who knows? If you supply enough good, local information, your home page may become the log-on for hundreds, even thousands of local prospects.

And you know that’s going to be good for business.

Localized search delivers powerful results in a short time - and it's growing more popular every day. Drop me a line. Your next customer is right down the street. No, really.

Webwordslinger.com

BOOST YOUR SITE'S CONVERSION RATIO: IT AIN'T BRAIN SURGERY!

IF THEY AIN'T BUYING, WHY MAKE IT HARDER?

SIX STUMBLING BLOCKS TO AVOID - LIKE NOW.

Six Stumbling Blocks to Making That Sale:

Why Make It Harder to Sell?

What if you went to your favorite clothing boutique and discovered the door was locked? A note on the door states “Please enter your access code to enter.” Access code? Never mind, I’ll just go across the street to buy a new tie.

In the real-world retail sector, merchandising is a science. Makers of your favorite breakfast cereal fight for shelf position at the supermarket. They all want the eye-level shelf because that’s where most shoppers look first. The boxes of cereal on the top and bottom shelves don’t move as fast because of shelf placement.

And how about those displays of soda and hot dog buns you see at the end of each supermarket aisle. This is prime selling floor real estate and food makers pay the store for these prized locations. Same with all the gum, candy and other “impulse” items by the checkout. Those products are there because people waiting to get checked out buy them on impulse. “Oh, I deserve a treat,” so a Mr. Goodbar gets tossed into the shopping cart along with this week’s fabulous edition of The National Enquirer. The buying activities of store shoppers are studied, critiqued, focus-grouped-to-death, analyzed, utilized and ultimately, the entire store is arranged to generate more sales.

Well, the same principles apply to website design. The design of your website can make it easier or harder for a visitor to make a purchase. Here are six stumbling blocks you can remove from your site today to see your conversion ratios improve in a matter of days. Really.

1. Eliminate the member log-in from the home page. You see this a lot and you wonder what the site designer was thinking. When most visitors see a log-in box, they know they’re giving up their email addresses to gain access to the goodies on your site. And they expect the back sell – the sell that takes place once a visitor opts in.

But it makes no sense to place the opt in log-in on the home page because visitors don’t even know what their opting for yet. Instead, use the home page to entice the visitor deeper into the site. Show visitors that by opting in they get a valuable service or good information – free. In other words, prove the worthiness of site information before making the pitch for an opt-in.

2. Provide good information free. And plenty of it. Articles, stories, pictures of products in use embedded in informational content lends credibility to you, the site and the product.

Often times, buyers don’t know what they don’t know. They’re trying to learn as they window shop and you’re going to teach them by providing good informational content about product pros and cons. You want the buyer to purchase the right product. It saves time, money and the hassles of returns so teach and sell on your site. It’s a potent combination. And it works, too.

3. Make it easy to find the right item. There are two ways to do this. Use both.

There’s a web design dictum: The fewer the number of clicks the more sales. Absolutely true. The easier it is to make a purchase the more purchases will be made so making it easy to find a specific item, or to browse items, is essential.

Most sites use a “Products” link off the navigation bar, which works fine if you only sell a few items. This drill down screen can also be used as a product category directory with links taking the visitor to a specific product ‘section’ of the site. This is especially useful for companies that market diverse inventory.

However, even this drill-down design requires some discretionary thought on the part of the site visitor, and if seems like a hassle, a lot of visitors will get tired of endless clicks and move on to a simpler site.

The second option – and frankly a must-have in this era of site interactivity – is a ‘Site Search’ feature. By far the fastest way to find a specific item by name, by make, model number or any number of other search criteria. A ‘site search’ feature contributes to the reason most web shoppers shop online – convenience.

Everything – everything – about your site should point to ease of use, accessibility, functionality and moving the visitor through the purchase cycle without so much as a blip.

4. Add shopping cart convenience. Even if you sell a limited number of items, offer visitors the opportunity to place items in their digital shopping carts – even if it’s one item.

The shopping cart should allow the visitor to:

• Review items purchased.
• Change quantities.
• Delete items.
• See the total cost of items in the cart.
• See the shipping and handling costs for the items in the cart.

Also, throughout the purchase cycle, reassure the buyer by providing prompts on each page. A perfect example: a link to the “Check-Out” on every page – prominently displayed. Easy, easy, easy. Shoppers want convenience and reassurance that “they’re doing it right.”

5. Check out your checkout. Remember that number of clicks axiom from above? This is doubly true during the checkout sequence. Simplify the process for first-time buyers by limiting the number of pages (clicks) required to “get outta here.”

Simultaneously, provide reassurances that the buyer is doing it right. If a piece of information hasn’t been entered properly, return to the form page and tell the visitor what needs changing. Don’t make them figure out what they did incorrectly. Tell them so they can fix it and get outta here.

Provide a final review page of all order information as entered by the buyer. Even the most seasoned web buyer sits at the monitor reviewing everything – name, address, credit card number, quantities and so on. It’s so much easier to get it right the first time than to hassle with returns or unfulfilled orders because of some confusion.

Finally, there needs to be some trust building going on during the checkout sequence. Knowledgeable buyers look for security logos from companies like VeriSign. They also look at the address box of their browser to make sure there’s an ‘s’ in ‘https’ indicating a secure site. Provide buyers with assurances that all is secure just before they click the ‘Submit Order’ button.

6. Deliver an immediate order confirmation. As part of the checkout sequence, buyers provided an email address. Once the buyer has made the purchase an auto-responder should be generated describing all details of the purchase, including tracking information. This assures buyers, cuts down on customer care calls and enables quick resolution of any customer complaint. (Good customer care is a basic building block of any retail business, online or in the real world.)

It’s simple, or at least it should be. The first time buyers are gently guided through the purchase cycle, reassured at every stage and in control, and regulars should have the convenience of providing all information required for a one-click checkout. Ship it here. You’ve got my credit card. I’ve got other things to do. Convenience. That’s what today’s web buyers want.

Think of it this way: a confused customer is a gone customer.

Yeah, I know, it sounds like a lot of gibberish until YOU get down to business. If you have a web biz or you're planning to launch one( who isn't), sweat the details. Call me and let's solve problems before they become problems.

Later,

webwordslinger.com

Keep Ém On Site Longer: 10 Tips

10 Tips To Lower Your Bounce Rate

A site’s bounce rate is a measurement of the number of visitors who stopped by the site but immediately clicked off to another site, aka, bounced. There are lots of reasons web users boing from one site to another, which means there are lots of things you can do to lower your bounce rate and keep visitors on site long enough to convert.

Here are ten tips to help you take the spring out of your web site.

1. Don’t assume the visitor lands on the home page. A visitor can enter from a number of access points. For instance, by conducting a search for a A324 converter, the visitor might land on the product page for said converter. (There’s no such thing, btw.)

This means that many different pages may be the doorway to your site so treat each page as a home page. Read on for design suggestions from your web host.

2. Keep critical information above the fold. Above the fold is an old newspaper term that described the newspaper’s front page “above the fold.” This is where the most important (or sensational) news is placed in newspapers today.

In website terms, above the fold is everything seen by the visitor without the visitor having to scroll – prime site space. Your most important information should appear here. A recent study on how different groups of people use the web showed that the 50 and older crowd don’t scroll as much as their web-wise grandkids so if you want it read, keep it above the fold.

3. Web users scan your site pages from upper left to lower right. So, what visitors first see in the upper left corner of their browsers will often determine if they stay or boing, boing, boing.

4. Create compelling headlines. “Who else wants to make a million dollars before bedtime” and other web clichés do not compel visitors to stick around to read your long-form, Dan Kennedy template sales letter. Headlines create interest among human readers and search engine spiders who recognize headlines as important text. So make your point in and add keywords to headlines.

5. Layout your home page in a three column format. Using three columns, you can create three headlines above the fold. If two headlines don’t capture the attention of the visitor, maybe the third one will.

Again, also useful in optimizing your site so make sure to build keywords into your headlines to keep everything in sync and max the utility of both the site text and your top tier keywords.

6. A picture IS worth a thousand words. A visual image (not just text) above the fold naturally draws the eye and attention of visitors so a small image or an image banner is helpful in breaking up blocks of text, and starts off the visitor slowly. A walloping pile of text, no matter how compelling, isn’t going to appeal to those “on-the-fence” visitors looking for a specific service, product, message or arcania.

A couple of points. First, if you’re using a photo, make it a photo worth seeing – a photo that instantly delivers your site’s message. Google “pre-fab homes.” You won’t see innocuous clip art. You see beauty shots of the prefab on a snowy evening with a warm fire going in the fireplace. So don’t waste pixels. Maximize every one.

Charts and graphs are a terrific way to transmit a lot of information in the blink of an eye. You can write pages of text testifying that your stock picking formula is the best, or you can create a chart showing your online portfolio delivering gains of 150% a year. A chart showing rising value (whatever the product or service) makes a strong statement very quickly.

Charts and graphs are also useful in making complex information more accessible to the reader. Your typical visitor won’t read through pages and pages of company financial statements but s/he will make a buying decision based on proof in image form.

7. Make navigation simple enough for a well-trained chimp. If the visitor is confused, even for a moment, you’ll see a bounce. Life is too short to “figure out” how this works. We’ve grown extremely impatient in the digital age and if it even LOOKS hard, boing.

Keep your navigation bar in the same place throughout the site and provide the option to return to the home page from every page of the site. A visitor may get lost and want to start over, learn more or use the links on the homepage to further explore the site.

8. Appeal to the drives of your ideal buyer. Needs-driven buyers have already determined that they’ll make a purchase and pay a lot if the purchase meets their needs. For example, there are a million books for sale on the web telling you how to avoid foreclosure “even if the sheriff is knocking on the door!!!!”

Okay, now that’s a needs-driven buyer. Facing foreclosure. Sherriff at the door – that site visitor will pay $99 for an e-book download if s/he believes the product provides (or is) the answer to his or her foreclosure problems. That’s a needs-driven buyer – a prospect who needs what you market – products or services. These buyers are less concerned about how cool and stylish your site is, how many interactive features it has and so on. These people are looking for solutions and benefits.

Other on-line shoppers are more casual in their buying habits. For example, many browse the web to comparison shop for prices and then run off to the big box store to make the actual purchase. Or, they just may bounce to a competitor site to make their online purchase. It’s a very fickle marketplace. But…

… if something catches the eye and addresses the drives of your demographic bulls-eye, your bounce rate decreases quickly. This means:

• Know your target demographic. Describe your perfect buyer.

• Know your products – inside and out.

• Know the motivations of your ideal buyer – need, the desire for prestige, acceptance, to be part of something larger (to belong) – what motivates your buyer? Example? A site selling acne cures should appeal to the consumer’s natural drive to improve his or her appearance in order to better “fit in.” The human desire to belong and to be accepted is what fuels the cosmetics industry, the fashion industry and other “personal signature” industries.

So, the owner of the acne cure site can create three distinct headlines that address the drives of buyers of skin care products and place them above the fold: (1) Look Better The Natural Way, (2) Why Dermagel Really Works and (3) Stop Covering Up – three headlines aimed with laser precision at a site selling acne cures and other sensitive skin care products.

9. Real information. Not sales hype. If site visitors discover useful information that will directly benefit them on each search engine accessible page of your site, they’re much more likely to stick around and learn a little something.

Sure, if you’re operating on razor-thin margins and “Low Cost” is your prime selling point (WE BEAT ANY PRICE ON THE WEB) then that needs prominent, “can’t-be-missed” display on the home page – somewhere. But to lower your bounce rate, add a little informational content or a big link to your site’s information bank, blog or archives. There’s plenty of opportunity to make a sale once the visitor has begun to explore your site for additional, useful information.

10. Don’t follow the herd. 6,000 new websites hit the W3 each and every day. There are over one billion active websites worldwide. And if your online sporting goods warehouse site looks like every other sporting goods warehouse site you’ll continue to see a higher than acceptable bounce rate. You’ll never get your bounce rate to zero. All you can hope for is to lower it.

One last humbling fact: the average web user decides whether to stay on a site or move on in less than six seconds. Six seconds!!! That’s how long you have to compel the visitor to stay on your site before bouncing off to some other site.

Six seconds. How can your site grab attention in just six seconds? That’s the challenge we all face as site owners.

If your site visitors are bouncing like ping-pong balls, give me a call and let's find away to keep them on site long enough to close the sale.

Webwordslinger.com

Seven Tips For Selling To The Rich

Seven Tips to Reach the Rich:

Marketing to the Luxury Consumer

There was a time when the world wide web was NOT the place to sell $100,000 diamonds or fine works of art. It was a place to shop for books, a few music downloads and maybe buy some electronics gear. The luxury consumers, the ones with the resources to buy at Tiffany’s without so much as a second thought, weren’t going to buy their diamond tennis bracelets at higgenbottomsjewelrywarehouse.com where the motto is: “If we don’t say ‘howdy’ your purchase is free.” That type of hometown marketing doesn’t work with those for whom money is no object.

And isn’t that the perfect customer? For all of us?

The Nouveau Nouveau Riche

There’s a new species of luxury buyer. This isn’t old Harvard or Yale money. This is wealth created by the class nerd who developed a software company that he sold for $500 million when he was 25 years old! (Who’s laughing now?) This new demographic is usually a professional, well-educated, two incomes, money in the bank and discretionary income at his or her disposal.

Reaching this market segment requires an understanding of the motives that drive these individuals to purchase – especially to purchase on line. From you.

Prestige and Indulgence

These deep pockets buyers are usually driven by the fashionistas – the media segment that tells us what’s hot (just ask Paris) and what’s not. They’re shopping, not just for a winter coat, but a signature statement – a statement that’s made by wearing designer clothes, for example.

You can buy a warm winter coat at LL Beans for less than $100 but where’s the prestige in that? Instead, this market segment looks for the designer label. The coat won’t keep them any warmer but it does exude prestige and indulgence – because of that designer label.

To reach this market segment, brands must be created and presented in a luxurious manner. Brand names count, whether it’s clothes, appliances or automobiles (especially automobiles).

It’s Not About the Money – Most of the Time

Most of us look for sales, squirrel away money in our IRAs and worry whenever the stock market hiccups. Not so with those who enjoy true financial freedom. When you’ve got millions, a market blip isn’t worth fretting over. So, the natural appeal to site owners to emphasize low prices – a natural selling point for the run-of-the-mill consumer (me) – doesn’t carry any weight with the luxury buyer. In fact, it works against the sale.

There’s a promotion concept called ‘velvet rope marketing’ – marketing designed to appeal especially to the well-to-do. We all recognize the turquoise Tiffany’s box and there’s no such thing as an entry level Jaguar. They’re all pricey.

However, today’s luxury, online buyer is just as likely to visit the Target website as the Tiffany site. It makes sense. These buyers may still look for sales on name-brand cookware at Target because cookware doesn’t have as much power to make a strong, personal statement as a $1,000 Gucci hand bag.

So how do you create a site that appeals to this new breed of online buyer? Here are some suggestions.

How To Convert the Luxury Consumer

1. Perception is reality to this demographic. Consider the coat example above. The LL Bean coat is made well and will last forever. However, the perception is that LL Bean sells to the masses, which they do. And I love my Bean parka.

Create the perception of elegance with a well designed home page and stylish product pages. Create a site free of AdWords and affiliate links. That is NOT what velvet rope marketing is about. Instead, think elegance, distinction and pampering.

2. Speak the language of the buyer. In this case, your buyers know fashion, they know prestige and they recognize the importance of making an independent statement. So, despite the fact that many of these buyers will only purchase brand names, they’ll mix and match brands to create their own, unique signature look. So, no men’s suit buyer is going to go 100% Hugo Boss or Ralph Lauren. That would indicate that the buyer is a slave to fashion.

3. So, build a site that let’s the luxury consumer mix and match from different product pages to see how the whole ensemble works. It’s these kinds of useful, upscale features the new, luxury consumer appreciates. It shows you understand them, their needs and drives and your site is designed to accommodate those needs and drives.

4. Offer special services. Buying services, for example, indicate a velvet rope level of customer care. Buyers provide birthdays and other important dates, provide the gift recipient’s profile, likes and dislikes and you take care of the rest. You, or your professional buyer, picks out the item, elegantly gift wraps it and makes sure it’s delivered on time to the right person.

This ‘concierge’ service can extend in other directions. Using a customer’s previous buying history, you can make gift suggestions for certain people for whom the buyer has previously purchased. Subtle but very effective.

5. Provide a toll-free number and make sure your customer service staff is well rehearsed with complete scripts to manage any contingency. Your phone staff should be courteous, alert and – this may hurt a little – they should also be given the training and authority to make decisions.

The upscale customer doesn’t want to hassle while the client care rep gets approval from a supervisor (who may or may not be available at the moment). This affluent buyer wants answers and resolutions to his or her problems. A well-trained and trusted staff can deliver this level of service routinely. (BTW, client care reps should be U.S.-based and available 24/7.)

6. Hit the mark every time. Track orders, ensure prompt shipment, include an easy ‘return kit,’ including pre-printed return label so all the buyer has to do is affix the return label to the shipping box over the mailing label. Simple and that’s what affluent buyers are looking for.

7. Provide lots of site space for product images. Clothes should be photographed using a model so the buyer can see the outfit or piece of clothing on a human, not floating in front of negative space. Don’t skimp on product pictures. They should be properly lit and shot, which means if you don’t know one end of a fill light from another, hire a pro to snap product pictures for upload.

This is a newly-defined demographic – one driven by the media with TV shows about Hollywood glam and glitz and who’s showing in NYC this week.

Know your brands. Know the motivations of this status-conscious buyer, provide the personalized service these buyers expect in the brick-and-mortar shops they frequent (too bad you can’t offer them a latte while they try on the latest from Europe) and create a site that has the look and feel of fashion chic and online professionalism.

Remember, it is absolutely NOT about the money so play down cost and play up style, distinctiveness and the message broadcast to the rest of the world by the products you sell.

I have arrived.

Having touble hitting your demongraphic sweet spot? Drop me a line and let's target your marketing with laser precision.

Webwordslinger.com