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How to design an effective linking strategy for your
web site
How to write a press release that editors will love
My favourite web sites and
why!
Your business in 2008
Your web site isn’t giving you the results you expected – what
should you do?
Should you sell online or stick to your offline catalogue?
Using advertising
for your business
Your web site isn’t giving you the results you expected – what
should you do?
Why web site
layout really matters
Really good
business books
Want an easier way to sell your products and services?
Top ten marketing tips to kick start or reinvigorate
your business
Why should you test the way you promote your products and services?
Why is
customer service so important?
Which is easier to sell a product or a service?
Internet & Web Site Definitions
See more marketing and business
advice in our newsletter The summit. Visit our entry at
bestEzines and click on 'write a review'
My Favourite web sites
It takes several elements to
produce an effective and successful web site. Some of these elements
are design features and others are more to do with written content
and quality images. Here are some of my favourite sites used to
illustrate the elements that I believe make up a successful site.
The sites I have chosen vary in size and belong to small and larger
businesses selected to illustrate that any business can have a web
site that delivers.
Good copy -
Some Internet Marketers believe that well written and key word rich
copy is the most important element for any web site. I believe it
takes a combination of the elements included in this article. It’s
not that easy to find well written sites but here’s one. The Dogs
Trust uses simple language to explain exactly what the charity does.
It would have been very easy for them to have become over
sentimental given what they do but they have avoided this putting
across a strong argument for taking a rescue dog or for sponsoring a
dog.
www.thedogstrust.co.uk
Good design
There is no doubt that good design
is the first thing site visitors see. Check out your web stats and
you will see visitors who land on your site and are gone within 2
seconds. These visitors leave quickly either because your site
content is not what they are looking for or because the design is
unattractive. Good design does not necessarily involve large sums of
money. Many small sites, simply designed achieve good design such as
www.marksanderson.co.uk. Here’s one that probably did cost quite a
lot to launch but one that definitely makes an impression.
www.visityork.com
Sticky
Sticky sites are the ones you hit on and that entice you to delve
deeper. A good example is Waitrose. It’s true that a company such as
Waitrose no doubt has the resources to maintain a site with diverse
content, but there are many elements in the site that smaller
businesses can copy. When you consider that Waitrose sells groceries
the content of the site wide ranging and interesting. For example
interviews with celebrity chefs, seasonal recipes, information about
organic food and much more.
www.waitrose.com
Says clearly what it does
It’s amazing how many sites do not
actually say what the site is for and what the company does and even
large businesses fall into this trap. Check the Electric Cycle
Company web site. A very simply designed site with good quality
images it says what it does simply and effectively.
www.electriccyclecompany.co.uk
Great content
This depends to a large extent on what you are interested in, but I
love this site. It’s in your face and a bit all over the place, but
considering what the boys sell they have made the most of the site.
The business idea itself is original and the site reflects that.
Even the tacky flash works on this site.
www.bakinboys.co.uk
Ease of navigation
Perhaps not one of the more interesting elements of a web site but
poor navigation means that you quickly loose site visitors and
probably means they won’t come back. Simple navigation is often
achieved more easily by small sites simply because they have less
content. One of my favourite small sites with simple easy navigation
is
www.page2pagesecretarialservices.co.uk. And to show that big
sites can also achieve this have a look at
www.currys.co.uk, it’s not particularly good to look at but very
easy to move around and to find what you want.
Great images
Great images are like good copy, not that easy to find. Generally
larger businesses have the best quality images but not exclusively.
Good quality original images illustrate products and services to
their best advantage and make a web site look truly original. The
country baskets site is from a medium sized business. The company
provide interesting and original gift baskets and there are plenty
to choose from on this shopping site. It is essential that a company
such as country baskets show their products to their best advantage
and show the basket contents clearly. The photography also creates
the impression of the countryside which is exactly the image the
company wanted to achieve.
www.countrybaskets.com
Your Business in 2008
If you are a small business owner,
the day to day running of your business often means that you spend
much of your time with your head down dealing with everyday tasks.
But to grow your business you must take time to stand back and
remember what it was you actually wanted to achieve for your
business when you first started out. Use the new year as the time
when you review your business direction and make some changes.
A recent survey of 15,000 business
owners valued their operations performance as high, but the
marketing of their products and services as low. It might seem
obvious but nothing happens without action so take action now. Check
that the process of systems that you have put in place are in good
order, then take an overview of your business activity in the last
year. Consider:
Are the products and services your business sells in the
spirit of your original business idea?
Are the markets for your business the original ones you
anticipated?
Have you developed new products and services?
Which is your biggest selling product?
and for marketing
·
Check last years marketing strategy to capitalise on
your most effective marketing and to discard what worked less well
·
Or if you did not have a marketing strategy! In actual
numbers write down where each sale has come from in the past year
How many enquiries came via your web site
Check your competitors to see what they are doing?
Put together this years marketing strategy based on
last years successes
What can you do to increase
profits?
Put your prices up
Decrease your costs
Sell more to existing customers
Find new customers
Get customers to buy from you more often
What can you do to increase
clients?
Look
for new markets
Ask your clients about other services or products you
could provide they would like to use
Improve your products and services
Use Internet Marketing techniques to build a mailing
list from your web site
Based on your review consider
for your business New Year resolution to
Spend more time on your business rather than in it
Clear out those outstanding tasks
Use this years marketing strategy weekly
Check your web site statistics weekly
Using advertising for
your business
Advertising is probably the most
expensive part of any business marketing campaign whether you are a
large or small business. Advertising is expensive and the response
rates to advertising campaigns are difficult to monitor. Multi
nationals spend vast amounts on advertising across the media from TV
to trade magazines and the glossy monthlies. For a small business
with limited resources advertising can be a daunting prospect and
many small business owners learn the hard way and using
advertisements to launch their new business products and services.
The response rate is often disappointing.
So if
you are a small business firstly ask yourself:
-
Where does your business comes from now?
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Do your competitors advertise?
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What is it you want to advertise?
Where do your prospective customers and clients shop for your
products and services?
If you
then decide to use advertising include what you propose to do in
your marketing plan.
Set
yourself:
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A financial limit
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Goals for the response rate
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Goals for the number of actual sales you make
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A time scale for advertising
How do you plan an advertising
campaign and how do you know how effective it will be.
Start with research. What
publications do your market buy and read. Don’t restrict yourself to
the glossies look also at weekly publications and trade magazines,
free newspapers and regional publications.
Compare the cost of advertising in
the various publications to the readership which will be higher than
the distribution number. How often does the publication appear? Ask
your customers or target market what they read. Work out the
response rate you are aiming for and compare this to the cost of the
advertisement to calculate the cost per prospective customer.
A series of advertisements will be
more effective than a single advertisement and you should negotiate
a discount with the publication. Bear in mind that monthly and trade
publications may have a deadline dates for advertisements weeks
before actual publication.
After your research you then need
to consider your advertisement. Large business owners use specialist
advertising agencies but for a small business this is simply not
cost effective. So how do you write an advertisement? Obviously the
size of your advertisement will dictate how much you can include,
but essential is:
Use your contact details on the
advertisement to send customers to one specific route to making
their enquiry or shopping with your business. For example include
only your web address if you want prospective customers to go to
your web site or your shop details if you want them to visit your
shop.
Sell the benefits of using your
business products and services rather than the features. Consider
what’s in it for your customers if they buy from you. Write in a
style that will appeal to your market and if you can include a
catchy headline.
Don’t forget to set a monitoring
system in place so you will know how successful your advertising
campaign has been.
Like some help writing your ads?
September 2007
Want
an easier way to sell your products and services?
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A good marketing consultant would
advise any business to use a mixture of marketing and promotional
methods to clinch those sales.
Marketing is not predictable and so
it is always difficult to predict which method of selling your
products and services will bring in sales. If you have developed new
products and services you must ‘test’ the market and test the way
you promote those products and services. Doing this will save you
time and money.
However there is a way to promote
your business services and products that a marketing consultant is
unlikely to advice you try. It’s underused by the majority of
businesses and it’s a method that works well for a new business. It
is very effective in breaking down the barriers to making a sale.
What is it – bartering?
There are some disadvantages. If
your deal is not carefully packaged you can be seen as being
‘desperate’ to promote your business products and services. Overcome
this by your professionalism and treat the barter as you would any
work or sale that you make to a customer and expect the same in
response.
Draw up a proposal
and contract in exactly the same way you would an actual monetary
sale. Offer to supply your part of the barter over a generous time
period but make sure you provide an expiry date. This will make your
proposal a really hard offer to refuse. Let your barter partner know
you have no objections to them selling on your part of the barter to
make it an even more difficult offer to turn down.
The advantages of bartering far
outweigh the disadvantages. Bartering shows flexibility and
inventiveness and is something that larger more established
businesses find difficult to do. Bartering is also an excellent way
for an untried business to get services and products into the market
and is a fantastic way to acquire testimonials, recommendations and
referrals.
If you
provide a quality service and products of a high
standard then you will have the opportunity to sell
other products and services to your barter partner for
real money. In addition to all of this many sales people
find it much to sell barter than to sell a product or
service for money.
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Top ten marketing tips to kick start or reinvigorate your business
1. Every business needs a Unique Selling
Point to stand out from the competition.
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As your business changes
and develops a new powerful USP is an
excellent way of attracting new business. It will give your business
new life and a new appeal to prospective customers. Look at the new
services and products you offer and look hard at how they differ
from the services and products your competition offers. Look at the
benefits and advantages to customers of using your competition and
find ways you can improve on them, use that a basis for your new USP.
2. Review past clients and regain
contact with them. Contact
clients and customers you have not done business with for some time.
Show them you value their business and tell them about how your
business has developed and now offers……..Ask them why they have
stopped buying from you. It need not be anything sinister, they may
have simply forgotten the advantages of the products and service
your business offers.
3. Increase the size of the sale per
client. Let your customers
know about all the products and services your business offers. You
have already done the hard work and persuaded them to buy from you
and if they like what they bought and the service you provided they
will be receptive to other products and services you offer. This is
not ‘hard selling’ it is offering valued customers an additional
service.
4. Review or improve failing products or
services. Look hard at your
business. What products and service sell well? Which do you sell
the most of? Where do you sell the most? What do you offer that
does not sell so well? Is there something you can do to invigorate
this product or service? If the answer is no then concentrate on
developing the products and services that do sell well.
5. Increase the number of referrals you
get from your clients.
Whatever your business you should ask satisfied customers to pass
on referrals to you. Reassure your customers that you will provide
the same high standard of products and services to those referrals.
6. Update your web site regularly.
Web sites should be
updated regularly at least once a month. Updating
your web site regularly helps to make your business
look dynamic and of encouraging visitors to return to your site.
Tell site visitors what’s new on the site and what’s new with your
business.
7. Up sell and Cross sell
– Consider the products and services you offer. Is there a way you
can combine services and products together and offer these packages
to your customers? Then consider additional products and service you
can offer to your customers to compliment the products and services
they already buy from you. For example an extended warranty, product
support or an annual review of the services you provide. Use up
selling and cross selling to increase sales.
8. Lower the barriers to buying.
If you believe in the products or services your business offers,
lower the barriers to buying for your customers by offering genuine
guarantees.
9.
Combine your marketing strategies.
To be successful with marketing your
business, it is better to be consistent than to come up with one
‘fantastic’ marketing idea. So be consistent and use more than one
method of promoting your business e.g. direct mailings, networking
and directory advertising.
10. Review your marketing. You
would be surprised how easy it is for businesses to slip into habits
of marketing and promotion. Simply because they are busy. But you
should review your marketing at least annually. Look at what has
brought in most business, review the wording and lay out of your
advertising whatever form that takes.
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Why
should you test the way you promote your products and services?
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It is surprising how few
businesses actually test the way they promote their product or
service in order to discover which of the present methods of
promotion is the most effective in terms of sales and enquiries or
what price and package of products appeal to markets.
It simply is
not possible to know in advance what aspects of your products and
services will appeal to markets. How do you know for example what
price will make your products attractive and remember that the
lowest price is not necessarily the best price.
The answer is to test. But what
should you test? Begin by looking at all the aspects of your
business that have measurable results and you must include the
service you provide to your customers and your customer buying
processes.
Test for example
advertisements and where you place them, your web site copy and
headlines, variations in your customer ordering systems so that you
can discover which is the most effective and productive. Really look
at the way your products are communicated to your market.
So how do you test your marketing?
Advertising and direct mail campaigns are not an exact science and
it’s impossible to tell in advance what type of headline on a flyer
or advertisement will attract customers.
So you should for example
try different style advertisements, use different headlines on
flyers, try positive and negative data together. Imagine you are a
health and safety consultant, use data which supports a positive
image e.g. 50% of companies using an independent health and safety
consultant reduce accidents in the workplace by 25%
At the same time
try using negative data e.g. 65% of companies don’t have a dedicated
member of staff to deal with health and safety requirements and
consequently employees have an increased risk of a work placed
accident.
You can effectively test a direct
marketing campaign by targeting different headlines on the mailing
with similar groups of people in different geographical areas. Test
offers, prices, services and guarantees against different and
similar groups of people.
Test simple and subtle changes against big
changes.
Remember to sell the benefits and
advantages of your product or service as well as the features. Use
different Unique Selling Points, try new phrases and wording,
introduce new offers and try bundling your products and services
together.
And finally make sure you monitor
responses to different campaigns. Use codes or ask responders where
they saw your advertisement, so that when customers ring in with
orders you know which advertisement or flyer they are responding to.
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Why is customer service so important?
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It is easier to sell to your
existing clients than to find new ones, fact.
It therefore makes good business
sense to look after your existing customers. So make sure you really
know your customers their likes and dislikes. Make sure your
business ordering and delivery process is simple and easy to use and
understand and make sure they your staff are familiar with all your
products and services and trained to deal with every sort of enquiry
in an efficient friendly way.
Guarantee the work you do and the
products you sell. Offer money back no questions asked. Customer
service takes in all parts of a business, from the process of
placing an order, to telephone answering and your sales staff. In
short, every point of contact a client or prospective client has
with your business.
It is not immediately obvious
that customer service is part of marketing, but for any businesses
customer service is the most important part of a business and has to
be promoted along with the products and services a business offers.
You can successfully market and promote any business, but if the
customer service is not in place then not only will you quickly
loose customers, fail to gain that valuable repeat business but you
will have the additional hurdle of having to overcome a poor
reputation.
It is a bit of a myth that
providing a superior level of service for a large business is not
possible, but it is difficult for a larger business to make sure the
company superior customer service reaches and is maintained in all
parts of the business.
This presents an opportunity for smaller
businesses to out compete larger businesses. This level of customer
service offers a business in an already overcrowded market place can
attain a truly unique selling point.
A smaller business by the very
nature of its size finds it easier to control all aspects of the
business and to remember individual customers and their likes and
dislikes and so it is easier for these businesses to offer a truly
superior customer service and to control and maintain that standard
of customer service.
It is much easier to find a
smaller business that is memorable for its excellent customer
service. For example the deli in the high street that takes the
trouble to ring and let you know they have finally managed to source
your favourite cheese or the local nursery that rings to let you
know that a variety of your favourite plant is now in stock. This
level of service impresses and builds customer loyalty.
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Which is
easier to sell a product or a service?
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The answer is a product, simply
because it can be seen and touched. A service is in effect
invisible.
But if your business provides a
service do not loose heart. Today few businesses actually sell a
product, they provide a service. Think for example of a construction
company that imports timber framed buildings to order. On the face
of it and looking at their marketing material, their web site and
their site vehicles they are a construction company. However when
you enquire about your new home the first thing they do is provide
guides and information which allows you to plan and customise your
new home. They provide you with a selection of plots, arrange for
the fittings you have selected to be added to your home, they
arrange to have your new hone imported and finally they erect your
new home. They are in reality providing a service for their
customers.
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Which
type of service are you?
So then for the majority of
businesses this presents the difficulty of marketing, promoting and
selling something that cannot actually be experienced before you get
it. The construction company at least has something tangible
to show its prospective customers. They will have show homes you can
see. A web site designer will have samples of web sites he or she
has designed that prospective clients can visit. However an
accountant e.g. will have only intangibles to describe to a
prospective client and will not produce anything but will perform a
service for his or her client. Research shows that consumers buy on
appearance above price, so this presents the consultant or
accountant with a double difficulty.
How
do you become visible?
To overcome this problem a service
business and in particular a service business providing an
intangible service has to have a different way of looking at, and of
promoting, the service it provides. One way is to help your
prospective client to visualise the service you provide. Tell them
what they will get, sell them the benefits and advantages of using
your business. Structure carefully what you will provide for the
client. Reflect your business in every face your business presents
to the world e.g. your vehicle, premises, web site etc. and be
consistent. This helps to reassure and to inspire confidence in your
prospective client. Provide interesting case studies with successful
outcomes. Keep your client and prospective client informed of what a
good service you provide for your clients. Let them know about your
successes!
Internet Definitions
Bounce Rate -
the rate at
which web site visitors leave a site without viewing more than one
page
Browser – Software program
used to view web sites on The Internet. Netscape and Internet
Explorer are two common examples.
Hosting - A way of using
software on line. Instead, all your software applications, database
and files are located on a computer in the Internet, which is
maintained by your host provider for a monthly fee.
Internet - An electronic
network of computers that includes nearly every university,
government, research facility and commercial sites.
Keywords - the words
Internet searchers use to find the goods services and information
they are looking for. You should include these keywords in your web
site copy.
Links – This is short for
hyperlink and it is a way to move from one web site to another and
within a site. For example http://www.summitup.co.uk
Meta tags - Information
placed in web sites codes that are not seen by site visitors. Meta
tags are used to pass information to search engine web
crawlers/spiders.
Page views - individual
pages of a web site that have been viewed by web site visitors
Referral sites - Sites that
are linked to your site. searchers arrive at your site from the
link.
Usability – the ease of use
of a web site. This includes how easy visitors find it to move
around a web site and how easy they can find and use the information
provided on the web site. If the web site provides on line
shopping, how easy it is to view and make purchases.
Web spiders – otherwise
know as a web crawler or web robot are programs used by search
engines to browse web sites on the Internet in an automated way.
www. World Wide Web – the
Internet
How to design
an effective linking strategy
Before you design your linking
strategy you should know why you need links to your site
Search engines rank web sites in
part by the number of links to and from the site.
Web site links (short for
hyperlinks) come in four forms. They are:
External
links are links that point from one web site to another. They might
include your clients.
Recriprocal
links are links from one web site to another web site which has a
returning link.
Back links
are web sites that have a link direct to your site. These are the
most highly valued links of all and might include the major search
engines or the
Open directory.
Internal links
these are links that are contained within a web site and take site
visitors around the site from page to page.
Planning your linking strategy
As soon as your site is launched
register with the main search engines, Google, MSN, Yahoo. Also
register with the open directory. Most of the search engines use the
open directory for their information. Doing this will provide
back links to your site.
Next make a list of your customers.
Build a link from your site to their site include a logo if they
have one and a few words describing what they do. This will provide
an external link. Contact your customers and request a return
link to your new site. This will provide a reciprocal link.
Make a list of your suppliers.
Contact them and ask for a link to your site. This will provide
either a back link or most likely a reciprocal link.
Look at the professional
organisations you belong to. Most of them will have a web site and a
directory of members. Make sure you have an entry. This will provide
a back link.
List the business networks you
belong to. Most of these will have a directory make sure your
business has a listing. This will provide a back link'
Search for directories on the web that are associated with your
business. This will provide either a back link or a reciprocal link.
You can also pay for listings if you wish. Google etc . This will
provide a back link. Look at the copy of your web site.
Where you refer to information or
products and services on another page include a hyperlink in the
text to the relevant page. Keep the number of internal links per
page to between 6 and 8, any more cut down on the actual copy of a
site and irritate site visitors.
Wherever possible include a few
words as part of your links, and try to include some of your
keywords in those words. Never link to sites that offer numerous
links or to register your site with more than eight search engines.
They are usually collecting sites for spam purposes.
Return to the top
Really good business books
Whatever stage you are at with your business and however many
workshops and presentations you have listened to and worked through
there is always a place for looking at business books. Nothing can
beat an inspiring talk or workshop to motivate and inspire you to
work on your business and start a new marketing campaign or sort out
your account system once and for all.
But it’s not possible to attend a workshop every day, network
meetings don’t happen every week and conferences can be far apart.
Business books can fill that niche, but there are so many out there
and not all are worth reading. Here are my choices of business books
that really deliver.
Starting a new business? Looking for inspiration and ideas on how to
organise your business and how to take your products and services to
market. Have a look at the E Myth by Michael E Gerber. This is not
as you would imagine a book about the Internet and E marketing. The
e in the title stands for Entrepreneur. The book was originally
written in 1980 but has been updated since then.
The
ideas in the book are however still valid and are written with a
case study running through them. This book gives you an alternative
business plan model and shows how to look at a business in a
different way. ISBN 978-0-88730-728-7.
If
you are simply looking for motivation and inspiration ‘Barefoot on
broken Glass’ by John Timperley is an easy read. The marketing
director of Price Waterhouse Cooper John Timperley reveals the
secrets of his personal success in the business world. But more than
that the book takes you through his five secrets of achieving
business success, all of which are practical and achievable. Dip
into it when you need motivation. ISBN 1-84112-126-6.
There are hundreds of books about marketing available but many of
them are repetitive and not practical. If you provide a service and
most businesses now are doing just that, the best book on the market
is ‘Selling the Invisible’ by Harry Beckwith.
His book reads like a novel and is one you will want to reread. It
does not contain any practical ideas on how to promote your
business; rather it makes you see the way you deliver your business
products and services to market in a different way. ISN
1-58799-066-0.
Another interesting marketing book is ‘Do something different’ one
of the Virgin business guides. Practical easy to read and easy to
implement the marketing methods and ideas in this book would suit
any business. ISBN 0-7535-0528-2.
Wanting a guide to the Internet and web sites? Believe it or not
this is quite difficult as books about this subject tend to be full
of technical speak, have ideas that are difficult to implement or
look at only one aspect of web sites and the Internet. ‘101 ways to
promote your web site’ by Susan Sweeney is a good general overview
of web sites and is particularly useful if you are in the process of
setting up a web site. However be aware like all books in this
category most of the web sites referred to in the chapters have
either disappeared or changed completely ISBN 10931644-21-7.
On
the subject we all love to hate that is accounting for your
business. ‘Basic accounting’ is part of the teach yourself series
and while it probably goes into too much details for most small
businesses and sole traders, it does simplify things and lay things
out in an easy to understand and follow sort of way. ISBN
0-340-85897-4.
Why web site layout matters
How many times
have you come across a web site and been unable to find out what the
site is for and what you can do on it. Contrast that to a site that
states clearly what it is and what it’s for and that has interesting
easy to read content. Not only are you much more likely to revisit
the well laid out site and you are more likely to buy from that site
and sign up to the newsletter and mailing list request.
Why is that?
Web site visitors
have a much shorter attention span than people scanning a newspaper
for example or searching a library for information. Opinions vary
but the time web site visitors will spend finding information on the
site they have landed on, what they can do on that site and
searching that site is no more a few seconds.
Because site
visitors have such a short attention span most site visitors scan
sites and so look for and expect familiar things. For example
scanning for a top navigation bar and for a clear indication of what
the site is and what it does. A well laid out site will make
scanning easier and site visitors will find the information they are
looking for quickly.
How easy is it to
achieve a well laid out site and what should it look like?
It is very easy to
achieve but you must be prepared to forgo unusual web site designs
and incorporate some traditional web site conventions. Sacrifice
these conventions in order to achieve an unusual or unique design
and you risk site visitors leaving your site very quickly and not
returning. So stick with the basic conventions and build your design
around it.
But what are those
conventions?
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State clearly what the site does
on the top bar of the home page
-
State clearly what the site
visitor can do on the site
-
Stick to common fonts
-
Keep the colour of the fonts easy
to read
-
Keep backgrounds simple
-
Make sure the font is an easy
size to read not too small and not so big to be annoying
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Keep navigation to the top of the
site and to the left hand side
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Keep search options and
subscription requests to the right hand side
For an example of a
simple style that fits the conventions then look at the newspaper
style layout of the BBC
www.bbc.co.uk and the Financial Times
www.ft.com These sites might not set the world on fire but they
fulfil web site conventions and receive large numbers of visitors.
There are plenty of other styles you can choose that fulfil web site
conventions and you should make sure that your web site design and
layout reflects your business. For example
www.amazon.co.uk and
www.harrods.com.
Your web site isn’t giving you the results you expected – what
should you do?
The first place most of us would
go to solve the problem would be the Internet. The internet is a
fantastic resource for free information and advice, but type Search
engine optimisation, SEO or Internet Marketing into your search
engine and you will be faced with any number of choices, advice and
information. There will be many options for you from software to e
books and web sites that offer you startling results in return for a
financial investment. So what should you look out for if you want
advice regarding the effectiveness of your business web site and how
you can improve it? This advice applies whether you are searching
for help on or off the Internet and while there is no doubt that
genuine companies are out there on the web it is often worth
checking with your business friends and the business networks you
belong to see if they know Internet marketing specialists. Forearmed
is forewarned so wherever you are looking for that help you need you
should
First decide what it is you want
your site improvements to do for example
Get more qualified hits
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Get more enquiries
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Then you need to ask the internet
marketing specialist:
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How long they have been in business
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Do
they undertake key word research
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Do they provide key word rich copy
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What clients do they have and check their web sites
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What their expectations for your site are – are they
realistic
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How will your site be monitored
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Do they perform a competitor analysis
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And if you are a larger business - do they offer online
reputation monitoring
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How do they charge – by the hour or by the job
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And this is what you should avoid
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Sites or Internet Marketing consultants that promise a high
ranking for your site quickly
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Free downloads – don’t necessarily avoid them but treat
them very cautiously
What are the dangers?
Free downloads can include spy
ware software without your knowledge will that use your site to
collect information. This information can include your passwords and
other sensitive information.
Improving a web sites
effectiveness whatever it is you want to achieve is not a quick
process, does not necessarily involve lots of financial commitment
and is something that every business should work on all the time.
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Should you sell online or stick to your offline catalogue?
In the early days of the Internet
it was predicted that selling online would see the end of offline
paper catalogues. The reality today is that the more successful and
profitable online sellers have found that a combination of online
sales with an offline paper catalogue drives sales.
Why?
Research seems to indicate that paper catalogues bring to life
products in a way that a computer screen cannot and offline we can
browse at our leisure and in comfort. However our buying tastes
have become more sophisticated and despite some adverse press
coverage the majority of us find buying online safe and secure,
particularly if you use a credit card.
Used in tandem online sales and an offline paper catalogue work for
businesses of all different sizes from M & S to Lakeland and
specialists such as firebox.com. and Royal Mail home Shopping
research has shown that 60% of us buying online consult an offline
paper catalogue first.
So how do you make it work for your business?
This depends on the sort of products you sell but generally use your
paper catalogue as a bite sized version of your online catalogue.
Use your web site to list your best sellers and new products.
Listing your new products online in this way not only reduces the
cost of reprinting a paper catalogue but also encourages your
customers to visit your web site. You must of course remember to
tell your customers to visit your site to view new products and
special offers. Do this in the offline catalogue and when you send
out flyers promoting your special offers or as part of your e mail
campaign. Using your web site as a means to promote special offers
or for one day sales will encourage your customers to visit your web
site regularly and make your business and your web site look dynamic
and exciting.
What do the stats say?
61% of online buyers have
consulted an offline catalogue & those buyers generally buy more
than buyers using offline catalogues only
52% of the UK population now buy
online
On average we spend £609 on goods
online each time we buy
75% of buyers who received a paper
catalogue visited the companies web site
Buyers who have received a
catalogue in the last 3 months spend more online
Clothing is the most popular
online purchase
The biggest catalogue spenders are
aged 23 to 43 and they spend on average £473
Source Royal Mail
Home Shopping Research
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rights reserved 2006
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