Website-ROI-Guy.com

Best of the Website Success Blogs (April 24, 2009)

There is so much good content online.  There is a lot of drek too.  I try and distill the best parts for you from time-to-time in Best of the Website Success Blogs.

(cue the intro music)

Successful websites depend on so many things; design & layout, message, usability, marketing, strategy, metrics, etc.  Today, we have many links to information anyone interested in website ROI should consider.

Right off the bat, check out Today is Kick Ass Friday -- 10 Q's for U  Kick Ass Friday is a regular feature and I think you like other recent posts, especially if you're an owner or manager.

The rest of the links include search engine tips, design tips for webmasters and social media tips for baby boomers from the always fabulous Barbara Rozgonyi.

For the more technical, we'll take a look at robots.txt files, link to some CAPTCHA scripts and introduce you to a cool tool for putting videos in your website.

And, don't forget the 'hits and giggles" section.  Some funny images captured by the Google Streetview team and a funny video on Facebook manners.

Biz Tips Blog:
Animoto is a Super Easy Video Tool
I've seen a demo of this and would have to agree that it should be in every webmaster's toolkit.

Clickz:
Is Your B2B Site a Good Salesperson?

Daily SEO Blog:
30 Web Design SEO Tips for Webmasters

Online Business:
Top 10 Search Engine Optomization (SEO) Tips

Search Engine Journal:
Google Selectively Ignoring Meta Description Tags?

Search Engine Land:
A Deeper Look at Robots.txt

Dream CSS:
10 Free CAPTCHA Scripts and Services for Websites

the Blog Herald:
20 Law-Related Questions Every Blogger Should Know
You may want to bookmark this!

SearchEngineWatch:
No Need to Freak Out Over Google Analytics Suddenly Disappearing

Copyblogger:
The Art of Writing Great Twitter Headlines
You can adapt some of Brian Clark's recommendations to website content too!

Corporate Dollar:
How to Build a Social Media Cockpit With Firefox

Mashable:
The Web in Numbers: The Rise of Social Media
Facebook had doubled to 200 million users in 8 months

Social Networking Websites Review:
2009 Social Networking Websites Product Comparisons
Interesting side-by-side comparisons.

wiredprworks:
10 Social Media Savvy Tips for Baby Boomers

And finally, for hits & giggles:

Facebook Manners and You

Caught on Camera: The Best of Google Street View

What We Learn From Radio Programmers About Website Strategy

Early in my career as a radio programmer, I learned about quintile analysis and its effect on strategy.  I worked for the NBC owned and operated FM radio station in Chicago: Q-101.

Quintile analysis looks at a situation broken down into five parts, 20% pieces of the whole.  In radio, QA studies how the 20% of the audience who does most of the listening compares with the 20% of the audience that does the second-most amount of listening, on down to the 1/5 of the audience who really is not brand loyal and doesn't listen very often.  The 5th quintile usually prefers another station OR they may like your station alot, they just don't listen to the radio much.

It's much easier to get the top 20% or 40% of your audience to do something than it is to get the 1/5 of your audience who listens the least to do something.

It was the first time I considered the differences between segments of audience; their respective needs, loyalties and motivations.  Getting your first quintile to listen 10% more was far more effective than getting the 5th quintile to listen more often. And you're motivating 20% of your audience who listen much longer than any of the other 4 segments, so a 10% improvement of those most brand loyal is worth much more than a 10% improvement in those audiences who are not as dedicated.

It's helpful to analyze you website's audience in a similar way.  Visitors who have bought something from you are more likely to buy from you again than those who have not received products or services.  Consider them your first quintile audience and look for ways to maintain relationships that lead to a followup sale.  That could be links to non-public pages with special offers or premium content.  That also includes websites where "Thankyou for your order" pages also promote an  up sell or cross sell.  If you know what motivated them to do business with you in the first place, it'll be easier to figure out how to 'rinse and repeat.'

Your second quintile audience are those who you've had some interaction with, but not necessarily a sale.  They filled out a form or survey, requested information, attended a teleseminar, signed up for a newsletter, etc.  You know something about their interests and what they've been exposed to.  More importantly, you know SOMETHING about who they are by the contact information they've given.  Use that information to follow up.  Give them an update.  Make them feel like you care.

Web Asylum has a customer that markets industrial products all over the world.  They offer dozens of whitepapers about the market and the products they offer.  We built an application where the sales manager can view what whitepapers have been downloaded by date and where their prospect is in the world and assigns the lead to the appropriate company rep or dealer.

Quintile analysis can be even more effective when you incorporate website analytics!

I'm not saying that 20% of your visitors are all buyers or that 20% would all fit a common description.  But to evaluate your prospects by previous behavior or brand attributes will give you a unique perspective that can be leveraged successfully.

And that will increase your website ROI.

-- Kurt

Website Makeover Recommendations

I post case studies from time-to-time on this blog.  Hopefully the suggestions are useful to everyone.  If you have questions of concerns about your website please contact me at your convenience.

We usually change the names to protect the guilty.  And this is no exception. "Frank" has a website that sells services and information.  He gets some, but not a lot of traffic, and is not selling much of anything.  The site was built by a graphic designer friend of a friend.  That said, the site is not very attractive.  Different font sizes, styles and colors make it look un-even and disorganized.

There are several misspellings on the Home page and even more on interior pages.

The message on the Home page does not give visitors an instant clue as to what the site is about and how someone would benefit from Frank's services.

There really is no good call to action on the site.  He does have a phone number listed and offers "free estimates."

He claims to be "the biggest and the best" of what he does in his area, but offers no concrete evidence to support those claims.  He has one testimonial on the site on a "Testimonials" page.  Nobody reads testimonials pages, but testimonials are powerful influencers, so I recommend spreading them thruout a website.

The title tags, description tags and keyword tags are all the same on every page.  They should be different for EACH page.  There are some very broad terms that will be difficult to rank highly for and there are too many keywords in his keyword tag, not that the major search engines put much stock in those tags anymore.

He does not rank at all on the 3 keywords he says are his most coveted.  I suggested that he test all his keywords to see how popular they are, how much competition he has for each and recommendations for other keywords and phrases to consider.  There are free keyword discovery tools for this.

He has 3 incoming links to his site and none are authority sites or have much pagerank.  I recommended that he register his site with search engines, especially Yahoo! and Google.

I hate being negative, but I really can't find anything positive to say about this site. I feel like Simon Cowell.

Despite the site being built by a graphic designer, it really needs to be re-done to look halfway attractive, which will help build trust with prospects.  A written plan should be developed that outlines his specific goals and the exact techniques that will be used to achieve them.

He asked if he should be doing pay-per-click. Not until the other issues that affect conversion are addressed.

The bad news is the site fails in so many ways.  The good news is he has many opportunities to fix all the failures.  And as Terry Savage would say, "That's the savage truth."

-- Kurt Scholle

Follow You Follow Me - What Can We Learn from the Spammers

In my previous post I discussed how reciprocal following affects the number of followers you have on Twitter.  To continue on that subject, I watched a guy who was rather interesting one afternoon recently. @JamesFulton, who had one post in 8 minutes and was following over 100 people.  To see how quickly he was adding people I refreshed every 30 seconds.  He was adding people at the rate of 35-50 every 30 seconds and 1-2 followers would follow him every minute. 20 minutes after his first post, he had 30 folllowers.

This was 18  minutes after I received a notification that he was following me.  He paused at following 1,224.

His bio stated, "Ready to make some good connections on Twitter!"  His web link connected to a Squidoo lens promoting Twitter Tips & Tricks.

His Squidoo bio had a totally different name than James Fulton (Imagine that!), saying that he'd been a member since March 19 2007, has rated 2 lenses, favorited 0, and has created 2 lenses from scratch.

After another 20 minutes, he was following 1,791 with 39 followers.

An hour into it he was following 1,786 with 68 followers

90 min 1,782 with 93 followers

4 hours 1,774 with 165 followers

It's interesting to see all of these mindless follows of someone who hasn't said or done much.

Then a week or so ago, I began getting inundated with follower-spammers all promoting a blogging payday site. They all had 2 nearly identical tweets, one a link to their webpage.  All their user names began with a lower case letter.  All were following ~ 800 people and had just under 400 followers.  About 45% follow rate.

They've tweaked the formula because the recent follower-spammers for that same site are now getting more than a 50% follow rate.  They all have different Twitter handles, but their posts are nearly identical.

What can be learned from them? Test your tweets and see who you attract?  Who re-tweets you? Use Qwitter to monitor when you lose someone and try and correlate what you may have just posted to someone un-subscribing? 

Building and retaining an audience on Twitter, your blog, a local radio station, your website, etc are all somewhat related.  It's about attracting audience in the first place and keeping them interested.

What are you doing to attract followers/visitors?  How are you keeping them engaged?

-- Kurt, the Website ROI Guy

Why Websites Need Search Engine Optimization Every Year or So

I recently had a conversation with a client whose website we built several years ago.  She's interested in getting more traffic to her site to increase her business.  There are many success keys to a successful website and attaining ROI.  One of the most important is getting traffic to your web site.

There are many ways to get site people to visit your website.  I've blogged about it here and will do so again, I'm sure.  And it's always important to monitor your site traffic and see where its coming from, and maybe where traffic isn't coming from!

If you've optimized your site for keywords and phrases you covet, you need to monitor the success of your plan.  Getting it right takes time.  The search engine spiders will only visit your site so often and once they do, you need to guage your success, adjust your tactics and wait for the spiders to return.

We did a very basic optimization for our customer when we initially built the site.  She declined an ongoing Search Engine Optimization program because they were busy enough and their goal was to simply improve their appearance online and incorporate some new branding.

Times being what they are, she recently had asked about an SEO program, but noted that we had done the basic SEO when we initially built the site, according to the website project plan.

I explained the differences of what we did initially vs. an ongoing SEO effort and how SEO techniques change over time:

• A few hours spent researching keywords is not as effective as an ongoing effort that takes metrics into consideration when adjusting the strategy.
• Search terms change over time and are seasonal.  What terms they may have coveted in 2002 might be vastly different today.  Monitor the terms people use to find your site. (You are using analytics or "hit tracking", right?)
• Individual pages need to be optimized separately.  Products pages are different than services pages.  Individual products and services need to be optimized separately.  New products and services will dictate a review of SEO efforts when added.
• Search engine algorithms change over time.  We don't know exactly what (100?) datapoints are used by what search engines to what degree when they calculate a ranking.  But we can make educated guesses.  In our customer's case, we spent time optimizing keyword meta-tags, which many engines discount or dismiss entirely today.  New techniques are needed today.
• Marketplace changes will affect your rankings.  If you attain a rating of 8 for a particular keyword, but 2 of your competitors adjust their SEO to move ahead of you - guess what?  You've moved down a couple of notches and maybe get bumped to the second page.

I doubt that most websites are optimized on an ongoing basis, even once a year.  And if you seriously want to generate revenue and profits from a website, you need to be thinking about your marketing every day, but that doesn't mean you work on SEO every day.

If you're watching your website traffic on a regular basis, you may see the percentage or numbers of visitors coming from search engines fall.  (Where your traffic ISN't coming from) That may be a sign that more effort needs to be made optimizing your site.

Web Asylum offers SEO services with an initial effort to research and set up customer programs and then monthly adjustments to the SEO tactics.  I suggest you do the same.  We document those efforts and results on a monthly basis, but may assess data that becoomes available more often.  (It's good to get SE spiders to visit your site more often than they have)

When we do competitive analysis for customers, we note that many websites have never been optimized for search engines.  Even the ones who have, rarely update pages.  So, if you can address SEO on even an annual basis, you have a fair chance of doing more than 95% of your competitors.  But I would really, really, really recommend that you update your online marketing efforts on a quarterly or monthly basis.  Schedule it as you might schedule sending out monthly or quarterly invoices.

It'll increase your website ROI. (And result in more invoices you'll send out)

-- Kurt Scholle

Build Inexpensive Website Traffic and Increase Recurring Sales (Pt 2)

I said I thought there would be sequel to yesterday's post and here it is!

In addition to the 13 ideas to build web site traffic presented yesterday, there are 2 more that I would like to discuss.  There are probably dozens more to present and I probably will eventually, but Pat will have a variety of suggestions to consider and test with the 15 in these 2 posts.

14) Pat and virtually any other website owner can benefit from Social Marketing.  Much of SM is Web 2.0-like offerings, including micro-blogging (Twitter), setting up a Facebook page and participating in groups and joining the LinkedIn networking site.  All of these will allow Pat to begin making friends that may lead to sales.  Don't "sell" on these sites.  Use the sites to become known and contribute to the conversations that arise.

15) Blog commenting is important for so many reasons.  It helps you contribute to the community you serve, but the links in your signature files will be used by people who resonate to your online contributions.  Those links can help search engines find and index your site.  And links from forums may be considered "authority sites" and deliver even more link juice.

I will encourage Pat to consider trying 4 or 5 of the ideas presented yesterday and today.  Keep what works best and test a couple more suggestions.  You don't need to spend a lot of time doing it, but as I mentioned yesterday, if you're not doing any marketing or business development, you can and should fail.

If you need coaching or you want these services Done4You, please let me know.

At the very least, use me as a resource.  I'd love to hear from you!  I'd love to showcase your success using these tactics in a future blog.

Here's to your improved website ROI!

-- Kurt Scholle

Introducing the Marketing Community Inner Circle

My friend and mentor Al Lautenslager have been kicking around an idea for a year or two, so over the summer we began developing the Marketing Community Inner Circle.

Al is a best-selling author (He co-wrote Guerrilla Marketing in 30 Days with Jay Conrad Levinson and other books), marketing coach and in-demand public speaker.
I'm the co-founder and president of Web Asylum, a website developer and marketing firm, specializing in website strategy since 1996.

Many of our customers are interested in resources, tips and how-to information to support their traditional and online marketing strategies, such as how to create a marketing plan.  We think there are hundreds, if not thousands, of similar organizations that would benefit from an affordable resource and membership in a community where the exchange of marketing ideas can happen quickly with maximum results.

So, we started with an archive of articles that Al has written for Entrepreneur.com and added downloadable e-books, audio, special reports and transcripts.  We'll be adding information judiciously on a frequent and regular basis.  I'll be adding information from the online world and we'll both be offering book reviews and synopsis' of the  dozens of newsletters, magazines and blogs that we follow.

We know you're busy and we think we can eliminate some of the noise and help you focus on good resources.

We're also doing a monthly teleseminar or webinar where we will discuss effective marketing techniques and strategies.  It's the second Tuesday of the month at 1pm Eastern.  We're also working on a monthly "hotseat" teleseminar/webinar where we will assess member's marketing and recommend suggestions and marketing tips that will make it more effective and cost effective.

That alone is worth the cost of a year's membership, but there are no commitments.  In fact, you can try MarketingCommunityInnerCircle.com for 14 days for just 99 cents!

We'll even give you a free gift, the Marketing PR Workbook, that sells for $49. (See "Click here for your free gift" at the top of the page)

We also offer "Ask Al & Kurt," a one-on-one Q&A for objective answers and marketing tips to your online and offline marketing questions and help you grow business or increase donations to your non-profit organization.

Add to it our private members-only blog and rolodex of approved resources!.

If you're interested in how to make a marketing budget, web site management and marketing, creative marketing ideas, case studies, guerrilla marketing techniques - virtually any free marketing ideas, we think the archive of information, monthly calls and webinars (archived for later reference), one-on-one discussions, private blog and the recommended resources rolodex is a great value to virtually any organization.

Try it today for just 99 cents!

-- Kurt Scholle
The Website ROI Guy and co-founder of the Marketing Community Inner Circle.

Recession Proof Your Business - Dan Kennedy

We've been working with customers who have come to us saying that they are challenged by the recession.  I understand their motivation, but I think businesses would be more profitable and websites would attain a higher ROI if they acted like we were in a recession all the time.

My most recent post discussed some observations and tactics by Dan Kennedy, the author and marketing guru who is on tour this week.  One opinion he made that resonated with me is that the economy has been pretty good since about the Reagan administration and even poor sales people succeeded.  Those guys (and gals) are not bringing home the bacon as successfully in today's economy.  Building successful systems will help overcome poor sales staffs.  (Kennedy says there is sometimes one good salesperson of a staff of several)

He says the top reasons people now hate most businesses they give money to are:

• Un-attentive.  Employees talking on cellphones or amongst themselves instead of catering to the customer.
• Ignorance of the product or service.  How many times have you been in an office supply store where several employees could not answer a question?
• Incompetence.
• Duplicity.  A nice way to say "lying."
• Utter lack of followup.

How many of us have similar problems with our staff?

Kennedy claims the middle class is disappearing.  He says 2/3 of the middle class will improve their status and 1/3 will fall to a very price-conscious status and not be a good target audience.  So, marketing to the affluent (the subject of one of his latest books) is important, especially in recessionary times.

His prescription for Recession Immunization: Reassess WHO you sell to, WHAT you sell, HOW you sell it and how you FOLLOWUP.  With regard to WHO to sell to, sell to BUYERS; including your own or past BUYERS.  Also sell to other peoples BUYERS, which can include competitors but also BUYERS of compable products and services.

For more on identifying buyer decision makers, read "Selling to VITO" (Very Important Top Officer) by Anthony Parinello.  (i see that he also has another book out "Getting to VITO: 10 Steps to VITO's Office")Getting to VITO (The Very Important Top Officer): 10 Steps to VITO's Office)

To succeed in selling to affluents who may not be as price conscious, Kenndy says you need to answer the biggest question affluents have about new vendors.  The biggest question is, "Will he/she do what they say they'll do after the sale?"  You can demonstrate it pre-appointment, at appointment, immediately after the appointment and continuing immediately after the sale.

Demonstrating what you will do after the sale will help eliminate price objections, which helps build your ROI in any economy.

-- Kurt Scholle, Website ROI Guy

Sales Success Strategies According to Dan Kennedy

I'm a fan of Dan Kennedy and his series of No B.S. books on marketing and sales.  I've read most of them after a couple of customers suggested them several years ago.  I've blogged about attending monthly Glazer-Kennedy chapter meetings and the discussions we have on marketing and sales success.  It's a great opportunity to learn and network.

Kennedy is on a "4 Cities in 4 Days" tour this week that is sponsored by Infusionsoft, arguably the best integrated CRM tool on the Internet.  We've worked with customers using Infusion.

We also LOVE AWeber and have a number of customers using 1shoppingcart with great success.

He also promoted his recent books,

1.	No B.S. Marketing to the Affluent: The No Holds Barred, Kick Butt, Take No Prisoners Guide to Getting Really Rich

 and 

No B.S. Ruthless Management of People and Profits: The Ultimate, No Holds Barred, Kick Butt, Take No Prisoners Guide to Really Getting Rich (No B.S.)

Kennedy had 2 presentations.  The morning session dealt with the sales process.  The afternoon session focused on marketing to the affluent.  I thought I'd share some of what Kennedy presented.

He thinks many markets are in trouble because companies do not interact with their customers regularly.  He cited examples of buying four cars at four different dealerships in the past four years and hasn't heard from any of them since.  It occurred to me that my dealer hasn't stayed in touch much except for a "Thanks for your business" letter shortly after I bought my Grand Cherokee.  He also cited other cases where realtors, banks, restaurants and clothing stores where he typically spends $1,000 or more have not stayed in touch.

He talked about how most businesses have an operations system, even if it's someone turning on the lights and making coffee first thing in the morning but most businesses don not have a marketing system. (I couldn't agree more)

Kennedy says most businesses don't have marketing plans for 2 or 3 primary reasons:

1. It's a lot of work.
2. It's complicated.  People want simple solutions.

But here's an advantage.  YOUR competitors will not compete against your marketing for the same reasons!

Other nuggets from the morning session...

Build Trust - Do this with repeated touches.  Like Jeffrey Gitomer, Kennedy promotes building trust to as a key to building sales.  Demonstrate what you will do AFTER the sale.

Don't Discount - He says many businesses make this mistake.  When you're doing fewer transactions, you need to make more profit per sale.  Defend your prices and even consider raising them.

He polled the crowd, asking how many people are not following up as well as they'd like.  Almost everyone in the room raised their hand.  Everyone in the room wanted to do it better, but cited a lack of time, cost, copywriting and "fear of No" as stumbling blocks.  That's another opportunity for you to exploit.

I always preach that building traffic and converting it to sales as the best top level goals for Website ROI.  Here are two Important Takeaways from Kennedy's morning session that support those tactics.

1)  Develop and execute a marketing plan, which should include staying in touch with current and former customers.  It's good for business and your competitors probably won't be able to match your efforts.

2)  Develop a followup system.  It helps your marketing system succeed. Be responsive and touch your prospects several times.  "Let me think about it." is not always a "No."  Sometimes it means your prospect wants to think about it.

Websites can and should be an integral part of marketing plans and followup systems.

I'll post more about his presentations, but I also urge you to read his books on sales letters, marketing plans, wealth creation and time management.

-- Kurt Scholle, Website ROI Guy

Why I Like Twitter

I've been on Twitter for a couple of months now, trying to determine why it's so popular and how it's useful in our ultimate goal of creating a website ROI.  Follow me at www.Twitter.com/KurtScholle

Twitter is a lot of things to a lot of people.  I'll do some posts on its usefulness for learning/research, networking and promotion sometime soon, but tonite I'm just going to post some links that people have posted.

@johnroachiii posted a link to 20 cliches to avoid in your copy.  The blog also correctly points out that there are a couple thousand cliches to avoid.

http://prowritingtips.com/2008/07/top-cliches-to-avoid-in-your-writing/

But wait, there's more!  (Oh, sorry.)

Christina Hills @ShoppingCartQueen posted these 2 websites: BrowserShots http://browsershots.org/ lets you test your website in various browsers. 

www.WebsiteGrader.com looks like you can some useful information too!

Then there's this resource - 2,400 learning tools.  http://c4lpt.co.uk/Directory/index.html#

@problogger posted a link to his blog and 5 things newbies should do on Twitter!  http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/07/26/twitter-for-beginners-5-things-to-do-as-a-new-twitter-user/

And I get immediate updates from the Chicago Bears training camp from www.twitter.com/cst_bears

If you haven't joined Twitter, please consider doing so.  You'll meet people, learn some things very quickly and get a chance to promote yourself.

I guarantee it!

Oh, sorry.  Another cliche....

Have a great weekend!
(Is that...? Nevermind)