Maximizing Your Website-Converting Site Visitors into Clients and Referral Sources
November 10, 2009
Download this as a PDF on the Resources Page
Overall
- Look professional
- Have clear navigation
- Contact info easy to locate
Clear Call To Action
- The call to action is based both on what you want visitors to do and what your potential clients and referral sources want.
- It should be something simple and have clear benefits
- It should be trackable such as a making a phone call or filling out a lead capture form
A Good Hook!
- Something valuable and free that is desirable
- An ebook or ecourse (use Autoresponders to help)
- A free seminar or webinar
- A newsletter
- A free consult
Everything Important Visible From A Few Feet Away
Think:
People visiting my site and buying from me want to read/learn/know about ________
How can I provide that easily and clearly?
Follow Up
Once you capture them at your site use your sales pipeline and marketing to keep them engaged.
Resources
Google Local Business
-Purely geographically based
-www.Google.com/LocalBusinessCenter
Google Products
-Get your products listed on Google Shopping
-www.google.com/intl/en_us/products/submit.html
Google Webmaster Tools & Google Analytics
-Reporting of where visitors are coming from
-www.google.com/webmasters/start
Mail Chimp (www.MailChimp.com)
Local email marketing company
First 500 subscribers are free
Elance (www.Elance.com)
Freelance writers and other professionals for as low as $5/hour
IDictate.com (www.iDictate.com)
Low Cost Dictation
$1.25 – $1.75 for 100 words
How To Remove Bad Press Posted On The Web
November 6, 2009
First you can always try asking the publisher of the bad press to remove it but that frequently does not work. You can then flood the internet with references to you that are good or neutral so that the bad stuff gets buried far down in the search results.
You can do this by setting up or enhancing the following:
-LinkedIn.com
-Amazon.com profiles and book reviews
-a Blog with your name as the title or in the text of the title
-publishing articles on an article directory site such as eZineArticles.com
-Facebook
-Member sites-any organizations that you belong to-make sure that your name is listed correctly on the site
If the bad press will not go away-you can address it in a blog post or web page and explain or refute. Beware-this may give it legitimacy.
Increase Sales Using Your Website
November 5, 2009
Just posted the Increase Sales Using Your Website Powerpoint Presentation and Increase Sales Using Your Website Handout from this talk that was giving last week at Small Business Giving BIG! in Atlanta at The Ravinia Club.
Thank you to my two typo correctors from the audience-this version has them corrected! (I hope there are no more but I’m not making any promises).
What Are Some Free Tools To Help With Search Engine Marketing?
October 7, 2009
Google Webmaster Tools: – This is a suite of tools that Google offers to web site owners. The core package is the Analytics package, which helps you measure your overall web site traffic and monitor which key words or web sites are driving customers to your site.
The webmaster tools also provide reports on how well Google is seeing your site and if there are problems with any pages. There are also a lot of webmasters who actively share tips on how to get the most out of the tools that Google provides.
Niche Watch: – With this free service you can type in a phrase (like “Atlanta lawyers”) and your web site address and the tool will return not only the top 10-20 web pages for that phrase, but also tell you how well your page ranks.
It’s a great tool for getting a feel for a market and seeing how optimized your competition is. I like to use this tool when I’m researching for a client to figure out how to break into the first page of Google’s listings.
Google Trends: – Is it a good idea to launch a patio furniture store in September? Hit Google Trends, type in your keyword phrase, and you’ll find out that people aren’t really searching for patio furniture until March, with searches peaking in April/May. Launch the site in September to start building up your rankings, but be ready for the lean months until the warmer weather gets your customers searching for patio furniture.
You can use Google Trends to scope out any market and see the seasonality. That will help let you know if the reason why you’re seeing a boom in business is because you are just that awesome at search marketing, or if it’s an indication of the overall industry increasing.
Speakers And Sponsors
September 22, 2009
I think that getting speakers for events from sponsors or sponsors paying to speak is unethical. Speakers should be chosen because they are good at speaking or have an important message to deliver and sponsors should support a group that provides a good service to it’s members. I know that sponsors need to be recognized-their contribution is important but when you have the sponsors speaking-it muddies everything.
I will from now on not knowingly participate as a member or speaker in any group that does this-I invited sponsors, guests and speakers to join me.
