The Three Most Important Parts of a Web site

Hurrah!  I have my new Web site up!  I am excited to unveil it to you and want to share my thinking in setting it up. 

Like many businesspeople, I was clueless when I created my first Web site.  What should I include?  What was important to my customers?  What did they want to know?  Not certain of the answers to any of those questions, I put up a site that explained what I had to offer.  I was never certain that it was what my customers wanted to know. 

A couple of years ago, I read a very interesting piece by Hubspot that the top three reasons a customer comes to your Web site ought to be easily accessible on your home page.  Each of these link to a landing page on that topic so that your customers can readily find what he wants without frustration.

The idea made sense to me.  What were the top three reasons someone comes to my site? I wondered.  After much thought, I decided the reasons were that the person was starting a business and wanted to learn about marketing, frustrated with marketing, or growing a business and wanted to market that growth profitably.  I determined to make those the first three items on my home page.

I grappled with the content of the landing pages for each.  I didn’t want to send visitors to various parts of the site to try to find answers to these situations.  I wanted to give them usable content on the landing page and point them to additional information after that.  I thought of creating a special piece for each page with a small amount of information, enough to pique their interest.  I wanted to offer that piece prominently on the page. 

As I worked on those pieces, they became much bigger than my original intent.  They developed into workbooks that had a great deal of helpful content in them.  Originally, I had thought of giving them away as freebies, but, when I finished them, I changed my thinking.  I feel that too much is given away both online and on site by businesses to attract customers.  Freebies are fine, but they must fit into a plan.  Since my plan already had my weekly Insight and now a pod cast, I had freebies covered.  

Thus, I refined the workbooks and added an audio component to create a workshop on each of the topics.  I used a number in the titles because numbers get attention and employed an unusual one to stir interest further.  The titles of the three workshops are 11 Actions to Grow Your Business with Marketing, 11 Changes to End Your Frustration with Marketing, and 11 Steps to Market Your New Business. 

I attached a price to each of these because their content is worth it.  I want to train my customers that what I offer is valuable.  Giving too many freebies teaches customers the opposite.  I arrived at a price for each that is fair to my customers and my business. 

Another important aspect to me was to have the site friendly for any device, especially mobile, since increasingly sites are being accessed across a broad range of devices.  The first screen on mobile addresses the three main reasons a person may visit my site.  The second screen has a video, which I will be changing regularly, Profitable Marketing Weekly, my weekly audio publication, my pod cast, my Insight, and the weekly trivia question.  The third screen features my books in audio and print, and my signature E-sessions.  The fourth introduces my new Profitable Marketing Secrets audio packages.  On a desktop or a wider screen the first and second screens appear side-by-side and the second and third screens are next to each other. 

I’m very pleased with the results.  I wanted the site to have a clean look, make it easy for the visitor to find information, and prompt the visitor before leaving the site to subscribe, buy, or contact me.  I think the site does that.  Check it out at psmc.com.  Forward a link about it to anyone you think might be interested, too.

Thanks for reading my Insights and checking out my new site!

This week's marketing trivia challenge is What do you feel is most important in a Web site? E-mail me your answer.

Thinking Ahead

All of us small businesspeople are so busy with our daily routines that we do not take time or know the resources to keep up with the quickly changing online world.   A resource that I have found very informative is Hubspot.  I recently read a blog from Hubspot titled “Why You Won’t Recognize SEO in Five Years.”  As I read it, I wondered if you had found this information.  Thinking you might not, I am sharing it with you today along with my thoughts.

The article focused on three emerging patterns that are affecting search engine optimization, SEO.  The first one had statistics that shocked me.  Recent surveys have found that 60% of Internet use is happening on mobile devices.  That prompted expert Benedict Evans to advise that we stop talking about mobile Internet vs. desktop Internet.  He stated that “Mobile is the Internet.” 

Even more surprising is how mobile users are accessing the Internet.  According to Forrester Research, 85% are doing it through apps.  Most of that time is spent on a handful of apps led by a major category leader at 24%, Facebook at 13%, and Google at 12%.  Amazon and Apple each have 3%.   From 2012 to 2014, the amount of time spent with apps increased from 23 to 37 minutes per month.  That’s a 50% increase and  indicates a trend.

While app usage is on the rise, desktop browser use is flat.  The challenge for businesses right now is that browser-based search was easier to optimize via search engines.  The current way to find apps and their content is through Google or Apple app stores.  Better app search is coming.  The iPhone Spotlight already searches within apps and bypasses Google to return some Web results. 

The second pattern is the social searches.  Facebook can now search for content as well as people and is performing 1.5 billion searches daily.  Compare that with Google’s 3.5 billion.  Since Facebook is social, the role of connections and influencers has a role in the search.  In addition, Facebook, Twitter, and Snapchat have been treating content differently this past year.  The sites had served as a location for limited content and promoted passing through to a Web site for more information.  Today the “Read more” click takes the reader to an expanded content that resides on the social media.  Instead of taking the reader to the business’s Web site, blog, or news site, the reader is kept on Facebook, Twitter, or Snapchat.

This change does not help promote a business’s Web site.  It is designed to help the social media survive and grow.  Is it intended to replace Web sites?  In the future, will businesses need to duplicate their Web sites on social media?  Does the lack of pass through to a Web site make the social media less attractive to businesses?

Finally, the voice-activated personal assistants on all devices are expanding the times and places users can request searches.  These assistants search differently than search engines by using past history and context rather than a user’s requested search terms.  If you are interested in pizza, for example, the assistant knows your past pizza search and/or ordering and accesses your favorites.  Your search results are tailored by your past personal purchases, habits, and uses. 

These three patterns, mobile use dominating the Internet, social searches, and voice-activated assistants, are all affecting Internet searches and how users find our businesses online.  Depending upon your target market, your business may be affected sooner or later.  Think ahead.  Determine the impact on your business and how you will respond to it.  Do it now before these changes hurt your business’s bottom line.

This week's marketing trivia challenge is What do you plan to do to respond to these changes?  E-mail me your answer.

Three Reasons

In preparation for changing my Profitable Sales and Marketing Web site, I’ve been looking at quite a few Web sites lately.  Most of them take me back to when I initially thought of putting up a site.  What should I include? I had wondered.

My answer was, Everything I want to tell customers about my business. 

I see that same answer in most of the Web sites I have recently visited.

In retrospect, I realize that I had the wrong focus.  While I thought I was communicating with my customers, what I was actually doing was talking at my customers.  I was telling them what I thought I should say rather than giving them the information they were seeking. 

I was looking at the situation from my point of view, not my customers’ point of view.

After I had come to that conclusion, I read a post from Hubspot about what visitors want from your Web site.  The article suggested to identify the three main reasons visitors come to your site and create a landing page for each of those reasons.  Make each of the landing pages easily accessible from your site’s home page so that visitors can immediately find what they want. 

On each of the landing pages offer the information a visitor is seeking on that subject and have links to other pages with further information.  When you are finished, you will likely be offering much of the same explanation about your products and services.  However, you will be presenting it as a solution to your customers’ problems rather than a slick presentation on what your business does.

Setting up your site with easy answers to visitors’ questions makes a great deal of sense.  Doing so gives visitors reasons to click through.  It prompts visitors to learn more.  It encourages visitors to linger and to buy.  It establishes your business’s concern to the customer.  It helps develop customers. 

What are the three main reasons visitors come to your Web site?  Answer that question.  Give it some thought.  Ask a few customers.  Once you have the answer, apply it to your Web site. 

The change will yield profitable results. 

This week's marketing trivia challenge is  What Web site have you visited that immediately gave you the information you were seeking?  E-mail me your answer.