How Does Your Business’s Web Site Measure Up?

“We just uploaded a new Web site,” Dave said as I walked to the door.  “Take a look at it and let me know what you think.”

“I will,” I replied.

“And this site,” he added, “we can change ourselves instead of needing to contact someone else to do it.”

“That is great!” I heartily approved.

When I returned to my office, I set aside a few minutes and eagerly opened Dave’s site.  I was impressed.  The site accomplished my top three criteria for a Web site.  First, the site immediately communicated Dave’s business‘s unique selling proposition.  Using attractive, appealing, and inviting images and text, the site showed the beauty of Dave’s facility. From the time you drive into the parking lot and with each step you take throughout the building and the gardens, Dave’s place vibrates magnificence. Every bit is meticulously groomed.  Dave’s staff members are alert to keeping both the gardens and the building looking their best all day long.  The photos on the site accurately reflect this attention to detail and the resulting loveliness of the place.

Second, the site is very easy to navigate.  A visitor can quickly find information on the facility, the gardens, and holding an event at the place.  Whether the visitor wants to have a wedding, banquet, or meeting, examples of each, the availability of amenities, and how to reserve the space are right at the visitor’s fingertips.  That gives the visitor what he or she needs to make a decision.

Finally, every business owner ought to be able to update the site in-house.  The only time someone outside the business needs to touch a site is when a major upgrade is being done.  Otherwise someone who works in the business, understands it, and has daily contact with the owner and/or manager is the one to do the changes.  That gives the business more control, the ability to act quickly, and the maximum use of the site.

I clearly saw that the site had been designed by an outsider looking in, thinking through what a visitor would want to know, and approaching the site from the viewpoint of a customer.  Since Dave has always been extremely customer-focused, that did not surprise me.  His business’s new site now also reflects that attitude. 

How does your Web site measure up with these three criteria?  Does it project your business’s unique selling proposition?  Is it easy to navigate?  Can you make changes to it in-house? 

Have a customer look at it and answer the first two questions.  Let me know the answers to all three.  Take a look at Dave’s business’s site at thefloriangardens.com.

This week's marketing trivia challenge is How does your Web site measure up with these three criteria?  E-mail me your answer.

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.

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.    

Consistency and Frequency Matter

I was inputting new e-mails into my Insight list recently and was reminded how many business people do not have e-mails at their Web sites. If you are one of these people, I hope that this Insight will give you a reason to change your e-mail. If you do, please let me know. I want to keep sending you Insights.

Why does having your e-mail at your Web site matter?

In marketing, which is communicating with your customer, you are smart to take every opportunity to tell your story. You want to reinforce your message frequently. An important part of your message is your business's name. Your customer finds you, remembers you, and refers you by your business's name. Therefore, you want to repeat your business's name at every opportunity so that your customer has easy reference to it.

If you are marketing smart, your business Web site domain name is your business's name. Allow no shortcuts. Make your domain name your complete business name. Then, every time you give out your Web site, you are giving your business's name. If your e-mail is at your Web site, every time you give out your e-mail, your are giving out your business's name, too.

You are also giving out your Web site address. In so doing, you are making it easy to know your Web site address. When your e-mail is at your Web site, every time that you give out your e-mail, your are subtly promoting your Web site.

Think about it.

How many times do you give out your e-mail address? How many times does someone use your e-mail address? How much reinforcement of your Web site would you receive if every time someone e-mailed you they saw or typed your Web site? How easy would you make it for them to go to your Web site and learn more about your business?

E-mail has become the preferred business communication method. This presents a marketing opportunity similar to that presented with snail mail. When someone sends you a envelope via snail mail, that person writes out your business name and address, right? Every time your business name is written, that name is reinforced to the person writing. If you have your e-mail at someplace other than your Web site, every time your e-mail is written, you are reinforcing some other business. That is akin to having your snail mail sent to another business's address. Why would you want to promote Yahoo or Hotmail or some other business?

You don't. You want to promote your business.

In marketing your business, consistency and frequency matter. They solidify your business in your customer's mind. They promote and encourage your customer to do business with you more often. They remind your customer that your business exists. Having your e-mail at your Web site offers both. That is a little thing that makes a big difference in marketing your business. If you don't have your e-mail address at your Web site, change it. Do so today.