I recently wanted to test website trust seals for a client that is in an industry where trust is a big issue for their customer base. This client had a moderate budget and didn’t want to spend a lot on a solution. They were skeptical of the whole idea of a trust seal in fact.

I did some searching for the options available for website trust seals and suggested that we test Trust Guard. It was the most economical option and also felt like a possible winner to me.

I suggested that we implement the seal for a trial period and run a conversion optimization test to be sure that it was producing a good return on investment. This way my client would know that their money was working for them and not the other way around.

Trust Guard conversion testing results

I expected an increase in conversions, but I was surprised at the results. For this client the inclusion of a Trust Guard seal outperformed the original (without a Trust Guard seal) by nearly a 2.5 to 1 ratio. During the test the version of the website displaying the Trust Guard seal pulled fully 3 times the conversions with a conversion rate of 20.6% (versus 8.33% without the Trust Guard seal).

Conclusion of Trust Guard conversion testing

Clearly every market and vertical is different and not every industry has the same needs when it comes to consumer trust. However, given the magnitude of the results I saw with this simple test I’ve started to take a more serious looks as additional consumer confidence indicators such as these trust seals.

Considering that most of the trust seals I found were much more expensive and required a full year commitment up front, Trust Guard–with it’s monthly billing–seemed like a reasonable place to start testing. I strongly recommend running conversion tests whenever considering making changes to your website because you never truly know exactly how your market will respond to the changes.

Test, test and test some more! Your business and the return on investment is more than worth it the additional time and effort.

Connect

And drop me a line if you need some help with conversion testing, have further questions about Trust Guard or just want to connect. It’s one of my favorite things to do.

Please add your comments below.

I’m not talking about a way of delivering a ‘course’ by email or a ‘drip’ email campaign. I’m talking about a ‘handshake’ of sorts… a thank you and an invitation that is at once uniquely you and powerfully effective at branding you while also creating a personal connection with the person on the other side of the screen.

An “effective” AutoResponder?

Perhaps the simplest way to begin to illustrate this is to share my own simple autoresponder message. If you send an email to me at joshua [at] joshuaguffey.com you’ll receive back some version of the following:

Thanks for your email. I must confess that I probably haven’t had the opportunity to review it just yet, as this message should have made it’s way to your inbox only moments after clicking ‘Send’ on an email you composed to me.

I wanted to let you know that I got your message and invite you to call me if your matter is urgent. I get a great deal of email each day and it is possible that I’ll require a couple of days to respond to you.  You can reach me on my mobile at 619-555-1212 by text or call.

If you’d like to connect further you can find me on LinkedIn for a professional connection or check out My Newest Thing for a more personal connection.

Thanks again for reaching out to me. I’ll get back to you shortly and hopefully we can make a connection.

Warm regards,
Joshua Guffey

Be Deliberate with your AutoResponder

What did I just do there? And what should you do with yours?

It’s different for each person. For me I don’t want to ‘sell’ or ‘push’ anything but rather create more of a connection. That’s true for me in my situation and for my purposes. It may not be true for you. Perhaps your ‘thing’ is a low-cost, impulse-buy product that buyers are likely to purchase in the first hour of internet research. In this case you’ll likely want to capitalize on that timing.

Whatever your goals and intentions are for your business or your brand, this is your opportunity to stand out at a point where it really counts.

Think about what frame of mind a visitor of yours may be in and consider why they’re on your site or contacting you to begin with. Think about what you’d like to leave them with as a first impression and write what you feel will highlight what you’re looking to bring extra awareness to.

If you’re a service provider it’s likely that creating a deeper, more meaningful connection will be a useful function for this first email.

AutoResponder Setup

There are a variety of ways to setup an autoresponder depending upon the email client that you use. I’d recommend using an email address hosted at your domain and running your autoresponder  from there if you can manage it. If not, there are options for auto-responders in most popular hosted email providers such as Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail. Just run a web search for “autoresponder yahoo (or your web mail service)” and follow the trail.

The setup will vary some in clients like Hotmail, Gmail and Yahoo versus your own hosting server setup.  If you can’t swing it yourself you can always contact me for help setting it up.

Other uses for AutoResponders

Here are a few more ideas for inclusion in your autoresponder :

• Your contact details and social links if that feels appropriate
• A vCard with all your details that can be easily imported into a person’s contacts
• A quality image of you exuding a joyous smile or taking some powerful action (typing? ;)
• A QR code to entice the reader to view a video or take some other action on their mobile phone
• A question for the reader that can spark a discussion and further connection
• A video introduction for the reader “Hi, I’m Josh. You’re awesome. Let’s connect.”
• Answer common questions that you get at that email address or blog
• Provide additional resources that will benefit your readers / customers
• Seasonal themes or content that will grab your reader with its relevance
• A map to your business location and a link for directions
• A link to your current inventory or promotion
• An embedded sign up form for inclusion in a promotion, a give-away or just to follow your blog
• A plug for a friend’s quality product in which you have true admiration and which is relevant to the reader
• A relevant inspirational quote that inspires your reader in a direction that is in line with your business or brand

I suggest that you save all current and previous autoresponder for future use, reworking and general reference.

Another useful approach is to create an autoresponder for different marketing channels

Further AutoResponder examples

• friday@soupshack.com (delivers Friday’s soup of the day)
• menu@joesawesomeshrimp.com (delivers a menu directly to the reader with a coupon)
• media-appearances@bieberbites.com
  (not sure what this one would be for but it sure sounds fun)

These are just a few silly examples, but the principle is quite effective.  And don’t worry, all of these inbound email addresses can funnel seamlessly into your primary email and still deliver targeted auto-responders for specific purposes.

Limit the sending of AutoResponders

Another good feature to utilize is the option to limit your autoresponder to going out to each person only once in a given time period. Its sometimes also a good idea to only setup these type of permanent-use autoresponders on ‘auxillary’ email addresses that forward into your primary.

These measures will prevent a person from getting your autoresponder over and over again with each new message to you.

An “effective” AutoResponder? > YES!

In my experience the resultant traffic sent to a website from an autoresponder is highly engaged. These visitors stay longer, read more and are more apt to complete actions on your website such as order a product or service you offer.

Its just far enough away, but not too far, from busy-ness.

We’ve made our wish lists for our new home. We’ve put out the intention for what we wish to receive. And we consciously allow it to make its way to our experience.

Out enthusiasm will lead us there.

Personal development rule # 2
Pause frequently for reflection

Personal development rule # 3
Enjoy the paradoxs

As we move into the holiday gatherings with our dear families whom we rarely see enough, I’d like to take a look at something…

The dearest things we give and reeceive in all the world are not wrapped in shiny ribbons and bows. Frequently our greatest gifts are as simple as a hand-crafted compliment that is entirely accurate and deserved, a kind ear that listens beyond the first several egoic-driven impulses to ‘move on’, and in so doing, giving another heart a chance to reflect and to be heard.

These types of gifts are often remembered for years. Perhaps even a lifetime.

I watched a lovely TED Talk by Brene Brown about the power of vulnerability (it was superb), and it reminded me that being true to yourself, allowing yourself to be vulnerable enough to be loved and courageous enough to do the loving are some of the most miraculous acts we can perform. And we can give these daily, even hourly, without being even one ounce diminished ourselves.

I hope your holidays are rife with the love and joy that is family and loved ones.

Wasted time is the devil

There’s no bigger time-waster than loosing track of where you were in a project and needing to retrace your steps to figure out where to begin again. Personally, I’m not a big fan of wasted time so I do what I can to maximize my use of what I’ve got.

I use Google Docs to organize my entire workflow and have adopted David Allen’s GTD system (good book, btw) within Google’s cloud-based document solution to suit my workflow very nicely. I have an general ‘Open Loops’ document that is essentially everything that is on my radar as something that I’m currently working on or which need immediate attention as soon as the thing I’m working on is complete. I have a ‘Someday / Maybe’ document that contains all the ideas that come up for me that seem like a good idea at the time, but which I don’t have the time to implement immediately. What’s interesting is that sometimes I’ll go back and find things in this document that in retrospect I realize either weren’t a good use of time, that I accomplished in another (usually better) way or that are now otherwise irrelevant. What I mean for you to take away from this is that I saved time because I didn’t waste it on things that later revealed themselves to be unneeded.

I should also note that I have a ‘Master’ list of everything that definitely needs to happen, one called ‘Waiting For’ that contains open loops that are currently in someone else’s workflow, and I have various specific documents for each individual project that I’ve got going. This keeps all of my thoughts straight, compartmentalized, backed up on Google’s servers and accessible to me from wherever I am, even from my phone.

The most beautiful part of this system though is its interlinkability (it’s a word now), which allows me to move easily from one document to another by creating links between the two, and its searchability (ditto), which allows instant, content-deep search capability across all of my documents account-wide.

As a working example about the linkability, I link from my Open Loops document to the specific document for a project, or even a specific section of that document and can then move swiftly from a large overview to a project overview. I sometimes even create sub-projects if the document begins to become too bloated and unfocused. It’s simple to ‘cut’ a section of a document and paste it into a new one.  Then I head back to the main doc and drop an appropriately titled link to the newly created one and BAM! Instant workflow.

The other great thing about Google Docs is the incredible search capabilities that is characteristic of Google’s products. From your ‘root’ folder of your Google Docs you can search the content of all your documents. And from within a spreadsheet, for example, you can search ‘one’ or ‘all’ sheets for a string.

I recently discovered a Google Desktop widget for Google Docs that makes all of this work even more easily and quickly. The widget allows you to search your docs, open them and even create new ones directly from your desktop. Its still using the documents online, but you save yourself the extra time it takes to launch your Google Docs ‘root’ folder to then find and work with the document you need. Instead you simply go right to what you need.

Step 1. Squeeze a household pet until they exclaim in disapproval. If you have goldfish you may need to try a few fish before this works.

Step 2. Record the sound your pet makes. These are the first letters.

Step 3. Add the winning lotto numbers from the week of your mother’s birth. This’ll require some research on your part, but is an absolutely vital step. Without it a monkey will be able to access your most sensitive status updates with only the power of his mind.

Step 4. Eat a piece of brocolli. Count the number of crunches you get from it. (This used to be the number of licks to get to the center of a tootsie pop but since they came out with that marketing campaign it just isn’t secure any longer. Mmmmm… I miss Big League Chew.)

Step 5. Multiply the numbers from steps 3 and 4, then subtract the number of times you curse your computer in a given day and append this to the sound your flattened animal made. If the resulting number is a negative throw your computer away, buy a parka and move to the Himalayas to become free from all of your emotional pissed-off-ness.

Step 6. You’re done. Your new password is so secure that no one aside from Google will ever know it. In fact, it’s so secure that your brain cannot even comprehend it’s magnificence and when you attempt to recall it your mind simply locks up in a overwhelming wave of awe at it’s pure awesomeness.

Step 7. Request a password reset.

This will allow us to break out of a crowded and cluttered social web and make more deliberate choices about which communities get the bulk of our time and energy. It’ll be driven likely by increasing user frustration at social behemoths, like Facebook, for their frequent privacy issues and the inherent disdain of an online monopoly on our friend connections and identity.

The next big thing is little.

What are your thoughts about the next step in the evolution of the social web?

What it we focused more clearly on the outcome we seek instead of all the details of one small part?

If we were to spend less time engaged with what doesn’t move us forward and we kept our purpose in mind, how much more could we achieve?

What’s the key here, I think, is having a strong passion / desire that will fuel you through the challenges and ward off boredom. Well, that and keeping it at the absolute forefront of your mind. This seems to keep me very focused. Its always when my ‘why’ wanes that my results diminish.

What’s true for you?

A crest of sand on a long deserted beach.

My heart and yours, the things we’ve seen.

The learning, the growth, the places we’ve been.

Now they all come to meet, where sand and the waves meet the toes on our feet.

Usually when I drill down and ask if there are any specific questions the response is nearly always “Well I just wonder what you would recommend.”

Its fine, I don’t mind this question and I’m happy to help when and where I can. What I think people are frequently looking for is some general sense of where to go from here. You’ve got a WordPress blog, now what?

So what follows is a general response to a recent inquiry I got from a buddy online. If it fits for you and is helpful… awesome!

In my experience its a bit of an ongoing process. You’ll probably feel out the design for a while and make changes til you’re happy with it.

I’d say make the effort to continue writing. Every day if you can find the time. Your writing will quickly evolve and you’ll define more and more your own specific topics and style.

Creating a clear focus or a thread that weaves its way through all of your content is always ideal, but that can take time to do it right. Often developing a sense for what this is for one’s own self takes a bit of time first. But write anyway. The focus will come. And if later down the line you decide you’d like to change focus you can easily do so.

Meanwhile you’ll be developing connections with people. A community that witnesses your writing and becomes increasingly engaged with you, your ideas and your brand (or personality plus expertise).

Remember that writing is building equity. All the rest is details.

Hope this helps!

Best,
Joshua

Man is exactly like an onion and the art consists of how to peel the onion and come to its innermost core.

From Intuition by Osho

Swype technology goes a long way towards improving data entry, but like any newer technology, its got significant room for improvement.

I’m noticing some really interesting things happening when screens these days. Apples got that weird screen in the newest Macbook Air. The emerging 3D wave and eLCDs seem pretty promising as well.

What do you suppose will be the next innovations that bring the desktop experience even closer to our pockets?

For anyone interested in integrative spirituality but with a penchant for the provable.

You can listen to a sample of it on on audible.com