Website Promotion, Conversion Rate Optimization, and Internet Sales Advice

To Increase Sales, Don’t Be Yet Another Site with a List of Products!

2008-06-27T01:34:00.000-07:00

Customers are overwhelmed with product selection on the internet. Your website can't be just another list of products. [Click Here to See a Larger Image]

Summary: Is your website just another of thousands of websites selling the same products? If so, instead of getting sales, you may just see yourself adding to the noise and confusion on the internet.

Yet Another Site with a List of Products

A golfer wants to buy a new set of Nike golf clubs, the ones Tiger Woods uses. He does a search on Google for ‘tiger wood’s golf clubs’. How many results do you think he’d find? No doubt he would find hundreds, if not thousands. Likely, the golfer can buy the clubs from Nike directly, from a website specializing in golf clubs, from eBay, from a sporting goods website, from Craigslist, and the list continues... Do you see the problem? Virtually any product you can think of is being sold by hundreds if not thousands of websites! Therefore, for you to get a sale, you must do more than offer just another product. You have to provide explanations and information that dispels confusion and helps the customer organize his product search.

Address Fears that Prevent a Purchase

To convince a customer to purchase you must address three customer fears that prevent him from making a decision. Customers fear…

Buying the wrong product.
Buying the right product at too high a price.
Being stuck with a disappointing product.

The last two are simple to address. Offer a good price and offer a good return policy. Most companies already do these two things well and I’m sure you are as well. But what can be done about the first fear?

Help the Customer Choose the Right Product

The other day I needed to buy paper for a direct mail campaign. I knew I wanted paper that would make a good impression but at a reasonable price. Unfortunately, I’m not a direct mail expert, nor am I a paper expert; so I was not sure which classification of paper would satisfy my goals. All of the paper and direct mail websites I visited gave me prices for different technical classifications of paper, but none explained, in layman terms, how the paper feels to the touch or how it might perform when used for direct mail. The options were overwhelming. Frustrated with all of these websites, I finally had to seek help from an expert at a local paper shop. A kind saleswoman pointed me to products that her direct mail clients use and explained how each paper is perceived psychologically by the recipient. Satisfied with her answers, I bought all of my paper from this paper shop.

What is the point of this story? I was not able to make my decision online because no website gave me the information I needed to help me choose the right product. Thus, every single one of those websites lost my business.

Are you losing business because you don’t help the customer choose the right product? On the internet, when the customer is faced with a bewildering variety of options, and he can’t sort out which product is right for him, he simply won’t buy any of them.

Don’t Just Explain Why to Buy a Product, also Explain Why Not To

To choose between options the customer needs to know why to buy a product and why not to buy a product. For instance, a car website may say, ‘buy a truck if you need to haul large loads, but don’t buy a truck if you need high fuel efficiency.’ This helps a customer narrow down his options depending on what is more important, fuel efficiency or payload hauling.

Drug companies have been doing this for years. Have you noticed how many drugs have one version that is ‘fast-acting’ and another version that is ‘long-lasting’? This increases sales by forcing the customer to choose one desired effect over the other, depending on how he feels.

Conclusion: Help Customers Select the Right Product

Your website is not the only source for any product on the internet. Therefore, to get the sale you have to do a better job of explaining your products than your competitor does. If a customer is confused, he would rather not buy any product, than take the risk of buying the wrong product. Thus, to generate sales, you need to do an excellent job of helping the customer buy the right product by offering informative product descriptions and information to help him decide between similar products.

Related Articles

Dmiracle.com. 2008. "Are Your Customers Sick & Tired of Choice?"

To Increase Website Traffic and Sales, Answer Customer Questions

2008-06-19T13:14:00.000-07:00

Frustration and a loss of sales results when your website does not answer questions.

Summary: Do you hate a pushy salesman that doesn't listen to your questions? Like a pushy salesman, your website will lose sales if it is so intent on selling to the customer that it fails to answer ALL the questions the customer wants answered before he will buy your product or service (See web marketing mistake #10).

The Internet Is a Tool to Answer Questions

Why do you use the internet? Isn’t it to get information? You’re not alone. 74% of men and women research online before buying any product or service (BigResearch, 2007). What are these 3 out of 4 men and women researching? Of course they are looking for answers to a wide variety of questions. So then, you do well to ask yourself, ‘Is my website answering all of my customer’s questions?’ If not, you may be losing 3 out of 4 potential clients.

Don’t Just Answer the Obvious Questions

Of course the #1 question most customers have is price. However, don’t stop at answering this question alone or you will still lose a good chunk of those 3 out 4 online researchers. Let me illustrate.

A certain man is interested in buying a set of golf clubs, and he finds a set he likes online. He likes the price, but he isn’t sure the clubs match his height. He searches the website for the shaft length, but it is not listed. Uncertain that these clubs will match his height, he decides not to buy.

Do you see the point? The man was going to buy the clubs, but because one of his questions was not answered, he decided against it. On the internet, your customer can not physically see, touch, or feel your product; so questions regarding dimensions, look, feel, and texture must be answered online (See #3 and #4 high-profit website redesign priorities). The same applies to selling services. If questions are not answered the customer would rather not buy than run the risk of buying the wrong product (See #4 high-profit website redesign priorities).

Conclusion: Analyze Your Website to See if You Are Answering Customer Questions

So take a look at your products or services. Can you try to think of ALL the questions customers might want answers to before they purchase your product or service? Once you’ve done this, take a look at your website and see if you’re answering these questions. If not, make the necessary changes before you lose additional sales.

Additional Reading

CopyBlogger.com, 3 Questions Your Website Must Answer to Succeed
CopyBlogger.com, Don't List Fake Benefits, List Real Ones

References

BigResearch.com. 2005. "More Consumers Researching Online Before Buying in the Store"

Benchmark your Conversion Rate Using Fireclick.com's Industry Data

2008-06-12T21:31:00.000-07:00

Use Fireclick data to establish reasonable conversion rate goals for your website.

Summary: The Fireclick Index is a great resource for site conversion rate data. I was very happy to find it! Use it to benchmark your site's conversion rate.

In a previous post I discussed the importance of benchmarking your site's conversion rate against your industry's average. In the post I mentioned that finding good benchmark data is difficult. Today I stumbled upon Fireclick, a great website for industry average website conversion rate data.

I suggest you take some time to review Fireclick's data, because a good understanding of your competitive environment is necessary to set realistic goals for your website.

Examples of What Fireclick's Data Reveals

Fireclick reveals that the average website conversion rate is 2.2%. However, conversion rates vary greatly by industry.

For example, catalog companies have a site conversion rate of 6.8%. Which lends further evidence that direct mail can do a lot to improve your conversion rate. (Of course you must balance this against the added cost sending out direct mail.)

The worst industry, by conversion rate, is electronics with an average of 0.8%.

Conclusion: Benchmark Your Site Against this Data

So far, this is the best resource I have found for freely available, real-time, accurate conversion rate data. I hope you are able to use this to successfully benchmark your website!

Guest Interview: Use Links to Increase Your Search Engine Traffic

2008-06-12T06:00:00.000-07:00

Debra Mastaler and a great article from her blog "The Link Spiel".

Summary: Debra Mastaler helps companies increase their search engine traffic by showing them how to build their inbound links. She's so good at what she does that she's been referred to as the "Queen of Links". The name of her company is Alliance-Link. Today Debra was kind enough to answer a series of questions I sent to her in an email interview format. This interview will help you to understand how inbound links increase your search engine rank, and how to start building links for your website.

Ayo: Why is link building important?

Debra: Since all search engines use a form of link popularity in their ranking algorithms and links are traffic paths between web pages, having a number of quality links pointing to your site is important.

People click links to travel from one page and one website to the next so having links on websites frequented by your demographic makes a lot of sense. If you own condos in ski resort areas, it would make sense to have your link on sites that rent ski’s or snowmobiles. Likewise, it makes sense to have ski schools listed on yours. Placing your link on sites your visitors would find useful helps drive qualified traffic.

Search engines work on the same logic when they determine the relevance of a link and its anchor text for their algorithms. Links act as votes to a search engine, the more votes your site gets from quality, on topic web pages the more important the page becomes to a search engine. In order to rank well, build brand and drive qualified traffic you need a number of quality links pointing to your website.

Ayo: In summary, what are the key benefits of link building?

Debra: There are numerous benefits behind link building, you drive traffic, work to increase your influence with the search engines, build brand and increase your online exposure. Each plays an equal part in helping to market your business and increase you placement within the search engines.

Ayo: So, what you do as a link consultant?

Debra: I have three primary services I offer as a link building consultant, first, I develop online marketing campaigns designed to attract or pursue inbound links to a specific website. Second, I offer link building training to individuals and firms looking to learn how to secure inbound links and third, I offer long or short term consulting to business owners who want to keep a link builder on retainer for special projects or to train new employees.

Ayo: Are there some resources readers can use to start building links for their website?

Debra: There are many many places and resources, but here’s a handful to get your started:

Resource Name	Resource URL
Blogs	These blogs primarily discuss link building.
The Link Spiel	http://thelinkspiel.blogspot.com
SEO Book Link Building Training (Highly Recommended)	http://training.seobook.com/
Justilien Gaspard	http://www.justilien.com
Eric Ward	http://www.ericward.com/articles/
Jim Boykin	http://www.jimboykin.com
Wiep Knol	http://wiep.net/
Roger Montti	http://www.martinibuster.net/

Tools
Link Hounds	http://www.linkhounds.com

Articles
11 Experts On Link Development	http://www.sugarrae.com/11-experts-on-link-development-speak/
101 Link Building Tips	http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml
Link Building Articles	http://www.semmys.org/category/link-building/

When Fishing for Customers Use Educational Information as Your Lure

2008-06-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

Just like the fisherman, a successful website must have a lure to attract customers.

Summary: No fisherman lowers an empty hook into the water; if he does, the fish take no interest in the hook and he catches nothing. But the fisherman puts a lure on the line and it attracts fish to the hook. Likewise you, to attract customers to your website can’t rely on product pricing and offer alone. You must first attract customers to your website using unbiased, informative information as your lure.

The #1 Internet Shopping Activity is Research

74% of men and women research on the internet before buying a product or service (BIGResearch, 2007). By offering useful, un-biased information on your website, you can help these 3 out of 4 of men and women accomplish their objective using your website.

Think about what type of research your potential customers might be doing. Remember, customers are interested in more than just researching product prices. Some customers aren’t even sure what to buy. They need to know what to buy, before they can even start looking at prices. Can you help the customer decide what to buy? (See Item #4 in this list)

Educational Information is Your Lure

Consider this example. A certain tourist wants to buy a digital camera for his vacation. However, seeing so many options he is not sure what to buy. So he goes to Google and does a search for ‘good vacation cameras’. He finds a website that tells him which cameras are good for vacations because of a long battery life and support for different countries’ power outlets. Happy with their prices, he buys a camera from this website.

Do you see the point? The website that told the tourist which digital camera is better for a vacation lured the customer in, and then hooked him with a good price. All the camera websites that merely list their digital cameras, with no information about using these cameras on vacation, were not even considered. If you want to increase site traffic, you need to provide information, such as articles, to answer the variety of research questions they might have. (See #10 in this list)

Conclusion: Educational Information is Your Lure, Price and Offer is Your Hook

To attract customers provide educational information that goes beyond merely listing the products you sell. Unbiased, informative articles and advice will attract website traffic. However, to get the sale you must have a compelling price and offer. Having a great price and offer but no educational information is like having a hook with no lure. Having educational information without a great price and offer is like having a lure with no hook. To increase site traffic you must give the customer information beyond just a product list with prices.

References

BigResearch.com. 2005. "More Consumers Researching Online Before Buying in the Store"

Your Site's Bounce Rate, Why Important?

2008-05-03T17:31:00.000-07:00

Summary: Improving your site's conversion rate largely starts at lowering your bounce rate. Why? Because every customer that bounces from your website is a lost opportunity to explain your value proposition and give your sales pitch.

What should you do if you have a high bounce rate? Avinash Kaushik, of Google's Conversion University, provides a great video explaining why a successful website must have a low bounce rate. While you watch the video, try to pick out reasons a high bounce rate is so detrimental.

Avinash brings out that a bounce rate between 40 - 60% is considered good. You'll never get everyone to stay on your website; nevertheless, if your bounce rate is higher than 60% you should begin by asking, Is there a problem with your website or is there a problem with your traffic sources?

A high bounce rate can occur because your traffic sources are low quality. If so, try to look for better sources of traffic. For example, if you're spending money for highly bouncing traffic through banner ads or pay-per-click advertising, cut back on this spending. You might try marketing strategies such as article writing and direct-mail instead.

If the problem is your website, then you need to use an analytics package to look at your top landing pages and see if you can understand what the visitor is looking for by seeing how he got to that landing page. Did he arrive at the landing page through a Google search? If so, look at the keywords being used to hit that landing page and make sure the landing page addresses the needs of someone searching with those keywords. Is the visitor hitting your website from a business directory such as Yahoo.com? Make sure the landing page from that directory category gives the information the customer would expect or want.

Improving your bounce rate will take time and it may take many design iterations before you finally find a solution that gives you an acceptable bounce rate. However, improving your bounce rate is worth the effort. A high bounce rate is a sure fire way to low website sales. A low bounce rate drives greater sales and means your website is making a more favorable impression with visitors.

An Incorrect View of Your Site's Metrics Can Hide Areas Needing Improvement

2008-05-03T16:54:00.000-07:00

Summary: Site analytics averages are deceiving and hide areas needing improvement. Avinash Kaushik, an instructor at Google's Conversion University, helps explain why you need to look at more than averages when you examine your website's metrics. Hidden in your metrics could be successes and failures of your website that you've never noticed before. I thoroughly enjoyed this video. Hopefully you are using Google analytics, or another comparable analytics package, since analytics are required to reliably improve your website. Once you watch this video, take some time to look at your analytics with this fresh perspective. Then ask yourself, "How can I improve my website with what I've learned?"

How Can Freely Sharing Articles You Author Help You Build Business?

2008-04-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

Make friends with your customers, both potential and existing, by giving freely.

Summary: Customers ignore advertisements because advertisements saturate our lives and we've learned most of them can't be trusted. So how can you reach ad-weary customers? By freely educating them. If a customer can learn something valuable from you, they are more likely to respect you, trust you, remember you, and recommend you. This technique is often called "Content Marketing." To help you better understand what Content Marketing is and how it can help your company, I thought it would be helpful to share an excellent definition I found on Wikipedia today.

Which is a customer more likely to ignore, a helpful article or a traditional advertisement? Which is a customer more likely to show to colleagues, an educational video or a video advertisement?

Freely sharing helpful articles, videos, etc. to grow your business is an effective method called "Content Marketing." Below is a definition of Content Marketing from Wikipedia.org:

"Content marketing is an umbrella term encompassing all marketing formats that involve the creation or sharing of content for the purpose of engaging current and potential consumer bases. In contrast to traditional marketing methods that aim to increase sales or awareness through interruption techniques, content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action.

The idea of sharing content as a means of persuading decision-making has driven content marketers to make their once-proprietary informational assets available to selected audiences. Alternatively, many content marketers choose to create new information and share it via any and all media. Content marketing products frequently take the form of custom magazines, print or online newsletters, digital content, websites or microsites, white papers, webcasts/webinars, podcasts, video portals or series, in-person roadshows, roundtables, interactive online, email, events. The purpose of this information is not to spout the virtues of the marketer’s own products or services, but to inform target customers and prospects about key industry issues, sometimes involving the marketer’s products. The motivation behind content marketing is the belief that educating the customer results in the brand’s recognition as a thought leader and industry expert.

Marketers may use content marketing as a means of achieving a variety of business goals, such as thought leadership, lead generation, increasing direct sales, improving retention and more.

Content marketing is the underlying philosophy driving techniques such as custom media, custom publishing, database marketing, brand marketing, branded entertainment and branded content." (Wikipedia, 2008.)

Put simply, Content Marketing allows you to build a closer relationship with the customer than mere advertising can provide by freely giving him with educational articles, audio, video, that address his problems and also demonstrate your company's value and expertise.

So do not delay. Start sharing your expertise with your existing and potential customers by writing articles with solutions to their problems and placing them prominently on your website, sending them out in email, and using any other reasonable method. If you share your expertise freely, you will generate goodwill and will gain the potential customer's attention, respect, and business. However, if you do not share your expertise freely, customers will incorrectly assume that you don't share information because you don't have their interests in mind, or worse you don't have the expertise you claim to have. As a result, they will take their business to a more convincing competitor. So apply this saying to your expertise, "Practice giving and people will give to you."

References

Wikepedia. 2008. "Content marketing."

This definition of Content Marketing was shared under the terms of the Wikipedia Licensing agreement.

What is Web Strategy and Why is it Important? 10 Questions to Help Explain

2008-04-19T12:18:00.000-07:00

Do you think of your customers as one big group or do you categorize them?

Summary: I have watched friends build a website to generate income with very little planning; they have an idea, and the next day they're building the website. But I've watched those same friends start a business and immediately start with a business plan before doing anything else. Why the difference? It seems that planning is an expected part of successful business strategy. Why isn't planning considered equally important for a website? In this article we'll discuss what web strategy is, questions that should be answered as part of a successful website strategy, and we'll talk about why such a strategy is important.

So what is web strategy?

I'll start with a rather pithy definition: Web strategy is about looking at and anticipating root causes of online success or failure and coming up with solutions to address those root causes instead of superficial solutions.

Perhaps that still doesn't make sense; let's try to explain it another way?

Put simply, web strategy is like a business plan, but it is the plan for your website. In it you outline a road map for your website. You outline obstacles and challenges you expect to face, your plan to overcome those obstacles, and goals that will determine whether you've been successful.

Do you really need a web strategy?

You may ask, 'Why is planning important?' An ancient proverb states, "The plans of the diligent one surely make for advantage, but everyone that is hasty surely heads for want." Good planning ultimately leads to business advantages. Similarly, good website planning ultimately leads to advantages for your website versus competing websites.

But what types of questions are answered as a part of a web strategy?

Let me provide some examples of web strategy questions and see if this helps you to understand what web strategy is about:

What are the categories of customers who use your website? Thinking of all your customers in one big group is an example of having no website strategy because customers are not all the same. For example, a website selling books might group their customers into categories like as in the chart at the top of this article.
Does your website address the needs of each category of customer in a satisfactory way? Many website owners think primarily about their own needs, for instance getting a sale, and thus the website reflects this. Just as we hate salesman that are only out for their commission people hate websites that only sell and otherwise aren't helpful at sincerely answering questions or concerns the potential buyer might have.
What are the top 10 questions customers ask when they reach your website? How do you answer each of those top 10 questions? Websites that fail to answer the most important customer questions won't get sales because it is guaranteed you have a competitor on the internet that does answer his questions. Since this is the case, why would he buy from your website?
On each page of your website, what is the desired action you want the user to take on that page? If you don't know this, how can you tell your customer what to do? If you can't tell your customer what to do, how will he know what to do next? If he doesn't know what to do next, he will just leave your website.
What is considered a successful visit on your website? What are you doing to ensure that each visit to your website is successful? Are you trying to get a phone call, a newsletter subscription, a purchase? The answer to this question should greatly affect your entire website's layout and design.
What is the average conversion rate for your industry and what is the target conversion rate for your website? If you don't know your industry conversion rate, then how can you set a target for your own conversion rate? You can't just pull these numbers out of the air. If this data is not available, you need some other logical way of determining a reasonable conversion rate.
Besides relying on search engines, directories, and advertising, what is your six month plan for increasing the number of visitors to your website? Millions of websites are competing to get on Google Search, Yahoo Directory, etc. If you do the same thing everyone else is doing, you're going to get the same results. The average website fails. So what will you do differently than those failing websites did?
What are the goals for your website in the next 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year? Your goals should guide your activity every day. Without goals you are like a runner running without a destination. How will he know which direction to take his next step?
What lessons have you learned from your competitors in the last 6 months and how do you plan to apply those lessons in the next 6 months? Your competitors are trying thousands of different things to find success. The smart entrepreneur learns from his competitors. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart and Sam's Club, started Sam's Club after he visited Sol Price's Price Club (now named Costco). He way always learning. You should be doing the same by using your competitor's websites regularly.
What reason does a visitor have to tell others about your website? The best marketing is word-of-mouth. Is there anything about your website that a customer would have reason to tell his friends and colleagues about? To get an honest answer, you may need to ask someone else for their opinion. This is probably the most important question you can ask.

I could continue to list questions, but hopefully you get the point. Web strategy is about formulating answers to questions like the above. To put it another way, a successful web strategy can be a formal document, just like a business plan, that outlines your plan for the growth and development of your website and sets clear goals that will allow you to determine whether you were successful or not.

Your Plan is Your Map

If you don't have a web strategy, then you're like a traveler on a road trip without a map and without a route. You might stumble upon your destination, but your journey is going to be long and difficult full of wrong turns and dead ends. However, by developing a web strategy you're going to be like the traveler that has both a map, and a well planned route. You will reach your destination, and you will reach it quickly and you will enjoy the scenery along the way.

Is your website competitive? Let's Ask Google’s New Benchmarking Tool

2008-04-09T22:06:00.000-07:00

A screenshot from Google's new Benchmarking service.

Summary: Google has launched a new benchmarking service to enable business owners and executives to compare their website's statistics against the industry average. This tool can help you to gain insight into how your website stacks up against your competitor. This is necessary if you are going to increase your site's conversion rate, yield maximal benefits from website promotion, or increase site traffic. In this article we will discuss the tool in more detail and analyze why it is so valuable.

Have you ever been sitting, looking at your website statistics, trying your best to analyze the data, but just feeling like you have no idea whether your site’s statistics are good or bad? You keep wondering, ‘how do I stack up against my competition?’ Unfortunately, you can’t just call your competitors every week and ask to swap data. But without knowing how your competitors are doing, you feel like your site’s numbers give you little real insight as to how your company is performing.

Fortunately, Google has helped to lift the fog. Google Analytics has released a new benchmarking tool to enable companies to easily compare their website’s statistics against industry averages. Amazingly, this free service can help you see if your website is doing well versus websites in your industry, doing poorly, or just performing at an average level. Google’s Analytics Benchmarking tool can give you insights into your own success and failure and those of your competitors.

But what is benchmarking and why do business owners and executives need a benchmarking tool to maintain a successful website? It is beneficial to examine the answer to this question.

You may know your website’s statistics (e.g. number of visitors, pageviews, etc.), but is that enough to know whether or not your website is performing well? No. Your website’s level of success, whether good or bad, can only be determined by comparing your site against competitors. This process is called benchmarking. Let me illustrate why benchmarking is necessary with an example.

In college, students are graded on a curve. Students who are far above average receive the A grade; students that are below average receive the C, D, or F; average gets you a B. It is impossible to determine your grade from your exam score without also knowing the average.

For example, while in college, I once scored 45 out of 100 on a final exam. When I saw my score I was in shock. I was almost certain I had failed. But did I fail the test? No. In fact, I aced it. It turned out the average on the test was a 25 so my 45 was an A+. Only by knowing the average could I accurately judge my success on that test.

Measuring website performance is the same. If 10% of visitors to your website end up purchasing, is that good or bad? It depends. If your competitors are getting 30% of visitors to buy, then you should be asking, ‘what am I doing wrong?’ If this were college, you’d be receiving the F. However, if your competitors are only getting 2% of visitors to buy versus your 10%, then your company is performing at an excellent level! You deserve the A+! Again, site statistics must be benchmarked against your competitors to accurately judge your success. On their own, statistics provide limited insight.

So undoubtedly you see the importance of benchmarking your website’s performance against the industry average. Google’s new Analytics Benchmarking service is an excellent tool that now makes benchmarking easier than ever. I urge you to strongly consider the use of this tool, or any similar benchmarking tool you are aware of. As a result of benchmarking your website, you will know with confidence whether your website is great, without need of improvement, or uncompetitive with urgent need of an upgrade.

Notes

To use the Google Analytics Benchmarking service, your website must be using Google analytics.
Google Analytics is a free service.
You can sign up for Google Analytics at: http://www.google.com/analytics/indexu.html

Guest Article: How can Patience Provide Rewarding Sales Growth?

2008-04-03T12:31:00.000-07:00

What lessons can we learn from the success of LightningLabels.com?

Summary: Peter Renton, the founder of Lighting Labels, built his website lightninglabels.com from zero visitors to 22,000 visitors per month (Compete.com, 2008). This is impressive for a business with such a small niche. Today, Peter is going to discuss the rewards of patience as you build your website and how he benefited from writing a business blog. Recently, Peter estimated that his blog drives at least $2,000 per month of additional business to his website. I hope you enjoy this article.

I believe every business should have a blog, but to launch a successful blog you need to be patient and committed. You simply cannot judge the success of your blog for at least 12 months, so you need to continually update your blog even when few people are reading it. Unless you are very lucky or famous, building blog traffic is a slow and gradual process.

A blog can do a number of things for a business. First and foremost, it should provide a more personal face for your company. The blog author or authors should be visible and be allowed to write in a personal, conversational tone. A blog is not about telling the world how great you are; you should leave that to your main site. Instead, you should use your blog to educate and inform, and possibly entertain if it is appropriate.

When you start writing your blog you should do a handful of posts and then announce to the world that you have a blog. You can do online press releases, contact industry publications, email your customer list and get the word out any way you can. This should provide an initial bump in traffic for you which will hopefully result in a number of regular readers.

Our company blog is now two years old, and is the oldest blog in our industry. For many months, though, I would write blog posts and look at the traffic and be disappointed. Here is the breakdown of approximate number of daily visitors and how it has grown:

Month	Daily Visitors
3rd	25
6th	31
9th	45
12th	65
18th	114
24th	147

The numbers above are for unique visitors viewing pages on the blog web site, but with any blog you can subscribe to the content without visiting the site by using an RSS reader. Our growth in the number of subscribers has followed a similar curve to that of daily visitors, and today we have about the same number of subscribers, around 140.

These are not huge numbers but for a vertical market such as digital label printing you can’t expect to have thousands of readers. One important feature that every business blog should have is a prominent link back to the company’s main web site. We get more visitors to our main site from our blog than any other source other than the search engines. People find our blog go to our web site and become customers. I estimate that we get around four new customers a month resulting in around $2,000 in sales directly from the blog.

So how do you grow the number of visitors to your blog? Here are a number of ways we have done it:

1. Search engines – every new post is indexed by the search engines within a day or two and after two years we have over 170 posts and more than 50,000 words written about our industry. All these words are indexed and able to be searched with more words being added with every post.

2. Promoting the blog – we promote the blog at every opportunity. We provide a link to the blog in our customer emails, press releases, articles, even in my email signature.

3. Commenting on other blogs – I subscribe to dozens of blogs and I regularly make comments on these blogs. These comments usually provide a link back to our company blog. One word of warning: be careful to make the comment meaningful otherwise it will be deleted as spam.

4. Blogrolls – Develop a relationship with other bloggers and you can get your blog placed on what is called a blogroll. This is a list of blogs (with links) that a blogger publishes on their blog.

5. Your main web site – a link to your blog should be prominently featured on your main company web site.

We get many people who visit our own main site, then go and check out our blog and place an order. We have no way of measuring the actual impact that our blog has on these people but I know the blog helps create the impression that we are an industry leader. Our blog is also mentioned in trade publications now and has resulted in speaking and writing engagements for me that increases our exposure in our industry. But this all took time and perseverance.

Peter Renton is the founder of Lightning Labels, Inc., the leaders in digital label printing and custom labels. He writes regularly about the label printing industry on his company blog at http://blog.lightninglabels.com.

References

Compete.com. 2008. "Snapshot of LightningLabels.com"

Discouraged? A Successful Website Requires Realistic Goals

2008-03-31T19:33:00.000-07:00

What are the repercussions of having unrealistic business goals?

Summary: In this article we will discuss how to establish realistic goals for a website and why we do so. Realistic goals are important for a website owner if he is going to have success. Realistic goals accomplish two objectives. First, realistic goals lead to constant, measurable progress. Second, realistic goals provide motivation when achieved. Whereas, unrealistic goals can lead to wasted effort and discouragement.

What is wrong with having unrealistic goals for your website? Unrealistic goals can lead to discouragement. Discouragement can lead to a loss of joy and, worse, giving up altogether.

Sometimes in our efforts to reach out for as much as possible for our business, we reach out for so much that we overstretch ourselves.

Therefore, to keep your joy, and to continue to grow your company, you should always set goals that force you to stretch but that also allow you to see steady progress.

What makes a goal realistic? And how can your goals help your company make steady, measurable progress?

Here are some guidelines:

Realistic goals should be in-line with what companies in your industry have been able to accomplish historically.
Your goals should allow time for your efforts to bear fruit.
Realistic goals should reflect deep planning and not shallow thinking.

Let's briefly expand on each of these three points.

Realistic goals should be in-line with what companies in your industry have been able to accomplish historically.

If your goals fail to take into account industry averages they are more than likely going to be missed.

For example, if the average conversion rate in your industry is 5% and your website's current conversion rate is 6%, would a goal of having a 25% conversion rate be reasonable?

Google Analytics has a new benchmarking tool that helps companies to benchmark their websites against industry averages. Consider investing in tools like this or manually gathering data published about your industry. Then, armed with industry knowledge, set realistic goals.

Your goals should allow time for your efforts to bear fruit.

The farmer can not plant his seed Monday night and expect to reap Tuesday morning. Similarly, reaping the results of your effort to increase traffic, revenues, or profit requires time. Often noticeable improvement requires consistent effort for years not months.

Don't try to fool yourself into thinking that you're going to increase your monthly revenues an order of magnitude through a brief three month burst of activity. Though some websites manage to buck the trend, on average websites seem to take 2-3 years of consistent effort to gain traction.

How long are you currently planning on waiting for your efforts to yield significant results?

Realistic goals should reflect deep planning and not shallow thinking.

Many website owners obsess over only two numbers, traffic and revenues. This obsession is shallow because it fails to look at the root sources of traffic and revenue.

There are myriads of factors that go into a successful website (e.g. quality product selection, good site design, educational content, quality customer service, well written product descriptions, etcetera). Don't just set traffic and revenue goals as a knee jerk reaction. Try setting goals for improving very specific parts of your website.

For example, a study by Jakob Nielsen on website usability found that users are 22% more satisfied when website content is written in a concise, objective and scannable manner (Nielsen, 1997). Can you set a goal to re-write all of the text on your website to make it more objective (e.g. remove any biased or overly optimistic statements)?

One of Jack Welch's most famous actions when he became CEO of GE was to get GE out of any business where they weren't #1 or #2 (Wikipedia, 2008). This allowed GE to focus its energy on its strengths. Can you do something similar with your website? For example, can you set a goal of trimming back your product selection to only products with margins at or above your industry's average?

Paying attention to the three points discussed in this article as you set goals for your website will help you to set realistic goals that continuously move your website forward. By setting realistic goals you will avoid discouragement. More importantly, your steady, measurable progress will serve as personal motivation to continue working on building a successful business online.

References:

Nielsen, Jakob. 1997. "How to Write for the Web"
Wikipedia. 2008. "Jack Welch"

[Video] Site Review: Quality Inventory Provides Greater Sales than Elegant Site Design

2008-03-31T09:58:00.000-07:00

Summary: What can we learn from VacationRentals.com, the #2 vacation rental website on the internet? Well, first, simple websites often outperform slick elegant designer websites. Second, having quality inventory is far more important than having the best looking website. Focus on beating your competition by having high quality products and services and don't worry about having the best looking website in your industry.

How Can I Use Video to Increase Website Sales?

2008-03-22T09:30:00.001-07:00

Roof Life Oregon effectively uses video to help the visitor learn more about the CEO of the company.

Summary: The web is a very insecure and impersonal medium. Customers fear identify theft, unfulfilled orders, and other fraudulent activity. Hearing a human voice on your website, especially a video of you or an employee can calm customer nerves.

Have you ever heard of someone being defrauded online? Of course you have. There are email scams, phishing scams, stolen credit card numbers, etc. Though you or someone you know may never have been defrauded, no doubt you are very aware that it happens. More importantly, your customer is also aware of the real risk of fraudulent activity on the internet. Fear of fraud is a major reason that customers don't buy from websites they don't already know. How can we use video to calm the customer's nerves?

We all know that most con men like to hide who they are. Criminals don't like to give away their real name and they don't like to show their faces. When we see a person or company exhibit similar behavior, red flags go up. So, to build trust, you need to do the opposite on your website. With video the customer can see your face, he can hear your voice, and learn your name. This makes videos a great way to build trust.

What makes websites feel untrustworthy is that they appear anonymous. Fortunately, video of company executives or employees can remove much of this anonymity. To see an example of how this is done successfully, look at Roof Life Oregon's website. Roof Life Oregon is a successful roofing company in the state of Oregon. They effectively use video to introduce the customer to the company CEO.

Commenting on Roof Life Oregon's use of this technique, and the use of video in general, Tom Wanek, of Marketing Beyond Advertising comments: "Nothing bridges that chasm of anonymity on the web like real pictures/video."

You may wonder, what if customers don't like the person they see in the video? This is a natural concern. But everyday we do business with people at grocery stores, restaurants, banks, etc. Usually a friendly smile and caring tone of voice is all that's needed to satisfy us. It is no different with your video. Just make sure to be friendly and show that you care about the customer and you won't need to worry about customers seeing your video in a negative way.

Again, why is it worthwhile to build trust? Because for a customer to turn over his contact information or billing information to you, he has to trust you. It doesn't matter if you sell the best product or service ever invented. If the customer can't trust you, he can't do business with you.

So, you do well to ask yourself, "Can my website benefit by building greater trust?" If you answer, "Yes," then by all means start planning when and how you are going to incorporate trust building videos into your website.

How can I analyze the reasons for a low conversion rate?

2008-03-19T09:42:00.001-07:00

Sometimes in-depth research is required to generate an accurate comparison between your website and your competitors'.

Summary: The past two articles have emphasized the importance of product mix in determining website success. How can you figure out if a low conversion rate is due to a poor product mix versus a bad website? This question will be discussed in this article.

How can you identify the reason for a low conversion rate? As I mentioned in a previous article stressing the importance of analytics, you can't measure yourself against yourself. The best way to measure your success and identify methods of improvement is to benchmark your website against your competitors.

What type of benchmarking do you need to do?

Since this article is discussing website conversion rate, the answer is to compare your conversion rate to the conversion rate of your competitors. For example, do you sell Caterpillar tractors? What is your conversion rate on those tractors? What is your average competitor's conversion rate? Even better, what is your best competitor's conversion rate?

If your conversion rate on a product is 8%, is that good or bad? Well, it always depends on the average for your industry. If the average conversion rate for that product, in your industry, is 3%, then you're doing great. If the average conversion rate for that product, in your industry, is 15%, then you have some serious catching up to do.

What conclusion should the data help you reach? Here are two conclusions:

If your conversion rate is below the competitor average, then you probably need to improve your website.
If your conversion rate is low, but at or above the competitor average, then improving your website is unlikely to help generate a higher conversion rate. Perhaps you need to sell a different product. You're already at or above the industry average. Unfortunately, this product doesn't look like it sells well in general.

Unfortunately, figuring out the conversion rate for your competitors can be difficult. It may require some in-depth research. Each company will likely have to find industry specific resources in order to do their own analysis.

(Now that we are on the subject, I am interested, myself, in finding this data. I will do my best to dig around and see if there is a conversion rate research database out there. However, I doubt there is one. Nevertheless, if you are aware of one, I would appreciate your notifying me about it.)

UPDATE: I've found a wonderful database of conversion data at http://index.fireclick.com/. Read more about Fireclick's web site conversion rate database.

In conclusion, make sure that you are benchmarking your conversion rate against your competitors and not against yourself. Benchmarking how you rank in your industry is the only objective way to identify whether a conversion rate is low because the product you're selling just doesn't sell well or if you have a problem with your website and marketing approach. By doing this benchmarking you allow your business to make much more intelligent decisions in product selection and web strategy.

Great Product Selection Trumps Elegant Website Design. Re-emphasized lessons from The Popcorn Factory

2008-03-19T08:42:00.000-07:00

There is nothing outstanding about The Popcorn Factory's website. The key is their product selection.

Summary: The other day I wrote an article that analyzed the key reasons for The Popcorn Factory's astounding 29.5% conversion rate in December of 2007. To translate, this conversion rate means that nearly one out of every three visitors to The Popcorn Factory's website actually bought something! Today, I want to re-emphasize those lessons in a more concise manner so that you can improve your own site conversion rate.

After looking at the success of The Popcorn Factory, and the relatively simple website they use to generate this success, the natural question is, "does website design really matter?" The answer is No...to an extent. How can we show this?

First, from the standpoint of aesthetic beauty, The Popcorn Factory website is not one of the more attractive websites out there. It's design is very plain, and really not very attractive compared to the really good sites. There are no pictures of beautiful people eating popcorn; there are no animated videos; the color scheme is a rather bland pastel purple, dull pink, and red.

Secondly, there are few calls to action and no empty marketing slogans like, 'Putting quality first.' or, 'Perfectly popped popcorn every time.' They do have an Easter sale currently on the website, but it doesn't scream at you with flashing lights or multiple exclamation points!!!!

Put simply, the website does exactly what its supposed to. It sells popcorn. No more. No less. And sell popcorn it does, very well in fact.

As mentioned, the key lesson from The Popcorn Factory is the importance of choosing products that are already primed for success. Don't choose a product that will require you fight an uphill battle just to get customers interested in it.

Warren Buffet has been known to say, 'Give me a great [profitable] industry and poor management any day, over great management and a poor [unprofitable] industry.' What did he mean? He meant that a profitable industry allows even the worst managers to have a measure of success. Whereas, an unprofitable industry will make even the best managers look like perennial failures.

The same applies to websites. As an owner, it is better to have a poor website selling a great product everybody wants, than to have a great website selling a product nobody wants. The website selling the in-demand product will win every time.

Does this mean that anything we can say about website design then is invalid? Absolutely not. If the Popcorn Factory improved their website, no doubt they would also improve sales. Warren Buffet would not turn down great managers in a great industry. That's a one, two punch. Similarly, no company would be wise to turn down having a great website, just because they're already selling a great product.

What's the conclusion? Absolutely, review your product selection, and make sure you're selling products that the customer already needs or strongly desires. Once you've reviewed your product selection once, review it again. Keep doing it until you know your product selection is excellent. Then, once you've done this, start investing in improving your website to further improve your conversion rate. Don't do this process in reverse.

Review your products, then improve your website. If you do these two things, in this order, you put yourself in position to maximize sales growth and profits.

What gave The Popcorn Factory the highest conversion rate on the internet?

2008-03-17T20:46:00.000-07:00

The Popcorn Factory's basic homepage doesn't explain their high conversion rate.

Summary: In December of 2007 the Popcorn Factory had the highest conversion rate, 29.50%, of any major website (MarketingCharts.com, 2007). For most retail websites, a conversion rate of 10% is considered excellent. Anything below that is considered average (Eisenberg, February 3rd, 2008). What can we learn from The Popcorn Factory to help us improve our own conversion rates? In this article we will answer that question by looking at one very important reason behind their success.

No doubt there are many reasons that The Popcorn Factory has one of the highest conversion rates online. However, as I researched this article, one reason kept coming up, product selection. Not all products sell well online (Warren, 2000). The Popcorn Factory has done a good job of identifying what sells well online and investing their resources in those products. They have done this in the following ways:

The Popcorn Factory sells a product the customer already wants to buy.
Their online product mix is specific to online tastes and is different than their offline product mix.
Their products are well suited to being delivered by mail.

Let’s discuss each of these points one by one.

The Popcorn Factory sells a product the customer already wants to buy. If you manufacture a product, improving on this point may be difficult for you. However, if you are an online retailer retailing other vendor’s wares, then this is entirely within your control. The simplest way to increase your conversion rate online is to start with great products. This quote bears that out:

“People's motivations trump any great or poor [website] design. If people have made up their mind (persuaded themselves), that they want to buy flowers or popcorn from the particular retailer then they'll work through almost any poor shopping process…” (Eisenberg, January 29th, 2008)

How can you improve your product mix? Put extra effort into the product selection process. Read product reviews, see what people are talking about. Are there any trends you can take advantage of? Product strategy is not my area of expertise. Nevertheless, the key point I want you to take from this article is that bad product selection will trump good website design. So don’t invest more money in improving your website or increasing your online marketing if you don’t already have products that the customer desires. After all, we can put lipstick on a pig, but it’s still a pig. A better website might just end up being a better color of lipstick for a litter of ugly piglet products.

That brings us to the next point.

The Popcorn Factory’s online product mix is specific to online tastes. The Popcorn Factory has a print catalog as well as their website. Cheryl Zatz (the Vice President of Marketing for The Popcorn Factory as of at least October 2006) made clear in a ComputerWorld.com case study that, “the Web site doesn't simply replicate the paper catalogue: the number of products is limited, to avoid creating navigation problems for users, but the site does include a number of exclusive lines.” (Warren, 2000)

If you already sell products offline, moving online may not be as simple as putting pictures of your products on your website. Here the Popcorn Factory specifically faced a navigation issue. They didn’t want to overwhelm users. Nevertheless, not all products are tailored to the online world. For example, a clothing store that sells suits and dress shoes will probably find dress shoes are far easier to sell online than suits. Clothing that needs to be tried on first may be harder to sell than shoes that have fairly universal sizes. Such differences may affect policies such as return policies. Return policies online may have to be different than the return policy you’ve used successfully in the past.

These are just some of the things to think about. There are probably dozens of factors I could list. However, hopefully you see the point. When you decide to go online make sure you think through how the customer’s preferences are different online than when he is buying from you in your store or even over the phone. Your online policies, prices, product descriptions, may need to be different.

This brings us to our last point.

The Popcorn Factory's products are well suited to being delivered by mail. The Popcorn Factory started as a mail-order business, so their products are already nicely suited to being delivered through mail. What does this mean for those of us who don’t have mail-order businesses to learn from? We can take a look at the products we’re trying to sell online and make sure they really fit the online purchasing model. For example, the majority of cars will probably always be purchased locally. The internet is a powerful marketing tool for cars, but most customers want to test drive the car they ultimately buy. On the other hand, tin cans of popcorn are very easy to sell online. The cost is low; if you don’t like the popcorn, you’re not out a lot of money. Popcorn is a pretty standard product that is hard to mess up, so there isn’t much fear of completely botched service.

Thus, it is wise to ask yourself the following questions: Do customers understand your product well enough that they would feel comfortable buying it online? Is your product’s value proposition only convincing when seen in person? All of these factors will affect your conversion rate. Again, these factors are far more important than the overall look and feel of your website.

In conclusion, product selection on your website is going to have a larger impact on your conversion rate, than even the best website design can have. The Popcorn Factory achieves a high conversion rate, not because of outstanding website design, but because of outstanding products. Focus intensely at improving the product selection on your website and you will naturally see an improved conversion rate.

References:
MarketingCharts.com. 2007. “Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate - December 2007”
Eisenberg, Bryan. January 29th, 2008. “Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: 12/2007”
Esenberg, Bryan. February 3rd, 2008. “Top 10 Online Retailers by Conversion Rate: An Analysis”
Warren, Liz. May 18, 2000. “Positive approach to e-business will pay dividends for SMEs”

What is a blog and do I need one?

2008-03-12T15:37:00.000-07:00

Screen capture from Blogger.com as I use Blogger to create this blog post. Tools such as blogger can save you time if you frequently write articles for your customers to read.

Summary: The technology world tends to get excited about new products and new ideas, blogging just being the example we’re going to discuss today. However, the average businessperson wisely views the technology world with some skepticism. We have learned that technology is never the magic pill to solve business problems. Blogs are no different. In themselves, they have no special power to solve business problems. Nevertheless, it is wise to ask, “What is a blog?” and “Do I need one?” This article will help answer those questions.

So, what is a blog? To start, this article that you’re reading is a blog. Put simply, a blog is a column, similar to a daily newspaper column, which is published on a website instead of in print. Just as a newspaper column can be a Dear Abbey, a column about sports, or a political opinions column, a blog can also be about any topic. Just like columns are a series of regularly published articles, blogs are a series of regularly published posts. Newspaper columns are typically read in print. Blogs are typically read online.

However, blogs are not exactly like newspaper columns. Whereas a newspaper column is published at most once per day, a blog can be published as often as you want. That’s because it’s cheaper to update a blog on a website than it is to print a newspaper. Some blogs are updated every hour. For example, just recently, a blogger published one post every hour for 24 hours straight about Kobe Bryant. Even the New York Times could not afford to print twenty four updates to their sports column in a single day. And who would buy all twenty-four copies?

Another difference between blogs and newspaper columns is that, while newspaper columns are controlled by the newspaper, a blog is controlled by you. You are the author, or someone you hire is.

As I mentioned earlier, this article you’re reading on my website right now is an example of a blog post. But what makes blogs so special? How is this blog post any different from any other article on a website? The reality is that to most people there is no major difference.

From the reader’s perspective, blog posts may look no different than any other article on a website. If this is the case, then why is there so much buzz about blogging in the technology world?

This brings us to our next question, “Do you need a blog?”

The easy answer to that question is, No. A business can operate perfectly fine without a blog. However, blogging provides some advantages that make it a powerful tool for publishing communications to your customers.

It is best to think of blogging as using a writing tool just like one uses Microsoft Word. Word let’s you quickly write what you have to say, save your document to a file, and print it or email it for someone else to read. Similarly, a blogging tool let’s you write your thoughts into an article, automatically applies a standard blog layout and format, and automatically uploads the blog article to your website to share with your visitors. The tool builds the web page for you so that you don't have to be a programmer to put articles on your website.

In summary, if you plan to write lots of articles for your customers to read, then a blog can save you time. A blog helps make authoring and publishing articles on your website faster.

Blogs have a lot of other powerful features that also help you. However, there are so many features that they can’t be covered in just one article. But you wisely don't start blogging merely because blogs provide cool features. Instead it is wise to start blogging because you have something of value you want to say to customers on a regular basis and you want to do that as efficiently and effectively as possible. If your goal is the latter, then the features provided by blogging might be just what you need.

In conclusion, blogs are just a way to publish articles on a website. Blogs consist of a series of posts published at a regular time interval on a website just as newspaper columns consist of a series of articles printed in a newspaper at a regular time interval. Blogs, in and of themselves, do not solve business problems. Nevertheless, if you wish to communicate with your customers through regularly published articles, then a blog is often the easiest way to do this. That's why I write articles such as this through a blogging tool. Using blogging as a tool can save time and make it easier to share your articles with customers and partners.

Additional articles:

Blogger.com: "What’s a blog?", PBS.org: "What Exactly is a Blog?", WordPress.org: "What is a blog?"