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It takes an internet user around 0.5 seconds to form an impression of your website.
So, if you think you can still get by on weak web design elements, then you’re mistaken. People will immediately form an opinion of your product/services based on the look and content of your website. It needs to be perfect if you want to keep their attention. A cluttered web design conveys that you either don’t know how to use the technology or don’t care. Both options are unacceptable. Here are some general principles of good web design: Simplicity Too many elements presented at once can overwhelm the senses. Instead of including as many things on your webpage as possible, focus on one or two sections. Vast blocks of small text quickly cause people to lose interest. Utilize one primary font type for catching your visitor’s attention. You also need to pay attention to color. Conflicting color patterns can offend some people. Keep it simple by selecting no more than two complementary color schemes that represent what your website stands for: Red — enthusiastic Yellow — energetic Green — growing Blue — relaxed Orange — warm Purple — focused Branded Elements Logos and similar branded graphics are crucial for two main reasons:
Brand recognition is a powerful thing. If you have a great graphic that people associate with good content, then they’re more likely to come back. A high-resolution logo in the corner of your screen can also serve as a home button that streamlines navigation on your site. Immediately Convey What Your Website Is About Don’t make users search your page to find out what kind of website you have. Convey that information instantly, so they don’t waste any time. Pictures or large text are essential here. You also need to make sure that your webpage is easy to navigate. If someone gets lost, don’t expect them to stick around. Contact Page Almost all websites should have a contact page — primarily if you sell something. Sites without a contact page appear untrustworthy. One study found that 44% of people will leave a website if they find it doesn’t have a contact info page. As such, it’s worth it to add one — even if it’s just a comment or suggestion page. It shows that you want to hear back from your visitors. It also gives you access to your visitor’s emails, which you can use for newsletters, special offers, or content updates. Use White Space White space is the negative space on a website — the area left white by no text, graphics, or videos. Making the most of your site’s white space is one of the essential elements of good design. For one thing, it makes your website easier to read. White space can highlight a portion of text or an image that you want to stand out. It’s also great for separating different sections from one another. Open white space design offers a minimalist look that appeals to short attention spans. Generate Original Content People need an excuse to visit your website, and original content is your ice breaker. It introduces the user to your brand and keeps them coming back. But how do you generate content for your website? Think about what might appeal to users that visit your site. For example, if you own a hardware website, then some content about home repair will attract potential customers to your page. If you need some more ways to find content ideas, best use a professional. We write content even if we don’t design the site for you. Mobile Version These days someone is just as likely to look at your website on their smartphone as their desktop. So, if you have a great design that works on the web, but fails on mobile, then you are losing half your potential viewers. Test your website by looking it up on a mobile device and troubleshooting it. If you see any glaring issues, address them before launching the site. Search Friendly So, you made a beautiful website? Congrats! But it won’t matter if people can’t find it. Using SEO features on your website will make it more likely to pop up in people’s Google search. Make sure that your website appears appropriately in all the different types of browsers. Also, make sure you utilize things like meta tags, alt tags, and title tags in the HTML coding. Know The Difference Between Good and Bad Web Design Elements Some people believe that functional web design elements are subjective, but these are proven strategies for keeping people on your site and having them return again.
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More than 50 percent of people will head straight to your About page when they visit your website for the first time. In fact, this page is one of the most visited pages on business sites.
If you don’t have an About Me/Us page yet, writing one should be your next priority. But it takes a bit more effort than just writing a short paragraph about what your company does. Do You Really Need an About Page? In short, yes. An About page gives your customers a place to learn more about you and the services/products you provide. It also gives you a way to establish yourself as an authority in your field. If you don’t have an About page, your customers might be left with unanswered questions. They may even feel like they can’t trust you and take their business somewhere else. Because of this, an About page is one of the most important parts of your website. Don’t Make It Boring You only have a few seconds to catch a reader’s attention. If they aren’t interested in what you’re saying in about 7-10 seconds, they’re going to leave. So, anything you write on your About page has to be interesting. Start with a good hook. This will catch people’s attention and make them want to keep reading. Then focus on telling your story. Talk about how you got started and how your business has grown to where it is now. Facts are good but don’t rely on them. People will be much more interested in and moved by a good story than statistics. Add A Few Testimonials Adding positive testimonials is like bragging, right? Wrong. Testimonials establish you as an expert and build trust with other customers. If the reader sees other people have had a good experience with you in the past, they’ll be more likely to purchase a product or service. (I prefer to have testimonials on different pages throughout the site instead of just one page.) Share Your Passions Your customers don’t just care about what you do… they want to know WHY you’re doing it. Open up about your passions. Explain the mission behind your business. This will help people get more invested in your company and WANT to do business with you. And be genuine. People can tell if you don’t really believe what you say. And that can hurt you rather than help you. Add a Picture of Yourself You want to connect with your customers on a personal level. Adding a photo of yourself will let them see the person behind the business, which can make them feel a more personal connection to your company. A picture also helps customers build trust. When they see your picture, they know you are a person just like them – or a family - not just another big corporation. This will show them you care about them for more than just the dollar sign they add to your bottom line. Keep It Short Don’t make the mistake of adding too much information on your About page. If it’s too long, your customers will lose interest. While there are a lot of things you should include on this page, keep it simple. If you want to go more in-depth about your mission or your story, consider expanding on the information in your About page in a full-length blog or hidden page prefaced with a “Read More.” Include A Call to Action It’s not enough to tell your customers who you are. You need to give them a way to take action. Make sure there is a button or link they can click that’ll take them to your services or products page. This will show them what to do next and help guide them through the process. Your About page should also have a way to contact you. This allows customers to reach out with any questions or comments. If you have a separate contact page, make sure you link to it in your about page. It’s Not Really “About You” This might sound opposite to what we’ve been saying, but your About page isn’t really about you. The main goal of your About page is to build empathy with customers. The people who read your About page want to see themselves in your business services/products. So, make sure you take the time to understand who you’re writing for. You might need to start by creating a buyer persona for your business. Once you know who you’re talking to, you can use your story and mission statement to help them feel a certain way. This will then encourage them to purchase your products or services. The content on this page might be short, but it’s one of the most important pages on your website. Your About page does more than tell people who you are. It tells them what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and how it will impact their lives. Most business owners understand the importance of investing in an attractive and informative website, but they don’t all realize that you need to update your website to keep it relevant and current. Here is why you may be due for an update:
1. You need to increase engagement with customers One of the most important reasons to update your website is to create a constant stream of communication with your customers. A static website that has standard information that your customers have already seen won’t inspire them to engage with you or revisit, but a regularly updated website that provides high-quality content will. 2. You need better search engine performance Organic traffic is hugely important when it comes to sustaining a successful business website and one of the top ways to help your business website gain organic search engine traffic is by keeping it updated with new content. The reason for this is because search engines typically pay much more attention to websites that are regularly updated than those that are not and updating your website with new content gives search engines more chances to index the pages on your website. 3. Are your customers leaving for competitors? The key to long-term success for any business is to consistently provide value to your customers. You want your customers to return to your site as often as possible and if you make no changes, there will be no reason for them to do that. You want your customers’ loyalty and providing them with new and relevant information will help that process. 4. Are you using it as a tool to gather data on prospects? It’s natural to look at your business website as a great marketing tool, but another way to use it is as a tool for gathering valuable marketing data. What better way to learn the buzzwords, topics, news, and industry information that current and potential clients want than by seeing what they are viewing the most. You should be updating content and paying close attention to analytics so you can use this information to take your marketing to another level. 5. Give the best impression of your brand – Have you updated your brand? And finally, one of the top reasons to update your website design and content is that you want to keep your brand foremost in clients’ and prospects’ minds. Making smart updates to your website shows that your company cares about its brand, values staying informed about current events, and truly cares about its customers and the information they are providing. It may not just be about your website. You probably want to look at your brand and see if it is time to do a complete overhaul keeping yourself modern and distinguishing yourself from your competition.  Not everyone can write good copy. That’s why there are professionals just writing copy for small businesses and for graphic/website designers who are creative but just not gifted writers.
IF you decide to write your own copy, here are five mistakes to avoid ensuring people will read more than your home page. (PS – writing for printed materials and other marketing including social media are quite different than websites, so for purposes of this article, we are sticking with website copy.) 1- Don't be boring There's nothing so deadly as a marketing message that fails to arouse the senses in any way whatsoever. You need to write copy in a way that stimulates, annoys, amazes, depresses, scares or whatever is necessary to shock the senses into awareness that a compelling offer is on its way. So never be boring! 2- No call to action Here's the rule of thumb to remember: a confused prospect doesn't buy. If you don't give your reader a very clear and specific command to do something, they will take the easy path to doing nothing. So, figure out exactly what you want your copy to accomplish and then very clearly tell your prospect to do exactly that. 3- Don’t be vague As a copywriter, it’s an easy mistake to make. You write about something you don’t know much about, so you end up with grammatically correct sentences that don’t convey any meaning. Unpersuasive blah-blah-blah As a small business owner, this is where you have a solid advantage: you know your offer inside and out. And you know your customer. So, review your copy, and ask yourself: Is this concrete or generic? Can I visualize this? Is it making sense to other people? Blah-blah-blah (Generic and unpersuasive): “We take your marketing to the next level,” vs. Specific and persuasive: “I help you optimize your marketing budget so you can generate more leads and win more clients.” Make people want to learn more. Don’t skimp on the detail. Design your copy so it’s both easy to scan and easy to read. Share all your persuasive arguments and make people eager to contact and hire you. 4- Don't be me focused This happens all the time ... the marketing team thinks that the sheer glory of the program/product/service being offered — combined with the stellar history and track record of the company providing same — will be more than enough to close the deal. Wrong. Dead wrong. The reality is you need to express over and over again specific details as to what everything in your sales copy means to the prospect. ME-focused marketing will get you zero. 5- Lack of credibility Why would readers believe you and hire you? Let’s be frank. It’s easy for web visitors to doubt your claims, to hesitate to believe you and to turn away to go somewhere else. You can’t assume people will simply believe you. Readers want to see proof. Too often they’ve been disappointed. To build trust, provide external proof for your claims. External elements of proof are provided by experts and other buyers. This can be reviews, review ratings, test results, press coverage, and more. For service providers, testimonials are probably the most commonly used external proof. Make sure your testimonials are persuasive and back up your claims.  Copywriting is critical for the growth of your business whether you’re at the head of a startup or leading a company that’s been around for decades. However, copywriting may be an aspect of your business that you have been ignoring. Here are three reasons to take notice and put energy into making sure your business copywriting is effectual:
Copywriting can make or break communication Whenever you communicate with your colleagues or the general public, you will have someone writing copy in order to do so. This is the case whether someone is writing a speech, blog post, employee manual, commercial script, or business contract. In the office: Clear copy is critical for ensuring employees understand their jobs, including compensation, benefits, responsibilities, and possible reprimands. Business partners also need to clearly understand what their role is in relation to the business, what they can expect from your company, and what your company will be expecting from them. When you aren’t clear in the copy you produce for these entities, you run the risk of minor misunderstandings and even catastrophic lawsuits due to breaches of contracts. With the public: When you are producing contracts, agreements, service descriptions, or product descriptions to the public, your copy needs to be clear in order to prevent customers from feeling used or tricked. If you say that a length of fabric is 3 yards wide instead of 3 feet wide, you will have some very unhappy customers who will want refunds or the rest of their fabric. They will also be quite likely to relay their sloppy, unprofessional experience with your company to others, decreasing the likelihood of you gaining further business through word-of-mouth and damaging your reputation. Copywriting matters both inside and outside of the office. Paying attention to it keeps your business running smoothly and your customers satisfied. Bad copywriting looks irresponsible and lazy When you use copy that is littered with misspelled or missing words, and improper grammar, you make your company look bad by seeming irresponsible. A company that a potential customer can trust takes the time to vet their writers, and their copy, so that the copy suits the voice, mission, and purpose of the piece. There is nothing I find more irritating than visiting a website of a potential business partner and finding these horrible grammar mistakes; I won’t even acknowledge the business if I see this. When you don’t take the time to make sure that your copy is on point, it becomes harder to trust that you will do the same with your customer service. When you don’t show that you care enough about something as public and influential as your company’s reputation, it can make it difficult for customers to believe that you’ll work to offer them high-quality products and services for their personal and business needs. Copywriting permeates everything you do Even businesses that conduct all their transactions online cannot escape the need for strong copywriting. Unfortunately, doing business online makes the need for good copywriting even more important. In face-to-face interactions, people have more to go on when a message is given. Body language, such as the rolling of eyes or fidgeting, gives a deeper meaning to any messages that are given. Tone of voice, word inflection, and the amount of personal space given to people all can affect the way in which people perceive the message they are being sent and the company sending it. When people are socially awkward, online-only interactions can be a lifesaver. People only have to deal with the person’s ideas and don’t get caught up in why they don’t make more eye contact or that they chose to wear a particularly garish shirt to a business meeting. However, even this benefit can become a problem if the person doing the writing isn’t able to do so in an effective manner. Then the brilliant business plans and wonderful vision for how products will be used by consumers are lost in a haze of poor copywriting. A focus on copywriting savvy can help save your business from issues that can undermine all the hard work you’ve put into bringing the company together. Hire talented copywriters, learn to write well yourself, or delegate copywriting tasks to someone on your team you can trust to do a great job. “I know my business and I have a website, but I don’t understand SEO.”
Does that sound like you? For many small businesses it’s a big job just to keep up sales, maintain customer satisfaction, and grow year-by-year without having to consider the regular optimization of a website. Particularly for businesses that do not sell online, the small business SEO (search engine optimization) strategy that it pursues is often limited to creating a Facebook page, posting, and hoping that it somehow works. The bad news is that it won’t work. But the good news is that it need not take a long time or a lot of effort to keep your small business website optimized and attract potential customers to your site. Small businesses usually lack something that bigger businesses don’t: a large budget. When money is tight and spending on SEO means cutting back on some other essential area of business, it can be tough to make that call. In fact, a recent survey found that most small business have a ceiling of $500 on their SEO spending and for that amount of money, they are expecting some huge results. Considering that SEO has become almost synonymous with content marketing for most agencies, even that amount of money may not allow a small business website to move up the search rankings with the speed that business is seeking. Luckily, there are SEO tactics that one can employ that won’t cost a cent. Most do not take much time. Others take a little more of an investment in time and effort, but need not involve the spending of hundreds of dollars on improving a search ranking. Here are some tips for your search engine optimization. Be original Anything you put on your website should be your own. Search engines hate duplicate content and will penalize sites that reuse content from other places online. By all means, allow yourself to be inspired by a competitor, or attempt to emulate the success of a bigger business, but ensure that everything you place on your website is created just for you. This also goes for the text that you write for your site. Avoid copying the text on your ‘About Us’ page onto your ‘Contact Us’ page: duplicate content hurts your ranking no matter where it is on your site. Use descriptive titles and headlines Getting the title or headline right for every page on your site is essential. You should consider what your customer is likely to be looking for and what they would expect to find elsewhere. Hence, ‘Contact’ is a better page title candidate than ‘Drop Us A Line’ or ‘Let’s Talk’. Compose effective meta-descriptions Every page of your website should have an associated meta-description. These short, 160-character summaries of the page are presented to people who search for keywords beneath the link that they will click. How do you convince them to click your link? Ensure that you have used the targeted keyword in your meta-description and that it clearly summarizes the content on the page. If your headline or page title is relevant, and your meta-description is effective, there is a far greater chance that a visitor will click though to your site. Use your keywords in the right place Search engines crawl all your content but weight certain areas of your pages more heavily than others when determining relevance to a certain keyword. You should concentrate your efforts on using the targeted keyword in the URL of your page, the title of the page, the meta-description (as described above), in the headings and sub-headings on a page, and in the alt-tags on images. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t use the keyword term elsewhere, just that you should always use it in those places. Add your address Most small businesses work locally, and most customers are looking for their locality in search engines using a search that is simply [keyword] [city] or [keyword] [zipcode]. It’s obvious, then, that making sure you identify your location is part of your SEO strategy. Make sure that your address and contact information — including phone number — are prominent on key pages on your site (home, about, contact) but also consider including them in the footer of all of your pages. Add social sharing buttons Improving your on-site SEO can be a lot of work for one person. But what if you could harness the power of others to spread the word about your site and its great content? By encouraging visitors to share your content and making it easy for them to do so, you’ll have a great chance of being found by those who might not otherwise click on your search result entry. With research suggesting that many consumers value the advice and recommendations of friends and family, even over the first rank entry on a Google results page, adding social sharing buttons to your site and encouraging people to click is a great way of improving your online visibility without spending a cent. Create and upload videos Creating videos will cost you time — most of it spent editing rather than filming — but the payoff is worth it. The advantage of video as content is two-fold: first, they keep people on your site longer as they’ll watch a compelling video though to the end; second, by uploading that video to places such as YouTube or Vimeo, you can drive potential customers to your site. You shouldn’t be thinking Hollywood-style productions and the videos should be related to your business. Film how you complete a task from start-to-finish, film yourself offering a tip that will save a customer time and money, or film yourself reviewing one of your new products. Interesting videos that are relevant to your business and relevant to your customers’ needs are sure to help you improve your online positioning. Backup your site Finally, a tip that will only take a few minutes to implement but will save you days or weeks of headaches: You should always ensure that you have backed up your website — every page, every post, every picture –— the whole thing. Search engines regularly crawl your site and, if for some reason it goes down and you don’t notice, it will quickly be deleted from the search engine results that are served. All that work, all that time, and all that effort you put in to improving your SEO will be lost unless you back up regularly. It’s easy to do and most services cost only a couple dollars per month– they’ll even email you if your site goes down so you can be proactive in solving any downtime issues. As the maxim goes, better to be safe than sorry: backup regularly so all your SEO hard work is not wasted.  Imagine this: one day you’re on page 1 of Google. The next day you do not appear until page 14. You don’t even know what hit you but it hit you hard. This scenario happens in real life, and in most cases, business owners are left confused and wondering what happened. That’s why a Website Audit Report is a must.
What is a website audit? A website audit allows you to get a professional review and analysis of your website, including its content and inbound links. This covers Web Design and Web Structure Analysis, Page and Link Errors, Page Title and Meta Description Issues, Backlinks Analysis, URL Architecting, Duplicate Content Analysis, Comprehensive Target Keyword Analysis, and much more! I recommend this service before you start any optimization campaign for your website. When you want to invest in an online marketing campaign, particularly SEO, it is important to have a deep analysis of your website. Why Do You Need a Website Audit Report? Your website is the core of your online marketing strategy. SEO, PPC, social media optimization — all these direct traffic back to your site. A faulty website can flush all your efforts down the drain. An audit followed by an appropriate action, on the other hand, prevents that from happening. An audit is needed to find faults in your site so they can be corrected. An audit is also the first step in recovering from Google updates. With the search engine rolling out between 500 and 600 algorithm changes every year, it’s crucial to get a “checkup” for your website annually. Google Algorithm Updates In addition to being better prepared to run an SEO campaign, getting a website audit will also protect your website from Google’s algorithm changes. Google is continuously tweaking their algorithms to provide users with search engine results of ever improving quality and relevance. Online Reputation Management Almost everyone is Googling themselves these days because they know that they are also being Googled. So do you Google yourself and don’t like what you see? Well, what you see is what your prospects and customers see. You may have the patience not to act on negative comments about you or your business but your prospects and customers may not be as forgiving. Fact: 80 percent of people surveyed had changed a purchase decision due to a bad review they saw online. And with competition tighter than ever, businesses are seeing that Online Reputation Management is now a necessity. What is Online Reputation Management? Your online reputation is important. With the huge and ever-growing population searching online to evaluate businesses, bad comments and reviews about your business can gravely affect your target market’s purchasing decision. This is why it is critical to monitor your online reputation and take a plan of action to counter any negative material and proactively act to produce positive material about you, your brand, your business, and your products/services. Why Monitor Your Online Reputation According to studies, 78 percent of Internet users conduct product research online and 80 percent of potential buyers changed their purchase decision after seeing a negative review online. Your business can be at the mercy of online commentaries – or you can use these to your advantage! Online reputation management allows you to respond to negative comments the moment they appear on the Internet. Proactive ORM also allows you to optimize positive reviews about your business so that favorable reviews dominate search results, pushing down negative ones in the process. Also, 44 percent of online adults have searched for information about someone whose services or advice they seek in a professional capacity, like a doctor, lawyer, or plumber. You can use ORM to give these searchers a great “first impression” online. Get an online Reputation Management consultation now to protect your business and to NOT allow detractors to slow you down! Companies invest thousands of dollars when they want to redesign their website, hoping that a more attractive design will lead to more revenue. But is it really about the design? Or is it more about the content? Or, at the end of the day, is it more important that your website accomplishes the goals which you need to achieve?
Without taking into consideration an E-Commerce Website, the two basic types of business websites are: Credibility Sites and Lead Sites Credibility Website A credibility website serves to credential a business as legitimate and trustworthy. Credibility business websites are used by business owners who are sure most of their business is generated by word-of-mouth, by referral, or by a salesperson. They believe a visit to their website occurs during the trust phase of the sales process. People are not discovering the business online; they are checking the legitimacy of the business or just wanting to learn more. Viewers of these sites have already heard about a business’ product or service. These visitors are looking for an online reinforcement of the good things they have already heard about this business. A solid credibility site: 1.) Has a professional appearance. Your small business website is your virtual storefront. No one wants to do business with a store whose physical facility is dirty or unkempt. The same is true of your webpage. 2.) Is current. re you still running a promotion on your site that ended on Mother’s Day and it is now the middle of June? This lack of attention to detail can kill you, as customers think, “They aren’t on top of things on their website, perhaps they won’t be on point with me either.” 3.) Has Accreditation Logos. Are you a member of a professional association, a network, a quality assurance program, the BBB or earned specific licenses and certifications? These logos should be on your website. Even if people don’t know exactly what each organization does, these logos offer a sense of psychological security to your viewer that you are legitimate. Of course, be honest and make sure you are truly a member of each organization you place on your site. 4.) Is Rich in Testimonials. Nothing builds credibility more than real testimonials and endorsements from real customers. Remember: A credibility page is for those potential customers who are already familiar with your company and looking for an additional means of information. It appeals to people who are already thinking of doing business with you. Lead Generation Website The second type of business website is a lead generation site. This type of website contains most of the same attributes as a credibility site, however, it must take things farther. A lead site is designed to be an initial point of contact with your business’ service or product. It is designed to help people discover you online when they have little or no previous knowledge of your existence. Here is what you additionally need: 1.) Strong SEO Nothing is more important to a lead generation site than where it ranks on Google, Bing, Yahoo and the other search engines. When people search looking for a product or service you offer, you must show up on page one! You must have your website and each page on your site optimized to be found on search engines. This is called on-page SEO. You must also work on external SEO. External search engine optimization efforts are an ongoing process where an expert garners quality links created on other high authority sites that point back to your website. Unless you have tons of time and enjoy a steep learning curve, don’t try this on your own because if you get it wrong, Google will bury you. 2.) Possible Paid Online Advertising While organic ranking is ideal, you must get in front of your potential customer. People need to find your business organically (that is, they search a product or service you offer and you rank high on Google; this naturally takes time). In the interim, a paid advertisement on a search engine can get you in front of your audience quickly. 3.) Landing Pages These paid ads should point to specific pages on your site that relate directly to the ad content. A landing page helps convert visitors because it is tailored as the solution to an exact problem or need that the person just searched. 4.) Strong Call To Actions and Capture Mechanisms Bright contact buttons and phone numbers are important to gain contact. They should stand out sharply from other elements on your page. An email capture field should be present. Consider providing visitors the option to sign up for educational newsletters and specials if they provide their email. 5.) Ongoing Content In order to target existing keywords that people search, you’ll need fresh posts. And connecting your site to your Social Media will increase this content. Which type of site do you need? A credibility site can be beautifully designed and placed on the web. Since most people will visit you after they have heard of you, the site doesn’t need as much ongoing content. Visitors are primarily looking to see you are legitimate. In contrast, a lead site needs ongoing work and effort. Before you decide, ask yourself: “What would happen if my credibility site could become a lead generation site to gain even more business?” If you realize that you need more people to find you online to increase your business, maybe you should consider expanding your credibility site to a lead site. Either way, your business website needs to work for you! |
Boost Your BusinessMaria NovakI have over 35 years' experience in Marketing Small Businesses. Categories
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