Web Design

Where’s the beef… er, benefit?

It kills me when someone pays a bunch of bucks for a website and winds up with something that’s a dud when it comes to marketing. Reminds me of this vintage (1984!) Wendy’s commercial…

Just got off the phone with a gentleman who’s not real thrilled with his current website. I’m not going to embarrass this particular business man by referencing his site publicly. Let’s just say that, if what he told me on the phone is true, I’m personally very excited about what his product can do. And I truly believe millions of other people would be too.

But does his site convey any of that excitement? Does it say, it big bold letters, so I can’t miss it, what that product will do for me? Heck, can I even tell what the product IS? Nope. Instead of a headline, there’s a “Welcome to our website” banner that does absolutely nothing for me.

The site is beautifully laid out. I’ll bet the owner (and the designer) are so proud of it. And I have a pretty good idea of what the designer charged (more than $10K) for it, because I know what he charged for another site.

But where’s the benefit?

AT&T Selling Sponsored Links (PPC) – Just Say No!

I just got an email from a local business owner in the construction industry.

He said:

“AT&T is trying to sell me some online listing that they say will get me ranked. The guy says that the sponsored links they will have for me will help get me listed organically. Does that seem right to you? They are trying to charge $270.00 a month to do this with a 1 year contract.”

Here’s how I answered him (edited a bit for context.)

NO NO NO don’t do it!

It IS true that Google will find your site faster if you’re paying them to notice it by buying Sponsored Ads (PPC or Pay-Per-Click ads.) So your site might get indexed in the organic results faster, but you won’t rank higher.

Think about it. Google is a for-profit business. Why would Google rank you higher for free when they can make you pay for it?

So if you’re accurately quoting AT&T I think they’re misleading you.

It IS true that having a listing on multiple places of Google’s first page will get you more clicks. A study released by AdGooroo in 2008 found that a prominent paid ad on the same search results page makes your #1 natural ranking receive 20% more clicks.

HOWEVER… PPC ads, alone, are not as effective.

First, people know they’re ads and they don’t trust ads.

According to research reported in “The Art of SEO” from O’Reilly Books, only 50% of visitors even VIEW the first pay per click position, while 100% of searchers view the first three natural search positions.

The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization (Theory in Practice)

As far as people actually seeing the listing, the #1 Sponsored Link gets as many people noticing it as the #7 site in the natural search results. So if you can get your site ranking above #7 in the organic results, it’s already outperforming the #1 Sponsored Link.

Second, when you stop paying, the ad goes away and so does your site traffic. It’s like paying rent when you can own. $270/month for a year is $3240… and this business owner will HAVE to keep paying that, year after year… in order to keep the high Sponsored Link ranking.

I’ve done a great deal of research on SEO for local businesses, and I took a look at his site. For that amount of money – I can get his website to the top of Google in 3 to 6 months, a much longer lasting solution. And that’s pretty typical.

I’m not saying that Sponsored Links (PPC ads such as Google Adwords) are never a good idea. For immediate visibility, they can’t be beat. It can be smart to run PPC ads until your site does rank organically.

I’m just saying to beware of ANYONE who contacts you and tells you they can put you on the first page of Google – there’s often a catch.

Who Do You Link To – and Why?

There’s a fine line between being helpful and giving your expertise away. And one of the places that’s evident on a website is on the links you have to OTHER websites.

Who are you linking to – and what do you hope to gain by doing so?

Remember that when you put a link on your website, it’s a way for someone to LEAVE your site and go somewhere else. They may never come back, either.

If you want someone to hire you for your expertise on dog training, and your website is full of links to dog training tools and books and dog training forums and so on – why would someone hire you?

In this instance, your goal is to get someone to call YOU and to position YOURSELF as the expert, right? So a better idea might be to have them give you their name and email address in return for a PDF copy of that Dog Training Resource List. That way you have their contact info and can follow up with them, and you’ve subtly given the impression that you’re the “go to” source for quality information.

It might be that you get a commission for selling a dog training book – now that’s different! Making money is a perfectly valid reason to link to another product.

I’m not saying not to link to other websites – and in fact, there’s some evidence from Google that you SHOULD. Matt Cutts (head of Google’s Webspam team) has said that linking out to high quality websites is one of the many factors that they use to evaluate a site.

Just make sure that you’re thinking strategically when you do so.

Getting Site Visitors to Fill Out Forms

One of my new clients has a contact form on her site that asked for very basic info:

Name
Email Address
Phone
Comments

She called and asked me to make the form longer – to request more information.

Generally speaking – that’s not a good idea, and here’s why. It boils down to two main reasons:

Site visitors are in a hurry – they don’t want to mess with filling out a long form.
Visitors are also protective of their privacy, and they aren’t sure what you’re going to do with all that info!

So be very careful what you ask for in a form – and make sure you really need the information.

For most email lists, for example, asking for a first name and email address is all you need. You’ll get more signups that way.

However – your sign-ups will be less targeted than if you request more complete information, so that’s the “flipside” to consider. Which is more important to you – more, less targeted contacts, or fewer, more-targeted contacts?

Always tell people what they’re going to get when they DO enter data on a form, and if possible give them an incentive for doing so – a discount, free report, etc. It’s also helpful to reassure them that you’ll respect their privacy and not sell or share their info with anyone else.

Beware Flash Website Builders

Twice this week I’ve had someone contact me who either has built or is building a site for themselves using Wix.com’s flash-based website builder.

I’ve gotta say that I don’t think this is a good idea at all.

Flash and SEO are like oil and water – they just don’t mix very well. Google and other search engines don’t “read” flash – and pages with lots of flash content take longer to download. Both hurt your chances of ranking high in the search engines.

And despite what Wix says about being the only SEO-friendly website builder, there are so many things you have to understand to make sure you’re doing it right that I don’t feel it’s worth the effort. Not when there are other options such as using WordPress to build your site.

Music and Audio On Websites

A Realtor asked me yesterday if I could put music on his website. I can – but it’s probably not a good idea. Here’s why.

To begin with – unless he happens to be a realtor who’s particularly known for being a musician – it has nothing to do with his business. It’s a distraction that adds no value.

That’s the first thing to consider – why would you add music? What value will it bring to your website visitor? How does it help YOU? And will they expect it?

If you’re promoting a band – absolutely, have sound clips on your site. It’s relevant to your business and knowing the type of music you play and how well you play it is also important to a site visitor who’s considering hiring you.

Second, music or audio that is not expected – that starts immediately when you visit a site, for example – is annoying to a lot of site visitors. Annoyed visitors click away! Imagine that someone is surfing the ‘Net at work – or while the baby is sleeping – they find your site and all of a sudden your voice comes blaring out of the speakers. Will they expect that? Will they appreciate it?

If you do put music or audio on your site, NEVER start playing it immediately. Give the visitor a choice – e.g. “Click Here to Play Sample Clip” or “Click here for Jane Doe’s testimonial.”