Does Your Website Have the Winning Formula?
It might feel like the internet, your website, and marketing in general is just one big game of chance. Large companies gamble millions on SuperBowl commercials, while small companies gamble on trade shows, networking groups, and answering the next hot RFP. The question is, is there a better way to market and get clients that doesn’t feel like gambling?
When it comes to websites, there is a surefire formula you can follow to make sure your web site brings you business, no matter what your business. I call it my 5C formula. Let’s take a closer look:
1. The Caffeine Factor
Did you know you only have about 2 seconds to get the attention of your web visitor these days?
One of the biggest problems in marketing is getting your message through the noise of all the other messages out there. Your message won’t even reach your prospect unless you have the prospect’s attention, and it’s competing with hundreds of other messages that are bombarding your prospect daily. The first goal of any website – any marketing media, for that matter – is to stand out and get the prospect’s attention. That means that your web site must have what I call “The Caffeine Factor.”
Add items to your site that will get your web visitor’s attention.
2. Credibility-Builders
Especially for accountants, your reputation is absolutely critical. People will hire you (or not) based on reputation alone.
One of the challenges of the web is that it’s not face-to-face. Some salespeople will insist a sale be made face to face, and generally, that’s a good rule. But the internet changes all that, and your website is a chance for people to virtually “meet” you and learn about your reputation and your credibility in the privacy of their own space.
Fill your site with these credibility-builders, and you’ll have an easier time closing the sale when you do interact with your prospect.
3. Calls to Action
One of the biggest mistakes of millions, maybe billions of sites is leaving people hanging. The hard part was done: people found you, and they fell in love with you. Now what? They are too timid to call, and if your site has no other way for them to stay in touch and get to know you slowly, you’ve likely lost them forever. Like ships passing in the night. After all, most of us don’t like one-night stands; we need to get to know you over time.
Don’t leave people hanging; tell them what to do next to get to know you over time. Do this by including calls to action on your site.
4. Charming the Search Engines
Ahhh, build it and they will come. Right? Wrong. My first three Cs tell you what content to put on your site, but it’s not enough. If you want your site to be found by your ideal client, you’ll need to learn what to do so that your site will rank high for the keywords that your ideal client will enter to find you. Certainly, you can plow through your Google Adwords account, spending thousands, to pay for search engine placement. But there is a better way, and it’s surprisingly clerical to implement once you know the formula. It’s called organic SEO. Be glad hardly anyone does it, because then we’d all have to buy AdWords.
5. Crowd Control
It’s now time to attract a crowd, to your site, that is. This is a series of steps you do to bring people to your site. Unfortunately, that task on our “to do” list labeled “Get web site done” should never get checked off. I know this idea will drive a few of you crazy, but we have to market our site (and any other channel we use) just like we have to market each of our services.
Gamble on all 5 “C’s,” Caffeine, Credibility, Calls, Charms, and Crowds, and the odds are in your favor that you’ll have all the leads you need to stay busy in your business.
8 Tips for a Smoother Transition to WordPress
WordPress is a free platform for blogs. It has been around for several years, and has skyrocketed in popularity. You can use WordPress for your website as well and combine your blog and your website in one smooth installation.
The 2 huge advantages to WordPress are:
- Users can easily add pages and blog posts. The dashboard user interface is easier to use than most CMSs (content management systems).
- The search engines rank WordPress sites higher than regular websites because they are considered a blog, and social media ranks higher than anything else.
So it just makes sense to embrace it. The problem is it’s not exactly free, and I want my customers to understand what these hidden costs are before they jump into the “free: solution everyone is raving about. Here are 8 essential things to know about the WordPress platform:
- Installation. WordPress installation requires hosting setup, database setup, encryption key generation, FTP (file transfer protocol), and parameter editing in a php file. Not exactly a piece of cake for a non-technical person, expect 30 minutes time from a webmaster to help you get WordPress installed.
- Backup. Unless you have a special piece of software, you are NOT backed up if you are running a WordPress blog. We were so lucky a few weeks ago; one client was making a change and got locked out of their dashboard. Luckily we had made a backup about 3-4 weeks earlier.
Surprise! You may not be backed up (it’s the database portion that’s tricky); check with your webmaster, and get this resolved immediately. (We have a little package if you want us to do it.)
- Moving hosts. This one may never apply if you do not move hosting companies. But if you do, it’s tricky to move a WordPress site to a new host. You’ll need expert help if you decide to change hosting companies.
- Themes. You can control the look of your WordPress site with a theme. There are hundreds of free ones and you can spend hours looking through them and learning them. We can cut our bill substantially by installing the same theme for every client and then customizing it for the colors and banner preferred by the client. Look for a WordPress expert who knows the theme you are using, or expect to pay more for their learning curve.
- Customization. What’s brilliant is you can pretty much get your WordPress site to look like anything you want to. What really adds up is the extra graphics and style changes that we have to make to get your site looking great. This is the part where it’s not free any more. Expect 1 to 10 hours of webmaster time depending on how complex your site is.
- Search engine optimization. Although this is a strength of WordPress, there are many more things you can do to make your WordPress site even more attractive to the search engines, however, this requires a plug-in and more time from your webmaster. The good news is it’s always a fantastic investment to make your site attractive for search engines.
- Adding your own pages and posts. It’s very convenient to add your own pages and posts, and some clients love the fact that they have control at 4 in the morning to change something if they want to. Without a webmaster to help you decide what should go where, you might miss out on maximizing your site’s response if you make too many sweeping changes.
- Upgrades. WordPress is constantly evolving its platform, so there are frequent upgrades that are available in WordPress. They often fix important security issues, so sometimes they are important. The problem is, they can cost money to install. They can also conflict with any customization your webmaster has done. Themes also have upgrades, and it can be even more dangerous to upgrade a theme and wipeout important changes. Get an expert’s help before you click yes to upgrading WordPress or your theme.
Even though WordPress is not completely free, I am 110% in favor of embracing it as the best website/blog platform going today.
I hope this helps you make a smoother transition from your existing site to a WordPress site.
Are you ready to move to WordPress?
The 10 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid on Your Website
Just about everyone I know needs more customers. To that end, let’s take a look at the tried and true web site. An article I wrote several years ago still rings true today, whether you use WordPress, have set up a blog for your main site, or have a traditional site.
You CAN get more business, more clients, and more profits from your web site. But not if you make these common mistakes! See how you do with the top 10 biggest mistakes to avoid on your web site in this article.
The 10 Biggest Mistakes to Avoid on Your Website
Twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and 365 days a year, your website is presenting your company’s image and message to prospective clients all over the world. With this phenomenal reach, you want to make sure your best image and best message are coming across.
Perhaps your website is not generating the interest you’d like it to and you’d like to find out why. Maybe you’re just getting started in your new business and know you need a website, but don’t know where to start. Possibly your website is doing great, and you’d simply like to take it to the next level.
Whether creating a new site or updating your existing site, here are some common pitfalls to avoid.
1. Unprofessional writing. It’s easy to get so wrapped up in the web design portion of a website and forget about the words that go on the pages. Maybe the web designer does the design but not the writing. You might even find yourself writing the content at the last minute. Good writing is far more important than bling, and great copy from a professional copywriter will get your phone ringing.
2. Looking like all the other sites out there. Your business has something unique and different to offer its customers. Is that evident on your website? If not, you could be attracting the wrong type of customers, or worse, none at all.
When you hire a Webmaster, you’ll want to make sure that s/he will design your site for you and your customers and not for himself/herself.
Your website will shine when it emulates your company’s personality.
3. Not maximizing the eight seconds you have. Web visitors – your potential prospects – will give you only eight seconds to wow them. Do you have your best stuff at the top of your home page? I mean the really good stuff, not just the stuff your mom is proud of!
You’ll want to capture the attention of potential customers using the item that brings out the best in you. It might be a great tag line, a killer testimonial, a big award, a blue chip client list, or the like.
4. No credibility. Can web visitors check out your reputation on the web? You’ll want to make sure your website comes as close as possible to feeling like a warm, personal visit with you. Do this by posting content that is designed to build your credibility.
As an example, this can include content that shows you have a track record of success: testimonials, case studies of current clients, and a client list.
If you have been mentioned in the press, include a press page on your website that lists the newspapers, magazines, radio talk shows, and other places where you’ve been mentioned.
5. No way to capture interested leads. People warm up slowly. Your web visitors might be interested in you but are not quite ready to call you or buy anything yet.
You’ll want a way to keep track of these warm leads who will be ready to buy a few months down the road when they’ve gotten to know you better. There are several ways to gather leads from your website, depending on what you’re willing to offer them. One method that is completely ineffective for capturing leads is to ask for information on your contact page. Just don’t do it!
6. Not marketing your site. If you’ve spent all your money doing everything right, but you don’t market your site, you may not get any visitors.
You’ll need to spend at least a little time marketing your site through offline and online methods. For example, add your web-site name to the bottom of every email that you send. You can do this automatically by modifying the signature file in your email software.
You may also want to delve into the more advanced fields of search engine marketing and optimization.
7. Under construction. Many people’s pet peeves is to click on a page and see an “under construction” message. It’s inconsiderate of people’s time to lead them down a dead-end alley, plus your website screams the message, “This person can’t finish what they start.” I’m sure that’s not the message you wish to send.
8. Too much bling. In the name of being cute, many websites display obnoxious moving parts, flashing signs, or vacuous videos. Did you know most people hate that stuff?
Bling doesn’t impress clients, except in three cases: kids’ sites, sites that sell luxury items, and entertainment sites. If you have one of those sites, then you need bling. Limited bling is OK, timeless style is better, and meaningful, benefits-filled content is best.
9. Nonworking links, typos, or other mistakes. A site filled with errors tells people that its owner probably makes a lot of mistakes when delivering services. Even if the message is compelling, the red flag is there for people to see. People’s intuition will tell them not to do business with you. A quick and thorough testing of the site will avoid this pitfall.
10. No goals. A lot of people come to me saying, “I want a website.” I ask them, “What do you want it to do?” And they don’t really know.
It’s important to think about what you want your website to accomplish because that goal should be integral to the design of the site. The best sites lead their visitors to a certain outcome that is beneficial for both themselves and their customers.
When you can overcome these 10 common problems, your website can start to become a powerful and effective marketing tool for your business.
