When developing websites there’s a similar one: Fast, Cheap, Effective. Pick any two

His topic was around the use of cheap design themes and amateurs building their own websites. It often falls back to professional developers to fix these nightmares when they don’t work and get no traffic.

Beware the Fast + Cheap Combo

Fixing up the cheap-quick solution has happened to me several times. The worst was a Joomla CMS installation last year. I quoted for a few days work as part of an annual ($2,000) coding update and design makeover for this large client. Instead, they utilised their new, quite bright marketing assistant, who self-taught herself how these things work as well as selecting a new design theme off template monster.

Almost 5 months later and some quiet nagging from me, they gave up and employed me to ‘help out’ as she was hitting brick walls. I was kind and only charged the $2k, but realistically, it took me longer to fix her work, than if I’d done it myself from scratch. Some of the illogical content structure she setup I could not really fix unless I spent a lot longer on the project. This is often the case and why most professionals in any trade will charge more when DIY experts have had a go, no matter how well intentioned. I’m reminded of a slogan in an automotive  workshop, left. It’s a rate chart I’m now applying for myself.

There’s thousands of suppliers that will  provide a cheap, seemingly easy shortcut to your own business website. Say how easy it all is to get started. One option I recommend for family sites is www.weebly.com The reason I like it is simply because it doesn’t get traffic and hence perfect for home use or somewhat private viewing. But there’s thousands like this. Sales pitch is always superb and comforting. Even Yahoo and the likes of MYOB have some instant website offerings, that suck.

If you read my recent Yellow Pages website review, one could almost put these ‘professional’ offerings into this category, even though it is not strictly DIY.  There’s several advanced eCommerce providers around too. Some of these, like BigCommerce,com are superb in the hands of a professional developer, but for the newbie, can be a real challenge. One of these I spent one hour on to resolve a minor layout issue she had tried to fix for months by reading the many tutorials.

Fast and Cheap comes with Hidden Costs.

Not only can they take up loads of personal time, they’re seldom, if ever effective. Sometimes they can be easy to update and even ‘look nice’. But slick features or design alone will never bring you traffic or sales results. Good coding, content and SEO needs to be in the mix too. I find those with a little IT or marketing knowledge are often the worst offenders, since they don’t want to get to a point of asking for help. Even though the technology is improving, the internet is becoming a more complex beast every day. It’s not what we see on our screens, it’s what’s hidden beneath that differentiates the winners from the rest.

Bottom line is these amateur, self-built sites almost never rank well in Google and from a branding perspective, are too often seen as an amateur effort, which can affect sales and credibility.  The urge to save money and do it ourselves is costing everyone business.

The above results come from a project done by an expert colleague in the US. But sadly, this seldom happens, as the goals for most website rebuilds is around ‘the look’. It’s somehow assumed that more traffic will magically follow! Yeah, right

Most people, especially company owners, still see the company website as a brochure, not a dynamic marketing tool needing constant care and investment – This old brochure mindset means there’s no strategy or funds made available for website SEO, promotion or marketing of the website – Which means only a modest, if any traffic improvement… Business owners are puzzled why the $5,000 or more they invested in the site update gives them no more website traffic or sales leads…

So, how do you get these 300%  traffic improvements from a re-build? Firstly, recognise that the site look or visual design has nothing to do with getting more traffic. It may help get conversions once people arrive as a professional looking site provides some peace of mind and confidence. But the look contributes little to gaining new traffic via any search (since 50-70% of traffic to the site will be via a Google search). It’s far more important the site structure, content and coding be clean, able to be easily indexed by Google. (read more)

Assuming we’ve a good back-end structure, here’s my ‘to do’ list for new website owners.

• Monitor Bounce Rates – After 30-60 days of website activity, check out your site’s bounce rate using Google analytics. Bounce rate tells us the number of people that leave your site immediately after arriving. Generally, the goal is to keep this below 30% for each page on the site. An examination of keywords and content provides the clues to what’s going wrong.
• Monitor & Adjust Keywords – Both Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools provides loads of data to tell us what’s happening. Webmaster Tools indicates what searches you show up on and Analytics will show you want happens when someone clicks through to your website from those keywords. Set a priority of action items based on your most important keywords. We also have our own expert SEO tools that monitor where you sit for Google page one ranking and keywords, against your competitors.
• Post Regular Articles – Search engines and visitors want to see fresh content. It gives both a reason to return to your website. Fresh content means adding or updating articles. Try to add new blog posts on a weekly basis. WordPress sites make this easy – And Google rewards you with traffic.
• Have a Link Building Strategy – Search engines look at who is linking to you and their importance. Quality prevails over quantity. You will need inbound links to many of your pages as possible to be able to up your ranking on competitive keywords.
• Use Pay per click – This is a great way to get traffic in a hurry. Googles amazing AdWords remains one of the best ways to quickly generate traffic and sales within days, not months. The trick is not just the words chosen, but to personalise the Ads, linked through to special offer landing pages on your website.

It’s a reminder that most of the real work to gaining website traffic comes AFTER the site is built. As we’ve said many times before, at least the same amount of time and money needs to be allocated to website marketing and traffic generation, as is set aside for the original design and building. Unfortunately this seldom occurs.

Ref: 12 Reasons Google Hates You

However to me it comes down to having the right mix of communication channels available to customers. I have several clients selling their products or services to consumers that use both their Website and a Facebook page very successfully. The general indication is that around half their new business comes from their WordPress blog and website, with people using a search and their site pops up. The other half comes from Facebook chatter and online referrals.

It’s a very simple, somewhat obvious formula. We did it with print for decades, locked into the old Yellow Pages, Classifieds, flyers and newspaper display ads. Sometimes radio. Today the internet has largely replaced these channels. But the net itself has sub-channels and communities.  People look and reside in various places online.

most have a boring website that Google has long forgotten and simply won’t send traffic to

Facebook is important, but so is the company website. The largely overlooked and forgotten website, being the marketing channel that should be supplying half of new leads, usually provides no leads at all. The excuse is that the website was a major project done long ago and it should somehow, years later, continue to do its job with no extra time or money spent on it…. Yeah, right

What’s going wrong?

Most often these  brochure websites that haven’t been changed in months or years tells Google the business is dead, regardless of what’s really happening within the business. Google quite rightly regards the business as not worthy of traffic, as it can’t see any activity or make sense of the content or structure.

Google is programmed to list those businesses on page one search it regards as being relevant, active and having a good reputation by way of links or citations. Most businesses lack this, at least as far as Google is concerned….

Yet it can be solved.  A modest investment upgrading this boring, unfriendly business website to a modern, interactive, SEO-optimised blog-style website could have a very quick return and raise credibility with both Google and existing customers. Interactivity and cross-links to Facebook pages is important too. Lastly, have some funds set aside each month for email marketing and Google AdWords (replacing local Yellow and classifieds), providing an instant boost to sales.

Selling or promoting yourself requires planning, effort and investment on a continual basis. Sadly, it seems many businesses tell me they have no time or cash for this, but are the first to complain that business is slow.

The article, entitled, “The Future is Mobile” started off by discussing the opportunities for small businesses around mobile and the need to have a mobile-optimised website and new generation business tools. Although a self-proclaimed internet and technology geek of ten years, I only recently purchased an HTC smartphone and can now better understand where the opportunities lie.

Payments on the go

The same week I also meet with Roger Wang at Flo2cash.co.nz to discuss their payment gateway for one of our client ecommerce websites. In the past we’d used Paypal, which is annoying, since you have to wait a week to transfer funds to NZ, or setup the DPS gateway for NZ banks. Flo2cash had a great, secure alternative which we’ll use from now on.

It’s not the technology that’s now lagging behind, it’s business adoption.

Whilst there, they showed me an amazing Android App that can be used by any small businesses to collect payments instantly, on their mobile phones. To date, most businesses are forced to purchase the whole EFTPOS suite that can cost thousands in hardware fees, plus large monthly running costs. Plus, these are only available on long term contracts or very costly rental arrangements. (Talk to any Taxi driver about their EFTPOS experiences!)

Now, just armed with a good $500 smartphone with a decent sized screen, you can accept credit card payments from customers in the field, with money going straight into your bank account. (read more)

All this just re-confirmed what was obvious to me around mobile and the whole ecommerce and wider payments opportunity. New vendors like Flo2cash are coming out with some amazingly services that are low in cost, simple to use and highly effective. Check them out.

“As for what I call owner-build websites, I have marketing/sales/SEO packages which include no design at all – other than helping them determine how many landing pages to have, and their best keywords, BEFORE designing the site. And analysing what the competition is doing, which very few pure designers even ask about (so I’m told)… The two most important factors in a website are content and links, neither of which has anything at all to do with graphic design.  …..anyone focused on the bottom line should build their own [content-managed] site, then hire somebody to help them with the marketing and search aspects…”

There’s two issues here. One is to build a site that can be found. Technically, a simple WordPress site using a nice Studiopress  theme is all that’s needed. This means the design costs can be slashed by 50-80%. This type of raw site (without much content) could be up and running in a day at minimal cost, usually under $500.

But where the real costs will come in as mike said, is in training the client to run the site and add their own content. (Content is always the killer). They will need lots of assistance with the technical side of SEO too as well as paid search marketing (AdWords). And then there’s other toolsets like email and/or Facebook, to keep them ahead of their competition and generate more leads. This is all content and marketing effort. Very little design.

As we’ve said before, for every $1 spent on ‘design’ another $3 or more needs to go into client training and site marketing.

Many customers see real benefits in building a ‘brand’ and having a site that is special. Unique. Customers saying ‘wow’ when they arrive at the website front page. Design and visuals can do this. I think if you’re in some sectors like finance or you’re selling high value goods, where trust and credibility is important, going the extra mile to get the look right is critical.

Online is a team effort now

Although I agree with everything Mike Hihm says, I still see benefits in using a skilled graphic designers as well as copywriters for many projects. For myself, it seems the sites I ‘show off’ more to prospective clients, are those where we’ve worked closely with, or for, local graphic designers. However all this just emphasises that when it comes to online, design is but one factor to a successful business outcome.

ADDENDUM

As a footnote to this article, Mashable recently posted a story entitled “4 Strategies for Working With Designers Without Killing Each Other

This mirrors my own views, showing that designers and developers have different goals, priorities and outlooks when it comes to website building. But as this article shows, the differences can be easily overcome. And this article will become pre-requisite reading for any new web or graphic designer we work with. It may help them better understand where us geeky ‘developers’ come from. Why site architecture, code, content and SEO is just as important as visual design.  The designer is but one voice in how a high traffic website is built.

In mid 2010 WordPress was the technology running around 8% of the world’s top one million websites. Announced by founder Matt Mullenweg at WordCamp San Francisco, August 2011, the open source WordPress technology now powers:

Most of this growth has come from its wordpress.org downloads, being client self-hosted domains established by both amateur and professional design-developers. It’s testament to the incredible success of their new version 3 technology released late last year, that provides good CMS features, not just a blogging platform.

And for those who maintain that WordPress is ‘merely’ a blog, not a CMS, it seems that 91% of developers surveyed said they utilised the latest WordPress 3 as a CMS solution, not for its original blogging features. As we’ve maintained for the last year, WordPress allows us to build a high functioning, good looking website, in around half the cost of other CMS platforms like Joomla, or traditional html based designs.

The next most popular open source CMS platform is the long-standing Joomla, running around 3% of websites. Others falling below this are Drupal, Mambo, Silverstripe and the thousands of custom, proprietary-built CMS platforms out there.

But Wait there’s more…

The other even more staggering statistic is the number of NEW websites registered in the US that are deciding to run using the WordPress 3.2 platform instead of other CMS or traditional html sites.

World domination springs to mind…I believe that it’s not so much taking market share from other CMS providers, but more likely allowing businesses to have a slick content-managed website that’s more easily found online, instead of building a boring, static one, based upon traditional html programming. Almost half my own web development work the last couple months has been helping others convert their Photoshop or html designs, to run on a WordPress platform. The cost to do this isn’t high. Often just a few days work.

The obvious popularity of WordPress is encouraging, especially for small business owners on a limited budget. Amazing features at a low cost. It also has slick toolsets to interlink with Facebook and social media, which is important these days. And for the cost of a US$50 plugin, is 100% optimised for viewing on the latest mobile phones.

p.s. Also read 15 million downloads!

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Not getting your share?

Successful websites get lots of traffic, with around 70% sent from Google.

• Site not well optimised for phrases or keywords that people actually search for.

• Site pages and their headings (H1/H2 tags) are poorly chosen and/or not relevant

• Site meta descriptions are poor and not optimised for a Google search page result.

• Your website has no sitemap and/or has a bad coding or structure, making it difficult for Google to index and find out what you’re about.

• You are lacking business citations. i.e. Not visible in directories (Google Maps, Finda, Hotfrog, etc etc)

• You have too few incoming links from other reputable websites or reviews from clients.

• Content is static, with few site updates. (Google will not send traffic to sites it regards as ‘dead’. A static brochure website implies an inactive company and not ‘worthy’ to be listed).

• You have no activity within the social networks .i.e. Youtube, Facebook, LinkedIn.

• Your website message and ‘call to action’ is poor, irrelevant. Too much reliance upon graphics, effects, flash etc, instead of text copy.

• You’re not using Google Analytics to find out how/why people arrived at your website.

• You have no e-marketing in place (no list building, email campaigns, online strategy etc)

• No online advertising in place to promote, drive traffic and visitors (e.g. Google AdWords)

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Note very little of the above has to do with the ‘look’ or visual design of your website which is what most businesses spend the big money on. But to Google, the look or style is irrelevant. It’s all about the words used, maintaining fresh [text] content, the underlying code and what your profile is across the internet. THIS is what gets you found online…  Unfortunately, the average ‘web designer’ knows little of and has little interest in such things. His/her training and focus is naturally around the site look, not getting traffic or optimising code..

Certainly once they arrive at your site, the visual appearance certainly becomes a factor in establishing your credibility. It defines if you’re a professional or an amateur. But, if you can’t get them to your site in the first place using Google, why bother having a website?

In many respects, it’s never been more difficult. Competition is high for all sectors and keywords with millions of sites found. Any success comes from a complex art of on-site and off-site strategies. And when you talk to the ‘experts’, few agree on what works best. There is no single magic fix. Just hard work. However with Google sending most sites 60-70% of their traffic, the need for business to appear on Page one of Google is dire.

Typically, 60-70% of traffic to most websites comes via GOOGLE

The good news though is that there are more ways to be found online today. Optimising your own website for SEO and building up links, which is the ‘traditional’ way is but one strategy. The fact is, when deciding where to place your business on the search page Google not only looks at your website, but many other places too, plus their own advertising outlet..

Here’s six ‘channels’ Google provides you to appear on a search page. Smart businesses will use all six.

1. Google AdWords

The obvious choice. Googles ‘pay per click’. Here, you’re paying to buy your position.

Many companies ignore this as they want to ‘save money’ and mistakenly believe that organic (your website) search is all they need. Many SEO gurus make a good living out of helping customers get a high organic search result and discourage clients from using AdWords. The reason is two-fold. Firstly, they can’t get as much margin out of it. Secondly, the belief that paying for Google Ads is wasteful. Organic search is somehow ‘enough’.

AdWords is critical. Here’s my video case study from an SEO colleague in Brisbane. His talk covers Yellow vs Google, however what’s important is to note the high proportion of leads coming via AdWords, even though he also lists high for organic, being leads from his website. I’ve similar examples here in NZ too with traffic coming via Adwords being 30-40% of the total! And contrary to popular belief, this is usually new traffic. Research says that AdWords traffic takes few clicks away from your organic or direct traffic. It adds to it…

Most forget that your Adwords promotions can also appear within Youtube, gMail and as AdSense ads across hundreds of related websites.

Think Local Newsprint Display Ads

Adwords is also very powerful and flexible compared with the other options below. Think of it as a display ad, not just a branding exercise or bringing in traffic. i.e. When you run a promotional ad in the local newspaper for a new product line or special offer.

What’s not realised by most people, is you can now do the same with Google AdWords, since it can now be targeted and ‘delivered’ electronically to local areas (Google announcement and example). This is possible since Google ‘knows’ where you are via your ISP details and/or IP address. For those on mobile, built-in GPS or the cell tower ID helps determine your location.

This reduces the costs and makes it even more effective for local promotions. Unlike print, results are immediate and measurable. Unlike print, you can modify the ad every day, fine tuning the message, budget and outcome. It can also be used in a guerrilla marketing campaign too, effectively stealing leads from your competitors. This video shows some ideas and tricks from SEO super-guru Bruce Clay last year in an informal pub talk on ‘Where SEO fits’. 

2. Website SEO (Organic)

Your website is important, but it needs to be marketed, both online and offline. Many expect that their new website will somehow ‘magically’ attract traffic, simply because it looks nice and Google will kindly index it, sending you hundreds of leads each week/month. This never happens now. Your website must be promoted, requiring effort and a monthly budget.

Many expect that their website will ‘magically’ attract traffic

The cheapest method simply involves regular updates of fresh content. Google ‘likes’ websites that have fresh, interesting, relevant content. I’ve seen beautiful looking websites from multi-nationals that are little more than a static brochure with no content changed in the last 12 months. Google will regard these businesses as ‘dead’ and seldom display them, meaning little traffic – Regardless of what the site originally cost or how pretty it looks.

Site content also needs to be displayed on your site in a manner that the Googlebot prefers, tending to things like site structure, friendly urls, H1, H2 tags, use of keywords throughout the articles, meta descriptions, an xml sitemap, etc. Be aware some website platforms are bad at this and may also create a lot of ‘noise’ in the Google index.  Migrating your website to the WordPress CMS platform will fix this.

Off-site SEO is important too. This is backlinks (link building) from other reputable sites that boost your authority and page ranking. Sometimes just writing articles or making comments on related industry sites is all that’s needed. However it’s a long term process.

3. Google Maps

Google did a major upgrade in mid 2010 to integrate local search and its maps into the search page. Now, when someone does a location-based search, Google attempts to find those businesses within their area and presents the results, along with a map. It’s like a mini webpage high up on page one with your key business details like address, phone numbers, services etc. You don’t even need to have a website to appear here, although it helps…

There are many tricks to be shown high on the page, since just ‘claiming’ your listing does nothing in terms of where you are placed in a search result. But this effort aside, it’s essentially a free service from Google. Great for ‘bricks and mortar’ businesses who need a fast-track to the top of page one.

4. Third Party Directories

You’ll often see links to directories on Google. Finda, Zenbu, NZSearch, Hotfrog, Yellow and a dozen others.  Too often they link to general categories, which aren’t that useful. But sometimes will actually display your website directly if your descriptions and details are a good match for the search phase. These lesser directories, even those that have low traffic, actually act as citations to boost your Google maps placement, which is good.

5. Facebook Pages

Even though Facebook is often perceived as the enemy of Google, Facebook business pages now often show up in a Google search. Facebook is also the perfect forum to engage with customers who have purchased your product or services. It’s referral capabilities are impressive. There’s ample tools that help interlink your Website with Facebook, assisting traffic and customer engagement.

6. Youtube & LinkedIn

Last but not least, listings seen in Google often display Youtube and LinkedIn listings. These ‘social’ channels are another source of information about you and further raise your online profile and credibility. It’s foolish to ignore them.

15 million sounds important to someone, but what does it mean?

Well, they’re talking about WordPress, being the free blogging platform. It runs the www.wordpress.com service that allows anyone to build their own blog under the WordPress subdomain. I have several family event sites running on this.

WordPress is the leader in blogs. Even Microsoft dropped their own proprietary ‘spaces’ blogging platform last year and is migrating its millions of users to this free, more stable, open source, php-based WordPress platform. Ironic.

However what the 15 million article talks of is the number of scripts downloaded by web developers and designers off the www.wordpress.org site. (There’s 25 million sites now running WordPress, surpassing Joomla and all others). Web developers can use the same robust platform to build their own and client business blogs and primary websites on their own domains.

What’s driving this WordPress growth?

A lot of this explosion in interest and downloads is the big enhancements that came with version 3 the middle of last year and 3.1 in February. A major upgrade to their robust 10-year old blogging platform. It turned WordPress from a popular blogging platform, into a serious website CMS contender, even rivalling the likes of highly respectable, long-established open source CMS options like Joomla, Drupal and others.

I used to build sites on these platforms, but now seldom do. I can build better sites, in under half the time using WordPress. And time is money. My Joomla sites that once would have cost the client up to $5,000 can now be built for around $1,500 which means there’s usually money left over to actualy help the client market the website, both online and offline. And the on-site SEO side is ten times easier to do in WordPress than the same chore in Joomla, Drupal or Dotnetnuke. And the sales bonus is quicker build time and reduced costs make it viable for me to provide extended payments to clients over 3-6 months. Yet another incentive to get them started, and instill the fact this is a long term business development project.

Yes, WordPress lacks in some areas, but the lower costs, ease of setup, enhancement options and user friendliness more than overcomes its shortcomings for most small business websites. And $1,500 is a nicer, more manageable, lower risk investment for most small business owners to build their online presence than $3-5k. Ample upgrade options too. Even a slick small business shopping cart, classifieds or community tools can be added for around $600 more.

What does this mean for web designers and small business?

If you want to save time and costs, the trick is to start with a professional design ‘theme’ like those from (in order) Studiopress or Woothemes or Storefronthemes or Rocketheme. However some need their own unique ‘look’ and branding. For around $500-750 it’s possible for us to build your own ‘theme’ from Photoshop or html layouts, ready for content to be added.

A WordPress-based site ensures more features. Certainly more than any static ‘brochure’ website. No ‘cost per page’ fees since any new page or article can be added in minutes.

Better integration too with social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. The worlds best mobile compatibility just by adding a $50 plugin – Critical, since more people are visiting websites using their mobile device these days. With this, WordPress automatically ensures the one site renders quickly and beautifully on mobile. (It may also eliminate the need to develop a costly ‘Mobile App’ for iPhone).

And, WordPress sites are easier to update. Not just the backend scripts, but also all content using a PC, Mac or mobile phone, just like Facebook users can do. Fresh content is what brings Google and traffic. Less effort on ‘looking nice’ which has been the web design focus the last ten years. This is what is broken with the current offerings in our web design industry. Business owners are basing their web expenditure upon the pure design and how it looks, which has little to do with sales or traffic volumes to the site.

Google LOVES WordPress

The real jewel in the crown of WordPress over all other platforms and technologies is its SEO benefits.  A well optimised WordPress site will get more traffic. Typically 30-50% more than others according to studies. It’s a mix of superior architecture, SEO coding and also the fact that people are more willing to update content regularly. It ’gets found’ in Google. Matt Cutts of Google has said this more than once. Forward-thinking website developers worldwide are dropping their existing website offerings and migrating themselves and their clients onto the WordPress platform – Hence the explosion in downloads.

Most websites today have very low traffic and almost invisible in a Google search. With WordPress, you’ve an immediate kick-start on the competition. There’s still lots of tricks to traffic, but WordPress just makes it that much easier for web developers to do a good SEO job.

Sadly, WordPress or even SEO technques are seldom mentioned in local web design schools. Many still rely upon selling static brochure websites and the use of meta keywords in the site header to be listing in Google. These strategies are ten years out of date, often doing more harm than good!

SEO Web Development Specialists

So, that’s my role in life. Helping web designers build websites that get found, using WordPress as the foundation. We can do this without conflict since we’re a pure web developer and SEO (search marketing) geek. I couldn’t ‘design’ anything if I tried – Which is why we like to partner with designers at Studiopress, Woo and local web designers who want to upgrade their offerings. We help those with the design skills to assemble slick, content-managed websites that get found in Google…

To learn more on these powerful, cost-effective services email: zn.oc.gnitekramlatigidnull@nivek

SEO and the ability of a website to ‘be found’ by Google is ever-changing. Unfortunately design schools seldom teach the intricacies of search marketing – Which is why most small business websites today are ranked low by Google and will never get to Page One.

Too many website designers still cling to the ‘old rules’ and unaware of the major changes Google instituted in mid 2010 which sent even SEO ‘experts’ into a spin. Claims that "the small guys have been snuffed out" (news article).

Good Looks Don’t Help You Get Found Online

Business owners can only look at the visual appearance of their site, believing that a ‘nice looking’ website will automatically be found online. However to Google, the site ‘look’ and appearance is totally irrelevant. There’s plenty of examples of where a competitor running an inexpensive, plain website, but expertly SEO optimised and with a strong message obtains much more traffic!

Looks and branding are important for credibility, but it doesn’t help a website get found, or in itself generate traffic or sales.

The standard SEO ‘strategy’ for most designers is to just drop in a few metatag ‘keywords’ and descriptions into the header of the website. Although everyone I know does this, it simply doesn’t work now and since 2002 meta keywords have been ignored by Google. (reference here). Similarly those who encourage loading up a domain with lots of irrelevant, poor quality backlinks that can get you banned by Google. The JC Penny corporation in the US was the most famous example of what can go wrong (discussed in the video below).

Dirty Little Secrets of Search

Our favourite Auzzie SEO colleague Jim Stewart (left) summed up many of the business and web design problems around search marketing and Google in a very frank video podcast on 15th Feb.

Poorly optimised websites certainly are an issue today – Especially annoying when those sites that have cost business owners many thousands of dollars. All emphasis on looks or branding with none on ‘being found’.

Like Jim, we can either rebuild an existing website to be more ‘Google-friendly’ or can sometimes work in with local or offshore web designers who ‘see the light’ and are open to changing their ways. (details here).

Why Change? Why is this occurring?

Well, Google is changing things to make the search experience better and more relevant for the user. This means it’s not just about ‘optimising the website’ itself (which is seldom done correctly, as Jim pointed out), but equally about building up a company’s online profile and reputation across relevant third party websites, directories and customer reviews.

According to word coming out of Google, the number of customer ‘likes’ or positive consumer recommendations a company has online (especially directories and social media sites), will soon have more influence to getting to Page One, than the number of traditional ‘backlinks’ a website has. We already see this occurring in the restaurant sector with those having the best online reviews getting more business.

It makes sense for Google to do this, since it means that the websites it serves up at the top of the page will be better and more trustworthy – Give a better product or service, based upon consumer feedback.

Business owners and designers spend weeks, often months going through the look and copy to ensure it all looks perfect. They even do the ‘SEO’ thing to it. The big day arrives and it goes live – Everyone is happy. Problem is, although it may look stunning, there’s likely very little chance of substantial traffic ever coming to it – In the next week, month or year.

What 95% of business people don’t realise (and web designers usually won’t tell them) is that the design of the website means little if you haven’t also got a strategy (and funds) in place to ensure people come to your site and interact with it.

Setting aside funds to build a website and not having at least twice this amount to market it, is like buying a new car but forgetting it needs petrol.

The biggest cost of a new site isn’t the building of it, it’s the upkeep and marketing of it. Unlike the old days (pre 2000) when we had ‘brochure’ websites, all we had to do was put a few keywords in the website header and somehow Google would send people to it. Those happy days are long gone.

Websites today need to be marketed, otherwise it’s like setting up a new business at the end of a no-exit street. The internet ‘super-highway’ with traffic flowing past your place is but a dream… . Like everything in life, results only come with hard work…

Website Marketing in just 7 Steps

• Firstly, the onsite search optimisation needs to be carried out. Properly. This does take time and unfortunately under 5% of website designers have the necessary know-how. They often say they do it, but typically use techniques that are 5 years out of date, sometimes doing more harm than good. Bringing in outside experts like ourselves is best.
• Offsite SEO. This is primarily building up links from other websites, blogs, review sites, twitter feeds and industry directories that raise your online profile and provide credibility. Again, it takes time and care, but vital if you want to be found. Web designers seldom do this. Somewhat justifiably, it’s not seen as their job. It’s not ‘creative’. I understand that.
• Online advertising. This is ‘Pay-per-click’ advertising using both Google AdWords and Facebook Advertising. Dependant upon the size of your business, you’ll need to set aside $50-$500 per month for this. Make these campaigns specific and send them to a good offer on a special website ‘landing page’. Oddly, very few web design offer AdWords or even landing pages as a service.
• Do monthly content updates to your website. A static, never-changing website is eventually seen as a ‘dead business’ by Google and the chances of then being found via a Google search are zero. This is why running a WordPress CMS-based website is essential. It allows business owners or sales people to do their own website updates and announcements anytime, anywhere. PC or Mobile.
• Setup a Facebook page and like your website, do regular updates and announcements. Engage daily with those customers that visit your site. The number of business leads you get via this single resource may astound.
• Build an email list of existing clients and start to email regularly. Make sure you have some tempting offers too, not just ‘about me’ sales copy. Get a copywriter to help. Instead of MS outlook or Word, use a ‘smart ‘online system that provides a stunning look, as well as track subscribers, response and open rates. These systems now start at under $30/month for 1,000 emails.
• Offline marketing.  Surprisingly, it’s often traditional marketing that provides the ‘trigger’ for people to go to Google or a website. e.g. Signs, car stickers, letterbox flyers, newspaper articles, PR events etc. The trick? Ensure your website address is always prominent  – Not in tiny type that most graphic designers in the print world like to do. It should be bold and easily read from a distance.

There. That’s my shortlist of how to get found online and grow your business results. How many can you tick off? Although each of these requires thought and work, it need not be overly expensive. Start simple and do a little bit at a time.

p.s. I made several remarks re website designers apparent shortcomings. This should not be seen as a criticism. It merely indicates that building a website these days is a team event. Good websites are now complex, interactive systems. No longer ‘static designs’. This means no one person or discipline can build a site that ‘gets found’ and gets results. Site builds are now a collaborative effort between Graphic designers, Web developers (coders), SEO (Search/Google) experts, Marketers and Copywriters – Each having equal input.

If you need someone to take charge, then make it the SEO expert working with the copywriter. It’s what Google sees about your new website in the coding and words that’s more important today, not how it looks visually from a designer perspective - For an industry that started out with websites being a creative ‘branding’ or advertising effort, this is a major, uncomfortable shift in emphasis.
Ref: A simple test of your websites effectiveness.

You want more leads and more sales? Driving traffic to your website with search, TV, eMail or print advertising becomes expensive if it doesn’t convert.

If you still consider direct marketing response and/or conversion rates of 1-2% is “adequate”, then frankly you need to re-examine your marketing strategy.  The industry leaders do much better. Remember, people are voluntarily visiting your website or reading your emails in hope that you will fill their need. Do you know what happens to those visitors that don’t convert into revenue?

Whether you’re a retailer or service provider, your website is what people will turn to first after learning about you through Google search and other media channels. First impressions count as well as your ability to quickly provide them with the product or information they came looking for.

The world’s Number 1 expert on website conversions (and the inspiration for this post), is undoubtedly Bryan Eisenberg of FutureNow Inc.

Click here to read his advice on this critical issue.

To see more, go to the Clemenger website here

That was yesterday. Today designer-built websites are very much a commodity item. The need for most businesses to employ a professional ‘web designer’ at all, is greatly reduced.

Self-managed ‘BLOGS’ have arrived and are a key element of our online, social media fabric – Here’s eight reasons blogs are better:

1. Compared with old fashioned, custom-built  websites, Blogs provide a great way to build a modern Web 2.0 web presence for very little cost, and can sometimes be up and running in just minutes/hours, not weeks/months.
2. Blogs are a dynamic channel, distributing latest news items, whereas your traditional site is static, for branding purposes.
3. Some have an advanced magazine publishing structure, with readers, subscribers, writers, editor and publisher access etc.
4. Blogs are inherently interactive. Readers can optionally comment on each and every article or page generated. This alone can have huge marketing benefits in many sectors where customer feedback and referrals is important.
5. Ability to quickly, effortlessly add in podcasts, YouTube videos, photo galleries, Facebook integration, twitter feeds and much more.
6. Mobile compatible. Good blog solutions offer compatibility with all mobile browsers, eliminating the need for a special mobi website. For those in the restaurant trade, this is vital as more and more will access their sites via mobile devices, not laptops or PCs.
7. Instant, DIY updates. When you want content changed or new pages added, it’s as easy as writing a Word document. No nasty FTP or costly design software. Microsoft offers a superb, free blog editor, LiveWriter. (details) There’s even an iPhone app! (details)
8. Last but not least, blogs are SEO-friendly. Google prefers blogs over traditional sites built using software like Dreamweaver. Blogs inform Google of new content and by nature, people update their blogs regularly. This means a better search ranking and traffic.

I’m not saying professional websites don’t have a place. They do. Especially if you’re a big corporate or publisher with a high public profile or tough branding requirements. But for the other 80% of mainstream small businesses on the planet, blogs are simply a better, more effective and lower cost option to get your business online. The simple fact that Google loves blogs more, cannot be ignored.

Some say if you’re not found on Google, you don’t exist  -  no matter how expensive or fancy your website is…

This means a cheap, frequently-updated, ‘blogsite’ will often get 2-5 times more traffic than any pretty, expertly crafted, ‘brand-focused’ website costing ten times as much. And more traffic means more sales opportunities… Sorry expert web designers and agencies, but it’s just the way it is. 

Want to know how to setup your own low cost blog? email me

Ref: Businessweek article here.

Kevin Trye

According to David Wauters, director of marketing for Bare Necessities, the company saw a 15% lift in revenue (that’s not a response rate improvement, but bottom-line sales improvement), from customers who received both the direct mail postcard AND the e-mail, compared to the control group who received only the e-mail.

Wauters has apparently stumbled on something that a lot of marketers talk about, but seldom do. According to Jane Kaiser, president of online marketing consultancy Eclipse Direct Marketing who work with Bare Necessities, few marketers truly coordinate their email and print marketing efforts.

She said her clients consistently see lifts of between 15% and 25% when they send coordinated print and e-mail campaigns. To us it’s no magic formula, simply common sense.

Like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, the e-mail and direct mail channels can make beautiful footwork solo. But when you pair them up for the right number, the result is electric—higher response rates, higher average order value and higher lifetime value. And in a tight economy, what company doesn’t want its marketing dollars to stretch farther?