To me this shows that these people have no real understanding of the sophistication of their market. People do not want to be persuaded on the web. The tactics of persuasion ended with the death of the last snake oils salesman. I am sure if you ran an advertisement copied from a newspaper from the ninteeenth century for some miracle cure you would get no response. And yet these are the types of persuasive tactics being promoted by many web development companies and online marketers.

While I would fully concure that there are still a number of unsophisticated buyers online and that you cannot totally cure people of their own folly, but most people are sophisticated and cynical. They have seen it all before. They will not buybecause your words drip with honey. They want proof, credibility and third party validation, perhaps by the way of  testimonials.

Buyers are in control

Buyers don’t want to be sold to, they want to be in control of the buying process. Therefore persuasion will not work. Buyers want you to engage with them. This is because people do not buy from websites, they buy from people. Buying is an act of engagement, even  on a website.

Of course, this does not mean that a landing page should not have the means to buy, subscribe or register. In fact and landing page is a very specific page on a site where you would expect this to happen. However, you cannot force people to buy from you.

Persuasion can often lead to the creation of confusion in the mind of a prospect, because what they want is clarity and for you to demonstrate a clear reason to buy (or take a specified action).

Clarity is pivotal to online success

The best way to be successful on the web and in website conversion is to ensure that you understand your market and can offer them a product or service that they want and to be able to meet and understand their concerns, fears and anxieties that are particular to that specific channel. You don’t need persuasion, you need clarity.

A rather bold statement to make and it made me wonder upon what foundation these claims were being made.

I say this because, while email marketinging can be very effective, there are a number of challenges that the email marketer faces, and the branding/design is but but one. I might even be bold enough to say that design and branding might even be a minor consideration. This is because for most email clients you have to actively turn images on to view the branding and design of an email, and if people are anything like me (read: lazy) they won’t necessarily turn images on the read the email.

If you are relying on the branding and design of your email to achieve the objectives of your email, then you may as well pack your bags and go home.

Before we move on let’s get it clear what I am saying. I am not saying that all email marketing should be plain text. What I am saying is that wrong to suggest only emails with images and branding will achieve the goals of the email. There are many examples of email marketing that are only in plain text/simple html that generate for their owners a healthy revenue and achieve their conversion targets.

I think this should bring up a note of caution for those involved in or considering email as a marketing and sales strategy. You need to be cautious about engaging the services of designers who have little understanding about email marketing. we should call these people “little picture” designers. This is opposed to the “big picture” designers who understand that their’s is just one part in a much bigger game.

Email marketing carries with it a number of challenges if it is to be an effective comunications and marketing tool. The first challenge that it faces is being opened by the recipient, this means that the enevelope details (subject and from fields) need to be used creatively and in a way that is specific to the subject of the email.

Once you’ve got through that challenge, it comes down to the message you are delivering. If the message you are delivering has very little to do with the envelope details, there’s a high probability that you will severly irritate your reader and the message will be deleted. The content of the email must be specific with a single call to action.

As an email marketer, you will be interested in three main statistics:

1. Open rate
2. Click through rate
3. Conversion rate

There are a number of tools and services you can use, but you might like to look at messageMaker as an email marketing application. This tool can be either self managed or managed on your behalf.

It appears the underlying assumption is that once the traffic starts arriving they will naturally start buying or registering - no questions asked!

Unfortunately, the reality different. People may be attracted in coming to your site because it is listed high in Google, but on arrival they are confronted with many obstacles that prevent them from either buying or registering.

There can be many on page factors that make it difficult for people to perform the action you would like them to do. For example, there can be a lack of congruence (continuity) between the search engine listing and the page (in other words what you have promised on the search engine listing, is not what is obvious or delivered on the page). Further, a page may have too many conflicting options that make it difficult for visitors to select from. Or, the process for purchasing may be too difficult and confusing. It is always a bad assumption to make, that because the page looks good, it will perform its function and convert.

I see no point in optimising a page for search engines, if no effort has been made to optimise the actual landing page so that it becomes easy for a visitor to not only fulfill their objectives in coming to the site, but also yours.

I am sure I have said this in a previous blog, I can see no point in undertaking search engine optimisation on a page if it currently performs poorly in terms of conversion. Getting more visitors to the page will not increase the conversion rate when there are inherent on-page issues that first need to be corrected and tested.

I widened out my research and found this website that reflects much of my views. Have a look at it: http://www.ragepank.com/articles/the-value-of-free/

There is a very cynical motivation why these designers and developers are offering free audits. It’s just a marketing gimmick to try and lure witless website owners into getting them to do the work in “remedying” those things that are holding them back from earning bucket loads of money on the internet.

I recently became privy to a “Free website audit report” prepared by one of these, good natured web companies. It was only after page two, of this somewhat heavy tome that it had me lurching for the nearest deep receptacle so I could heave up from the core of my being.

You are right, it was a cheap cookie cutter job that was ambiguous, misleading and erroneous. And while its essence could be distilled down to what could be written on the top of a medium sized microchip, it was heavily padded and weighted with the type of fluff that would have even prevented the Titanic from sinking. I am sure most of this had also been plagiarised from multiple sources. I looked to find the author of this document, only to find that it was a “sales consultant” from this company.

Admittedly it’s not too hard to find something on a webpage that could be an issue, but if the depth of the audit is just a series of superficial “Yes”/”No” answers, or one-liners, then the value and efficacy of the audit is somewhat pallid. It is hardly going to be of the calibre that will help an owner really understand what not only is or may be an issue, but what should be the next step(s) to remedy that situation.

Some time ago I had thought it necessary to compete head on with these “free website audit”, but that is now but a distant nightmare. To do a website audit takes time, thought and analysis. It often involves many hours of work, and is unique.

I am now thinking of adding a short highlighted paragraph to the top of my website audit page:

“You have probably noticed that many companies do not charge for website audits. We are different, we charge. We put a lot of effort into an audit in order to give you the best assessment of your site and how it can be improved. For us a website audit is not a cheap marketing tool to get you to become a customer, but is a means by which we can assess ways in which we can improve the performance of your site in a serious and quantifiable manner.”

Amazing customer service

Ordering on Amazon is a real breeze. The site knows me whenever I’m there and it offers me 1 click ordering. When I ordered my camcorder there was an offer of a free accessory with the purchase. I selected an item and added it, but at the time of checkout it appeared I was going to be charged for it, so I deleted it from my shopping cart. As you can imagine I was a bit disappointed.

I wrote to Amazon and explained what had happened. They were really good and I promptly received a response asking me tell them what the accessory was and they would send it out. There was no questions asked. It was immediate, problem sorted.

But here’s the really amazing part of the story, the camcorder that I ordered on Sunday afternoon, arrived on my desk on Thursday afternoon - half a world away!

What makes e-Commerce amazing

There’s a real proliferation of e-commerce sites around and most are really bad. The reason why they are bad, in my opinion, is because there’s no little thought about:

• the online customer experience
• the back-end processes required to run an online business

It is these things that Amazon excel at, and which other online businesses should emulate as appropriate.

The online customer experience

There is a lot more than just the plain old twaddle you get from web developers and designers who always bring out the same old mantra about usability, without being able to successfully define what they mean. Yes, easy and intuitive use has a lot to do with it, but there is a whole lot more to it than that. It’s about having a ‘psychological integration’ with the user, understanding the triggers that cause a person to buy, and understanding what needs to be done to encourage and support the buying decision.

Once you’ve got their money there is also, it’s also about how you ‘farm’ your customers so they become second time buyers (can be a bit hard when you’re selling only one product!). This means having a system in place whereby you can communicate and keep contact.

Back-end processes

I talk to many businesses wanting to set up a shopping cart or e-commerce component to their business, but many have not thought through whats actually required. Basic questions like, “what happens when you get an order”, or “how do you manage returns” are significant issues that need to be thought through and integrated into the business. Another significant issue is what is the staffing implications for such a venture.

All of these issues must be considered and have developed systems and processes, which ideally should integrate with the back-end functionalities of the website.

e-Commerce done well has a cost
- and a huge potential reward

I was talking with a developer who I trust about e-commerce.  We both agreed that it is a misconception that a e-commerce website is cheap. There is a cost for things to be done properly, and lets face it, you generally only have one opportunity to get it right when you’re selling online.

Don’t get me wrong, doing things online is, in most cases, is a lot less expensive than doing it offline, but it can still cost. I like to look at it in a comparative way. If you were setting up a shop in a mall you would be spending big dollars in order to get a slice of the action, and these costs would be ongoing. The same analogy should be applied to doing things online (after all it is a business channel). You must give it the investment it deserves if you want to make a good chance of it, especially when you consider the rewards online are potentially much greater.

SEO Horror

I’ve recently been asked to make some changes to an existing website. How could I refuse, brand new client, well designed website. I then had a look at the source code for the home page, in particular the title, keyword and description tags. My first thoughts were ‘amusing’. The description tag, despite being a long monotonous story was, at a pinch, relatively within the subject area. But the keywords were anything but.

I then proceeded to look at the tags for all the remaining pages of the site, only to discover they were an exact copy of what was on the home page. Oh, and by the way, the title tag, was the name of the company. Well, I suppose that’s better than having nothing there at all.

The big issue for me is that it appears that websites such as this, are sold under the guise of having been optimised. Whereas, optimised they are not.

Using title and description tags to best effect

I’m going to be a bit loose and liberal here, but hope you’ll see the point. The emphasis placed on meta tags is misplaced. From an optimisation perspective the important tags where care needs to be taken are the title and description tags. The title tag should give the reader and idea about what the subject of the page is.

The description tag serves a slightly different purpose. This should be used to invite people to open the page. In some ways this is like and advert that calls the reader on a search engine page to action. And yes, both the title and description tags should contain the appropriate keywords!

Keyword tag

As far as the keyword tag is concerned, none of the major search engines are going to penalise you if you don’t have this tag - in fact they don’t even look at it. That said, I still use the keyword tag, but more as an aid to remind and help me focus on what the exact keywords for that page are.

I have often found that many web developers are strong advocates for email newsletters. And, many organisations have adopted the email newsletter like a duck to water. Invariably the reason why they have adopted this mechanism of delivery is because of cost. It’s much cheaper to send out a email newsletter than it is to print and deliver through the standard mail system.

The question that needs to be asked is whether there is a downside to this. Well, I for one think so. I know from my own experience that email newsletters are not always read, and this is not because the content isn’t good, it’s because people are busy and looking backwards and forwards in their email box. Therefore if there is not something right at the top that doesn’t hit your reader right between the eyes, it won’t be read at that moment, and as the day progresses will become less and less f a priority.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying forget the email newsletter. There really is a place for it. It is a mechanism to quickly, efficiently and economically deliver a message to your customers. But if you want to be remembered by your customers I think you need to vary the delivery to include a paper based version of your newsletter every now and then. Yeah, it’s going to cost you more, but there’s one thing that you can be certain about, there’s a greater chance that it’s going to be read and kept by your customer. What value do you place on that?

The tale of two chambers

I’d also like to share with you my experience as a recipient of newsletters. I’m a member of two chambers of commerce. One has adopted a 100% policy of delivering all their newsletters by email. Guess what? I hardly read it and I haven’t been to any of their functions in the last year or so. It also sends me a monthly PDF newsletter and I can’t recall opening one. I’m now wondering what value this chamber really offers me and my business.

The other chamber that I belong to still sends me things by email, but it also sends me its monthly newsletter in printed form. Guess what? I read it, I may not read it immediately, but it gets read.

If you think about what’s going on here, one chamber of commerce has cut its cost by sending things electronically, and if I’m anything to go by has probably suffered lower participation (and, as a consequence will suffer lower membership). The other had continued to use both email and printed communications and has a higher participation rate.

What’s the big lesson

The Internet is a really tremedous medium for generating leads, ordering, delivering content, getting information and customer fulfillment (to name a few). But the internet is still a fairly sterile environment and doesn’t fulfill all the requirements building and maintaining relationships with customers. So as much as possible vary the delivery mechanism and use printed newsletter every now and then.

The internet has not replaced other mediums of comunication, it has just added another channel for us to use to the best effect.

I was quizzing my client on his product and what made it different and stand out. I got bombarded by all its features. This guy really knew his product inside and out. He had an intimate knowledge of how it worked and performed. I was truly amazed by his wealth of knowledge.

But I wanted more than just features, I wanted to know, and I wanted him to understand that we needed to translate each of these features into real tangible benefits for his market. This was where the hard work began. But in the end we got there. We both gained a lot from this exercise

As I was reflecting on this experience I had a “eureka” moment. I finally understood something that has been on my mind for years. We are the majority of us such awful salespeople. It’s not as though we don’t know our products. Obviously, from the experience I have just related, this guy did, and no doubt it’s something we can all relate to.

The reason why we find it hard to sell is because, despite having a great product knowledge, we often have a very poor kmarket knowledge. That is, we don’t know the needs, wants and desires of our market, and as a consequence we don’t know how our products or services can actually benefit that market.

Apart from copying content from one website to yours, I’m really at a loss as to what these guys mean by “original content”, they don’t explain what they mean. If you compare their websites directly you’ll quickly conclude (and at the same time become bored out of your tree) that there is nothing terribly original in any of their content. It’s the same-old telling us how marvelous they are.

So, what is original content?

To find out what “original content” was, I had a look at Google’s advice to webmasters and site owners. It’s pretty clear that what they mean is “authentic content”. That is, it’s your content and not copied and pasted from some other site.

I think website content must be defined who you are writing for and their needs. It may be that you’re not offering anything different to your other online competitors.  But, because you are marketing to a distinct audience, the difference will be reflected in the content, and hence it should be authentic and unique.

You need to keep your content “fresh”

We often hear web designers and developers say that you’ve got to keep your content fresh. If you don’t, not only will Google punish you, but so will everyone else by not visiting your site. I think we need to examine that notion in a but more detail.

For me, this notion of “fresh” is a load of rubbish. If your site is to generate leads or make sales, the only time you want to change your content is to improve its rate of conversion. If the content on your site is pulling in the punters, why would you want to change  it? All that you’re is the ability for that particular page to generate traffic and convert lookers into buyers.

To change what working is just sheer lunacy.

Not being one to eat my words, I do think there is a place for fresh or new content on a website. So, it probably is a good idea to designate pages or sections of your website where you are constantly updating content with new articles or news releases. But, it’s important to make the distinction between these pages and the pages that are designed to pull the punters.

There are any number of websites that haven’t changed their content for years. To my knowledge thay have not been penalised by the search engines and appear high in rankings. This can only happen because they are wll optimised and pull in the punters for their owners.

I do think it’s important to challenge the notion that visitiors won’t return to your site if there is nothing new there. May be, may be not. Let’s look at visitor behaviour (or rather our behaviour) on websites.

Why I visit a website is because I want something. In many cases I’ll hardly revisit that website again, or only because it has got something that I want. The fact that it has or hasn’t got new content is probably not going to matter that much, as long as my first experience was good. As a general rule, I’m not going to be going back to the site in the hope of finding “fresh” content. I don’t know about you, I’ve got better things to do with my life.

Now there are exceptions. What I have been talking about has been about websites whose sole focus is to generate leads or make sales. Other sites, like informational sites, there is definately the need for the continual and regular update of material.

When a person is searching it is usually for a reason, they want something to  make their better, easier, more prosperous easier or to take away some pain they have got. Usually most surfers will start by using a search engine (probably Google!).

The promise

The search results are options for the surfer and every result is one that he could click on. What appears in these search results are assolutely pivotal to the success of any website. Most website owners would be absolutely flawed to know that what appears here is the first and only chance that they have to get these surfers to open their site. But, what’s more every website owner has the ability to manage and control what appears in this introduction.

The search results are comprised of two elements:

• The Title tag
• The Description tag

In the search engine results the title tag will appear at the top and will be the hyperlink that will take the surfer to your site. The description tag will be the two lines that appear beneath. These threee lines are going to be the first contact a surfer (and someone who is actually looking for what you sell).

If you are going to use these two tags well, you’ve actually got to think carefully about how you use them. They actually have to be a total and tantalising summary of what a person will see if they click on your link.

I believe these two tags actually have to be a promise and create an expectation. If a surfer click on this link they will be under no illusion about what they will see when your site opens.

Fulfillment

Fulfillment should be realised when a vistitor, who has clicked on your search engine link arrives at your website. Their expectation should be immediately met.

Unfortunately most people who click on a search engine link do so out of desperation and are only hoping that their expectation can be met, because in most cases they are not. In many cases there is a total mismatch between what appears in a search engine listing and the content of the page. The the cases where there is a match,  the adrenilen of the visitor is not pumping, simply because both the title and description tags have been poorly written.

You don’t have to be good to be the best

For many website owners this will be put straight in the too-hard basket because they think it is too hard to do. Let me tell you straight, you are either lazy or just don’t understand that just about any change you do that sharpens up your title and description tags (as long as you remember to keep your keywords in tact) will lift the click through rate of your pages. By creating interesting descriptions that grab the attention of your market, you will obtain a higher click-thru rate than your competitors.