It may be straight sales (in the case of an eCommerce site), or enquiries via a contact form. Whatever it is, it should still be a concrete, measurable goal.

Why measurable?

Because without information based on facts, a business has no basis on which to gauge the success of their activities, or whether strategies designed to yield an improvement do in fact deliver the anticipated benefits.

But isn’t statistical measurement tedious and just plain hard?

It can be, but here is a fast track way to start off. Imagine a situation where a tradesman specialises in installing outside spas. He creates a web page carefully designed to draw visitors interested in this service. His goal is to get them to contact him for a free onsite appraisal. To gain real insights into how his visitors are responding to his offer there are only three things that he really needs to measure:

1. How many people saw the promotional information web page?
   • AWStats in cPanel reports the page views for all pages, so the number of page views for the page in question are readily available.
2. How many people responded to the information on that page?
   • The way to set this up is as follows:
     • Create a button on the information page with an enticing offer that visitors should click to take them to a page with a very simple form that collects just sufficient details to enable them to participate in the offer (name and email may be sufficient). Make sure that this page does not appear in the main menu and is not accessible from any other link.
     • Once again, the page views for this contact page are available from AWStats
3. How many visitors followed through with the required action?
   • When the customer clicks the [Submit] button of the contact form, arrange for the website to re-direct to a dedicated ‘Thankyou’ page. As above, this page should not appear in any menu and the page views will be available from AWStats.

That’s it. No rocket science. Just three simple numbers that are all available in cPanel’s AWStats.

Now what can be done with the information?

Like so many things in marketing this scenario is a numbers game. In general, more people viewing the information page will result in more people clicking on the offer button, which will in turn increase the number of people who submit the required contact form (the end goal in this case). As an example in a particular month the page views may be as follows:

• Information page: 100
• Contact form page: 15
• Thankyou page (after submission): 1

The last figure seems to be rather low. To address this the Spa installer decides to increase the strength of the offer on the line immediately above the [Submit] button to encourage visitors who have got that far to take the final step. Next month’s figures may be as follows:

• Information page: 80
• Contact form page: 12
• Thankyou page: 4

So, overall the numbers for interested visitors are down (fluctuations month to month are inevitable) but importantly the conversions are up. Clearly, the change to the contact form worked!

Like to know how this can be set up on your website? Contact TOSD via the Support Desk. It may be easier than you think.

• Making the most of meta description tags
• Writing meta tags
• Meta description tag

And this is a nice article on writing page titles just to round off the subject. While titles are arguably not as imortant as descriptions they are still relevant:

• SEO page title tips

And what about meta keywords?

Well, the truth is that they are no longer very relevant at all. Still, if you would like to use them ensure that you use no more than about 5-6 words. Long lists of keywords are more likely to have your site flagged for spamming.

With the Internet now such a mainstay of business communications it’s a concern that too many business people are not doing what they can to learn more about Internet Marketing.

Thankfully, two very smart Internet Marketers are now running a series of Internet Marketing seminars to share their knowledge and empower you to better manage your online promotion of your business and website.

Jeff Richardson and Lucio Ribeiro really know their stuff. I’ve worked with them on a number of occasions to enhance the value of websites I have built for clients. And I can tell you they are well worth a listen if you get the opportunity.

Now, through www.internetmarketingacademy.com.au you can come up to speed with topics such as:

• Search engine optimisation
• Online advertising; Google AdWords and other PPC campaigns
• Social Media for business; Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more
• Underutilised strategies such as email marketing, online PR, and
• $200 free advertising you can use to advertise online.

Jeff and Lucio are working closely with Google and Yahoo and both these companies are providing $100 credits for their PPC (Pay per click) advertising for all Internet Marketing Academy attendees. And I’m thinking, if you ask nicely, Jeff and Lucio would even set the campaigns up for you free of charge.

I’ve organised a special deal.

I would really like for you to go along. I know you will learn some valuable tips.

So, I spoke with Jeff and have organised a special deal for my ‘family’. If you decide to attend simply click on the ‘Enter Discount Code’ link on the first registration page and enter the code ‘tosd’.

This will save you $100 off the $250 ticket. At $150, after you add back in the $200 from Google and Yahoo you come out in front even before the information you’ll garner.

Do yourself a favour – find a time and location that suits and invest in your businesses future with www.internetmarketingacademy.com.au

And after you’ve been and seen make sure you come back to the blog to thank share your comment with others.

As a web designer I provide the enabling technology for a required web solution. Whether or not the solution ultimately works is actually more dependent on a client’s understanding and implementation of a sound marketing strategy than the underlying technology of their website. And more specifically, their understanding of Marketing on the Internet as it exists today.

The Internet is an enigma. Its power lies not just in its broadcast capability, but in its ability to set up somewhat more tailored connections between individual users, or groups of users. This may seem obvious. After all, we all understand the 1-1 or 1-many nature of email. Surprisingly however, its significance when applied to websites is only now just starting to be realised by many businesses – particularly small businesses.  To this day most businesses tend to use their website to broadcast their message to whoever happens by with little or no attempt to really engage with them.

And the key to it all is in understanding that on the Internet, Marketing is a Conversation.

To explore this notion first consider these very basic aspects of what constitutes a “conversation” that we have all intuitively understood since childhood.

• Timeliness / appropriateness – It doesn’t matter how worthy something is that you have to say, if it is poorly timed, or inappropriate within the context of the discussion, not only will it not be appreciated, it may well generate a negative reaction. As a child, your Mother would say “Please darling, don’t interrupt”. Your mates no doubt were inclined to be a bit more direct …
• Participation - willingness to allow others to join in & contribute to the conversation in a meaningful way. This is how conversations become enriched through broader experiences & perspectives. None of us have all the answers – far better to draw on as wide a pool of knowledge as possible.
• Tolerance. In any conversation not all parties will share the same views, & not all parties will enter the conversation with the same goals. But there is one thing that is certain: failure to show tolerance will lead to a negative outcome & a lost opportunity.

To help me demonstrate why I think these underlying elements are so important to marketing, consider this simple example: let’s suppose a group of people are quite independently considering purchasing a dishwasher. They all share a general need for information but their specific needs will be quite different & driven by where they are in in the purchasing cycle.

They head for the Internet to do some research – searches may include such things as:

How do they work….? What are the important features …..? What type will fit under my bench ….? Are they quiet….? Energy efficient…..? How much do they cost….? Is delivery & installation available in my area….?

Clearly from the breadth of the enquiries it is not going to be a case of “one size fits all” when it comes to providing a content match for their searches.

Remember Rule No1? Don’t bother trying to push “Buy Now” prices at someone who just wants to know how a dishwasher works. They are not ready for that step & will resent the presumption that they are. It would be ill-timed and inappropriate, and not surprisingly has become known as “interruption marketing”. This style of marketing has long been the darling of mass media campaigns, but it appears to be proving less effective as time goes on in the Internet. Every site that uses inappropriate, interruption marketing techniques are just one mouse click away from extinction in the hands of their visitors.

The second rule of conversation was inviting participation. Let’s see how this can be done using one of our  customers who wanted to do a classic comparison research: “Is it as quiet as….?”.

Traditionally this is handled by directing the customer to a comparison table or chart, which is an effective way to tabulate specifications.

But what about “user experience?”

Is the dishwasher quiet enough so the baby can still sleep? To a Mum, points plotted on a logarithmic dbA scale are unlikely to satisfy her needs. Her need is for conversation. What she really wants is to hear the experience of others in similar situations. And in fact, she is probably likely to consider the comments of other Mums as being more credible than those of the supplier.

Imagine the possibilities if the supplier still presented the features & specifications of the dishwasher but then threw the subject open to visitor comments. This could become a dynamic testimonial base providing a rich vein of user experience to other prospective customers. Looked at another way, this is a highly valuable form of pre-sales information because it is provided by people who are perceived to be independent.

Information – participation – satisfactory outcome. Now that is starting to sound like a more meaningful conversation isn’t it?

But what if all the comments aren’t positive? Forgetting about any offensive ones, that can & should be immediately removed, there will still be some visitors who may highlight a deficiency, or shortcoming, in the product when compared to others.

Which brings us to the last element of a conversation – tolerance.

And the good news is that tolerance, even in the face of a negative comment, can have its rewards. The reason is this: if there are 4 comments – 3 positive & 1 negative that are allowed to stand, the negative one will tend to increase the credibility of the process. The mere existence of the negative comment suggests that the site owner is not “doctoring” the results, which in turn makes the positive comments look more believable. Yes, this is pretty courageous stuff. However by allowing a conversation to become “real” its effectiveness is multiplied.

OK, enough of the cerebral stuff -I’m a web designer. If we accept that marketing when viewed as a conversation has merit, what enabling technologies do we need on our websites?

Unfortunately, while a detailed discussion of these technologies is beyond the scope of this article, I can highlight the pros & cons of a few common ones.

• Talk to an operator buttons. These use various Chat technologies and can be an effective way for the customer to get an immediate answer to a query. They can also be perceived to be more personal. The downsides are that such facilities must be manned for long hours if they are to be effective & the conversations are 1:1. No one else can join in, so the information that passes cannot be enriched through user experience, and cannot be readily shared with other users who may have similar queries. Really, it is just a “contact form” in another guise.
• A Blog – This enables visitors to read an article posted by the business owner & then comment on it if they wish. In this way each visitor to the site can express their opinion or get answers to their questions, while at the same time enriching the body of knowledge, and therefore the usefulness, of the site for subsequent visitors.
• A Forum is another excellent way to host a conversation. Forums are more suited to larger groups & while they can, & should, have a broad focus, the actual topics are best driven by the visitor rather than the business owner. Forums require regular moderation & do not suit all businesses.

In conclusion, next time you are enjoying the company of family & friends take note of how vibrant & interactive the conversations are, & how dull they would be if only one person was talking & all the rest were listening. And yet this is exactly the approach that most business websites take.

As an alternative, consider moving from one way broadcast marketing to shared conversations. It may require a mind shift, and will almost certainly involve a learning curve, but with such a tough year looming it just could give you the edge.

Good luck!

The difficulty arises when you ask “Why?”

It is a reasonable question, but a bit of an awkward one. And the reason is simply this: there is a great danger that website owners will make the assumption that a site that delights a visitor, will, of necessity, cause them to take some meaningful action.

Once again, why?

We all see a myriad of things in our daily lives that we might consider delightful, but that does not mean that we take any action as a result of the experience. For the most part we simply enjoy it and move on.

A reality check. In the end it is the task of all business websites to persuade their visitors to take some action. So while it is perfectly reasonable for a business website to delight its visitors, that in itself is not the end goal. The end goal is driven by a good old fashioned marketing thing called a “call to action”.

In summary, of course a website should delight and engage its visitors. Having done that however, if you want them to follow a pre-determined course of action, you are going to have to ask them – clearly, persuasively and nicely.

If your website is an important part of your business and you would like to sharpen the focus of your content, I can recommend Michael Gladkoff of Word Nerds. Effective copywriting really is one of the most effective drivers of a business website.

While images may delight – words can compel.