Websites, strategies and techniques that get you business.

If A Website Gets No Visitors, Does It Really Exist?

March 9, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If a website is launched in the internets but no one ever finds it, does it really exist?

The sub-title for this article is “You can build a business owner a website, but you can’t make them use it“.

I get so damn frustrated watching business owners spending 1,000s of dollars for websites that will never get them any new customers. There is a formula for what works to get people to your website. Once they find your site, getting them to engage you is a different article. Today we’re looking at getting them to find you via your website.

The Top 3 Ways to get people to find your website:

  1. Your email newsletter.
  2. Targeted blogging.
  3. Advertising & Promotions

eMail Newsletters

Most business owners hate the idea of send out newsletters. Here’s what they tell me: I’m too busy. I hate getting all those newsletters. The fact is a weekly newsletter is your best bet at getting people to visit your website and more importantly do business with you.

Targeted Blogging

In my opinion a website without a self hosted blog is destined to be a deserted island. Your blog is a one way conversation with the world. When properly targeted and regularly published it will attract potential clients, fans and like minded individuals. Done properly, your blog posts and articles are the content for your email newsletter. Pretty smart, ey!

Advertising & Promotions

Advertising can be online of offline. Either way you can pay to bring people to your site and as long as you have a very specific and completely clear action you want them to take can work very well. Promotions can be via business networking, social media networking, forum posting and article marketing. Promotions like your newsletter are driven by your blog posts.

Your business website is an integral part of your business marketing strategy. It’s a shame to buy it then have it sit there all lonely and isolated. This is especially true if you’re not getting enough business. Take the advice of this San Diego Web Design Guy and start blogging 100-200 words everyday. Take your blog posts and publish a weekly newsletter (need help contact MailChimp Expert Amy Hall). Then pimp, I mean promote your blog posts throughout your social media network.

Doing this will get people to your website. The next step is getting them to call or email you about your services. Until then start blogging everyday!

BTW if your website doesn’t have a self-hosted blog contact me via my contact form so we can fix that today. Otherwise you’ll never get people to your site.

Filed Under: Business Blogging, SEO & SEM Tagged With: , ,

You Gotta be 80% Farmer & 20% Hunter

March 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

I build websites for businesses that get them web generated business leads and sales. Building a self-generating web strategy gets business in the long term, it’s not right now business. If you need business today, you need to add some additional strategies that yield a quicker payoff.

Hunting activities and Farming activities are separate skill sets and both are needed for business success. Hunters go for “today business” and Formers cultivate “long term tomorrow business”. Your website is integral to both strategies because most potential clients go to your website to see if you’re legitimate.

Each of these strategies get potential clients into your sales funnel or pipeline. It is essential to have a “sales process” in place to convert prospects to clients.

Hunting Activities:

  • Cold Calling: Approaching potential clients without an appointment and inviting them to buy your product or service. Cold calls are made in person, by phone or by email. The cost is your time. The payoff is about 2 – 5%.
  • Flyers, Door Hangers or Direct Mail: Putting your marketing message in the direct path of potential clients with an irresistible offer and selling potential clients when they call you. Daily Deals are the latest variation of this strategy. The cost are a few hundred to several thousand dollars. The payoff is .5 – 2%.
  •  Advertising: Placing your marketing message and offer in a mass media channel which reaches your target market and selling them when they contact you. Advertising includes performance based internet advertising, the Penny Saver, Commercials on Cable TV, Radio, News Paper and/or Network TV. The cost is several hundred dollars to many 10s of thousands of dollars. The payoff is less that 1/4% to about 3%. With advertising the numbers can be huge. GoDaddy launched on a Super Bowl commercial and recently sold for $2.25 Billion.
  • Active Referrals Solicitation: Approaching your existing client and vendor base and asking them to endorse and refer you to their network. The cost is your time. The payoff is 3 to 10%. (I have a good script of this approach. Use my contact form to send me a message and I will happily share it with you).

Farming Activities:

  • Networking: Connecting with and building relationships which over time will yield referrals to potential clients. The payoff is zero to infinity. The cost is typically both your time and money.
  • Organic SEO: Building your online web presence in a manner which have the search engines recommend your website to potential clients searching for your product or service. The cost is your time and/or your money.
  • Newsletters: Consistently and reliably staying in touch with your clients, prospects and network to help you stay top of mind.
  • Customer Service: Delivering a consistent product or service which creates a consistent user experience. This may include a client rewards program.
  • CRM System: A Client Relationship Management System is a way to keep information on your clients, prospect and network in a structured and retrievable way allowing you to better serve their needs with your product or service.

Both Hunting and Farming are needed for long term success in your business. If you need business today, start Hunting. For business tomorrow keep on Farming.  All the while refine your sales process to close more sales.

To develop a web presence that self-generates web leads, send me a message via my contact form and we’ll start the process.

Filed Under: Websites Tagged With: , , , , ,

Bubba Builds a Website – Part 1

March 5, 2012 By Leave a Comment

If you’re in business, you need a website. If you disagree, don’t read this Article Series and keep standing by your fax machine waiting for orders to come in. In this series, we will look at what you need to do to build a website that makes a profit for your business.

Introducing Bubba

Bubba is a term of love and affection that honors my Southern Roots and is my alter ego.

  • Bubba will try anything.
  • Bubba is curious as hell.
  • Bubba doesn’t trust anyone. Especially carpet baggers trying to sell him something.
  • Bubba is quite simple when it comes to people. He likes you or he doesn’t.
  • Bubba is quite complex when it comes to what works in business. The proof is in the pudding.
  • Bubba hates politicians and relying on anyone.
  • Bubba is a straight shooter and tells you like it is from his point of view and understanding.

Let’s get started.

Part 1: Bubba Builds a Website

What is a website? Technically a website is a set of files people can view using a web browser stored on a computer connected to the internet.

Why have a website? You can have a website for pretty near any dang reason at all. Business, Personal, Inter-Business, Blogging, Video Blogging, etc. (Imagine Bubba in the Forrest Gump movie telling Forrest how many ways you can fix yourself some shrimp). There’s at least that many types of websites. For this article we’re talking about Business Websites.

What is a Business Website? A website that fulfills a specific business objective(s).

Business Website Considerations:

  • Decide the business objective you want your website to fulfill. Your objective determines the design and functionality.
    • Lead Generation.
    • Revenue generation (online store, membership site).
    • Customer service.
  • Marketing, Promotion, Traffic & Conversion
    • Once you know the type of website you need you’ve gotta get people to find it.
    • When people find your site, you have to get them to take the desired action (call you, join you email list, buy a product)
    • This is the Realm of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
  • Testing, Measuring, Maintenance & Upkeep
    • Testing offers and measuring results is business 101 and essential to meeting your business objectives.
    • SEO Friendly CMS (content management system) websites is the current state of the art for website development.
  • Content Publishing & Promotion Plan
    • Interwoven into your Marketing Plan should be a content publication plan for your website.
    • Once your content is published is should be promoted throughout your social media network and to your clients/prospects.
    • Effective SEO & SEM friendly content that attracts prospects in your target niche.
  • Internet based communications plan
    • Email, Social media & CRM based strategy to move your prospects and clients to the next step in your sales process.

This a very high level overview of a business website plan.

Terry Hall aka Bubba is a business guy who integrates online technology into a dynamic web presence helping businesses make a profit. Terry is available to help your business start profiting via a dynamic web presence that gets potential clients to call/email you.

Filed Under: Business Tools, Websites Tagged With: , , , , ,

Insurance Agent Websites

August 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Websites for Insurance Agents must convey 3 specific messages to your potential clients before they will pick up the phone to set an appointment.

Reliability. Most people have horror stories about the never ending construction project. People are seeking assurance your will show up on time and get their job completed. Stories from satisfied past customers is the best way to demonstrate your reliability.

Value. Do you offer a fair price and superior service that works for your clients. Why would anyone hire you instead of a competitor or a internet company? The best way to demonstrate the value of the services you offer is by telling 1 or 2 case studies for clients you’ve helped.

Your expertise. Like most licensed professionals you pride yourself on your skills and professionalism. In today’s market your skills are assumed to be adequate. The best demonstration of your skills is testimonials for your satisfied clients.

We assist insurance agents by setting up websites that get your phone to ring.

Filed Under: Portfolio Tagged With: , , ,

Website Developer’s Choice

March 27, 2011 By Leave a Comment

A few years back there was an infomercial out called “Stop The Insanity” by Susan Powter which was about losing weight and dieting. Today’s business owners who want a website are going insane with all the choices available.

As a business website developer I use WordPress for my projects which I’m often asked to justify to potential clients. Especially the one’s who’ve tried to educate themselves about their options. Here are the top 3 reasons I use WordPress:

  1. Long term ease of use.
  2. A robust development community.
  3. Ability to easily develop and manage “niche websites”.

Part of the development community are the folks over at www.wpmudev.org which is one of the few memberships I maintain. There “upgrade guarantee” is one of the best I’ve seen and they actually do it. Which is especially important for me with how the WordPress Core’s rapid developments.

Here are the www.wpmudev.org offering I use in most every project:

These are the core files I use with every project and the having them upgraded for each new version of WordPress keeps me developing client projects and not spending my time maintaining my client projects.

Filed Under: wordpress Tagged With: ,

Do I need a business blog?

August 10, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Here’s what I’ve found. Yes. Get a blog (recommendation below). But not a blog that is hosted on one of the free services (wordpress.com or blogger) is of little use to a business owner or licensed professional. Your articles benefit the hosting company and not you. Also the features are limited and restrict what you can do.

Blogging platforms/software like wordpress.org are now full blown websites with CMS (Content Management System) capabilities. These capabilities include a blog or blogs, but also allow you to accomplish 3 key business goals:

  1. Build your brand.
  2. Collect leads
  3. Service customers

A well designed site built with a solid SEO foundation will build your business by having people find you on the search engines.

Filed Under: wordpress Tagged With: , ,

Web Integration vs Social Media Consultants

July 26, 2010 By 2 Comments

Social Media Consultants are rapidly replacing SEO consultants as the hype du jour. Do you need a consultant to manage your social media activities? I don’t think so and here’s why.

First: Social Media is based on relationships NOT volume of friends, followers or fans/likes. There maybe a relationship between the quantity of Facebook Friends and Page likes, but statistically I’ve not had anyone show me traffic logs where traffic spikes from a Facebook click throughs. You can get traffic to your website using twitter and with the properly designed tweets you back links are generated.

Second: Most of the people who promote social media as a business development strategy make their money selling social media consulting. Why is this important to pay attention to? Simple, if you are joining Facebook, Twitter, et al for more business you want to know how it works the quickest and most efficient method. Who better to show you than a Social Media Consultant? Here is the question that I have not had answered as yet: How much business do your clients get? In other words:

  • How many escrows have you Realtor® clients closed directly trackable to their social media presence?
  • How many new patients have your Chiropractor, Dentist and Cosmetic Surgeon clients received?
  • How many appointments have your Plumbing, Interior Design & Financial Planners clients booked?
  • I recently spoke to a group of business owners and only about 12% of them could directly track business back to Facebook and other social media efforts.

Bottom Line, how much business have you closed /will you close directly from a social media presence? If the answer is little of NONE then is it a good business decision to hire a Social Media Consultant? I personally hate ROIs of Zero!

Third: What do you find interesting, fun and rewarding? When you sign onto your Facebook , Twitter or LinkedIn account do you care about the people with whom you’re connected? I ask because, if you don’t care about reading their updates, will they be interested in reading your updates? Especially when your updates are only promotional and informational in nature and never personal?

Look at how the kids use social media. The share real, stupid and personal updates about themselves and their lives. You ask who cares? The answer is people who know them. Their friends, parents and family that’s who cares.

Forth: When you use the social media sites, you build their website footprint and not your own. There are millions of people who have joined Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn and each one of these sign ups translates into success for that website not your own.

Why is this important? Because you DO NOT OWN OR CONTROL THE CONTENT YOU POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITES. Sorry to shout, but this is very important to understand. The social media site owns and directly benefits from your content NOT you! Not your business. This is the difference between Image Advertising and Direct Advertising. Here’s how. When you post to a social media site, google gives that site credit. The most you get is an atta-boy/girl link back to your site and possibly some curiosity seeker traffic to your site.

People DON’T go to Facebook to buy. People DON’T for to twitter to buy. People DON’T go to LinkedIn to buy. That is NOT the intention of those sites. People do go to Amazon, eBay, Half.com to buy. It’s that simple.

So What! Now What? This seems to be the million dollar question doesn’t it? Here’s what I recommend…

Create your own website which you OWN, CONTROL & Directly Benefit From all of your efforts. This builds an online footprint for you and your business which Google and the other search engines index. Then automatically integrate your content with the social media sites where your community and network will know you’ve updated your site. Then spend your time building your own website and presence.

The biggest benefit I see for Social Media Consultants is having your social media accounts setup and configured for you. These credentials are then used to integrate your dynamic website into your social media accounts. But do you really want a consultant making connections for you and your business?

Filed Under: wordpress Tagged With: , , , , ,