Category Archives: How Tos

Get a Website Quote

Posted on by Posted in How Tos, Uncategorized, What NOT to do

When it is time to get a new website or refresh your existing site, your starting place is the quote. Ideally you would ask for 3 quotes and be able to compare apples for apples… hosting, domain name and development costs all itemised.

Before enquiring however, it pays to sit down and think through how your website needs to change or what content you need on a new site.

Giving the addresses of sites you like is a great way to communicate the kind of look and functions you require and can be a big time saver.

Here are some important questions my might consider asking a prospective supplier during the quotation process:

  • Will I be able to edit my own website? In other words, will there be a content management system (CMS) for my site. If there isn’t then that commits you to returning to your web design for future edits which they will invoice for. I would also be good to know if training or orientation is provided in the CMS. If not, there may be a very step learning curve.
    My company uses the open source WordPress CMS to make new websites. We offer training by screen share in Skype and have http://www.how-to-wordpress.info as an additional resource.
  • What are the backup arrangements for my website? Most hosts say the have a nightly back up in place, but if you press them for this, they will not be able to produce it. This is especially important for database driven website (most web sites now) as they are not stored and edited locally, but are always live on the server. Its best to get a back up facility built into your website at the time it is made. My company makes two back ups a week and sends them to Dropbox so they can be shard quickly with the owner of the site.
  • Who has copyright over my website? This is an important question and one that is seldom addressed during the pre-purchase phase. And its a vexed question as there are three parties involve: you, the web designer and normally a software provider like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal. You can try to claim copyright over the website in its entirety, but this probably wouldn’t stand up. For example, the engine of your site will be an open-source CMS – well, you can use that software for free, but you don’t own it (you can however download an instance of it at any time should you need the files). Its safest maybe to make it clear that your claim copyright over anything you write and and pictures you supply, but leave it there.
  • Does the price include marketing on Google? This service is called “search engine optimisation” or SEO and is a specialist’s area. Most web design form will outsource this to a partner. so, mostly the answer to this will be “no”, this is because it costs more than a website to set up and it is a distinct and ongoing service, so probably billed separately.
  • Will I be able to move my site to another supplier easily? This is very important, and many services like Wix and Fairfax Media’s offerings can not be moved – they need to be migrating a page at time – cut and paste. This is costly and unnecessary. Conversely, a website in a CMS like WordPress can be moved easily. All the page content can be exported as an XML file, or a SQL database can be imported into a new instance of WordPress, or a CPanel to Cpanel back up can be made. So there are many option PROVIDED you start with a the right software. It would also pay to get clear about termination arrangements – how and how much notice do you need to give if you want to move.
  • Ask the web designer “What do you require from me to make a website?” You need to be clear that building a web site is a collaboration between you and your chosen web design company. If you are organised and clear, the project will go smoothly. If you drip feed content it will drag the time frame out and inputs and directions from you will be mislaid. Typically you will be required to write the text for your site, provide a logo and photography. If you don’t have these on hand and want the web designers to produce these items, then you need to specify that from the outset.
  • How long will it take to make my website? Get the web design firm to say when they can start on your project. You don’t want to find out that they can’t deliver within the next month three months after you paid your deposit! But remember, if you drip feed inputs, you will slow the whole process down, so you have to hold up your end.

I hope this article was a useful primer to someone about to start the process of requesting a quote for a web site.

How much does a web site cost?

Posted on by Posted in How Tos, Uncategorized

The cost of a web site very much depends on…

  1. the website’s function i.e. what it has to do – is it a brochure site, photography site, a blog or e-commerce website? They are all very different.
  2. how much involvement you have in creating materials for the site: the text, photos and logo. We call these “inputs“.
  3. how long it takes you to deliver these inputs if you don’t deliver them all upfront after accepting the Xero quote.

Every web site is different and so are quoted individually. Efforts to make your project fit within predetermined “bronze, silver or gold packages” seldom works for the client or developer.

What is in a website quote?

A website quote can be comprised of the following line items…

  1. domain name registration (usually quoted annually)
  2. website and email hosting (some quotes/offers exclude email, so watch that. e.g. Wix sites)
  3. website development (this is where the rubber meets the road)
  4. photography & copyrighting (when required)
  5. search engine optimisation or SEO (this can be more than all the above put together!)

Also, there is a propensity for the website owner to add more content and functions as the website is being built. This new, unspecified work can be billed for separately.

How to save big bucks on your website

You will need to supply text and pictures for your site

Ideally you would sit down and make a list of all the pages (and products) you want on your web site. You can start authoring your web site’s text. You would gather all the photography you want on the site in Dropbox so you can just send a link to the images.

If you want an e-commerce website, collecting product data in a single spreadsheet that can be imported into the web site is going to be a big time saver, and therefore money saver. Ask you web developer for a “comma separate values” or CSV file that you can do data entry in. If you do this you will save hundreds and even thousands.

The Dream Client

While you gather quotes and find the best fit for the company to make your website, you can be the ideal “dream client” by:

  • having a clear brief – being able to say plainly what you want
  • writing compelling text for your site and having this ready before your web designer starts
  • have great photography on hand, supplied in Dropbox
  • giving the addresses of web sites you like as examples of what you have in mind
  • if some does not go as you expected, communicate that calmly taking an inquisitive approach and not a blaming or aggressive approach

Read the T & Cs

It pays to note the terms and conditions on your quote carefully. It will specify payment terms, who owns what and what will happen in the event of a failure. Read more about getting a quote here.

What is “Social Networking” anyway?

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social-networkingWe hear this term frequently in the media, but what does it actually mean and refer to? Social networking is an umbrella term used to describe sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Neighbourly and Twitter. Social networking is a term used to denote the trend toward people connecting and interacting online.

Much is now being written on how these sites and trends can be used to promote commercial interests on the web, focusing mostly on engaging customers and interacting with them in new ways.

For example many website owners have been advised to start a Facebook page, yet few of them get more than a handful “likes” and “friends” and the page becomes a negative advertisement, damned with faint praise.

For this strategy to work, the business owner (or their agents, in the case of Donald Trump, Richard Branson or Anthony Robbins) has to be constantly “posting” and gathering “friends”. This creates an overhead for a small business, and often the small business owner spends hours posting and promoting too a very small number of “friends” or “followers”… where their time could be spent in other areas of their business, making a real difference.

Also, as they don’t own their page on Facebook, or anything they post there, they are playing someone else’s game and not their own. The small business owner mistakes Facebook for a website substitute. It simply doesn’t do what their own website could, it can be a useful adjunct, but it is certainly not the main game.

Which site should I use for What?

Also people are confused about what social networking site does what, so here is the skinny…

Facebook: used for connecting with friends and family for mostly personal reasons… sharing life events, thoughts and feelings, posting photos and inviting people to functions. Companies can create a page on Facebook as discussed above.

Twitter: the so-called “micro blogging” site used by an author to expound and digress on a topic of interest… but only in 256 characters (about the length of an SMS message). People “follow” the author and can interact with them. Ideal for experts wanting to engage a niche audience.

LinkedIn: used by mostly white collar workers to network. The site provides work history, qualifications, referrals and recommendations. Recently blogging was added to the site and job ads are posted there.

Neighbourly: designed to connect neighbours and build community.

So to summarise, Facebook is to connect to friends and family, Twitter to engage a niche audience, LinkedIn to build a professional network and Neighbourly to connect to those in your immediate geography – in other words, they all do something quite different to each other and its best to use the right tool for the right job eg. posting a Facebook styled post on LinkedIn would make the author look foolish.

Privacy and Copyright

But it is not all good. There have been concerns about privacy and the ownership of images and materials uploaded to these sites. Facebook particularly coming in for close criticism as it claims copyright on all pictures and comments added in an individuals feed. The bottom line is common sense (as it is in the offline world)… if you do not want some corporation to claim copyright on your photo, don’t upload it. Don’t make anyone a “friend” who simply isn’t.

Also, people are still learning how to use these sites, so sometimes they are unaware of what they are sharing with whom. For example, if they upload a picture of a group of people to Facebook, people who are friends with the person posting can “tag” the people in the picture ie. interact with the picture. When they do that, all of the people who are “friends” of the tagged person pictured, get a notification, alerting many more people to the picture than the original poster could have anticipated.

Summary

One thing is certain, we are going to be doing more social networking as people’s physical location becomes less relevant and work practices more flexible. Wikipedia’s outline on social networking is here >>

Getting the most from your Auckland Web Designer

Posted on by Posted in How Tos, Uncategorized

When people call to discuss a web site, one of their concerns is design. Sometimes people have firm ideas about a design approach and sometimes they prefer to be lead. Resoundingly though, people ask for “clean”, “plain” design often on a simple white background. They complain about “clutter” and say it hard to get to the basic information on a web site or that its hard to navigate on a phone or tablet. Here are some design issues to consider…

Does your web design work on all platforms – desktop, mobile and tablet?

This is called “responsive design” and it simply means that the web site reformats to suit the device it is being displayed on. It does this without going back to the server to get a duplicate, mobile version of the site.  Google will make your site come up higher on the mobile search results pages if your site is responsive. There is a test here provided by Google so you can see if your site is mobile search friendly.

Does your web design respect your band or undermine it?

You may have invested thousands in your brand on signage, car wraps and business livery. The last thing your Auckland web designer should do is alter or vary your brand in some way. Your online and offline marketing should build on each other, and not fight each other.

Is there too much going on, on your homepage?

Clutter. Its a problem. Visitors load your homepage but don’t know where to look. Most news websites suffer from this problem. If you have a lot to offer and you want your homepage to reveal all your services and products, you run the risk of confusing people. Your homepage web design should focus your visitors on your high value products where most of your money is made. Try not to distract people with banners and widgets the flick on and off.

Does your Auckland web design have a clear call to action?

Have you ever had to search through a web site for a phone number? Its annoying and frustrating. Make sure your web design features your call to action prominently e.g “call this number” or “complete this form/survey”. In short, does your web site make it clear what you want people to do and when. Spell it out.

“I don’t want any text on my homepage!”

From a design point of view, having a homepage comprised of graphics alone sometimes appeals to a web site owner, but avoid this at all costs as doing so will make your site less attractive to Google. Also, text loads faster than graphics and normally says more. In this instance your are choosing between form and function: graphic intensive design (form) versus search engine visibility (function).

Photography will make or break your web design

The difference a professional Photographer can make

The difference a professional Photographer can make: the inset was supplied by the web site owner, who subsequently had a Photographer retake all the images.

Rubbish in, rubbish out: if you provide bleary, vertical mobile phone pictures to your Auckland web designer, you can’t expect them to return a top shelf, classy web site. Photography is the difference between a web site that is unmemorable and one that really pops.

In summary, in terms of web design, less is more. Web site owners prefer “clean”, “plain” and uncluttered web designs that load quickly on all platforms. Click through your competitor’s web sites, how does theirs compare to yours?

Building Quality Backlinks

Posted on by Posted in How Tos, Optimisation, Uncategorized

To do well on Google.co.nz you will have to get inbound links from quality web sites. By quality I mean sites with high Google Page Rank™ (you can check a site’s PR here).

These links are often referred to as “backlinks“. You will need 150+ backlinks coming into your site to get any traction on Google’s search results pages or “SERPs”. This is obviously a major undertaking and this article discusses how to approach inbound links.

You can start at Open Link Profiler. Enter your web address in the search box and this site will give you a report on who links to your site. You may be surprised who is linking to you, and you may even want to request some sites remove links to your site. Most people find they have very few links, and this is a situation you need to reverse.

The Open Link Profiler tool will list off who is linking to you, but more importantly if you search on your competitor’s pages, it will list off their links. This is valuable information as the list will contain websites and pages with high PageRank™ that you may not be aware of. These links may be free and with a little communication, you can get a quality backlinks to your site.

So, you know who is already linking to you, and you have a list of quality sites that don’t link to you but that do link to your competitors, its time to hit the phone or email and request these missing, high PageRank links.

Note that Dynamic Web Solutions can report on backlinks for you and contrast your site with one or two others in a table report. This makes it very easy to spot which links you could be going after.

What about outbound links?

Similarly, you can improve your reputation with Google by linking to quality sites – sites with high PageRank. This demonstrates that you are a good Internet citizen and are focused on your customers, not just your own interests.

Backlinks Q&A

Should I touch zero PR sites? Only if you have no links. Best left alone otherwise.

Should I pay for links? Can the site requesting payment prove that they can direct traffic to you, and not just any traffic but people ready to buy? Is their price per click lower than Google Adwords?

Timeframe. Ideally you would do linking work slowly and consistently over some months as getting too many links to fast indicates to Google an optimiser is at work. If you don’t have the time or inclination to do this work, please contact Dynamic Web Solutions as we are doing linking work all the time.

Other

Use the search box to see backlinks

Using advanced search options, you can search for websites which have linked to your website at all the major search engines.  Type the italicized, red text into the search engine, and it will give you a list of all the sites it has found that link to your site.  Of course, you have to replace www.domainname.com with your domain name!

  • Go to Google and search for link:www.domainname.com Remember, Google syndicates its search results, so there is no need to search for links to your site on any of the sites which use Google results (AOL, Netscape, Disney’s Go.com, Alexa, and iWon).
  • Go to MSN and search for link:www.domainname.com
  • Go to Yahoo! and search for link:http://www.domainname.com

Turn Google’s PageRank tool on and off in Chrome

On the right side of the Toolbar, click the wrench icon
Go to the Privacy tab > Enhanced features.
To turn on PageRank, check the box next to “PageRank” . To turn it off, uncheck it.
Click Save.

I Have Made My Website, What Is Next?

Posted on by Posted in How Tos, Optimisation, Search Engines

What's next?During the construction of your website we have been focusing on design, layout and technical issues and not focusing on marketing the site. It won’t take you long to realise that web marketing is as bigger job, if not bigger, than actually making a website.  It is also an area in which a lot of money is changing hands at present, and probably this trend will continue into the future. So what is next?

1. Links, Links, Links

You need to immediately find inbound links to your site. The first place to start is with directory websites such as Localist, Yellow Pages or Finda. Make sure you have a pin and a listing on Google Maps – which is very important for mobile searches. Do not delay in this task.

Getting inbound links from other websites greatly advantages you in two ways:

  1. firstly you start getting traffic from the link as soon as it is live
  2. secondly Google will have more conduits into your site and therefore will find your site easily and index it more quickly.

More importantly though is that each inbound link into your website will be viewed as a vote of confidence by Google and the other major search engines. The more votes of confidence that Google collects on your site the higher it will move you up the search results pages.

It’s worth mentioning two Google resources at this point: the Google tool bar and the Google website for Webmasters. The Google Toolbar has an important tool on it that measures the current page’s PageRank™. PageRank™ it is a patented Google technology that ranks pages according to Google’s own special algorithm. The Toolbar will show you the rank of any page from one to 10, 10 being the best.

Even large websites that have good traffic find it difficult to get a high page rank. If your site has a page rank of five, that would be very good. The Google website for Webmasters is an interesting place to find out what Google recommends in terms of linking and optimisation. It’s a good place to start and offers an excellent orientation to the world of search.

2. On Page Optimisation

You should be careful not to remove critical keywords or keyword phrases from your website. Your homepage in particular should repeat your most important keywords a number of times. The WordPress content management system has special, page by page title, description and keywords fields for you to complete. You will find these fields underneath the WYSIWYG editor. The three that start with “Meta” are the ones to focus on.  Meta means “information about information”. These three fields gives you the opportunity to feed information to search engines directly.

But on-page optimisation is about a lot more than just meta tags. In fact everything on a page: its headings, the amount of text, the frequency and density of keywords, how the HTML is structured… all count towards its PageRank™.  Ideally, each page on your site would be optimised for a different search phrase. You will need expert help with this, see the “SEO” link above.

3. Build E-mail Lists

E-mail marketing is cheap and fast. You will need to study up on issues of compliance regarding the Spam act, but if you can satisfy these requirements, e-mail can add real dollars to your bottom line. There is no need to hesitate, you can simply start collecting e-mail addresses and sorting them into groups immediately in your desktop mail client.

Once you get over a couple of hundred e-mail addresses you will need a more robust e-mail marketing solution (than sending e-mail from your desktop) as most ISPs choke large volumes of outbound e-mail.  This will include a third-party websites such as mailchimp.com who will report on bounced mail and report on who clicked what links in your outbound email. Mailchimp has HTML templates that allow you to dress your email up, but note that a plain text email will pass through spam filters more easily than its HTML counterpart. This is because spam filters look for hypertext links and images in email and can falsely categorise you HTML email as spam.

Mailchimp also has mobile apps so you can monitor “campaigns” (outbound messages) and see stats on your lists and sent mail. You can also use these apps to harvest email at your POS or tradeshow stall, say in conjunction with the chance to win some product or service. More on email marketing here.

4. Accelerate with Google Ads

You may wish to consider a Google Adwords campaign – although Adwords have become quiet pricey as more and more people compete for the same keywords. You probably need to allow a budget of $500 -$1,000 per month as a starting point.

It is going to take some time to get the search engine position that you want – more than 3 months and probably more than 9 months. If you are not working on linking as described above then your website will never really perform very well on search engines. If you need immediate traffic to your site from Google then you may consider running a Google ad campaign for the first 3 to 6 months after your website goes live. Here is more discussion on paying for ads on Google’s Adwords platform.

5. Social Networking

There is still a lot to understand about social networking and how it can be used to market websites. Be wary of hyperbolic statistics that do not relate to NZ and Australia as social networking sites are used much more in the US and UK.

Also, social networking does not apply to every type of business e.g. pubs and clubs do well with Facebook when promoting a visiting band. A manufacturer will not do well; they will collect 12 “likes” and 2 “friends” and their Facebook page will float out there as negative advertising.

Although there are some spectacular examples of social networking creating massive traffic to a website, in most cases there is an enormous amount of time invested in building an audience before networking would produce any money. Many businesses for example have a Facebook page and use it to interact with their customers but converting this  interaction into sales is tricky and can even contravene the user policies of the social networking site. So while it might be good to start to understand more about Facebook and Twitter there is a lot more water to go under the bridge before they become everyday marketing tools.

Web Marketing: Best Practice

Posted on by Posted in How Tos, Keywords, Offline Marketing, Other Authors, Search Engines, What NOT to do

I am being asked more and more often about where and how to spend money on Internet advertising. People rightly perceive that traditional display advertising, such as magazines and newspapers are offering less and less value. The paper telephone directories, which have been the cornerstone of many small businesses marketing efforts, have also lost their teeth. In this context, small business people are exploring what Google Adwords and SEO operators have to offer.

The web used to be a far more democratic place: if I wrote valid HTML, focused on and reused carefully selected keywords, I could get a small B&B site up beside a major chain hotel in the search engine result pages (SERPs). Those days are long gone. Google’s SERPs favour larger or aggregation sites like Wotif and Trivago over a individual accommodation providers web ste.

So we are no longer on a level playing field, and to mix metaphors, what is the game now?

What follows is a discussion of the most widespread means of web marketing… as it is today – it is a moving target and will change probably in less than 12 months. This isn’t a shopping list. Don’t cherry pick from it: do it all.

  1. Search engine submission. This is simply telling search engines that you have published a site and what the address is, and in some cases offers the search engines some meta information about your site. It doesn’t guarantee that your site will be indexed (visited), or in a time frame that suits you or that you will come up on the SERPs pages where you want. There is some discussion surrounding the value of search engine submission, but on balance I believe it has a place, certainly in the first year of a web site going live. Another trend to note is that CMS packages (WordPress, Joomla and Drupal) upon which increasing numbers of web sites are based, have a built in update service that alerts search engines to changes in a page, article or blog area of a site.
  2. Google Adwords campaign. Google Adwords are all over the web. You don’t have to go far to see them (they are even on this page!). You use Google Adwords to place an ad with your web address close to search results related to your chosen keywords. Obviously, if you are already in the free results, you needn’t pay for an ad. But if you are out on page 3, 4 or 5 of the SERPs or worse, you may consider Adwords.
    Adwords however do not come cheaply. Allow up to $300-$500 per month. The final cost is determined by the amount of competition for the keyword phrase(s) you are chasing. You have to bid for these in an auction environment. The good news is you can cap your monthly budget. Once your spend is exhausted, you ad is removed from rotation.
  3. Inbound, unreciprocated links. The objective here is to create “link popularity” for your site. Allow $7.50 US per link. You need up to 150 links or more than your nearest competitor to head toward that number one spot in the SERPs. There are other articles on this blog that discuss how you can find out who is presently linking to you so you can determine the size of the task ahead. You can do some of this work yourself at no cost. Start with directory sites.
  4. Social Networking. Activity on Linkedin, Twitter and Facebook (in that order) is fast becoming the next big trend in web marketing. Books and blog articles are emerging explaining how these media can be harnessed for marketing and sales purposes… even though that may run contrary to the use policies of the sites. The objective is to create an audience interested in your product i.e. be “followed” on Twitter, have “friends” and “likes” on Facebook, build a professional network on Linkedin. There is time involved in social networking, but no dollars. Be careful. You need to read the terms of use policies to avoid having your account closed for misuse.
  5. Newsletter. Like Google Adwords, there are newsletter subscription boxes on every second web site. The ones that work offer a real incentive to hand over your email address, say a PDF of an ebook, or exclusive information only available via newsletter, specials or notice of a sale. Only do this if you have something NEW you want to tell or offer people weekly or monthly. Just telling who you are and what you do wont lead to many more sales.
  6. Blogging.  Blogging (or writing articles) has also become widespread on the web – the so called “self-publishing” phenomena. If you write well, this may be a web marketing option for you. Blogging demonstrates the breadth of your knowledge and builds credibility with your readers. From a search engine perspective, it shows you are investing in content – watering the garden so to speak. Search engines love to see new or changed, keyword rich content. If your site has more information on it than a competitor site, search engines will reward you with higher rankings. Blogging is time expensive, but no cash is required. It is possible to employ writers, but this becomes costly. You can download articles from free article libaries, but these are sometime poorly written and not always precisely on topic.

Having said all the above, I must stress, there is no substitute for compelling content, and content that is update and refreshed. Content is king. What is the point of link popularity, if when people arrive at your site it isn’t saying much and offers little value to the visitor. Ditto a Goolge ads.

Link Your Web Site

Posted on by Posted in How Tos, Search Engines

This is a web marketing, self-help page. The two activities below are the first and most basic things you can do after your site goes live on the web.

Google takes results and feeds results from many other search engines

Google takes results and feeds results from many other search engines

Search Engine Submission

Search engine submission is the process of saying to search engines “hey, there is a new web site over here. Come and look at it“. Site submission doesn’t guarantee you of first page position on Google, but it puts your site in the search results pages. You only need to do this if your site is brand new and you have no links coming to it. Read more about submission here. Submission URLs follow:

OK, that was easy, what’s next?

Linking: “Inbound” or “Back Links”

You need links: lots of them. Go to each of the sites below, create an account and add you business details. Record all the login user names and passwords you use, so you can return and update your business listing later, say if you change a phone number or postal address. The main directory sites are:

Minor directory sites that you could also add your business details to include:

… and any others you can find for free. You need a lot of inbound, one-way links: not 10 links, but 100.

Note that the large directory sites have approached Google about the structure of their sites and are working with Google to get their content listed highly on the Google results pages. This works for Google as well, as there is no easy way to spam results in these directories as an account and verification is required. This creates more “trusted” content for Google.

What Else Can I do?

  • You can make sure your offline marketing (business cards and outdoor signs) carry your web address in large writing. Many people forget this
  • You can buy Google Ads. A budget of around $300 a month is required
  • You can start a spam compliant email list
  • You can start blogging (article writing)
  • You can use social media
  • More on web marketing here: www.dynamicwebs.co.nz/category/search-engines
  • Learn more about search engine ranking

90 Day Plan to Search Engine Success

Posted on by Posted in How Tos, Search Engines

Your Road Map to Web Marketing Success

Follow this plan to beat your competitors on search engines and sell more.

A website is a powerful marketing tool – if used correctly. It is not a “set and forget” tool. Gone are the days of building a simple website and then sitting back while you wait for the phone to ring. While it may be a potentially powerful marketing tool, it is also like a garden – it needs to be maintained in order for your audience (and business) to grow. So you have your shiny new website. Now what? Here is your road map to web marketing success.

Week 1: Google Local Places

Claim your pin on Google Local Places. To ensure you are the rightful owner of the map pin or business, Google runs a verification process which includes sending you a post card with a PIN. This stops other people claiming your PIN or pretending to own your business. Why is this so important? Your local places listing will occur in search results in summary beside a map when a city or town name is used in a Google search query. Also, your listing is verified with a real-world verification process making the information you supply very valuable to Google and its partners. Your business information will occur on all Google mapping applications like Google Maps, Google Earth and Google Android apps.

Week 2: List on directory sites

List your web address on major business and links directories such as:

The process of getting in-bound links is called building “link popularity”. It means getting more links to your site than your competitors. Google views links going to your site as votes of confidence in your content. If you don’t have link popularity, your site wont perform on search engines.

How many? More than 100 will be required. Over what timeframe? 3 links a months is the ideal way to build link popularity, but run slowly, if you add too many links too quickly then search engines will see this growth as unnatural, and you may be penalised in terms of your search engine placement.

Why should people give you links? No reason, they don’t owe you anything. You’re just asking. Record all the links you request and the day you requested them. You will need this information in weeks 6 and 8.

Week 3: Promote your URL

Now you have a web address, you may need to update your off-line marketing. Does your business card carry your new web address (also called a URL)? Can you add you web address to a uniform? Letterhead? Classified advertising? To the back of your car? To your office signage? To the signature of your email messages. Put it up in lights: its arguably more important than your business phone numbers.

Week 4: Build an Email Lists

Start building a spam-compliant email list(s) so you can communicate quickly with your customers and prospects. There are many great web-based email marketing systems available, but start at MailChimp. The first 2,000 contacts are free and DWS (Dynamic Web Solutions Pty Ltd) can integrate this system into your content management system quickly when required.

It is important to note that unless you have your customer’s permission, your messages are illegal and are “spam”. Your clients need to “opt in” to your mailing list. A good way to do this via your website is to have a tick box on your contact form saying “Keep me informed” or “Send me newsletters”. Some web sites offer a free give-away, an incentive, if people join their mailing list. Generally mailing lists don’t work without offering something of real value to the customer.

Week 5: Social Networks

Anecdotal evidence suggests social networks can be used to build good traffic to your web site, but be careful, a lot of time is required to build an audience for your Facebook page, Twitter feed or LinkedIn profile. If you work with professionals LinkedIn is your starting point: build your profile then “invite” others to “connect”. If you own a pub or event based business, a Facebook page can be used to engage a customer group and create a community around your product or service. Twitter, a micro blogging site (much more popular in the UK & US than Australia and New Zealand) can be used to send service updates, expert opinion or whatever would add value to your audience. Some people believe social networks will replace email marketing and traditional CRMs. A warning, the spectre of MySpace hangs over all these sites: here today, gone tomorrow.

It is worth noting that there is a difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page. A page someone can “Like”, and it will appear on their status stream and their profile as a “Like”. The number of “likes” will also appear at the top of your Page and overtime can help show people how popular your business is.

Week 6: More Links

Return to the hunt for links. Find another 3. Getting links is like watering a garden, do it regularly and your traffic will increase month on month.

Record all your linking activity in a spreadsheet: the title of the site, the URL, the date you asked for the link, the email address of the person your wrote to or telephoned.

Week 7: Mobilize

Mobilize your web site. Ask DWS to install a mobile friendly plugin on your web site. Searches on mobile phones are now outstripping searches on desktop machines. Our mobile-friendly software will reorganise your site on a mobile phone and make it faster to load. This will be helpful until mobile data speeds improve.

Week 8: Review

Its time to review: where did you get to with your linking effort? How many can you count? Where else can you look? Do you have any business associates who sell a complimentary or aligned product? Can you reciprocate a link with them? Your WordPress links panel is the ideal way to link out to other sites. Once you have linked to them, you have some leverage to ask them to link back to your site. This is called “reciprocal linking”. Its not as valuable as unreciprocated links from pages with high Google PageRank™, but it is better than no link.

Week 9: Water the Garden

Change your web site! This is why we made it with a content management system. If you were Google and you had to decide which site to put first, would you advance a site that had not been changed in the last 2 years, or one that is being changed once a month? So frequent changes to your site are good. Try to repeat critical keywords in headings and throughout the text of your page. DWS web sites are SEO-friendly and provide you with a way to add title, description and keywords to every page, which are some of the ingredients to getting your site found on search engines.

Week 10: Tools to Help you Close Sales

There are a number of software additions to your site aimed at getting you talking or chatting (in text) with your customers:

By phone…

  • We Call You Now: users click a call back icon on your site, they give their phone number and a VoIPs servers calls you, then rings them back putting you in touch with visitors to your site in real time.
  • Skype: integrate Skype “I’m Online” button on your site.

By chat…

  • Who’s On: see who is entering your site and what pages they are looking at as the visitor arrives. Engage them in a chat if they seem stuck on a page.
  • IM: short for “instant messaging. Allow your customers to initiate a chat session with you to answer questions or get help. These work well for retailers.

The text chat tools rely on you being in front of a computer much of your day, so phone may by preferred.

 Week 11: Webstats

With all this diligent marketing activity, what is the outcome? How can you benchmark or compare month to month. Is traffic growing? Whether it is Google Analytics or DWS’s very detailed server stats, you can find out where your visitors are coming from, what search phrases they use, what sites sent traffic to you, where they are in the world and just as importantly, how many are visiting your site each month/week/day/hour… and many, many more metrics. Ask DWS for a PDF report each quarter or to integrate Google Analytics into your site. If you can measure it, you can manage it.

Week 12: Summary

The 90-Day Plan is actually your every 90-Day or any day plan.

  • Get as many links as your can. Build links up slowly or “organically”.
  • Change and grow your web site’s content.
  • Build email lists. Segment them. Send only relevant offers or information.
  • Create profiles on social networks. Build audience.
  • Review and repeat the above.

10 Secrets of Successful Web Sites

Posted on by Posted in How Tos

Successful Web Sites have a Good Name

A domain name is your home on the web. It is the part of your web address that comes after the www.Your domain name will also be used after the “@” symbol in your email addresses. Therefore it is important to register a name the closely reflects your business name and is easy for people to remember and type. Registering a domain name is the first step in any online enterprise.

Your domain name should…

  1. Reflect your actual business name. An ABN is required to register a .com.au domain name. Today however, you can register variations of your business name.
  2. Be short, so it can be remembered easily if seen on a TV ad, the side of a bus or a web site that wasn’t bookmarked. Also, the shorter your domain name, the less likely it is to be mis-keyed in the browser address field.
  3. Your domain name shouldn’t have any weird characters like the ~ (tilde) or / (forward slash) as newer Internet users cannot find these easily on their keyboard.

Some people believe that registering a domain name with their main keywords in it will shoot them to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). While having keywords in your domain name will advantage you, this advantage should not be overstated.

It may give your site a little lift in the SERPs, but this will be just one lift out of many you could give your site in addition to thinking carefully about your content, your keywords and page/site structures (SEO stuff in other words).

Successful Web Sites have Compelling Content

If your web site has good information on it, and this information is revised, updated and added to regularly, your site will be rewarded by search engines.

Think about for a second… if you were a search engine company, who would you give prominence to; the site that has 12 pages that haven’t changed for 24 months or the site that has 20 pages that change from time to time and link to new pages that are continually being added.

So, what do your customers really want or need to know? Write it down now, send it to your web developer or add it to your blog.

Successful Web Sites Choose their Products Wisely

Products that work well on the web…

  • have a reasonable margin. Selling on the web requires a payment gateway (that will nibble at the margin). Also on the web, items are freighted one by one to the buyer. This is expensive compared to a shop where freight costs are amortised over all the goods.
  • are hard to find. If you make or import or distribute a unique product, you can expect to do well.
  • don’t have complicated sizing. Say you sell shoes, what sizing scale will you use? UK or US. Does this confuse your customer and create inertia at the moment of sale?
  • are generic. If you are selling books or CDs the buyer know what they are getting – exactly what they are getting. There is no variation in the product. A book may have a different cover if it is bought on Amazon, but generally the rule holds.
  • have excellent lines of supply. This is a biggy. If you set up a web site, can you always guarantee you will have supply? If you make the item then yes, if you import it then no. Solid lines of supply are difficult to find.
  • are not too heavy or fragile. e.g. wine, impossible to freight overseas
  • can be packaged quickly and easily.

Products that work poorly….

Well, obviously the reverse of the above. Products with small margins, that can be bought anywhere, are heavy or bulky or that have uncertain lines of supply should probably be avoided.

Successful Web Sites have Quality Inbound Links

Links are critical. But have to be handled in a very specific way to benefit your site. Some general rules are listed below.

  1. Try to get a minimum of 60 in-bound links from sites with relevant content to your user group.
  2. Try to develop a theme with your inbound links so a search engine is in no doubt what industry group you belong to.
  3. The more relevant inbound links the better. Try to get the search engines to see your site as a hub: a website at the centre of some important topic, what Google thinks of as “expert pages”.
  4. Use your keywords in your inbound link labels i.e. the text that the link is under on the referring site.
  5. Link out to important and busy resources, try to think of what outbound links will add value to your visitor’s experience of the web.
  6. Avoid FFA (“free for all”) link directories as you may be penalised (i.e. sent backwards in the SERPs) for listing on some of them.
  7. Don’t spam guestbooks or comments boxes on blogs (a technique that dynamically inserts links on web pages with a comments section or guestbook).
  8. Use keywords in your link labels, not “click here”.
  9. Only buy links if the selling web site can demonstrate traffic from their site to yours.

Successful Web Sites Exclude…

  1. Frames – frames sites do not work – avoid frames, or bury them in the 2nd level of your site
  2. Flash – flash sites do not work. Macromedia has a tool from converting a flash animation/presentation to a an HTML document… not sure exactly what you would do with it after that…
  3. Tricks – tricks like bogus links pages, text the same colour as the background, doorway pages… if you get caught, you get kicked off
  4. Cloaking – cloaking is serving one page to the Search Engine and another to the user. Not so prevalent these days
  5. Java navigation – e.g. rollover buttons are difficult for search engines to index and links may not be followed.
  6. Pictures that replace text – sometimes web sites put text content in jpegs or gifs because it looks better e.g. the font is aliased. Search engine index-able content (text) cannot be forsaken for design (pictures).

Successful Web Sites are Made By Web Developers

Friends, family members and students make poor web sites. They are well intentioned and cheap and may even look ok in a browser but they do not perform on search engines and you should kindly decline these offers. Also, students move on, as do younger family members leaving you without a upgrade path, access to your domain name or even a copy of your web site.

Successful Web Site are Marketed Offline

Successful web sites are marketed offline as well as online. In fact, from the time of writing a brief for your web site, provision should be made to integrate your web site with your other marketing activities.

Here are some common mistakes web site owners make:

  • The web site owner runs a costly TV advert and… excludes the web address
  • The web site owner runs a costly radio advert… and excludes the web address
  • The web site owner takes out a number of classified newspaper ads… and excludes the web address
  • The web site owner has an office or main street location… and doesn’t sign write the front window.
  • The web site owner has a huge 4wd …and neglects to put their URL on it somewhere.

What about caps, pens, business cards and letterhead. Do they carry your web address?

Success Web Sites have the Involvement of the Web Site Owner

Having a web site is a commitment. It is not like other forms of marketing where people pay their money, their material runs for a defined period of time and that is that – they either got customers from it or they didn’t.

Web sites have to grow and evolve. If search engines can see someone is tending and watering the garden, they will reward that web site with greater prominence. In other works, if the web site content is current, expanding and changes frequently, it will perform better on search engines.

Successful Web Sites ask for What they Want

Too often web sites lack a call to action. The author of the web site knows all about the product and service, but how well is this communicated to the reader and what response is required?

“Call this number“, “Complete this brief survey“, “Click here and we will call you back” are all calls to action. If there is no call to action, or no means of response, what does this make the site? In the industry we call this “brochureware”.

Successful Web Sites Have Quality Photography

It is a cliche, but it is true for the web… a picture tells a 1000 words. Good photography will be essential in selling products and services on the web. Without photography people will be unsure exactly what they are getting and this will create doubt and inertia at checkout.

The web is a visual media, more akin to a magazine than a manual. People tend to read less on screens and respond more to images. Next time you are browsing a web site, think about what is attracting and keeping your attention, is it the text or the photography?

Summary

Successful web sites are rare. A number of technical, practical and design ingredients are drawn together to create a killer web site. However, web sites can start small and build the above success strategies as they go.