People always want free advice.  Unfortunately, all too often, it's worth what you pay for it.  After a recent conversation with a close friend who has a business in NYC that wanted to begin to generate customers online, I was thinking about what I expressed to him as 'important,' and thought that imparting that same free advice to Webvantix's blog readers would be helpful. Yet, too often 'advice' that comes from someone trying to sell you something is viewed as anything but objective.  So I'm going to relay the same free advice I gave him, here.  Therefore, think of us as your free, objective online marketing consultant. Here Was My Advice to Him: Don't Be Cheap Far too many businesses don't see the ROI created by an online presence.  Therefore, they are extremely reluctant to hire quality, professional help.  It's just too expensive.  The issue becomes that if you relegate your web work to a staff person with no design or coding experience, your site will suffer.  Frankly, it will look terrible, and the results will not be what you expected.  The bottom line is, if you're starting a business, or you already have a business up and running, and you cannot afford the $4000-$5000 for a professional website, then your company is already in trouble.  If you can afford it, but don't want to spend the money, look at how much revenue even one new customer generated by that website could bring in, and you will quickly see the reward is worth the expense.  Get past the current mindset that spending money on your business is a bad thing.  Your website, or your online presence, is extremely important, and you need to treat is as such. Have a Beautiful Site So many industry people continue to bemoan how many terrible websites are out there--and they are correct.  Large company or small company, having a web presence means having an online reflection of your business.  Try looking at your site from the prospective of a customer, is your site beautiful?  While there are other aspects that are important, the first thing people see is the beauty of your site.  If you develop a site that is anything but visually compelling, what does that say about you, and your business?  It says to me that you're lazy, and don't pay attention to detail.  Not a good projection of your company, especially with all of the competition out there willing to undercut you in a heartbeat. Compelling Content Creating a beautiful site means nothing if you don't have compelling, and interesting content that speaks directly to your site's visitors.  The key to content is not to be a "solution."  Too many companies bolt from the gate telling us how they are "the solution."  Solution selling no longer works, because everyone has the same solutions--there is nothing original.  The key is to speak directly to the different verticals within your business, and help people understand the benefits to what you offer.  Think deeply about your content.  Hint:  Look at your competition's content and strive to Good Horizontal Navigation Vertical (down the side) navigation is dead, and if you employ it, it makes you look behind the design curve.  Maintaining a professional look to your site is important, and this is an aspect that should not be overlooked. Silo Your Visitors Utilize 'Action Buttons' that speak directly to the visitors of your website.  By understanding who is landing on your site, you can then work to silo them to the correct interior pages that are built to speak specifically to them.  This will greatly minimize bounce and increase your chances of converting a visitor to a customer. Calls To Action On EVERY interior page their should be a 'Call to Action' that enables your site visitor to "Pull the Trigger."  Relying on the Contact Us page will greatly stunt your conversion rate.  Giving your visitors the ability to contact you or interact with you from any page solidifies you ability to convert.  Do this one thing, and the number of your visitors that turn into leads will soar. Blog I will put it succinctly:  If you want more traffic, blog!  Driving new visitors to your site and keeping customers engaged is the key to a strong website ROI.  When we started blogging at Webvantix our traffic jumped over 250%, seeing this firsthand converted me from skeptic to believer.  All too often I hear about SEO and the desire business owners have to be on the first page of Google's SERP.  For a small site, there is no better way to achieve these results than to blog in your vertical.  If you dismiss blogging, you're results will suffer.  Here is more evidence of why you should blog. Social Media In my opinion most SMM (Social Media Marketing) by smaller, local businesses is a waste of time, especially Twitter.  If you've got 200 followers most will be spam or trying to sell you some MLM, and you will see little, if no return.  Results can be generated, but that means spending a great deal of time at it--something you probably don't have.  Bottom line, if you're a brick and mortar business, have a Facebook page and offer specials on it to engage your customers.  But don't believe all the hype, SMM is just an extension of advertising, and the returns can take time.  Blogging is far more important. Calendar Do you have a business that has specials or weekly offerings?  How about a bar that has live bands throughout the week?  If this is the case, get a Calendar page up fast, and KEEP IT UP TO DATE!  Your customers will visit it over and over (you can even offer them the ability to subscribe to it through RSS).  Remember, the more you engage with your website, the more your customers will engage with it, and that means more business. Specials and Coupons Do you have a local restaurant, salon, ice cream shop?  Depending upon your business you may offer weekly specials.  Be sure and offer these through your Facebook page and tie it into your website.  People will "Like" your FB page and your coupons or specials will be pushed to them as they are created.  Viola, repeat business. Site Registration One of the most overlooked aspects of getting traction for websites is failure to register them.  Of course registration at Google, Yahoo, and Bing should be automatic, but there are scores of other business listing websites out there (Yelp, Manta, etc).  Spending time on registering your company on these sites will get you noticed.  As a matter of fact, to help you, here is our whitepaper with a listing of 36 sites where you can register your business.  Do it now! Don't Have a Static Site One of the biggest mistakes companies make is having the perception that they can build a site and forget it.  Don't fall into that trap.  In order to keep traffic coming in and traffic repeating, you need fresh, quality content.  Using your site as a tool to marketing your business will reap you terrific rewards provided you continue to add content, if you ignore it, your traffic will drop. Conclusions These are the points I discussed with my friend, yet like so many, he is hesitant to spend money on the development of his site.  What I suggest is to clearly understand what you want your site to accomplish, then look at how much revenue it could possibly generate.  If that number is significant, based upon the profitability of a new customer, then the decision should be easy to make. Just remember, as I stated earlier, your site is a reflection of you and your business.  Make your site beautiful, keep fresh, quality content flowing in and your customers will be engaged and your site will be a valuable asset to your business. I hope this little bit has helped... Preston Ehrler, Webvantix        

It's autumn, and as we have said goodbye to summer, our minds have naturally turned back to business.  One aspect of this focus is the desire to get more out of our websites, and of course, for those who are not happy with their current site, website redesign is a popular option. Knowing when to redesign your website is not the focus of this post, but my rule of thumb is, if you cannot quantify what your website is doing for your business, it's time to put your site under a microscope.  Understanding conversion rates, and leads generated is an absolute minimum.  In 2011-2012, to be effective your website should be creating revenue for you--if it's not, fix it. There are, of course, many aspects to properly redesigning your website, but here is a short list that should not be overlooked; after all, if you're going to spend the time and money on redesigning your website, be sure that you do it right.  Correctly redesigning your company's website will reward you with more visitors, a higher conversion rate of visitors to qualified leads, and more revenue. 1.  Understand What You Want Your Site to Accomplish Most first generation websites are just advertising for a business.  They tell us how great they are at this and that, and how they are "The Solution" in their vertical, but sadly do little to engage the visitors to their site, except for offering the standard Contact Us page at the end of their navigation bar.  In designing  your new site you must turn radically away from this tired trend.  The key to having a website that produces results is by identifying what you want your website to achieve and then building it around this focus. The first question you must as yourself is Who Are Your Visitors, and then, what do they need at that very moment from you?  If you have existing customers landing on your site, address them and their needs; if you have prospective customers landing on your site, help them, all the while understanding what you as a business are attempting to accomplish.  Do you want to take your prospects deeper into your site and eventually have them fill out a detailed Contact Form?  Do you want your existing customers to have the ability to order from you, or how about creating an Email List that you can use to make offers to?  Taking the time to understand who is landing on your site and how you can address their needs immediately is key in developing a great site.  Spend time formulating your site's visitors into different Buying Personas and work to help them, and your site will have it's focus. 2.  Create A Beautiful Site Time and time again I see websites that have just been developed and they look like terrible.  I saw a website for a $20 million dollar residential home development that was so bad it was embarrassing, and the owner would not spend more than $1000 to have it done correctly.  Something there does not equate! Fact:  Having an ugly website is a direct reflection on your business.  If you build houses, or are an interior designer, or own a beauty salon, or a restaurant, or any business, your site should be beautiful and appealing to the eye.  Therefore, before you approve the redesign, get a Proof.  Proofing a site requires that an image of the site be forwarded to you from your developer and will be an exact replica of what you will be getting.  Get your employees opinions, and even friends and family, and if it is bad, have it redone until it's right.  Any developer worth his salt will offer this option at no extra cost to you.  Having a beautiful site that reflects well upon your business is a must, otherwise people can interpret your company negatively, regardless of how professional you actually are.  (Hint:  take a look at your competition, and focus on developing a better looking site!) 3.  Silo Your Visitors One of the most important aspects to your website redesign is working to identify who your visitors will most likely be (known as your Buying Personas), and Siloing them to the interior page that most likely fulfills their immediate need. Remember, people arrive on your site for a specific reason, and it's usually a need they want fulfilled immediately.  The faster your site works to fulfill that need for that persona, the greater chance you have of Converting that persona from a Visitor to a Qualified Lead or even a Customer.  This is why the old Contact Us page is no longer enough. Your new website's job is to get the visitor to the page with which they most identify.  Proper design utilizes Action Buttons, that are actually buttons that utilize images the Visitor can identify and therefore select, taking them onto the proper interior page that addresses their specific need.  In essence proper Siloing quickly herds your visitors to the page they came to your site seeking. Through the process of Siloing, you are giving the people what they want, yet if your site fails to move your visitors off your homepage and onto the appropriate interior page, you lose an opportunity which could cost you thousands. 4.  Create Great Content Although most website redesigns center on the aesthetic, great content should actually be the engine, for any website.  Tepid, bullet pointed only content is not enough to work to convert visitors to Qualified Leads.  When redesigning a website,  great content is a must, and is known as Content Driven Design--essentially where the Content is the center of the website and everything flows from that content.  It can seem a chicken and the egg type of dilemma, but it is not.  Your content and buying personas should be clearly understood and outlined before redesigning your website.  By again focusing on what your goals are for the site, the content's development comes into focus.  Every page's content is created to address that specific buying persona's needs.  This is a significant departure from older websites where the content usually was focused on the attributes and benefits of hiring the company itself.  Now, content is squarely focused on addressing those immediate needs of the site visitor. 5.  Employ "Calls to Action" on every page Click Here to Sign Up, Work with Us, Make a Reservation, Buy Steel Now, Search for Your New Home.  These are each a Call to Action.  So, you've created great, high-quality, motivating visitor-centric, content, and then, nothing.  Do you force your visitors back to finding the old Contact Us page, which is a link to your email, or a form that does little to qualify your lead.  Strike one, you're out! Each interior page of your site, with its, compelling content, must then utilize a Call to Action.  For example, ever land on a Westin Hotels website?  Right there on the homepage you have the ability to choose your dates and make a reservation.  No searching for another page, it's right there.  They have identified that fact that many, if not the preponderant number of their website's visitors, want to quickly make a reservation and move on with their day.  Give your customers the same ability.  Let them quickly pull the trigger, and move on.  They're happy, and your new website has done its job perfectly.  Offer a call to action with a detailed overlay form (ask for a lot of information, but not too much) on each page you silo your visitors to, and watch your e-mail box fill up with qualified leads! Stay tuned for points 6 through 10 in Part 2 of this post. **Please note:  As this is a long post, I decided to omit illustrative images.  If you would like to see examples of anything, or need clarification, please use the form below and I'm happy to help out. -Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

I was bumping around the Internet last night, "Surfing the Net."  Remember that phrase?  I was searching for a very specific type of company whose services Webvantix is considering.  I was looking for direct mail companies for mail-fulfillment (printing, addressing, stamping and sending out invitations).  While I searched high and low there was one common denominator.  What absolutely shocked me was the quality of the websites.  To say they were terrible is an understatement, they were beyond abysmal, actually, they were an embarrassment. What I also found interesting is that as the owner of a website design company, that does a great deal of website redesign, I wanted to pick up the phone and say, are you out of your mind?  Most, not many, of the basic tenants of quality website development were not in place.  Shrouded, hard to find information, simple contact forms, if there was a contact form at all--many had a linkable email address.  Sites that had left justification, and design that looked like it had been thrown together in five minutes--maybe. So, you say, what does this mean.  Simple, it means that there was no way I was going to spend my company's money with a company like that.  In essence, what their site's said about them was, they were not serious about their company, because, if they were, their websites would have been polished, easy to navigate, and full of the information I needed.  Here's an idea, in addition to listing your services, how about turning it around toward the visitor, and helping them find what THEY need (what I needed actually). Okay, they were direct mail companies, so how about "What Are You Looking To Do?" and then creating the ability for the website visitor to move through information that culminates in a well thought out Contact form, that highlights the depth of your interest in your customers.  This would help BOTH the visitor, and the business owner.  The visitors would be educating themselves in the specific areas they were most interested (hint:  Give your site visitors the information that satisfies their immediate need), and the owners of the business would get an educated, interested qualified lead who will then produce an information packed Content form. I think it's time for business owners to stop shirking their responsibility to their companies and employees when it comes to handling their websites.  I constantly hear "I'm not a tech person."  That may be, but you own a business, and for it to compete online, which it must, you either have to become a tech person, or more realistically, hire one--and hire a really good one! It's not 1995 any more, and you cannot expect to capture business online with a practically non-existent website, because in your mind it's not a priority.  Prospective customers will simply pass you by because your website makes you look unpolished, unprofessional, and unfit for the job, no matter how good you may be. As a business owner, what, therefore, should you do?  Put it on the front burner, and make it a priority.  Just remember:  Your competition is! I hope this little bit has helped... Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

This is a guest post by Danielle Brown-Davis, a freelance SEO writer. If you’re currently not blogging for business, you’re missing out on opportunities to connect with potential customers within your own neighborhood. If your local competition is currently blogging and you’re not, your competition is gaining business should be yours. The good news is, it is never too late to start blogging. Here are a few benefits of blogging for business: Blogging boosts your reputation as an expert. When you provide your local target audience with solutions to their problem, that makes you memorable. So next time when they are faced with a more challenging issue they will come to you for an effective solution. Blogging for traffic helps you gain local customers. Blogging for business will help you gain visibility in the major search engines for your most popular keywords. So, let’s say you own an auto dealership, when you create relevant blog content about cars, you're automatically increasing your chances of gaining local clients who are searching for a new or used cars. When you incorporate the top related keywords within your blog articles, Google, Bing and Yahoo will consider your website relevant for the top auto dealership keyword searches. This will increase your ranking within the search engines and help you attract new potential customers. Blogging helps you gain more quality inbound links. When you create a blog that features unique content, it encourages more inbound links from other related blogs. In other words, other bloggers will be compelled to link to your blog when they find something you wrote interesting. Taking it a step further, when a potential customer in your area finds one of your blog articles interesting, they will share your link with their neighbors, friends and family. This can help you attract an unlimited amount of traffic to your blog and website. Blogging helps you stay in touch. Blogging for business helps you stay in touch with potential customers who aren’t ready to buy at the moment. When you offer them the option to subscribe to your blog, they will receive an email alert every time you post new content. When a subscriber receives a new alert inviting them to read your latest blog article or watch a video, it is a little flash reminder that you still exist if they need your product/service. Blogging for traffic is an excellent way to attract new local customers. It is also more affordable than investing in local newspaper ads, magazine ads, billboards and direct marketing mailers. Every time someone visits your blog, it is free advertising.

  I loved the Dirty Harry Movies of the 1970s and 1980s.  When crime was much more rampant in America, the iconic Clint Eastwood character, "Dirty" Harry Callahan, with his classic one liners like "Go ahead, make my day," gave us the strength to vicariously stand up against the bad guys.  My all time favorite Dirty Harry-ism is "A man's got to know his limitations," from the second movie in the series, "Magnum Force."  The most engaging aspect of that line was that it works in so many different aspects of life; knowing your limitations, or weaknesses, enables you to address them, and by that virtue, work to overcome them.  So, you ask, is there a way to assess our weaknesses, and strengths in our businesses?  Absolutely, and it's called a SWOT Analysis, and can be invaluable if applied correctly.  The analysis is best utilized to as a first-step in the development of a plan of action in pursuit of a specific objective. What is a SWOT Analysis? SWOT is a tool that is employed to breakdown Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.  Primarily used for businesses, but also utilized for projects.  While, of course, subjective to those creating the analysis, it is a tool that if applied to a narrow focus, or niche in the marketplace--your niche, will allow you to clearly identify where you are strong, and where you are weak and vulnerable.  The keys to a SWOT analysis, is being both honest, and in-depth.  While it is easy to say that your competition is a threat, the lynchpin can be identification of why your competition is a threat, and how you can make adjustments to minimize these threats. While there are both advocates and opponents of SWOT, the theme of this post is to introduce you to the idea of identification of your company's strength and weaknesses and give you a tool that is the first step of the process that will enable you to outline a path to follow that can highlights the strengths and begin to minimize your weaknesses and threats.  Let's make you strong, and bulletproof! Breaking down SWOT Strengths A listing of the positive attributes of your company, including, but not limited to:  its platform, quality-control, assets (both human and monetary), leadership, potential standing in the niche itself, existing customer base, intellectual property, patents.  Simply what makes your company strong and positively standout from your competition. Weaknesses A listing of the negative attributes of your company, that you, specifically have control over, and therefore the ability to change upon identification.  These could include lack of funding, or poor cash-flow, lack of expertise, or employment weaknesses, slow delivery of goods or services, high cost of customer acquisition (has become an issue in the last several years), poor reputation and poor customer service, ineffective management, dominate competition, shrinking margins.  Remember, here are elements that you have the ability to address and control.  Therefore an element such as the weather would not be a weakness. Opportunities Identifying opportunities in your specific marketplace or niche can be one of the most effective outcomes of the analysis.  Here you can leverage your strengths that you've listed and then identify opportunities that directly correspond to those strengths.  The opportunities in the analysis are generally agreed to be external to your situation and are viewed as pivot points to enhance your current effectiveness in your niche.  Essentially, based upon your strengths, what, therefore, are your the opportunities that offer the greatest short or long-term gain. Threats Also external to your business, threats are aspects or conditions that, in your view, are, or are potentially, harmful to your business and the pursuit of your objective(s).  This means what are the current forces that are dangerous to your success or could become a threat in the future, or if a certain confluence of events were to occur.  Loss of key personnel, severe cash flow issues, fire, theft, diminishing margins or pricing pressure (an incredibly important and timely issue), new competition (international competition for instance), obsolescence (MySpace). While utilization of a SWOT Analysis is by no means a stand-alone exercise, it will enable you to clearly identify those aspect that are effecting the outcome of a stated objective.  Therefore, and further, the analysis can be applied to multiple objectives.  If your business sells more than one product or offers several services, an analysis can be employed for each and objectives can be evaluated individually. To reiterate, the key is honesty, without being forthright about each aspect of the analysis, the exercise become worthless,  Yet, the SWOT Analysis if executed candidly is an excellent platform for the identification of the first steps to meeting your stated objectives. I hope this little bit has helped... Preston Ehrler, Webvantix  

Recently I started reading the book Clout, The Art and Science of Influential Web Content by Colleen Jones. While most small business owners are, understandably, too busy to read a book about website content, I could not resist taking a closer look. Right from the start I was impressed and thought I would relay a very important passage regarding professional content vs. content generated by the actual business owner. Jones writes: "Quality Content Books More Hotel Rooms for Holiday Inn InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG)-an international hotel company with seven brands including InterContinental Hotels and Resorts, Crown Plaza, Hotel Indigo, Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites, and Candlewood Suites--conducted a content experiment with remarkable results.  IHG wanted to know whether professional-quality content about their hotel properties would perform better than the regular content, which was created by property owners.  In other words, would professional photos and descriptions of a hotel influence customers to book it better than the owner-generated photos and descriptions? IHG created high-quality photos and text for a sample of Holiday Inn hotels.  Then, they diverted a segment of holidayinn.com visitors to that sample of hotels.  Finally, IHG conducted extensive analysis to compare booking for the sample hotels and the hotels with owner-generated content. The results were stunning.  Hotel properties with the high-quality photos and text outperformed owner-generated photos and text by a statistically significant margin.  While IHG cannot release the exact number, the results were so impressive that executives kicked off a long-term project to revamp the photos and descriptions for all Holiday Inn hotels. 'We were amazed at the impact that better quality content had on online hotel bookings.  Our goal is to connect guests with great hotels.  We believe that professional photos and descriptions help guests more easily decide whether a property is right for them,''says John Muehlebauer, Director of Product Strategy and Planning." Comment:  Jones' analysis of the ongoing debate regarding Professional vs. Homegrown content is spot on and finishes with the statement "…these elements are not easy or cheap, but they're achievable and necessary if you want results."  Wow, that's a powerful statement and underscores what industry professionals, like Robert Scoble, have been saying for years:  There are too many lousy websites out there! I highly recommend you pick up Colleen Jones' book "Clout" and dive right in!  If you've already read it, what did you think? Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

I went to high school in Connecticut where playing hockey was a big thing.  We had a great team, but we had trouble putting the puck in the net; my coach used to say "Pull the trigger!"  I was a defenseman, and would alway creep into the crease looking for opportunities to score, and got caught with my pants down on more than once occasion.  But what I wanted to do was to get in there and make something happen, and sometimes it worked.  One of the hardest things I have found that people we build sites for encounter is writing in their blog.  They have embraced the idea, and understand why they should be blogging, and how it can dramatically help their business, but "pulling the trigger" is difficult for them.

The military has a term I love:  Hug the Monster.  In effect, confront and execute on that which you fear most.  Here are a few ideas that I hope will get your creative juices flowing.

• Just write something to get started.  You've got a new blog, now use it.  What's your business and how are you unique?  Have you done something really cool lately?  Are you in construction and just built a beautiful home, or built a new kitchen?  Does your restaurant have a special you've added to the menu?  Blog it.  Does your bar have a great band coming in on Saturday night?  There's a post.
• Don't worry if it's not Hemingway!  I have a personal blog where I post excerpts from a book I'm writing.  One afternoon my mother read one of my posts and replied, "It's good, but it's not Hemingway."  Don't worry if it's not great, and earth shattering.  Just get started and you will do fine, and over time, you will get better and better.
• Be a resource.  Your site visitors will start to revisit your site looking for additional posts, information, how-tos, etc.  What will start to happen is your blog will start to become a valuable resource, and that's a good thing!
• Keep track of your ideas as they come to you.  If something pops into your head and you don't write it down, you will forget it.  I do everything I can to keep blog ideas as they flow.  I use Evernote on each machine and device I have, along with an Evernote expediter called FastEver, which enables you to very quickly get info into Evernote.  I also keep a flip-style notepad with me, that allows me to write out ideas, as, for me, writing on paper allows my ideas to flow much more freely.
• Carve out time to blog and keep to a schedule.  In this world of multi-multi tasking I think it's gotten harder to get things done.  There are just so many moment to moment distractions.  Taking a specific time slot on a weekly basis and creating a couple of posts, simply allows you to get it done.  Most business owners are so busy that if you don't set aside some time, posting just will not get started, let alone completed.
• Use a great customer story.  This is not a testimonial, but just a story about one of your customer's accomplishments.  Our customers do great things every day--highlight one of them!
• Don't sell all the time!  The idea of blogging is to interest your readers so they will come back often.  If you blatantly sell to them, they will quickly get turned off and not return.  Offer your readers content that in some way will help them, and you will have readers for life!
• Think small.  Your posts don't always have to be about something grand that you've done.  One of the most popular posts Webvantix has created was a quick little video on How to Filter Out Your IP Address in Google Analytics.  I had found Google's instructions confusing and when I realized how simple it actually was, I had to create a screencast for people--and people have used it!  Small things that you've done can make compelling posts.  Have you solved a small problem, where you can help people with the same issue?  Posts like that can go viral!

The key to getting started with your blog is to do just that, start.  Always keep a list of ideas at hand, and post on a schedule that allows you to not to become overwhelmed.  The return can be greater traffic and more business, along with a public that looks upon your blog as a valuable resource!

I hope this little bit has helped...

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

 

One of the things Robert Scoble (@scobleizer, Scobleizer) mentions from time to time is how amazed he is at how many bad websites there are out there--and we are right there with him.  There are too many that are just terrible! Here's a thought:  If you were going to hire an estate attorney to ensure that your financial wishes were carried out and you arrived at his office and it was in a beaten up building, with a florescent light bulb flickering as you walked down the hallway, you probably would not be that impressed.  Same thing with businesses websites! Like it or not, our websites are a peek at the soul of our companies.  Often potential customers will judge you, rightly or not, by first impressions, and now where do your potential customers first go?  To your website, of course. When Global Disposal of San Diego hired Webvantix they had a great deal of trepidation as to whether or not we could create a new look for them that was up to their expectations.  They wanted a site that was going to knock it out of the park, look clean and professional and set the standard in their region. So, what's your opinion, did we deliver the goods? BEFORE [caption id="attachment_1975" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Global Disposal BEFORE Webvantix"][/caption] AFTER [caption id="attachment_1977" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Global Disposal AFTER Webvantix"][/caption] Obviously a much cleaner, fresher look that is much easier on the eyes.  The idea of the page is that it  systematically directs the site visitors to select three specific Calls to Action (Cost Reduction Services, Express Valet, Intelligent Management), that will then 'silo' those visitors to the most appropriate page that suits their needs. The idea of "Siloing" your visitors to the page that is most appropriate for them is to:

• Minimize Bounce Minimizing the number of people that land on your site and do not go any deeper than the one page they landed upon.
• Give the People What They Want Get your site's visitors to the absolute most appropriate information they are seeking at that very moment.
• Dramatically Increase Conversions By helping your site visitors arrive at the page that most suits their needs.
• Turn Site Visitors into New Business Leads As your site visitors have then easily and quickly found exactly what they are seeking, offer them a Call to Action ("Request a Proposal, "Let's Work Together, or "How Can We Help Your Business") that turns them into a new business lead and and a new revenue source!

In my opinion, there are too many companies out there that ignore their websites, and don't utilize them as a tool to leverage more revenue. What's your opinion?  Did we knock it out of the park for Global Disposal? Want to learn more about "Siloing Visitors to Landing Pages?  Take a look at this post/video HERE I hope this little bit helps... Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

Are you ever curious about how images and information about people seems to follow them whenever they post or appear on the web--there is that same picture, and linkable information.  Would you like to have the same capability, essentially to have your image, or avatar, and information that links back to your site, appear automatically for you? You can!  There is a free service called Gravatar, and here's a quick introduction to how it works and how simple it is to set up. I hope this little bit helps... Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

Webvantix recently built a website for a company that's been around for over twenty years.  They had an existing site, but they knew it was not doing what they needed it to do to create new business, nor was it doing anything to enhance their customer's experience.  They needed a online vehicle that gave their site visitors the ability to quickly find what they needed, execute, and move on to the next part of their day. So, what does that all mean?  It meant that we as a development company had to create a website that spoon fed their site's visitors.  Now, instead of spending precious time digging for information, or not being able to make a simple reservation online, all is a quick click away, and their customers are raving and beyond happy. Therefore I must pose this question:  Are you spoon feeding your site's visitors? Consider these three key elements: 1.  Does your homepage 'silo' your visitors to the correct landing pages that meets their specific need? 2.  Do you give visitors the ability to contact you with a lead capture form on each page--not just a Contact Us page. 3.  Do you capture valuable information about your potential customers, or do you just offer an email link and a phone number.  (Quick tip--people hate the phone--it's too slow!) We are currently writing a brief whitepaper that addresses structuring your website to create leads and customers.  Stay tuned for its release, it will have some helpful advice. To make sure you don't miss the release of the whitepaper, sign up to receive our blog posts via email HERE. I hope this little bit helps, and if you have some ideas on building a better website, please share them with everyone here! Preston Ehrler, Webvantix