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

This two part blog post discusses key aspects you should not overlook when redesigning your company’s website.  This is Part 2 of this post.  If you missed Part 1, it is HERE

6.  Use a CMS

CMS or Content Management Software allows for the end user of the website (the company itself or its website manager) to access and control the website from an online dashboard.  This effectively allows for easy manipulation of the site’s content, without (to some degree) accessing the code itself.  Webvantix develops in WordPress, which is one of several major CMS platform (others being Joomla and Drupal), each with their own benefits (we will avoid the comparison here).  WordPress, originally developed as blogging software, has, with its thousands of plug-ins offering instant and easy customization, morphed into the most popular CMS platform.  Once installed on a server, pre-built themes (free and paid) can be installed and customized, or a fully custom site can be developed in WordPress.

7.  Add A Blog

Standing out in a crowd is difficult to do. Blogging allows you to do just that.  As you post blogs that are unique to your vertical, you begin to be viewed as an expert that people will turn to and utilize as a resource.  Once you are a trusted resource, you are just a step away from becoming a trusted adviser, or trusted vendor.  Developing trust is the key to growing your business, yet, having a website that screams “we are your trusted solution,” means nothing.  Creating blog postings that explain aspects specific to your vertical enable you to be viewed less as a salesman, and more as someone to trust.

Also, blogging grows your website.  As each blog post is its own page, the more you blog, the more for the search engines to sink their robotic teeth into!  Finally, according to Hubspot, blogging for your business can add up to an additional 55% more visitors to your website.  Quite simply, that is a huge number, that SEO could never achieve.  The more site visitors, the more conversations to qualified leads, and ultimately more customers.  If you conversion rates remain constant, blogging could add several new customers per month!b Therefore, blogging increases revenue.

8.  Give Your Visitors Something to Do!

What most first generation websites, and many poorly built redesigned websites, lack is the ability for site visitors to do something that directly, and immediately gives them some sort of satisfaction (immediate being the operative word).  People want instant gratification, if you don’t offer it to them on your site, someone else will.  Therefore that “Contact Us” page at the end of your navigation bar is far from enough.  What you need to do is give your site visitors something for visiting your site, and creates an interest for them to return.  Therefore, look at your business, and ask yourself, what can we offer?  Then develop it, and give it to them!  Some simple suggestions:  A reservation, an email list, a white paper, a how to video.  Offer them something that enhances their life, or their business and you will be rewarded with repeat traffic, and more customers.

9.  Create An Email List

This feeds off the previous point, and can be the single most important aspect of your website.  By enabling your site’s visitors to join your email list you immediately begin gathering a list of potential customers who are interested in what you have to offer.  Then you can push information to them!  Got a restaurant?  Send them the specials.  Got a bar with live music?  Send them the upcoming acts for the week!  Got a landscaping business?  Send them a link to a how to prepare your plants for winter video.  Are you a plumber?  Send them a link to a video that shows them how to inspect their hot water heater before it breaks and floods their basement.  Anything you can think of that offers your subscribers quality content you can use.  I also recommend using an HTML opt-in email platform with “double opt-in” capability.  This will enable you to send emails using an HTML template that can utilize your company’s branding, and will look much more professional that sending a text only email.  Webvantix uses and MailChimp (no affiliation), another popular service is Aweber.  These services can also host .pdf whitepapers for your site visitors to download.

10.  Control Your SEO

Speaking to business owners on a regular basis I am always asked about SEO.  ”We want to be number one on Google.”  That’s difficult to achieve with a static website, that does not have a blog, and does not control their own SEO inside the website itself.  Is there a simple solution?  Yes!

As I previously mentioned, building your site on the WordPress platform has a great number of advantages, but probably the most important advantage are the plug-ins that enable you to customize your website by simply downloading, activating and adjusting them.  One of the most popular pug-ins is the All In One SEO plugin.  Once activated this software will automatically draw information from your site and run the SEO for you on a page by page basis.  Therefore, as your website grows and changes, the plug-in adapts!  Additionally, the plug-in can be manipulated manually on each page of your site giving you the ability to change Title Tags, Meta Description,Tags and more.  For website owners who want control of their SEO from one simple piece of software All in One SEO is a dream come true!

Bonus:  Register Your Site

When people find out that I run a web development company they often begin speaking about how they need a great site, one that ‘gets onto the first page of Google.’  I guess the gulf between understanding how difficult that can be and the perception of ‘build it and they will come’ is quite wide!

I recently was approached about building a site for an individual who had just purchased a single investment home in Vermont that he wanted to rent, and very specifically wanted to appear on the first page of Google’s search results when ‘Vermont vacation homes’ was entered as a Keyword.  Needless to say he was David to the Goliath of the entrenched competition he was up against.

In attempting to clarify what needed to be done to not only create the site that employed proper SEO, and also used the WordPress plugin “All in One SEO,” I began to realize how important it is to actually create great websites for people so their business ventures can thrive.  The conversation also reminded me of one I had earlier in the year with a local business owner who advertised, but did not have a website at all, because as he put it “my friend has a website for his business and he gets nothing out of it.”  Of course my knee jerk reaction was, well, what’s wrong with your friends website?  As I take a conversation regarding the development of a company’s website very seriously, as this is an element of their business that can make or break them, I thought highlighting the most important element creating a professional website should be reviewed.

I consider that element to be the ability for a website to interact throughout several different platforms, such as blogging to keep content flowing to the site, that therefore makes the site a resource, not just an advertisement.  Creating a vehicle that enables your site to update content, have video, Social Media Marketing (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn etc.), is the key to website development and having a great site that wins traffic and repeat visitors.

So, if you’re interested in developing a great website for your business, be sure to have a platform that enables you to create great content and keep it flowing!

I hope this helps! More to come on creating great websites!

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

Recently I was speaking to a business owner about how his company had lost about 1/4 of its revenue–poof, it was gone!  Instead of asking him how he felt about it, and how it was effecting his company, and what would happen the loss of revenue did not abate (which I should have done), I was very curious about how he intended to grow it back (essentially I did not listen to my own advice when speaking to a potential customer and asking the right questions, in the correct manner).

Now, before I continue, I must preface this post with the fact that Webvantix’s main business is building and rebuilding professional websites.  Therefore, we had taken a look at their site from a possible rebuilding prospective, seeking to understand if they were a good candidate for us.  Our conclusion was very simple and reached very quickly:  We had never seen a site that needed a re-design from all perspectives (Design, Content, Navigation, and SEO) worse than this website!

When discussing the ways they were going to not only rebuild their revenue stream, but also roll out a new initiative, I asked them if their business received leads based on organic search results centered around the keywords that were applicable for their niche.  Sadly, the response was no.

Okay, back to their plan of how they were going to rebuild their business, and win attention for their new product.  Their answer in a nutshell was PR and marketing, as their thought was that their site would not be generating any potential customers, as their potential customer base did not  search for their product online.  Fair enough, but perhaps something that should be investigated.  Their thought process was that a new site did not need to be created until AFTER interest in their new initiative was generated, then they could steer leads to their site.

When discussing aspects of a customer’s belief, it’s a very delicate issue not only to point out that they may be incorrect, but to prove them incorrect can be downright insulting–even if they would prefer the straight talk.

Taking it on myself to review the most applicable keywords to their business, I found over 1.2 million MONTHLY searches just for one applicable keyword phrase via the Google Keyword Search Tool!

Now, perhaps it’s just me, but as a business owner, wouldn’t you want to capture as much of that traffic as possible, get them onto  your site with properly structured SEO, compelling up to date content, and calls to action that will turn site visitors into qualified leads, all tied into various Social Media Marketing (SMM) platforms, such as YouTube and Twitter?

Finding customers for your business has changed and, if structured correctly, your website can be your greatest ally, salesperson and asset, working for you 24/7/365–think about all those people searching for exactly what you offer at 11:00 PM on a Sunday night, and instead of finding your competition, they find you in a video, and then download a whitepaper or research report you have authored.

What should you take away from this post?  Know who is online searching for exactly what you do, and then WIN their attention!

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

By now most businesses have some kind of website, good or bad–for those that don’t I just throw up my arms with the belief that you’re simply leaving money on the table, regardless of your business.  For those of you that do have a site, the question becomes is your website actually helping your business?

We touched on this theme in our post Creating Value Mathematically, where we discussed how a site can drive revenue for your business.  If it’s not creating leads, customers and revenue, let’s take a closer look at the reasons why your site may not be executing as you had originally hoped.

From a 30,000 foot perspective the key, and overarching question  is whether your site is a resource that people can return to over and over, or have you created an online advertisement, that just pitches your product and tells everyone how great you are–hint–people are tired of this!

There are some simple questions that you can ask regarding your site to help you formulate an answer.

What’s Your Bounce Rate?

If your bounce rate (people landing on your site and leaving without going deeper than the page they landed on) is high, usually higher than 45% can be a concern, though small business sites should target 60% or lower.  If your rate is high, your site may be doing a bad job of navigating people into the most appropriate page to meet their needs/interest.

What’s your Lead to Visitor ratio?

Do you have 1000 people visiting your site every month, but very few leads?  There could be several answers to this issue, but some may be, just having a Contact Us page, instead of specific Calls to Action, poor navigation (very important), slow loading (I just saw a photographer from LinkedIn talking about his new site today…it took forever for his images to load).

Is your business strategy reflected on your website?

If your company has a specific long term strategy of engagement with your customers and prospective customers, is this reflected on your website with fresh content and relevant information, or is your site just an advertisement?

Does your company’s innovation stand out online?

Everyday you present your services and products to customers and highlight how you differentiate yourselves from your competition.  Is this highlighted on your website?  If it’s not, does your inability to differentiate concern you?  How could you do this better?

Do you have fresh content?

Both from an SEO perspective and a client, and potential client perspective your site must be adding fresh content.  Stale sites with content that has not been changed in years is, well, boring.  When was the last time you added something to your site?  Keeping content fresh and moving is the key to differentiation, and driving visitors deeper into your site and keeping them returning for more.

Regardless of what business you are in, you have the ability to become a resource, this requires that you keep content fresh, and flow your visitors to the proper landing pages–essentially, it’s a never ending job of managing your site. Think of your company website as a window to your business that the whole world has access to and as you see your traffic climb, and bounce rates drop, leads and customers will follow.

Are you managing your content regularly?

I hope this helps…

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

WordPress plugins are one of the main reasons to use WordPress, there are thousands of them that offer a great deal of flexibility to your blog/site.  Taking advantage of them is simple, usually free, and can help you drive more traffic and get noticed.  Here’s how to add a WordPress plugin to your blog.

If you have any questions about plugins, feel free to contact me HERE

I hope this helps…

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

I speak to a great many business owners about how they can get more website traffic.  Obviously this is an ongoing concern and while it is more important for some than others, here are a few fast ideas that you can implement.

1.  Add a Blog to Your Site Why?  Simple, blogging can work wonders for traffic; it creates new content for the search engines to index, and can create a group of loyal visitors to your site as over time you actually become a resource!  I don’t think any one thing can help  your business website get noticed more and more cost effectively.  If you have a small website SEO can only do a small amount and while there are billions of sites, SEO is just not enough.   Blogging to create valuable content will drive traffic to your site, period.

2. Add New Content/Pages Not enough time to create regular content for your site?  Understand.  Many business owners are just too busy to take the time to create regular content, therefore, have additional pages added to your site and that talk about something specific.

3.  Create a Google Account Make sure you’ve got a Google account add your business to Google Places, this will allow for better indexing and as Google is moving toward hyper-local searching, getting seen in local searches is an absolute must.

4.  Title Tags Make sure your Title Tags reflect what your business does and where it is, all too often I see title tags that have little or no information, this is the SEO low-hanging fruit.  If your title tags say something like “Home Page” or just your business name, fix them fast!  See VIDEO

I hope this helps, if you have questions, contact me HERE

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

Chrysler-Jeep and bad, bad customer service

Living in the country in the northeast dictates that you need a four-wheel drive vehicle. When it was time for a new car I chose a brand new 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee LTD, with the V8 HEMI–wow, here a luxury vehicle with more get up and go than my 5 series BMW, and moved through deep snow like it was not even there!

Unfortunately the moon roof developed a leak that was once so bad that I returned to my car after a movie to a literal pool of water in the passenger side foot well. Not good. So, I dug around the Jeep website to find their customer service number(they did not make it easy), and contacted them.

Sorry, said the snotty girl on the other end of the phone, it’s out of warranty and there is nothing we can do. By chance, as a friend was purchasing a vehicle from a dealer in the area that also sold and serviced Jeeps, I stopped by the service department to discuss the issue with a service rep. He said the whole upper upholstery would have to be taken down to fix the issue and it was about $1000 job!  He suggested I contact their liaison to Jeep, which I did. The liaison indicated that Jeep had ‘closed’ the issue and that nothing could be done to help, and that was their final decision.

A few weeks later, angry and feeling like a company I endorsed because I loved their product had ignored me, I found myself in another Jeep dealership several states away, for a much needed oil change. When I told their service rep my story, he said, “let’s take a look at it first.” As soon as he looked it the moon roof he said “the timing is off and it’s not closing properly.” They fixed it in 30 minutes.

In an effort to make this story short I have not gone into detail about the customer service line and the person with whom I interacted, but it was a pathetic excuse for customer service.

Soon it will be time for a new car–will I buy another Jeep?

Do you think I should?  What do you think they should have offered to do?

Stay tuned for our final installment on this three part series on Customer Service, which is an example of how a company handled an out of warranty product and kept a customer forever!

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix

Part 1 of 3

This is a story of two vastly different companies, with different approaches to customer service.  One bad, and I mean really bad, and the other good, and I really good!
First, a short back story.

One aspect of our business that Webvantix takes very seriously is customer service.  As a matter of fact, part of the reason this company was started almost four years ago was as a response to customer service issues in this business.  Another firm, in an unrelated industry where I was a partner, had retained a web development company, that, to put it bluntly, never returned correspondence–phone calls, emails, smoke signals, nothing.  Additionally, with firsthand knowledge, we were not the only customers they ignored.  Strange.

So when Webvantix started, one of our standing orders was that we return all e-mails, and phone calls the same day–customer, prospective customer, vendor, prospective vendor–we are always in touch.  My belief, personally and professionally, is that if someone does not return your e-mail or call, in this day and age of ‘immediate technology,’ they are saying directly to you, that you’re not worth their time or the effort, a metaphorical blow-off!

Our next installment will highlight an interesting story of how companies should not ignore customer service, yet still do.

I’m curious, what customer service mandates does your company have in place?

Preston Ehrler, Webvantix