When
I was in New York recently, I had the pleasure of the company of Bryan
and Jeffrey Eisenberg. Bryan and Jeffrey founded Future Now in 1998.
They think a website should sell.
"Notice how each step in the evolution of sales seems to make the
purchase easier for the buyer and harder on the vendor," Bryan states.
"Each step seems to remove some of the friction buyers feel and makes
the purchase process smoother for the buyer."
That's a very interesting point. We've moved from barter to self-service.
Barter was a very complicated and slow sales process. Self-service
is about convenience, speed and price. To achieve real success in
self-service you need to understand the customer better than they
understand themselves.
Selling has a bad name. Some people think that it's beneath them to
sell. I use to be one of those. I did marketing in college. Marketing
is a step up from sales. It's more sophisticated. More intellectual.
Sales, on the other hand, is a kind of a low level task. It requires
a lot of persistence but not much thought.
That's the way I used to think. Now I see selling as an essential
skill. A very difficult skill to acquire. If I'm asked to examine
a website, one of the first things I look for is how well it's selling
what it's got. Most of the time, it's not doing the job very well.
There are two extremes. There's the cool dude Flash brigade who think
that all you need is a big image and some rotating text. Then there's
the hardcore technology fraternity who feel that anyone who sells
on the Web is a lowlife. I belong to the school that believes that
making the sale is what is important.
Concepts such as usability and findability are popular today. Over
the years, I've learned that selling is very often about emotion.
Great selling happens when you walk into a store intending to spend
100 dollars. You leave half an hour later, having spent 500 dollars
and you're feeling happy.
Creating a usable website is not the objective. Nor is making everything
on the website findable. You might only want people to easily find
the most expensive products. Making your website maximize profits
over the long-term is the objective. Persuading people to do the things
you want is the objective.
About the Author:
Gerry McGovern is a content management consultant, author and speaker.
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com
| Toll-Free
Voice Systems that Give Your Small Business a Big Voice
-> more
info |
 By
Martin R. Lemieux
We all start out the same. Some have budgets, some don't. The one
true factor out there is that we all want to expose our business.
For 99% of us, starting out in the world of web marketing means a
few things:
- A huge learning curve
- Endless nights working
- Trial & Error
- Learning the ropes
Compared to older more established sites out there, a brand new site
without a network of well established web sites to back it up will
need to depend on good quality links pointing to it. This will commence
the search engine ranking strategy.
See most "grand father" sites out there have already gone through
the trials and tribulations of getting recognized. Since this is true,
they don't always have to depend on the "Title" of the link pointing
to their site, nor do they have to depend on the "Title" tag within
their site.
Most older sites get ranked for search terms that don't even show
up on their listing, this is because search engines already know the
content is there and is good.
For a newer web site, great search engine rankings rely on those "Titles".
This helps search engines to better determine the content of the site.
For Example: "Joe" has a site about "Web Marketing". Joe knows that
he needs to get his link on other quality sites and he also wants
to get a good ranking for "Web Marketing". So Joe creates a link exchange
program on his site and submits his link titled "Web Marketing" to
as many content related web sites as he can.
Joe also knows that if search engines find his link on other sites
and it's called "Web Marketing", his site had better be about "Web
Marketing"! So Joe adds "Web Marketing Services & Tips" as the title
of his main page. He also adds specific content to match it.
Now here's the [kicker]. Let's say Joe has been doing this for 2 years
now, 9 times out of 10, if Joe's web site is still promoting content
about "Web Marketing", he probably doesn't have to add "Web Marketing"
to his main title anymore. He can now add it further down within another
link on his site.
So the moral is???
If your site is new, you'll need to depend on the "Titles" of many
things to get your rankings up for something specific. If you're site
is more mature and has been established, you can work on other search
terms you've been longing to get for your site.
Just keep plugging away and try to keep your "titles" the same for
new sites and mix it up for older sites!
About the Author:
Martin Lemieux
Smartads - President
Affordable Web Design & Web Advertising
http://www.smartads.info
/ http://www.smartads.ca
Eye Catching Print Design
http://www.3dimentionaldesign.com
Marketing Tools
http://www.smartads.info
/ http://www.thewebclinic.com
Read this Newsletter at:
http://www.smallbusinessupdate.com/2004/0617.html |
|
| From
the Forum: |
| DIY
Encryption? |
Hello- I want to join BBBOnline. One of their
requirements is security of information.
The only data I collect from customers is name, mailing address,
and email address (phone number is optional). No C C numbers
or payment is accepted through my site. VeriSign charges $350
for a year, add that to the $650 it will cost to join the BBB
and BBBOnline, and that's a serious chunk of change for a business
that grossed ~$1500 last month. ...
|
 |
By
Gerry McGovern