I was having a conversation with a potential client the other day and we were talking about content on a website and how it needs to be tailored to the audience rather than writing in generic marketing speak He came back with an analogy that I will no doubt use time and time again in the future:
"It’s a like a DJ that only plays the tunes he likes and no one but him is dancing."
Another month, another Google innovation - pay per action (A good synopsis on Tech Crunch).
This time it is based on the action someone takes on your website from an advert, rather that just a click-through, ie.:
How this is managed and the resulting costs will be interesting to see but the one thing I think interesting is that it’s almost a quick way out for the owners of the ’selling’ website and it’s case of Google trying to offer even more incentive in response to the laziness of website owners.
Perhaps the reason pay-per-click isn’t successful for many websites is that the experience they get from the target site isn’t great, so users don’t convert. In turn, advertisers cut down on Google Pay Per Click Adverts because they aren’t as effective as they used to be (when there wasn’t as much choice).
Wouldn’t it be better to focus on adding ‘good experience’ to the landing page and subsequent pages that you as a website owner can control? Even simpler, refine your Google Adverts to be more specific - less click-throughs but more relevant visitors.
The one big opportunity it may make for existing advertisers (with better websites) is that the Pay-Per-Click market will become less saturated as the lazy advertisers switch to this new model.
Only 14 percent of UK companies are offering their customers good customer self-service via the web, reports Retail Bulletin.
It’s an interesting thought - customer service online.
FAQ sections of a website, especially if they are interactive, are a great way to:
Another massive advantage is that you don’t have to keep answering the same questions. I’d imagine that in customer service helplines you have the 80/20 rule in full effect. ie. 80 per cent of the requests are for 20 per cent of the questions.
Creating An FAQ Section On Your Website
This may seem like obvious advice but take the questions you get asked on a day-to-day basis and add them to your website. You can add to the list as you go.
Make sure there is clarity in your navigation, even allowing for one page per question with a clearly defined navigation. Eventually you can begin to break down your questions into groups.
The more interactive you make it, ie. the answer to one question may lead the other questions, the better. This is easy to create with ongoing links.
Maintaining this approach, with a growing list may need further management but is is a case of offsetting the advantages to the costs.
Campaign Monitor have a great article about the de-construction and re-construction of an e-mail newsletter.
I have seen some shockers recently that don’t seem to be built for the user or for the potential way a user will end up seeing it.
Like this one for red nose day that I got through my Yahoo Email Account.
There is no way (apart form the ‘From’ and ‘Subject’) that I could know what this e-mail was. The header completely relied on imagery that didn’t display.
When it comes to e-mail marketing the only thing you can control is the flexibility of your design and the way you actually send it to account for the hundreds of different ways a user might end up seeing it.
Two things today made me stop and think about opportunities and how they come very quickly, but disappear very quickly too.
Leverage can be made on most topical issues as part of any article or web page you create. If your business is selling websites, there is lots of legislation and design issues happening all the time. I posted recently about Gordon Dick and a recent Spam Ruling and to be honest, if I angled every blog post towards ‘marketing’ I could have made more of an effort with this one, but it still worked for search. I have used some client industry sectors to create some…
Topical Example Articles
Leverage People’s Name
I have also had some success recently with leveraging recognised names. A good example on the Beauty Blog is - Coleen McLoughlin’s 10 Tips for Successful Clothes Shopping. 10.5% of search traffic over past week contains variations on her name.
I will post an example on here in the next few days… let me know what you think.
Busy week… We spun-off part of our Escape website onto a bespoke website for our clients in the housing sector for design and marketing services. This is going to add clarity to what we sell and who we sell it to… niche baby niche.
The recruitment drive is moving on. Adam starts next week in a new post created especially for him. So new we haven’t even named it yet. He is joining the online marketing area of the business, looking at social media and the opportunities for your business. Our seminar in May will cover this area if you fancy coming - Online Marketing and Attracting Traffic
(limited spaces available).
We had a good internal session looking at the social media tools the other day and how to use those avenues get seen on the web.
Talking of getting seen, Craig was recently referenced in an article for The Independent about Blogging for Business. Ooh, ark at you CK!
Back to useful stuff, we often ask questions of clients when the are looking to place a website with us. So, we created the website brief. We’d like to share it. Go on, ask yourself some questions.
The sun is shining over B’stoke today. Could it be the first Friday night session moving into the beer garden?
People using the web rose by 10% over the past year, reports Web Metrics Guru - that’s approximately 70 million people globally.
In the UK, this equated to a rise of just 1% (299,000).
More people using the web, but are they finding you?
I said, Duplicate Content.
Randfish goes someway to explain the issues of duplicate content in way that is very understandable.
In this world of copy and paste, when plagiarism is rife, beware, it could harm the value of your site!
Well, we blogged live for a client at Talk Leadership 2007 this week. New for us and it went down a storm. Speakers included England World Cup Winning Rugby Captain Martin Johnson with Jono recounting how teamwork allowed them that amazing win against the Aussies!
We started recruiting for 2007, a list that now includes an Artworker, after Leanne revealed that she is escaping soon to a new opportunity.
It’s been quiet with Andy off in the studio away in Milano supporting the love of his life - Celtic. Last we heard he was sobbing into his cappacino.
We also entered some of our websites into the Hampshire Web Awards run by Hantsweb. Feel free to nominate them again. It will look great if we get more nominations!
I love online tools and have heard great things about photobox. I just never got round to using it yet, having bought into Flickr and Apple’s similar services.
But, I went to a wedding the other week and a friend of mine who uses photobox uploaded her photos for me to see.
I got an e-mail from her this morning, via their system, telling me that she has invited me to look at the photos, all I needed to do was click on the link, so I did.
But… I have to register with them first. Do I want to do that? More importantly, do they really need to MAKE me do that? Not really but I was keen to see the photos so I started filling in the form.
Then, I got to the marting opt in out part and all trust was gone.
Unless you opt out (by ticking this box), once you click "Register me now", we will pass your details (your name, postal address, email and telephone number) to selected partners so that they can contact you with news and offers that might interest you, in accordance with our privacy policy. If you do not consent to us passing your details to selected partners for use in this way, please tick the box.
The thing is, I don’t NEED to do this when I can call her up and ask for a CD. I don’t NEED it enough right now. How do I know I even like their service when I don’t get chance to try it without offering some information first?
When you walk into a shop, they don’t make you give them your details as you walk in!
And, I don’t like the way the paragraph was written. I felt like they are trying to trick me, even if I can’t work out why.
Does that sound like an irrational user?
Maybe. But users, using the web (their way) will make decisions THERE and THEN based on how they FEEL. I know I am not alone. I also know how good Flickr is and the level of buy-in was a lot less from an ‘negative-emotional" point of view.
So, armed with that information, based on my experience, I made my choice. Sorry Photobox!