Welcome to Widgets Online! We offer a wide range of widgets including red widgets, blue widgets, green widgets, pink widgets, black widgets and white widgets as well as cheap widgets, discount widgets and fast widgets plus many more widgets at great prices. For all your widget needs contact us.

Hardly compelling is it.

Sure you need to include keywords in your copy in order to help rank in the search engines but what use is ranking at number one if your sales copy reads like above? It’s hardly going to compel your prospects to purchase from you.

Your web pages need to be written to cater to both the search engines and your users. Keyword rich copy that is compelling should be your focus. Why should people buy from you? What is your Unique Selling Point (USP)?

As you read over your pages keep those questions in mind. If your site reads like a laundry list of keywords it probably needs a re-write.

It amazes me the number of people who have no idea where their domains are registered, where their sites are hosted or even worse, what their user names and passwords are.

Your domain names and hosting accounts are like gold. They are the keys to your online business. Treat them as such.

My tip for the day.

Technorati Profile

I consult to a lot of companies running e-commerce websites. Usually it’s not performing as expected and they want me to tell them why. While each website is different 5 common mistakes come up time and time again. Perhaps it’s time for you to do a quick check of your e-commerce site and make sure you’ve covered the following:

1. No Physical Contact Details
   

Far too many e-commerce websites have no physical contact details. If you’re wanting people to hand over their credit card details you need to provide information about your company and how people can get in touch with you. This is how you establish trust between your site and your prospects.

A common argument against providing a phone number is communicating via email keeps costs lower. A fair point. An approach I recommend is to include your contact details as well as a message along the following lines:

“Our preferred method of contact is via email and we provide prompt replies, normally within a few hours. As an online business, communicating via email enables us to keep our prices low, so please use this as your first method to contact us. However, should you ever need to reach us via phone, fax or post you’ll find all our contact details below.”

Make sure you state how fast emails are replied to so your prospects have an idea of how quickly their issue will be dealt with.

In 98% of case there will be no need for people to contact you, but providing these details will make your prospects much more comfortable handing over their precious credit card details.

2. No Clear Shipping Locations or Prices

Nothing peeves me more than getting to the end of placing an order to discover you don’t ship to my location. In fact my fists are clenching as I write this!

Clearly state where you ship and the cost of shipping to each of those locations. Place this information where it can easily be seen and label it clearly.

3. No Returns Policy

Again, encouraging people to order at your website is all about gaining their trust. Sometimes, for whatever reason, someone may want to return what they have ordered from you.

Prospects will feel far more comfortable buying from your site if you clearly state what your return policy is and how items can be returned.

4. No Testimonials

One of the best ways to show prospects they can trust you, and feel comfortable doing business with you, is to show them what other happy customers have said about your company, service and products. After all, these are independent, 3rd party opinions of you!

If you currently don’t have any testimonials start collecting them from now. You could also approach some of your long time customers and ask for one. Keep in mind testimonials that address specifics are far more credible than ones that say something generic such as “great product, thanks”.

If you’re selling online include testimonials that cover areas such as: ease of ordering, fast shipping, prompt responses to questions and/or issues and how great your products are.

5. Complicated Checkout Process

A common complaint I hear is having to register before placing an order. The less data people have to enter the more likelihood they will complete their order. There is plenty of time to collect additional information at a later stage.

Many out of the box e-commerce packages make first time customers sign up for an account before ordering. If your website makes prospects register before ordering I highly recommend you modify your checkout process.

These 5 simple steps will go a long way in establishing trust between you and your prospective customers which in turn will boost the number of orders you receive. Win, win really.

I went to a new yoga class today (which is why I’m ever so relaxed dear reader ). It’s a new school and their identity, marketing materials and even the studio itself are beautiful. Being new, and a Thursday morning, I was also lucky enough to be the only student so effectively had a private lesson. The way they are set-up and marketing themselves I don’t expect that to last long.

They even have a website (this is Australia - it’s not that common yet) and whilst it’s not search friendly it’s beautiful and provides enough information about them and their classes. They also advertise their website address everywhere. The only problem, it contains a dash: yoga-path.com.au and they don’t seem to own the alternative, yogapath.com.au.

This is problematic for a number of reasons:

1. They’ll loose a lot of traffic to people who type in the domain with no dash.
2. There’s a chance a competitor (or domaineer) may snap up the alternative domain.
3. The dash makes it harder for it to pass the billboard test. What’s the billboard test? Is it easy for someone to remember if they saw it on a billboard? I know I kept forgetting it and finally stopped and picked up a brochure to remind me.

When choosing your domain name make sure it’s as close to your business name as possible. If there are variations or common misspellings it’s worth registering them to.

If it’s a business you plan to market overseas make sure you have the .com version as well as the one for your own county code (.com.au in Australia).

This may seem like a minor deal right now but believe me you’ll appreciate your foresight down the track.

Me being me, I did make this suggestion to my teacher at the end of the class and she was really appreciative. Unfortunately it turns out yogapath.com.au has already gone.

One of the definitive guides to promoting your website is the just released 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity in 2006 by Andy Hagans and Aaron Wall. This is a must read for anyone serious about building a successful website in 2006.

Anyone involved with web design would have heard that question thousands millions of times. My answer, how long is a piece of string?

When you go to buy a car you usually have an idea of what you are after and a budget. When it comes to websites these simple pre-requisites seem to go out the window.

I can understand it in some ways. Anyone with a computer, a few programs and an internet connection can say they are a web designer. It’s not quite so easy to get into the car building market. This low entry barrier means there are a wide range of people and prices offering web design services.

I find this makes people reluctant to discuss budgets fearing that whatever they say will be what they are quoted. “Our budget is $5,000″. “Perfect”, says the web designer, “the website is $4995″. Most professionals would not do this, but that’s for another post.

Things You Can Do to Help

If you are reluctant to give a budget or are still in the early planning stages with no clear budget in mind, you can help us web designers by giving us a clear idea of what you are after. This will help us give you an idea of how much you will be looking at. Things you should consider:

Is it a design or a re-design?

Have you a domain name and/or web hosting?

Have you taken into account any online marketing, search engine optimisation etc etc.

What do you want your website to say? What information/content do you want to include?

Are you providing copy and images are or are these required?

As a starting point the structure of a basic website would most likely include the following:

Homepage

• Products/Services
• About
• Contact
• Site Map
• Privacy Policy

Additional considerations would be separate product/services pages and how many, case studies, staff profiles, news etc.

Even a rough, initial outline of your requirements, based on the above, would go a long way in giving both you and your prospective web designer a clear idea of your online goals and requirements. This in turn makes it much easier for us to give you an idea of costs.

One final comment on budgets: I strongly suggest you discuss this with your prospective web designer. Even a ballpark figure helps us make sure you get the most bang for your buck. If we don’t know what you’re willing to spend we don’t know whether to recommend a second hand VW or a brand new Porsche.

With a little push, ok a damn huge shove (thanks Barry) I’m going live.

To be honest I’m still finding it hard to find my voice and come up with post ideas. My thinking is to focus on web design, usability and marketing as opposed to pure search - there’s enough wonderful search focused bloggers already.

So I’ve decided to ask you what you’d like to read about. Please post any comments or suggestions - heck you’ll be saving my skin.

I recently decided to take the ClickTracks Hosted free 14 day trial. Imagine my surprise when at one of the sign up screens I’m told it’s a 61 day trial. Wow that’s even better, enough time for me to really figure it out and enough time for them to really hook me in.

After sign up I received my first “invoice” which again stated I had a 61 day free trial. So off I went trialing it.

To cut a long story short, as I’m known to ramble, after 14 days I receive the thanks for trying our software, to continue using it you’ll need to pay email. So much for 61 days!

I decided to email them querying the dates and whether I was entitled to the 61 days as my invoice stated. I also suggested that hooking me in for that long makes my continuing all that more guaranteed.

3 or 4 days later I got a email saying the 61 days was an error and it’s actually 14 days. At least they thanked me for bringing it to their attention LOL.

Now ok it was a mistake, but where I come from if you make an offer which for some reason is incorrect you must honor that offer. With the internet being global I guess the same laws don’t apply. The laws of customer service do and for me as much as I like the program it’s left me feeling a bit pissed off. How hard would it have been to say we were wrong and we’ll honor what we told you. What would it have cost them? And I guarantee I would have been hooked after using it for 61 days.

Right now I think I’m gonna keep looking around.

I’ve officially joined the blogosphere. Aaron Wall I don’t know whether to thank you or kill you.

It may take me some time to get the swing of this. Hang in there, I’m sure it’ll be worth it.