Websites

• Creating a persuasive website by building trust and credibility
• Websites that Win Business
• Generate Traffic to your Website
• All visitors are not created equal

Creating a persuasive website by building trust and credibility

17 July - Source: Zeald.com Building trust and credibility is an essential part of any sales process. It is particularly important for any website that has the objective of generating enquiries or sales.  In this article we look at the most important ways of building trust and credibility as a means of improving the ‘persuasiveness’ of a website.

Before any visitor to your website will be persuaded to make an enquiry or buy your product or service they need to trust you and believe that what you are saying is true.

Here are some of the most effective ways of building trust & credibility on your website:  

1. Fast-loading website:  As a rule of thumb, all web pages should load in 8 seconds or less, on a 56k modem. Studies have shown that if visitors have to wait longer than this, you run a serious risk of losing them. Check out how fast your website is loading with the free Website Speed Checker at www.zeald.com/Resources.html  
2. User-friendly layout & clear navigation: Don’t try to be unique and quirky with the structure and layout of your website – you will confuse visitors and reduce  the level of enquiries and sales you receive. Everything needs to be as simple and obvious as possible. Your website should provide all the common things that visitors expect to find. To avoid being bland or  ‘like any other website’, convey your personality using your branding, photographs and copy.  
3. Professional website design: Your website should look professional & pleasing to the eye. First impressions are so important: if your website looks cheap, you will destroy trust immediately. Would you feel comfortable giving your credit card details or confidential information to a website that looks cheap and nasty? Certainly not, I’m sure! Always use a graphic designer experienced in website design - don’t try and do it yourself or get your cousin’s son to do it!
4. Testimonials are great for establishing trust and credibility. The more the merrier! Keep them in their original form– don’t fix grammatical errors. Provide contact details for the people giving the testimonial. Whatever you do– NEVER fake a testimonial– you will destroy your credibility!
5. Case studies are in-depth studies of the successful “experience” a customer had with your business. They are powerful trust and credibility builders - particularly for complex products and services.    
6. Awards & certifications: Has your business won an award or achieved some sort of certification? These can be fantastic for building trust and credibility. Try to choose awards or certifications that will mean something to your target customer.
7. Partners: Associating yourself with a well-respected partner or affiliate is a great way of building “borrowed credibility”. You are effectively ‘tapping into’ their credibility. People will think– “If you are partnered with them then you must be credible”. 
8. References or client list: Provide a list of ‘clients that a visitor is welcome to call’. Giving your prospects an open invitation to speak directly with your customers – without you being there to colour their view – is a an extremely powerful trust- builder.
9. Guarantees are one of the strongest trust and credibility building elements that you can have. A strong guarantee shows that you have a 100% belief in your product(s) or service(s). Make your guarantee big, bold and even a little brash! Many organisations have reported that the stronger they made their guarantee the fewer claims they received against it. And the increased sales or enquiries resulting from a stronger guarantee far outweighed the one or two extra claims that they received.  
10. Terms & conditions : Just displaying a set of ‘Terms & Conditions’ or ‘Terms of Trade’ – written simply and in plain English- will increase your website’s credibility. This is vital if you have an e-commerce website and want to be seen as professional. 
11.  Privacy policy: With the huge increase in SPAM and many other invasions of the individual’s privacy, a clear, ‘no ifs or buts’ privacy policy is mandatory for any website.  
12. Security policy: this should outline, in plain English, the ‘industry standard’ levels of security that are employed throughout your website to ensure the security of all personal information stored by you.
13. Evidence of a physical presence: This is a biggie. Websites can be very impersonal so the more you can demonstrate that there is a real business with real people behind the website the better. Use photos of your business and staff. Your visitor will feel a whole lot more comfortable knowing that your business doesn’t have the potential to just vanish into cyberspace.
14. Website copy: The number one thing that a visitor will do when they come to your website is read. Good website copy is essential and in the early stages, it should focus on building trust and credibility with your visitors.

Building trust and credibility is an essential part of any sales process. Implement the above suggestions and you will be well on your way to improving the ‘persuasiveness’ of your website – and it’s ability to increase the level of enquiries or sales that you achieve.

Articles supplied by Zeald.com, one of New Zealand's leading web site design companies. Committed to helping businesses achieve great results from their websites, visit www.zeald.com for a range of free resources.

Websites that Win Business

17 July - Source: Zeald.com Many website companies are focused on one thing─ building a pretty website with lots of ‘bells and whistles’ ─ a showcase for their own talents. For business people the reality is that this doesn’t always translate into orders or an improved bottom line. This article outlines 5 key components to being successful online and the key elements of great website content.

Many website companies are focused on one thing─ building a pretty website with lots of ‘bells and whistles’ ─ a showcase for their own talents.

It is an approach that is easy to go along with, especially if they are talking in a technical language that you perhaps don’t really understand and you want something that really impresses your potential customers.

So does this approach work? The answer is sometimes, but not very often. For business people the reality is that lots of ‘bells and whistles’ don’t translate into orders or an improved bottom line.

What business operators should be looking for is a website that drives measurable results. Doing that requires an end-to-end programme designed to deliver a website that wins business.

There are in fact five steps to being successful online and a “fantastic” website is one of them ─ remembering that bells and whistles and fantastic are not always the same thing. Let’s look at them one by one.

1. Fantastic Website
   A fantastic website is one that maximises your chances of attracting website visitors and converting their visits into sales or enquiries. To do this your site needs to follow international standards and benchmarks for usability and have a professional ‘look and feel’ design-wise. It should also be fast loading and ‘spider friendly’, to maximize the chance of being ranked well on Google and other large search engines.
2. Powerful Tools
   Your site should have a complete measurement and tracking system that enables you to manage and improve results. Without this, you are flying blind in terms of knowing what is working , what is not and whether changes you make are improving things or not. Always check out what your web design company provides – as often this is only found on top corporate sites. Combined with this you need tools so you can manage your website's content with a few clicks of a button (ie without having to wait – and pay - for changes to be made by your web designer).
   
3. Educational Materials ‘
   Part of the package you buy should be a manual detailing what you need to know to make your site successful. This will enable you to understand the importance of website visits, conversion rates and your average sale ─ the basic building blocks of success.
   
4. Expert Assistance
   You will need to work with your website developer to plan every aspect of your website, right from its objectives, strategy & structure through to the promotion and marketing of it.
   
5. Ongoing Support
   You should schedule a regular review with your supplier to review results and brainstorm strategies that will increase the performance of your website.

But content counts too

Most highly- persuasive websites contain a delicate mixture of great pre-sales content and fantastic sales copy. Pre-sales content is where you give away relevant, quality information to your visitors. To successfully pre-sell, the information must be valuable to your visitors and help them achieve what they are looking to achieve. It is essentially about building trust and credibility and establishing rapport with your website visitors. . 

Sales copy is about persuading visitors to take action. So, let’s look at the process of writing effective sales copy for the web. AIDA - the age-old copywriting success formula certainly applies. It stands for:

Attention
You must get your visitor’s attention. This is extremely important on the web, as it is so easy to go elsewhere. One click and ‘poof’, they’re gone. You generally catch your visitor’s attention with a strong punchy headline and an ‘opening hook’ – a sentence that is designed to ‘hook’ the reader into reading the copy.

Use ‘power words’ within your headlines. These are words that convey strong emotions and represent something people are looking for. The strongest ‘power word’ is : Free. Others that work well are: how to, you, save, know, understand, results, proven, now, today, immediately, money, powerful, trust, create, and secrets.

Interest
You must immediately arouse your visitor’s interest and curiosity. You can do this by telling a story or identifying a problem that your visitor is having (remember to focus on exactly who your target customer is here). Understand the goals of your target customer and identify with them. Pre-selling is often incorporated at this stage, as the information that arouses interest can also be used to reinforce trust and credibility.

Desire
Create ‘desire’ in your visitor. This is usually achieved through clear promises that cater to the customer’s goals. Focus here on your strongest benefits and outline them clearly and concisely so they cannot be missed. Maximise your visitor’s desire through good, strong ‘bonuses’ and bold guarantees.

Action
Finally, finish with a clear ‘call-to-action’. Make it absolutely clear what actions they must do on your website to achieve the desired outcome.

Always review your copy and keep on fine-tuning it. Good copywriting is 5 per cent inspiration and 95 per cent perspiration, and if you struggle with writing, invest in someone who is an expert.

Articles supplied by Zeald.com, one of New Zealand's leading web site design companies. Committed to helping businesses achieve great results from their websites, visit www.zeald.com for a range of free resources.

Generate Traffic to your Website

Links are currently the single most important component that a search engine uses to rank a website. Incoming links (links to your web page from another website) are highly valued by search engines, as they are difficult for a Webmaster to control or manipulate the ‘results’. Because of this they are considered by the search engines to be genuine indicators of the true nature of the content of your website.

There are three key things that a search engine considers when assessing your incoming links:

1. Popularity
   How popular is your website? Do you have a lot of people with links to your site? You can check your link popularity by going to: http://tools.marketleap.com/publinkpop or www.linkpopularity.com

2. Relevancy
   How relevant is the website that is linking to your website? Is its content in some way relevant to your website’s content? Is it in a similar subject space, but slightly different? Is it targeting similar keywords and about similar subjects?

3. Link Text
   The text that is used within the link that is linked to your website is also very important (especially to Google). Try to incorporate your keywords or phrases into the text that is linking to your site. Also think about the text that surrounds the ‘area linked to’ on your site.
   If search engine optimisation is a crucial part of your website promotion then it is well worth spending time and effort on increasing the number of links to your website. The best way to do this is to set up a great website that attracts the interest of other website operators. You then need a plan on how to target suitable websites that you would like to link to your website.

Listed below is a strategy that can be used for building a large network of links:

Research Possible Websites
The first thing you need to do is research the possible linking websites that you would like to approach. Think about your target customer and where they are likely to visit. Try to find places that are a hive of activity (lots of traffic)! Use the search engines to locate different websites and don’t forget the New Zealand search engines: www.nzpages.co.nz, www.nzsearch.co.nz or www.nzs.co.nz. Also, use a tool like www.alexa.com to analyse each website and to check out how much traffic each of them is getting.

Prepare a List
Based on your research, prepare a short list of websites that you would like to approach. Don’t be afraid to approach people for a link. Be courageous! You have nothing to lose. Make sure the websites that you list are complementary and not competitive.

Prepare your email
Use an email template that has been prepared specifically for approaching websites for a link. You can find an example of one at www.zeald.com – on the Articles page.
Address the email to the Webmaster or the owner. Make sure your email focuses on ‘what’s in it for them’ (remember, WIIFM)! They need to see what the upside is. Why should they go to the effort? Your website should offer something for their customers.

Follow up
Expect a low response rate to your email requests. Many Webmasters are very busy and sometimes they are just not concerned with their search engine rankings. However, the results that you can achieve from the extra links to your website can still make the effort worthwhile. Make sure you follow up because persistence does pay. Follow up at weekly intervals and be prepared to follow up many times if necessary. Links are the Internet’s form of word-of-mouth marketing. When someone links to your website they are, in a sense, endorsing your website. Building a large network of links back to your website can be an extremely powerful way of generating large amounts of traffic.

Articles supplied by Zeald.com, one of New Zealand's leading web site design companies. Committed to helping businesses achieve great results from their websites, visit www.zeald.com for a range of free resources.

All visitors are not created equal

As one of the speakers at the Internet World Chicago Conference last year, I had the pleasure to sit in on an interesting presentation by Brent Lowe-Bernie, President of Jupiter Media Metrix.

Brent's presentation 'Navigating the Global Clickstream' was filled with great statistics, but one study (conducted with McKinsey), pertinent to Chamber readers was ' All Visitors Are Not Created Equal'. It analysed actual online behaviour. Here's a recap for you:

Simplifiers 29%

Ecommerce users. They use Internet to make life easier. They go online, get it done, then go quickly offline.

If your website depends on transactions for profitability, simplifiers are the most attractive, but might be the most challenging to serve. They use the Internet to make their lives easier, and tend to log on with a specific purpose in mind - such as buying books or managing their finances - and they want to do it quickly and easily. Although they spend very little time on the Web (just 7 hours per month), they have the longest tenure online (49% have been online for over 5 years) and account for half of the total online transactions.

Bargainers 8%

They spend lots of time online looking for the best deal (these are younger buyers too).

Bargainers are fiercely devoted to one aspect of the Internet: the quest for deals. Though they are only 8% of active online users, and they spend a little less time online than the average user, they represent 52% of all eBay visitors. For a site to attract repeat visits from Bargainers, it must appeal to them on both rational and emotional levels, satisfying their need for competitive pricing and the excitement of the "search'.

Sportsters 4%

Similar to surfers go to sports sites. Younger, info junkies, not much buying.

Surfers 8%

Seekers of information. Surfers constitute just 8% of the active user population, but they account for 32% of online time - far more than any other segment in the study. They access over four times as many pages as the average user, and turn to the Internet for many reasons - to explore, shop, find information, and be entertained - but they move quickly among the domains, continually seeking new experiences.

Connectors 36%

Younger, use digital media - app's, games, communication.

Connectors are relative novices on the Internet. They are seeking reasons to use it - they're trying to figure out what's available, and what has value. Although they account for 36% of the active user population, 40% of them have been online less than two years, and just 42% have made purchases online (versus an average of 61%). Connectors often use the Internet to communicate - "to connect" - with people, visit online chat rooms, (such as ICQ.com) and send greeting cards to friends (using Bluemountain.com). However, they hold great potential to expand their use, and marketers should focus on shaping their habits so that they become members of a more attractive segment, such as the simplifiers.

For the full report, just send me an email and I'll send you the PDF.

Article supplied by Debbie Mayo-Smith of SuccessIS. Debbie is an Internationally renowned expert in email marketing and is in demand as a consultant, author, trainer and keynote speaker. To subscribe to Debbie's free on-line newsletter full of business tips click here.