October 01, 2005
Article On Search Engine Factors
I try and avoid doing what I've done with this and the last post - refer to an article or post and then add a comment to it. But rules are made to be broken!
If you're into search engine optimisation at all, then read this article - it's a very detailed account of the factors that are considered by the search engines when ranking pages.
Regards
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 04:01 PM | Comments (0)
September 26, 2005
My Search Engine Guru
One of the things I know is that I don't know much. Like most web developers I'm always learning.
With search engine optimization I know a little bit. But the guy I follow and learn from most is Aaron Wall. Click here for a review I just did on Aaron's book.
BTW, the page I did for the site below is now # 4 worldwide and # 1 here in Australia. Thanks to Aaron ;o)
Cheers
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 05:13 PM | Comments (0)
September 20, 2005
The Influence Of Web Sites During the Buying Process
Michael Schultz over at Raintoday.com sent me through some initial data from a survey where they asked 200 corporate decision makers who buy professional services how they like to find their service providers and then how they ultimately buy from them.
For example, regarding how websites affect the purchasing decisions of service purchasers:
* Roughly 80% of decision makers visit a service provider's website before purchasing their services
* 69% are at least somewhat influenced by the website in deciding whether to initially contact a service provider
* 51% are at least somewhat influenced by the website in deciding whether to ultimately purchase from you
Raintoday sell the full report here.
Cheers
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 04:53 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2005
Changing Blogs To Articles
Here's the things with blogs: I love them.
They are great for a whole range of reasons, one of those reasons being that they generate good search engine rankings.
But here's what I'm noticing - a blog will stay at the top of a ranking for a keyword and then slowly drop off as time goes by.
So here's a tip: convert blogs into articles and place them onto your site. Then delete that blog.
That way, I'm thinking, your should generate a better ranking for that article and it will stay more constant than a blog entry's ranking.
Cheers
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)
July 08, 2005
Shortcuts To Success
One of my favourite writers is a guy called Seth Godin. Seth commented on his web site a few days back regarding his frustration with a reporter who didn't like his answer to a question.
Didn't Like His Answer
"The reporter didn't like the answer I gave her about how to build a email marketing list.
I told her that the first step was to offer something in your email newsletter that people would actually want to read.
That the second step was to promise people exactly what you intended to give them.
And the third step was to create content that was so remarkable that people wanted to share it. I explained that if you take your time and keep your promises, it'll build if it deserves to build."
Seth was explaining that there are no shortcuts to quality, but the reporter just wanted to know how to achieve the same result when you have no time or nothing interesting to say.
I See That A Lot
I see that a lot with clients who think they can get a great web site for $500.
It happens something like this:
I'll have a meeting with a person and assess their web needs, wants and expectations. (Quite often we'll have 2, 3 or 4 meetings to establish this.)
They'll ask for a ball-park figure. Now, I never used to give a ball-park figure (rough estimate)because it's much better to demonstrate the value of what we do rather than just the cost.
But these days I'll generally provide a ball-park figure because it qualifies the prospect a little for us (it also causes us to lose potential clients because they don't understand the value we can provide - and that's because in an initial meeting we wouldn't have a perfect idea of the value we can provide).
What that means is we don't spend another 10 hours work developing a web site proposal for a client who has a budget of $200.
Anyway, let's say the ball-park figure is $5,000. That's for a fairly small web site. What often happens (and by "often" I'd say 50% of the time) the person will say "Our other quotes are for $300 and $500."
Perceived Risk
Because one of the biggest choice influences in buying is perceived risk, we'll get a "No" immediately because the person would prefer to risk $500 than $5,000.
The person buying web services hasn't adequately assessed the risk/reward because they are too focused on the initial cost.
Here's How We Developed A Recent Web Site
Had x3 1 hour meetings with the client to establish their market niche, their market positioning and their exact needs and wants from the web site.
Completed 6 hours research on competitor web sites and benchmarked against relevant web sites.
Spent 3 hours developing concepts for the site design.
Spent 3 hours researching appropriate keywords and phrases relevant to the web site market.
Stop Right There
So far that is 15 hours of work.
* Before we've even designed a thing.
* Before we've written a word of copy.
* Before the client has seen anything.
* They're the things you have to do to develop a successful site. We know because we've done it before and it works.
The Only Shortcut To A Successful Site Is Doing It Right The First Time
The only shortcut to a successful site is doing it right the first time. That is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Find the right web developer. Ask them for testimonials. Ask them for a quality guarantee. Get it done right. And look at the value, not the cost.
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 03:36 PM | Comments (0)
July 06, 2005
Great Clients And How Much Good They Can Do
Because we do so many web sites I'm very aware of overcoming the client's resistance to buying because of the perceived risk. One way we try and demonstrate our quality and expertise is by providing current client names and numbers to potential clients.
What generally happens is the potential client rings a current client and finds out how we do business in practice (because we all say we're fantastic in the meeting!).
This Is What One Of Our Clients Did Yesterday
One of our clients (I'll call him Ross.........because that's his name!) spoke with a business owner we'd been meeting with about a web site. Ross spent 15 minutes on the phone telling this client how we'd performed with him over over the past year or so.
I was very appreciative of Ross taking the time to chat to our potential client.
Yesterday, Ross was driving past our potential client's business and decided to drop in. So in he went and introduced himself to our potential client in person.
They had another chat about us (Tailored Consulting).
Will We Get The Job?
My mum always told me not to count my chickens before they hatched, but the chances for our success would have increased significantly because of Ross' efforts.
That's the first time a client has ever gone way out of their way like that to help us get a job and I'm thrilled Ross has thought so much about our business to help so much.
And I'd usually end off with a comment about how we can repeat the process, but I really don't know. It's not as if we can ask our clients to visit potential clients and praise us up!
Or can we??!
References are good. Testimonials are fantastic. An in-person visit to provide a testimonial is unbelievable. Thanks Ross!
Cheers
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 03:29 PM | Comments (0)
May 10, 2005
How to be an expert - the top 5 ways
Here's my top 5 ways on being perceived as an expert within the web industry (a critical and effective marketing strategy):
1. Write a book
2. Make a speech to an industry body
3. Write industry specific articles
4. Hold a seminar
5. Have a strong media profile
It's all in perception. Education works in demonstrating to people your expertise and generating a positive perception. So start educating!
Cheers
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 11:05 AM | Comments (0)
March 31, 2005
The other question you should ask every customer
I know I've mentioned in these articles before about asking the 'golden' question.
That question is "Why should the customer do business with you?"
It's an incredibly valuable question. Figure that one out and you'll have a terrific business.
But I have another big question you should ask! And, as usual, I'm going to give you the answer in a story.
"What would you give us?"
A few years ago we finished a web site for a client. He was a delightful client and at the end of the project I asked him this question:
"What would you give us on a scale of 1 to 10 taking into account design, service, meeting deadlines, ease to work with, quality.......the entire experience?"
He was very happy with our service and the final product and he said we were great.
He gave us a 9 out of 10!
That's great, right??
No, it's not. It's okay. But not great. If you have happy clients you could well fail.
You see your customers won't come back to you if you are okay. I remember reading a study somewhere a couple of years ago that showed that if a business was rated above-average it had the same percentage of repeat customers and referred customers as an 'average ' business. Only when the business was ranked 'Excellent' did the repeat customer rate increase and did the referred customer rate go through the roof.
This is what I said to our client
"Mmmm, we want a 10! What do we have to do to get a 10?"
I can't really remember what he said, but they were a few minor things and we quickly did what he suggested. I went back to the client and said:
"Now would you give us a 10?!"
Nope! He had thought of a few more things whilst I was away dealing with the other issues! We quickly took care of his last concerns and he happily gave us a 10.
Now that's what we want! And we want that as a business because we know that delighted clients will tell others about us. Satisfied clients probably won't. And word of mouth referrals are the best way for most service businesses to grow their business.
Fast forward a month or two- (2) and I received a telephone call from a relative of the client who gave us the 10. He'd rung to say that he had been referred to us by our delighted client. (I love it when a plan comes together!)
He then proceeded to recount how impressed he was when his relative had detailed the "Out of 10" story!
We have since completed four- (4) (yep, 4!) web sites as a direct result of us asking that very simple question:
"What would you give us on a scale of 1 to 10?"
You don't want happy clients!
Happy clients are just okay. But that's all. You need absolutely delighted and overjoyed clients. They must want to shout your praises from the rooftops! That's the way to really build your business.
And there is one- (1) easy way to get delighted clients. Ask them what you have to do for them to be delighted. Ask them what you have to do to get them to refer others to you. Ask the second golden question:
"What do we have to do to make you absolutely delighted with our service?"
Then do what they say.
Regards
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 01:15 PM | Comments (0)
March 20, 2005
How to blow your profits through the roof......even without extra customers!!
Most people will tell you that to increase your profits you need to do two- (2) things:
1. increase your number of customers,
2. reduce your costs
And whilst they are excellent ways to grow your business, I'd like to add a couple more into the mix here. And I know just what you are going to do.
You are going to say, "Of course. That is so obvious."
But even though it may be obvious to you and I, it isn't obvious to the vast, vast majority of businesses I see.
Your customers are gold! Being customers, they have 2 fantastic things you should love about them.
2 FANTASTIC THINGS ABOUT CUSTOMERS
1. They are far more likely to buy from you again. That has to do with knowing you, knowing where you are and knowing they can trust you.
For most businesses, that costs plenty of money to achieve.
2. They tell their friends about you. A tremendous source of new business for many businesses is referrals from happy customers.
And it's been our experience that referred customers will buy more from you than customers who find you through any other means.
But encouraging referrals, as excellent an idea as that is, isn't what I'd like to talk about here.
One of the easiest ways to increase your sales
The first thing I'd like to mention is one of the easiest ways to increase your sales. This technique is so simple, so basic that I'm constantly amazed that all businesses don't devote a major part of their efforts to it.
Because all successful operators do this. And I just guarantee that just about all unsuccessful operators don't.
I'm going to use an example. It's a boring example because every man and his dogs uses it. But I'll use it because most people reading this will be able to identify with it. And that's important.
Example # 1: "Would you like fries with that?"
What a magnificent question. it's a simple question - a basic technique - that has generated millions and millions of dollars in sales.
They are called add-on sales.
Did you read above where I mentioned your customer is highly likely to buy from you again? Do you know when he/she is most likely to buy from you again?
That's right.......the customer is most likely to buy from you again when they are already buying from you.
They are at their most receptive. They have indicated their trust in you (other they wouldn't buy). They are in a buying mood.
Ask the customer to buy again whilst he is in the process of buying
Now is the time to ask them to buy again. Not sometimes. Not maybe. But every single time your customer buys from you, you should offer another item.
But be smart about it. Add value to whatever they have already purchased. Keep it related and relevant and you will make more sales. A ton more sales.
But get this. Even though this is an obvious and incredibly simple way to make a heap more sales, I cannot remember the last time anyone, anyone at all, offered me an add-on sale.
Let's say you sell sofas. That's a decent sized purchase for most people. How do you think you would go if you said,
"Madam, that's an excellent purchase - the colour is simply divine. I'd like to show you something that I think you will love.........this coffee table complements the lines of the sofa, etc, etc. Would you like to have the table to complement the sofa?"
Now, the customer isn't going to say "Yes" every time. There's no question about that.
But a good 20-30% of the time you will make that add on sale.
Give it a try and reap the rewards.
Maximise sales with this one- (1) easy technique!
The second thing I'd like to talk about is making as many sales as possible. And increasing the number of sales you make can be as simple as pie!
For this example, I don't want to use McDonalds. I'll use myself instead.
I've never considered myself to be good at selling. In fact I've never thought of myself as a salesman of any type. I very genuinely believe that I never actually sell anything.
But I've always been far more successful at having our clients buy our services than anyone else in our business.
So this is what I did. (And this made our sales jump by many, many thousands of dollars per year.)
Each of our team came along with me when I went to see prospective clients. We made notes of every variable we possibly could. Those differences were interesting, but not really relevant to the message here.
The message here is this:
Find the most successful salesperson you can find in your industry and copy him or her. And even benchmark against successful salespeople from any industry.
It's that simple!
One of the most interesting things that our team discovered was that I didn't 'sell' any of our clients.
We discovered that all I did was:
* asked lots of questions,
* listened to the answers,
* suggested solutions, and
* provided reasoning for the recommendations I gave.
The entire team started doing this - we practiced many a long hour - and immediately our sales conversion rates went through the roof.
Do what works!
* If it works, do it.
* If it doesn't work, don't do it.
* Examine the variables in your organisation. Survey your customers and find out why they purchased. Find your best salesperson and closely review what they do.
With all of that critical information you have a wonderful start to push you sales through the roof. Start today!
Regards
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)
March 17, 2005
How I stand to make at least $10,000 because of Friday night drinks
The team here at Tailored have a drink after work on Friday afternoons. We finish up about 4 p.m, open up the fridge and have a drink and a bite to eat in the boardroom.
During this time we shoot the breeze on anything from weekend plans to work issues.
We often have some terrific ideas during these relaxed chats and last week.....
We had a magnificent idea!!
Now, I know we are a marketing business and we deal with marketing issues every hour of every day. And I've done this for years and years. But this next idea has never entered my head. Until last week. And what an idea it is!
A simple twist has made a huge difference!
As you probably gather from this site, we use a variety of marketing strategies to generate leads and clients. And I'm more than happy to share these things with you, for a couple of reasons.
1. I'm sure you are smart enough to realise that we are giving away the tricks of our trade. This stuff is valuable intellectual property and can be incredibly valuable if used the right way.
2. I have every confidence that you don't read and think "Oh the sneaky little person!" I've even had a person email me and tell me that I would never get a client from this site because I show too much - wrong! This site simply demonstrates our expertise.
If you are a potential client you might recognise some strategies we use, but I believe most people see the strategies for what that are - good and decent ways to get new clients (I'd love you to use us of course, but I'd equally love you to follow the examples and do it yourself and make your business a great success).
Get on with it Brendon!
Okay, okay! Here it is.
We were discussing the results of the latest postcard mail out (we did 3 last week). One of the mail outs generated us 4 leads from 90 cards.
Bianka mentioned how funny it was that all of the people who responded have their businesses located very close to and knew personally one- (1) of the two- (2) people who we quoted in the testimonials.
My reply was pretty simple
"The biggest barrier to buying is the perception of risk. Every purchase is a risk. If you can remove the risk of doing business with you - maybe offer a 100% guarantee - then you will get more sales," I said.
"Because these new clients know the people we quoted on the cards, they can very easily check up on us and be reassured about the perceived level of risk. Thus, people who know other people we deal with are far more likely to contact us.
It's the very same reason that the vast majority of our business is provided by word-of-mouth referrals," I said.
Stick with me here......it's gold!
The response rate of that 90 card mail out was 4.4%. Not bad for a mail out.
We talked about that and a few other things.
Then it hit me like an arrow between the eyes!
We would, just like we did last week, generate a much better response to our mailings if we quoted testimonials from people that the person reading the card knew!
We would greatly increase our success rate by sending cards quoting businesspeople around the place of the person providing the quote.
So that's what we did!
The results?
Spectacular!
We've only sent our forty- (40) cards so far, but we've already had four- (4) responses. That's more than double the previous response. And a quick assessment of those four- (4) clients tells me that it could be worth $10,000.
All because of an easy chat over a wine and following a natural progression of thought. It seems so obvious now!
Regards
Brendon
(taken for a www.tailored.com.au article - article has since been removed)
Posted by Brendon at 05:58 PM | Comments (0)
March 14, 2005
Speaking To Get New Business
It's been my experience that public speaking generates new customers better than just about anything.
There's a range of reasons for that, but mostly it's down to 2 factors:
1. You are getting yourself known to your target market
2. You are perceived as an expert when you speak publicly on a topic (unless you're the worst speaker ever)
Immediate Credibility
If your speech is good you'll immediately establish credibility with your target market.
The personal nature of a speech also puts you in immediate contact with your market - to meet you they don't have to make a call, write a letter or send an email. The person simply has to come up to you at the end and say hello.
And it's that face-to-face meeting that's important. Now you're just not another web designer/developer but a real live person who they (hopefully) like and trust.
Speech Tonight
I'm giving a speech tonight to a business group.
The speech came about because I approached them and asked them if they'd like me to speak on Internet business.
My speech is specifically structured to be informative and entertaining.
Importantly the speech is structured very, very carefully to position me as an expert with loads of credibility. Every single part of the speech has been developed to perform a particular function.
1. Funny and self-deprecating
2. Demonstrate web expertise via a Case Study
3. Demonstrate industry credibility
4. Demonstrate experience
5. Demonstrate out-of-box thinking that create a success
6. Draw attention to the usual problems
7. Lead towards the solution
8. Offer proof of the solutions
9. Lead them towards how they can get the same result
10. Show how they can get the desired result
Information Available
At the end of the speech I'll have handouts for the audience, a list of resources they can request, information about us and what we do and a link to a feedback survey they can take.
From all of that I'd guess we'll generate 2-4 strong leads and will pick up 2-3 sales (web site jobs).
We'll then use the testimonial I'll be provided to generate additional speaking jobs within the same industry (and beyond).
Public speaking works at generating new clients better than just about any technique I've ever used. Is it something you can do too?
Regards
Brendon
Posted by Brendon at 09:25 AM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2005
The Chicken Or The Egg?
I had an interesting conversation today with some people.
The first guy was a prospect I was pitching web site marketing to. We were discussing the merits of various strategies:
* Search Engines
* E-mail advertising - with your own list
* Providing content (i.e. articles)
* Banner ads
* Offline advertising
* Encouraging word of mouth
* Etc
The client stopped me pretty quickly to let me know that his research indicated that 95% of web traffic to web sites (including his) came through Search Engines, so wasting his money on all other forms of web site marketing to attract the additional 5% just wasn't worth it.
Another prospect a little later, didn't want Search Engine marketing for his site because he had looked at his stats and knew that the vast majority of his web site traffic was generated from sources other than Search Engines. "Search Engines don't work!"
Who's right? Both of them.
Who's wrong? Both of them.
And that isn't some crazy pyschobabble. Let me explain.
If we develop a site and initially market it through Search Engines, I'll guarantee that the vast majority of people who find the site will find it through Search Engines.
If we develop a site and initially market it through an opt-in email list and magazine ads, I'll guarantee that the vast majority of people who find the site will find it through email campaigns and magazine ads.
The point is that web site marketing generally works.
Take a well rounded approach to the marketing of your site and you'll end up with a steady flow of visitors to your site from a variety of sources. If you do nothing but Search Engine marketing, 95% of your web visitors might well find you through Search Engines. But you're cutting yourself short.
(The best sort of marketing for a web site I have ever done has been offline PR. We're talking 10,000 highly targeted and motivated buyers visiting a site within 30 minutes of the PR piece going to air. Now that's marketing!)
Posted by Brendon at 11:57 PM | Comments (0)