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Is your website failing your business? 30 reasons why… Part 3

After another cliffhanger last week here’s the final part in our list of 30 reasons why your website is failing your business.

We meet a lot of people who are wondering whether or not they should invest their hard earned cash in a website redesign. They’ve already spent (sometimes a significant amount of) money and yet, for some reason, their web site doesn’t seem to be delivering results for their business. When we look at their site the reasons are usually pretty obvious but sometimes they’re more obscure.

Occasionally we have to tell people that their site is in fact doing more harm than good and that’s never a happy moment.

Here’s the final part of a list that, although by no means exhaustive, covers lots of the more common problems. Some of these things are more significant than others but they all have an impact. Let me know what you think….

Part three…

21. Not accessible

I’ve alluded to this elsewhere in this series. In this day and age you have a duty to try and make your site as accessible to as many people as possible regardless of their ability. I know a blind lady who knows more about the internet that you and I put together. She has a large disposable income, shops online regularly and does lots of research online for business. If she comes across a site that isn’t accessible she won’t phone you up instead she’ll just go elsewhere. There is also legislation on the horizon in the UK which will mean that your site (B2C sites first), will have to be accessible.

22. Poor usability

If a user has to engage their brain in order to use your website then it’s too complex. Do the granny test again or ask a five year old to accomplish some tasks on your website. Usability is a science in its own right but think about gadgets and websites that are pleasure to use – that’s good usability.

23. No call to action

You’ve gone to a lot of trouble to attract users to your website but are you asking visitors to your website to do something? Here’s a clue – the answer should be yes? It could be as simple as calling you (’call us now!’), or buying something (’buy now’). The web is direct, immediate and fast. Don’t muck about just ask the question. Be clear and maybe even be cheeky.

24. Long sign up process

Don’t do it. On the web you need to remove as much guff as possible from your sign up processes. Think about Amazon and their one click buying process or The Book Depository with their checkout and sign-up on one page process. The more steps in any process and the more likely it is that people will drop out. The more personal information that you ask for and the more likely it is that people will drop out. Don’t lose business simply because you have some need to know your customer’s inside leg measurement. Unless you sell trousers online of course.

25. Frames

You might not even know if you site has been built using frames but any web designer can tell you – maybe for free.  Your customers won’t be able to bookmark pages when they’re in your site so even if they find something they’re interested in they won’t be able to come back. But they’ll be so irritated by this time they probably won’t want to. I wouldn’t. Search engines don’t like them and find it hard to see the content – if they can’t see the content they can’t index you properly so they won’t. If a customer enters on a subpage they might find that some or all of the navigation is missing. Again, do you really want to irritate your potential customers?

26. Excessive use of Flash or Flash intros

Flash is a proprietary software that is useful for creating cool web effects and animations. Some websites are built entirely in Flash. They often look really cool. Oh, unless you’re using an iPhone. Or an iPad. Or you live in the country and have a slow web connection. There’s a lot of debate amongst developers about the use of Flash but essentially content displayed in Flash is largely inaccessible, it can slow down a website, if you’re one of the 2 million iPhone users in the UK it’s invisible and there are alternatives available. As for flash intros, read #3 again and add that argument to this one.

27. Ads that users can skip

There are some very big sites that have video ads that appear when you go to their website. You can skip the ad if you can find the little cross in the corner but essentially you are forced to watch an advert before you can see the content you’re looking for. The only organisations that can get away with this have unique and compelling content that cannot be found elsewhere. If you think you’d like to earn some extra pennies with this kind of advertising you’d better be certain that people will tolerate the ads.

28. You hired a black hat

Did someone promise you the top spot on Google? Did you hire them? The only people that can promise the top spot on Google is Google. And they won’t. Apologies to all the self proclaimed ‘web gurus’ out there but that’s a cold hard fact. The chances are that if you hire someone and within a couple of weeks you ended up in that coveted number one spot (for a competitive search term), they did something to deliberately fool the search engines. It’s impressive and exciting. Briefly. As soon as Google et al recognise that you’ve manipulated them (your site remember), they will penalise you and send you tumbling back down the rankings. There are legitimate ways to work your way up the rankings so hire a professional and be patient.

29. Meaningless domain name

Before you leap in and buy a domain name have a good hard think about it. If you sell toffees and your name’s John Smith you should probably steer clear of  johnsmith.com. That said jsmithtoffeemaker.com is probably a good bet – not to mention probably available. If possible try to make the name describe an action rather than an identity (although it might be possible to do both). Always go for a top level if you can .com .org or .co.uk. If you end up with jsmithtoffeemaker.tv everyone will think you’re an online tv channel.

30. It’s not your website, it’s you

If you have a website and people get in touch with you then please, please respond to them. Quickly. The web is instant. It’s all about instant gratification, instant information, instant availability, instant everything. If you think it can wait until later, you’re sadly mistaken. I recently made an enquiry for the same product on four different websites. One didn’t respond at all. One responded within 24 hours – not bad. One responded within 11 minutes – much better. The company that got my order responded to me in three minutes flat. They were quick, keen and professional. This stuff isn’t easy but you can develop processes that allow you to respond very quickly even if you’re a tiny company.

Essentially all of these things require attention because they adversely affect the users experience on your website and with your business. If there’s one lesson to take away from this series of posts it’s that visitors to your site will not tolerate a poor experience.

If your web site is out of date we can advise you on a sensible and cost effective way to put it right. If you ultimately need a new site and we design and build it for you, you now know of at least 30 things that won’t let it down.

The next blog post will be along shortly. I promise no more cliffhangers for a while but you don’t want to miss out you can subscribe to the blog. If it’s easier just let us know and we’ll send it to you in an email.

Ursus Media are based in Swindon, Wiltshire and specialise in web design, development, eCommerce and online marketing for small and medium businesses throughout the South West.

Written by Adam Moore, July 08th, 2010
Filed under: Learning, Opinion, web design | No Comments »

Is your website failing your business? 30 reasons why…

We meet a lot of people who are wondering whether or not they should invest their hard earned cash in a website redesign. They’ve already spent (sometimes a significant amount of) money and yet, for some reason, their web site doesn’t seem to be delivering results for their business. When we look at their site the reasons are usually pretty obvious but sometimes they’re more obscure.

Occasionally we have to tell people that their site is in fact doing more harm than good and that’s never a happy moment.

Here’s a list that, although by no means exhaustive, covers lots of the more common problems. Some of these things are more significant than others but they all have an impact. Let me know what you think….

1. Lack of focus

What exactly is your website for? If you don’t know how will your customers? Think about what you want your website to do – is it simply a showcase for your products or services, does it need to encourage people to call you or sign up for an email newsletter, are you selling online? ‘I just think we need a website’ is not a clear business objective. ‘We need a web presence so that users can find and contact us’, is. A good web marketing company can help you define these objectives but you know your business better than anyone. You wouldn’t advertise on the side of a bus unless you had a good reason for doing so.

2. It’s on it’s own with no support

I’m really sorry to have to tell you this but a website is just part of the marketing mix. If you invest in a website and expect it to suddenly deliver customers and revenue you’re likely to be disappointed. The more tightly you can integrate all of your marketing efforts (on and offline) the better.

3. Splash pages

If a web developer is offering you a ‘free custom splash page’, move along and move along now. They are offering to put a free and for gratis barrier between your customers and the information they’re looking for site. It’s beyond stupid. Tell them you want something of value instead. We occasionally have special offers – sometimes we’ll even include something for free. But it won’t be a splash page.

4. Hidden contact details

If visitors to your site cannot immediately see a way to contact you they’ll lose all confidence in you. You must make it easy for people to get in touch in a way that suits them.

5. Automatic audio/video

If I arrive at your website and it plays a video or music at me as soon as I arrive I will leave. And I might be a potential customer. I might even be interested in your video. You’ll never know. Let your visitors be in control of their browsing experience; it’s not your place to tell them what to do. You can steer them in the direction you want but it’s never a good idea to force a user to do something.

6. Slow loading sites

If it takes forever for your site to load you’ll lose customers and Google will penalise you. If your site takes more than about 8 seconds to load you might want to review how it’s been coded and how and where it’s hosted.

7. Poor page layout

There’s no excuse for this and any decent web designer should be able to get this right. Do the granny test – give your granny a list of 5 or 6 simple tasks that you’d like her to accomplish on your site; find the phone number, add something to a basket, find a core product. If she fails have a rethink… or ask us for some advice.

8. First impression of your business

‘Never judge a book by its cover’. Never has a saying been more wrong. Studies suggest that users make up their mind about a website in less than the blink of an eye. Your website is like a shopfront or the reception at your office. The difference is that it’s not just visible to people on the high street or that visit your office: it’s visible to everyone on the planet with a computer. A website is the cheapest marketing investment you can make in terms of the number of people that you can reach but it’s also the most visible so you’d better do it properly.

9. Animations, scrolling marquees, animated gifs

If your designer has included any of these things please put them back in their time machine and send them back to 1995. There was a time when these things were novel and eyecatching but the web has grown up and so have it’s users. If you ask us to include any of these on a site expect us to be um… honest.

10. Not tested in any browser other than your own

Websites render differently in different browsers. It’s amazing how often we see a site that looks beautiful in Firefox but awful in Internet Explorer. This is often the hardest bit for DIY web designers and developers to get right. You should test and code so that a site works well in all modern web browsers. Older browser often have less functionality but your site should also cope well with these and degrade gracefully.

11. There’s no useful information on your site…

…and that’s what we call a cliffhanger.

Part two will be right along next week. If you don’t want to miss it you can subscribe to the blog or if it’s easier just let us know and we’ll send it to you in an email.

Written by Adam Moore, June 22nd, 2010
Filed under: General, Opinion, web design | 3 Comments »

Twitter Weekly Updates for 14-05-2010

Written by Adam Moore, May 14th, 2010
Filed under: News, Social Media, Tweets | No Comments »

Simple social media marketing

Social media marketing is a black art for many companies.

Engaging with your customers online can be very scary if you haven’t done it before. Although it has its challenges it can offer brilliant insights into what they think of you. It can also give you the opportunity to head off issues before they get out of control and win support from a sophisticated and sceptical audience.

Beyond the simple idea of talking to your customers in the way that suits them best (which has to be good), it also extends the reach of your organisation way beyond the bounds of your own website and can add a lot of value in terms of search engine optimisation (SEO), which is something I’ll discuss in a later post.

In a previous post I discussed talking to your customers with Twitter. In this superb article, originally posted on Marketing 2.0, Lois Kelly offers another 12 ideas to try.

“Many companies still think of Facebook or blogs when they hear ’social media’.  Here are 13 approaches and my assessment of their value and cost.

Shareable content

1. Social tagging: add social media bookmarks/functionality on every page of your site. This will increase your keyword relevancy and organic search rankings, reducing paid search costs. Value: High/Cost: Low

2. Social mediafy your campaigns: create content people want to share; tap into right social media rigger points, places and people. This will increase viral effect, getting greater reach for less than paid media, traditional PR. Value: High/Cost: Moderate

3. Badges, widgets, ringtones: make it easy for people to promote your company ‘wearing’ badges, sharing branded music. Value: Low/Cost: Low

4. Embed customer reviews/recommendations in your site: Online reviews are second only to personal advice from a friend as the driver of purchase decisions. So why not make it easy for people to decide when they come by your site? Value: High/Cost: Moderate

5. Create a YouTube channel, strategy: We live in a video world. Marketing needs to, too. Value: Moderate/Cost: Moderate to High

6. Take blogging to the next level: move from corporate mouthpiece to more of an online media property with high value to customers and prospects. Value: Moderate/Cost: Moderate

7. Use social sharing sites: Got great content? Share it and tag it where people can find it. Like on Slideshare.net. Value: Low/Cost: Low

Engaging

8. Create a Twitter channel, strategy: There’s a reason why Twitter, which has grown from 4 million 54 million users ini the past year, is disrupting Facebook, email and blogging. Head on over to Pistachio to get all the stats and good business cases on this trend. And then just get on so you experience what it’s all about. Value: Moderate/Cost: Low to Moderate

9. Create ambassador programs: So many of your employees and customers want to help your company by commenting on blogs, Twittering, facilitating communities. Figure out a way to make it easy for people who love you to share the love. That’s word of mouth at its best and social media makes it easy to activate. Value: High/Cost: Moderate to High

Insights/Ideas

10. Create a system to monitor social media conversations: Track issues and trends good and bad to be able to react; ’see’ how campaigns working or not and adjust; get competitive insights, nip problems before they’re big problems; inject Web 2.0 into customer service function. Value: Moderate to High/Cost: Low to Moderate

11. Tap into the wisdom of your crowds: hold webstorm brainstorming sessions and online raves to get ideas from employees, customers, partners on how to solve problems small and big, how to do things better, how to stop doing things that aren’t so valuable. You’ll be able to cut costs, prioritize more easily, find new ideas. Plus when people participate and feel heard they’re more likely to share positive word of mouth about your company. Value: Moderate to High/Cost: Moderate to High

12. Map your social media ecosystem: use social analytics to understand what’s being talked about in your industry about your company; your social media hot spots; who your advocates and detractors are, and what content your audience likes. Value: Low to Moderate/Cost: Low to Moderate

Communities

13. Bring people together: develop specialised communities for like-minded people to share advice, get help, offer help, learn, solve problems, be entertained, create new business models, or change the world. One of the secrets to community success: tapping into deeply-felt and/or widely-felt issues. Check out The Tribalization of Business site, with results from last year’s study and the 2009 survey to learn more about communities. Value: High/Cost: Moderate to High”

Most of these ideas cost very little and present little or no risk to your organisation. Some might not be for you but I would suggest that at least one or two of these things should form part of every company’s social media strategy.

Ursus Media can develop your digital marketing strategy, help integrate it with your overall marketing approach and help you engage with your customers in many different ways. If you’re not sure where to start we run regular courses in social media for business and can teach you how get the maximum benefit from your social media efforts.

Written by Adam Moore, May 07th, 2010
Filed under: Learning, Social Media | No Comments »

7 Reasons to blog for business

From a business point of view there are lots of good reasons to write a blog. The best business blogs give their readers a more personal perspective on sometimes impersonal corporations and allow them to engage in real dialogue with those in charge. A good blog can foster a loyal following of fans that will help you market your business in ways that would otherwise be impossible.

Here are 7 reasons to blog for your business:-

1. Become established as a thought leader in your industry.
This will appeal to customers who will visit your site or even subscribe to you as source of reliable knowledge and to potential customers who will see that you have your finger on the pulse and you understand what you’re talking about.

2. Foster a community.
You never know, you might end up engaging some of your competitors in conversation and find that you could work together. This happens a lot in creative industries; why should yours be any different?

3. Share knowledge.
Well why not? Educate and inform people and you’ll quickly find that they have a greater understanding of what you do. Take this article for example; after you’ve read this you’ll have a better understanding of blogging for business. If you ask us to build a website you’ll at least understand why you should consider adding a blog to it. If you do decide to write a blog you’ll have thought about what it needs to do for your business and maybe even have a content plan in place.

4. Court the search engines.
The search engines love websites that have lots of regularly updated, relevant content. If you blog little and often it will massively help your websites ranking on the likes of Google. If you link to other relevant sites and they link back to yours you’ll get even more of a boost.

5. It’s a ready-made PR channel.
Every so often you can insert a bit of exciting news about your company. The people that follow your blog and find it interesting will be pleased to hear the odd snippet of good news about you. We’ve just launched a special offer and moved offices and I’ve blogged about both. Now though we’re back to business – something useful for you. Don’t overdo the ‘news about us’ angle. It can backfire. Blogging is a type of social media so you give something to your readers and with a bit of luck they’ll give you something back maybe some free feedback or a community of eager testers.

6. Building relationships.
Let’s be honest, your website exists to help you sell.  Your blog however is a forum where your main objective is not to sell. It can help you establish a more personal relationship with your customers some of whom will engage with you much more deeply and on a less formal footing. They’ll see your blog as a way to talk to you on a level playing field and you should embrace this. These people will be your most loyal supporters.

7. You might learn something.
Seek out information and write stories that interest you. Expand on them – maybe turn these stories into a series. You might learn something useful in the process and be able to add even more value to your company’s offering. Think about your readers and what you can give them.

I think these are all pretty good reasons to write a blog. If you can think of any more or even if you disagree with me (cough splutter), let me know.

Written by Adam Moore, March 24th, 2010
Filed under: Blogging, Learning, Opinion, Social Media | No Comments »

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