You could call this an advertorial. Maybe it is but it’s also fact:

When we build a new website, even if you don’t commission us to help with your ongoing SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), we will optimise your site for search.

This isn’t us giving you something for free. This is just us being professional and doing a fantastic job with the code, content and pictures that make up your sexy new website.

We lovingly handcraft gorgeous code – Google will fancy you rotten.

If other web designers don’t give you this service or want you to pay through the nose for it give us a call. Seriously… don’t muck about – 01793 554900.

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.

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.

If you think that your business doesn’t need to use social media or that it doesn’t even need a website then the following video from the clever and talented people at Socialnomics is going to make you really uncomfortable. Er… sorry.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQZAmr_-WVI

Still, not to worry; getting your company in front of some of these people isn’t rocket science. Here’s an easy to follow plan:-

• Decide what you want to achieve
• Get yourself a well designed and coded website (get it right and your site can grow and evolve with your business)
• Make sure you have some analytics installed on it (putting your efforts into your online channel is pointless unless you can measure the results)
• Write an online marketing strategy (a medium to long term plan that will make sure that you do everything for a reason -- you can tweak it as you go along)
• Learn how to use the right tools so that you’re not wasting time but make sure that you devote some time to this.

Finally some free of charge top tips (are we mad* or are we the kind of people you want to work with?):

Top tip #1: Find somebody in your organisation who is using Twitter, Facebook or maybe writing a blog and make them your social media ambassador. Give them some clear guidelines and a little time everyday and they’ll love you for it.

Top tip #2: We can help. Engage Ursus Media to design and build the perfect website for you and then let us help you join up all the elements of the what is now a very social web.

*Not mad. Absolutely the people you want to work with.

Web analytics tools can deliver a vast amount of information to you about your website and your business. Arguably one of the most useful metrics is the bounce rate. Bounce rate tells you about visitors who have literally ‘bounced’ away without visiting any other parts of your site.

A great way to measure the quality of traffic to your website, the bounce rate is easy to understand and communicate to the other parts of your business and can help identify the areas in which your site is failing your visitors.

In the following video Google’s Avinash Kaushik explains why he thinks the bounce rate metric is so useful:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppgfjo6IIf4

If your marketing efforts are effective the amount of quality traffic to your website will increase, therefore fewer users will bounce away and the percentage will go down.

So the 20 million dollar question -- what constitutes a good bounce rate? Well, the lower the better. Remember you will never be able to reduce your bounce rate to zero but a good figure for a business website is around 30%. If you can achieve this, or even reduce it, you’ll find that your all important conversion rates will go up.

A note to bloggers: don’t panic! Blogs are different. Visitors are often attracted to your site by a single relevant post, they’ll enter your site at the post and may well navigate away again after they’ve read it or by clicking on a useful link that you’ve provided. This doesn’t mean you haven’t attracted quality traffic; it’s just the nature of blogging. There’s still a rule of thumb metric for you though. If you can achieve a bounce rate of 50% or less you’re doing well.

Forthcoming related posts will include more ideas for getting the most from your analytics tools. If you want to keep up why don’t you subscribe to our feed?

Related posts:

• Beginning analytics

Analysis of the traffic on your website goes way beyond the simple counting of ‘hits’. Analytics gives you a real understanding of how people are using your website, what they’re doing once they arrive and where they came from. You can see conversion rates, work out what works and what doesn’t for your site and even work out the value of each visit.

A good analytics package will help you to give your customers what they want, improve your website, get more for your marketing spend and increase revenue because of the business insights it can deliver.

There are lots of great analytics packages available to you and by happy coincidence one of the best, Google Analytics, is free. Don’t be mislead by the word free, there are some very big businesses using Google Analytics every day. I have experience of using it on a site with an average of 750,000 visitors per month and I use it here on the Ursus Media website because it’s such a powerful tool. You should bear in mind that although a Google Analytics account is free your developers will charge you for the time required to set up the account and implement the code on your website.

The following video from Google gives a quick overview of interpreting and using the data from Google Analytics. Most packages deliver similar metrics so although this is Google specific it’s easy to relate to other tools.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hdsb_uH2yPU

Google Analytics is a superb tool and it never fails to surprise me that it’s free (although there are some exceptions -- see Google’s T&Cs). There are of course other tools available to you but but they all give you similar information and the insights for your business should not be underestimated. This is only the beginning.

Useful resources

• Ursus Media courses
• Wikipedia on web analytics
• Technorati on web analytics
• Google Analytics

Writing for the web is a skill that is often neglected. For a number of reasons it’s not the same as writing for print media so sadly you can’t just recycle the copy from your brochure.

A few key things to remember when you’re writing for web are:

1. Capture your audience’s attention: You have to capture you reader’s attention almost immediately – believe me if you haven’t got them interested with the first few words they’ll probably move on. Use the inverted pyramid technique and start with the conclusion and follow with the details.

2. Less is more: Be clear, be concise. If you can pare an article down to a headline and a series of bullet points then maybe you should.

3. Make it meaningful: Don’t waste your reader’s time.  If you’re going to tell them something, make it accurate and useful.

4. Have a call to action: Users time is precious so you might as well make the most of it. Ask them to buy, donate, download or simply comment. If they go on and follow your call to action you’ll get another useful insight as to whether or not your content is working.
   
   
5. Don’t forget the science: Writing content for the web has another more scientific dimension. Copy must be written in such a way as to make it more attractive to search engines like Google. Of course this can be overdone and it mustn’t compromise the integrity of your message. This science bit is a facet of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and I’ll cover this in a later post.

If, forgetting for the time being item 5, this all seems very easy then why don’t you try a little exercise? Take a 1500 or 2000 word article, maybe something from a corporate brochure and edit it down to 500 words. You still have to include all the salient points and it still has to make sense.

Harder than it sounds? Let me know how you got on by leaving a comment at the bottom of the page.

If you want to keep up you can subscribe to our feed for free and if you’d like some help with a project remember that we provide blogging, copywriting and training services. Drop us a line if you think we can help with your project.