Okay, you’ve all done the Step 1. You’ve built an attractive website.  And many of you have completed Step 2. You’ve optimized your website to improve search engine results. And the results are you are getting more traffic.

So what is Step 3? It is improving your conversion rate. If your website is like most, you want the visitor to do something… either order your product, contact you, donate money, join your mailing list, whatever. Getting your visitor to do something you want is called conversion. You have converted a passive visitor into someone who performs an action you desire.

The question is how do you achieve that conversion? Well, there are many things you can do. You can offer a game or something else for free. You can provide special information in exchange for an email signup. You can offer an online-only discount. All good.

But there is one thing you should do above all others. And that is write your content so it is focused on the site visitor. This is doubly true for your home page.

Think about the bricks-and-mortar counterpart. If a client walked into your office, would you just start rambling on about your company? Or would you tailor your conversation to the person you were facing, finding out what they needed and how you could help?

Take a look at your home page. How many instances of “we” and “our” and “I” do you see? And how many times is “you” or “your” used? You need to focus on “you,” not “I.”

I have seen countless websites that completely ignore the site visitor. Not a single “you” or “your” on the entire page. Every last sentence revolves around “us,” “we” and “our.” Can you imagine what type of telephone or face-to-face conversation that would be? For some reason, placing information online instead of communicating verbally gives license to be completely self-centered.

The copy should focus on how you can help your site visitors and what results they will see after using your products or services. Let me show you the difference.

Here’s a snippet of copy from a business that provides services to protect daycare centers from parents who are bad payment risks. Here’s the company-focused copy:

Our Best-Ever Parent-Check Software Is Now Available
Over the past ten years, we have developed innovative software designed to check parents’ histories and ensure they have no outstanding daycare payments or judgments. Now, our most advanced version is available. At Provider Watch, we guaranteed that version 2.0 has the most up-to-date database available. We keep a guarded watch over all our providers to prevent financial problems before they start. Contact us today for a free demonstration.

And the customer-focused copy:

Find Out If Parents Are Bad Payment Risks BEFORE You Accept Them as Customers
It’s a sad fact. Providers often face the hassles and stress of parents who are bad daycare payment risks. In many cases, these parents are just making the rounds…hopping from provider to provider. They may have a long history of non-payment or even childcare collection proceedings. If you had only known that to begin with, you would never have accepted them as your customers.

Provider Watch delivers the vital information you need to make confident and accurate decisions based on past daycare payment history.

See the difference? The first is all about the company. The second is all about the daycare center, its needs, and how Provider Watch can help.

It’s Not Just About the Copy

Everything about your website should focus on the site visitor. Yes, this includes copy that addresses and speaks to customers in their language and about their needs. It also includes the key phrases you choose, the colors you use, the layout of the pages, the navigation, the flow of information, the checkout process (if it’s an e-commerce site), etc.

With every decision you make about your copy, search optimization, design and usability, ask yourself this, “Does this focus on our site visitors? Specifically, how will this benefit our site visitors?” Because they are the ones with the money, doesn’t it make sense to create an environment that is engaging and comfortable for them?

It’s definitely a tough skill to grasp and it takes a different mindset to do it correctly. And yet it’s one of the simplest things you can do with your website to increase its conversions in a big way.

Actually, virtually all search engines offer local search, not just Google. I’ll list others at the end of this article, but for illustration purposes, I’ll focus on Google.

Here’s an example of a local search. Go to www.local.Google.com and type in the word “supermarkets” followed by your zip code or your town. A map will appear showing the supermarkets in your neighborhood. Most likely you’ll see phone numbers for each and links to their websites. Or, as another example, type in the words “web design 10033” and you’ll see Nexxite pop up. Pretty cool.

Now imagine that someone types into Google what you do along with the zip code or town in which you are located. Wouldn’t it be nice if your business appeared in a comparable list for your type of business? Well, you can appear easily and it is free.

Here’s what you do. (This should take you less than 15 minutes.) Go to http://www.google.com/local/add?hl=en&gl=us. On the right side of the screen, you will see the words “Sign up now.” If you already have a Google account, sign in. Otherwise, click on the “Sign up now” link. You will be asked to create a Google account (again, it is free). Once you do, you should be in the Google Local Business Center. Select “Add a new Business.” You will be asked to complete a form with your name, phone number, business description, website address, etc. Submit the form. That’s it.

Google may take a few weeks to list your business in its local search results, but in my experience, you will get there. And in the ultra-competitive world of the Internet, every little edge helps.

Here are some other search engines and directories offering local search:

YAHOO LOCAL

http://local.yahoo.com/

ADD YOUR BUSINESS

http://listings.local.yahoo.com/csubmit/index.php

MSN LOCAL

http://local.live.com/

ADD YOUR BUSINESS

http://webapp.localeze.com/bizreg/add.aspx

OTHER LOCAL SEARCH MARKETING OPTIONS

http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/local-search-marketing-guide/other-options/

Marketing on the Internet continues to grow exponentially. Print magazines and newspapers worldwide are suffering as more and more advertising dollars head to the Internet. Nobody uses the Yellow Pages anymore. Instead, they search online. And every website is competing for prime search engine space, such as the first page of Google. So what can you do to enhance your chances of being found there?

I have divided internet marketing into three major categories:

1. Search Engines – This broad area has two sub-sections: organic search and paid search. Organic search is where you optimize your website (Search Engine Optimization or SEO) with keywords and links to improve your position for those keywords in the non-paid, regular search result listings on the various search engines. Paid search is the other broad group of activities where your website is displayed in the sponsored listings on search engines. These listings appear either at the top or on the right side of the regular search results. In addition, there are many other forms of paid online advertising, such as banner ads, pop-ups and directed links to your site from other websites.
2. Networks – This category includes social networks such as MySpace and Facebook and business networks such as LinkedIn. Generally, they differ from ordinary websites in that they are private and most or all information they contain requires membership to access. As a rule, the social networks tend to cater to a younger audience. The key value all offer is a way to expose your products, services, thoughts and comments to a focused group of friends or like-minded individuals. Distribution is automated and your announcements go out with little effort on your part. You can direct recipients back to your website for more details. An enormously popular new service is Twitter where you can tell followers what’s new at your business in 140 characters or less.
3. Content – This category covers the content you post on your website and elsewhere to bring traffic to your site and get visitors to return. Articles, white papers and lists of resources on your site provide this. Also developing and maintaining a blog apart from your site can increase visitors to your site. Also in this category is the online press. There are ways to submit your expertise with reporters such as helpareporterout.com. It also includes posting to other people’s blogs. All are ways of publicizing your business and bringing traffic back to your website.

All the above are valuable avenues to pursue and all will increase your chances of being found on search engines. Of course, all cost time or money or both, but today for most businesses, the effort is well worth it.

Color choices influence to some degree how a website and the company behind it are perceived. Depending on your message, your choice of colors can help convey integrity, strength, calmness, ability, excitement or action. The following is a brief synopsis of some generally held beliefs about the impact of different colors.

When determining which colors are right for a website, you are not just choosing one color. Rather, your site should have a unified and harmonious set of colors, and there are many options to consider. We can utilize a monochromatic color scheme, i.e., variations in lightness and saturation of a single color, or analogous color schemes that use colors that are adjacent to each other on the “color wheel” or many other combinations including complimentary and split-complimentary, triadic and tetradic schemes. For this article, however, let’s just consider the impact of individual colors rather than in relation to each other.

Red is considered to be an emotionally intense color. While red is commonly associated with danger, it is also used to stimulate people to make quick decisions. Red is highly visible, so using it to bring text and images to the forefront makes it a perfect color for “buy now” or “add-to-cart” buttons.

While not as aggressive as red, orange is also a highly visible color, ideal for calling attention to or highlighting the most important elements of a design, without causing stress.

Yellow produces a warming effect, arouses cheerfulness, stimulates mental activity, and generates muscle energy. Use yellow to evoke pleasant, uplifting feelings. You can choose yellow to promote children’s products and items related to leisure. Use yellow carefully however, as a dull yellow represents caution.

Green is the color of nature — symbolizing growth, harmony, and fertility. Green has a strong emotional link with safety and is considered to be the most restful color for the human eye. Green suggests stability and endurance, making it a perfect fit for finance-related design, but is also used to indicate safety, making it a viable choice for medical-related design.

Blue, often associated with stability, symbolizes trust, wisdom and confidence. Blue has been shown to produce a calming effect and is often used to promote products and services related to cleanliness. More accepted by males than females, it is a preferred color for corporate America.

Black typically carries a negative connotation but carries with it a feeling of perspective and depth. Strength and authority are also attributed to black. Although black backgrounds diminish readability, combined with other intense colors such as red, they remain aggressive and unique, good for attracting a risk-taking mindset.

The above ideas only touch the surface of color theory, but perhaps they help you think about whether your present website colors send the message you wish to project.

 Many of you make frequent changes to your websites, but others never touch them after they are built. To get the most out of your website, it should be changed in some way at least once a year. The change can be very minor. It doesn’t have to be a new service or product. It can just be slightly different wording. There are several reasons why any change to a site is a good idea.

The search engines look for change. They want to see something different when they revisit your site and they will rank it higher than an otherwise similar site if it has been updated more recently. They interpret updates to mean a site is more active and interesting to their searching audience.

Secondly, updating your site keeps it interesting for returning visitors and regular customers. If they see something new, an article or a special offer, they will be inclined to return more often and they are more likely to refer others to you.

Finally, a website can get out of date simply because you haven’t looked at it lately. An update is an opportunity to review the content and confirm that it is still correct. You may have changed your focus or dropped or added services. Or you may just have a new and better way to express your message. Whatever, you need to make sure your site reflects your current business.

It’s like changing your smoke detector batteries. Do it at least once a year, just to be safe.

Not all websites sell something, but those that do face the challenge of changing visitors into buyers. This is called “conversion” and this article addresses ways to improve your conversion rate.

Even if you don’t sell anything on your site, all websites can benefit from most of these suggestions.

There is a process or sequence most websites go through. First, of course, is designing and building the site. But once it is up and running, it does no good if nobody goes there. So the second step in the process is often to increase traffic. We have worked with many of you to optimize your sites to improve search engine rankings. And most of you promote your site in other ways as well, such as offline advertising, email blasts and newsletters, speaking engagements, articles, etc.

After going through all the above, you probably have visitors coming to your website, but now you face the challenge of conversion. How do you get those visitors to take the next step and contact you to buy your product or service? Here are some tips to improve your chances. (I will be happy to speak with you in more detail about any of these.)

1. Know Your Unique Selling Point

Your unique selling point is what sets you apart from your competition. If a visitor goes to several sites looking for a product, why would they decide to buy from you instead of someone else? Great customer service, low prices, products that can’t be bought elsewhere, free delivery, great support – all of these are competitive advantages. Tell your users what yours is, loud and clear.

2. Be Helpful

A good site will include information. A poor one is only an online listing. Information (articles, advice, reviews, etc.) helps the user early in their buying process. Users start with research online, just as they do offline. If you can make contact with the user at that stage of their process, and give a favorable impression and useful information for their decisions, there is a good chance they will come back and buy from you when they finally decide to make a purchase.

3. Make the User’s Life Easy

The more difficult you make your web site to use, the less people will buy from you. Here are some items to remember:

• Make the most important information visible “above the fold.” Don’t force people to scroll or hunt for an important button or link. Make it obvious and visible.
• Make sure your site runs on all major browsers. Some sites run fine on Internet Explorer but can’t be viewed properly on Firefox or Safari. Not everyone uses Internet Explorer.
• Be wary of technology that is not universal, such as Flash. A website built entirely in Flash is fine only if you know your target market is going to have Flash loaded.
• Be careful about adding levels and clicks that slow the visitor down, like too many steps to get to the desired information or forcing the visitor to wait through a long intro page.

4. Offer Different Payment Options

It might sound obvious, but you should offer the user a reasonable selection of methods of payment. Not everybody likes to use a credit card, especially online. Accept checks. Offer PayPal. Make the user’s life easy and give them alternate ways to pay you.

5. Keep the User Informed

When somebody buys something online, they want to know when it’s going to arrive. Give them an estimated delivery date. Tell them up front how long shipping generally takes. Emailing them when their product is dispatched is great. Keep the user informed at every step of the process, before and after sale, about as much as you can.

How will this improve your conversion rate? Leaving the customer happy once they have completed their purchase means they are more likely to speak favorably about you later. They may even recommend you to their friends and within online communities. They are also far more likely to buy from you again.

6. Have a Clear Return Policy

Returns on the web are, and are likely to remain, a major issue for consumers. With a bricks and mortar shop, the customer knows where the shop is and that to return the product they simply have to go back there and explain the problem. With the web, this is more of an issue. Users are impressed with sites with a good return policy and are more likely to buy from them. Give the user plenty of time to return things. 30 days from the date of delivery is a good guideline.

7. Help the User Trust You

Most people are still cautious when buying online, and rightly so. It’s important to give the potential customer every reason to trust you. A phone number is a good start. Showing a privacy policy and explaining shipping procedures clearly can also help the user to trust you. If you have a SSL certificate, show the “VeriSign Secured” logo to the user.

Design and content also play a part in trust. A poor design gives off an unprofessional feeling. If a company can’t afford a decent website, or won’t spend the money on it, how can a user be sure their order will be treated with the importance it deserves? If content is inaccurate or badly written, the same thing applies.

8. Be Clear, Open and Honest

If you have a product that is out of stock or already sold, say so. Few things annoy users as much as reading all about something they want, only to find out it isn’t actually available. The value of clarity and honesty cannot be overstated. Be clear and do not misrepresent your business in any way.

There are other things we can do to get visitors to trust you, enjoy returning to your site and moving to the next step of buying. These include interactive options such as chatting with you online in real time, offering a staffed phone number, and providing games, jokes or other entertainment, to name a few. The bottom line is you are trying to make your site interesting and trustworthy and of course, easy to use.

When is the best time to send a business email? One marketing expert suggests Tuesday through Thursday, just after 9:30 am or just after lunch around 1:30 pm.

Ever wonder what some of those computer terms mean? Like what exactly is a podcast? Or malware? Well, here is a website with an extensive list of definitions of technical terms:
http://whatis.techtarget.com/