“Thanks Nick. You took what was initially a daunting task for us, and made the whole process simple. The new site looks fantastic.”

“Nicks marketing nous added immense value to this project. His advice on what to say & where to say it has created a site our shareholders are very pleased with.”

“Cheers Guys, the new site is great and has been generating LOADS of leads!!!! I definitely owe you a beer!”

1. Splash Pages: Remember when almost every website made you view an image or animation before you got to enter the site? Such splash pages frustrate users and significantly decrease website conversions. In almost every case a splash page is a terrible idea.
2. Large amounts of flash: Flash can add visual impact to your site. However, this needs to be balanced with the fact it is not properly indexed by search engines, cannot be viewed on iPhones or iPads and can be slow to download. Never place anything important inside flash.
3. Bulky Images: Not everyone has a great internet connection or a huge screen. Keep your image sizes small to ensure the majority of people can enjoy your website.
4. Graphics for site navigation: If you are serious about search engine optimisation your main site navigation should be text rather than graphics based.
5. Too much animation: Movement attracts the eye but can make reading difficult. Don’t let too much movement impact on the ability of a site visitor to understand your message.
6. Bleeding edge technology: Avoid technology that requires users to download special software or acquire new skills. Often, they will do neither, and your website will be less effective.
7. Being unique: Your product, design and content can be unique. Your site navigation and the way people use your website should not be. It is vital to stick to website conventions. Confusing people will affect the success of your website.
8. Tricks to fool search engines: It can be tempting to bend the rules and artificially manipulate a search engines’ view of your site. However, any short term gains will likely be more than offset if you get caught and your domain is demoted or worst case, entirely removed from Google altogether.
9. Background music: Making an impact with your website is a good thing. Annoying your users, embarrassing them at work or severely slowing down the browsing of your website is not. Very few websites benefit from background music or audio that launches automatically.

10.  Automatic pop-up windows: No-one likes websites that create automatic pop-up windows. While there is a chance that pop-ups can convert some site visitors you need to balance this with the larger number of people who will be annoyed and driven away by them.

There are aspects of this list that are subjective and I can begrudgingly admit that there are possibly some items above that have a role to play for some websites. Does your website contain any of the above? Do you know for sure whether they are helping or hindering your online success? Make today the day you take a fresh look at your website.

As a website owner you need to critically evaluate your ability, as well as the time you can dedicate to writing appealing content for your website. Be tough in evaluating your skills and get the opinions of people you trust about your ability to do the job yourself. If you don’t have the skills then you may like to outsource the job to a professional copywriter.

It is crucial to consider the following 6 points in relation to your website content:

1. Actions: Your website exists to push your visitors into taking a particular action. Your copy needs to lead the reader in this direction.
2. Headlines: A great headline is crucial. If the headline doesn’t grab the readers’ attention they probably won’t read any further.
3. Features versus benefits: Your website visitors don’t care about you. They care about their problem and the solution you can offer them.
4. Simplicity: Keep your language simple, avoid industry jargon and get straight to the point. If your visitors don’t understand what you do within seconds of visiting your website, then you have failed.
5. Keep it short: Short words, short paragraphs and short pages. When you finish writing, edit what you have written to make it shorter. Then make it shorter again.
6. Search engines: Understand the keywords people use to find your services or products and make sure you use these keywords in a sensible and highly readable way.

Most importantly, don’t underestimate the power of the written word. You might find that the perfect words will deliver you more website improvements than any number of design tweaks or functionality changes.

1. Splash Pages: Remember when almost every website made you view an image or animation before you got to enter the site? Such splash pages frustrate users and significantly decrease website conversions. In almost every case a splash page is a terrible idea.
2. Large amounts of flash: Flash can add visual impact to viagra site. However, this needs to be balanced with the fact it is not properly indexed by search engines, cannot be viewed on iPhones or iPads and can be slow to download. Never place anything important inside flash.
3. Bulky Images: Not everyone has a great internet connection or a huge screen. Keep your image sizes small to ensure the majority of people can enjoy your website.
4. Graphics for site navigation: If you are serious about search engine optimisation your main site navigation should be text rather than graphics based.
5. Too much animation: Movement attracts the eye but can make reading difficult. Don’t let too much movement impact on the ability of a site visitor to understand your message.
6. Bleeding edge technology: Avoid technology that requires users to download special software or acquire new skills. Often, they will do neither, and your website will be less effective.
7. Being unique: Your product, design and content can be unique. Your site navigation and the way people use your website should not be. It is vital to stick to website conventions. Confusing people will affect the success of your website.
8. Tricks to fool search engines: It can be tempting to bend the rules and artificially manipulate a search engines’ view of your site. However, any short term gains will likely be more than offset if you get caught and your domain is demoted or worst case, entirely removed from Google altogether.
9. Background music: Making an impact with your website is a good thing. Annoying your users, embarrassing them at work or severely slowing down the browsing of your website is not. Very few websites benefit from background music or audio that launches automatically.                                                                                                          
10. Automatic pop-up windows: No-one likes websites that create automatic pop-up windows. While there is a chance that pop-ups can convert some site visitors you need to balance this with the larger number of people who will be annoyed and driven away by them.

There are aspects of this list that are subjective and I can begrudgingly admit that there are possibly some items above that have a role to play for some websites. Does your website contain any of the above? Do you know for sure whether they are helping or hindering your online success? Make today the day you take a fresh look at your website.

For a lead generation website my advice is simple, you shouldn’t be afraid to heavily promote the various ways that website visitors can contact you. A good case study in this area is our own website. By visiting our site  you will see we have saturated it with contact details and subtle calls to action. These include:

• A phone number on the top right of every page
• “Free Consultation” call to action point on most apges
• A ‘quick’ contact form on the pricing page of our website
• A standard contact page which is referred to throughout the website content

We don’t do this because we think our site visitors won’t know how to find the ‘Contact’ page within our site navigation. Rather, we take this approach because we want to make contacting us as easy as possible and to make sure it happens as frequently as possible. Different visitors will prefer different contact methods. Put simply, the more options we give people, the more leads we receive. The more often they are asked to contact us, the more likely it is that they will.

I ask you the following question – are you speaking with as many of your website visitors as possible? Or are you expecting clients to work a little bit harder to become a genuine prospect?

Here are 10 tips for an effective blog:

1. Your blog is not a place to sell things. You should provide solutions, not a sales pitch.
2. You should write with personality and humour, a blog is not meant to be a stuffy corporate brochure.
3. Blog regularly. If it helps, write posts in advance and schedule their appearance.
4. Titles are critical and must work for search engines and readers alike. Try to combine search friendly keywords with catchy titles.
5. Blog about breaking news and events. This will attract topical searches and take advantage of recent Google changes.
6. Keep it short and aim for 250 to 500 words. Edit your posts, and then edit them again!
7. A successful blog will attract new traffic to your site. Include links to pages within your site that provide more information on your company.
8. For many clients we do not advise allowing visitors to leave comments. Depending on your business the risk of negative comments (or no comments) can outweigh the potential benefits.
9. To receive full search engine benefits, your blog should be part of your main domain name (e.g. www.talkwebdesign.co.nz/blog).

10.  Including audio, video and images in addition to text will make your blog more appealing and will have positive search engine impacts.

If you are like many businesses out there you know you should be blogging (or blogging more often). Why not make a fresh start today? Put aside 30 minutes to either get your blog started or post something new. If you are a customer of ours, you can turn your blog on for free at anytime!

Give Nick a call to have a chat about what a blog can do for your online marketing efforts!

“Thanks Guys, I am over the moon with my new website!
Cant believe how many more enquiries I am getting about my work. Wish I’d found you sooner!”

“Online sales have certainly picked up since we upgraded to a Talk Website – customers are finding it much easier to navigate.”