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One of our long term clients of ours (they’ve been with us for 10 or so years) have had 3 different web sites with us, all in the same industry.
2 of those sites have been very successful and the latest site was developed based on twhat worked with the previous 2 web sites.
But this web site ain’t doing so good. The client is not making half as many sales as the previous sites.
So, what to do?
Well, doing something, anything is a great start.
What we do is implement a strategy and measure the impact of that strategy. The strategy could be any 1 of 50 we might try, but being a bit more experienced at developing web sites that work we have a fair idea of what to do first.
The First 3 Steps
Our first step is checking out all is working on the a site. We then progress to taking some baseline statistics.
Our 3rd step is an important one – it’s where we start taking some action.
What we’re doing with this web site – and have been doing for the past 2 weeks – is buying tons of traffic via Google AdWords.
What this gives us is data – just more information to help us ascertain what is happening with the web site.
If the doubling of visitor numbers (as long as they’re genuinely interested visitors) results in not many sales, then we know the web site isn’t converting very well for some reason.
Right Information To Make The Right Decisions
You see, developing a web site that works is all about getting the right information so you can make the right decision.
If your web site isn’t working so well, take action and measure the results.
John sent through some interview questions last week and I typed up my answers.
Because some people prefer to read and some people prefer to watch a video I also videoed my answers to the questions and sent that through to John too.
Apologies for putting you through the video of my enormous head filling the screen for so long!
But You Can Win Stuff!
Just to make it fair, if you take a look at the interview and do a small thing John asks for at the end you can win “…..not one, not two, but three SitePoint books to the readers of this blog, and winning them couldn’t be easier.”
Here’s the first part of the interview. For more jump on over to John’s site for the video and the text answers (the text answers aren’t just a transcript of the video, I wrote the text answers first and then filmed the video cold).
This post is about how to get a decent ranking in Google for a term you want – it’s not comprehensive, but it will do the job.
I was looking at wedding photographs by Hailey Bartholomew earlier and that’s still top of mind, so let’s target a term Hailey would want (I think – I haven’t actually asked).
Hailey’s a wonderful wedding photographer in Brisbane (an Australian city). Mmmmm, I wonder what terms people would use to search for a wedding photographer?
Okay, first we need to understand that you can really only get a good ranking for 1 term per page (not always, but generally).
Want to run a marathon (or 100 km) with a difference? Heard of the Antarctic Ice Marathon?
A brilliant race that markets itself.
Why?
Because it’s so different and chat worthy that guys like me will blog about it, other people will talk about and journalists will write about it. Easy.
I’d guess the race organisers wouldn’t spend a cent on advertising. It’ll all be done for them.
Having a product or service or story that is so extraordinary that people will talk about it is the perfect marketing strategy.
I don’t think too much before I act. I certainly don’t analyse things for days. Make quick decisions and act.
Sure, I’m wrong some of the time. But the benefits of acting (and being wrong some of the time) far outweigh the benefit of not doing anything. Here’s how to get your very first web design client.
1. Check out web sites of local businesses 2. Find ones you think you can improve 3. Call the web site owner up and say “I can get your web site to make more money.”
Your aim with the call is to get a meeting. Once you have a meeting you make your offer. Easy.
It’s so easy that no one ever believes it can work. But it does.
Sure, you’ll get knock backs. But from every 100 calls you’ll make you’ll get at least 5 meetings.
