Social Networking Tips

95% of all websites are completely useless to a business in terms of generating results, building a prospect list and creating new revenue.  Every time I meet a person and they find out what I do they instantly ask me if I can “review” their website.  My answer to them is usually this, “Do you want me to review it or give you an honest opinion?”  I learned to ask this after offending quite a few people.  Okay, so I wasn’t born with being tactful.  Honest, yes…..Tactful, no.

There was a movie where they said, “You can’t handle the truth!” and that is how I feel about reviewing someone’s website.  In fact, my company use to charge to do web reviews as I thought it would be a great way to share our knowledge and gain some clients who really appreciated what we did.  We did over 150 web reviews and ended up with 2 new clients.  YIKES!  Most of the people were really upset and discouraged with our comments.  I heard a lot of “Why didn’t someone tell me this before?” or “What do you mean search engines can’t see flash…I just spent $4000 on my flash website” and “I can’t afford to make an upgrade to my website so I will just leave it”.

Yes….you might as well stop reading if you aren’t planning on doing anything different with your website.  You can save yourself the time.  I have never understood why people want an opinion if they aren’t going to do anything.  Man, I had no idea this post would turn into my venting session.  Okay, so let’s get to the review.  Below are just a few things to look at in your website.  This is just my opinion based on my 20 years of sales and marketing experience (of this, 15 is directly online and websites).

So here it goes…..(brace yourself)

1. Pictures – you have to have a nice balance of pictures and content.  If your pictures are just there for the sake of being there, change them.  Use them to tell a story.  Test….if you only had pictures could your visitors tell what you do and who you help?
2. Content – you should look good and have great copy.  Speak in headlines and stick to the “7 second attention span”.  Yes, I probably just lost you….pay attention.  SMILE  In 6 seconds or less I should be able to tell who specifically you help and how you help them.
3. Stickiness – if you want to build relationships with your visitors, offer some juicy freebie (free report, free goodie, etc.) in exchange for their name and email.
4. Prime Real Estate – the top 3 inches of your website is considered Prime Real Estate….treat it that way.  This means you should have stickiness, a call to action and/or interaction with your visitors.  Make your visitors crave to talk with you.  The goal of a website should not be to share your company’s novel, it should be to get visitors to say “Yes! I want more!!”
5. Jargon – speak to your visitors like they are 3rd graders.  Watch phrases and terms that seem cool to you.  One word can lose a visitor’s interest.  Make it fun to read.  Speak to them as an individual who is just learning about your business.  I call it the “Yada Yada Yada Syndrome”.  It would go something like this “We help small business owners make sense of their online presence…..Yada Yada Yada…..get your “thangy majig whirly gong today!”  HUH????  Exactly.  I see this all the time.  People are really impressed with their own language….yes, I am talking to you! Or they jump right to a conclusion that really doesn’t take the visitor along with them.
6. Less is more. Period.
7. Don’t have things that move, jitter or shake.  The minute someone gets online they have ADD.  They may have not had it
   before….but now they do.  All it takes is some “pretty little bird”
   for them to take their attention away from your site.  Keep your site
   clean and simple so visitors stay focused on you. Imagine if I was shaking my hand while talking with you.  You would be thinking, “Why does she keep moving her hand” and would not be paying attention to what I was saying.  Same goes for websites.  If something is moving that is where the eye will go.
8. Make it easy for someone to know where they are in your website.
9. Create several easy ways for a visitor to connect with you.  Phone number and email link on all pages and a contact us button are a couple of suggestions.
10. Testimonials are your best friends! Make a point to get them and add them to your website.  Have testimonials appear on every page.  You can easily add audio testimonials with this tool.
11. Automate your website – if you collect a name and email address, have an automated system to follow up with them.
12. Update your content FREQUENTLY.  We make all our client’s pages updateable. Meaning, they don’t need any special software or a developer to make changes to their content.  Search engines love fresh content so be sure to update often.
13. Add audio and/or video to your website.  This helps you connect with your visitor’s.  It is personal and entertaining.

I hope you find this review helpful.  There are about 37 things I look for when reviewing a website.  If you were able to make it past point 3, congratulations.  I invite you to take action on this list.  What additional things would you add?  Find a site that has all of these….please share.

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Tags: audio, call to action, content, flash, interaction, interactive, jargon, marketing, online marketing, online web review, pictures, professional speaker, sabrina gibson, sales, search engine optimization, Social Networking Articles, stickiness, testimonials, updateable pages, video, visitors, web review, website design, website development, Website Tips

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