The Marketing Mix | official blog of the Marketing Mentor community

How Friendly is Your Website?

Prospects will visit your website before hiring you.  They begin to form an opinion about you and your talents by their experience with your website – even if you’re not a website designer.  This is why you must have a high degree of website usability (easy to use).

Jakob Nielsen is a widely recognized authority on website usability.  I recommend you study the material his website, http://www.useit.com.  Many of the points below come from Nielsen.

A few basics on what website visitors do:

• Viewers spend 80.3% of their time ABOVE the fold.
• Viewers spend 69% of their time on the LEFT half of the screen.  Recognize that the navigation bar is usually in the first 200-pixels on the left side.  Most of their time is spent in the 300-500 pixel area.
• Clicking hypertext links is the most-used feature.  Second is clicking buttons followed by the clicking the BACK button.
• Users typically read about 18-20% of the content on a page.
• Visitors give you about 3-to-5 seconds to explain the gist of what you do when they first land on your site.  If you fail, they leave.  Remember that the landing page is often NOT the home page.  

Given those facts just how do you create a friendly, usable website?

• Have a header that gives the gist of what you do: Company name, logo, tagline, and possibly location.
• Site must load instantly.  Visitors have zero patience.
• Be conventional: Navigation on the left and your most important content above the fold and to the right of the navigation.
• Write for skimmers: Short paragraphs, sentences and bullets.  Design for skimmers.
• Black font (not gray) on a white background is the easiest to read.  Do not use reverse fonts for the body of your website copy.
• Make the home page digestible within 5 seconds.

As you create your site, periodically ask strangers to try it out.  Ideally these people are similar to your prospects.  Find out how easy it is for them to use your website.

There’s much more to making a website user friendly.  But if you get this much right you’ll be ahead of the pack. 

Karen Zapp is a freelance copywriter and marketing advisor.  Clients include charities and professional membership associations.  Karen publishes a newsletter (ZAPP Nonprofit Leader), and a blog (ZAPP Nonprofit Blog).  She is also the co-author of “Mobile for Nonprofits: Connecting Donors Through the Power of Mobile.”

If you want to create a user-friendly, marketing-smart website, and you ready to "just do it," check out our intensive, one-week online course, Website in a Week.

The fruits of the Marketing Group – Part 3: Website

Can the Marketing Group really help you create a website? The real answer is – yes. It happens all the time. With the support of the group, members create (or revamp) marketing-smart, audience-focused websites.
 
This week, I’m following the journey of one Marketing Group participant, Ana Carini. Ana dove into the process last April and now has a strong foundation to market her business, including a target market, new branding with business cards and revamped website, social media tools, an e-newsletter (she sends hers out daily!) and a one-sheet to give interested prospects who say, "Tell me more..."

So far this week, I talked about how she chose her market: fashion and beauty brands, and looked at the networking tools she created.

Today, we are looking at her website: Ana Carini Design.

When Ana joined the group, she didn’t have a website at all.

During the group process, she created this impressive one that is entirely geared towards the fashion and beauty market. We think Ana’s site uses language that appeals directly to her target market. It shows relevant examples, and demonstrates that she really understands their needs.

She wanted to make sure the content was as clear and concise as possible, so she hired Deidre for help.

Ana even launched a blog for her business.

Ready to get your website (and your other marketing efforts) moving? For a strong foundation like Ana’s, a new Beginner Marketing Group starts the week of September 27th. Details here or fill out this form.

 

Where do those magical incoming links come from?

Do you know the number one way search engines determine how popular your website will be?

Internet marketing expert, Norma Maxwell, says it’s “the number of links you having coming into your website, and the authority of the places from which those links come.”

Norma always impresses with her smart, accessible articles on how to get better website rankings. In her latest article on Biznik, A Simple Guide to Inbound Marketing SEO, Norma shares how to create an effective inbound SEO effort (create those magical links) so your website can soar.

Here is an excerpt:

Fact: The number of links you having coming into your website, and the authority of the places from which those links come, is the number one way search engines determine the popularity (and therefore rank) of your webiste.  Number one.

How do you get those golden links?  There are a lot of ways, and I'll list some of them here.  Just remember, this strategy takes planning, time, and thought--you will not see amazing results overnight.  You will see amazing results, however, as long as you are consistent.

Read the rest at Biznik: http://biznik.com/members/norma-maxwell/articles/a-simple-guide-to-inbound-marketing-seo

Want more SEO guidance from Norma? Check out here other articles: A Simple Guide to SEO,  A Simple Guide to Choosing the Right Keywords for your Business and A Simple Guide to Writing Rich, Compelling Copy.

Is your business out of sight?

Is your website “out of sight, out of mind?” Do you know how many people are visiting your site each month? Have you added new testimonials or made updates recently?

If not, use this post as a reminder!

And if summer is coming to an end – and you still don’t have your website ready – I have a new Website in a Week group happening August 16-23rd. If you join, you can have the marketing-smart content for your site finished before Labor Day.

If your site isn't “getting done” by itself, and you need some accountability, this one-week, accelerated group is perfect. Details here or fill out this form.

Keywords made simple

Sometimes the process of choosing the right keywords can seem overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be. Here are two easy-breezy keyword resources for you.

Alan Kravitz, a copywriter who integrates SEO into his copywriting services (and a Marketing Mentor client), recently published some excellent tips in his email newsletter, 5 Things to Remember about Keywords. He gives five tips about keywords and includes this handy list of useful keyword tools:

Keyword research is easy - and affordable! It's true. You no
longer need an M.I.T. degree to research keywords effectively. I either use - or have used - all these tools. Many are free, or at least have free trials. Check them out and test drive them.

• Google Keyword Tool - You do not have to have a Google Adwords account to do basic research.
• Wordtracker - Great for helping you find lots of keywords.
• Keyword Discovery - This site has an amazing feature for research on misspelled words. 
• Microsoft Keyword Forecast - Type in a keyword and it gives you the word's past performance - as well as a "forecast" of how popular it could be in the future.
• Google Analytics - Helps not only with keywords, but with web page effectiveness.
• SEO Glossary - Don't know what an algorithm is? Look it up here.
• Mashable and Social Media Examiner - Two of the best sites out there for easy-to-understand social media info.

In Norma Maxwell’s latest article on Biznik, A Simple Guide to Choosing the Right Keywords for Your Business, she addresses how choosing the right keywords can help you get qualified and targeted visitors to your site. Read it here.

Every marketing-smart website should include SEO and keyword basics. If you need help getting the content for your website ready, the next Website in a Week course begins Mid-August. Details here or fill out this form.

Should I friend my mom?

My mom sent me a "friend" request on Facebook the other day.

I haven’t accepted it yet. I don’t know if I should. Of course I like my mom, and I enjoy the fact that she’s so computer savvy – but should I accept her as a "friend"?

I find that particularly with Facebook (of all the social networking sites), it’s hard to keep things business-oriented. Even if you have a “Fan Page” for your business, you still need to have a personal page, where if you friend your Mom -- she can post your baby pictures and write Mom-like things. The same goes for friends and other non-business acquaintances.

It’s not that I’m opposed to having some things of a personal nature on my Facebook site, but where do you draw the line? What do you think?

(Mom, if you're reading this, feel free to comment.)

Do you have what it takes?

With the Creative Freelancer Conference coming up soon (June 5-6 in Denver, early bird deadline April 15th) we thought it was a great time to look at the nitty-gritty of freelancing.

To do this, we shared a 3-part series of audio clips (from our presentation at last year’s HOW Conference called: Do You Have What It Takes To Be A Successful Freelancer) over on the CFC blog.

Here are the clips:

What's happening now & the myths and realities about freelancing (10:33)

The skills and personality traits needed to be a successful freelancer (12:34)

How to prepare for freelancing & the freedoms that come with the gig (19:24)

Or, you can listen to these clips on the Marketing Mentor Podcast Stream. (Subscribe to the RSS feed here.)

Not signed up for CFC 2010 yet? The early bird deadline has been extended through April 15th but won't be extended again. We promise. So go ahead and register here.

Starting a Successful Link Building Campaign

In my previous post, I discussed the basics of search engine optimization and went over some practical internal SEO. Now we will focus on external SEO, primarily building a variety of different links for your website.

What are aspects of a successful link building campaign?

Link building is the process of reaching out to other website owners and bloggers and securing links back to your site. This can be done by simply asking for a link, giving away free content, exchanging widgets, exchanging links, and a variety of other ways. Google and most search engines have taken a strong stance on purchasing links and spamming, however, and your site can be removed from listings if found in violation.

What kind of sites should I target when link building?

Attend the Small Business Summit with me?

We’re excited to be partnering again with Ramon Ray and his Fifth Annual Small Business Summit, to be held on March 16, 2010 at Digital Sandbox in NYC. Seth Godin is this year’s headline speaker, and if it’s anything like last year’s event, a fantastic day of sessions and networking can be expected.

Want my extra ticket?

I have an extra ticket for the event, and I’m looking for someone to join me. Send your networking or conference success story to me at ilise@marketing-mentor.com. The best entry wins!

Get dressed, get the animals, grab my flash drive…

I woke up at 5am yesterday to what sounded like a fire alarm going off in a building nearby. It wasn’t my building, but it was close, and I sat for a few minutes thinking about what to do if I had to evacuate. My first thought was that I needed to put pants on. Second, I would grab the animals. I thought of what else I would need. My flash drive with the latest back up? Then I wondered if I were actually evacuating, and not just sitting around thinking about it, would I actually grab my flash drive? Probably not. The pants and animals would be my main priorities.

Then I remembered that I wouldn’t need to grab my flash drive -- because thankfully I back up to Mozy at the end of every day. Even though I also back my files up on-site, it’s nice to have an off-site backup too. If you want to back up your computer files online, I highly recommend Mozy as it provides much peace of mind. You can try it free, and plans start as low as $4.99 per month. Check it out here. (If you sign up, enter this referral code: 3CJGB0.)