Browsing all articles from November, 2009
Nov
17

Two Web Designing Business Start-up Question?

I would like to start a web designing business for small businesses. 4 to 5 pages at most. Nothing extravagant, something I can probable have up and running in within a week. How should I go about pricing? And also, I’m really working on a “why you should have a web site” pitch for customers. Any ideas?
I’ve seen companies that charge about $400 to get it up and about $40 to maintain.
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Nov
17

21st Century Copywriting: Website Marketing Strategies to Engage Your Clients

The new buzzword these days is “engagement marketing,” which has replaced old-style “interruption marketing.” Engagement marketing creates interactions and deepens relationships with your clients. Interruption marketing breaks into your client’s life the way television commercials break into our programs.


When we engage with clients, they welcome us. When we interrupt them, they try to shut us out. And technology makes it easy to make unwanted sales pitches disappear.


Engagement marketing allows you to write long copy. In fact, it demands long copy. You need to connect with your customers They want more than a quick touch and go.


So how you do create long messages that engage your visitors and help them develop relationships?


1. Create a friendly conversation.


Let’s face it: your website visitors want to connect you. They are sitting all alone with their computers and they want to feel somebody cares enough to talk to them. Reading pages and pages of copy should feel like getting a letter from a good friend.


Short copy (and short-short ezines) comes across more like a message left on an answering machine — not a meaningful dialog.


Ever had a phone conversation with a friend or even a business relationship when you just enjoyed talking?


You were in no hurry to hang up. You were entertained. You felt affirmed. When readers feel this way, they will stay tuned all the way to the bottom of the page.


2. Maintain suspense.


Whether you’re writing website copy or murder mysteries, keep the readers wondering what happens next. Each sentence should motivate the reader to move to the next sentence…and the next paragraph…and the next page, chapter and even book.


I amm not sure who first applied the term “bucket brigade” to copy. But here is the idea.


Before fire departments got organized, volunteers would fight fires by lining up and passing buckets of water from the nearest well to whatever was burning. Another line would pass empty buckets back for refills. Buckets moved from hand to hand fast, with no stops.


So think of each idea as a bucket you want to pass along, from one sentence to the next. Motivate the reader: “Keep going! Urgent! You need to reach the end before anything else happens!”


3. Ask, “Who is reading?” rather than “How long?”


Your target market really wants to learn what you have to say. They realize they’ll learn from you, even if you’re overtly making a sales pitch. So they keep reading….and reading.


What is your favorite personal interest? Dogs? Cats? Hiking? Basketball? Soccer? Music? Art? Real estate?


When you’re passionate, you cannot learn enough. You hope the article, book or talk will go on forever. And if you have targeted right, your readers will feel the same way.


4. Encourage your readers to talk back to you.


Marketing researchers know: When we read any message, we tend to talk back! Sometimes we speak aloud (and even throw a magazine across a room (doesn’t work with a computer).


But most often we engage in what psychologists call “counter-arguments.” For example, you read, “This technique will transform your cat into an obedient pet who comes when called.”


You think, “No way!” or, “You must be kidding.”


We also affirm what we read.


“That’s a great idea!”

“That sounds like something I would like to do.”


And (especially if we’re contemplating a big-ticket item) we’re seeking more and more reasons to justify our buying decision.


So…you’re probably ahead of me: Longer copy means more opportunities to say, “Yes, it’s for me!”


5. Crawl out on the edge.


What television shows become mega-hits? You got it: the big HBO and Showtime series that go outside the networking programming box.


They’re more like indie films than television and they attract audiences of millions. Just try to rent a DVD of past seasons: you get on a waiting list.


Marketing works the same way.


Whenever I take a risk with an edgy ezine article, a few readers unsubscribe and some even send a grumpy emails. But I always get a few e-book orders. That’s when I get requests for Diagnostic sessions, too.


When I write reviews for amazon.com, I just say what’s on my mind. And I get some of my best clients and subscribers.


One reader even wrote, “Do they call you Cantankerous Cathy? You never say anything nice!” But she signed up for my ezine and attended three teleclasses.


Edgy means just strong enough to resonate with your own target market. Some famous copywriters use strong, colorful language. My audience tends to prefer G-rated expressions. Adapt your edginess to your audience and your own style.


Bottom line: As long as you hook the reader, maintain suspense and tell a good story, your message can be as long as you want it to be. Keep doing this and you’ll genuinely engage your audience — the first step to turn them into clients in today’s market.

FREE 7 Best-Kept Secrets of Websites That Really Attract Clients: My Special Report gives you insider tips to convert tire-kickers to buyers and earn money while you sleep. From Cathy Goodwin, The Content Strategist, at Website Marketing Strategies

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Nov
16

Who Has Used Yahoo’s Pay-per-click Advertising?

How much did/or does it work for you? Is it worth it for you? Investment vs. new orders/new customers?
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Nov
16

What Are The Benefits Of Having A Website For A Small Business? 10 Points For Best Answer!!?

Can you guys tell me in a paragraph what you think the benefits of the internet and having a website for your business could be?? This is meant to be written in a brochure for a web design business. Just wanted to see things from the outside.. Thanks!!!
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Nov
16

Website Marketing: Dramatically Increase Your Conversions With a Clear Call to Action

Copyright (c) 2008 OnlineBizU.com

One of the things I often notice on websites is that I’m not sure where to go or what to do when I arrive. There are those websites that are simply online brochures that tell me all about the features of a product or service, but don’t ask anything of me. There are other websites that give me a headache, as they try to send me in too many directions at once. When faced with too many choices, I become overwhelmed and ultimately leave the site without taking any action.

How do you get your visitor to stay on your site and convert to a prospect? By presenting one clear call to action on every page of your site.

Do you want the visitor to listen to an audio clip? How about signing up for your email newsletter? Do you want the visitor to call a toll-free number and listen to a message? Would you like them to subscribe to your blog updates? Do you have a free ecourse that you’re offering to your visitors? Don’t be shy about telling your visitor what to do. Most people don’t want to have to think when they arrive at a site (myself included), and are more than happy to follow whatever directions you provide and actions that you outline.

For owners of service businesses, I strongly believe that the most important call to action that should appear on your site is asking your visitor to get on your email list. This information becomes the gold in your marketing funnel. You begin to build a list in this fashion, and can email your contacts on this list on a regular basis with special offers, new programs, or just news updates.

The primary way that I capture someone’s contact information is through my email broadcast service, aWeber, which offers me the coding for a subscription form that I can place on any page of my website. Once they have opted in to my list, they begin to receive my email newsletter, as well as emails about special offers, sales, and other pertinent news about my business.

Too many times I hear my clients lament that they’re getting traffic to their websites, but the phone isn’t ringing. I think it’s pretty unrealistic for you to expect a visitor to buy from you immediately upon “meeting” you via your website or becoming acquainted with your service, unless you offer a very highly specialized product or service that visitors cannot obtain elsewhere. Think of your own buying habits. I’ll bet that you fall in the 7-10 “touches” category that marketing experts say is needed in order to get someone to purchase what you’re selling. What do I mean by a “touch”? It could be an email newsletter that you send out regularly, a direct mail postcard that you send, a phone call that you make, or a lunch date that you set. It takes roughly 7-10 contacts (touches) for someone to begin to get to know you, respect you, and like you enough to make the decision to buy from you.

If your offer is compelling enough, 1%-3% of the visitors to your website will convert, or take the action you want them to take. What constitutes a compelling offer? Once upon a time, it was simply an invitation to subscribe to your email newsletter. However, it seems that everyone is writing an email newsletter these days, and with the levels of spam growing increasingly larger day-by-day, a free email newsletter is no longer as enticing as it once was. Instead, offer a free giveaway that provides a solution to a problem that keeps your visitor up at night. Make it compelling enough that your visitors doesn’t hesitate to give you his name and primary email address.

To be effective, your call to action needs to prominently displayed on your homepage, not hidden mid-way down the page in a paragraph of text, or “above the fold”, to borrow an old newspaper term. In this case, your call to action, should be the first thing a visitor sees when arriving at your homepage. In some cases, you may want to have the call to action appear on every page, making it crystal clear to your visitors what action you want them to take.

What compelling piece of information can you offer visitors to capture their names and email addresses? Once you have that info, what is your plan to follow up regularly? Creating a clear call to action on your website, along with an effective follow-up strategy, will measurably increase your sales. Isn’t that we all want from our businesses?

Online Business Resource Queen (TM) and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, visit her site at http://www.OnlineBizU.com. Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at http://www.AskDonnaGunter.com.

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Nov
15

Is Ron Paul Using Pay-per-click Advertising In His Camaign?

I have been unable to find verification if this is true or just another ‘net rumour. Thanks.
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Nov
15

Does Redesigning A Website Affect Google Ranking?

Am thinking of changing the CMS I use for my website to the famous joomla. Will these affect my ranking on google for my top keyword. Please advice!!!
Thanx
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Nov
15

Anybody Here Use Yahoo Small Business Web Designer Starter Plan? Can I Add Google Adsense With This Plan?

I wonder if I can add Google Adsense after I’m done designing my website with Yahoo Small Business Starter Plan, can anyone help me on this please, Thanks!
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Nov
15

What Are Some Really Good Free Internet Advertising Sites Outside Of Google Adwords And Yahoo Search Marketing

I know of google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing, but what are some other really good internet advertising sites that are free or very low cost to use?
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Nov
15

Search Engine Marketing – Make Your Website Marketable

What is search engine marketing? Search engine marketing involves preparation of web pages so that the internet exposure is maximized. This happens when your web pages get top ranking in the web page search results on a search engine when somebody types in a specific query. Search engine marketing helps in generating revenue by increasing the number of surfers surfing your website. The chances are that the conversion rate will be high because the visitors who are directed to your site are the ones that have been targeted thanks to search engine marketing.

What actually happens is that people look for a product and get directed to your website as it is search engine optimized. They come to your site with a pre qualified mindset. Web pages are not read by search engine spiders but people go through them to gain knowledge about the products they are looking forward to buy. Whether you want search engine marketing to be simple or complex, it all depends on you.

You can make it simple by using different keywords that you think are most likely to put in the query box on your web page. It will be favorably accepted by search engine spiders and your page will get displayed on the search engine site. But one thing that needs to be understood is that just putting in the keywords on your web page will not do the trick. What will make your web page rank higher will also depend on how readable and informative it is. So, in other words you can say it can be complex at times. What should you do in such a situation?

Well, search engine marketing is encouraged, which contains key words in the title or subtitle of your web page. What you can do here is that you can make use of image descriptions on your web page, thus allowing visually challenged person to fathom the image that is being elaborated upon. You can post an additional keyword for this. Attractive search engine marketing can make your website popular and marketable. This will have positive result on your business.

Naman Jain is an Internet Marketing professional, presently working with Rupiz Media, one of the leading SEM company offering expert SEO services, PPC Advertising, Article marketing services,drupal development, UK website development solutions and website designing over the globe.

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