Archive for the 'Web Design' Category

Does A Pretty Web Site Deliver?

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
 

I have heard many business owners say: “I want a nice looking web site for my business.”

They find a web designer and the web designer delivers exactly what the business owner asked for – a nice looking web site. The business owner really likes the look and feel of the web site, but after a month or so the business owner notices that nothing is happening with the web site. No one is using the web site to find out about the business and contact the business owner about his products and services.

It seems that when a business owner says: “I want a nice looking web site”, what the business owner really means is “I want a nice looking web site that brings in clients and markets my business”.

Once the business owners realize that their nice looking web site does not deliver clients, many opt to hire another designer for a re-design. I have talked to quite a few business owners, who have had their web sites designed and re-designed many times, all without producing the desired result (services and book/product sales).

The truth is, having a nice looking web site is just not enough to get sales. In addition to having a nice looking web site you need to heavily market it – optimize it for search engines, have a newsletter list, write and publish articles, start a blog and more.

Getting a web site designed is just like getting a brochure made for your business. It is nice to have a brochure, but until your potential customers see it and decide to buy your book, nothing will happen.

Exactly the same is true for a web site. Until you start getting your target customers to come to your web site and stick around long enough to buy your products and services, nothing is going to happen either.

Some web designers may include some marketing into their design package, but many don’t. This means that it is up to you to get your web site marketed. Here is what to do:

– Make sure that you know who your target market is. Your web site should speak to your target market, so your first step is knowing who your web site will be speaking to.

– Design a marketing plan for your web site. Yes, you may not have a web site yet, but knowing how you will market it will help you in the long run.

– Decide what you will need on your web site in order to market it properly. This may include a blog, pages optimized for search engines, articles, etc.

– Now, talk to web site designers and pick the one that will help you not only with design, but with marketing of your web site. It is very important that your designer is aware of your marketing plan, and will be able to implement the web site-related pieces of the plan.

Need help creating a marketing plan for your web site? Join my online business mentoring program to discover how to create a marketing plan for your web site.

Biana Babinsky

About Biana: Biana Babinsky is the online business coach, expert and author who teaches coaches, consultants and other business owners how to get more clients and make more money online. Join her online business mentoring program at https://www.MarketingSalad.com for online business coaching, support and masterminding with other members.

Three Tips For A Better Landing Page

Monday, April 14th, 2008
 

One of the most important concepts in online marketing is a landing page. A landing page is a page where your visitor lands to do something. It could be a page where your web site visitor lands following a link from your PPC ad. It could be a page where your web site visitor lands to purchase your ebook. In short, it is a page, where your web site visitor comes to take action.

The best rule to remember about a landing page is one action – one page. What is an action? An action is the action you want your web site visitor to take on the landing page. The action can be subscribing to your newsletter, buying an e-book or registesting for a telseminar.

The most successful landing pages don’t try to be all things to all people. Rather, they concentrate on getting a user to take one action and one action only. When someone lands on a landing page like that, they only have two options – take action or leave.

So, what about your landing pages? If your landing pages are not producing results, it is time to take action!

Review your landing page. Are you only asking your web site visitors to take one action per page? If you are asking them to take more than one action, make a change to ask them take just one action.

When I helped a client change her landing page for a teleseminar to only have one available action to take, she was able to double her sign-ups!

Review your web copy. The sales copy on your landing page is very important as well. Does it convince your web site visitor to take action? If not, you need to improve your sales copy to make it convince your visitor to take action.

Review your marketing. How do you promote your landing page? Do your promotions help you qualify your visitors, so that the ones who do come to your landing page are already targeted customers?

Biana Babinsky

Is Your Web Site Ready For Marketing?

Monday, March 24th, 2008
 

In the past two years I have had many business owners asking me how to get more web site traffic. Many of them thought that if they just add more stuff to the web site, such as a blog, they will get more traffic.

However, many times they neglect to make their web site ready for marketing. If you do not make sure that your web site is ready to accept the web site traffic you are going to send to it, you are not going to get results.

Marketing a web site that is not ready is like sending customers to a store without cash registers and without a simple way to buy. People may come to check out the store, but they will not buy.

Unfinished does not mean that your web site design is not finished. You may have a web site that has been beautifully designed by a talented designer. However, if your web site does not have the marketing elements that will turn your web site visitors into customers, it will remain just that – a beautiful store where no one buys.

If you want to get customers from your web site, it should be effective – it should explain to your visitors the benefits of what you are offering, it should help them decide to buy from you.

Your web site should be user-friendly – it should be easy to explore everything on your web site, your web site visitors should be able to easily travel from page to page, etc.

You should also optimize your web site for search engines – use good, descriptive tags for search engines and add good, useful content that search engines can index.

In my Complete Step By Step Online Marketing Course I discuss how to make your web site effective and how to get web site traffic. You may get the Course at https://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zcourse

Biana Babinsky

Link Directly To Your Product

Thursday, February 7th, 2008
 

Recently someone asked me what I think is the most annoying thing that people do online and that prevents them from getting more sales.

This was an interesting question, and here is my take on it.

One of the most annoying thing that happens to me online is when people don’t link directly to the product they are talking about in their message. Some time ago I was reading someone’s newsletter, and there was an ad for an e-book for coaches. It sounded interesting, so I clicked on the link, only to be taken to the main page on the newsletter publisher’s web site.

The main page did not have any information about the e-book. After clicking on a few links, and not finding any e-book information, I got discouraged and left the web site. The newsletter publisher lost a customer.

This newsletter publisher lost many customers who wanted to learn about the e-book, but were taken to the main page of the web site instead.

Remember, linking directly to the product you are marketing can dramatically increase your sales. This is just one of the tips I have discussed on the Article Marketing for Profits Audio Recording that you can get at https://www.marketingsalad.com/article_marketing.html

Biana Babinsky

Two Things That Your Web Site MUST Do

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
 

There are two things that your web site must do:

1. It needs to attract your target market. In order to do this, you will need to optimize your web site for search engines, use article marketing to get people to come to your web site, etc.

Read more on how to get web site traffic in the Online Marketing Techniques To Increase Website Traffic article.

2. Your web site needs to SELL your products and services. In order to be successful at selling, your web site will need to be very user-friendly, so that people stay and read it for a while.

It needs to have good marketing copy that sells, so that your web site visitors would purchase from you.

It also needs to turn your web site visitors into leads by giving them a no charge gift and asking them to subscribe to your newsletter.

Make sure that your web site does both, it brings traffic AND it converts traffic into customers.

If your web site does just gets people to your web site, you will have lots of traffic, but no one will be buying.

If your web site can sell, but can’t get traffic, you will have no one to sell to.
Read more about creating an effective web site:

What Makes A Web Site Effective?

Does Your Web Site Do ALL This?

Your Web Site Is Losing You Clients

Discover how to get more web site traffic and promote your web site online in this FREE Tutorial, How To Market Your Coaching Business.

Your Web Site Is Losing You Clients

Friday, November 9th, 2007
 

Do you know what is happening all over the Internet while you are reading this article? Potential customers visit service professionals’ web sites with a credit card in hand, ready to buy. Then they look around the web site and leave without buying anything.

This is happening on thousands of web sites every single day. Chances are, it is happening on your own web site as well. People are coming to your web site and leaving before they buy anything.

Continue Reading Your Web Site Is Losing You Clients (And How To Stop That)
Biana Babinsky

Coaches, Does Your Web Site Do ALL Of This?

Wednesday, October 31st, 2007
 

I teach coaches how to use their web site to get coaching clients. Every time I have a new client, we discuss what the client’s web site does and does not do. And almost every time we find out that the web site does not do lots of things that it should.

In order to have a web site that works for you, a web site that generates coaching leads and clients for you every day, you must have a professional and customizable web site. Here are just some of the things you need to be able to do on your web site:

– You need to be able to have many pages on your web site

– You need to be able to add a newsletter list to the web site.

– You need to be able to optimize individual web pages for search engines

– You need to be able to add articles to the web site

– You need to be able to add a blog to the web site

I strongly recommend that before doing anything about creating a web site you sit down and create a list of goals you need your web site to achieve. Write out the goals first, then start making decisions about the web site builder, the web site itself, etc.

You need to be able to use your web site to generate coaching clients for your coaching business. But first you need to create a web site plan to get your web site right the very first time you try to create it.

Join my online business mentoring program at https://www.MarketingSalad.com to learn more about web sites and how to use them to generate coaching clients.

Biana Babinsky

A Web Site, Fast

Friday, August 31st, 2007
 

If you need a simple web site and you are just getting started, you may want to look at free software available from WordPress.org.

Word Press is actually blogging software, but there is more! This software also provides you with the ability to create static (non-blog) pages for your web site. So with this software you can have both a web site and a blog.

Updating a WordPress site is very easy – you do not have to know anything about web design to do that. You just type your post in and press a button, and your post or your page will appear on your web site.

I really like how all the pages are interconnected as well – this connectivity helps you attract more web site traffic using search engine optimization.

What Makes A Web Site Effective?

Tuesday, August 14th, 2007
 

As the online business coach, I have evaluated hundreds and hundreds of service professionals’ web sites. Many clients have come to me asking why their web sites are not selling their services, and usually the reason was that their web sites were not effective at selling professional services.

When you are selling a service that costs hundreds or thousands of dollars, but your web site looks like it was designed by your 14 year old nephew, there is a huge disconnect. Your web site visitors will perceive the disconnect and go on to your competitor’s web site.

When your potential customers find your web site online, your web site is all they have to form an opinion about you and your business. Make sure that your web site projects a professional image that you want your customers to see.

My top five tips for having a professional web site are:

Professional Web Design. This cannot be overemphasized. You have at most just a few seconds to make a positive impression on potential customers.

If they like your web site, they will stick around and learn more about your products or services. Otherwise, they will simply move on to the next site.

Your Own Domain Name. Your own business domain makes your business web site address memorable and brandable.

Professional Web Hosting. Free hosting usually comes with advertising plastered all over your web site, which is exactly what you do NOT want on your professional web site.

Offer A Free Gift In Exchange For Newsletter Subscription. When you offer an expensive service on your web site, many people will not buy from you the first time they see your web site. Research shows that people need to hear about you seven times(!) on average before making a decision about buying from you.
Therefore, you need to keep in touch with your web site visitors long after they have visited your web site in order to convince them to buy your services.

The best way to get their email addresses is by asking them to subscribe to your newsletter in exchange for a gift on a topic that is of interest to them.

Create Compelling Web Copy. Does your web site copy sell? If your web site copy does not sell effectively, your potential clients are going to leave your web site without buying and without subscribing to your newsletter.

Learn how to write effective web copy – this still will help you over and over again.

For more information on creating an effective web site get the FREE Report “Top Strategies To Get Clients Online” at https://www.avocadoconsulting.com/free_report.html

Biana Babinsky

Biana Babinsky

Are You Providing Value?

Monday, August 13th, 2007
 

Do you show value of your products and services when you are selling them online?

You need to ALWAYS show value of what you are selling – whether it is a $7 report or a $5,000 one-on-one coaching package. Whether you only sell products, or you charge per hour, per minute, per project, per pound lost, etc, you need to show the VALUE of what you are offering. No one is going to give you even a dollar if they don’t think that what you offer has value for them.

And this is very true when you are doing business online. You are not “there” when your potential customers are visiting your web site, so the only way they can find out about the value that you offer them is by reading your web copy. If you web copy is not communicating the value that you offer, your potential customers will go elsewhere.

I did an experiment a while ago, where I had a low cost product (under $10) for which I created very short copy. The copy described the product, but not the product’s benefits. The product sold just a few copies.

Another product on the same topic was more expensive, but it had more web copy written for it, discussing the value and benefits in addition to describing the product.

I sent a lot of traffic to both products. The second product sold many more copies.

Consumers need to know what value they are going to receive when they buy your products or services. It is not the price alone that the consumers are after. You have to explain the value of the product well enough, so that your consumers understand the value of what you are getting, no matter how you are charging.

Learn how to show the value that you provide to your clients during the Make Thousands Of Dollars With Online Copywriting Teleseminar Series. You can register for it at https://www.avocadoconsulting.com/rlinks/zcopy

Biana Babinsky