My friend Steve recently asked me to critique a web site and suggest changes that could improve conversion rates.
There were several backbone upgrades that I recommended, but what I want to focus on now are the front-end problems that might also be plaguing your own site.
The first issue this site-in-question had was the webmaster (who is also the business owner) was too familiar with...
The holidays will soon be upon us, and with them comes the rush, rush, rush of harried holiday shoppers. The holidays can be a stressful time.
When you add in the fact that the US economy has been a bit bleak, your visitors will be in no mood to wait endlessly while your dinosaur of a web page finally loads in their browser.
Avoid losing your hard-earned shoppers to the all-too-easy exit...
My sister-in-law recently shared a little tip with me, and even though the tip was related to housekeeping, I thought it was a great concept to apply to any business.
Here\'s what she said: she always ends her day by making sure her kitchen sink is cleaned. No leftover dinner dishes. No stray items. Stainless steel polished to a shine. That way, she can wake up in the morning to a nice clean...
I recently met with my friend Neil to discuss several business building strategies. I shared with him a tool that I use in my own business on a daily basis.
You can create this tool on your own, it\'s super easy to use, and I guarantee it will help you grow your business exponentially.
The tool is a simple text document (I created mine in Microsoft Word) that you use to measure your...
My friend Sam is designing a new web site, and in reviewing available content I noticed there were no testimonials.
Sam told me he never bothered collecting testimonials since he always thought they were \"stupid\". He claimed that reading testimonials never inspired him to make a purchase since they always sounded like they were made up anyway.
I\'m a firm believer in using...
Many retailers are worried about the dire state of the economy and are forecasting meager holiday sales. But don\'t let their doom and gloom attitudes get you down. You\'ve got email marketing on your side!
Here\'s a great plan of attack for using email marketing to supplement your sales during the holiday - and beyond.
Focus on growing your list.
Try to capture email addresses at...
You probably know by now that your web site needs to be updated on a regular basis. Updating your site is vital because search engines love fresh content.
In layman\'s terms, here\'s a brief rundown: the itsy bitsy spider comes to crawl your web site and indexes your pages and content. Two weeks later, he comes back to crawl your site again.
He notices that the content hasn\'t changed,...
Google\'s recent changes to AdWords make it easier for novices to get started with pay per click advertising. But if you\'ve never created a PPC ad before, the task can seem a little intimidating.
The first thing to remember is that the one and only goal of your PPC ad is to get the ad clicked. There\'s no room for branding and there\'s no time for selling. You can do all that on your...
In order to analyze the content on your web site and figure out which pages to display (and in which order) for certain search terms, the search engines (SEs) use a program called a web crawler. You might have also heard these referred to as spiders or web-bots.
Every SE has its own web crawler program and its own formula for ranking pages. However, while page factors might be ranked...
I just finished up my business plan for 2009 (and if you haven't updated your 2009 plan yet, I urge you to get started soon!) and I'm working with several clients to update their plans also.
One of the roadblocks many of my clients run into is the difficulty of setting concrete goals and objectives. It's easy to say "I want to earn $350,000 in 2009" but breaking that down into actionable...
