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This is a business blog, and I usually talk about business. But not today. (Of course, it all loops back around to marketing.)
There are many ways to measure success and happiness in life.
Many ways other than how much money you earn or how much stuff you have. All these areas — good health, being socially engaged, growing spiritually, and also living in comfort and security — are important to do well in.
Take an integral approach — work on all areas, going for regular, incremental improvement. This all-around, “cross training” type of approach will get you further in each area than if you attacked each area one by one. And you’ll be happier.
In this vein, I’ll let you know…
I hit the gym somewhere between two and four times a week.
Right now I’m doing mostly body weight exercises grouped into super sets, followed by interval training. (Go to http://www.turbulencetraining.com to learn more about this approach.)
And this morning, I added something on top of that.
I found a really cool website that if you’re interested in feeling a little more fit and getting a great sense of accomplishment, you’ll want to check out. And best of all, it’s free.
It’s a program to take you… from where you’re at… to being able to do 100 push ups — in 6 weeks.
It won’t be easy (real change never is). But it’s a system that has worked before, and will work again — if you can follow the instructions. And stick to it.
But you do really care about being healthier, more fit, and more successful. Right?
And one way to do that is to set yourself to a task, and see it through. All the better if it involves some physical exertion, and pushing yourself beyond your boundaries.
You can prove to yourself that you’re capable of great things. Even if it’s something you haven’t done before.
Then your new found ability to do great things can transfer into other areas of your life. Like your business.
You don’t have to do “one hundred push ups.”
Not today. Not ever. But I do challenge you to think about where you’re at right now. And where you want to be.
And seriously consider whether doing something like “one hundred push ups” can take you from where you are now, to where you want to be.
And now a quick 180 degrees… to talk about marketing for a second.
This one looks like it’s mostly to make money off ad revenue (I don’t know for sure, I can just guess — I don’t know nor am I affiliated with the owner of the site).
Other micro sites can draw targeted traffic, prime it for the sale, and then drive it to your e-commerce website.
Or they can be purely informational — maybe with a “sponsored by” banner that builds good will toward your company.
No matter what you do for a micro site, be sure it’s incredibly focused on one specific topic.
And that first it’s helpful — long before it asks for any information or action on the part of your visitor. Giving away content like this can do wonders for long term profitability.
So even if you’re not going to go for the “one hundred push ups” mark, check out the website http://www.hundredpushups.com to learn what a micro site is and what it can do.
To your success (in all areas of your life!),
Roy
P.S. — I’m already pretty fit so I’m on the most advanced track of the “one hundred push ups” program. I’ll let you know how my “training” goes as I work through it.
The cool thing about that though is it doesn’t require you to be fit to start — you just have to start! It can take you from barely being able to eke out a couple push ups to being a push up superstar
As a business owner or internet marketer, when you think of Google you may have 5 or 10 of their different services run through your mind (Google Apps, AdWords, Analytics, Website Optimizer, Google Products/Google Base, etc.). But if you approach the general public, ask 100 people what Google is, and every answer will revolve around “Search.”
Since Google incorporated on September 7, 1998, they’ve been working to perfect search. (Even before that, too.)
They’ve put the best and brightest minds in computing on solving the search issue, to get more relevant results, faster. And even to this day, they’re changing how sites show up in the search results, to continue optimizing this process (remember “optimization” above?!).
They don’t rest on their laurels, even now that they’re completely dominating the search engine market (in terms of percent of searches conducted on their engine vs. competitors). They’re always working to make their search better.
By being the best at that, they can then introduce new, surrounding products into the marketplace. Products that provide a different type of value to the same users that come to their search engine every day.
They have instant credibility with these new products, because they’ve become known as such a behemoth in the search engine market. (And they know as long as they continue to apply their continuous optimization philosophy in these other fields — WITHOUT losing sight of their core mission of search — they’ll dominate there, too.)
So ask yourself — “What is the one thing my company (or I) does really, really well?”
And then — “What are we doing to become known in the marketplace for that one thing?”
And finally — “What can we do to increase the focus on that one thing in our communications, advertising, and media coverage, even if it means spending less time focusing on our additional products or services?”
It sounds counter-intuitive. But you can take Google as proof that it works.
I don’t normally talk about Search Engine Optimization — or SEO — because my opinion is that it’s an industry teeming with con artists with no real rules.
It’s the nastiest part of Internet Marketing, if you ask me.
Here’s why.
Some things seem to work, and some don’t — but your SEO firm will bill you for both with utter disregard for your bottom line.
There are black hat tactics to get you to the top today — but tomorrow you’ll be banned.
There’s very little white light in the industry as a whole.
But occasionally (very occasionally) I come across a piece of information or article that makes sense.
(Usually what makes sense — and works — takes a lot more time and effort than you’d like it to take, but when it works it WORKS.)
Today was such a day — and I thought I’d pass it on, for your sake.
1. Focus on the user (customer) and all else will follow
It’s easy to get caught up on the dollar (whether for yourself or your company’s stakeholders).
When this happens, it is often at the expense of customer or user experience. Which takes away from long-term business growth opportunity.
A better approach is to constantly be seeking out how to make the customer experience of doing business with you a better, quicker, easier, more enjoyable experience. Then, customers will become very loyal and return, even without advertising expense on your part. (Coming from an advertising guy, of all folks!)
Here’s how Google does it:
The interface is clear and simple.
Pages load instantly.
Placement in search results is never sold to anyone.
Advertising on the site must offer relevant content and not be a distraction.
Most of these probably don’t apply directly to your business. But the idea behind them does. So find a way to make the idea work, because a happy customer will tell friends.
Here’s another video on Google Website Optimizer — covering some of the best things you can test on your e-commerce website. Testing is a “garbage in, garbage out” process. That means if your ideas of what to test are bad, you’ll get bad results. But if you’re ideas of what to test are good… the sky’s the limit!
The better your test input, the quicker your profit boost will be.
This video can be used as a yardstick to measure your testing ideas against — and you can know with certainty what you’re testing has the power to bring results, quick.
It features Tom Leung, Google’s Product Manager for Google Website Optimizer, plus Bryan Eisenberg from FutureNow and GrokDotCom.
The video shows you a number of different options that can be tested to increase your web page and landing page conversion rates, including:
Where to start for maximally profitable testing.
Two simple things you can identify about pages on your website, to decide in seconds which pages can be turned into the most profitable tests.
“Idea Spectrums” you can identify for testing — and where to place your test inputs on the spectrums to get the biggest bumps in conversion.
Easy experimentation ideas.
Best practices in scientific advertising and marketing experimentation.
A bigger strategy for testing — why “thinking big” when testing will give you the most long term growth.
Four types of buyers — including how quickly they make the buying decision, and whether they use a logical or emotional appeal.
What people look at when they hit your web page — knowing this will tell you exactly what to test first.
The hierarchy of optimization, and why persuasion should be one of the last things you think about testing on most websites.
Five formulas for online marketing success.
How decreasing “flashiness” can increase your profits (expensive web designers — beware!).
Three easy headline tests that could boost conversions 50% or more.
Twelve website copy tests that can actually make a difference.
The point in the buying process when your prospect is the most fickle — and how to build confidence and close the sale.
Eight variables contained in just the “Add to Cart” button.
How “The Golden Rule” applies to testing your marketing.
P.P.S. — To make sure you never miss helpful info like this, sign up on the right side of this page. I’ll be sure to get you these great how-to videos as they become available. Sign up now!
Here’s a video by Tom Leung, Google’s product manager for business solutions. It’s about Google Website Optimizer, how to increase website conversions, and general best practices for online marketing.
It’s easy to get excited about testing your marketing. The prospect of increasing conversions from 10% to 2,000% or more is really motivating. But when you get in there to actually do the testing, it can be a little confusing — what should you test to get the best results, and why?
In my ebook — The Taguchi Testing Handbook — soon to be released with Bob Bly’s CTC Publishing, I cover this topic in a lot of detail. Much more detail than I can cover in a blog post. But I’ll share some of the basics here, to get you started on the right track.
Test high probability areas
On your landing page or other web page, there are inevitably a few areas that jump out and attract the eyes from the moment you load the page. These probably include your headline, any image at the top of the page, the first paragraph of body copy, the first list of bullet points… the list could go on, and is different from page to page.
When I’m looking to run a test, I want to know the first couple things that jump out to any visitor to the page. Why? Because these are what almost every visitor looks at, and what will probably have the most impact in testing. When there’s something that every visitor to a page focuses on, even for a split second, it has the potential to increase conversions through testing.
Once you’ve picked out the two or three most prominent page elements for testing, you may wonder what else to test (especially for Taguchi testing, which requires many more than 2 or 3 variables). Here’s a list of landing page elements that qualify as “high probability areas” — they’ve been influential in quite a few of the tests run:
The main headline
The subhead right below the main headline
The greeting (”Dear friend,”)
The offer (Including bonuses, packaging, delivery method, etc.)
Price
Guarantees (30-day, 1-year, 100% money back, 100% money back + $100 donated to a charity in your name)
P.S. (restate offer, restate guarantee, a mini FAQ, etc.)
Reinforcement copy in the checkout process or on the order form
These may or may not be influential variables on your landing page. And they may not be the only influential variables on your page. But each is worth testing because just one could increase your response by as much as 2,000%. And by testing multiples the increases will stack up even greater.
Once you’ve decided what to test, you need to decide what your different input will be. This is the most crucial step of the testing process. I’ll cover that in my next post, so make sure you’re registered on the right for updates.
The blogosphere has been buzzing with news of ConversionUniversity.com, Google’s recently-launched site on how to make your website perform better — in SEO, SEM, PPC, Analytics, website testing, and more. So what’s the deal?
What’s Google up to?
Why do they want to give all this free information on how to make your website make you more money (even if it’s not an e-commerce site)? Why aren’t they charging for this info?
Here’s my take.
Google — for as long as they’ve been in business — has been all about giving users the best possible experience. It’s been the secret to their success.
Every time Google changes their algorithms — the infamous ‘Google Slap‘ — it always works out in the favor of the website owners who are already giving a superior customer experience, and punishes those who diminish the customer experience.
They really want you to have a good customer experience on your website — and one way for you to do that is to have increased traffic, and increased conversions. Increased traffic means your site is more relevant to visitors — it appears to fill their need when it shows up in the search engine (either paid or organic). If Google shows searchers sites that are more relevant to what they’re searching for, Google’s doing their job, and they’re happy.
Another way to improve your customer experience is actually to sell more — increase your conversion rate. Here’s how this works. If you’re converting more of your website visitors into customers, that means a higher percentage of website visitors actually found what they wanted when they visited your website. If Google directed them to the site where they could find what they wanted, then Google did their job, and they’re happy.
Similar to selling more and getting more traffic, just keeping traffic on your site longer with more and better content keeps Google happy — again, if you’re keeping the people who found your site through Google happy, then Google is happy too.
And finally, the hidden profit motive.
Google knows that if they educate you about how to do better in SEO, SEM, PPC, Analytics, website testing, and everything else they have their fingers in, that you’ll be more likely to use their paid services such as AdWords.
It’s an old law of persuasion and selling — the law of reciprocity. When someone gives something to us without an obvious motive of getting something in return, we feel obligated deep down to actually return the favor. It’s the secret behind all educational marketing (and it’s something you can use too).
Google’s flooding us with information on how to profit more by using their services. This, in turn, encourages us to use their services. And they profit more.
Anything wrong with this?
I don’t think so. They’re using these persuasion principles in an honest and ethical manner. And if you ask, they’re pretty open about why they provide so much education.
Maybe there’s something we can all learn from this…
From what I’ve seen, there’s only two strategies to use when you design web pages.
Design for looks.
Design for function.
When you create web pages, you probably choose one or the other. The strategy you don’t choose may follow… but only limping along.
Unfortunately (in my opinion) the first choice of many businesses is to design their website and web pages to look good, and they often sacrifice the function of persuading customers to take action.
If you want your website to function well — to get customers to take action, to make sales, to generate leads, to educate — you have to plan that from the beginning. You define the goal for the page or website, then design it to fulfill that function.
After you’ve developed the website or web page to fulfill the function you have planned for it, you can clean it up and make sure that it looks good.
When it comes to web design, form follows function. That’s how you create effective web pages.
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