Subscribers: Pay A Fee or Get It Free

Why pay when visitors can get it free?

A lot of new website owners add subscriber revenues to their calculations when figuring their break-even date and potential for profit. Not a good idea. Subscriber sites are fast disappearing from the webscape and for good reason. Why pay when you can get it for free?

As a site owner with expertise for which others would pay to read, it’s hard not to think about subscription revenue but the plain fact is, online subscriptions have never really taken off the way we all thought they would. The New York Times went the subscription route with its Times Select but it wasn’t generating enough revenue to justify itself, so the critical features of the NYTs are now available free online.

Even Rupert Murdoch, the much-maligned media mogul, who just bought control of the Wall Street Journal is planning to give away fresh content on the WSJ website. Every day. And that’s one mogul who knows how to make money through advertising!

What happened?
Does anyone remember 2002? Seems so long ago. 2002 is antediluvian in web years. That was a long time ago. But back then, the web had grown substantially with the advent of the search engine in 1994 (along with numerous, subsequent refinements to search engine technology), and media outlets, big and small, saw dollar signs – a whole new revenue stream.

However, in 2002, in the wake of the dot.bomb debacle, online ad revenues took a major nose dive that digital marketers are still trying to overcome. The online subscription revenue model never really took off and, today, even the big players are leaving the field.

The reasons are pretty obvious. First, the web provides so much content from so many varied sources, you don’t have to pay a subscription for the latest in gold futures. Some site is giving it away. Second, add to this the development of RSS technology – the ability of individual web users to gather news and other content of interest with 100% customization, and it becomes pretty obvious why subscriber sites aren’t doing so well.

There are other reasons people give for staying clear of subscriber sites. They’ve been scammed before by another e-book download with nothing to say. They don’t want to give you their credit card number. You use a high-pressure sales approach making untested claims, predictions and guarantees. They figure you’ll sell their contact information and they’ll be bombarded with spam. An online subscription is a tough sell, so what’s the small, self-published guru to do about that $49-a-year online newsletter that subscribers delete without opening after a week or two?

What to do?
Change your revenue model. Change your website. Change your bottom line for the better.

It starts by changing your view of site content. Owners of subscriber-based websites depend on readers’ “need to know” – whether it’s a professional financial advisory, a “top secret” stock report, or the latest news on what’s happening in China’s shoe industry – somebody needs that information. And, if this information proves useful, subscribers will stick with you.

Useful information is information that works to the benefit of the reader. It could be a self-help website with a monthly affirmation newsletter, or a pet owner site that sends you weekly tips to keep your kitty happy and healthy. If the content is actually useful a subscriber site might survive – until some other visionary comes along and starts giving away the information you’re selling.

Change your view of content. Don’t think of content as something to be sold. Give it away. Use it to entice readers to visit your site often. Daily, perhaps. Now, no doubt, there are a lot of entrepreneurs shaking their heads as they read this. These are people who have spent years learning their industry, a new system to win at poker or how to use hedge funds to fast-track your retirement years. They have knowledge.

However, others have that knowledge, too. And if web users can find that information free, they sure enough aren’t going to pay you for the same thing. So, instead of thinking of content as something to sell, think of it as bait to attract regular readers and improve links popularity.

So how do I make money with this new revenue model of which you speak?
Indeed, web-based ad revenues did decrease for a short time in ’02. But since then, there’s been a marked increase in revenue growth, closing in on $2 billion in ’07 and projected to exceed $11 billion in just five years. The web has become one of the most potent marketing tools available to advertisers.

You can pick up some of that ad revenue using the content you once sold to draw in the traffic and keep your PR high, with ad revenues to match. You can also develop affiliate partnerships with companies that want to reach your target market.

Here’s how the numbers break out. In the summer of ’06, survey respondents were asked if they would rather receive free content with advertising or paid content with no advertising. More than 70% of those surveyed opted for free with advertising. And that’s why you see ads for Coke before a music video download on AOL. AOL is giving away the content and making its money on that 15 second Coke ad. Even so, 78% of Millenials (ages 13 – 24) found web ads more intrusive. Clearly, they want the content free – free of cost and free of advertising.

e-Marketer analyst, Lisa Phillips, recently stated, “Advertisers pay up to three times more to reach print readers than online users. They’re not convinced online readers browse a news web site the way they believe print readers still browse through an entire section of a newspaper.”

Excellent point and one that clearly demonstrates why print media is so heavy on advertising and light on content. All you have to do is check today’s newspaper if you want proof.

Time for a change
If you have a successful, subscriber site – congratulations. You must have something very interesting or useful to say to your subscribers. However, if you’ve seen your subscriber list dwindle and re-ups shrink, it’s time to change your business model and use that subscriber content as the lure.

Use the online ad revenues as your reward.

Accessibility: It’s What A Web Site Is All About

KEEP IT SIMPLE TO GET THE MDA

Accessibility, when discussing web sites, includes a number of factors: easy navigation, understandable site text, no dead ends requiring a browser back click to escape (lots of users don’t even know browsers HAVE a back click).

Let’s start with the bottom line- yours: the easier it is for a site visitor to perform the most desired action (MDA), the more times that MDA will be performed.

Let’s Start With Navigation
Whether you go with a navigation bar at the top of the screen or a menu list in the first column far left, your navigation must be:

• simple
• unambiguous
• truthful
• always available
• always in the same location

Avoid numerous tabs, drop-down or flyout menus. Keep it simple. If visitors are faced with too many choices too soon on arriving at the site, chances are they’ll bounce.

Keep the navigation unambiguous. It’s routine to have a “Contact Us” page on a web site. If you label the contact link “Company Authority,” visitors are going to be totally confused. And again, bounce.

Truthful is just what it says. If the link says “Product Descriptions,” don’t make the visitor read through another landing page of sell copy. Deliver what the link says and go directly to the products.

Always available is an aspect of keeping visitors on site longer, and the longer they stick around, the more likely they are to perform the MDA. So, the navigation bar or menu should be available from every page so the visitor can surf at will, unencumbered by what YOU think the visitor wants to know.

Finally, keep the nav tabs in the same place. Don’t move them from bar to menu and back to bar. The last thing you want is a visitor trying to figure out how to return to the contact page to make contact.

Keep it simple. The fewer clicks required to get the visitor to perform the MDA, the better. So, go through the process and eliminate every unnecessary side road, dead end and yet another landing page.

Accessible Content
If your client site is for a professional medical dispenser, you can assume that the visitors have some knowledge of the subject, i.e. you don’t have to start from square one. But you still have to stay on target pointing out the benefits of buying the client’s medical products.

On the other hand, if you’re writing text for a hearing aid retail outlet, accessible text is understandable by the reader. So first, toss the thesaurus. Find the simplest, shortest way to say what needs to be said about products and services.

Be helpful and supportive to the new visitor. Make things simple to find, simple to learn and simple to bookmark. Returning visitors are gold. Eventually they buy something so earning a bookmark is a very good thing.

Skip the hype. Educate the visitor using simple terms, no jargon and listing benefits rather than features. This is the stuff site visitors want to know.

Finally, lay out the text so it can be scanned rather than read. No big, long paragraphs. Visitors scan from upper left to lower right so put your most important info upper left on the screen.

The easier it is to buy something, opt-in for a newsletter, or to complete a form, the more often those MDAs are performed. So make it as simple as possible (why do you think Amazon offers a one-click checkout? How easy can it be?).

Accessibility benefits both site owner and site visitor – a win-win. Also a no brainer.

Need to make your site more accessible? Dropme a line and give me a call. Let’s have a look at what ya got. Webwordslinger

Content Syndication: Get Linked In

Get Linked In

Do a little Google research and you’ll quickly discover that there are a million e-books, seminars and webinars about building links to your site. If your site isn’t plugged into the grid – a stand-alone – you’re all but ignored by search engines because your site has no context. Search engine spiders can’t determine your site’s taxonomy – the categorization of the site into a class or group based on the site’s topicality.

Search engines look for links to and from your site. If you have a lot of reciprocal links (link exchanges), you score some points but you’re not knocking ‘em dead. Spiders know a link exchange when they encounter one so a reciprocal link has less value than a non-reciprocal link – an in-bound link without an outbound link connecting back.

The Value of the Non-Reciprocal Site Link
Spiders crawl a site and assess what they find based on top-secret formulae called algorithms. These algorithms are complex weightings of various site components. So, for example, content that changes often (green content) is a plus built into the search engine algorithm. Thus, a site that provides fresh, informational content scores higher than one that’s as stale as last week’s doughnuts. Spam – useless gibberish created just to attract search engines – loses you points in the SEO Sweepstakes, too.

Now, there are plenty of search engine optimization (SEO) pros willing to take your money to show you how to improve or optimize your site so that it moves up in the search engine rankings. Less face it, if your site is entombed on page 68 of Google’s SERPs you won’t generate much organic (search engine driven) traffic.

One thing that spiders look for in assessing the quality or usefulness of a site is the number of non-reciprocal links connected to that site. Why? Because it’s an indicator of quality and utility. That’s why other site owners are recommending that their site visitors click off and go to your site. Quite a feather in your cap, eh? Collect enough non-reciprocal links and search engines may come to “see” you as an authority site. This coveted designation moves you right to the top of search engine results pages.

Bottom line: spiders use links as a measurement in site assessment. The more quality non-reciprocal, inbound links there are, the higher the site ranks (page rank or PR).

Content Creates Links
Good, fresh content is a highly-prized commodity on the world wide web because search engine spiders like to see up-to-date, relevant information for their users. Spiders take snapshots of each website they visit. It’s called the cache view on SERPs. When a spider crawls a site, it compares the cache with the current content. If nothing has changed, your content will ultimately be considered stale and, as a result, you’ll fall in the SERPs.

Every site needs new content and one way they get it is through article syndication.

Web Article Syndication
If you’re an expert on the subject of your web site, you can develop non-reciprocal in-bound links through article syndication. It’s perhaps the least expensive, most effective means of improving your site’s search engine ranking.

There are sites like goarticles.com and ezine.com that syndicate content within a wide variety of categories. This content (articles) is posted by the author and is free for the taking by any web site for display.

The way you benefit? Part of the deal is that any site that uses your article must provide a link back to your site. At the end of an article on antique watches you’ll see an author’s box that says something like:

Author John Smith is an authority on antique watches and offers free
appraisals at johnsmithantiques.com

That’s a non-reciprocal link which is given more value than a simple link exchange.

The Benefits of Web Content Syndication
The most obvious benefit, from the SEO perspective, is that every site that picks up John Smith’s antique watch article must provide a non-reciprocal, in-bound link to Mr. Smith’s website. So, if Smith’s article is picked up and used by a couple of dozen web sites, he’ll end up with a number of inbound links from a single article.

Now, if Smith then writes an article on antique sideboards, posts it on goarticles.com or some other content syndicator and gets picked up by more sites, the number of non-reciprocal inbound links continues to grow.

Onceagain, these inbound links are considered more valuable by search engine spiders than plain link exchanges. The fact that a site has linked to you without a reciprocal link is an indicator that your site is worth visiting, at least according to the referring site owner. In addition, you’re becoming a recognized authority on the topic pf your site. A two-fer!

Some Precautions
Perhaps the most important precaution is to limit the number of sites that post one of your articles. One thing spiders don’t like is duplicate content so if your article currently appears on 20 different sites, you’ll get credit for the in-bound links but the value of those links will be diminished because of that duplicate content. It’s all over the web!

Make sure you track the sites that are picking up your articles. Just Google your name or the title of the article to see what pops up. Visit each site to make sure that the promised link back to your site is there. Also make sure that your content isn’t being used for illegal or unscrupulous purposes. You write a piece on options investing and all of a sudden it’s being used as a “testimonial” by some sleazy scam artists selling options contracts to little old ladies. You have the right to request the removal of your article and most sites will comply. If they don’t, notify the syndicator who may deny additional content to the offending site.

What If I Can’t Write?
This is one links-building strategy that works. There’s enough cyber world evidence to prove that. However, if you can’t string words together to create a useful, informational article, find someone who can.

Your spouse, neighbor, even your kid might have a hidden writer just waiting for the chance to blossom. Or, you can find SEO copywriters on sites like guru.com and elance.com. Some of these professional writers (be careful who you choose) know how to craft an article that’ll get picked up by lots of sites that are topically related to your site. Keep track of how many sites run the piece at one time so you don’t overexpose it. You can find that information on the syndicator’s site.

Finally, to amortize your costs in money and/or time, re-use articles. After you’ve removed a piece from the syndication list, wait 12 months and repost it. You’ll pick up a bunch of new sites willing to publish the piece and you’ll have a bunch of new, non-reciprocal, inbound links that’ll make your site shine in the eyes of search engine spiders.

Pros and Cons of Website Features: It Ain’t All Good, Ya Know

'Slinger Gives You The Skinny on Site Features

There are pros and cons to every feature you add to your site, so before you put up that blog and sign up for Adsense, consider these positive and negatives to the most popular site features.

You just registered your domain name. You’re one step closer to that dream of your own website and finally, financial freedom. But now what? Well, if you’ve signed on with a good web host (one who values your site’s success because it ultimately means the web hosting company’s success) you’ve got a box full of goodies to play with in designing your website.

You don’t need a pricey site designer. But you do have to decide on what your website will display and which features will be left out. There are lots of options which means lots of decisions – and there are pros and cons to each one.

A Secure Checkout
Pros: If you sell a product or service, and you accept payment over the web, you don’t have a choice. You must have a secure checkout with SSL encryption to ensure that sensitive personal information isn’t snared by a bad guy. The alternative is to use PayPal or some other payment service but the more payment options you offer, the more your offerings will move out of the warehouse.

Cons: Cost, for one. If your web host doesn’t provide free checkout software, like osCommerce, it could cost you a bundle. On the other hand, people want to pay with credit cards as long as they believe the transaction is secure.

Also, opening a merchant account – one that allows you to accept credit card orders – is going to cost you – sign-up fees, per charge fees and a percentage of every sale, so if you’re operating on tightrope margins, these additional percentages may mean the difference between a viable business and one that shuts down after three weeks.

Web hosts should offer free checkout software. And, a premium service will let your site piggyback on the host’s SSL certificate, saving time and money.

A Blog
Pros: Blogs are great for keeping a site fresh with new content. A closed blog (one in which posts are limited to your control) is easiest to maintain. They’re also useful for a couple of other reasons. First, it’s easy to post new content when you have a blog module as part of your site’s infrastructure so you can update daily with a couple of clicks.

Blogs also create site communities. Once a reader begins a thread, others follow the lead and in no time, you’ll discover the same people conducting conversations and debate on your blog. These are visitors who return to your site often. A very good thing.

Finally, blog software should come free as part of your tool kit. If it doesn’t, look for another web host that does offer freebies by the pound at a reasonable price. They’re out there.

Cons: Conversely, if you allow visiting readers to leave comments to your posts, maintenance may become a problem. There’s always some foul-mouthed, trouble-maker who stirs up more interest in his online antics than the topic at hand. As the boss of the blog, you can block these distractions, but that doesn’t eliminate the need to monitor threads. You want an active blog but you also have to maintain it with regular posts and constant oversight of readers’ comments. This means part of your day will be used up in editorial duties, a real con.

Google AdWords
Pros: There are thousands of site owners who create websites for no other reason than to generate PPC (pay-per-click) revenues. They put up a little content, stuff each page with AdWords skyscrapers and wait for the money to roll in. And it does. Some of these site owners see $200 – $300 a month in click-through revenue per site, and if they maintain 10 such sites, it starts to add up to some real “walkin’ ‘round” money.

AdWords is a simple, easy-to-manage way to monetize a new site quickly. You only pay when search engine users click on your link so you’re not wasting money.

Cons: I don’t care how well designed a website is, AdWords – those cheesy little blue links on the top, bottom or side of a web page, diminish the perception of quality in the mind of the visitor. And as we’ve said many times in this blog, on the W3 perception is reality.

If your law firm maintains a website (and it should) you want to project a professional, positive image, not the Lionel Hutz “I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm” image.

Another con: click fraud. A competitor can just click on your AdWords link and have all of her friends do the same for five minutes a day. Your AdWords budget gets eaten up by black hat tactics and there’s not a whole lot you can do about it. If you can prove click fraud, Google will give you credit, but it’s up to you to prove the fraud. Google get’s paid whether the click is licit or a scam.

Affiliate Links
Pros: A great way to make cash fast. Affiliates are companies into which you enter agreements. You agree to display the mother company’s logo and link on your site and, in return, you receive payment based on the number of visitors to your site who click on the link and perform some action. For example, put up an eBay link and collect $35 a head plus a nickel for each bid one of your referrals places.

Get a couple of hundred eBay buyers placing bids everyday and that money can add nicely to your site’s revenue stream. Also a great way to monetize a site quickly.

Cons: Same dealeo as Google AdWords. If you access a site jam packed with affiliate links, it doesn’t add much to the process of building visitor trust. The site looks cluttered and cheap.

More negative news: each one of those affiliate links takes up space that could be used to sell your products or services.

And finally, each one of those affiliate links is a ticket off your site. With a click, they’re off looking at something on an affiliate site. You may pick up a few bucks a month in affiliate revenue, but you aren’t making the real money you make selling your own goods or services.

One suggestion: As we said, affiliates do generate cash and fast, so if you’re runnin’ on empty, add affiliate links to a single page with a navigation link labeled “Our Partners,” “Our Favorites,” or “Our Picks.”

Pictures and Other Images
Pros: Pictures sell more than words. Online buyers want to see what they’re paying for and, yes, one good product picture is worth a thousand words. So you will sell more with high-quality pictures.

Carts and graphs are useful for providing a lot of information in a small space.

Cons: Unless you own a decent digital camera and unless you know how to dress a set (the place where the product will be shot) and you know that the product should be lit from at least three directions, don’t use product pictures that you take yourself.

Log on to eBay and look at the range of quality of product pictures. Some are ripped from the web so they look okay. But some are nothing more than a front-on flash that blows out the object to a hot white blur floating against a blacked out background. Awful stuff, and not a good selling point.

If you can get product pictures from your wholesaler’s marketing department you’re all set. If not, have those pictures taken by a professional using a hi-resolution camera, lit properly and attractively staged. It’ll cost you some cash but it’s a lot better than using home-grown product pictures that don’t do justice to the product.

Charts and graphs should also be professionally done, unless you know how to create images in Photoshop or some other image manipulation software.

The Choices You Make Now…
…will often determine the short- and long-term success of your site. And remember, your site will evolve. You may start out using AdWords until your site is pulling in enough traffic to make up the lost AdWords revenue. Then, you drop AdWords and…

… your site takes on a much cleaner, more professional look.  

Need more straight talk about building a successful website? Okay, visit me and give me a call. Webwordslinger does it right and at the right price.

Making Opt-Ins Work Out

Opt-ins build your client base when used properly

 

Most site owners know the story behind opt-ins. Webmasters bait the trap with a free eBook download or “10 Tips to Immediate Wealth.” Pretty tempting. But, we all know what happens when we give up our email addresses to receive a weekly newsletter about a particular industry.

But opting in provides more than straight information. A newsletter from the competition gives you a peek behind the curtain, a look at what the competition is doing. And that info is delivered to your inbox weekly or monthly. Can’t get easier than that.

 

Opt Ins – Beware the Backsell

You know it, I know it – anyone who’s spent more than 15 minutes on the web knows it. The object of an opt in is to get that email address. Then, backsell. Once the user has given up his or her address, you’ve established a relationship with that buyer. That makes it legal to email them. In fact, it makes it legal to slather the poor opt in with spam until her inbox explodes!

 

So, do you want to plow through 100 hard sells each morning, along with the 250 legitimate emails you get from customers, clients, vendors and site owners looking for a links exchange? Surprisingly, the answer is yes.

 

Making Opt Ins Work For You

First, opting in to competitor sites offering a weekly or monthly newsletter reveals a great deal about the web site and the humans behind it. And that information is very useful in creating your site’s unique selling proposition or USP.

 

Sure, each site owner is going to urge you to sign up for the $97 (why $97?) secret charting system for picking micro-caps, or the seven signs of some horrible disease. You know this going in, so it’s a given. Delete, delete, delete.

But some of the information is going to be very useful to you. For example, let’s say you’re in the micro-cap oil and gas sector. Sign up for every newsletter, free eBook or the “12 Secrets to Micro-Cap Millions.” It’s free.

The secret, of course, is to dissect the newsletter, not as someone interested in buying micros drilling for oil in the Tasmanian Sea. Instead, analyze the content. Is there an article about some aspect of micros you think might make a good piece for your site?

You can’t steal the words. They’re copyrighted and belong to the site owner. On the other hand, as we’ve mentioned previously, you can’t copyright an idea. That means that you can use the competition’s newsletter to spark ideas. Conduct your own research on the topic, rewrite the text (so that it’s completely unrecognizable in relation to the original), add your own spin (so and so says blah, blah in his weekly newsletter but I must respectfully disagree with my competitor.) Then, off you go presenting a different view, opinion, slant or position. Controversy sells.

Don’t be afraid to name your source of inspiration. As long as the rewrite is different from the original in content architecture, vocabulary and even point of view, you haven’t violated any copyright laws.

 

Meet Your Competitors

As an op in, you hold a special place in the hearts and minds of site owners who now consider you part of the family. This does a couple of things that work to your advantage.

 

First, you understand more clearly the SEM efforts of your competition. Some provide more news and a little hype. Others cram those weekly missives with garbage that surrounds the one actual news story. Read between the lines. Is the competitor driven by dollars, by slow and steady connectivity and expansion, building links popularity and other reasons the W3 is strewn with digital litter?

Second, as an opt in, you usually have an access point to speak directly to the site owner. If you send a note to info@www.somebodyelsessite.com, you may get a response. Or your email may be deleted without even a look. The person sorting through the swamp of e-garbage in the inbox clicked you to oblivion.

On the other hand, as an opt in, you’re in a much better position to contact the site owner and say ‘Hello.’ Why? This is a great way to build links popularity – a reason for competitors to link to your site. If you contact Ol’ Bob over at eyeglassheaven.com, Bob is going to be more interested in linking to your site for seniors, onefootinthegrave.com. And why not? You aren’t a direct competitor (you’re not selling eyewear), but your typical site visitor wears glasses and may be looking for a place to order on line.

Links popularity increases all on its own. No more links begging. “PLEASE link to my site. Aw, come on. I’ll be your friend?!) Tough nuggies. If there isn’t symbiosis – if there isn’t something in it for the newsletter publisher, you won’t get the link.

 

Building Your Own Weblet

As you opt in for more and more free newsletters and eBooks, you have the opportunity to meet other site owners who make up parallel competition. They don’t sell the same products but they do market to the same demographic. So, using our seniors’ site, you could create a small group of sites – a weblet – that’s inter-connected with 10 or 15 different sites all marketing products to your target demographic – seniors.

 

A word of warning: owners of higher ranked web sites will be reluctant to link to you PR2 site. On the web, you’re known by the company you keep. Conversely, if your site can deliver real, cash-carrying traffic, the fact that your site has a lower PR than your new opt-in friend won’t matter much. You’re making the site owner money.

Expand to other goods and services using the members of your weblet to build links popularity. “Hook up with us and you become a member of a 15-site weblet. That casts a wide net and will drive traffic to your site. In turn, you drive traffic to the sites of other weblet members.”

 

It All Starts With That Opt In

That’s the door opener. That gives you a look behind the curtain at the people who have created and run the site. Once you’ve become a member of that site’s community, you’re in a much stronger position to seek out a links exchange. And the more opt ins you sign up for, the bigger your site family becomes.

 

Use the opt in for good topic ideas, but remember, it’s not nice to steal the work of others. In fact, it’s plagiarism and just not worth the hassle. But an idea is just that – an abstraction. Take ideas from competitors’ newsletters or eBooks and rewrite them for your own newsletter or site news section.

Track the competition for a few months until you develop an idea of the drives behind the site. Rip off, low life, straight up, well researched, expert in her field. It won’t take long to determine the nature of the author. As an opt in, the newsletter will also provide contact information that may or may not appear on the site itself. Try to reach the site owner directly.

Explain that you’re a fan of the newsletter, you look forward to it each week and “would you be interested in a links exchange to create marketing synergy.” The site owner is much more likely to listen to your proposition because you’re a member of his or her site community. You opted in.

Finally, if you find that your being spammed to a slimy, spammy death, most newsletters have an opt out link somewhere on the newsletter. If you’ve contacted the author of the opt in and it’s a no-go, opt to take a hike to find another site owner who recognizes the importance of connectivity within a narrow market segment.

Don’t fear the opt in. Take advantage of it to build your own small, interconnected weblet. You’ll expand your site’s exposure, you’ll help visitors continue their searches and search engines will think your site is tops, increasing PR, albeit gradually.

So, don’t view opt ins as time wasting opportunities to backsell. See them as entre into the office of the competitor webmaster – the one who shares your interests and your desire for success.

In no time, you’ll have your own weblet, your own newsletter opt in and a bunch of new online friends all eager to create synergies within their sites and the market.

The Case for Outsourcing

Outsourcing is a four-letter word in the current U.S. business climate. Jobs being exported to distant and not-so-distant countries, depriving American workers jobs on assembly lines and in office cubicles answering customer care telephone calls.

 

ARE YOUR KIDDING ME? OUTSOURCE IT!

The fact is that many outsources are U.S.-based. I am. I live in Connecticut. But people and businesses call me every day looking to outsource everything from content development (copywriting) to business development consultation. Over the years, as I’ve learned more I’ve been able to expand my service offerings – a sure-fire way to stay ahead of the bill collector, especially in slow times in an inert business climate.

 

But business marches on. And outsourcing is a great tool for business owners large and small. And, you can outsource anything. ANYTHING!

Why increase your staff?
If you run a small, boutique ad agency catering to local merchants and associations, why hire a copywriter when you can outsource the work? When you outsource to a quality provider you only pay for work delivered.

An employee actually costs a business owner 20% over and above that employee’s salary, so an editor earning $50 a year actually costs the company $60K with health benefits, sick days, vacations, maternity leave and other employee bennies.

Outsources pay their own insurance and when they take vacations it’s on their time, not yours. Bottom line: you only pay for performance – by the page or by the word or a fixed price for the entire project.

That’s another benefit, often overlooked by buyers of outsourced services. You can set a fixed price for a project. Keep it fair to maintain the provider’s attention but, by establishing a fixed price, you know to the penny just how much something is going to cost, whether it’s web site text or bookkeeping services.

From a pure productivity POV, outsources deliver greater value than staff employees.

No long-term commitment
Another plus. Once the job is finished, your relationship with the service provider is over unless you want to keep it going. It’s your call.

If you hire someone and they don’t work out, you’re stuck. Hire an outsource you don’t like and just move on to the next one until you find the provider who delivers the highest level of quality at the lowest price.

You can negotiate
You can with an outsource. Many will take a lower fee for regular work. It’s a good gig because the provider doesn’t have to beat the bushes for the next assignment so the trade-off between regular work and per hour rate evens out.

Can’t do that with an employee.

Create a virtual office.
There are big companies that employ virtual offices. Workers log in from home, see their assignments, notes from supervisors, reports to be read – everything they’d find in their in-boxes at work.

This software equips you to oversee all employee or outsourced activity in real time. This saves a ton of money on office space, furniture, equipment and donuts in the morning. It’s just like having an office but your outsources telecommute.

And you can track all business activity from an administrator’s console, making it easy to see pinch points and other problems before they become serious problems.

You get real world experience
Outsource workers have a long list of referrals and recommendations from happy clients. That may not be the case of the interviewee who has three recommendations from her communications professors. You want hard-nosed, no-nonsense recommendations from people just like you. A good outsource collects these referrals as a business building tool.

So you know what you’re getting.

You don’t need no “stinkin’” office. You don’t need a staff of 10. All you need is a well-fed Rolodex and a central clearing house – a virtual office – to keep projects moving forward.

So, whether it’s order fulfillment, marketing, accounting or even legal services, you can find highly-qualified men and women on sites like Elance, odesk and rentacoder.

Don’t hire and add 20% to your company’s operating expenses. Outsource in the U.S. and get more value for your shrinking dollar. And though it may sound harsh, if the company is going under for the third time, consider cutting costs by cutting full and part-time staff and outsourcing your bookkeeping and contract negotiations instead of paying for time spent chatting around the water cooler.

I’m an outsource and I’m proud of it.

Give Your Conversion Ratio a Boost:Seven Simple Steps

 

 

'Slinger on Selling The Goods

If you’ve spent a lot of time (and money) on improving your search engine page rank (PR) but you’re still not generating sales despite increased foot traffic, time to examine your site from a human perspective. The site may be absolutely perfect for search engine spiders but confusing or unattractive to human visitors. And they’re the ones who make purchases. 

 

Lots of Payment Gateways Boost Conversion Rates

You have to optimize your web site to improve your conversion rate – the rate at which visitors become buyers. Window shoppers won’t pay the rent. Buyers will. You don’t need more site traffic (of course, there’s no such thing as too much site traffic) you need more visitors who actually buy something. So, how do you optimize your site for humans? It’s not expensive. It’s all in the site design.

 Keep It Simple

Just because you can have a flashy homepage with lots of bells and whistles doesn’t mean you should. Your home page should be free of distractions. Do you really need that Flash animation? Does that chart or graph really make the point? Use your site’s home page to explain what your site is about and what you can do for the visitor. Lose the animated banner, the 20 links and pictures from a clip art subscription service. Just give visitors the key points. There’s plenty of time to sell once you’ve convinced a visitor to click off the home page.

 Adsense = Nonsense

Google’s Adsense program automatically places “Ads by Goooogle” on site pages, paying the site owner on a PPC basis. These ads are contextual meaning that if Google has identified you as an on-line florist you’ll see a lot of ads for flowers and florists.

 In other words, you may be providing ad space for a competitive site. Now, you can set parameters for the ads you’ll allow to avoid marketing competitors, but each one of those links is a doorway off of your site, providing more opportunities for visitors to pursue another search path.

 Some on-site retailers swear by Adsense and the passive income it delivers. However, you didn’t build your commercial site to generate PPC revenue. You built it to generate sales revenues and frankly, that’s where the real money is. Adsense ads also diminish the overall look of quality you’re going for so most designers shy away from PPC programs. Do-it-yourselfers are more likely to sign up for Adsense but you pay a price for those contextual ads.

The More Payment Gateways the Better

The more payment options you provide visitors, the more sales you’re going to have. Most payments are made by credit card so, at the very least, you’ll need a merchant account and an SSL (encrypted) certification to accept secure orders. But many buyers don’t like to use credit cards on-line because of all the fraud and identity theft stories in the media.

PayPal is a common option that many people prefer. PayPal is an eBay company that enables payments to be made for a fee depending on the dollar amount of the transfer. It’s simple to open an account. All you need is an e-mail address. Fill out the secure PayPal form and you’re ready to accept on-line payments. You have the option of having checks sent or of having the payments deposited directly into your business account. (recommended).

Eliminate Hidden Fees

The are lots of e-tailers improving their margins by charging “$10 shipping and handling” fees for low-cost items. It’s going to make buyers angry if they go to the trouble to shop your site, move to the checkout and discover that S&H adds 30% to the total cost of the product.

Restocking fees and other “hidden” fees won’t make you a lot of sales or friends. The buyer will find the fees soon enough so, if you’re going to improve margins with high S&H costs, make that point clear right off the bat.

Add a Strong Call to Action

The call to action is usually the last section of text the buyer sees before making a purchase. “Act Now!!!” “Call Today and Save 25%” “Don’t Wait Another Minute to Relieve Back Pain!” are all examples of calls to action.

A good call to action does two things: (1) it tells the buyer what is expected of him or her and (2) it should make one last, strong sales pitch: “TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THIS MIRICLE CURE, JUST CLICK HERE FOR ALL OF THE INFORMATION. FREE!!”

Add Indications of Reliability

Trust builders come in all shapes and sizes. Most are logos that you can display prominently to add to your site’s prestige and trustworthiness. If you have any affiliation with a professional organization (American Association of Optometrists) display the organization’s logo.

The on-line Better Business Bureau seal instills confidence. The PayPal logo is comforting to some. Add association and security logos throughout your site to build visitor trust.

Keep Conducting A/B Tests

Most web hosts provide site metrics software that enable you to quickly determine how successful site changes are to your conversion rate. To be effective you need an A/B test. The A test determines the site’s baseline performance. The way things are now. The B portion of the test measures the same performance parameters against the baseline A test.

Not all changes are going to translate into improved conversion rates. That’s why it’s essential to monitor site performance any time you make changes to site design, navigation or launch a special promotion like a series of auto-responders. In order to determine how well a marketing campaign is working, you need a baseline against which you can measure up or down ticks in site performance.

Every site owner is concerned with improving PR and they’ll spend a ton of dough to improve their site’s SEO. But many site owners don’t consider how simple it is to improve conversion rates and the bottom line. With a few tweaks here and there, coupled with regular A/B testing, you’ll grow your site faster with a much improved conversion rate.

No money required. It’s all in the site design.

 

Paul Lalley

editor@webwordslinger.com

Website Features: Pros & Cons

You just registered your domain name. You’re one step closer to that dream of your own website and finally, financial freedom. But now what? Well, if you’ve signed on with a good web host (one who values your site’s success because it ultimately means the web hosting company’s success) you’ve got a box full of goodies to play with in designing your website.

'Slinger Prattles on About Site Features

You don’t need a pricey site designer. But you do have to decide on what your website will display and which features will be left out. There are lots of options which means lots of decisions – and there are pros and cons to each one.

A Secure Checkout
Pros: If you sell a product or service, and you accept payment over the web, you don’t have a choice. You must have a secure checkout with SSL encryption to ensure that sensitive personal information isn’t snared by a bad guy. The alternative is to use PayPal or some other payment service but the more payment options you offer, the more your offerings will move out of the warehouse.

Cons: Cost, for one. If your web host doesn’t provide free checkout software, like osCommerce, it could cost you a bundle. On the other hand, people want to pay with credit cards as long as they believe the transaction is secure.

Also, opening a merchant account – one that allows you to accept credit card orders – is going to cost you – sign-up fees, per charge fees and a percentage of every sale, so if you’re operating on tightrope margins, these additional percentages may mean the difference between a viable business and one that shuts down after three weeks.

Web hosts should offer free checkout software. And, a premium service will let your site piggyback on the host’s SSL certificate, saving time and money.

A Blog
Pros: Blogs are great for keeping a site fresh with new content. A closed blog (one in which posts are limited to your control) is easiest to maintain. They’re also useful for a couple of other reasons. First, it’s easy to post new content when you have a blog module as part of your site’s infrastructure so you can update daily with a couple of clicks.

Blogs also create site communities. Once a reader begins a thread, others follow the lead and in no time, you’ll discover the same people conducting conversations and debate on your blog. These are visitors who return to your site often. A very good thing.

Finally, blog software should come free as part of your tool kit. If it doesn’t, look for another web host that does offer freebies by the pound at a reasonable price. They’re out there.

Cons: Conversely, if you allow visiting readers to leave comments to your posts, maintenance may become a problem. There’s always some foul-mouthed, trouble-maker who stirs up more interest in his online antics than the topic at hand. As the boss of the blog, you can block these distractions, but that doesn’t eliminate the need to monitor threads. You want an active blog but you also have to maintain it with regular posts and constant oversight of readers’ comments. This means part of your day will be used up in editorial duties, a real con.

Google Adsense
Pros: There are thousands of site owners who create websites for no other reason than to generate PPC (pay-per-click) revenues. They put up a little content, stuff each page with Adsense skyscrapers and wait for the money to roll in. And it does. Some of these site owners see $200 – $300 a month in click-through revenue per site, and if they maintain 10 such sites, it starts to add up to some real “walkin’ ‘round” money.

Adsense is a simple, easy-to-manage way to monetize a new site quickly. You get paid when search engine users click on your link. Passive income. No extra work involved.

Cons: I don’t care how well designed a website is, Adsense – those cheesy little blue cubes on the top, bottom or side of a web page, diminish the perception of quality in the mind of the visitor. And as we’ve said many times in this blog, on the W3 perception is reality.

If your law firm maintains a website (and it should) you want to project a professional, positive image, not the Lionel Hutz “I Can’t Believe It’s A Law Firm” image.

Affiliate Links

Pros: A great way to make cash fast. Affiliates are companies into which you enter agreements. You agree to display the mother company’s logo and link on your site and, in return, you receive payment based on the number of visitors to your site who click on the link and perform some action. For example, put up an eBay link and collect $35 a head plus a nickel for each bid one of your referrals places.

Get a couple of hundred eBay buyers placing bids everyday and that money can add nicely to your site’s revenue stream. Also a great way to monetize a site quickly.

Cons: Same dealeo as Google Adsense. If you access a site jam packed with affiliate links, it doesn’t add much to the process of building visitor trust. The site looks cluttered and cheap.

More negative news: each one of those affiliate links takes up space that could be used to sell your products or services.

And finally, each one of those affiliate links is a ticket off your site. With a click, they’re off looking at something on an affiliate site. You may pick up a few bucks a month in affiliate revenue, but you aren’t making the real money you make selling your own goods or services.

One suggestion: As we said, affiliates do generate cash and fast, so if you’re runnin’ on empty, add affiliate links to a single page with a navigation link labeled “Our Partners,” “Our Favorites,” or “Our Picks.”

Pictures and Other Images
Pros: Pictures sell more than words. On-line buyers want to see what they’re paying for and, yes, one good product picture is worth a thousand words. So you will sell more with high-quality pictures.

Carts and graphs are useful for providing a lot of information in a small space.

Cons: Unless you own a decent digital camera and unless you know how to dress a set (the place where the product will be shot) and you know that the product should be lit from at least three directions, don’t use product pictures that you take yourself.

Log on to eBay and look at the range of quality of product pictures. Some are ripped from the web so they look okay. But some are nothing more than a front-on flash that blows out the object to a hot white blur floating against a blacked out background. Awful stuff, and not a good selling point.

If you can get product pictures from your wholesaler’s marketing department you’re all set. If not, have those pictures taken by a professional using a hi-resolution camera, lit properly and attractively staged. It’ll cost you some cash but it’s a lot better than using home-grown product pictures that don’t do justice to the product.

Charts and graphs should also be professionally done, unless you know how to create images in Photoshop or some other image manipulation software.

The Choices You Make Now…
…will often determine the short- and long-term success of your site. And remember, your site will evolve. You may start out using Adsense until your site is pulling in enough traffic to make up the lost Adsense revenue. Then, you drop Adsense and…

… your site takes on a much cleaner, more professional look.

webwordslinger

10 Tips to Lower Your Bounce Rate. Boing

Boing

Boing. Boing.

 

A site’s bounce rate is a measurement of the number of visitors who stopped by the site but immediately clicked off to another site, aka, bounced. There are lots of reasons web users boing from one site to another, which means there are lots of things you can do to lower your bounce rate and keep visitors on site long enough to convert.

Here are ten tips to help you take the spring out of your web site.

1. Don’t assume the visitor lands on the home page. A visitor can enter from a number of access points. For instance, by conducting a search for a A324 converter, the visitor might land on the product page for said converter. (There’s no such thing, btw.)

This means that many different pages may be the doorway to your site so treat each page as a home page. Read on for design suggestions from your web host.

2. Keep critical information above the fold. Above the fold is an old newspaper term that described the newspaper’s front page “above the fold.” This is where the most important (or sensational) news is placed in newspapers today.

In website terms, above the fold is everything seen by the visitor without the visitor having to scroll – prime site space. Your most important information should appear here. A recent study on how different groups of people use the web showed that the 50 and older crowd don’t scroll as much as their web-wise grandkids so if you want it read, keep it above the fold.

3. Web users scan your site pages from upper left to lower right. So, what visitors first see in the upper left corner of their browsers will often determine if they stay or boing, boing, boing.

4. Create compelling headlines. “Who else wants to make a million dollars before bedtime” and other web clichés do not compel visitors to stick around to read your long-form, Dan Kennedy template sales letter. Headlines create interest among human readers and search engine spiders who recognize headlines as important text. So make your point in and add keywords to headlines.

5. Layout your home page in a three column format. Using three columns, you can create three headlines above the fold. If two headlines don’t capture the attention of the visitor, maybe the third one will.

Again, also useful in optimizing your site so make sure to build keywords into your headlines to keep everything in sync and max the utility of both the site text and your top tier keywords.

6. A picture IS worth a thousand words. A visual image (not just text) above the fold naturally draws the eye and attention of visitors so a small image or an image banner is helpful in breaking up blocks of text, and starts off the visitor slowly. A walloping pile of text, no matter how compelling, isn’t going to appeal to those “on-the-fence” visitors looking for a specific service, product, message or arcania.

A couple of points. First, if you’re using a photo, make it a photo worth seeing – a photo that instantly delivers your site’s message. Google “pre-fab homes.” You won’t see innocuous clip art. You see beauty shots of the prefab on a snowy evening with a warm fire going in the fireplace. So don’t waste pixels. Maximize every one.

Charts and graphs are a terrific way to transmit a lot of information in the blink of an eye. You can write pages of text testifying that your stock picking formula is the best, or you can create a chart showing your online portfolio delivering gains of 150% a year. A chart showing rising value (whatever the product or service) makes a strong statement very quickly.

Charts and graphs are also useful in making complex information more accessible to the reader. Your typical visitor won’t read through pages and pages of company financial statements but s/he will make a buying decision based on proof in image form.

7. Make navigation simple enough for a well-trained chimp. If the visitor is confused, even for a moment, you’ll see a bounce. Life is too short to “figure out” how this works. We’ve grown extremely impatient in the digital age and if it even LOOKS hard, boing.

Keep your navigation bar in the same place throughout the site and provide the option to return to the home page from every page of the site. A visitor may get lost and want to start over, learn more or use the links on the homepage to further explore the site.

8. Appeal to the drives of your ideal buyer. Needs-driven buyers have already determined that they’ll make a purchase and pay a lot if the purchase meets their needs. For example, there are a million books for sale on the web telling you how to avoid foreclosure “even if the sheriff is knocking on the door!!!!”

Okay, now that’s a needs-driven buyer. Facing foreclosure. Sherriff at the door – that site visitor will pay $99 for an e-book download if s/he believes the product provides (or is) the answer to his or her foreclosure problems. That’s a needs-driven buyer – a prospect who needs what you market – products or services. These buyers are less concerned about how cool and stylish your site is, how many interactive features it has and so on. These people are looking for solutions and benefits.

Other on-line shoppers are more casual in their buying habits. For example, many browse the web to comparison shop for prices and then run off to the big box store to make the actual purchase. Or, they just may bounce to a competitor site to make their online purchase. It’s a very fickle marketplace. But…

… if something catches the eye and addresses the drives of your demographic bulls-eye, your bounce rate decreases quickly. This means:

• Know your target demographic. Describe your perfect buyer.

• Know your products – inside and out.

• Know the motivations of your ideal buyer – need, the desire for prestige, acceptance, to be part of something larger (to belong) – what motivates your buyer? Example? A site selling acne cures should appeal to the consumer’s natural drive to improve his or her appearance in order to better “fit in.” The human desire to belong and to be accepted is what fuels the cosmetics industry, the fashion industry and other “personal signature” industries.

So, the owner of the acne cure site can create three distinct headlines that address the drives of buyers of skin care products and place them above the fold: (1) Look Better The Natural Way, (2) Why Dermagel Really Works and (3) Stop Covering Up – three headlines aimed with laser precision at a site selling acne cures and other sensitive skin care products.

9. Real information. Not sales hype. If site visitors discover useful information that will directly benefit them on each search engine accessible page of your site, they’re much more likely to stick around and learn a little something.

Sure, if you’re operating on razor-thin margins and “Low Cost” is your prime selling point (WE BEAT ANY PRICE ON THE WEB) then that needs prominent, “can’t-be-missed” display on the home page – somewhere. But to lower your bounce rate, add a little informational content or a big link to your site’s information bank, blog or archives. There’s plenty of opportunity to make a sale once the visitor has begun to explore your site for additional, useful information.

10. Don’t follow the herd. 6,000 new websites hit the W3 each and every day. There are over one billion active websites worldwide. And if your online sporting goods warehouse site looks like every other sporting goods warehouse site you’ll continue to see a higher than acceptable bounce rate. You’ll never get your bounce rate to zero. All you can hope for is to lower it.

One last humbling fact: the average web user decides whether to stay on a site or move on in less than six seconds. Six seconds!!! That’s how long you have to compel the visitor to stay on your site before bouncing off to some other site.

Six seconds. How can your site grab attention in just six seconds? That’s the challenge we all face as site owners.

 

Paul Lalley

Webwordslinger, Paul Lalley

 

 

editor@webwordslinger.com

How “Free” Lost Its Value and What to Do About It

You can’t swing a dead copywriter without hitting some website offering something free. Whatever it is – usually a 20-page eBook or some TOP SECRET information – it’s the bait used to get site visitors to sign up for something – to opt in, in other words.

It doesn’t take much to put together a 20-page download on (enter topic here) and offer it to site visitors free. If you can string words together and have the topic expertise, you could write the thing yourself. Cost = $0.

There was a time when FREE meant something, and it still does in some markets. “Buy one get one free” still gets the attention of most people, some of whom will drive 20 miles out of their way to save $1.49 on paper towels. Food markets operate on razor thin margins and these loss leaders pull in the traffic that ultimately fills a basket “as long as we’re here.” We all do it.

So, in the retail food sector and other retail sectors (Buy One Sweater, Get One Free), “Free” is still an attention getter and makes excellent bait to drive traffic to the store.

You’ll Get a Fabulous, One-of-a-Kind EBook That Will Change Your Life Forever – FREE!

Why Free Doesn’t Work on the Web Anymore
Where to start.

Okay, how about with the “word bling” that’s usually associated with these high-pressure businesses: “state-of-the-art,” “one-of-a-kind,” “fabulous wealth with no effort ,” and on and on. Web users are a lot more savvy and they recognize a come-on for a back sell when they download that FREE software. They know you’re going to use email blasts like cannon fodder, pop-up screens and any other device you can export to the visitor’s hard drive.

Only a complete idiot (yes, they’re out there) would believe that you’re going to turn his life around completely – ABOSULTELY FREE. Hey, if you had the secret or the keys to the vault, why are you writing free downloads and trying to get some visitor to opt in?

Free has lost its value. Well, actually, on the W3, FREE is now fairly valued. You do get what you pay for in Cyberville and when you and a few thousand other folks opt in for a free anything, you don’t expect much.

That’s tainted the word “free” on the web. If every site owner is offering a free something, than nothing has much value. You can find FREE downloads, CDs, DVs and workbooks in every nook and cranny of the web community. That has led people to (rightfully) assume that FREE on the W3 implies useless puffery or endless pop-ups that actually pop-up while you’re working.

Believe it. Nothing is free and when you trade your email address for a FREE anything, you know you’re going to be hearing a lot from the folks who offered something for nothing.

Can the Value of Free Be Restored?
Not as long as web copywriters have a thesaurus full of synonyms for “wonderful,” “fabulous” and “breath-taking.” As long as site owners promise value and don’t deliver, fewer and fewer web users will opt in. It’s just not worth it.

But if you make it worth it, if the visitor who downloads your well-written eBook on investing hits the jackpot in the stock market, then that eBook information added value to the reader’s life.

So, if the freebie actually meets or exceeds the expectations of the site visitor, you’ll see a much better return on that free download. The keys in preparing the copy that sells the freebie is to sell the benefits and provide good samples from the text. This shows the visitor that there’s value here. Free information worth a closer look. Quality content draws in visitors and creates site stickiness. Free or not, it’s got to be useful, written in plain English and it has to add value to the reader’s life.

And that has to be made clear in your site text. This isn’t some flimsy document or truncated trialware. This is the real goods, the new information, the money-saving advice and yes, it really is free. The reader must believe that his or her life will be made better in return for giving you an email address.

Forget FREE. It’s taken on a cheap, tawdry aspect on the web. And if it looks like a come-on, reads like a come-on and smells like a come-one – it’s a come-on. So play down the no-cost feature and play up the value added proposition.

The Value-Added Proposition
For long-time web users and new site visitors to offer up their email addresses, they must perceive added value – that this free software download will help them store their online music collections or track stocks on overseas exchanges. This is a download that adds value to the proposition. The visitor is actually getting something of value in exchange for that email address (and opening the door to the back sell once the email address has been captured through an opt-in).

So, it’s not hype that adds value. We’ve seen it all, heard all the promises and been disappointed before – sometimes to the point of having to block some hardcore marketers who still believe that a series of 10 auto-responders will entice you to sign up for the “Premium Package Only $49 Annually.”

The copy you employ to encourage visitors to take advantage of something “FREE” must highlight the value added proposition. If the service is worth the hassle of emptying the inbox each day, if the eBook really does provide utility and improves the life of the visitor, then FREE still has value in your marketing and promotion efforts.

Conversely, if the visitor doesn’t receive the value promised, if the auto-responders come daily (filled with more hype), or if the software download doesn’t provide the full slate of functions, some visitors will feel betrayed.

And you know they’re not going to buy anything no matter how you reach out to them.