I’ve just visited a very odd website.  It belongs to someone I met at a recent networking event and I wanted his email address to make contact as I can’t find his business card.

When I couldn’t see any details on the home page, naturally I went straight to the ‘Contact’ page – to be confronted by a form.  And that’s all that was on the page – no phone number, no address, no email – nothing but a form to complete – which I don’t want to do.  I know forms have their place, but surely not as the only way of getting in touch?

I wonder how often this chap’s phone rings with new enquiries?

It got me thinking about how we often don’t see the obvious on our own websites (I even had a quick look at ours to make sure you can contact us easily!)

Find out if you’re a mystery to your clients by taking a critical look at your website.  Better still, ask someone who hasn’t seen it before to visit it and ask them to answer a few questions:

• How do they get in touch with you?
• Can they explain what you do?
• Do you make it clear who you do it for?
• Is it obvious what you want them to do next?

Visitors to your website should be able to easily see all this information on your home page (even if it’s just a summary and they need to click through to other pages to read more detail).  After all, the home page is often the one most first-time visitors land on, so it’s important to let them know if they’re in the right place quickly.

Make it very easy for your customers and prospective customers to find basic information.  If you don’t, they’ll click away because they don’t have time to solve a mystery.

Have you come across websites that kept you guessing?  Do share in the comments below.  And if you found this post helpful, please retweet it!

Going through the process of having a website built can be like navigating a minefield. Not only do you need to think about the design of the site and what information to include on it, but there are a whole host of different content management systems and techie options to consider as well.

A content management system (or CMS) basically means you can log into your website’s admin area and update pages or content fairly easily without technical knowledge or worrying about mucking up the design of the site. If you have a blog, these are essentially content management systems and once you get used to the interface, they’re fairly easy to use.

In fact most days I hear about a different content management system for websites so the choice can be confusing. So, if you’re about to embark on having a new site built, you need to consider what you want it to do.

1. Ability to update the site
This is probably one of the most important things when having a site built; being able to update the website yourself quite easily without having to pay your web developer each time you want to change something. It will allow you to be spontaneous and add offers or new content as and when required. It gives you that bit of control over your content and means you can be much more proactive with the promotion of your site.

2. Built in optimisation
Your content management system must allow you to be able to update the optimisation on key pages of your site, which include title tags for each individual page, meta description tags, header tags etc. This is really important to ensure the site is optimised as best as possible.

3. Integration with social media
Ensure you can integrate social media activities into your website. If you have a twitter profile, Facebook or LinkedIn profile, you want these profiles linked to or even integrated, e.g your latest ‘tweets’. If you have a blog, you also need it to be integrated into your website preferably on your domain rather than a free domain, for example www.savvymarketers.co.uk/blog rather than savvymarketers.wordpress.com.

4. Ability to move your site
New websites can be very expensive and you don’t necessarily want to tie yourself down to a one off bespoke system, particularly if sometime in the future you decide to move your site for whatever reason. It’s best to go with a system that can be moved to another provider or host without having to have a brand new website built!

5. Reputable web host
Make sure your website is hosted with a reputable company. Cheap hosting can lead to your site being hosted alongside less than reputable sites, which can cause problems with the search engines. You also want to ensure your hosting company has security in place to prevent hackers getting into your website and inserting malware on it.

This is only a few of the things you need to consider when having a new site built, and best to think about all of these things before you choose which provider to use!

At our ‘Online Marketing for Beginners’ workshop earlier this week, one of the topics we looked at was the importance of getting your website home page message right, after all – for many visitors it will be the first impression they get of your business.

I read somewhere that the purpose of your home page is to enable a visitor to understand what your business is about -  in less than 10 seconds!

Here’s a sample of what we covered:

• Be careful your site doesn’t take too long to load – people will click away without waiting if it does.
• Say what you do, don’t make people guess!  But you need to say it in a way that isn’t all about you – turn the words around so as to focus on your visitors, the problems they’re experiencing and the results they can expect from working with you.
• Make it obvious who you work with, so web visitors quickly know if they’re in the right place.  This also means getting clear about who your target market is.
• Ensure your website is easy to navigate, don’t bury information so visitors have to click too many times to access it.
• Don’t let your visitors escape!  You must put in place a way to capture their details so you can contact them and market to them again.  The traditional method is to use a sign-up box and offer a high quality ethical bribe in exchange for their email address.
• Give a very clear call to action, in other words tell people what you want them to do next.

Sam and I are in the process of putting together new workshops for 2010 and we’d love to know what topics would be of most interest to you.  Do visit our survey here, or leave a comment below.  Thank you.

And no, I don’t mean that in the way some people with super-sized egos say ‘just Google my name!’ when you ask for their contact details.

The more time you spend online – using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social networks – the more of a trail of virtual breadcrumbs you leave on the internet.  Add to that any articles, podcasts, videos and blog posts you produce, as well as comments you make on other people’s blogs, and the trail becomes ever more visible.

While it’s the ambition of most businesses for their website to be No. 1 on Google, it can be a little disconcerting the first time you see your own name appear in search results.  But you can use this to your advantage if you’re the owner of a small business, indeed you really must!

To start with you want to find out what’s being said about you – is it accurate and up to date?  I was researching for a client the other day and found references to a previous business and link to that business’s website.  My client had wisely maintained the ‘old’ site and provided a link to her latest website from it.  So often people excitedly move on and forget all the benefits gained from a previous web presence.

And do you know where your details appear?  I’m often bemused to find myself listed on directories I have no recollection of joining.  Links back to your website from most directories are pretty meaningless these days, but references about you on authoritative and respected websites that link to your site are definitely worth cultivating.

Have you Googled yourself lately?  What did you find?

When I first set up my social networking accounts, I thought they were a great way to get more visitors to my website.  So in the space for a URL on the profile page I entered my home page address, but I soon realised that by doing this I was missing one of the main points of social networking, which is to get to know people.

Here are some lessons I learned from more experienced social networkers about making new contacts online:

• They don’t want to be taken to a sales page;
• They don’t want to be taken to a sign up page;
• They don’t really want to be taken to your home page either;
• They want to find out what sort of person you are, not what’s on special offer this month.

When people visit my website from any of the social networks I belong to (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Friendfeed, etc.) they land on a page written especially for them.   If you like this idea, please feel free to model it!

Where do you send your new online networking contacts?

I realize that what I’m about to say is going to make me unpopular.  For some people, it’s going to come as a big disappointment, almost on a par to when they found out the truth about Father Christmas!

The odds of getting rich quickly on the internet are even less than winning the lottery (assuming you buy a ticket every week).  There will of course always be some winners, but the overwhelming majority of us won’t become millionaires overnight.  Indeed when you study the success stories, they didn’t either.

Many non internet-business owners who want to find ways to attract more clients and increase sales look to the internet with unrealistic expectations.  They expect visitors to flock to their website, even though they’ve done little or no optimization to enable people to find it.

Some enlightened souls start a blog.  They announce its launch with great fanfare and think they’ve really cracked it when friends and family ‘ooh’ and ‘ah’ over how beautiful it looks.  They may even post diligently at first, until it all becomes too much effort and they leave it to slowly gather dust until eventually joining the growing cyber-graveyard of abandoned blogs.

Social networking is the latest trend amongst those hoping for instant results.  They connect with as many people as they can, as fast as they can and promptly bombard these unfortunates with ‘buy my s***’ messages and links to their sales pages.  After a week or so they complain that social media doesn’t work.

Using these internet based marketing methods without understanding how they work is pretty much a waste of time and effort.

If there were a magic pill or secret potion to get rich quickly, there would be no need for so many people to be selling get rich quick products.  There would also be no poverty.

The real secrets of using the internet to get rich involve hard work, determination, perseverance and a liberal sprinkling of good luck.  Sorry if that isn’t what you wanted to hear.  Now, about the Easter Bunny ……

Just as you need to set objectives for your traditional marketing materials, having clear calls to action on your website is also very important if it is to generate the results you want, especially from first time visitors.

Here are two common mistakes that we see:

So many web pages, and blogs start off with all the essentials – great headline, good copy, nice graphics and design – and then ….. nothing!  Unless you tell your visitors what to do next, they may view other pages on the site, and then click away, fully intending to return another day.  But will they?

It’s a good idea to give them really simple, clear instructions, like “the next step you need to take is to visit the xyz page.” Don’t worry – your visitors won’t feel insulted, they’ll be happy to know what to do!  For example, you’ll want to capture your first time visitor email address – asking them to type their details in a sign up box is a perfectly valid call to action.

Other web pages, blogs, even sales pages, are often very ‘busy’ with so many different offers and graphics that it’s a bit like being in a sweet shop as a child – you don’t know what to look at first!  I saw this on a sales page recently and found myself drawn to look at and click on other offers – which were taking me away from the product this page was selling!  While it’s nice to earn some affiliate revenue, it shouldn’t be at the expense of selling your own product or service!

There’s a great saying in marketing that goes: “the confused mind always says no.” Don’t confuse visitors to your website by giving them too many choices.  Similarly, don’t make them guess what they should do next.  Have just one objective for each of your web pages; leaving your visitors in no doubt as to what you want them to do next.

I’m having my car MOT’d this week  – I can’t say I’m looking forward to it as it usually fails on something! Each year we have to put our cars through this test to make sure they’re roadworthy, and it made me think that we should do the same for our website from time to time, as often the smallest things can make a difference to a website performing effectively.

So what should be included in a ‘website MOT’?
Here’s a few things that you should be checking at least each year to make sure your site isn’t missing any tricks, or even sending visitors away:

1. 404 page – have you got one and is it working? See my previous blog post on 404 pages.

2. Broken links – you’d be surprised how broken links can creep into a website, even with the most diligent programming. Xenu link checker is a very useful tool for checking if your site has any broken links, and enable you to fix them. Hopefully your 404 page (see above) is saving you from losing visitors from any broken links you may have.

3. Robots.txt – I’ve also previously written about this, and if you’ve areas of your site you don’t want indexed, make sure you include them in your robots.txt. It’s good practice to include one as (most) search engines will read them before indexing a website.

4. Sitemap – if your site only has a few pages, then you needn’t worry too much about having a sitemap (a page listing all the pages of your website), but as your site evolves and gets bigger, it’s worth having one to help the search engines index your pages more efficiently (particularly if some are buried a few clicks away from the home page), and can help visitors find the information they’re after if they get lost.

5. Google Maps – make sure your site is listed in Google Maps, particularly if you service a particular geographic area and your business is location specific.

6. Google Products – selling products on your site? Get them listed for free in Google Product search.

7. Meta tags – review all the meta tags on each page of your site. Are they unique to the content of the page? Are they included at all? Do they contain your target keywords? Your title tags and meta descriptions are important not just for rankings (especially the title tag), but how your website is presented to potential visitors in the search engines.

8. Images - are your images all properly labeled? If not, you could be missing opportunities for potential visits from image searches.

So, how many of these is your site failing on? Checking these regularly could really make the difference not only to rankings, but even influence whether or not visitors can actually reach your site.

Having been on the web for many years now, there have always been things that people put on their sites that are irritating to visitors and frankly, are just bad practice. Well, today I thought I’d highlight some of those crimes the web police should be arresting people for!

1. Mission Statements
Just about one of the worst things that people put on their site. These are usually meaningless to website visitors and usually ramble on about good customer service. Well in this day and age, if customer service doesn’t cut the mustard, you’ll soon be out of business anyway. Save mission statements for NASA and concentrate on the benefits of your products or services, what makes your organization stand out from your competitors.

2. Meaningless Jargon
If you have a lot of jargon in your industry (and the web industry is one of the worst), save it for those in the know, not for people looking for your services who don’t really understand what it means. Write in language that your customers can understand. Content written in geekspeak or gobbledygook just makes you sound arrogant and pompous.

3. Pop Up Newsletter Sign Up Forms
I hate pop ups and when I’m being hassled to sign up to a newsletter by a pop up, it puts me off signing up even more. I particularly hate the ones that move across the screen and dim the rest of the site behind it. By all means, try and encourage people to sign up to your newsletter on your website, but not in an ‘in your face’ way.

4. Flashing & Animated Images
I also hate visiting sites that have endless flashing and moving images – after a few seconds they really start to annoy me and all I want to do is move to another page or away from the site completely. The same goes for audio that automatically starts when a web page loads. Don’t put off visitors with awful flashing graphics, you’ll just send them to your competitors and if you must have audio, and least let the visitor decide whether or not they want to listen to it.

No doubt I’ll be back with more website crimes soon, but we’d love to hear some of the web ‘crimes’ you’ve come across!