Archive for the ‘Websites and Web Marketing’ Category

Fan Mail

August 11th, 2009

I got this e-mail the other day from a reader who owns and operates a Winnipeg Pet Sitting Service (hey, if you write me as letter this nice, the least I can do is give a plug). It was so nice I thought I’d reprint it here (with her permission, of course).

Hi Dan,

This is my first ever “fan mail”, but I am totally compelled to write you, and tell you how fantastic I think your writing advice is.

I purchased your book at McNally Robinson (in Winnipeg) which led me to your site. Several times I went into the bookstore and read snippets of your book “Do the Web Write”, until one day I figured I should just go ahead and buy it, and enjoy it at home.

As a young woman and home-based business owner in Winnipeg Manitoba, I built my own website (winnipegpetsit.com) when I started my pet sitting business.

My website is my hub, so it’s very important for it to be the best “face”

for the business I can make it.

With your advice on secondary landing pages, and google AdWords I’ve done a lot of restructuring, and all of your suggestions are working. I’m also working on a fly-out menu (it’s a work in progress), because I think it will give more structure and flow to my site.

But your most valuable advice has definitely been on style. I’m reading all of your articles on your site, and I love them all. You always say that your reader should want to take action, and your articles seriously compelled me!

Thank you, I’m a devoted reader now.

Posted in Copywriting, Misc / Personal Stuff, Websites and Web Marketing | No Comments »

quick website thought

July 28th, 2009

You’d be surprised how many times I’m asked to write for a new or semi-new website, and the website owner really doesn’t have a solid grasp on what he or she wants the website to do.

Oh, they know what they want the end result to be (sell products, contact for services, etc.) But they don’t know the really important factors in getting to that point.

A website is like a new business – before going into business, you need to know who your customers are going to be, where they are coming from, etc. With that in mind, here are four questions every website owner should be able to clearly answer:

1) Who will be coming to your site?

2) How/Where did they get your web address?

3) Why did they come to your site?

4) What do you want from them once they get to your site?

It’s the classic “who, what, where, how, why” (just not quite in that order). But being able to answer these four will go a long way towards the success of your website.

Posted in Copywriting, Websites and Web Marketing | No Comments »

Website Landing Pages

July 1st, 2009

Just a quick thought on website landing pages.

I was having a discussion the other day on the Small Business Forum, and the topic was “landing pages”. One member seemed a bit confused as to what a landing page was and why one would need one. I posted the following as a reply, and I think it’s a succinct enough description to include here in the blog (the guy’s name was Fred, which is why it’s addressed to Fred).

*******

Look at it this way, Fred… say you’re a plumber. You have a ten page website. A few of those pages are for individual services (one for water heaters, one for remodels, one for new construction, etc)

Your home page, obviously, gives the birds-eye view of your business. The navigation bar will have links, and maybe the “services” link has a javascript flyout that shows the individual pages, etc. And maybe even your homepage copy has a bulleted list to a few of the services

Fairly normal so far, right? Despite that I used “plumbing” in my example, I’m really describing millions of business websites.

Now, say you run a google ad for water heaters. Instead of sending those clicks to your home page, why not send them to your water heater services page? And tweak the copy ever so slightly to “welcome” people as if this is the first page they are seeing (which to many, it now might be)

THAT’S now considered a “landing page”.

In other words, because you control the google ad and where the click ends up, why not send the people interested in water heaters to a water heaters page, and send the remodel people to the remodel page, etc etc? It falls right into the “solve the problem people came with” quite nicely.

When landing pages are discussed, the conversation is almost always talking about PPC, e-mail, or some other type of “direct” advertising. Because it’s very easy (and fast) to control who clicks. With organic, it’s nowhere near as timely – you might have to wait a year, making it impractical for testing products, strategies, etc. This isn’t to say you can’t tweak pages to welcome organic traffic, but it’s MUCH more scattershot, and usually not implied whenever landing pages are discussed in the context they usually are.

Posted in Copywriting, General Marketing, Home Business / Entrepreneural Stuff, Websites and Web Marketing | 1 Comment »

Experimenting again

May 28th, 2009

Last week, I had enough.

I was pretty busy with projects, and must have had ten quote requests in two days. Normally, this is good, but this particular time, eight out of ten were WAAAAAY out of my price range. I mean, MILES away.

Now, I realize not everyone out there is familiar with a copywriting service, and probably doesn’t have the foggiest idea what one costs, but don’t you think that someone like me, with my credentials and professional website, is going to cost more than $10 an hour?

Anyway, since most of the time it averages three back and forth messages before I have enough info to get a price, I just reached my breaking point in chasing business that has no chance of materializing (I would venture each of the eight took 20 min to 1/2 hour total time to converse with.)

So I went and put some basic prices on my quote page.

I’ve done this before, and it stops a lot of people from contacting me, so this time I did it a little different – I put the prices and the “here’s some pricing info” after the form.

See, my thinking here is if one goes to a quote page, and first sees three paragraphs of text explaining price, well, that’s a turnoff… they came to contact me, and now they have to scroll for the form. No good.

So I’m first giving them the form, and the price info is there if they want to read it. Most will, but the perception is a bit different. I’m hoping that doing it this way will keep the “$10 an hour” people at bay, but also encourage those who want to use me (and let’s face it, I’m really not that expensive.)

I’ll revisit this in a few weeks and give you the results, as it’s something maybe we can all learn/benefit from. And please, if you have any ideas, feel free to comment with such.

Posted in Copywriting, Websites and Web Marketing | No Comments »

The jury is still out, but so far, smaller is better

May 7th, 2009

One of the “actions” I did in response to recession-slowdown was re-tool www.clear-writing.com. Nothing radical, mind you, but I spruced things up, change the messaging a little, and most importantly, I cut down my navigation by a third. I eliminated two links in the nav bar, and an entire set of sub-categories.

So far, I have noticed a marked increase in conversions – most of them coming after I chopped things up.

I have always somewhat suspected this – a smaller, more targeted site increases conversions. That’s because it’s easier to understand, easier to navigate, and doesn’t take too much thought. The more links you throw out there, the more choices you have, and then a web visitor becomes like my wife in one of those chain restaurants… completely lost in choice.

Really, while I sit there in Ruby Tuesday’s, having decided upon my meal (Cheeseburger*) in six seconds, my wife spends a good ten minutes debating nine different things. Then the server really messes my wife up when she says “what do you want to drink?” At least here I can order my beer and tell the server to come back.

Anyway, my point is, if the menu was smaller, I could eat a LOT sooner. Oh, and your website… if your site is smaller and easier to navigate, it makes someone more likely to contact you.

I think one reason sites got so big is the SEO people told us to do that – more pages of “stuff” and the better you’ll rank. Maybe so, but smaller / easier = better conversion. I’ve seen proof, and am sold (but like I said, I always suspected this.) In regards to “lots of info” vs. “easy to navigate”, I’m going to start looking into ways to have my cake and eat it too (hey, I’m hungry – will you hurry up, Maryellen!!)

* It’s always a cheeseburger.

Posted in General Marketing, Misc / Personal Stuff, Websites and Web Marketing | No Comments »

A little business annoyance

May 5th, 2009

I’m sure I’ve written about this before – maybe here, maybe in an old blog, but it happened again today, so I need to mention it (and I will keep mentioning it until i change the world!) Apologoes in advance – this is a little “rantish”.

I hate it being implied that what I do is easy.

There are two ways this happens. One way is a client will say something like “oh, this should be an easy job for you” or “I’ve got an easy one for you“.

This may seem innocent, but I find it a little annoying. How do they know it’s an easy job? Because it almost always isn’t. Believe me, writing to get someone to click (or react) is hard. Sometimes, I’ve spent half a day on one page. Usually when someone says “this’ll be easy for you”, it’s a setup for “I’m not going to pay a lot for this”.

So please, do me and every other professional you deal with a favor – don’t tell them their job should be “easy”. Let them decide what’s easy, and what isn’t.

The other one that people sometimes use that somewhat discounts what I do is the old “well, I could write this myself, but I don’t have the time”. I hear that one every so often.

Ummm, no Captain Marvelous, you probably couldn’t write this. That’s why you’re coming to me. There’s no shame there – this is what I do.

You can say about your lawn guy “I’d cut it myself, but…” and I’ll believe you. But please, there’s no need to say to me “you know, I’m hiring you simply because I have no time“.

I hire web designers because I can’t make websites. I have Jen do any graphic work for me because I suck at it. I hire a plumber because I have a 50% “it holds” ratio when I solder pipe (and you don’t find out if it holds until you turn on the water… which sucks when you’ve soldered 5 connections.) I don’t tell any of these people that what I need done is “easy”. And I certainly don’t say “I could do it myself, but…”

Anyway, that’s my little rant for today. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about “what part of 14 items or less don’t you understand?”

Posted in Copywriting, Fun Stuff, General Marketing, Home Business / Entrepreneural Stuff, Misc / Personal Stuff, Websites and Web Marketing | 1 Comment »

A simple e-mail point, as told through a story about my mom

April 14th, 2009

I wrote this awhile back as an article on my website, but I really like it, and the point I make is very valid, so I wanted it here, too:

******************************************

My mom, bless her, tried using e-mail a few years ago. Despite the fact that teaching her to double click was a three month ordeal, she wanted to get online and see what this whole internet thing was all about.

My mom’s interest in the internet and e-mail was short lived, however. After an enthusiastic beginning where she would e-mail everyone in the family awkward two line ALL CAPS messages (“I LEARNED WEBPAGES TODAY SEE YOU SUNDAY LOVE YOU BYE”), her e-mail output started to wane as time went on.

I think perhaps this is because she felt intimidated by technology and the “fast pace” of the internet. Also, the “internet-speak” baffled her. For example, LOL (laughing out loud) is most certainly “loll” to my mom (this is a woman who, for thirty years, thought the Beatles were “working like a dove” in A Hard Days Night.)

By the way, I do not mean to imply that Doves don’t work hard. I’m sure they do. In fact, between posing for the Woodstock logo and crying on Prince’s Purple Rain album, the dove has been positively tireless, and a shining example for all avians. Don’t shit on my truck, ok?

Anyway, to continue with my story, my mom never mastered e-mail, and stopped using it. This was several years ago. Her e-mail inbox currently has several thousand unread messages.

My point?

Simple – I see many many companies, both large and small, have hired my mom to handle their e-mail communications.

Are they insane?

Really, my mom does lots of things well: She can drive a school bus; she’s a champion shopper; she keeps a great house; and she buys the best presents for people. But trust me – she’s abysmal at e-mail. Why some companies hired her is beyond me.

To further demonstrate this, let me give you a real life example of what happens:

Your Customer writes in an e-mail: Please help – the gruddy rod broke off the extra coarse kippey pad, causing an odd vinegar-type smell… What should I do?

My mom reads the e-mail and thinks: “I wonder if Dan wears a large or an extra large shirt? Will the one I bought fit him? And does he like zippers?”

And the e-mail goes unanswered. This happens *all* the time.

WHY ARE YOU TRUSTING MY MOM TO HANDLE YOUR E-MAIL?? SHE’S TERRIBLE AT IT. PLEASE, HIRE SOMEONE ELSE WHO WILL ACTUALLY ANSWER.

Ok, I think I made my point. By the way, it’s XL, and no, I don’t like zippers all that much.

Posted in Fun Stuff, General Marketing, Home Business / Entrepreneural Stuff, Websites and Web Marketing | No Comments »

Price – one more time (credentials, this time)

April 7th, 2009

I’m on a roll with these pricing posts, so let me do one more and make it a trilogy.

One thing you need to remember when pricing people is their business credentials, their experience, etc etc. Not everyone is the same.

Let me give you an example:

Last week, a guy says to me “You’re higher than two of your competitors… why?” So I ask him “who are these competitors – show me their websites”. And surprisingly, he shows me.

One guy is an ad on Craigslist. Really, that’s it – a free ad on Craigslist.

The other guy has a one-page site obviously made with “WEB-NOOB PageMaker” or something like that, has one paragraph of copy, 4 misspellings, a link to a 404 blog, and little else.

That’s who I was being compared to. My 50+ page site (plus this site), stellar Dun and Bradstreet rating for 5 years now, BBB Membership, two books… and all that gets me is “gee, the guy on Craigslist was cheaper”.

Now, it sounds like I’m mad over this or something. I’m really not – I would say that most people who talk price with me do NOT compare me to Craigslist.

But every so often, someone does… They compare me to someone with no samples, no credentials, no experience, and no writing on their own site… I mean, that actually astonishes me. I have enough copy on my main writing website to fill a small book. And I get compared, as a writer, to someone who has fewer words on their website than I have on this blog post. And that’s even if they have a website.

It’s the equivalent of going to a nice, fancy, sit-down restaurant, and then wondering why they don’t have a Dollar Menu like McDonald’s does.

Posted in Copywriting, General Marketing, Home Business / Entrepreneural Stuff, Misc / Personal Stuff, Websites and Web Marketing | No Comments »

One more book update (NOT April Fools!)

April 1st, 2009

Do the Web Write has finally been released on Amazon. Go to the book’s page on this site and there’s a direct link to the Amazon page.

Yay!!!

Posted in Copywriting, Fun Stuff, General Marketing, Home Business / Entrepreneural Stuff, Misc / Personal Stuff, Success, Websites and Web Marketing | No Comments »

Another book update

March 3rd, 2009

Both “Do the Web Write” and the second edition of “Real Home Based Business“ should be in stores / online shortly.

I got my advance copies of “Real Home Based Business” last week via FedEx, and it looks great – very happy with it. It has MORE content, yet it’s actually shorter in page count. Nice printing job.

As far as Do The Web Write is concerned, well, I was out for maybe twenty minutes this morning, which means that was the exact time that FedEx came to make another delivery. So instead of a package, I got a “we were here but you weren’t.. ha ha ha” note on the door (FedEx has an odd sense of humor.)

Seriously, since the only thing I’m expecting from FedEx are my advanced copies of ”Do the Web Write”, this must mean it’s done printing as well. Hopefully, I’ll have them tomorrow after I sign the little note (you know, in this day and age, there has to be a better way than this to deliver stuff. I can take a payment from China in thirty seconds, yet I can’t get a package delivered unless I am physically here – just seems odd.)

But anyway, that’s what’s happening on the book front. Both books out this month. Awesome.

Posted in Copywriting, Home Business / Entrepreneural Stuff, Misc / Personal Stuff, Websites and Web Marketing | No Comments »