This is the wrong time of year to ignore customer anxieties. People subconsciously assess your site in 1/20th of a second, so your first impression should be the very best possible.

Let your visitor know how you’ll be shipping and let them see who you work with. Those logos help build credibility, and also build trust. Use them prominently on the first page, don’t hide them!

Additionally important are any awards, certifications, testimonials, and guarantees. Images are important, and make a statement about your company using less text and valuable real estate. Images are said to be worth 400-500 words, so if you have a badge or image for awards, certifications and guarantees, use those images instead of naming the award.

Have you signed up for Build a Better Website yet?

You don’t expect to marry on a first date. Convincing another that you’re there for the long road ahead isn’t that fast, either. Learn the basics, sign up for our Build a Better Website course to understand what it really takes to set the foundation for long-term customer relationship building online.

This week’s audio is titled “Your Website Might Have Trust Issues.” I think you’ll enjoy it, leave me a comment and let me know!

  Audio Version

It used to be that extreme functionality was only for ‘big players’ online. Small companies really didn’t think they could do much with their websites, they basically represented an online address and that was about it.

With WordPress and iThemes, that couldn’t be further from the truth. About two years ago, we decided to exclusively build WordPress websites – and our clients are some of the most independently capable business owners out there.

It’s a good thing. The most frequently asked question we get from a new prospect is, “How can I get more control of my website, without destroying it?”

Two words – iThemes and plugins.

We use a professional design framework developed by iThemes for all our our WordPress sites. It’s the framework, more commonly referred to as a ‘theme’ that allows a business website to be completely customized page-by-page. Plugins take your website to the next level by adding functionality – making it possible for business owners and management to do things with a website that used to only be done by talented web developers.

When we build your website, we teach you how to do what you want to do safely, so you won’t break your site or negatively affect your search engine visibility. Not everything you want to do is necessarily wise to do.

We do the build, and teach you how to manage what you want to manage. If you don’t want to manage something or are not comfortable with your skill level, we manage everything or fill in the gaps.

See, plug and play would be a little too overstated. WordPress websites accept development from independent builders who come up with some pretty neat stuff, and plugin functionality is what it’s all about. But as a web designer, you need to know what you’re doing so you don’t inadvertently disrupt the theme you’re working on. Not everything works together, even when the intention is there. Some versions of original ideas need to be vetted with time and reviews.

But the good stuff? Oh, yeah. Definitely progressive thinking.

Great plugin groups enable your theme to do anything from dramatically changing the way your images display, to backing up databases and embedding shortcodes for video. They can pull information from Flickr and Picasa and make every containment box exactly the right size for what you’re trying to do.

Plugins offer:

• Data analysis
• Anti-virus protection
• Social media buttons
• SEO enhancement
• Comment spam filters
• Security scans
• Redirection
• Billboards
• Rotating text
• Comment back-linking to sites meeting your approval, and more

If you want your website to do it, just ask. If it can be done, we’ll find the app for that.

Your business website will be looking good and running easily when Zero To Sixty Marketing hosts, develops and unveils your new site. Try to stump us: What would you like to see your website do?

When it’s time to update information and images on your business website, what’s your first thought?

If you had a static HTML site built for your company, you may be in a situation that calls for a web developer. You may have one on staff, but often the marketing company who sold your small business the site will have to intervene. That takes a little time …  and probably money.

Have you ever wondered if you could update company information by yourself?

With a WordPress site designed by Zero To Sixty Marketing, those things aren’t such a big deal.

We show you exactly how to manage updating your site’s images or information – whenever the need arises. We take the hassle out of those types of business details, so you can do what makes your company truly great.

You’re not alone.  We develop and host your site, so when you need additional help, solutions are only a phone call away. As a matter of fact, if you don’t want to deal with any of it ever again, we’ll handle the whole darn thing. There really isn’t any reason to have outdated company information on your website.

If you’d like additional information about our website design services, give us a call. Are you currently using a WordPress website? Do you love it? Do you hate it? Let us know what issues you’ve run into or solved in the comments below.

Related Reading:

Website Marketing Strategy

Is Your Website a ‘Good Sales Guy’ ?

Ever been followed around by a commissioned salesperson at the mall?

Their job is to take care of your every need, and for providing that ‘service’ (used loosely), they will hopefully get a percentage of a percentage of your purchase. It’s in their best interest to make sure you have as many things available to you as cross your mind.

If nothing crosses your mind, they have brilliant additional ideas to invade your senses with.

You know, some do it right …

But others, well … not so much. Have you ever left because you were annoyed? Have you ever turned down their suggestions because they were way too expensive, gaudy, or irrational?

Or worse …

Have you ever refused to re-enter a store because it was obnoxious?

I’m not opposed to a good salesperson doing their job and making well-deserved money at it. I’m simply making an analogy we can all relate to.

Listen, your website is your online store.

You won’t be very persuasive if you attempt to use a bad sales guy approach.

Bad Sales Guy had a few wrong ideas:

1. He was more interested in his measly percentage than fulfilling your shopping desires.
2. He believed that if he hit over the head you long enough, you’d give in and buy.
3. He was indifferent.

That second idea actually works on some people, but more than likely they’ll  return the item, fuss about it to their friends, and avoid him IF they ever go back.

Those approaches aren’t very successful, and I don’t believe you want them to be the take-away from an encounter on your website, do you?

A couple of things to remember about your online storefront:

• Keep it simple and direct.
• Link to everything that they’ll need clearly from every page.
• Spend more time talking about understanding what your customers need than what you want them to know about your company.
• Don’t be vague; it’s like a limp handshake.
• Everything should read as though the writer was smiling at you.
• Stay clear of pop-up adds or sign-up forms that get in the way of the viewer’s experience. Instead, gently and clearly guide them to the location they’re looking for.
• Give them ways to interact with your business. Use blogs and respond to legitimate comments, keep your social media handles (profile names) readily available, use forums, and offer freebies.

It’s easy to miss this stuff. That’s the problem. Bad Sales Guy didn’t know or take the time to learn to persuade.

Make sure your website is a good sales guy.

I liked this post by Karri Flatla, it discusses what selling is and isn’t. I think you’ll like  and learn from it:

Think You Know What Selling Is?

Learn more about how your website can be a ‘good sales guy’:

Website Marketing Strategy

Do you agree? Do you have anything to add? We’d love to hear from you, leave us a comment below.

When was the last time you updated your company website? Today? Last week? Last month? Last year? I’m hoping it was no later than last week, but a recent report suggests otherwise. SiteKreator’s Small Business Usage Study found that 54% of small businesses update their websites less than once per month.

Why it Matters: Content Is Still King.

From an SEO perspective, if you want Google and the other search engines to rank your site high for your chosen keywords, your site needs to supply a steady flow of fresh, quality content related to those keywords.

From a search perspective, when the ‘searcher’ types what he’s looking for into the Google search bar, he now looks for the most relevant information AND the most recently produced. For instance, when I’m searching for a technical solution to a website problem, I’m not interested in results from 2008. Google gives me the option to filter by time range and I find that very useful.

From a viewer’s perspective, when a new visitor arrives at your site, will he find what he’s looking for? If not, your ranking on the search results page won’t matter.

Introducing the New Green Light Sign Solutions Website

Our client, Green Light Sign Solutions, specializes in energy-efficient electronic message centers and LED outdoor signs. As we developed their new website, we returned again and again to the three perspectives mentioned above. Honing in on the viewer’s perspective, we looked for ways to build-in opportunities for engagement and interactivity. And let me add a quick disclaimer here: we’re still building out portions of the site behind the scenes.

This site is built using WordPress because it’s versatile, full-featured, and user-friendly. Our client will be able to easily and frequently add content – in the form of posts, image galleries, and video. A support forum will make it easy to provide troubleshooting assistance and answer customer questions. The key idea here is ease of use for every staff member who will have access to the site, so that quality information can consistently be delivered in a variety of formats for site visitors.

Have you been thinking about how to make your website more interactive and easy to update? Then you’re on the right track. Share your plans with us by leaving a comment, we love to hear from you. Here’s to a successful 2011!

Related Off-Site Articles:
Online Engagement and the Small Biz Success Correlation

The difference between highly successful websites and not-so-successful websites is most often very subtle. We see our share of business websites that need full-on overhauls, but many times it’s the tweaks and off-site strategies that make a significant impact.

Is it the picture placement? Is it the copy? Those things are important to get right, but without A-B testing, you can alter all those things and still not see what changes will impact a visitor’s perception of your website. Many times the changes that matter aren’t even noticeable.

Your website text, images, and white space should be broken into percentages that total 100% of a page. Depending on what industry your website represents, your clientele will be affected differently based on the relationship between those elements. But the end goal isn’t the visitor, it’s the visitor’s response.

So what’s more important, the design or the response? If you think about it, design by itself really doesn’t matter. Website design is an element of an effective business website, but not an end all. If it doesn’t elicit a response, it’s ineffective and pretty useless.

Let’s make responses easier.

Everything about your business website begins with the skeleton. The bare bones identify the guidance a visitor needs to navigate effectively, and that actually starts with a hosting service that doesn’t hinder page load.

Then keep it simple for the best response.

• Keyword research to clarify navigation for your particular business
• Theme selection
• Color palette
• Professional images
• Marketing communication and interaction should be easy to find and follow through

Your theme is an important choice. Keep it clean and easily customizable. Once you know the basic page navigation, you can start to build off of that with relevant pages that work with your keyword strategy.

Become your client. If you stumble with that, get a professional consultation so you can wrap your head around the way your customer navigates through a site.

It’s easy to muck up a website. If your site is older, you might want to think about the addition of subtraction! In the long run, the effort you put into clean and simple business website design will be worth it, and convert better than a website that makes it difficult for your visitor to understand your company or reach out to you.

Building a Better Website:

Is Blogging Marketing? Incorporate Strategy Everywhere

Once upon a time, HTML websites were the only professional way you could go. They were costly, needed a code-happy developer, and were very unchangeable without paying for additional services provided solely by your website designer. They couldn’t be regularly updated with new material easily. Small companies with equally small marketing budgets were resigned to a static website that would be ‘it’ from then on.

Then WordPress came along and changed all that. Once web developers understood that Google tracked things like regularly updated material on a website, they began to realize that their clients deserved much more that what a static HTML website could ever offer.

Soon, blogging became all the rage. Everyone was blogging. While blogging platforms had been around a while, business websites weren’t really embracing the fact that they were becoming wildly popular because they were wildly viral. With the cat out of the bag, companies can now offer products and services on sites that cost less to set up and do more for the website owner and their clients – changing the face of online marketing forever.

Will a blog help you?

I’ve stressed the importance of using WordPress websites throughout this 3-part series. We use them for our clients, Google developers use them, and anyone who wants superior performance and continuity in quality prefers a WordPress site to any $5.00 site you can purchase these days.

That’s because WordPress sites are CMS, as opposed to HTML. That stands for Content Management System, and for good reason. All of your static pages, blog posts, images, calendars, and catalogs are content. Managing that content can now be in your hands. It’s still quite a bit of work if you are learning everything from scratch, but it isn’t an entirely different language!

Well, most of it isn’t. Website builders familiar with HTML and CSS can still customize a WordPress site to do absolutely anything anyone would ever want to do with it. iThemes for WordPress are used by anyone who actively engages in blogging as part of their marketing strategy. Why? Ease-of-use, functionality, and appearance.

CMS websites are now the only websites our company offers to install and customize. Our clients absolutely love the fact that they’re not held hostage by a website designer.

How do you incorporate a blogging strategy?

Decide what your clients need most. What information can you provide that leads them to trust your perspective and expertise in an area? Once you decide how you can benefit your visitors, you need to consider what your goals are.

If your clients need information in five areas, for instance, start posting that information at a rate of three to five posts per week to start. They don’t have to be long, even a paragraph will do. Reach out to readers by requesting a response, and tell your face-to-face customers and tire-kickers about your blog. Give it a catchy name, it will become part of your brand identity. Start adding your post URLs to Twitter and Facebook, and request comments on your material. Over time, you’ll see the sense two-way dialog makes when it comes to your marketing strategy. You’ll be more than a face, you’ll be a person and representative of a company.

Sign up for the Inside Line for more on our upcoming blogging series, and tune into The Richardson Copywriter for blog tips that will help you further understand how blogging efforts can benefit your company.

Are you ready to build your perfect website? Learn even more about website marketing strategy, and contact Zero To Sixty Marketing to find out how we can help you put the pieces together for great results.

Building a Better Website:

Marketing Strategy Overview

In our first post in this series about website development, we covered 3 Things that Destroy Marketing and Strategy. Let’s go further and talk about some things that can be built right in that actually enhance your website’s ability to sell and help you become strategic in your efforts.

Give your website a voice

The tone of your site is important, but in this case I’m stressing the importance of your website actually having a voice, or ability to reach out to your viewer. Even in the best case scenario, unless visitors are already familiar with your products and services and returning to purchase, many times just reading a great blog post isn’t enough to bring them back.

An RSS feed can bring you to them. Make sure you’ve set up your site with a way for your visitors to be reminded that you offer great content. An RSS feed lets your visitor read your new posts in a reader, like Google Reader or others. RSS comes standard with WordPress sites.

Feedburner offers even more.

Feedburner lets you offer that same content in email or reader. It also sets up analytics that tells you how many people visited each post from the reader. It’s helpful, takes only minutes to set up, and you’ll use it frequently.

Email Campaigns and List Building

Another step to building website ‘voice’ may seem redundant at first, but it really is a horse of another color. While Feedburner offers email capability and basic analytics, it doesn’t offer the kind of detail about your visitor that will allow you to initiate targeted email campaigns. AWeber collects email data from your visitor, makes certain that they have requested the information, and then helps you track their interests so that you can tailor your products or services to things they’ve already expressed an interest in. Very smart.

Here again, your choice of theme matters. AWeber allows you to customize the visitor’s sign up form. It can be any size, but occassionally your theme needs to have customized widget sizing to accommodate the size of the form so that it looks complete. If part of the sign up sheet is missing in another field, your visitor may not trust that their information is secure. Those details build trust, and they need to trust you to sign up. Sign up forms can be re-sized on AWeber to an extent, but iThemes offers several themes that let you customize your widget sizes to your exact specifications, whether a sign up form, picture, or image.

Don’t forget to investigate your Google Analytics.

Your Google Analytics will help you see what impact, if any, your site is having on visitors. It can show you which websites are back linking to yours, how long visitors stay on your page, and how many pages they visited. It’s not the same thing as knowing how many visitors opened your email that was a blog post on your site.

Individual landing pages can be tested with this feature, and can be tracked from page to page so that you can see where your message is breaking down, and where it is successful. This information, used correctly, will help you target very specific visitor interests, and is an integral part of your overall marketing campaign.

I hope you’re beginning to see that although appearance is seriously important to your website, performance and voice are necessary to gain the attention the site will need once it’s built.

There’s more to come in our Build a Better Website series, stay tuned! If you want all this and more, make sure you visit our Website Design page and sign up for the entire Build a Better Website series, en totale.

Comments? As always, our CommentLuv plugin pulls your last post in for everyone to read. Share!

Building a Better Website:

3 Things that Destroy Marketing and Strategy

Depending on the type of commerce your business deals with, your website needs will vary. There is no one-size fits all for complete website construction. There are a few things, however, that hamper even the most well-thought out plans when it comes to the performance your website needs to deliver … that is, if you want it to do more than cater to customers who already know about you.

The very first thing to avoid is a hosting service that:

A. doesn’t respond to your needs, and
B. slows your site down substantially due to their server overloads.

Be aware that you get what you pay for. Some of the more popular hosting platforms, while inexpensive, can be  incredibly slow. That’s because they allow too many websites on too few servers, and as the servers fill up, the system bogs down for everyone.

In our opinion, the best small business website:

1. is a highly-functional, ever-improving WordPress site – giving you easy control of updates,
2. is installed on a high quality, reasonably priced hosting service – one where you can easily reach a live, English-speaking representative for help when you run into technical difficulties.
3. uses a high-quality, premium WordPress theme as the foundation for its design.

Another thing to avoid is using a faulty WordPress theme.

Pick a theme that is well-known to deliver on functionality. Don’t be confused about it – a great theme not only looks great, but does everything you need it to and everything others will need it to do effortlessly and seamlessly.

An awesome business website theme will:

• Upgrade easily for security updates and faster, increased performance.
• Integrate a wide array of useful plugins,
• Allow for a full-range of customization including text, color, widgets, and overall navigation.
• Increase in functionality over time, not become more limited.

If you’re looking at themes that can’t do all that, avoid them. They’ll cost much more in aggravation and sales over time.

Another thing that can impair your website marketing strategy at the get go is deciding against search engine optimization.

Yes, search is changing. Yes, it’s constantly changing. And yes, search engines are changing due to the fact that marketers spend their time getting around criteria being used to measure it in the first place. Content creation is now so prevalent that once again, it will be difficult for Google to stay on top of organic search terms, and according to the October 2010 issue of EContent Magazine, that very fact is changing everything all over again.

Be that as it may, people will still need to find your company website based on the terms they use in search. Competition for those words will be fierce, and potentially useless. I think that makes the very best argument for knowing your customer that I’ve ever heard. It will be far better for you to be informed and up to date on current information. Make sure your SEO specialist believes in continuing education.

Avoid these three things and your efforts to build a website that enhances your marketing and improves your strategy will be rewarded with new, paying visitors.

Let us know if this was helpful, and sign up for the Inside Line for more on this series.

When was the last time you updated your small business website? This week? this month? this year? If it wasn’t this week, it’s been too long and it’s time to give your website a little attention.

Every small business website needs attention in five distinct areas:

1. Is your website working properly? Check to be sure that all your pages load and that your links send visitors to the pages you intended. If you link to Flickr images or YouTube videos, realize that these media may be removed at any time and without warning, leaving you with broken links.
2. How’s your website design? Does it need to be refreshed? Most websites begin to show their age after about two years. This doesn’t automatically mean that a complete redesign is necessary. Many times a simple change to one or two elements on your site is enough to give it a fresh, new look.
3. When was your last content update? By ‘content,’ I’m referring to high quality information shared through blog posts, articles, FAQ’s, video or audio messages. If you’re an artist, when was your last image shared with your viewers?
4. Frequent content updates are important for three reasons:
   • It gives your viewers a reason to return to and engage with you on your website.
   • Frequently updated content is indexed more often by Google, meaning that it helps you attain better placement on the search engine results page.
   • It makes it easier for your customers and other website visitors to refer you.
5. Can your updated content be easily shared? Links are the currency of today’s online marketplace. Make it easy for your viewers to share a link to your content with their friends and neighbors. This can be as simple as adding a ‘share this’ plugin to your blog or a Facebook badge to any page of your website.
6. Is your site secure? Websites can be hacked and links inserted that will direct your viewers to unsavory sites. This topic deserves an entire post of its own, but for now, I’ll direct your attention to an excellent resource: the Securi blog, where you can learn more than you ever wanted to know about threats and solutions to your website’s security.

Related Off-Site Article: Google indexing and high quality content

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