NetBusinessBlog

Do you really want to create a Wikipedia out of your website?

Posted on 31. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

People often say that they want to have great content in their website. If you ask them what they mean by great content, they will invariable start talking about Wikipedia. They would also say, how Wikipedia answers all the queries. These are stapled examples when someone is looking to hire a content writer.

It’s fine to have great content like Wikipedia in your website but answer me one question, what do you want from your site? What do you want the readers to do? What is the main purpose of the page? Do you simply want to educate the readers or do you want to ask them take some action?

Do you really think that the content of Wikipedia is good enough to motivate the reader to take an action? Even if your content is developed only to educate the readers, aren’t you asking him to take an action after reading the page?

There is a basic difference between eHow and Wikipedia. In case of eHow, you are actually teaching the reader how to do something. This style invariably motivates the reader to take an action. It compels the reader to do something. And more importantly it dictates the way – how to do that thing.

Does Wikipedia serve this purpose?

Wikipedia provides you great information on a topic. And after gathering the information, you are free to move on your own. You can apply it on something or move to another page. Wikipedia have thousands of interlinked pages. Once you start moving from one link to another, you have actually nowhere to go.

Do you want same thing to happen in your website – where the reader keeps moving aimlessly! Or do you want your website to be like eHow – where you subtly dictate the reader to take an action?

Think about it before you ask someone again to produce great content like Wikipedia. To the most, you can create a glossary in your website in Wikipedia style and leave people to roam around – if you are so much in love with it. Wikipedia is pure information. And pure information = no bias = no business.

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A new blog or an account at twitter?

Posted on 30. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

For a long time blogs are perceived as a great tool to market a product or to talk about a company or an individual. Marketers are so crazy about blogs that, a lot of marketers recommend a startup website to add a blog to their website like website.com/blog/. But is there anybody listening to you from day one?

There is nothing wrong in it. And a lot of times this proves to be a good idea. At least this tries to connect the visitors with the website owner. At least a platform is developed for the website owner to live as a human being in the net and talk about something more than the business or the website.

I have no problem if someone suggests this. But I have a problem if someone suggests a blog to be added with a website because it is the latest buzz in the market.

For example, just think about a ticket booking website that offers cheap travelling tickets or cheap theater tickets to customers. Do you really think a blog would serve the purpose of communicating with the target market better than twitter! The owner can easily ask the prospective customers to add him or her in their twitter network and they would easily get updates on new arrivals via that platform.

Another important point to note here is: when you start a blog under your own domain, you are actually starting it in isolation. You would need to promote it separately and work hard to develop a dedicate reader base. Does your business really need a dedicated reader base who would love to read 500 words to know about a new arrival! But when you start the same at twitter you are actually riding the same boat with your target audience. Don’t you think that it is more profitable to stay with the target audience rather than waiting for them in the far away shore!

What do you think?

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Does Footer Link Optimization have any impact on SEO?

Posted on 28. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

We have been talking about blogs, blogging and branding for a long time. Now let’s talk about SEO (white hat obviously) of static websites.

For quite a long time, SEOs had some favorite on-page optimization spots like meta data optimization (title, keywords, descriptions…), content optimization, navigation pattern optimization (keywords in internal link’s anchor text, breadcrumb…) etc. Some over enthusiasts also optimized footer links with keyword rich anchor texts.

Now, in this post we would like to talk about footer link optimization practices.

A few months back, Google somewhat declred that they would bring down the value of site wide links. And in the last update, we have seen some changes in PR (perhaps your site’s PR dropped due to huge number of links from different blogrolls). So, do you really think that site wide links in the footer section are really helping you in case of SEO?

As far as my experience and observations are concerned, I don’t think it is of any good in respect to SEO. On the contrary for a developed site (with lots of pages 3 or 4 clicks away from the home page), if you use keywords in the footer links, this may hinder user experience. You cannot deny that, over use of keywords in anchor text, makes things look clumsy for a reader to easily find the content.

What do I do!

1. I try to keep the anchor texts in the footer as simple as possible.

2. I do not use same links in the footer section of all pages.

3. Once the main landing pages are identified, I try to focus on which pages the reader may look for more information on the topic (the connected pages). Analytics report is good enough to tell you these details. You can also look for where the visitors are going from those pages. If it does not serve any purpose, you can try to navigate the readers via those links. Don’t forget to call for action.

4. In SEO, every little bit counts. Do not completely ignore keywords in the anchor text. But use them sensibly to help the visitors.

5. Some links like Home, About Us, Contact Us, Privacy Policy, Terms & Conditions etc. are stapled links. I always keep them as they are in the footer links.

Do you have any other suggestion? Please share them here:

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Do you have a pricing strategy?

Posted on 27. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

In my last post titled “Tips for Better Business online during financial crisis” I was talking about discount day. However, after publishing that story I started thinking about the pricing strategy.

For example, there are thousands of web page designers in the web. They design a website according to the need of the clients or just put up a design for sale in their own website. It is not necessary that all of them have great knowledge about pricing strategy but they fix up a price for the product. Do you see the same thing in the market when you go to buy grocery or an electronic product!

Did you ever ask them why they are charging $250 for a WordPress template! What is the actual development cost, recurring cost etc!

And more importantly, why should someone pay $250 for that theme when he or she can get another (no comments on aesthetics) for $50 or even get a free template!

I don’t care how much you are actually charging to design a website. I am just trying to understand what your pricing strategy is! Why you are charging what you are charging!

This is important for you to understand as this would also help you to identify your USP. And your USP have the potential to get you more clients and better pricing than your competitors.

It is not just about web designers. This is also about everyone who is producing or developing a product like content or premium plug-in or SEO/SEM services (just trying to stay within our own periphery).

There are lots of competitions but there is no industry standard pricing perimeter. And thus you would see huge differences in pricing.

When you are selling products developed by other companies, you have a base price where you calculate your profit. How do you calculate your profit on the creative works like website design or content writing or SEM!

What do you do? What is your pricing strategy? Let’s share and learn.

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Tips for Better Business online during financial crisis

Posted on 26. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

Do know you what is happening in your town / in your community (at least)?

Do you know how people in general are fighting with financial crisis?

I know you have some solid answers for all those questions. And you may also line up thousands of tips to fight with these (or any) problems. But did you ever experience those problems or situations or tried those tips? Do you really think that someone can really execute those tips?

If these questions are bothering you, perhaps it is time for you to move out of your cube and experience the real life.

Actually, as I feel, these experiences can set you apart as a great blogger. If there are thousands of bloggers in the web, only a few can actually speak the language of the common – the vast majority of the target market – people those who actually help you to make money. Even if you are writing on how to make money online, there are some people who actually want to earn money online and they are reading your post for executable references. (There are other readers too who look for fresh ideas or post inspirations.) If you can show them some ways to earn extra money to pay their grocery bill, is there anything like that?

Just tell them how and where they can buy some cheap products for regular use – they will come back to your blog even after these bad days are over.

In fact, if you run an online store, try to cut some profit margin and offer them the product at the best price – people will stick with you even when these bad days are over. Are you worried about the loss or less profit? Just imagine the business volume – won’t it be enough to cover the regular profit!

Perhaps you can also start a “discount day” where you may offer special discounts on regular products! Declare this day in advance and promote it well.

Check this out – you may do more business than usual.

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Great time for social media marketers

Posted on 25. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

There is some good news for social media marketers – especially if you are from USA or if your target market is based in USA: “three in four US online adults now use social tools to connect with each, up from 56% in 2007″.

The original report is published at Forrester Research by Josh Bernoff. You can read a synopsis of the original story at Read Write Web.

This news is good enough to boost the morale of online marketers and perhaps a lot of them will jump into different social networking websites to get more visitors to their website.

But again, as I always said, you must find out the best social networking sites in your niche. There is no point in using a website just because it is very popular. And at the same time I do not think that if you are a solo runner, you should invest your time in as many websites as possible.

Do you really have so much time to participate in all the social networks in your niche? I would always recommend you to invest more time in core product development rather than investing your energy and money in promoting it in as many social networks as possible. Seth has a good story on the same topic here. It is always better to have a dominant presence in one or two social networks or forum rather than dividing all your energies in different networks.

Now, how to select the best network in your niche?

Let’s understand one thing very clearly – if you can post quality content (answers, suggestions etc.) you will soon become a worthy member of any network. But established networks already have so many great contributors; it is really very tough to become a top user unless you have huge time to invest. I would recommend you to find out some growing and promising communities too in your niche. Chances are high that you would soon get huge popularity in those small networks.

And that’s it. Two or three networks are enough for a person. Do not forget that you also need enough time to develop the core product.

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Brand beyond the blog

Posted on 24. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

In my last couple of posts on online branding, I often said that, you must win the trust of your visitors. Now, web is not just the blog or websites that you read. It is also about the blogger or webmaster who is developing it. And thus brand is not limited to the blog or website itself. The person behind the blog or website may also become a brand.

People like Matt Cutts, Rand, Godin etc. are brand names. They are more than what they write in their blogs or websites. You can even call those blogs or websites to be products under those brand names. Now, if Matt Cutts starts a business website someday, it would definitely carry forward his brand identity. People may start following his website or his marketing strategy to understand what Google would be doing (a lot of webmasters would start thinking that as a Googler, Matt knows much more about Google algorithm and thus following him may become a craze).

Now, these people have grown into big brands. What about small potato (Tung Do) from WP Designer who created some of the great WP themes! Before selling the blog he started a Themes Club where a member could get access to at least 12 premium themes for $5/year. And the club now has 1320 members.

After the blog was sold, the new owner Pawel Ciszewski did not do anything with the blog (it was last updated on March 28, 2008). As promised, the club members were supposed to get access to at least 12 premium themes but at present there are only 4 themes available in the club.

So who takes the responsibility – Tung or Pawel?

Logic says, it is Pawel’s responsibility to move on with the club or pay back those 1320 members (1320 X $5 = $6600). Or at least he should have declared his plans with the club and the members. But he did nothing so far.

But there are reports that Tung is paying off the club members. Is it his responsibility?

His loss = $6600

His profit = enormous trust he has gained in the blogosphere and people are really talking about this incident. Any business owner would not mind to spend $6600 X n to gain such trust.

Next time if Tung starts something else, he would carry forward the trust he has gained by refunding $6600.

Is he a brand now?

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Market recession and you

Posted on 23. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

The market is down in almost every part of the world. There is a real crisis of liquid money. And perhaps, as an online business owner, you are facing the same problem too – sales volume going down. What are you doing in this situation? How are you managing your online business?

Yahoo will layoff a lot of employees – perhaps they have taken a good decision but I feel shocked that they had such a huge surplus of employees! If Yahoo can run well and deliver the same result without those employees, what else you can call it but a surplus! The story is similar in a lot of companies around the world. However, some people are really keeping their budget tight to survive in this period and deliver good results.

Are you facing the heat too? Please share your stories here:

Anyways, as I always say, as a small web based company or as an online start-up (without any VC backing you), you should always think about running at least two or three revenue sources or websites so that one can pull others in such tight situations.

There are different types of products but you can broadly put them in two categories – one that represents immediate need (e.g. finance) and the other that someone may even buy tomorrow (e.g. an iPod). Now, you may say that both of these products have different target audience. You are true but to a high extent they share same target group. Those who want to buy iPod may also be in need of some financial solutions.

If you are a small online business owner (without any offline presence), it is high time that you think about investing on some “immediate need” based product so that your business keeps rolling. Even if you do not have any such product to sell, join an affiliate network.

What do you think?

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How to Design Content of a Contact form

Posted on 22. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

In my last post on “How to create an effective contact form for better conversion: Part 1” I wrote that “Webmasters often think that adding a BBB button is good enough to win trust”.

Does your target market have enough idea about BBB or other security certificates! How many people actually clicked in that button to find out if it is really secured or not! Where is the trust – in your site or in the authentication button!

Another funny thing is people start using captcha in the contact form even when the website is just launched. How many visitors those websites are getting each day? Is there any necessity of using captcha unless you are really annoyed with spammers and spam bots that are trying to take an advantage? Why are you putting another hurdle between you and your prospective customer? You have all the time to install a captcha when required.

A lot of websites also ask the prospect to select from a drop down menu the reason why they are contacting. In this situation, mails are supposed to reach the respective departments. But what about the websites or blogs that does not have so many departments? Why don’t you take the burden to arrange the emails yourself by reading the content! (You will have to read it anyway)

My Suggestions on designing the content of the contact form:

1. Take the minimalistic approach: Just ask for the minimum information and contact him or her personally for more information. Complete the sign up process as fast as possible (don’t allow the prospect more time to walk out with the dog).

2. Captch: Use it only when it is required.

3. Privacy Policy and Terms: Link to respective pages. I would also recommend to publish a snippet of both pages (with links to elaborate content) so that the reader can understand it fast.

4. Bounce Rate: Keep an eye on the bounce rate and try to find out the reason. Make some changes in form positioning and elements and see the result.

Take the burden on you – after all, you are earning money.

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How to create an effective contact form for better conversion: Part 1

Posted on 21. Oct, 2008 by Roy.

Contact form or a contact page is often considered as the last step in most of the online conversion process. We work hard to push visitors to the contact form and hit the submit button. But did you ever consider the amount of bounce rate from that contact page?

What did you achieve if the visitors bounce back? Absolutely nothing.

But why does someone bounce back from contact page?

There may be different reasons for bounce back depending on your industry. But here are some of the most common reasons:

1. The contact form is too long and too much time consuming

2. The contact form is asking or too much of personal information

3. Some technical problems like coding error or unbreakable captcha

4. He or she dropped there by mistake or just to check what was there

For example consider the lead generation industry. In a lot of websites that sell financial solutions (eg. Lead generation for debt consolidation or loan), the webmasters try to gather as much information as possible at the very first opportunity. And according to the demand of the industry, they often tend to ask for sensitive personal information.

Is it really necessary? What else do you need from the applicant but his or her email address or phone number and name!

Which one of the following is a better model?

1. taking some primary information like applicant’s name, email ID, phone number and than employing a customer service executive to call him or her and get other information over phone. (Don’t forget to ask for right time to call when you take the phone number.)

2. Asking for all financial and personal details in a 2 or 3 pages long contact form!

I will go with the first model as my experience says that the second model have more bounce rate than the first model. In the first model, you are not taking the form as the final step of conversion. Here you got some details about a prospective client and than convert him or her over phone (you get another opportunity to win some trust).

Webmasters often think that adding a BBB button is good enough to win trust. Do you really think so?

Continued:

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