Let's Slow It Down

Everything’s really fast right now, information flies through fingers and phones as text, images and video, there’s never nothing new.

And while there are huge benefits to the speed at which we live, there are clearly many downsides too.

Is more really better?

The rush to keep people’s attention has led to page design typified by complex menu navigation, multiple sections, moving imagery and dynamic plugins.

Even though data indicates that increased choice makes it harder for the visitor, on some pages, particularly the home page, we still try to offer everything.

Slow web pages

The idea of a slow web page is to strip away the choices, remove distractions, present one thing and make it as easy as possible for the visitor to know what to look at.

If you’re using a content strategy to bring people to your business, if you’re taking the time to craft quality information that will increase your visitor’s knowledge - why would you want to distract them from what you created?

What does it mean for you?

Look at  the design of your blog posts and your newsletter.  Are you distracting your reader away from the content that you worked hard to produce?  

What is it you want people to do when they arrive at the web page or read your newsletter?

If you are offering multiple calls to action, try and bring it down to just one and try placing it underneath your content.

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Written while listening to: Decani Theme by music2work2

Image Credit: Slow down....you clown by Luc B on Flickr

How Do You dress For New Business?

When it comes to new business there are generally three types of customers:

• People with immediate needs
• Researchers
• Personal referrals

People with immediate needs

These people are short on time, they use search engines and phone up or email the first few results they see.  They reckon that if you can appear on the first page of Google then you probably know what you're doing.

If this is your typical new customer then you should be driving your content strategy hard and your website should be utilitarian - function should drive form and it should be super easy for the customer to see what you do and how to contact you.

Researchers

These are people sitting at home in the evening on their iPad or grabbing time at work on their desktop.  They have plenty of opportunity to look at the competition and compare products and services.

Website form becomes more important as people have time to reflect on how things look - if you appear lame next to the competition you're going to lose.  Social media and social proof become more important as they have time to read what people say about you.

Personal Referrals

This is the lifeblood of most smaller businesses - mine included and they can be either of the above.
These people are less worried about your digital footprint, sure it's got to look professional but it acts as a verifier rather than a converter.

Does your website match your customer?

Go back and look and your last 20 transactions, is there is a typical customer type?  Now look at your website and marketing strategy.  Do they match?

Let's Talk

Call me on 310 980 2499 or contact me using the form below.

Contact Andrew

Dress For New Business

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Written while listening to: music2work2 - Fibonacci Series Playlist

Image Credit: Business Fashion by Barbie Fantasies on Flickr

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Your Website is Not a Chicken!

…or a Ronco Rotisserie Showtime special for that matter.

Oh I know – you paid enough money to have it look good and have the copy all “SEO’d” and everything, and yes, your designers have made it really easy to add content and even talked to you about a content strategy, but you're busy - and now that it’s done can’t you just Set it and Forget it?

NO!

Well – you could of course, but then after 6 months you won’t have generated any leads and you’ll have confirmed your inner suspicion that this whole blogging content stuff is nonsense and you'll go back to spending money on feel good marketing that doesn’t work – but you’ll feel better.

Don’t believe us?  Just ask Eric Smilay of Smilay Properties who started a content strategy on his website a year ago – his year on year figures are up over 500% - page views per month have moved from the hundreds to the thousands – did he Set it and Forget it?  No!

We'll be chatting to Eric in the next couple of weeks and will post about how he overcame the inertia that often kills the execution of a small business content strategy.

It’s not just about the blog posts

Yes – the core of your content strategy is going to be writing new posts – adding new video, images etc – and yes you’re going to be thinking about who the audience is and what they want to hear.  However, there is something that is even easier to do and often time more effective

Recycle and improve your existing content

When you look at your weekly stats (you do look at your weekly stats don’t you?) you’ll notice that there are certain pages on your website that always seem to get traffic.  Could be that post you wrote about the decline in the Bolivian talcum powder industry or that insider’s look into the world of extreme Lego.  Whatever – there are people out there who are regularly finding that article and are enjoying it.

Revisit it – can you improve it – can you make it read more easily, add an appropriate image, should you offer a translation, what can you do to make the experience for the reader better?  Not only that – can you add a link to another relevant article on your website, do you have a service or product that would be useful to people who like this kind of content?

It’s a living thing

The days of Set it and Forget it are long gone and even though there will always be hour long infomercials on products that you really don‘t want but that seem too good to pass up at 3 in the morning – switch that shit off and go and look at your website.  If you're not treating it with a little love and content, you'll lose any benefit it might have provided.

In the immortal words of Jeff Lynne:

It's a livin' thing,

It's a terrible thing to lose

It's a given thing

What a terrible thing to lose