When someone is ready to purchase, you need to have a flawless system in place to ensure you capture the sale. When someone adds your product or service to their shopping cart, you want to be certain they follow through on the process. The people that add the product or service but leave before completing the transaction are referred to as abandoners. Abandonment rates range from 3% to as high as 50%.

A few key points to ensure a low (or nonexistent) abandonment rate:

• Zero mistakes on the checkout page: the price is correct, the product is well-defined
• Branding is present: you want people to know they did not leave your website
• Very few clicks to purchase: amazon.com has this perfected
• Make your customer feel at ease: testimonials, warranty, return policy information
• Promote security: use a service like Trustee.org to show the page is secure

Mistake No. 8: Forgetting to provide value

I wanted to save my favorite for last. The biggest mistake we see companies making when developing a website is forgetting to provide solid value first. This may sound backwards to many, but it is guaranteed to pay off dividends in the long run. If you focus solely on making the sale, you are going to make fewer sales.

One of the most frequently debated topics we have with clients is their reluctance to “give away the farm.” In other words, they do not want to give free information to their prospects – they want to be paid for that information. Check out matthewferry.com/blog. He posts more information on his blog than many of our clients combined! The result: his e-mail opt-ins, traffic and sales are much higher than our other clients. The more you give the better your relationships will be with your audience. This, in turn, will correlate to higher sales!

Some ways to give value:

• Free resources
• Helpful links
• Articles of interest
• A Web blog
• Video clips

If my company Taz Solutions or myself can be of any service to you, please contact us at 1-800-659-3020, extension 4. We have designed thousands of websites in the last 10 years and would be honored to work with you!

Yes, content on the Web is king, but too much content can be overkill and confusing. Each page should have its purpose on your site. Any other pages after that most likely will be viewed as confusing. Put the information you want people to read right up front where they can easily find it. The easier things are to find, the better off you and your visitors will be. Check out amazon.com as an example. Everything you could possibly want is right up front!

Mistake No. 6: Not including the right kind of content

Some essential content your Website should include:

• Product/Service information
• About your company
• FAQ’s
• Return Policies
• Testimonials
• Contact Information

Short and sweet, you need your contact information to be in plain sight, above the fold on every page. If your intent is to drive people to email you or fill out a Web form, that form too should be in plain sight on every page. Do not make people search for more than five seconds to find this information or they will move on to a competitor!

As stated earlier, your site needs to be designed with several audiences in mind – one of which is for the search engines. In the Web-design industry, Web designers are a dime a dozen. From people who use Web-page creation software to create mediocre pages, to experts with degrees in design, it is easy to find a Web designer. What is not so easy is finding a designer who is right for your company and knows how to design a site that will appeal to visitors and attract search- engine spiders at the same time. There are several ways that a Web designer with no search-engine knowledge can damage your business.

• Links - Linking is one of the most important internet marketing strategies used in search-engine optimization (SEO). In addition to making sure backlinks to your Web site are available, SEO experts know how to use anchor text and other techniques to boost your rankings. A designer without SEO knowledge will not know about these techniques and may not focus on building links when designing your site.

• Meta Tags - While Meta tags are not the most important factor in getting ranked, they do have some impact on your rankings and how potential visitors see your pages. Meta tags are HTML tags that contain information about your site. The Meta keyword tag should include the main keywords for each page on your site. The Meta description tag should contain a short description about your site (this is what the search engines display when your site comes up in the rankings). Designers who do not have SEO knowledge may not use any Meta tags, or they may fill the Meta tags with generic keywords that do nothing to help rank your site.

• Content - A good design firm will guide you as to what content to write along with several guidelines to get the best search-engine ranking.

• General Site Structure – It is imperative that once the search engines actually crawl your website they are able to get around it and crawl the content you want. For this to be effective you want to make good use of text links, alt tags, sitemaps and your general linking structure. One of our favorite examples of a well designed site is myweddingfavors.com. This site is ranked extremely well, is search engine friendly and makes the owners a hefty amount of money!

A few years ago, having any flash on your website was the search-engine ranking kiss of death. Google and Yahoo! have made a variety of adjustments to their code allowing for flash Web sites to be present in their search engines, but you need to find the proper balance.

Flash is simply the “flashy” or animated content on your website. Some businesses have flash intros on their Web sites that demonstrate their product or service in an animated form. Others have flash headers on their sites with scrolling testimonials or photos. If you’re interested in having some sizzle on your site, that is fine – but do not overdo it.

Flash intros have been proven to push visitors away from websites and are not recommended. Flash headers, however, have been proven to help increase conversion, as they show a variety of points in a short time span without having to navigate across different pages. When using flash, make sure you use a design company that also understands marketing.

Mistake No. 3: Forgetting that you have multiple audiences viewing your website

Most businesses have three to seven different audiences that view their website. Failure to recognize or remember these audiences may cost you business.

Here is a list of the primary people that will be viewing your website:

• Creditors/Banks
• Current customers
• Family/Friends
• Media/Press
• Search engines
• Prospects
• Vendors

We encourage you to rank the importance of each group of people and make them your focus, but keep the others in the back of your mind.

I will share with you the top 8 mistakes businesses make when designing a website.

Mistake No. 1: Not identifying key purpose and goals of your various pages

A good way to start the design process is to fill out a form or a mind-map document that lays out the different pages you anticipate having on your site. Step two is to make a separate list, which will contain all the various goals you have for this Web site. These may include:

• Generate product sales
• Educate people
• Build relationships
• Gather email addresses
• Create lead request forms
• Provide information
• Optimize search engine marketing

Most Websites have multiple purposes: they may focus on gathering lead requests forms, while simultaneously educating people on their company and offerings to help with the lead generation process. Take a step back and label each of the pages in your original document with its purpose. If you cannot find a purpose for that page, mark it off! It is much better to have a well-written and accurately-pointed, five-page site than a 20-page site that confuses your audience. When you associate purposes and goals with your various pages, the design process will flow much more smoothly.

Check back tomorrow for Mistake #2.

Over the upcoming weeks we will share the Black Ops techniques for many of the popular social media sites including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. Below are the Top 5 social media basics that should always be a part of your social media and internet marketing strategy.

1. Authentic Helpfulness –  This is the most important tip that most people forget. There is no point of doing social media if your only intention is to generate leads. In order to generate leads people first need to feel like they know you and from there they will begin to trust you .Once you have earned their trust you can begin to generate leads. Content that is authentically helpful will show your followers that you care about helping them and not just about getting their business.

2. Crazy Good Content –  This plays off of being authentically helpful. The better your content and the more of it that you share the more traction and clout you will gain in social media. This is what it takes to make your content “go viral”. The better it is the farther it will go.

3. Non-Spammy Content – This does not mean you can not try to sell or promote yourself. There is a fine line between good content while also working in your products and services. If you never mention the name of your product or service you will never get traction. It’s all about walking that fine line between being spammy and being authentically helpful.  The example below shows an authentically helpful post (A) versus a spammy post (B).

A) “Blogging is back baby! My favorite tactic, start blogging once a day. If I can help you blog please reach out to me.”

B) “Blogging is the number one tactic for good social media. I know how to blog better than you do. Give me a call!”

4. Meaningful Connections – When developing a social media and internet marketing strategy most people believe in quantity vs. quality. However, this is not the case. It is much better to have a 1,000 followers who care about what you have to share vs. 10,000 followers who don’t know or care who you are. Not having any meaningful connections with your followers on social media will  begin to catch up with you when you are unable to produce leads and profits because they don’t know or care about you, your product or service.

5. Act Like a Person – Act real. Be real. It’s as simple as that. Don’t be a robot putting out content for the search engines. This relates to developing meaningful connections by being authentically helpful. A robot only cares about search results and profits. You should care about giving good content that will help people get to know and trust you and hopefully give you their business.

Below are the categories that were surveyed along with where blogs placed.

Online Services Most Trusted – 5th place (29%)
Online Services Most Used – 5th place (45%)
Online Services Shared from the Most – 3rd place (26%)
Online Services Most Likely to Influence a Purchase – 3rd place (31%)

Blogs ranked higher than Twitter in all of the above categories. They also overcame Facebook when it pertained to influencing a consumer to purchase a good or service.

If looking at the results above isn’t enough to convince you to begin or grow your blog there is another reason why becoming a blogger can be a benefit. The report states that the reason why blogs have the power to influence a persons decision to purchase is because they feel they can trust the blogger. This trust is attained because the blogger has done one of the following things:

• They have given an unbiased review of a product or service. Since they tell both sides of the story this gives them more credibility to the reader and therefore, their opinion will weigh more in the consumers final decision.
• They have shown expertise in their field. When a consumer reads a blog from someone who has proven to be an expert in their field they feel they can trust them more than just another random blogger.
• They blog has been active for awhile. According to the report, the most influential blogs have been active for 5 or more years.

Obviously, the last bullet point will take some time to achieve. However, by starting a blog and writing about your field or an area that you are knowledgeable in you have the opportunity to achieve the other two points.

Blogs are here to stay and their importance will only keep growing. If you are looking for a new and fresh way to reach out to potential clients and customers than blogging may be the answer for you.

It’s no surprise that Billboard has decided to partner with YouTube to determine the hit songs for the week. Technology and social networks have changed the way that people consume mass media. No longer are they going to a store and buying a CD, instead they visit YouTube and stream the music video for free. This shift in consumption has changed what it means to have a “hit song.” You can sell the most CDs but still not have the most talked about song of the week.

The website states that YouTube has over 800 million unique users visit the site each month and 72 hours of video are uploaded to the site every minute. With that much traffic it’s almost expected that YouTube would have an influence on what’s cool and what’s not. The site has produced hit songs and also new celebrities.

Below are 3 examples of YouTube producing a pop culture phenomenon:

“Harlem Shake” by Baauer – “Harlem Shake” debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and climbed to number one on the Dance/Electronic Songs, while selling 262,000 units. “Harlem Shakes” success is what prompted Billboard and Nielsen to collaborate with YouTube.

“Gangham Style” by Psy – “Gangham Style” was the first video on YouTube to reach one billion views. This milestone helped propel the song and help Psy gain popularity in the United States. The dance craze that came along with song is what drove many people to view the video on YouTube.

Justin Bieber – Justin Bieber was discovered on YouTube when a record executive accidentally clicked on one of his videos while searching for a different performer. Impressed, he tracked down Bieber and the rest is history.

Vine promises to be one of the leading social marketing tools this year, so why don’t you jump on board and start promoting your small business with this new social media channel? Here are 6 tips to help you learn how to use Vine to promote your business:

Teaser for Longer Videos
You only have six seconds for Vine, so you have to make it quick and effective. You can use the platform to produce quick 6 second videos about your main promotion videos on your site. The Vine videos will serve as teasers.

Introduce New Products
Vine is a great platform for businesses to introduce their new products. You can do this by making a quick short video listing the most prominent features of the product and a link back to the main product page.

A Thank You to Your Customers
If you have a strong profile on Twitter or Facebook with a lot of friends and followers, you could make a Vine video as a thank you note to them and post on your social account.

Promote Your Own Website or Blog
If you have no new product to promote, no worries, since you can always use Vine to promote your own website or blog. You will make several videos about your website and include a link back to the site to get some traffic from Vine and get some SEO link juices at the same time.

Connect With Your Customers
You can use Vine to make short, funny and edgy videos to amuse your customers and make them loyal to your brand. You can outsource the video making task easily online through some outsourcing platforms.

Promote Your New Blog Posts
You can create a short video addressing the issue you will be discussing in your new blog post to spark the interest in the visitors, and then include a link to the main article on the site to get some serious traffic from Vine.

The 84th Annual Academy Awards® aired last night and presented a perfect opportunity for newsjacking. Companies like Charmin and Special K fled to Twitter and used the traditions that are upheld during this auspicious occasion to market their own products. For example, Charmin tweeted, “Good luck to the nominees tonight. Don’t forget to look down before your speech.”

Here are 3 reasons newsjacking can be useful to your marketing strategy:

1) Newsjacking allows you to capitalize on a popular news topic that may not be relevant to your field. You can make contact with a new market that may have been out of your reach before.

2) Newsjacking requires you to be aware of current events. Newsjacking a topic that is not relevant to your field is great but being the first to newsjack something in your field will help build your credibility. It also helps your SEO search results since Google awards websites who publish content about news stories quickly.

3) Newsjacking forces you to react quickly. Instead of putting together a plan that can potentially lose steam or never be completed, newsjacking requires you to think on your feet and get it done.

‘ACADEMY AWARDS®’ is the registered trademark and service mark of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.