1. Topic: Every blog should have a central topic that it addresses. What does your reader want to know?” Choose a topic that your ideal prospect wants to read about.
2. Focus: People subscribe because they want to learn more about a particular topic. If you change the topic or keep changing subjects, you will lose your readership.
3. No selling: The focus of the blog should be on presenting information, advice, tips, commentaries and opinions. Avoid direct selling and self promotion.
4. Easy to scan: Your reader wants to scan down your blog and get the gist of it before reading. The main points should stand out in sub-headlines, lists, images, colors, italics and indented text.
5. Length: A typical blog posting should be about 250 words. The longer a post goes, the more people skim.
6. Short: Write in short sentences that are broken up into short paragraphs. Your writing should be broken into easily digestible chunks.
7. Original: New and original content will get your reader’s attention. Simply quoting others and echoing other people’s content is boring.
8. Write clearly: Make it easy on your readers so they can clearly understand you. Poor writing style and bad grammar makes your readers work too hard.
9. Post regularly: 3 blog posts per week is ideal. Even a few posts each month will hold onto subscribers. Too few of posts and your blog becomes stale or “dead.”
10. Stay positive: Opinions and commentaries are great, they are entertaining and interesting. What turns people off is negative and offensive language.

Google has rolled out a new feature for their search engine results pages that allows users to customize the way the results are displayed. Google’s SearchWiki gives web surfers the ability to bring a result straight to the top of the page, remove it from the page entirely, and even add comments about a particular result.

It’s important to note that this is all on your search engine results page – it will not effect the way others see results with one big exception.

The comment you make about a result is public. And if you’re signed in with your Google account, your designated nickname will display as the author. So the potential for boneheaded actions, an increase of spam Google accounts, as well as a flux of entirely unhelpful joke comments are all there and very enticing for people with nothing else better to do…

What does it mean to us? Well, Google could be recording the actions of the millions of web surfers and noticing trends, using this info to tweak their search algorithms or just rolling this feature out as a test run for some kind of bigger plan. Intentional or not, with millions of users promoting sites or deleting them for certain search phrases, this kind of information could prove beneficial in Google’s new era of relevancy in displaying the results users truly want.

More importantly, what does this mean for you? Find some time to Google your company, go to the bottom of the page and click “See all notes for this SearchWiki” and see if anything negative/spammy is posted. There’s a handy little thumbs-down button to rate the comment as “bad.”

On this week of Thanksgiving, though, this Internet marketing blogger would be thankful for a way to just turn it off.

What is a blog? A blog is a regularly updated journal published on the web. Blogs seem to be the magazine of the future and have become a leading presence on the Internet.

Blog is short for weblog. A blog is a special website that allows for easy web publishing from any computer that has an Internet connection. It notifies the web each time a new article is posted. In a blog the postings or articles are arranged with the most recent first and the oldest at the end.

Blogging means writing a blog. Blogs are influential and they reflect as many topics and opinions as there are people writing them. Many blogs focus on a particular topic, such as web design, politics, sports, or mobile technology. Some are more like personal journals, presenting the author’s daily life and thoughts.

Blogging for Business
Blog marketing has also become one of the best ways to learn and transmit industry news. Some blogs are intended for a small audience; others have a readership of national newspapers. On a blog, the content consists of articles — also sometimes called “posts” or “entries.

Blogs are typically written by someone who is knowledgeable and passionate about their subject. They are written in an every day conversational voice. What is being said is not being filtered and re-written by the marketing, legal and PR departments. Business blogging gives an “honesty” that is missing in traditional business communications.

About 70% of all businesses have a website of some sort today: this is website marketing. Less than 10% of businesses today are currently using blogs to promote their business: this is business blog marketing. Blog marketing is starting to become commonplace as companies start to use the Internet for publicity.

Most people think of the Internet and the World Wide Web as being the same. They are actually very different. The Internet is the computer network or actually a massive network of computer networks. The World Wide Web or simply “the Web” is the sum of the millions of web pages that reside on the Internet.

A system of interlinked hypertext documents is what makes up the World Wide Web. These documents or web pages can be viewed with a Web browser.  Web pages may contain text, images, videos, and other multimedia, all connected using hyperlinks.

Global Information System

The concept of a global information system has been around long before the World Wide Web was created. In 1959 Isaac Asimov, the famous science fiction writer, wrote about a home-based global information system in his short story “Anniversary”.

A small group of computer scientists successfully linked together 4 university computers together in 1969. These computers communicated by sending packets of data in small bursts. This first network called Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the birth of the future Internet.

World Wide Web Created

The World Wide Web was created by Tim Berners-Lee. He wrote the first WWW browser-editor and the first WWW server along with most of the communications software, defining URLs, HTTP and HTML. Berners-Lee went on to found the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) in 1994. Today he currently serves as the director of W3C.

According to Tim Berners-Lee own story ”In 1989, I proposed that a global hypertext space be created in which any network-accessible information could be referred to by a single “Universal Document Identifier” I wrote in 1990 a program called “WorldWideWeb”, a point and click hypertext editor.”

Lower your website bounce rate to improve your website conversion rate. Bounce rate is the percent of people who leave your site without clicking through to another page. A high bounce rate (over 50%) means your visitors didn’t find anything interesting enough to hold their attention.

The goal in website marketing is to capture your reader’s attention and draw them into your site.

1. Be specific: Keep your topics specific and narrowly focused. Most people are searching for specific tips and information. If you supply broad low value information, people will leave. Be clear about what you offer.
2. Simplify: Focus your topics. Too broad of an offering confuses both visitors and search engines. Your content should be well organized and easy to understand. Your visitors will judge a book by its cover and if they don’t like what they see, they leave.
3. Your offer: Place your offer above the fold so that it is clearly visible to the arriving visitor. Eye tracking studies show that a call to action placed in the upper right quadrant of the page is most often seen and acted upon.
4. Clear navigation: If people arrive to your website and they don’t see what they need on your home page, they will click thru to another page if they see a link to what they want. By using easy to understand navigation you can make sure those visitors don’t bounce.
5. Search: Place a search field on the top of your page to entice people to look for what they want. Visitors will make use of search rather than browse thru your website. This also makes it easy for visitors to access information buried deep in your site.

Your beautiful, well-designed website isn’t getting hits.  Your products aren’t selling.  Quite simply, nobody is visiting your website.  And it’s easy to understand that an increased number of visits should correlate to an increased number of goods sold.

So, outside of using organic search engine optimization to effectively drive traffic to your web site, what can you do to increase your web presence?

Let me rephrase that; what are some easy and painless ways to encourage visits to your web site?  Five ideas come to mind:

1) Forums – Find a forum in your niche and look for ways to integrate yourself into the community.  Use your website URL as your forum signature for more links to your site.  It’s easy to come across as spammy if you’re constantly promoting your site, so just provide compelling commentary and people will come.

2) Twitter – A social media tool, think of Twitter as a way to get updates on a person’s life.  Businesses have used Twitter in startlingly smart ways – Comcast even provides unique customer support on Twitter! Offer Twitter-only specials, announcements through Twitter, or just give your business a face and personality.

3) Ask For Link Reciprocation – In a “why didn’t I think of that?” idea, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz came up with this brilliant idea.  In the email confirming purchase of a product, add a line at the end asking for your customer to add your link to their website.  The more links you have on the web equals more exposure.

4) Browse Yahoo! Answers – People have questions.  If you can find any unanswered questions at Yahoo! Answers, write a quick response with your website listed.  Become the expert.

5) Host A Contest – Nothing spreads on the Internet like news of something for free.  Encourage some kind of reader participation in a contest and watch news of your contest for a free product spread like fudge on a banana split.

Wait, did someone say free banana split!?

You work hard to bring visitors to your website. But many leave without taking any action. How can you tell if your website is giving you a good return on your investment? Are you getting above average or below average results?

Conversion is persuading your visitors to do what you want them to. This could be making a purchase, requesting a quote or signing up for your newsletter.  The conversion rate for a website would be the number of visitors who took action out of the total number of visitors.

Conversion rate is much like taking your temperature when you aren’t feeling well. It can tell you if you are sick, but it can’t tell you what is wrong. It is a good measure to track to see if changes you are making are truly helping. This can vary tremendously by the type of website and is a commonly used eCommerce metric.

Typical Conversion Rates

2-3% conversion seems to be the accepted norm. A Forrester research study (August 2007 ) places the ratio of orders to overall site visits at 2.9 percent for eCommerce stores. eCommerce websites will typically range from .5% to 8% visitor conversions.

For lead generation and other non eCommerce websites, conversion rates will range 2.9 to 6 percent. Adding a clear lead generation form can boost conversions to the 8%-20% range.

Top eCommerce Conversions

So how are the top eCommerce websites doing? These are the top 10 converting websites for May 2008*. These are based on Nielsen Panel data.

1. ProFlowers 35.70%
2. Office Depot 31.40%
3. Blair.com 23.80%
4. FTD.com 21.30%
5. QVC 18.70%
6. CDW 17.90%
7. Lands End 17.50%
8. 1800flowers.com 16.80%
9. Drugstore.com 16.20%
10. HSN.com 15.80%

*Source: Nielsen Online / Marketing Charts

1. Not focused on the visitor. Don’t tell them how wonderful you are as a company, but how they can solve their problem. Talk about what they are interested in, not what you’re interested in.
2. Poor design: A quality website adds a level of trust in that business. The first impression is the longest lasting. An amateurish design or using a website template will shake visitor’s confidence.
3. Unorganized: People visit a website to seek information. Disorganized content or confusing navigation frustrates visitors. Navigation should be easy to find and use, and always located in the same spot on every page.
4. No call to action: Without prompting, most people will put off buying. Visitors need clear instructions on how to proceed. Using calls to action throughout the website helps convert prospects into paying customers.
5. Too many topics: Some websites try to be all things to all people. These sites lack focus and are loaded with junk. There is no attempt to target any specific market. Visitors end up leaving dazed and confused.
6. No informational value: Visitors come to seek an answer to their burning question. If a visitor sees that you have the answer they are looking within the first 3 seconds, they will delve into your site.
7. Keep your identity a secret: Visitors do not trust businesses that hide phone numbers, address or do not include an About Us page. After all, what happens if something goes wrong and they need to reach a real person?

Want to do it right? See business website design for more ideas. (yes, this is a call to action).

Struggling with which pages to include in your new website? As you plan , you need to decide which pages you want to include. These 20 pages are common in many business websites. Use this as a guide in planning your business website design.

1. About Us: This is one of the most visited pages. People want to know who you are, how long you have been in business and even your mission, vision and values.
2. Career Opportunities: (employment) This page is useful in displaying jobs and descriptions about the jobs.
3. Contact Us: This shows visitors how to reach you, phone numbers and physical addresses. Can contain an email form and your hours of operation.
4. Courses (seminars, workshops, training) Show course descriptions, dates, meeting times and how to sign up.
5. Events: This page features the coming events and changes happening within your organization. This is a great way to update your customers.
6. FAQ: Well developed frequently asked questions area makes it easy for people to locate info and get answers to their questions.
7. Guarantee: If you have a guarantee about your product of service then write a good description about it here.
8. Home Page: Visitors should understand what you can do for them within the first 3 seconds or they are gone in a click. Discuss the advantages, benefits and convenience of using your company.
9. How to: step by step instruction on how to accomplish the tasks of what the “how to” is about. Make sure the instructions are clear and concise and include photos.
10. Meet the staff: This is a great way to make your company more personal and not so cold of an image.
11. News: (press room) If you have been mentioned in the media or you want to announce up coming events this is the place to do so. You can post articles.
12. Partners: (resources) Featuring partner companies, associations or suppliers, can add to the professionalism of a company.
13. Pricing: (rates) This page should have the rates of the service that is being provided. It is best to have a good description.
14. Privacy: Assure your visitors that the personal information that they share is totally secure by posting a privacy policy.
15. Products: (services) Describe your products. Talk about the benefits they will receive and why you stand out from your competition
16. Return Policy: One of the best ways to put customers at ease is through a well-thought-out and prominently posted returns procedure.
17. Showroom: (portfolio) Usually a photo gallery for products or services that can be provided. Important part of the pre-sale process if you make something.
18. Site Map: Used by visitors and search engines to help locate information on your website. Important for larger websites.
19. Terms and Conditions: (terms of service) For legal reasons it is important to have a terms and conditions page. This specifies buyer’s and seller’s rights.
20. Testimonials: People will trust what other people say about you, much more then what you say about yourself.

Every day I talk with business owners who are bewildered why their website isn’t producing for them. They could be looking for sales, leads or phone calls. They may have spent a sizable amount in producing their old website, but they are receiving no results for their efforts.

Business web design is not magic. It is not an art; it just takes proper planning to improve your ODDS. In fact ODDS makes a good acronym for the website planning process.

ODDS = Objectives, Define, Domain, Simplify

1. Objectives: Start with looking at your critical factors for success. What results do you need from your website? This could be qualified sales leads, online sales or a certain level of targeted website traffic to read what you have to say.
2. Define: who you want to reach. This is your targeted audience, your ideal customer, who will be most receptive to what you sell. You need to understand age, gender, income and interests. This helps you decide on the look and even the tone of your message.
3. Domain: Your domain name is a part of your branding strategy. You can use your business name, your brand name or use keywords to help drive search engine traffic. The name of your website should be a memorable reflection of your business.
4. Simplify: Your website should not try to be all things to all people.  Instead focus on your objectives and your targeted visitor. Make sure you understand the type of website you are; information-based, e-commerce or social media. A Focused website helps you reach your goals.

After the planning process, you are ready to begin the web design process.