The Dream Business

How to Live the Dream…

How you layout your home page will affects the conversion rate of your website. You need to grab their attention, get them interested and then build desire for your offering and then get people to take action. Answer the three questions: why you, why now, and what’s in it for me?

A study by researchers in Canada showed that people form lasting judgments about the usability and credibility of a website in as little as 1/20th of a second. The reaction is a physiological and emotional response based on color, images, page load speed and organization. This first impression was not based on informational content.

Your website needs to communicate your message in the first few seconds. Your unique selling proposition and your opt-in forms need to be easily seen without scrolling down.

The most important factor is first impression. Does your website look professional, organized and credible? People do judge a book by its cover. If your website looks like it was put together by an amateur, then that will be their perception of your business.

You need to understand the psychology of how and why people search. People search the web to find information, answers and a solution to a problem.

1. What are people searching for? It is whatever is impacting their life at that moment. It could be a plumber to replace the hot water heater, the menu at the local restaurant or how to set-up their new WordPress blog.
2. You will want to think like your customer, not an industry expert. Did you know most realtors instinctively want to be found for “real estate for sale” yet most people actually search for “homes for sale”?
3. As you compile your keyword list, start by only selecting phrases that are highly relevant to what you offer. The wrong keywords will bring the wrong prospects.
4. Buyers tend to use highly specific phrases as well as singular rather than plural forms. A person looking for new furniture is more likely to type in “leather sofa” rather than “leather sofas”
5. Use these keywords as a central theme in your messaging. Use keywords to draw in your customer and convince them to purchase. Your page headline should grab your reader’s attention and contain keywords. Body text should stimulate interest and assure your reader they are in the right place.

Picking the right keywords is part art and part science. Sometimes it is best to get the help of keyword research services to set the right foundation for your search engine optimization

Driving quality traffic to your website is expensive. You need to convince people to take action once they arrive. There are definite steps you should do to get your website to convert browsers into paying customers. A visitor needs to know he has arrived at the right place to get help.

1. Message: Make your central message clear. You have only a few seconds to communicate your benefits, how you are better than your competition. Use your page headlines, your graphics and your navigation to communicate your message.
2. Call to Action: Drive your visitors toward a desired action. Make it clear and highly visible. Place your primary call to action where it can be easily seen without scrolling down. It needs to be highly visible to arriving visitors. Examples of calls to action include- “Buy Now”, “Order Now”, “Join Today”, and “Sign Up For a Free Report”.
3. Compelling Copy: Effective copywriting attracts targeted visitors and begins the selling process by attracting attention and building interest in what you have to offer. Website visitors come looking for answers to their questions or problems. Merely giving information or logically presenting your products is not enough.
4. Build Trust: Show visitors that you are trustworthy. Show prospects there are no risks. Build trust at every step. Show your phone number and address. Post a guarantee. Have a no-risk returns policy. Show your privacy policy. At an action step such as a sign-up for, reassure with an excerpt from your privacy policy.
5. First and Last: Start strong and finish strong. Grab their attention when they arrive, and astound them with your finish. Put your best material at the beginning and the end.

Hint: Using social elements in your ecommerce builds trust. This includes product reviews, ratings, consumer feedback, wish-lists, favorites, blogs, forums or chat rooms.

Tips are from SEO coaching and conversion expert Doug Williams

Number of Phrases: How many keywords can you optimize a page for? I use 1-2 phrases per page as my typical strategy. The phrases should be very similar to create a page with highly focused content. Content that is highly focused will respond much better to SEO and reward you with better rankings. Beware of keyword dilution where you are targeting too many unrelated phrases on a single page.

Prominence: Keywords used at the beginning of any text is considered more important than text used near the end. Always place your most important text at the beginning of the body text, title tags and H1 tags. The first hyperlinked text is considered the most important link.

Keyword phrase order: Use your keyword phrase with the words in the same sequence or order for maximum benefit. This is harder with some phrases where people search using phrases that are abbreviated or grammatically incorrect. It is OK to be creative and use your phrase split between the end of one sentence and the beginning of another.

Over optimization penalty (OOP): Use keywords in a natural, easily readable manner. Avoid high keyword repetitions (keyword stuffing) in Title tags, H1s, body text, etc. Over optimization penalty results when unnaturally high repetitions of keywords are attempted in web page SEO. If a little is good, a lot is not better.

For more helpful SEO tips, go to the Doug Williams SEO Services Company website.

Corporate awards motivate employees and build corporate pride. A recognition awards program is like a stone thrown into a pond – the stone produces layers of ripples that go on and on. This creates an effect when one employee receives a reward that inspires another employee, who inspires another employee, and so on. The ripple-effect of a recognition awards program will make your business more productive and profitable.

Employees who are recognized with corporate awards are more engaged in their work, accomplish more in less time, and help the business make more money as a result.

When selecting employee awards, you should always keep the unique characteristics of the recipient in mind. Match the award to the achievement and personal style of the recipient, carefully taking color, shape, and size into consideration. We have outlined a series of sample questions that you can use to gauge which employee awards your recipients would prefer.

People will come to a website with a specific need or intent. This can be to research or to learn. They can also be ready to buy. The keywords that they use in their search will tell you a great deal about their intent. Buyer phrases are keyword phrases that buyers search for.

You need to understand how people think about your products or services. Learn what questions people are considering as they are preparing to buy.

Buyer Keywords: You want to identify buyer keywords. These are phrases that show intent to take action. These are different than information seeking phrases. Simply focusing on attracting visitors that are motivated buyers will improve your website’s conversion rate.

Example: If someone searches for “carpentry 101” they are likely seeking information. But people searching for “carpentry services” or “carpentry services Denver” are likely looking to hire someone.

Buyer phrases are action oriented and very specific. Usually it is best to hire out keyword research services if you are going to optimize your own website.

Research shows that companies the use corporate awards programs are 18% more productive and 16% more profitable. Employees who are recognized with corporate awards are more engaged in their work, accomplish more in less time, and help the business make more money as a result.

Identify your business goals and build a foundation for your corporate awards program. Reward activities that your employees do to meet your business goals and objectives. This will benefit your bottom-line directly.

Use corporate awards to reward a variety of accomplishments. Many organizations recognize milestones like:

• Leadership
• Corporate Value Recognition
• Special Achievements
• Attendance
• Years of Service
• Sales Achievement

Rewarding milestones such as years of service and attendance are both small ways of recognizing employees for their dedication to your organization. Both of these characteristics are often demonstrated by engaged employees. More on employee motivation.

What should you expect from a SEO services company when you hire them?

They should start with a site assessment. This could be called a SEO audit, SEO evaluation or a SEO analysis. This should include a look to see if there are any technical problems with your website that would be SEO barriers. This is the diagnosis phase before prescribing the right SEO method.

This could be an all Flash website, a site built in frames or a website that is all graphics with little or no text. There could be spamming methods such as hidden text (white text on a white background), cloaking, keyword stuffing, etc. These are things that would prevent your website from getting top rankings.

The SEO services company will need to know what keyword phrase or phrases that you will want to be found for. They should then evaluate if this is the best phrase(s) for your business. They will look at searches per day, competition level, should local terms be used, etc.

The website itself then is looked at for current traffic volume, number of pages, Title tags, H1s, number of pages that could be optimized. The number and quality of current backlinks as well as what anchor text is being used to link back the website.

The SEO services company is now ready to recommend the SEO needed for your website along with the price. SEO should include both an initial SEO (on-page) as well as monthly SEO. The SEO recommendation should include keyword research and selection, optimization of pages, content growth strategy and a linking strategy.

How does a start-up business go about creating their new unique logo and their branding for their new venture? Branding is how you make your company memorable. Your logo is a visual icon of your branding. It is the graphic representation or symbol that makes a company name recognizable.

A great logo is memorable, creates a visual impact and helps your company become easily remembered. So, what makes a great logo? It is distinctive, simple, appropriate, represents the company and has the illusion of action.

1. Distinctive means being unique and memorable, graphic (not just letters), not being cluttered in look and something that has a unique look. The colors, shape and font should be used in combination to help the business stand out and not blend in.
2. Simple means that it is not overly complex, can be reduced to a small size on a business card and doesn’t have many complex and competing elements. Simple also means good contrast and a bold look.
3. Versatile: It can be used shrunk down on a business card or blown up on the side of a vehicle or even on a 50 foot billboard.
4. Appropriate: Represents the company and is meaningful and appropriate for the company. It should have permanence so it won’t have to be changed. It should be relevant to the industry you are in.
5. Illusion of action means the logo has the appearance of motion and doesn’t just sit there. The challenge here is to keep it simple and to grab the viewers interest

A simple great logo may not be easy or quick to create, but it is powerful in your company’s branding for marketing strategies or Internet marketing. How to get started? Looking at logos of other companies.

Tip- Do a search for the word logo on Google Images.

Do customers think of you as the provider of a commodity? Focus first on your customer’s experience if you want to separate yourself from your competition. Put the “Wow” customer experience. Deliver superior service by focusing on the customer experience. This means solving your customer’s need, this is where your focus should be.

A great example of this is Zappos that grew their merchandising sales from being a startup in 1999 to over $1 Billion in 2008. Zappos is known to be “Powered by Service.” Their goal is to provide the best online shopping experience possible. Go to the Zappos website and you will immediately see:

1. Free shipping
2. Free returns
3. One full year return policy
4. Free return shipping
5. 24/7 customer service

5 elements of a great shopping experience (from the retail council)

1. Engagement: genuinely caring, being interested, helping and listening.
2. Executional excellence: Patiently explaining, advising, deep product knowledge, providing unexpected quality.
3. Brand experience: Exciting store design and atmosphere, consistently exceptional product quality and making the customer feel special.
4. Expediting: Provide a fast and easy shopping process, and a speedy checkout process.
5. Problem recovery: Quickly resolving and compensating for any problems, upgrading quality or delivery with a focus on complete satisfaction.

Businesses are realizing that the better the shopping experience, the greater the customer loyalty. By being creative and by listening to customers, you can create your own following of loyal and happy customers.