The 4 Things Every Small Business Web Site Needs

You shouldn’t let Coca Cola, HP, and CNN make you feel like your website ought to play like a Superbowl ad.

Small Businesses Have Specific Needs
Superbowl Ads Can’t Meet

Superbowl ads are all about appealing to a mass market. Your small business, on the other hand, survives by the grace of your clientele.

But now, with the Internet, any small business can have access to the same billions of people that Coca Cola does, the same mass market. This is as much a curse as a blessing. Because the mass-market, Superbowl-ad mindset can destroy a small business.

In this free on-line report, you’ll discover:

Superbowl ads cost hundreds of millions of dollars, are seen by millions of people, and half the time, you can’t even tell what they’re advertising. And half the time you can tell, they don’t make you want to buy. Big companies dump untold millions of dollars into such ads every year, just to get their name and logo in front of as many people as they can. And for them, it might even be worth it.

But a small business needs a different approach, Because a small business succeeds one customer at a time. Serving each customer. Impressing each customer. Getting repeat business. Spreading the word. One person at a time. A Superbowl-ad mindset is just a waste of money for a small business. Because it doesn’t matter how many people have heard your name or seen your logo, if no one knows what you actually do. To a small business, one actual customer is worth more than all of the fancy movie tricks and special effects in Hollywood.

Your small-business ads need to do things that an award-winning Superbowl ad never will. And your small business’s website needs to do things that Coca Cola’s website never will. Because small businesses are niche businesses, not mass-market businesses. That’s why an effective small-business website does 2 things:

Keep these in mind as we go over the following 4-part website strategy:

  1. The Copy - This is the text, images, and other media on your site. It is not the graphic design. Rather, it’s the part that actually communicates your sales message to people who visit your site. In this chapter, I’ll reveal why the copy is the most important part of your website, the purpose of your web copy (and it’s not “to communicate”), which is the most important page of your website (and it’s not the front page), and how you can get good copy.
  2. The Website - This is the technical and artistic component. It’s how you actually publish your copy on the Internet. This is what most people usually think of when they say “web design.” But it’s really only one part of an effective web-design strategy. I’ll explain the basics of how web technology works, why most web designers are doing it wrong, what to look for in a web hosting service, how graphic design fits in, and 3 technologies you can use to build the website that’s right for you.
  3. Web Traffic - Even the best website does you no good if no one ever sees it. Traffic is the people who visit your website. There are many ways to draw visitors to your website. I’ll explore the 3 web traffic strategies, the strengths of each, and how to use all 3 to draw people to your website and keep them coming back again and again.
  4. Website Metrics - Once you have people reading your website’s copy, you need to measure whether it actually works. This is the part that ties everything else together. This chapter will reveal which web statistics you actually need, why you need them, how to make sense of them, and what tools you need to measure them.

This is an approach that small businesses have worked time and again, sometimes going on to dominate their niche. And I’ve used it myself successfully, both in for-profit markets and for charities.

Using a mass-market, Superbowl-ad approach is the biggest mistake small businesses make when they put up their first website. I’ve seen it happen with both men and women, with the young and old, and in completely different markets. I’ve seen it happen not only to brick-and-mortar businesses, but to online businesses, too. Consider this alternative, because you want your website investment to pay off.

The Most Important Thing on Your Website is the Copy

If you had to make the following choice, how would you choose?

  1. A cool-looking, creative, professionally designed website, with crummy content. Or…
  2. A plain but clean-looking website full of compelling web copy that makes people want to buy from you.

I prefer the second, because it’s the copy that converts visitors into customers. Good copy will do its job, even if the graphic design is only so-so. Because it’s the message on the page which brings you more clients or turns them away. If you have good copy that draws visitors into your sales process, you can always improve the graphic design. In fact, you can use that copy to fund those improvements.

You can frequently do this with the other elements of your website strategy, too. For example, let’s say you don’t have many people visiting your website. Even with just a few visitors to your site, if your copy draws those visitors into your sales process, your site can be profitable. You can use that money to invest in marketing that draws more visitors. In fact, as we’ll see in the chapter on web traffic, you need to use copy in order to build up a steady stream of traffic.

But if you have bad copy, all the traffic in the world won’t help you. In fact, your copy could actually be turning away potential customers. Without good copy, you could actually be losing money on your website.

Isn’t it ironic, then, that many small-business owners spend thousands of dollars on graphic design, but write their own web copy?

On the other hand, the best sales copywriters are millionaires, because they’ve made much more than that for their clients. That’s the power of good copy.

Does That Mean My Site Should Be Ugly?

If the most important thing on a website is the copy, it sounds like graphic design doesn’t matter. And sites like Craigslist seem to bear that out. Here is an extremely successful site that has little graphic design. Some people have even called it “ugly.” Yet, it’s one of the top sites on the web.

But there’s a caveat here. Your graphic design does have purpose.

  • Professionalism - Your website needs to look professional to your target market. Because this conveys trustworthiness. And if prospects who visit your site trust you, they’ll be more likely to buy from you. A clean graphic design conveys that you are a professional, and so it can increase trust. A messy graphic design looks like you just threw it together and that you don’t care about the image you project.
  • Highlighting What’s Important - When a prospect comes to your site, he has a purpose in mind. He’s having a conversation with himself, in his mind, about his needs and how he’s going to fulfill them. On your website is content that enters the conversation going on in his head and helps him realize that you have what he needs. And on your website, there’s also other content that has nothing to do with what he wants. A graphic design can highlight the first of these, and it allows other content to fade into the background.
  • User Experience - As a user navigates through your website, he’ll finish with one bit of content and progress to the next. A good graphic design will put things that go together close together. And it will take things that are separate and keep them apart. That makes it easy for someone to find what he’s looking for on your site.
  • Emotional Connection - A customer buys from you because of an emotional reason. A mother, for example, may buy durable clothing in order to save money, which she believes will help her take better care of her children. She feels a need to nurture her family. If this is your customer, and if you understand this emotional reason, you can choose a layout and colors that reflects it.

But there are things that you don’t necessarily need in a graphic design. Your graphic design does not need to be cool or creative, and it doesn’t need to be a custom design. Using a design template is just fine, as long as the final design does what you need it to. I’ll talk more about this when I talk about website technology.

Your Website Is There to Sell Stuff, Even If It Isn't

If you’re a big company, you may put up a website just to have an online presence. These websites are frequently full of colorful graphics and whizzy animations, are difficult to navigate, and contain almost no useful information. They are the Superbowl ads of the web. Very expensive, seen by millions of people, and do little except get the company’s logo in front of as many eyes as possible. Check out Coca-Cola’s site for an example.

For a high-volume product or service that appeals to a broad market (like Coca-Cola), this strategy makes sense. Everybody knows what Coca-Cola is and what it tastes like. And Coca-Cola drinkers span age groups, regions, and occupations. Anyone could be a Coca-Cola customer.

Good copy does not “communicate.”
It sells.

But small businesses work in narrow, targeted markets. And when someone comes to your website, it’s most important that you tell him how what you do benefits him. Good copy does not “communicate.” It sells. It does not address a mass market, because it’s direct-response copy. This copy speaks to each individual visitor to the site. And it asks him to do something that takes him to the next step in the sales process. After one visit, he may not yet be ready to finance your next vacation to the Caribbean. But even after one visit, it’s important that you begin a business relationship with him.

And this is the “selling” part. Maybe you want him to buy your entry-level product. Or to sign up to your e-mail list. Or even to pick up the phone and call you. Or even just to fill out an on-line survey. Your website is part of your sales process.

And like other parts of the sales process, it may be part of a complex sale. You may need to provide him with lots of information, show him how your solution solves his problems, answer his questions, address his many fears and concerns. And above all, establish trust that you’ll come through for him.

You may have noticed, this free report you’re reading right now is designed to do these things. It provides information, shows you how to benefit from your small-business website. At the same time, it demonstrates how important are the expertise I provide. In fact, I structured this report based on actual sales conversations I’ve had with actual small business owners!

The One Critical Page on Your Website... And It's Not the Home Page

There are several important pages on your site: The front page, your product pages, your e-commerce pages (if you do e-commerce). But none of these is as important as the one critical page on your website, your landing page. Your landing page is critical, because it’s the first page a visitor sees when he comes to your site.

Or rather, your landing pages. Each marketing channel appeals to a slightly different visitor. Each visitor has a slightly different thought in mind when he comes to your site. Each is looking for something slightly different. And so each different kind of visitor should have his own landing page, because the perfect landing page enters the conversation going on inside his head. Then, the landing page leads him down a straight path that benefits him… and makes you money.

Even though the landing page is the most important page on a website, most businesses give little thought to it. They even spend masses of money on expensive advertising campaigns, and then they just drop visitors onto their website’s front page. But the front page is usually not the correct landing page for most first-time visitors.

Within 8 seconds, most people will decide whether to stay and read, or whether to click back and try something else.

And if the landing page fails, your website will turn away potential customers. Most of the time, the visitor will immediately give up, because he doesn’t find what he’s looking for. When he sees your landing page, you have less than 8 seconds to make an impression. Within 8 seconds, most people will decide whether to stay and read, or whether to click back and try something else. If he’s a potential customer, you want him to stay and read. But if this potential customer doesn’t immediately find what he needs, he’ll go visit someone else’s website.

And many businesses neglect other simple things they can do to make their landing pages work. Like the tips, tricks, and techniques Mark Widawer reveals in his ebook Landing Page Cash Machine. Frequently, business owners just aren’t aware of these insider secrets, because they’re not copywriters.

How One Line Can Make or Break the Deal

John Caples was one of the world’s best copywriters. He was an expert in measuring how well an advertisement worked. And I think he said it best in Tested Advertising Methods. He said that, in a print ad:

75% of the Buying Decisions
Are Made at the HEADLINE Alone

80% of the people who see a print ad will read the headline. Only 20% will read the actual ad. Therefore, you need a headline on your ad that will draw the reader in, make him want to read on.

The same applies to web copy. In fact, it applies even more to web copy. And especially landing page copy. Remember, when a visitor sees your landing page, you have less than 8 seconds to make an impression. That’s why your landing page headline needs to be dead on. It needs to enter the conversation going on inside his head. It must make him want to read on, to learn more about what you have to offer. It’s the single line that can make or break the deal.

Fortunately, there’s a lot you can do to write better headlines. The first thing is just to realize how important the headline is, and to put more time and effort into it. A great headline will make a promise, present proof, and induce curiosity. You see this in the headline templates in David Garfinkel’s ebook Advertising Headlines That Make You Rich.

3 Sources of Good Copy

Here are three ways you can get good copy for your website.

  1. The easiest and most reliable way is to hire a professional copywriter. If you spend only one chunk of money on a website, this is where it should go. Rates vary widely, but you can expect to pay at least a couple thousand dollars for a good sales letter, one that will actually sell. Find a copywriter who understands direct-response, and preferably has experience with the web or with Internet marketing.
  2. At least consider hiring a professional copywriter to critique the copy you write. This will usually cost much less than having him write copy from scratch. The final copy may also perform more poorly. However, depending on your skill level, a thorough critique could improve the performance of your copy 10% to 100%, or more. And in the process, you’ll also discover many techniques that professional copywriters use.
  3. If you want to write your own copy, uncover the secrets of writing good copy. Go through David Garfinkel’s 12-week on-line multimedia course Killer Copy Tactics. Then keep up to date with Brian Clarke’s copyblogger and Michel Fortin’s blog. This will get you started. But remember, writing good copy is hard. Expect to have many failures before you succeed.

I myself use a combination of the above approaches. Over the span of years, I’ve put many hours personally into learning how to write. For experiments, where the goal is to judge whether there is general interest in an idea, my own copy does the trick. Similarly for blog entries or e-books. But for important pages and sales letters, I’ll work with a professional copywriter to critique the copy I write or to write copy from scratch.

Web Hosting and Other Stuff You Think Is Hard

At the risk of stating the obvious, in order to get your website on the Internet, you need… uh… A website.

This is the part that we usually think of when we say “web design” or “web development.” This is the part that we pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars to have someone professionally put together. Most business owners are willing to part with the cash, because they don’t understand HTML, web hosting, domain name registration, and PHP. And I can understand this. And this problem we can solve.

But there’s often a more insidious reason for hiring a professional web designer. A fear lies lurking under the surface. It imprisons their thoughts. They fear that if they put up their own website, it’ll fail. So they conclude that only a professional can produce a web design that will work. For these projects, “web design” frequently means “graphic design.” And web-design shops are more than happy to give these business owners exactly what they ask for: Slick, highly customized web pages costing thousands of dollars.

And then they write their own web copy.

One small-business owner spent $10,000 on his website. I don’t know how many concept sketches he discarded for that amount of money. I also don’t know what he got for it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t enough. Maybe it included custom animations or Flash programming. Or maybe it was just really, really pretty. Whatever, it wasn’t worth $10,000. And I know this because of what he did next. He painted over his new gold-paved information highway with web copy he wrote himself.

Now, I’ve been a software developer for most of my life. I remember the Internet from back before there was a world-wide web. I’ve done a little of almost everything related to web technology. I’ve even done my share of graphic design, and some of it ain’t half bad. (Like my personal blog site.)

But I’m also a writer. Many years ago I learned to write essays and business documents. And then I learned how to tell stories and keep them interesting. Finally, I learned how to write sales copy. This is the hardest of the three.

If you want a website, you can use off-the-shelf software and templates. You can push a button and—literally—your web site will just pop out. And it will even be good enough to start your business out on the web. But there’s no magic button you can push for good sales copy. The computer will never be able to write copy for you, because copywriting is a creative process. And someone who knows how to write just business documents will never be able to write sales copy for you, because copywriting is an advanced skill.

Yes, there are copywriting templates and there’s software. But these only help you once you know how to write copy and test copy. If you don’t have copywriting skills, templates and software do you little good.

So, if you’re going to spend $10,000 on your website, here’s what you do. You first take nine of those thousands and hire a professional copywriter to write your site’s sales copy and to help you plan your website marketing. Then you have a whole thousand bucks left over with which to play with the graphic design. And that’s plenty for most small businesses.

I don’t want to sound like I’m coming down on graphic designers or on web programmers. I just want to keep the priorities straight: Copy is much harder to get right than graphic design is. You may be able to get by with an off-the-shelf graphic design. But you will need custom copy.

Once you know the website is actually drawing new customers and generating repeat business… That’s when you’ll want to hire a graphic designer to improve the look and feel of your website. Because then you can make graphic design an investment, not an expense. “If a better graphic design increases conversion rate by 10%, then that will earn us $X more per year, so I’m comfortable investing $Y in a graphic designer.”

To top it off, if you’re strapped for cash, you yourself (or the high-school student you hired part-time to help out around the office) can do the actual website part with a home-study course, such as Jim Edwards’s Mini-site Creator Home Study Course. But there’s no such substitute for good copywriting.

How Does This Stuff Work, Anyhow

I’d like to dispel some of the mystique behind web technology. The good news is that almost anyone can make sense of web technology, quickly and without burning out any brain cells. There are only 4 major parts to it.

  1. The domain name - Your domain name is the dot-com that identifies your website. In order to get a domain name, you need to register it with a registrar. For new domains, this is a simple process with a small annual fee.
  2. The web host - You also need to obtain hosting services. Your hosting provider provides a web server with space on it to put your website software and data. They also provide a name server, which is what lets users access your website by using your domain name. And a database, in which your web software (if you use web software) will store your website’s data. Finally, your hosting service will handle e-mail for your domain and provide you e-mail in-boxes.
  3. HTML data - Internet Explorer, Firefox, and other web browsers expect HTML. HTML combines text, graphics, and formatting. It allows you to make some text italic or bold, display images, or create floated sidebar boxes that text flows around. You can store the HTML in files directly on the web server, or you can use…
  4. Blogs, Forums, and Content Management Systems (CMS’s) - These are all forms of web application software. They make it easier to manage the content on your site and to collaborate with other websites. You can also have custom web app software written for you, but that’s only worth it in very specific cases.

For my sites, I use DreamHost, which provides both domain-name registration and hosting services. I use WordPress blog software or Drupal CMS software, both of which run on DreamHost. I talk about all these later in this chapter.

15 Qualities to Look For in a Web Host... And How to Hedge Your Bet

Picking the wrong web host can be a pain. If something goes wrong, your site could go down. People who come to visit your site won’t see anything. If they’re lucky, they’ll see an error. And if you’re buying advertising, people who click on your ad won’t see your web page, but you’ll still pay for those ad clicks.

And if your site gets linked to by slashdot, a news site, or some other popular site, you could find your website flooded with visitors. And if your host doesn’t know how to deal with large spikes of traffic, you could find your account suddenly frozen or canceled. Surprise!

Fortunately, web hosting is a commodity. Where they differ is primarily in terms of customer support and style. In any case, you can hedge your bets so that if you don’t get satisfaction, you can switch to an alternative web host with a minimum of down-time.

The first thing you can do is to sign up for Hyperspin’s free website monitoring service. Their computers will do a quick check on your website every hour, and they’ll email you whenever it goes down. You’ll want to set up a GMail account to receive these emails, because if your hosting provider has gone down, you won’t be getting email through them.

The second thing you need to do is to make sure you have a backup of all the files on your website. And if you use a web application with a database, keep a regular backup of the database. If you have a falling out with your hosting provider, or if disaster strikes, you won’t be in a panic that you’ll lose your data, because you will have a copy of all of it. And you’ll be able to setup an alternative site quickly on a different host, because you can simply restore from those files and backed up data.

Thirdly, keep an eye on what resources you use. The big 3 resources you need to look out for are bandwidth (the amount of data your site sends over the Internet), CPU, and disk space. Some hosting providers advertise “unlimited” bandwidth, but there’s no such thing as unlimited. The only question is when someone puts one of your blog posts on Digg, and your site suddenly gets tens of thousands of visitors in a short amount of time, and it starts overloading your web host… How will your hosting provider respond? If you’re keeping an eye on what resources you use, and if you know what your hosting provider’s policies are, you’re much less likely to be surprised.

So switching hosts can be a pain, but it need not cause a crisis. You’ll still want to avoid that pain. To that end, here are 15 things to take into consideration when choosing a web host:

  1. Do they run their own infrastructure? Or do they resell hosting from someone else? If you work with someone who resells hosting, find out who their supplier is. The people who actually run the computers, they’re the ones who ultimately control whether your website is available or whether it’s down.
  2. Where are they physically located? And is there a real, live, English-speaking technician on-call 24/7? Or are you going to be dealing with a call center in some other country?
  3. Is there a phone number you can call when things go wrong? If not, does that make you uncomfortable? A phone number does not mean they’ll actually respond to problems when the occur. Rather, it’s more a question of style. Does their style match your own?
  4. Do they have an automated control panel, like cPanel? They should.
  5. Can you run the web app software you want on their server? If you’re just going to serve simple HTML files, this is not an issue. But if you want to use a blog or CMS, you’ll want to make sure the hosting plan you choose actually supports this software. Not all hosting providers support all software, especially on the less expensive plans. On the other hand, some do.
  6. Do they have a one-click install for the software you want to use? Just because they don’t have a one-click install doesn’t mean you can’t use your chosen software. But if they do have a one-click install, it can make setting up your website much easier.
  7. What happens if your site accidentally uses too many resources? Will they cancel your account? Will they charge you for bandwidth overages? Will they work with you when their computer gets overloaded?
  8. Can you easily measure the bandwidth you’ve used, the disk space you’ve used, and the CPU your sites use? If not, it will be harder to monitor these resources.
  9. Can you use multiple domain names and sub-domains from a single hosting account? If so, how many? This is a very important feature, because it allows you to inexpensively set up promotional mini-sites, with no additional hosting charges. All you need is the domain names for your mini-sites. I talk more about mini-sites later in this chapter.
  10. Can you set up multiple databases? Let’s say you want to put up two different sites, each with its own blog, for example. Both blogs can use the same database, but it’s easier to manage these if each blog can use its own database.
  11. What is their tech-support policy? Do they publish the status of their computers and network? It’s much easier to trust a hosting provider the more information they provide about what’s happening, even when things go wrong— Especially when things go wrong.
  12. How thorough is their documentation? Do they have any online documentation to describe how to use the features they provide?
  13. Do they support any other specific features, such as embedded audio and video, that you want to use?
  14. Do they have a money-back guarantee? They should have at least a 30-day no-questions-asked money-back guarantee.
  15. Do they offer a Service Level Agreement (SLA), with an uptime guarantee… and teeth? Most SLA’s merely say you get credit for any time your site is down, but you won’t get anything for any business you lose while your site is down. On second thought, forget the SLA. Instead ask whether they have multiple, distributed, redundant servers… And expect to pay for a feature like this.

Which Web Host Do I Use?

I myself use DreamHost. Some people swear by them (including me). Others swear at them. That’s okay with me. Love me; hate me; there’s no money inbetween. That said, DreamHost doesn’t meet everyone’s needs. I hope to outgrow them eventually, but I expect to continue to use them for a long time to come.

Here’s what DreamHost does and doesn’t provide:

  • DreamHost runs their own infrastructure.
  • DreamHost is located in in California, employee-owned and operated.
  • Whenever I’ve submitted a support request to DreamHost, a knowledgeable professional has responded to it, and within a reasonable time.
  • With DreamHost, you submit support requests via the DreamHost control panel. For the more expensive hosting plans, you can request a phone callback in extreme circumstances. But these phone calls are limited to a certain number per month.
  • DreamHost has a history of trying to work with its customers when things don’t go right.
  • DreamHost has an open tech-support policy, including a real-time status blog. Their tech-support staff posts the status of any system-wide problems here.
  • DreamHost has an extensive support documentation wiki. I use it frequently when experimenting with new software, using DreamHost’s many features, and researching requirements for specific projects.
  • DreamHost measures the bandwidth you use over a whole month. And they allow you to measure your bandwidth easily on your account’s control panel. The control panel also includes an estimate of how much bandwidth you will use during the remainder of the month, based on how fast your account has been using bandwidth. This makes it easy to see how much unused bandwidth you have for unexpected bandwidth spikes.
  • If it looks like you need more bandwidth, you have 3 options: You can pay extra for the extra bandwidth, but this is expensive. Or you can upgrade your plan, but this requires a commitment, even if you don’t end up using the bandwidth. Or you can throttle your site, that is, turn away some visitors in order to try to stay within the bandwidth limit.
  • DreamHost also increases your bandwidth limit every month you keep your account. That is, they reward customer loyalty with more bandwidth at no additional cost.
  • DreamHost allows you to see how much disk space your account is using, right on the control panel. This makes it easy to see how much space you have left, as you upload files to your website.
  • DreamHost has a flexible CPU limit policy. If your website threatens to bring down the web host, they’ll ask you to reduce its usage. But they’ll also try to work with you to resolve the problem. Depending on what kind of site you have and what software you’re using, this could be a problem if you get slashdotted.
  • DreamHost will register domain names for you as well as host your websites. This is pretty standard. What is unusual about DreamHost’s offer is that their domain name service includes private registration at no additional cost. This allows you to keep your name and address secret, not published in the public WhoIs database.
  • DreamHost allows you to host an unlimited number of domain names and sub-domains from a single account.
  • DreamHost also allows you to set up an unlimited number of databases on a single account.
  • DreamHost offers one-click installs for several popular web application software packages, including WordPress and Joomla. In reality, you need to configure most software after you install it, so it’s not really “one click.” But it’s way easier than installing it manually. Unfortunately, they do not include a one-click install for Drupal, which is the CMS I prefer.
  • DreamHost supports a broad range of web application software with all their hosting plans. There is very little that DreamHost can’t do. Look on the DreamHost wiki for advice regarding a wide array of web apps.
  • DreamHost also supports embedded Flash audio and video, QuickTime media streaming, discussion lists, Jabber, Subversion, SSH, Frontpage Extensions (shudder), and other features. They do not support IIS (if you care) or external DNS servers like ZoneEdit.
  • DreamHost does not offer an SLA. They also do not have distributed, redundant servers. They do have a redundant network infrastructure, as most hosting providers do. And according to Hyperspin, DreamHost is up about 99.5% of the time.
  • DreamHost offers a 97-day money-back guarantee for all their hosting packages. And yes, it’s real. But read the fine print.

As you can tell, I’m satisfied with DreamHost. But there are other good hosting providers. As I said, web hosting is a commodity.

As an alternative, midPhase comes highly recommended from a number of sources, including Brian Clark (of CopyBlogger.com), who swears by them.

The Inefficiency Most Web Designers Build Into Their Process

There’s an inefficiency built into the way most web designers put together websites. Have you ever asked yourself:

  • Why does a 5-page website cost more than a 3-page website? In fact, it shouldn’t matter whether your site has 3 pages, 10 pages, or 100 pages. It should cost the same regardless, because it costs about the same amount to store 3 pages worth of text as to store 100 pages.
  • Why does it have to be so inconvenient to modify or change content on the site? You shouldn’t need to wait for a webmaster to manually add or change content on your site, because a website runs on a computer. You should be able to have your computer just publish new content automatically and see it immediately appear on your website.
  • Why are Web 2.0 marketing techniques out of reach of the small business? Web 2.0 is a whole other opportunity, of course, which I’ll get into when I talk about web traffic. But you don’t need to be Google to do Web 2.0, because the technology behind it is fairly simple.

The reason we face these problems is just part of how most web designers build websites. They do it inefficiently. Here’s how it usually works. The webmaster starts with a blank HTML document, called a template. The template looks like just any page from your site, except it has no content. You probably send the webmaster an email telling him what content to put on the page. He manually copies and pastes your text and graphics into the template and saves it as an HTML file on his computer. Then he uploads this file to the web server. He has to repeat this manual process for every single page on your website.

But it gets worse. On your website, you’ll need menus your visitors will use to navigate around the site. And you’ll need links from some pages on the site to other pages. The webmaster has to set up all these links manually. Now, if he plans it well, it won’t be that bad at first. Because he’ll set up all the links on the template. Then when he pastes in your content, all the links come along for the ride.

But what happens when you find out you need to add another page to the website? Or you need to rearrange the links? Or you need to make some other change? And if you’re doing things right, you will need to change things on your website. Because you’ll learn what works and what doesn’t with your customers, and you’ll want to tweak your website to work better. How will your webmaster handle that? The only way he can handle that is to edit every single page, manually. If your site has only a few pages, it might not be so bad. But with a website of any size, it’s a gargantuan task.

And that’s why a 10-page site costs so much more than 3-page site, and a 100-page site is right out.

So what’s the answer? How do we deal with this complexity? And how do we make it possible for a layman to add content, without dealing with the innards of HTML? Both questions have the same answer: We let the computer do it for us.

But isn’t that expensive? No! It’s inexpensive enough that websites like Blogger and Squidoo can provide features like this to their users for free… And make a profit, just using on-site advertising. Build a Professional Website with Homestead. Try for free! And companies like Homestead use similar technology to enable you to put together your own professional-looking small website, without any expensive up-front charges. Any of these technologies work to make maintaining a website easy and inexpensive.

Traditional web designers don’t use these technologies, however, because in their mind, web design is about look and feel. But it’s not just about look and feel, because it runs on a computer. It’s about technology, too. And with web application software, we can use this technology. And a small business owner needs to use the technology available to him, because he needs to get the most bang for his website buck.

Now, some may say it’s about performance. They may say that using a web app is slow, and that raw HTML is fast. And that may be true… for a 100-page dynamic site with Web 2.0 features… as if you could ever provide such a site using raw HTML. For 5 pages of text, it’s not going to matter one way or the other. In fact, for a site like this, the web app software will optimize everything so that it’s practically the same as using raw HTML.

Sometimes the best option may still be to use raw, manually maintained HTML. The only reason to do so is that there are fewer things to go wrong. If you really only need a 5-page mini-site, manual HTML may actually be easier to maintain. But what I mean by “mini-site” is not what most web designers mean. And I’ll talk about that next.

3 Ways to Manage Your Website Content

There are 3 common kinds of systems website owners use to manage the content on their sites. Some are more powerful and more flexible, but also require more effort to setup and maintain. Which system is right for you depends on what kind of web site you need.

  1. Manually upload HTML files. This is the simplest, and the most limited way to manage your website content.
  2. Use blog software. This lets you publish large amounts of up-to-date content, and it provides some powerful ways to organize your content and market your website to users.
  3. Use a content-management system. With a CMS, your website can blow you away. Add in some custom programming, and you can do almost anything you can imagine.

There is a disadvantage to all this power, however. It’s like the difference between riding a bicycle, driving a car, and flying an airplane. A plane will get you a lot farther, a lot faster, but there’s a lot more that can go wrong. If you want cheap and reliable, and if a bike will get you where you want to go, then that’s the way to go. There’s also some overlap between the three. If I needed to get from New York to Tampa Bay, I could fly or I could drive. Flying will get me there much faster, but it’ll be more expensive, and you’ll have to deal with the TSA to boot. Which means of transportation you choose depends on the particular trip you want to take.

It’s the same way with these three ways of managing your web content. Each level overlaps into the others:

  • Some businesses have extensive on-line article archives, which they publish using hand-coded HTML. Usually, you’d use a CMS to manage a collection of documents this large.
  • I’ve even seen people provide Web 2.0 features like RSS feeds using hand-coded RSS! I’m just glad I don’t have to do that.
  • And some users use their blog software as a CMS. They install plug-ins up the wazoo, even tweak the software with custom programming.
  • Still others install a CMS just to put up a simple, 5-page website. They could have used manual HTML. But they chose the automated software, because they want the flexibility to rearrange it, extend it, or change the look and feel of it easily.

So there are no hard and fast rules. You have to use your own judgement to determine where you want to go and how fast you want to get there.

Mini-sites: As Easy as Riding a Bike

The simplest kind of site is a mini-site, a small, laser-focused site, usually with only a few pages. These are a great way to advertise a niche product or service. Or to promote a special offer or event. You can manage a mini-site manually, using HTML templates. That’s because a well-designed mini-site usually has only one main page, perhaps with a few variations. Everything on the site has only one purpose, to ask the visitor to make a decision whether to take the next step in a relationship with your company. Note that this is not how most companies organize their websites.

Most companies—and most web designers—do it wrong. Because they organize the website to highlight your company, rather than organizing it around the customer. The truth is: No one cares about you. They only care about what you can do for them. And they want to know this now! That’s why the landing page is the most important page, and the customer is the most important person in an effective website design.

Remember the goal a website is supposed to accomplish? It converts visitors into customers, and customers into visitors. In order to accomplish this, a mini-site must look and feel very different than what you are used to.

Jim Edwards is the mini-site expert. And he has a free audio and e-book about mini-sites. Compare Jim Edwards’s mini-site designs to how most small business websites are designed. The difference is that his actually make money. His free audio and e-book explains the 3 purposes of any mini-site, the 4 types of mini-sites, the biggest mistake people make with mini-sites, and more. Listen to it or read it, because this information is key to making a small website work.

Anything more elaborate than a mini-site, though, and you’ll proably want more than raw HTML. You’ll want the computer to manage your content. Because what’s difficult with manual web pages is not HTML itself. The hard part is combining content with presentation and managing links between pages.

In fact, even with some mini-sites, if they’re more than a few pages, you’ll want to use an automated system. For example, let’s say you have a few dozen articles, free reports, and white papers on your product or service. This can be consistent with the purpose of a mini-site. To publish all these documents on your website, you’ll want to list them in categories, maybe even in several different indexes, on several different web pages. You’ll also want to add new articles and case studies from time to time. Managing all this data becomes so much easier when you can leverage the power of the computer to do all the grunt work.

Blogs: The Keys to Your New Car

One way to let the computer manage content is using blog software. This software lets you publish articles, day by day as in a news feed. Users can then subscribe to your site’s feed, and as you write new articles, your website automatically notifies each subscriber. Additionally, any articles you’ve already written remain on the site for as long as you want, organized by whatever categories you specify.

The most popular blog software is WordPress. And you can do a lot with it, because WordPress has some pretty powerful features. You can select from a wide variety of themes. You can use the standard blog-style front page, or you can customize your website’s front page. You can use it to put up simple, static pages as well as timely, dynamic content. Users can post comments on blog posts, if you allow it. And WordPress supports other Web 2.0 features, too, like feeds, pings, and trackbacks, making WordPress an excellent Web 2.0 marketing tool. And there are many WordPress plug-ins, opening up even more features. Some people have put together whole websites just using WordPress. And WordPress is 100% free software.

Most of these bloggers are not professional web developers, or even technical people. It’s easy to set up and use WordPress. Any competent web developer can install WordPress and show you how to use it. Many high-school and college students can as well.

My preferred hosting company, DreamHost, has a one-click WordPress install feature. (So does midPhase, and many others—Just ask your host whether they support WordPress.) Or you can download WordPress from WordPress.org.

There’s good documentation at the WordPress.org Codex. And some good WordPress tips and tricks on the DreamHost support wiki.

CMS's: Flying with Jet Fuel

For the most elaborate websites, you should consider a content-management system, or CMS. That’s a mouthful, but it only means software that lets you manage your website content. A good content-management system will let you do everything WordPress can do, and more. A CMS is more general than a blog. The main purpose of a blog is to let you post content day by day, as in a news feed. A CMS can do this, but it can also handle other content, displaying it in a number of ways.

There are a number of alternatives. One popular CMS is Joomla, and DreamHost has a one-click install for it. I prefer Drupal for my websites. For example, LucrativeWebDesign.com runs on Drupal. Both Joomla and Drupal are free software.

Another example is Gilmore-ism.com, my fan site for the TV show Gilmore Girls. Some of the features on this site are custom-programmed, such as the quotes database. The theme is also highly customized. But most of the features on the site use built-in Drupal features or off-the-shelf Drupal modules.

Consider all the ways Drupal helped me put together this site:

  • The front-page dashboard is all based on standard features and off-the-shelf modules. The various lists are either standard blocks available from different modules, or they are custom views of the content on the site.
  • The “Random Quote” feature is also a custom view of the content, like the lists on the front page. It’s a view of a single, random quote.
  • The “RSS” feature is a feed of front-page content. Like a blog feed, this is a Web 2.0 feature that allows users to get an automatic list of the new content on the site.
  • The “Content from Other Sites” feature is Web 2.0 at its finest. It automatically republishes a list of links to select sites that themselves have RSS feeds.
  • The “Search” feature is built-into Drupal. It automatically searches all the content on the site. There’s also an off-the-shelf alternative that uses Google search.
  • Users can register for a free account on the site and submit comments and certain content. This is a built-in feature, and all I needed to do was to enable it.
  • Users can rate articles on the site and get recommended content based on their ratings and the ratings of other users. These features were all in off-the-shelf modules. All I needed to do was to install them.

There are plenty of do-it-yourselfers who install and maintain CMS-based websites, using Drupal, Joomla, and other software. You’ll also find consultants and developers who can provide the features that meet your specialized requirements.

Getting People to Visit Your Website

If a site goes up on the web, but there’s no one there to see it, does it make any money?

Just because you have a stop on the information superhighway, that doesn’t mean the right people will visit it. Just because you build it, that doesn’t mean they’ll come. You need to get traffic to your website. And not just any traffic, but the right traffic.

There are myriad people who will try to sell you the latest fool-proof traffic technique, because traffic is a key element of a website strategy. Unfortunately, most of these traffic techniques don’t work. Or at least they aren’t magic bullets. There are no magic bullets. If you buy into Dr. Terminus’s cool new website traffic program, it won’t magically send you all the right customers and turn you into a millionaire overnight. Yes, I’m sure Dr. Terminus is making a bundle. As Perry Marshall recently warned, “In the ’make money on the Internet’ category… a sucker is born every six seconds.” But you don’t have to be one of them.

The cold, hard truth is that building traffic is hard. And it can be expensive. Don’t let anyone fool you! Getting traffic to your website takes time, it takes money, it takes effort, and it takes smarts. But it’s a necessary part of any business website. Because without traffic, no one will discover what you have to offer, and so no one will buy your product or service.

So how do you build traffic to your website? I agree with Jim Edwards, co-author of Turn Words Into Traffic and Niche Advertising Secrets, and one of the good guys. There are basically 3 ways to get the right traffic to your website.

  1. You can Buy traffic, through targeted, paid advertising.
  2. You can Borrow traffic, via recommendations and links from others.
  3. You can Build traffic, by turning one-time visitors into repeat visitors.

Buying Web Traffic with Targeted Advertising

The quickest way to get visitors to come to your site is with advertising. And the quickest way to get started in on-line advertising is to use Google AdWords. Unfortunately, if you don’t know what you’re doing, it’s also the quickest way to give Google a lot of money.

Using Google AdWords is usually the first thing you want to use to drive traffic to your website. Because with AdWords, you can find people who are interested in exactly what you have to offer. [block:block=4] You do this by bidding on the words that your customers are typing into Google Search. You’ll also want to choose “negative” keywords that exclude users who are not interested in your offering.

Then you test your ads and keywords to find out which ones are working and which ones aren’t. If you set it up right, AdWords will tell you exactly how much each new customer costs, and exactly which ads and keywords are the most cost-effective.

But that’s not the best part about AdWords. The best part is that you can get this data almost in real time. Therefore, you can adjust your keywords and ads quickly. And by so doing, you can learn what words and ideas your customers respond to, before your competitors discover this. This is valuable knowledge you can use in other marketing channels. AdWords lets you do this faster and more inexpensively than any other system available today. Used well, AdWords is the fastest, most effective way to get high-quality leads and information, wicked cheap. The power of AdWords is that with 5 dollars and 10 minutes, you can have your own ad being shown to millions of people.

And the danger of AdWords is that with 5 dollars and 10 minutes, you can have your own ad being shown to millions of people. Used poorly, AdWords is the fastest, most effective way to give lots of money to Google. Please don’t do that. There are enough horror stories of someone opening an AdWords account, naively setting up an ad campaign, forgetting about it, and ending up with a $5000 charge at the end of the month and not one sale. Instead of doing that:

  • Use the Google AdWords Standard Edition. Avoid the Starter Edition, because it doesn’t provide the features you need to run an effective campaign.
  • Determine to become acquainted with the features of the Standard Edition.
  • Start with a limited budget. Don’t just accept Google’s recommendation for how much to spend. Invest a little, and learn a lot.
  • Start with a small set of closely-related keywords, monitor your ad campaign daily, and improve it over a number of weeks.
  • Get Perry Marshall’s free email course, “5 Days to Success with Google AdWords.” This will give you a taste of what’s in the Definitive Guide to Google AdWords and Ultimate Guide to Google AdWords.

Borrowing Traffic: 7 Ways to Get Free Web Publicity

Borrowing traffic is one of the most effective ways to get free traffic to your website. It is part of the great power of Web 2.0. Borrowing traffic is the PR of the web. Just as PR gets you attention from people who already have attention, borrowing gets you traffic from someone else who already has traffic.

For example, you are borrowing traffic when:

  • … you issue a press release that causes someone else to post a news story on his site or blog.
  • … you write an article for someone else’s e-zine, or be a guest blogger on someone else’s blog.
  • … you contribute to an on-line forum, or leave a comment on a blog, with a link to a relevant resource on your website.
  • … you partner with another website to send traffic or exchange links.
  • … someone searches on Google, finds your website, and clicks through.
  • … you create a purple cow, and bask in the word-of-mouth.
  • … you give a talk on a problem you know how to solve, and someone types your website URL into a web browser.

Of these, getting recommendations from others is the most powerful. Because people will listen to an honest recommendation from a reputable third party. They are much more skeptical of an advertisement or press release.

I didn’t mention it in the above list. But if you have a blog, there’s a way of getting links on other blogs. It’s called a trackback. Not all blogs support trackbacks, but when you link to a blog that does, it’s a great way to get links. Here’s how they work. You publish a blog post that talks about a post on someone else’s blog and links to that post. Using your blog software, you “trackback” to his blog post. (WordPress even does this for you automatically.) Then on the same page as his blog post, a link appears to your blog post, usually with an excerpt of what you wrote.

This trackback link does several cool things for your website. It establishes a relationship with the other blogger, because it helps build up his website. This reflects well on you. It’s also better than leaving a comment on his blog, because readers tend to respect trackbacks more than comments. Linking to someone else’s blog also increases both blogs’ search-engine ranking, making it more likely that new people will find your blog posts.

Another way to borrow traffic is to show everyone you’re an expert in your niche. Since you ran your AdWords campaign well, you know what your customers care about, what they worry about, what keeps them up nights. So you can write articles about these subjects, and use these articles to generate traffic. I can’t go into this subject in depth here, because it’s too deep. But Turn Words Into Traffic, by Jim Edwards and Dallas Edwards, is a step-by-step guide that covers how to write high-impact articles that get attention, and how to get your articles published in e-zines, on websites, in article indexes, and more. Also check out the Turn Words Into Traffic electronic version, which you can download immediately, and which comes with several bonuses and a 60-day money-back guarantee.

Building Traffic: What's The One Thing You Need to Generate Repeat Visitors?

Lester Wunderman wrote, “Manufacturers, distributors and retailers, in fact all who advertise, are beginning to recognize that they must focus increasingly on making customers rather than just making sales.”

This is the essence of building your own web traffic. It’s the same as building your business. Getting repeat web visitors is the same, in concept, as getting repeat customers.

There are several methods you can use to build repeat traffic to your website. With each of these methods, to get the most out of it, you need to provide value to your visitors. A customer who feels they got a good deal from your business is more likely to buy again. And a visitor who feels they found valuable information at your website is more likely to return. And you use web copy to convert visitors into subscribers, as you might say “Come again!” to a happy customer.

When someone visits your site, they’re looking for information. Give them exactly what they want.

All successful business owners understand this. Ironically, when it comes to the web, many become afraid to do the same thing online. When a prospect walks into their store, they’ll gladly give any advice he needs to make a purchase decision. But when a prospect comes to their website, they don’t want to tell them anything, because they fear the prospect will find out everything he needs to know and won’t take the next step towards a purchase decision.

The opposite is actually true. If you give a prospect valuable information that he can act on immediately, he can then trust you to deliver more value in the future. He’ll be more likely to come back to your website. And he’ll be more likely to buy from you. The first rule of the web is this: When someone visits your site, they’re looking for information. The best thing you can do is to give them exactly what they want… And then offer them even more. Good content brings visitors in, gets them to bring their friends, and gets them to come back.

So how do you actually implement this strategy? One method, becoming ever more popular, is to use a blog, because a blog allows visitors to subscribe to the blog’s feed. And they can even comment on your blog posts, which not only gives you valuable feedback but also encourages visitors to return to read the comments. A blog doesn’t just talk to your customers. A blog opens a dialogue with them. It builds relationships. And as a bonus, you’ll eventually get extra traffic and subscribers that you didn’t even know existed, because search engines love blogs.

But for even better results, you can use opt-in email lists. Use can use email instead of a blog, or to supplement a blog.

Never use spam lists. Always get explicit permission from people to send them email. Just as you keep a customer list of people who have bought from you, keep an email list of people who ask you to email them content. And then send them valuable content. Offer them a free report or white paper. Let them sign up for your weekly “tips” email or free e-newsletter. Or offer a course or informational series by email.

The way to send these emails is with an autoresponder. What I’m talking about is much more powerful than the simple “autoresponder” email feature you get through your hosting provider. That simple feature will allow someone to send email to, for example, info@mydomain.com, and the computer will automatically send them back an informational email. What I mean by “autoresponder” is a service that:

  • … allows a visitor to sign-up via a simple web form, because this makes it easy for him to sign up, hence more likely he’ll do it.
  • … allows him to unsubscribe just as easily, because this establishes trust. This is your money-back guarantee, as it were, that you will continue to send only valuable information.
  • … automatically sends him a pre-programmed series of personalized emails, spanning over days, weeks, or even months. Because permission ages poorly. You want to make him feel good immediately about his decision to give you his email address.
  • … tracks which visitors sign up for which email lists and from which forms, because this allows you to send different content to different people, depending on specifically what they’re interested in.
  • … allows you to send personalized follow-up email messages to each list, so that you can send your subscribers timely ongoing content.
  • … allows you to send two different emails to random samples of a list, so that you can measure which email gets better results.
  • … knows the CAN-SPAM Act and has features that help you comply with it.
  • … works with ISP’s around the Internet to make sure your legitimate emails are not being blocked as spam.

I use AWeber Communications, the leading email autoresponder service, for all my email lists, because they offer these advantages.

The Only Web Statistics You Really Need

Web statistics can make you feel overwhelmed. All the graphs and tables, numbers and percentages. And figuring out the difference between visitors, pages, and hits.

Unfortunately, if you want to understand web stats, reading up on the subject may just make it more confusing. Even if you understand the measurements themselves, how do you interpret them? What’s more important to maximize? Visits per day? Minutes per visit? Or pages per visit? Don’t answer. It’s a trick question. Because none of these measurements help us achieve our website goals.

It’s said that if you ask the wrong questions, you’ll always get the wrong answers. But many web consultants and business owners ask just these questions. They ask these questions, because these are the only questions they know to ask. But if we take into account our website goals, we’ll ask much better questions.

The goal of a small-business website is to convert visitors into customers, and to convert customers into visitors. The key word here is convert. If we measure conversions, we’ll maximize our goals. Conversions are what matters. How easy is it to convert visitors into customers? Customers into visitors? How much does it cost to acquire a new customer? How much business on average will that customer bring us?

So here are the kinds of statistics we need to measure:

As it turns out, these are statistics that direct-response marketers have been measuring for over a century, long before there was an Internet. They’re the same metrics Claude Hopkins advocated in his classic book Scientific Advertising. Back in the day, they just measured in terms of magazine ads and direct-mail pieces. Now we measure in terms of web visits. Different technology, but the same methodology.

Here Are 4 Key Metrics Google Analytics Can Measure

If you measure nothing else about your website, keep an eye on these 4 metrics:

  1. The conversion rate of your ads. That is, for each person who clicks on one of your ads, what percentage of them take action?
  2. The cost per conversion of your ads. That is, on average, how much do you pay in ad costs for each person who takes action?
  3. Where prospects leave your sales funnel. If you have a sequence of pages leading up to a sale, once someone begins down that path, why do they bail out?
  4. Which ads and landing pages in a split test perform better? Try two different variants of each ad and landing page, and find out which one has a higher conversion ratio.

Google Analytics is a free service that can measure all these things for you. It’s a very powerful service. Of course, that means it’s also complex. To demystify Google Analytics, start with ROI Revolution’s free email course, 7 Days to Success with Google Analytics.