There are two basic types of websites.  The first is known as a business card style website.  The second type are known as direct response websites.  These two types of websites may look very similar on the surface, but they function in two very different ways.

Please know that I am not here to tell you that a business card website is a bad thing, in fact it can work very well when matched to the right business.  What I am here to tell you, is that you should know the difference between business card and direct response websites so that you can select the proper website for your business.

Before we get too far into the details of these two types of websites, I am going to pose a  question that may help you to determine which website is right for your business:

If you were to stand on the corner and hand out 100 (or even 1,000) business cards, how many of the people that you handed them to would use your service?   Buy your product?  Or even call you?

One?  Two?  Maybe.

But, if you handed out the same number of small cards or flyers, offering something of value to people, at no charge, how many of them would take you up on the offer?

Of course, you can never really know for sure – it depends on the offer, the corner you stand on, and the people that happen to walk by.  But I am confident (and I’m pretty sure that you are too) that you would get a better response rate by offering something of value than you would by simply handing out your business cards.

The difference between a business card website and a direct response website is a lot like the scenario above.

If the first thing that someone sees when they visit your website is “Welcome to my company website” and goes on to tell people how great you are, lists all of your services, and has your phone number and address at the bottom, then what you really have is a fancy online business card.

Direct Response websites are created when you start by understanding the needs and desires of your market.  Once you understand the problems your clients might be experiencing, you can begin to offer solutions to solve their problems.  Once you do this, you can sell your product or service in an easy, non-threatening, non-salesy, way.  Your offer doesn’t have to be complicated or tricky, but it does have to provide some benefit to your potential client.  If you are able to use your website to offer information or resources that begin to solve their problems,you can be sure that your solutions will lead them directly to your door.  When properly assembled, direct response websites not only pre sells your product or service, they deliver the most interested and qualified prospects directly to your door (or website, whatever the case may be).

If you build an effective direct response website with good calls of action, potential clients will be beating down your door.  I am not trying to simplify this too much, because there is a science (and an art) to creating an effective call to action.  You have to know your audience, know their needs,  desires, and most importantly, you have to know what action you want them to take.

I am going to make this as basic as possible.  If you don’t tell your audience what action you want them to take, you have little to no chance of them doing anything at all.

An effective call to action can be as simple as saying “call us today for…” and listing your phone number (Example:  For your free website review and consultation call Omega Solutions group at 877-336-7901 or request your consultation by clicking here).

By including a phone number, you increase your chances of making contact with potential clients.   Because I directly told you that you should call or fill out a form, the specific thought went through your mind to do so, and I increased the chances of you choosing to get in touch with me, which was my goal.

A website call to action doesn’t  have to lead directly to a sale.  It should, however, engage the consumer, and inspire them to take some sort of action within your sales funnel.  Perhaps you invite the consumer to leave their name and email in exchange for some free information, which then places them on your list of perspective clients, allowing you to follow up with them at a later date.  Perhaps your offer a free sample, a free consultation or some other free offer in exchange for 15 minutes of their time, during which you will provide them with another opportunity to move further down your sales funnel.

To provide you with a further illustration of an effective website call to action, consider how you ended up reading this information:

I, of course, must have done some kind of marketing to bring you here.  Whether it was getting my website to rank for a keyword that you have typed in, sending you an email or a letter, or maybe I talked to you in person.  Regardless, I made the promise of free information that you thought would be of benefit to you, and so you landed here.  I am giving you what you wanted (and hopefully a little more) and then I am incorporating a very clear call to action.  On the pages of this website I offer  a 15-30 minute phone consultation with me, where I will again give away more free, useful information.  Some people might take all the free tips and tricks that I offer and then try to implement it themselves, and that’s ok with me.  Others may decide that they don’t have enough time, know-how, or energy to effectively market their business online and they will hire us to do it for them.  Either way,  I am providing good, clear, honest information, and then offering a service.  The point is that I am working through a process with a very clear benefit statement and call to action, and in the end it will being me interested prospects.

Take some time to look around my website, you will see quite a few places where I have placed a clear call to action.  Take a look at other websites, maybe even at ones that you have purchased something from.  Chances are, after reading this, you will see a few website calls to action that you may not have noticed before.  Then take a look at your website and try to identify places where you could include effective calls to action.  If you need help with this, feel free to give me a call or request a consultation, I’m here to help.

But I can sum up the topic of back links with a few words that are very easy to understand.  If you want to succeed you will need them.  Now, you could go out and get some software, or hire some nameless, faceless service to create thousands of backlinks at a crazy low price (like $5), but would those be valuable?  My short answer is no, they wouldn’t.  they might be found by Google and the other search engines eventually, but if they are just random links, and don’t help you achieve your business goals, then they are really no good.  Let me share a few questions that I am asked quite often, and my answers.

what are backlinks?

A backlink is just a link from one website to another.  For example, if I was to link to your website from my website, you would have a new backlink.  Now, we would need to get that backlink found in order for it to add value to your site.  And websites can have different settings, so not all backlinks are created equal.

What  do we do with backlinks?

There are really two main goals.

First, and to me most important, they create real, human,  traffic for your website.  You can use a back link to do this by locating a site that your target audience might go to, and then finding a way to create a link from that site to your site.  Then when someone is viewing that website and sees your link, if they click on it they will land on your website, and you have more targeted traffic.  You can accomplish this by commenting on someone’s blog post, making a comment in a forum, or by striking up a deal with another website owner.  regardless of how you do it, these are high value backlinks that bring you the best kind of traffic.

The second reason to have backlinks is to build authority.  The accepted theory in SEO says that more backlinks coming into a website means more authority, and therefore the website will rank higher in the search results.  But use caution with this idea, becuase it can be easy to get carried away by thinking that all you need is more links.  A backlink from a college kids blog about punk rock music in Germany to a home builders site in the US is not worth as much as a link from the local home builders association.  You want backlinks from relevant sites to your market, or sites with a good deal of authority.

If you have questions about your existing backlinks, or want to know more about building backlinks to your site, please contact me.

Remember what websites looked like 10-15 years ago?  Mostly text, sometimes there was different colors, and if people wanted to get really fancy there may have been some flashing things.  Pretty basic compared to what we see today.

In today’s world wide web images, and more specifically pictures, have become more important than ever.  There are a few reasons that are fairly obvious, and some others that might not be.  So let’s start with the basics.

People live to click on images.  We have almost been trained this way.  When you are considering buying something online, there will probably be a picture, and you will probably click on the picture to learn more about the product.  If we do something enough times it becomes second nature, and that is just what has happened with images and pictures on websites.  If you are marketing a product or service online, you can take advantage of this and use the images on your site to draw viewers farther in, and eventually make an offer.

High quality pictures will also make a website more visually appealing, but this is where many business owners start to struggle.  If you have a picture or image that you want to place on your site, size matters.  I don’t just mean the size of the file, although that can be a good indication, what I mean is the quality and resolution of the image.  Have you ever seen a picture that was blown up so big that it became grainy and lost all visual appeal?  Well this can happen very easily on a website when someone tries to use a “small” picture to fill a big hole.  Using images that are very high quality, or “big”, and then shrinking them down to meet your needs will give you a much more appealing website.

There are other uses for images on your website too.  I’m going to try to stay as non technical with this as possible.  First, an image can have a “tag” associated with it.  Basically, search engines only see words, not pictures, so when you tag an image you are telling the search engine what the image it, and if you do this right it can have a huge impact on the rankings and traffic for your website.

The other major benefit you can get from images (and this does require that they be tagged) is that they can bring you search traffic.  Have you ever looked on the left side of the page when you are reviewing your search results in Google?  You will see multiple categories, Web, Images, Maps, Videos, and so on.  People do actually use these categories, and you can too, if you set up the images on your page properly.

If you want to find out more about the images on your website, or how you can use them to your advantage, contact us today for your free consultation.

When you are standing in line at the store, waiting to pay for your groceries or whatever you may be purchasing, what do you see?  Chances are you see all of the trendy, hip magazines, covering fashion and diet advice.  You probably also see the other crazy magazines revealing questionable information about politicians or celebrities.  But what is it that you really see?

It’s probably not the pictures, or even the name on the magazine, but the headline that catches your attention.  Now you may not actually pick up the magazine and browse the pages, but the headlines probably do get you to take a closer look at the pictures, or read the sub headline, and that gets you one step closer to taking the action that those publishers want, which is picking up the magazine and buying it.

We can apply the same idea to newspapers, book covers, and just about anything else in print that has a cover.  And we can (and MUST) apply the same strategy to a webpage.  If you have a webpage, and there is not a headline, then you are missing out on countless opportunities.

When a viewer lands on your webpage, you have 5-10 seconds to grab their attention and make them want to continue reading.  Just like those magazines in the checkout line, you don’t have much time, so having a good, attention grabbing headline is the most effective way to capture their interest and start the conversation that your web page is designed to have.  We could also spend time on the other benefits of a headline, such as helping your page rank better in the search results, but if your headline doesn’t grab a human’s attention then all the traffic in the world won’t make a difference for you.

There are many elements that could go into a great headline, and determining which points will appeal to your target audience will help piece together the most effective headline.  Here are some basic things to consider when writing a headline for a website:

• Keep it about the reader, not about you
• Be specific about your message, you only get a few words
• Describe the benefit that your article or website will provide
• Tie it into your Unique Selling Proposition

Those are just some ideas to start with.  There are countless books and guides available that have been written to help you construct the perfect headline, but sometimes it is personal assistance, from someone outside of your business that can help you sum up the benefits to customers in one short, specific, attention grabbing headline.  If you have questions or need help please post comments below or contact me.  I know that difference that a headline can make, and I am happy to help you craft the perfect one for your audience.