I am currently in Cyprus at the villa and while discussing how I go about selling rental weeks through my website with my mother-in-law, we got to talking about deal making information and why it is important to optimize accordingly.

Imagine that moment, when a person (or a couple) is looking at the choices available for them online and wonder - what is the deal breaking information they need to book yours above and beyond one of the competition?

And, this thought could relate to any business. So many times, we sell to people what we think is important (the benefits) when really; it’s about what they see as the benefits. For example, satellite TV on holiday is not at all important for me, but has proved important for two different families. For one, it was a deal clincher when I told that that I was installing it.

Of course, now, when I sell that benefit online, will it put off the people that don’t want it? I know I will need to phrase it accordingly.

With so many people having so many different things that flick their switch, optimizing how you sell and what you focus on as the benefits is very important.

And, this is doubly important when you see that they have so much choice - especially online. My villa is on a complex of 27. Within 2km I can imagine there are approximately 2,000 other private villas. Take the whole island and you probably end up in the millions.

Hence, the need to niche and the need to make the deal before someone else does by appealing to your customer with the right ‘deal making’ information.

Of course, this goes back to my point the other day: The more you niche your sales offering, the more chance you have to appeal. So, with a private pool, large enclosed area and now satellite TV, I know that I just need to keep pushing the young family aspect.

One last thought: They are building a golf course near the villa. How much effort vs. reward would there be in building a completely different website that focussed the villa on golf?
How much further can you niche and focus your sales offering?

Client expectations are a funny thing when it comes to creating a new website. I remember a client once who wanted a website completed on 1st January so she could start taking telephone bookings the next day - we never actually finished that one after that comment.

I tend to be quite pessimistic with a new website. Firstly, from to my experiences, and more so now because the web is getting more competitive everyday, thus, it’s getting harder. It sets expectation at an appropriate level and, of course, no one wants to hear that.

No one wants to hear that it may take six months to start getting decent levels of organic traffic and it may also take hard work adding new content and gaining attention.

Yes, you get the odd ’story of success’ and ‘how I built 10,000 users in 20 days’ kind of thing and those guys work tirelessly to make that happen - usually only once. You also have to ask yourself - how long does that last? How real and sustainable is that traffic, and how relevant?

With billions of web pages out there - what makes you so special? And, how relevant are you?

By focusing on adding value to your website audience you are starting a mating ritual, you are showing that you give a damn and that you may well be the company to solve their problem in exchange for cash. But, if it’s all just sell, sell, sell… it will be bye, bye, bye.

Your meta title and meta description are quite important aspects of your web page and can help you make better web pages.

A specific Title tag and Description tag for each important web page is essential. Not only for optimization, but also for what displays in the search results. Your Title and Description effectively work as an advert - yes, you have been found and your listing still comes up but there nine other natural search listings and up to 11 paid for adverts - you need to stand out.

It’s something I always wondered about and often had to refine some tags a month in after they had listed and I knew what they looked like.

But now, some guys I work with have created a neat tool for checking how your meta title and description will look in a search engine…

It’s simple and cute but does the business.

Aaron Wall has an interesting post today about the value of a website visitor and the non-focus of investment by marketers into actually making the sale.

It’s an interesting point. Should we, as many marketers do, continue to spend thousands of pounds in attracting traffic, or thousands of pounds improving our sales process online? Surely, the benefit comes in the conversion.

When you are one in a hundred thousand choices in Google you not only need to attract your website visitor, you need to engage them and drive them to sale. Windows shoppers may be great for attracting more business through popularity, but unless someone buys something, the shop doesn’t stay open very long.

Sorry for the cheesy headline but there is an important point coming about website strategy.

I just left a comment on a new Blog I am doing some guest posts on. These guys do NLP and something called The Human Element and I did the course last year. Anyway, Ben posted today about root causes of behaviours and it summed up a meeting I had today with a client and their website.

90% into the project, together, we have established what it is they want from the website.

Many companies focus on the technical platform, the design, the colouring… I am sure you’ve been there. What they feel to sit back and decide, is the money question - What do I actually want from my website?

Web strategies and KPIs (key performance indicators) are essential to the success of any web project. I you don’t know what you want, how can you measure the success, or failure?

Back to the onion - it’s enough to make my eyes water!

I went to PC World in Basingstoke yesterday. With technology advancements - barcodes, etc. - nothing I was looking for was priced up. The specific things I wanted were also not in the right place.

I wouldn’t moan (or would I) but this is the third time on the trot I have had to ask one of the “I’m more interested in the fact that it is my cigarette break” staff what the price of an item is.

Why don’t you just get me to stock your shelves for you and ring my own products through the till?

I know customer service in the UK is at an all-time low but it’s got beyond a joke. So much so, that I have passed through the barrier of “can I wait for an Amazon order to come?” The funny thing is, PC World have an online price, so it’s more expensive to have to go through the retail ‘experience’!

I’ve had enough. I am now actually adapting my behaviour away from the high street.

Anyway, rant over… my point. Lots of websites are like this, many of them not on purpose, purely through ignorance.

Take your website. Can a visitor find what they want, bearing in mind there may be different motivations going on. Some people may want information on products, some may want to snap in, get your phone number and get out.

Clear navigation, relevant structure and good in-page linking enables movement through your site. Clear labeling of content is also a must in the world of me, me, me.

Searches are also great, but how good is yours? I have noticed more and more, how much website searches lack and at the end of the day, you can’t beat Google. Why not get them to do it for you with a custom search engine?

Speaking to an ‘old school’ customer today I realized the mixed expectation of a website, when they can only relate to the way a brochure is produced. Getting the content exact first time, by specific deadlines overshadowed the flexibility of the content managed website that is being delivered. It got me thinking about the differences that I come across between the real differences of a traditional brochure and a website.

Speaking at vs. conversation

A traditional brochure is a leave piece harking back to the days when salesmen knocked on doors and wanted to leave an overview document. As such, it was there to announce and is all about the organization… me, me, me.

A website is usually found, or discovered. It needs to grab attention on a very competitive medium. Engagement in this case is a much more personal action, requiring connection at an emotional level. With their abundant choice, it’s now about them, them, them.

A website is fluid

A brochure gets designed and printed. Hours are (should be) spent honing the copy to sound impressive and attractive. When it’s printed, that’s it until the next print run. Although digital printing has brought down print costs, it’s still a major expense to the marketing budget. There is no room for mistake.

A website goes live. If there is a typo, or a more appropriate set of words, they can be edited. What’s more, there are no physical constraints (if your structure is flexible): You can have as many pages as you want. You can embellish. Finish a job in the morning and have a relevant case study on your website by the afternoon. You can approach clients in different ways and test variations of approach on the fly.

A website is not “produced”

A brochure gets printed; end of production until the next run. Pay the designer, pay the printer, get it posted. Same next year?

When a website goes live the work does not stop, it starts. To stay relevant and attractive to search engines a website needs constant investment and needs to be budgeted accordingly. This allows for flexibility and adaptability but needs constant nurturing.

Reach

A brochure gets picked up by, or sent to, a prospect. Every time you use one, it costs you part of your budget. You can only put in the hands of people physically, therefore your reach is limited.

A website can be marketed the same way as a brochure without the need for postage: E-mail people the link. Your website can also be discovered. With good content and ‘right’ words on your pages, relevant prospects will find you and every page impression doesn’t cost you extra (unless you are paying for your traffic).

Personalization

Your brochure can be printed personally but you are talking variable data, limiting your production run, increasing your costs. Most brochures are generic trying to sell to your entire customer base using the same language and approach.

Your website can be personalized. Either focussed, with user log-ins, or into groups using relevant sections and landing pages. You can answer client questions by adapting your message. Different pages on your website could be saying the same thing in a different way; not in generic marketing speak, but in a language that engages subsets of customers.

If you can begin to understand the differences, you can change your approach. You can reassign your budgets and start increasing your opportunities online with a website that engages with existing customers and brand new prospects.

I always think about the “gold rush” when I think of web marketing and client expectations.

As soon as the word is out that gold is being made there is a big rush, despite the fact that the main bulk of the gold has already been taken… it doesn’t stop that rush of anticipation.

And so, expectations of return from web marketing also tend to be equally unrealistic. Why? Because most of the big profits are made at the beginning when there is little competition and lots of opportunity.

But they did it…

The initial gold rush is what gets the press attention, showing what is possible, setting the average Joe’s expectation to an opportunity that has already passed.

Google Adwords is becoming saturated, E-Mail marketing doesn’t deliver the results it used to. Unfortunately, this is what people are looking to for their web marketing now but not getting the expected results.

Try a Different Commodity

Some online marketing and advertising, such as pay-per-click, is very tangible: You paid ‘X’ and you got ‘Y’.

But, the measurement is usually focussed on the wrong thing - mainly visitors, rather than an actual tangible result, ie. sales leads. Costs are becoming higher and higher - the gold is getting scarcer.

My belief is that there is one clear-cut way of creating long-term, sustainable web traffic that adds value to your business… and that, is quality content.

• Content-rich sales pages with customer benefits
• White papers, articles, industry commentary
• News and views, regularly updated
• Useful, relevant tools (budget permitting)

It won’t deliver immediate traffic, but, if you continue to build it, they will come… and natural listings of your quality content, after the initial investment, is free.

After finding myself explaining this concept quite a lot recently, I decided to put it into words and post it on The Escape Blog - The Website Traffic Funnel. Worth reading, if I do say so myself.

Once again, I was reminded about the importance of testing your own website after discovering that some Google Analytics code was breaking some pages on a personal website I run.

Things change on the web and things change on your website. You make a change, you view it on YOUR browser and it works so you move on.

Then a few weeks later, someone tells you that a web page is throwing up an error in Explorer (the bain of my life).How many sales did it lose, how many leads did you lose? All for the sake of an extra twenty minutes.

It makes sense to do this once in a while even if you haven’t changed anything.

Yes folks, even I am not perfect.