Why Testimonials are Important

A testimonial is a written or recorded statement that supports your company’s credibility and level of expertise. When testimonials and reviews are correctly executed, they increase responses for a business. Testimonials from your customers play a critical role in the presence of your business as well. Any time you have a positive interaction with a customer and they express an interest in your business offerings, that is a good time to ask them for a testimonial. Testimonials are not only about selling your product or services, they are also about your successful, positive interactions with people.

The important role testimonials and reviews play:

If you can assemble a group of people who want to rave about you, you build credibility. Credibility is important in a business because people tend to believe what other people believe. This concept is incredibly important when it comes to marketing.

Remember that testimonials are not … Continue reading

How Does Your Website Make People Feel?

One of my colleagues here at LocalDirective when asked to review a potential client’s website had this response,  “At first glance I feel like the font is yelling at me.  No bold.  Bold makes me feel even more like I am being scolded.”  I‘d venture to say, she did not feel there was a good user experience!  How many visitors do you think bounced off that website almost immediately?

There are two important website design elements when you think about your website:  The User Experience (UX) and The User Interface (UI) or Interaction.

Is your website clear and easy to use?  A powerful program that has a poorly designed user interface has little value.

There should be one primary goal per page and you should be asking these questions:

  1. Who is my ideal audience?
  2. Where do I want to send them on my site?
  3. What call to action will best
… Continue reading

Building a Website for Customer Engagement

It comes as no surprise that engaging your customers is a vital part of securing their business, but how do you get started doing that online? If you think about it, most websites you visit invite your participation in ways that go beyond simply reading a page. The internet is largely visual and interactive. Building a customer base online is all about giving the customers something to do.

Communication and Feedback

Part of customer engagement can simply be opening yourself to that slightly scary prospect of a comment section. If your business has a blog, which it should, you have to allow readers space for discourse and the exchange of ideas. Customers also want to know they can easily communicate their feedback on your products and services. Feedback forms, surveys, and forums can all allow this to take place.

Coupons and Contests

Simply giving a customer the opportunity to sign … Continue reading

The Great Performance Shuffle – Part 3

Your Website Doesn’t Convert, Where Is It Really Failing?

You have seemingly endless possibilities for determining how your website is performing. There are hits, visits, length of time on page, bounces, and many more measurements. But assuming you don’t have endless hours to look at data you may be wondering what numbers matter.

The short answer is…it depends.

It depends on the type of website. But I’ll point out a few of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that can help you measure the effectiveness of your website with quantifiable and actionable results.

Key Performance Indicators – More Is Not Always Better

A KPI is one piece of data that can be used to measure a certain aspect of your site. When you compare the goals of your website to KPI numbers you get an idea about how your website is performing. For example, if you have an ecommerce site … Continue reading

Shopping Cart Abandonment – Ecommerce’s Biggest Challenge

shopping cart abandonment As an ecommerce business, you know just how much work goes into getting customers into your shopping cart…

  1. You need to optimize your website to bring quality organic traffic into your marketing funnel.
  2. You must have effective PPC campaigns that bring people who are looking for your product or services to your website.
  3. You must have a website designed that maximizes conversions so that people quickly find what they need.

 

Then you are home free, right? Maybe not. There’s still plenty that could go wrong that would cause you to lose a sale.

Here are a few tips to help you deal with an ecommerce business’s biggest challenge – the abandoned shopping cart.

Continue reading “Shopping Cart Abandonment – Ecommerce’s Biggest Challenge”

Why You Should Consider A Database Driven Website

If you are building a website or redesigning your old one, you should consider building a database driven website. Most people think that only “large” websites should be database driven, but even the smallest website could benefit. Database driven sites give you easy access to your website’s content which can reduce support and maintenance costs. They also allow for a much richer, interactive user experience.

What Is A Database Driven Website?

In order to understand database driven websites, you must first understand the difference between a static website and a dynamic website.

A static website has its content stored on the web file system. A static website is just as the name implies – a website that doesn’t change very often. People often refer to these as “brochure” websites because the information is presented in the same way. Typically when a static website is changed a web programmer, or … Continue reading