What You Need, Here and Now

Recently, we had a 4.7 earthquake. The epicenter was 4 miles from my house and 8 miles deep. I was working quietly on my computer in my office, while my lovely wife was watching TV in the bedroom. When it happened, I heard a scream from the bedroom and then saw my wife run through my office on her way out the front door and into the front yard.

Southern California has it's own earthquake page, you know.

Of course, I was much more rational in my reaction. I updated my Facebook status while the house was still shaking.

The next thing I did was check the earthquake map on the web. Southern California has it’s own earthquake page, you know. It wasn’t there yet. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. There it was! It reported it as a 5.0 and later changed it to 4.7.

Then I joined my wife on the front yard where she was meeting new friends who also ran out of their homes

The point? You need to be immediate and important with your information on the net. Be the source. Have what people are looking for right now. If you are the place to go to get it, then people will go there. If you sell widgets, make a directory of all the sources of widgets and people will come to you first.

Own it.

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You Are Not Your User

It’s really easy to believe that everyone else is like you. They aren’t.

Everyone tends to do it. It takes a conscious effort to not do it. I mean, you are a rational person. You believe everything you believe and think everything that you think. Why wouldn’t everyone else think and believe the same way? What are they? Morons?

It's really easy to believe that everyone else is like you. They aren't.

When you are designing your site and writing your content, do it from the users point of view, not your own. They are the ones that you have created this magnificent new web site for, so honor them by talking in their language and answering their questions and meeting their needs.

The first step to do this is to define just who they are. Once you have them defined, forget everyone else. If you want to sell video games, your site will look much different then if you want to sell medical equipment.

It might be helpful to write down your definition of your users and tape it to your monitor, where you can remember them while you’re writing.

Their words, their needs, their solutions. That’s what you need to focus on.

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Supercharge Your Web Site with Video | The Small Business Blog

While it’s true that video can increase traffic to your web site, and is generally a wonderful thing, please, please, please make sure that you don’t make it start it playing as soon as someone loads the page. Please let me watch it if I want to or ignore it if I must. Nothing is more irritating than having sounds start coming from your computer when you didn’t expect it. It’s like walking up to a stranger on the sidewalk and shouting at them. It’s just rude.

Supercharge Your Web Site with Video | The Small Business Blog by Rieva Lesonsky

All smart entrepreneurs know that in order to compete today you need a robust Web presence. But not everyone has yet embraced online video, which (according to many Web gurus) can increase your site’s traffic and boost your sales. To learn more, I talked to Benjamin Wayne, president and CEO of Fliqz.com, a company that helps small and mid-sized businesses integrate video on their Web sites.

Supercharge Your Web Site with Video

Rieva Lesonsky: It’s quickly becoming a YouTube world. How can adding video to their sites better help entrepreneurs compete and grow?

Benjamin Wayne: Video can help businesses in three ways: drive increased traffic, drive more interactivity and page views, and drive increased [sales] conversion.

Lesonsky: Let’s talk about boosting traffic. What are the best ways to do this?

Wayne: The three primary ways are through site placement, search engine syndication, and viral propagation. When you add video to your site, consider using the home page, your galleries, and calls to action. Video on the home page will attract clicks from more than 50 percent of your users, and can be a great tool to draw visitors deeper into the site. The videos should be instructional in nature, or include a message from your company that provides an immersive introduction for new visitors.

Galleries are another good way to draw users into the site and encourage deeper interaction. Make sure that [videos within your product] galleries have a means to drive viewers back to a specific product or to purchase, and keep the videos short to encourage high completion rates. Finally, combine videos with a call to action. Videos are incredibly effective in driving user conversion [to sales], and should be featured prominently next to products as a means of driving purchase behavior.

Read the entire article at Supercharge Your Web Site with Video | The Small Business Blog

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The Web Credibility Project: Guidelines – Stanford University

The Web Credibility Project: Guidelines – Stanford University

How can you boost your web site’s credibility?

We have compiled 10 guidelines for building the credibility of a web site. These guidelines are based on three years of research that included over 4,500 people.

1. Make it easy to verify the accuracy of the information on your site.

You can build web site credibility by providing third-party support (citations, references, source material) for information you present, especially if you link to this evidence. Even if people don’t follow these links, you’ve shown confidence in your material.

2. Show that there’s a real organization behind your site.

Showing that your web site is for a legitimate organization will boost the site’s credibility. The easiest way to do this is by listing a physical address. Other features can also help, such as posting a photo of your offices or listing a membership with the chamber of commerce.

3. Highlight the expertise in your organization and in the content and services you provide.

Do you have experts on your team? Are your contributors or service providers authorities? Be sure to give their credentials. Are you affiliated with a respected organization? Make that clear. Conversely, don’t link to outside sites that are not credible. Your site becomes less credible by association.

4. Show that honest and trustworthy people stand behind your site.

The first part of this guideline is to show there are real people behind the site and in the organization. Next, find a way to convey their trustworthiness through images or text. For example, some sites post employee bios that tell about family or hobbies.

5. Make it easy to contact you.

A simple way to boost your site’s credibility is by making your contact information clear: phone number, physical address, and email address.

6. Design your site so it looks professional (or is appropriate for your purpose).

We find that people quickly evaluate a site by visual design alone. When designing your site, pay attention to layout, typography, images, consistency issues, and more. Of course, not all sites gain credibility by looking like IBM.com. The visual design should match the site’s purpose.

7. Make your site easy to use — and useful.

We’re squeezing two guidelines into one here. Our research shows that sites win credibility points by being both easy to use and useful. Some site operators forget about users when they cater to their own company’s ego or try to show the dazzling things they can do with web technology.

8. Update your site’s content often (at least show it’s been reviewed recently).

People assign more credibility to sites that show they have been recently updated or reviewed.

9. Use restraint with any promotional content (e.g., ads, offers).

If possible, avoid having ads on your site. If you must have ads, clearly distinguish the sponsored content from your own. Avoid pop-up ads, unless you don’t mind annoying users and losing credibility. As for writing style, try to be clear, direct, and sincere.

10. Avoid errors of all types, no matter how small they seem.

Typographical errors and broken links hurt a site’s credibility more than most people imagine. It’s also important to keep your site up and running.

Read the entire article at The Web Credibility Project: Guidelines – Stanford University

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