Category Archives: Website Usability

How To Increase Your Web Leads By Going Against Best Practices..!

In this article I wanted to share some interesting experiments we ran for a client of ours last year which, in return, brought about an amazing return on investment.

My client, who already had a website in place, was unhappy with the number of leads that were coming from his website. He had good positioning in place already and people were being referred by other social networking sites, but the number of sales were just really disappointing!  Armed with this knowledge, my objective was to look at barriers that may be getting in the way of leads being generated from his site.

“The First Test Resulted In….112% More Leads!”

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Case Studies Conversions PPC Search Engine Marketing Split Testing Website Optimisation Website Optimiser Website Sales Website Usability Tagged , , , ,

How to get more from your pay per click (PPC)!

Want a way to generate more from your pay per click spend?

Lets run through this scenario together

  1. You have set up a highly targeted campaign in Adwords (so that your website is listed in the search results for phrases that match your business services.
  2. You get clicks to your landing page or home page (generally a specific landing page) in your very competitive market place – well done all is going well ;-)
  3. The visitor then views your web page &  takes no action, non what so ever (no lead generation or sale?)
  4. Visitor leaves the site – no sale and  money and opportunity gone!
  5. Your none the wiser either! Frustrating isnt it?

OK,  you have done your job, you have generated the interest, you have sent the visitor to the page, but no action is made (ie, no sale or contact made from that visitor) now what?

If the PPC is working correctly does this mean the website is broken or needs to be refined to encourage sales and leads from its PPC visitors. Chances are Yes!, Well not broken but needs work to create sales.

I believe that any site can gain sales, the secret ingredient however is having the entire “sales funnel” correctly aligned around “traffic-interest-activity-analysis” if any of these are failing or not in your sales funnel equation then you advertising is not working it’s potential!

Food for thought isn’t it?  If you would like to know how we can help your website generate more from your PPC give me a call some time.

Dave Lemmon
Marketing Director/Owner
021 425692

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: PPC SEO Website Optimisation Website Optimiser Website Sales Website Usability Tagged , , , , , , ,

How do you get more sales from your website?

Yeah a pretty good question, one we hear from most of our clients that come to us for help.

More and more these days, people are taking notice of what their websites are doing (or not doing) for them, 90% of business owners now see that and want their websites to generate sales for them.  Where it began…?

Many sites are designed by creative teams of people whose job, as they saw it was to build websites that looked pretty, acted in some order fashion and/or mimicked client brochures.  And to some degree,  for the most part, followed a traditional look and feel that others had on their websites. Ok, so where to from here.

Well just lately, well in fact for the past five or so years, people have been looking at ways that they can have some business generated from their website –  and this is where the whole design first and sell later comes into the forefront.

As I mentioned above, people went to website designers, the designer come up with a beautiful website which promised so much, but in reality has delivered nothing or very little in the way of business sales.

Lets review a typical website – lovely home page with pretty colours, a big “Welcome to” on the centre of the page, followed by content and links to other areas of their website…traditionally, there is an about us, what we do, our location, contact us, our services, our products…blah blah.. – sounds like a winning combination right…well…not really…lets consider a few things here…what do I want from my website, what is it that I want to achieve, and why have I gone out and spent hard earned money on my website? Do I just want a brochure but in electronic format….hmm maybe not…OK..stay with me, here I am getting to the meat and drink of what I trying to tell you…

What if I was to tell you this… if your best sales rep went to a meeting and all they talked about was what was inside your company brochure do you think that this sales rep would be successful..? – People that come to visit your website are effectively people that you are selling to…OK..we are getting closer..

Here is a typical point of difference with websites that sell and convert visitors into contacts and possible sales.

  1. They focus on telling people where they are
  2. They tell the user what they can achieve by visitors
  3. And they then give the visitor reasons to act
  4. They provide users with a clear channel of where things are located and how to access them
  5. They focus the content on “what’s in it for them”
  6. They display their USP, their “unique sales proposition” in the eye-line
  7. The are often a mirror image of their greatest sales reps

If we compare this list with the one from the brochure…where does your website fit?

Here are some statistics from our website tests..

  1. Business owners that have many websites doing specific jobs sell more
  2. Business owners that follow a sales process on their website sell more
  3. Business owners that have a 1 page website generate more sales than ones with 1 large website
  4. Sites that focus on lead generation verses lovely brochure sites win more sales
  5. Sites that are geared around helping others fix problems sell more online

Over the past decade, I have built  my very own list of different types of website models (around 10 or so). Where most people go wrong is that they mix and match these different models which causes confusion, and with confusion people don’t act.

Good luck

Till next time,  Dave.

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Marketing Plans Misc Website Architecture Website Design Website Optimisation Website Optimiser Website Sales Website Usability Tagged , , , ,

Optimising your website is key!

As I surf around the Internet these days I see a load of sites out there that are built for the masses who all love social networks and signing up for special offers! Follow me here to twitter with me, Click me on Facebook and join me as a friend, Like me a lot and join my social scene etc…

While I don’t discount the value of these social streams for some larger businesses, I have yet to see any real business gains for clients that have a smaller catchment of visitors or small or low membership clients. Some of which are ruining their websites with these.

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Hotels Marketing Plans Tourism Marketing Website Optimisation Website Optimiser Website Sales Website Usability Tagged , , , ,

Usability & search drive 70% more revenue to hotel

How Redcow Marketing helped Museum Hotel improve their conversion rate by 100% and achieve a 70% increase in online sales.

The Museum Hotel’s Challenges:

The owner of Wellington NZ’s Museum Hotel – Chris Parkin – wanted…

  • More bookings through his hotel’s website, more brand awareness, and more sales.
  • To increase his website’s presence and make the most of its visitors.
  • To reduce the fees he pays to third party travel sites for bookings, and to encourage guests to book from his website, instead.

Dave suggested they…

  • Make better use of the hotel’s booking engine.
  • Address usability and testing page enhancements to improve sales.
  • Add sales elements on the website to improve the sales funnel, and add new content to the homepage and other vital areas that would enhance engagement.
  • Work directly with the hotel’s booking engine provider to improve features.
  • Work directly with the reservation staff and manager of the hotel to increase bookings.
  • Address the site’s SEO content.
  • Redesign the online advertising pay-per-click campaign.

First, they accessed the website’s analytical data to determine how much traffic was coming to the site, what levels of contact were made, what and how many bookings were generated, where people went when they visited, how long they were there, and where they left. All of this information helped to paint a picture of the site’s performance.

Dave reviewed the site for usability issues, friction, and confusion points, then looked for gaps in the website where they could enhance value, and studied the site’s flow of information.

Their major challenge was to make the website more interactive and focused – to get people moving into the booking engine as quickly as possible from the website itself; once there, the likelihood that a booking would be made was very high.

Dave proposed a new layout for the home page, then tried and tested different versions to find which one most effectively raised guests’ engagement levels with the site and booking engine.

The next step was to address the pages that were visited the most – providing feedback to the hotel on what those pages were lacking. They also added new tracking systems to monitor visitors and conversions levels, allowing them to track which parts of the pages people were more interested in, what keyword phrases were bringing in sales and customers, and other valuable information.

Finally, they added clearer navigation to aid the user experience, including new contact forms, maps and directions.

They rolled out these changes over the course of a few months, analyzing and tweaking along the way to enhance the overall package.

Results:

In 2009 their revenue increased by 56% from 2008
In 2010 their revenue increased by 11% from 2009

This is a massive revenue increase of 73% over two years


Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Case Studies Conversions Hotels Marketing Plans Misc Rental Company SEO Plan Website Design Website Optimisation Website Optimiser Website Sales Website Usability

Improve Your Website And Sell More

Did you know that you can increase your website’s ability to sell significantly by looking at implementing  small changes to pages within it.

See how we helped Museum Hotel increase their bookings 20% month on month and improve their level of conversions by 100% on their website by improving the functionality, usability and engagement levels. We tell you how in our PDF attached.

See the case study here

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Hotels Misc Tourism Marketing Website Design Website Optimisation Website Optimiser Website Sales Website Usability Tagged , , ,

Why branding isn’t important any more

Is branding your name as important as it once was?

I say no… why? Because you can now use the Internet in some creative ways to generate sales and customers for your business.

Here’s a concept that you may have seen on the telly in marketing documents and maybe even on the radio.

Companies are now branding what they offer, what they do etc., with easy to remember domain names that are catchy and informative to the end user. The National Bank now advertises mortgage services using this methodology as do many other major brands, the brand is important it is not used in the marketing of these services.

So what are the pro’s and con’s.

Pro’s

  1. Easy to remember domain name, for example www.GetYourMortgage.co.nz is easier to remember and therefore it’s easier for the client to get the information they are after without having to go through the National Bank’s normal home page.
  2. The content is rich with information about how to get your mortgage. While the brand is tied in with the product offering it is more the fact that that site is all about mortgages that makes it a far more informative site for the end user.
  3. The content and the keywords in the domain name also helps the site be found in all major search engines as the words in the domain and used in the site help to determine the overall positioning within their rankings.
  4. It enables smaller businesses to gain a larger market share as they are able to complete against the traditional marketing media that the the major brands depend on.
  5. This allows smaller operators to compete for business in creative ways to create new sales and customers.

Con’s

  1. Another site for the bank to administrate and manage moving forward.
  2. The brand may be lost in the marketing mix to some that depend on that to secure business, so in this form of marketing it is important to ensure the brand is included where possible within the site.

So to summarise, while the brand is important, what the Internet allows you to do is to stand out and be counted by offering unique tailor made service- and product-focused driven websites.

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Marketing Plans Website Architecture Website Design Website Optimisation Website Usability Tagged ,

Quick steps to SEO greatness

I was working with a client of mine on a project and he happened to mention that his wife was working on a website project to help families become more interested in playing golf.

His wife had being working with an website agency to promote this service and the site has just gone live. He wanted to get this site promoted in search engines such as Google. He sent me the link and asked for my help.

I asked if he would be able to give me some search phrases that his wife would like the site to be found for. He come back the next day and give me five lines of phrases. Out of these five lines the words he gave were very generic and in most cases they were just one word. I then asked him to resend me a list of search phrases that were more specific to what the site was promoting. The next thing I know a page document was sent to me with the note; ‘please take the content for phrases from this document’.

Ok, I reviewed the document and was able to determine some key phrases to focus on and then went about briefing my friend on some ways to help the site get found.

Here were my tips:

  1. Come up with a load of keyword rich search terms you want to be found for.
  2. Add these to your home page content and then start building paragraphs of text around these, making sure the content and paragraphs stay within a structure that is still well written.
  3. Make a headline on the home page that indicates in one good headline what this site will provide to the end users…make the headline all about what’s in it for them and if possible include some keywords that will also help your rankings.

Then I asked him to check his <title tag>, this is an area that the spiders of search engines see and report on but not normally noticed by the average user that views a website page. His title should include these same keywords separated by commas to make it more readable for the search engine spiders.

The next tag to review was the <meta-description>. This is important for rankings and clicks in search engines because this is what people see in the search results when your site comes up. In this area it is a good idea to have a call to action and to summarise what the visitor will find on your site.

Armed with these quick tips you will be on your way to SEO greatness! Good luck!

 

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Misc Search Engine Marketing SEO Website Optimisation Website Usability Tagged , ,

Website content for your homepage

Three things to look at on your home page.

When you review your website consider this… Most people will for the most part, have never seen or know anything about your business. In fact, for the majority of websites most visitors will probably find them by chance in Google, Yahoo, MSN or by a some other form of marketing of their business.

Ok, so when someone arrives at your site what will they see? Look at your own site for about 30 seconds and answer these questions from the visitor’s perspective.

  1. Where am I?
  2. What can I do here?
  3. Why should I act?

While these all seem really simple questions chances are your website and many other small to medium business sites do a poor job at providing the answers to visitors.

One of the favourites you see on websites is the ‘Welcome To…’. Let’s think about this for a second, you have only a matter of seconds to grab a visitors attention before they leave your site and look elsewhere, so instead of ‘Welcome To Jim’s Shop’ why not consider telling people very clearly where they are, what they can do here and why they should act now.

Let’s consider this,  pretend you own a mechanic shop in Waikanae, here is what I would have on my home page…

Mechanic Shop in the Waikanae‘ as the main headline on your home page. Followed by a statement such as, ‘where you can have your car, truck and van serviced by our specialised and certified auto mechanics‘. And then something like, ‘Not only do we offer free pickup and delivery of your vehicle, once serviced we offer top quality support and 24 hr assistance just in case you car breaks down in the local area when you become a customer of ours!

This not only defines what you do, which tells the visitor ‘where they are’, then moves on and explains ‘what you have to offer’, (specialised and certified mechanics) and then provides them with a solid reason of ‘why they should utilise your services’ (by offering pick up and delivery).

It provides the reader with motivation, clarity of your offer and incentive to take action with you, all of which all help you generate sales from your website.

 

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Home Page Design Marketing Plans Misc SEO Website Design Website Optimisation Website Usability Tagged

More website sales tips

Credibility

Credibility is key so make sure you site conveys messages of confidence; ensure that you have testimonials from customers on your site so that you can give the people visiting your website confidence in your company’s ability to perform to their expectations.

If you don’t have any testimonials, please don’t make them up! That would be just kidding yourself and lying to your customers. Go ahead and ask your current customers for testimonials, if your products and services are really that great, your customers will be more than happy to send you some nice testimonials.

One approach I have used in the past is to send my customers an email asking them for a testimonial and giving them some lead questions like: how did you find our service? would you recommend our services to others? what benefits have you gained so far from working with us? how long have you used us? etc.

These lead questions make the testimonial easier for the customer to just fill in the gaps and send it back to you.

Everyone is busy out there, working harder than ever before in business so making this as painless as possible will give you the biggest chance of getting a response.

Once you have this information, assemble the testimonials into categories if relevant and then place them on your website. Get them on the home page so that new visitors see this information straight away!

The perfect testimonials have photos of the customer, the customer’s website if relevant, as well as a contact number. If you do place this information about the customer on your website, please ensure you seek their permission first.

What’s in it for me?

When a visitor first arrives at your website they are looking for indicators that you have what they are looking for. To ensure they can see these indicators it is really important that you make it very clear what you are selling or offering.

A lot of websites have “Welcome to” and while this is very polite, it does nothing to ensure that the client sees what you have to offer instantly. What I recommend website owners to do is to remove the “Welcome to” and replace that with a main heading.

Say for example you are offering “Walking Tours in Auckland” I would advise my customer to ensure that was the main heading and it was clear and visible to all that entered your site.

At the end of the day you have to “Scratch the itch” of visitors that come to your site, by having your main offering in big bold headings it ensures they see “What’s in it for them” straight off the bat.

Your photo is worth having a look at

Having your photo on the website works well to really personalise the website experience. It helps reinforce to visitors that there is a real person behind this website and it also indicates that you are happy to stand behind your offerings.

I also believe it helps the sale process because at the end of the day people buy from other people, not from websites! 
If you can bring your photo and personal approach into the site it will bring in more sales. 
People like to see who they are buying the product from.

Your location does matter

Make sure people know where you are located, if you are selling products and services, people want to know that you do actually exist, you are contactable by phone, email or even by fax. At the end of the day, people want to be able to see that you are a real company with a real person behind it. These factors go a long way to reassuring visitors your products and services are in fact real!

Bring people to your site but only when it’s ready to sell for you.

You should be marketing your website to customers as much as possible. Get in touch with a marketing company that knows how to market your brand and site effectively.

Look for a creative marketing company (like us!) that will help you not just in your marketing of your site in Google but can also help you with your website.

There are many ways to market your site but Google AdWords in my opinion is the best method to instantly have customers banging at your door; but as I said above, make sure your website is ready and armed with tools to aid your sales numbers.

There is little point in having a marketing plan with Google AdWords if your website has major selling flaws. Get your marketing company to guide you through making your website sell more. If you have a marketing company now and they don’t offer you assistance with this, then go out and find a new one!

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Car Rentals Hotels Website Design Website Sales Website Usability Tagged , ,

How to set up Google Website Optimiser

How to set up Google Website Optimiser (Part 1.)

We have been using Google Website Optimiser to help our customers gain more. If you have always wanted to know more about how to set up a simple test using Google  Optimiser then here are a few tips on how to do so.

Step 1: Click on the Website Optimiser from within your AdWords account.

Website Optimiser

Website Optimiser








Once you have selected this you will be asked to select an A/B experiment or a Multivariate one. If you want to split test one page over another you can select the A/B experiment, if you want to test changes to elements of the same page design and get 1000 visits a week you can select the latter option.

Choose the page you would like to test with (examples of potential test pages could be your home page or a product detail page).

Create alternate versions of your test page. Create and publish different versions of your test page at unique URLs so that Website Optimiser can randomly display different versions to your users.

Identify your conversion page. This is an existing page on your website that users reach after they’ve completed a successful conversion. For example, this might be the page that is displayed after a user completes a purchase, signs up for a newsletter or fills in a contact form. Once you identify the conversion page, you are then asked to enter in a name for your original site and then to enter in the website page names that you are going to test against it with.

Where to enter your test pages

Where to enter your pages for the Optimiser to test with








Once you have done this you then enter in the website page that advises the Optimiser that a completed goal has taken place (known as a conversion).

Part 2 will follow shortly…

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Analytics Google Advertising Hotels PPC Split Testing Tourism Marketing Website Optimiser Website Usability Tagged , ,

Use Google Optimiser to get more sales and customers

Knowing how to use Google Optimiser will guide you to more sales and customers.

I was looking into my Google stats for a client’s website last week and discovered a huge spike in people leaving their website on the products and services page. After further review I discovered that my client had decided to completely revamp their product and service content based on what others were telling them should be on that page. While making changes to your website can help you gain more sales it can also make you lose sales too.

With Google Optimiser you can set up various versions of a web page to see what impact a change has on the performance of your website. It’s a powerful free product that can allow you to test every tweak to your website to ensure you don’t get in the way of sales!

When using Google Optimiser consider these points:

  • Don’t make any changes to your website content until you have tested one version over the next (old content versus new content).
  • Look at split testing the changes to see what impact this has on your customers and sales generated before making the changed content the final version to go live with.
  • Make sure you only make changes after you have reviewed your analytical data. Make changes based on what it is telling you works best.
  • Don’t let bullies or the ones with the largest voice in your company make all the decisions on website content without first of all advising the reasons why.

Use Optimiser to help you refine and improve your sales and leads. Your business will grow from doing so!

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Analytics Hotels Marketing Plans Search Engine Marketing Split Testing Tourism Marketing Website Architecture Website Optimisation Website Optimiser Website Usability Tagged ,

Hotel website best practices

Good ideas for creating a pleasant website experience for your customers.

As time goes on and people get accustomed to interaction through social networking sites our expectations of what websites should offer visitors are changing. I like to think of this as a free spirited approach to offering information about your hotel and its unique offerings.

When I design a website I start off by thinking about what my main objectives are and focus on accomplishing these. For some hotels, there are multiple objectives but try to narrow them down to a select few. Keep your objective at the forefront of your mind when you design or modify your home page.

Here is an approach that I like to use – list your objectives, your primary ones down to your secondary goals. For example, your primary goal could be to generate more bookings. A secondary could be to get more people signed up to special offers, or your Facebook account or just to your newsletter. Whatever they are list them on a piece of paper, and then print out your home page and circle what objectives you have met. Do the comparison and then have a shot at placing a new image on a piece of paper of what should be on your home page.

Some owners treat their home page as a sales tool, while others look to get people moving along through the journey to making a online booking.  Think of ways to engage them, think about your objectives again and look to position your unique sales proposition and then make sure you have these on your home page. Make visiting your hotel a unique and easy experience from the very beginning (ie from your website).

The newest trends are videos or seamless photos of your hotel to create a virtual tour. This creates an interaction with customers as they can look through your entire hotel without needing to be there in person. Whatever you do, think about the visitors experience and make sure you attempt to connect and engage with them!

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Home Page Design Hotels Marketing Plans Tourism Marketing Website Design Website Usability Tagged , , , , ,

A plan for hotel social networking

Blogs, Twitter, Facebook – how to make the most of these if you are a hotel.

There is so much to be learned from the past year in regards to the whole social networking area. While some hotels have really engaged these areas, others have not taken this area of business to the levels possible either though lack of understanding what these tools can offer a hotel, or due to lack of management interest in this area.

I guess some hotels are relying on the old methods to bring in business, ie supply chains, email marketing, website marketing and other third party sources.

To me reliance on these services is costly and highly competitive. I now see these new mediums as a way to really grow your brand and increase your communication channels. What was once communicated on a monthly basis or through the mail can now be sent to thousands of people instantly, which is an amazing advantage if others in the market haven’t taken these social areas seriously as yet.

Even better, consider giving the advantage to these groups of followers by offering them the newest specials, the best rooms, the upgrades, the real deals… make this area your focus. Forget your website and email marketing for a month or two and concentrate on telling your staff that all communication of promotions and special offers must now only be on Facebook, Twitter or your blog and then watch this space erupt.

Not only will you begin to gain a huge social connection following but your marketing costs of using PPC and email marketing can be reduced as well. It might take a while to make this area respond for you, but take steps today and start building your following for tomorrow.

Good luck.

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Hotels Marketing Plans Tourism Marketing Website Optimisation Website Sales Website Usability Tagged , , , , , ,

Booking engine for hotels

Five tips for making your booking engine work better for you.

Over the years I have come across many hotel sites that make it harder then necessary to allow visitors to make a booking on their website.

Here are a few tips to help you make sure visitors can make a booking with ease:

  1. Place the booking engine directly on your home page.
  2. Ask your booking engine supplier to provide you with a booking engine that looks and feels like your own website, and that can integrate straight into your current design.
  3. Make sure the booking engine or a link to it is on every page on your website.
  4. On your ‘contact us’ page – also include another link to your booking engine.
  5. On your ‘rooms’ page – have a link under each room type so that visitors can go directly to your booking engine.

These simple recommendations can go a long way to ensuring your visitor can make a booking with you without them having to look… look… look…

Good Luck.

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Hotels Tourism Marketing Website Sales Website Usability

Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation (known as SEO) is the ability to get your website found for phrases that relate to your service or product offering. Many people don’t understand the importance of having a website found or just don’t really understand the value of having a website at all. Having a website and having it listed well for search phrases can really help your business grow not only in New Zealand but also internationally – overseas clients may be looking for products that you have to offer.

There are many companies out there that claim to be experts in this area, but beware, not all search engine companies are good at what they claim to be. Here is what I suggest you discuss before signing up to any search engine optimisation.

First of all, make sure they are based in New Zealand (it helps to have someone local, someone who you can see and talk to in person if need be, to me it just makes sense) and if possible make sure they have some real exposure and experience in this field. Ask for some evidence of their skills and don’t be afraid to ask for a reference from a customer or to see real evidence by asking them to show case there skills by searching for phrases in search engines like Google, Bing and MSN.

Search Engine Optimisation companies are a dime a dozen. Be sure to pick yours with care, and if possible make sure they can also help you make your website a better platform to sell from… after all, getting customers is one thing, but once you get them you need to make sure you are able to convert these visitors to buyers, leads, customers and sales! Until next time..


Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: SEO Website Usability

Clarity on your webpage

Clear Design

It might sound like a no-brainer, but having a clearly designed and set out website will do wonders for your business!

Don’t be scared of white space. As in the print industry, having white space on a page adds clarity. If your website has links, ads, boxes of quotes all crowded up in the same space and visitors find it confusing to navigate, oftentimes they will exit out of your site, never to come back. Less is more when it comes to webpage design.

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Home Page Design Website Design Website Usability

Does your website make it easy for people to contact you?

A golden rule for your website.

There is nothing more annoying on a website than having to search it to find the contact details.

The Number One Rule is this: Have your contact details clearly presented at the top of each page.

It’s so important to make it as easy as possible for visitors and potential customers to contact you.

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Home Page Design Website Design Website Sales Website Usability

The importance of credibility

Attaining testimonials

Good testimonials can make or break a deal. If a visitor to your site is interested in your product, chances are that before purchasing that person will read the testimonials page to see what others say. The more positive testimonials you have on your website the better.

Testimonials from others create a lot of creditability and offer your site more value than just bleating on about how great you are.

It’s not only important for visitors to your website, but also for your own information. Testimonials can show you both how you can improve your business and what you are already doing right.

After a customer has purchased from you, follow up with them and ask for their honest feedback. See if they are happy to put it in writing to go on your website, and watch your credibility grow. Easy as 123!

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: Website Design Website Sales Website Usability

The importance of good copywriting

Good copywriting is essential to increasing the conversion rate on your website.

The text on your website should be appealing and relevant to the visitor, and at the same time include as many key words and keyword phrases as possible to help the search engines find your site.

It doesn’t have to be difficult to achieve. Remember though that you don’t have to start writing the information on your existing website from scratch!  Tweak and reword your existing text to include phrases and words that you think people will be searching for to find your site.

One tip I have used in the past is to gather all the phrases you would like to be found for in Google and then do the same exercise for what your product or service offers. Once you have the two lists, combine them both to create a powerful, compelling story for your website.

Have fun!

Dave Lemmon
Business Development Director
Redcow Marketing
Phone: 04 2935846
Mobile: 021 425 692

Posted in: SEO Website Design Website Usability