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Traffic Without Conversions is Like Kissing Your Sister!

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Obviously, I spend a lot of time around contractors, both online and in the real world. And there is plenty of spirited competition when it comes to just about, well everything. But I am starting to observe a troubling trend that I feel compelled to mention.

Website traffic

I hear things like “my site got 500 visitors last month” or “I got 50 hits last week” and I want to scream from the rooftops that people are tracking the wrong numbers! [Read more…] about Traffic Without Conversions is Like Kissing Your Sister!

Why Contractors Need an Online Presence

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As the Internet evolves, more and more businesses are creating websites, social media pages and even blogs. Sure, not all contractors have blogs but if you are serious about improving your online marketing strategy and building a larger client list, it is mandatory.

The great thing about having a blog for your business is that you can be as little or as much involved with it as you wish. If you don’t want to write an article everyday, that’s cool. If you just want to do it once a week, that’s cool too. I would suggest you don’t go more than two weeks without posting.

By starting a blog related to your contracting company, you will notice an improvement in your online marketing success. Three things that your blog will do are: [Read more…] about Why Contractors Need an Online Presence

If Your Website Isn’t Bringing in the Sales, Help is on The Way!

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UPDATE 3/12/2011: I forgot to mention in the post that I can include a $100 Google AdWords card to use with a new AdWords account. So, if you pick the public review (keep reading) and you get $100 in free clicks, you are at zero out of pocket – just thought I would throw that in there!

In-depth website critiques

If you want to know exactly what you need to change about your current website to make it pull in more leads to help you close more sales, I can tell you.

In fact, I’m going to personally send you a video and an action plan where I go through your site, page by page, showing you not only what you need to change to bring in more clients or customers, but exactly how to change it.

So if you’ve been struggling with how to make a website your audience will actually enjoy reading (and tell other people about), and you want a clear list of simple, “non-salesy” things you can do to increase those conversions on your site, then keep reading!

Now, if you are new here on the site, you need to know that I am not your typical high-priced web designer who is out there charging a fortune. I’m actually a marketing and advertising guy who writes his own copy and creates sites that do one thing…convert traffic into leads.

While I’m am pretty good at marketing, what I am just as good at is making website concepts easy and simple to learn while I teach you how to implement them into your site. And a lot of my clients have been asking me for more guidance on website layout and functionality, so I have decided I am going to offer a specific package just for those people who want some help with giving their websites the tune-up that they’ve been desperately needing.

Here’s how it works – Three simple steps to a much better website! Click here for more

Why Search Marketing Works Best For Contractors

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Having a website is great, but not doing any marketing pointing people to your site is like having a billboard up in the woods. Sure its there, but no one sees it. The same holds true for your website, which is why you need some type of search engine marketing.

The advantage to online advertising for contractors

Search marketing is a huge market these days. While other marketing platforms are experiencing double-digit erosion in market share, online advertising will grow by 14% this year, even in a fragile economy. Here are some key points to marketing online: [Read more…] about Why Search Marketing Works Best For Contractors

5 Quick Tips to Promote Your Website

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In the spirit of not every post has to be 500 words long, I am going to make this one short and sweat. Here are 5 quick tips to promote your website.

1. Make sure to incorporate your website in your overall marketing and advertising plan.

2. Promote your site with the use of news releases, newspapers and magazines. A good time to do this is when you introduce a new product or service

3. Write – That’s right, getting informative articles out there will help with your site’s overall ranking as well as position you as an expert in your field.

4. Put your web address on all of your correspondence. Business cards, flyers, newsletters, brochures, trucks, invoices, stationary. Everywhere your company goes so should your web address.

5. When selecting a domain name, using your industry and area can help position you in the marketplace.

And here is a bonus. When purchasing your domain name, spring for AT LEAST 2 years. Google (who you want as much love from in the way of free traffic) likes it when the site they are sending people to isn’t in danger of going away any time soon.

Construction Website Video Tip: One Change at a Time!

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If your construction website isn’t converting like you think it should, making wholesale changes without tracking your results will get you no where.

Instead, make one change at a time, measure your results, then make another change. This way, you can track your progress and undo any changes that have any type of negative impact on your site’s ability to generate new business.

It’s Important to Eat Your Own Dog Food

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construction-marketing-website-design“Eating your own dog food” or “dogfooding” is a term that means to use your own product or in my case, to take your own advice, which is something we all should do from time to time. I have eaten my own dog food. While spending the last few weeks concentrating on website design and layout, I started thinking about the blog. Over the last few weeks I have gone back and forth between a 2 column  or 3 column layout, a new header, then back to the old one, and I tested a new color scheme. In the end, I have adopted the “F” word.

Welcome to the “F” word!

Website usability is a key component to developing new business, and I like to develop new business. Which is why I always want darrenslaughter.com to be as easy to use as possible. In chasing that rabbit down the hole, I have changed the blog a bit and adopted a somewhat non-traditional look for most blogs by having my sidebar on the left side of the page instead of on the right side. I have done this because we read web pages the same way we read text in a book or on a newspaper– our eyes automatically start at the top left and work their way across the page towards the right. Then we start again from the left on the next line.

Take a look:

Photo Credit: Photo Credit: useit.com

I have known about the “F” pattern of reading for a long time, but never adopted it here because I know you are probably used to reading blogs that are setup with their main content/sidebar content and I didn’t want to make mine different. But after coming across Jakob Nielsen’s post again I thought a change was in order.

From Jakob’s findings:

In our eyetracking study, we recorded how 232 users looked at thousands of Web pages. We found that users’ main reading behavior was fairly consistent across many different sites and tasks. This dominant reading pattern looks somewhat like an F and has the following three components:

  • Users won’t read your text thoroughly in a word-by-word manner. Exhaustive reading is rare, especially when prospective customers are conducting their initial research to compile a shortlist of vendors. Yes, some people will read more, but most won’t.
  • The first two paragraphs must state the most important information. There’s some hope that users will actually read this material, though they’ll probably read more of the first paragraph than the second.
  • Start subheads, paragraphs, and bullet points with information-carrying words that users will notice when scanning down the left side of your content in the final stem of their F-behavior. They’ll read the third word on a line much less often than the first two words.

It’s hard to argue with that type of data, so I am giving it a try here at Darren’s house of useless knowledge. I am primarily concentrating on the increased/decreased number of subscribers I get to the newsletter on a weekly basis as my yardstick to measure by, and I will let you know the results in a few weeks.

But, if this little exercise tanks and you see my ugly mug over on the right side of the page again then you know it wasn’t going well…or I just changed my mind…again! But how about you, any plans to make changes to your site for the coming year or are you happy with your current results? Let me know.