Business Insights

From all of us here at OneCoach, we want to wish you Happy Holidays! Watch this video message from OneCoach CEO John Assaraf!

After redesigning over 100 websites I now have a pretty good idea about the most common web design mistakes.

If your site is making some of these mistakes, fix them now! Otherwise, you are leaving money on the table every single day.

1. Bad Layout
Your navigation and layout have to be simple, obvious, and intuitive. If you expect your visitors to figure out how to get to where they want to go, prepare for them to leave. Don’t make them think, make it obvious for them. Forget about “cool” navigation. Make it simple and elegant.

2. Slow Websites
Keep your website light so it loads fast. There is nothing more annoying than those “Loading… 1%” messages. People don’t want to wait. Studies show that if a website takes more than 8 seconds to load, 21% of your visitors will leave and if it takes more than 20 seconds to load, 43% of your visitors will be gone! This is a tragedy. There are ways to achieve excellent designs that are also very light.

3. Bad Colors Choice
Most web designers are not professional graphic designers. They never learned what colors work well together and most importantly, what different colors mean. Make sure your website uses the right colors for your market and it is not hard on your visitors’ eyes.

4. Bad Music Selection
In most cases I am against music at all. I am talking about music that auto-plays (background music). A lot of people will visit your website from work and they don’t want annoying music popping up. Music also makes websites slow to load. If you decide that you want to have music on your website, choose the right one for your audience.

5. Under Construction Pages
What is the purpose of “Coming Soon” pages? This looks really unprofessional. Just don’t have them at all! Who wants to read an “Under Construction” message? If you want to generate curiosity about a section that you will be adding soon, have some teaser copy and possibly a list-building box: “Sign Up to Be Notified When We Release this Feature”.

6. Information is Hard to Find
This happens very often with your phone number and email address. Let’s say you own a restaurant. Most people visit your website to get your phone number and make a reservation. Put your number at the very top and make it huge!

7. Ads on Commercial Websites
If your website is supported by advertising, displaying ads is your business. But if your main stream of income is not advertising, get rid of ads. They look really unprofessional and they make you look needy.

8. Low-Resolution Images
There is nothing that makes me angrier than web designers who use low-resolution images. They look terrible! There are ways to optimize images so they are both light and visually appealing.

9. Splash Screens
Don’t waste your visitors’ time. They are on your website to learn about your company and services, not to see how talented your graphic designer is and the cool animations he can do for you. Don’t force them to take an extra step. They want information. Give it to them.

10. Passive Marketing
Your website is an excellent opportunity to tell prospects why your company is better than the competition, why they should buy from you, and ask them to take action. Be proactive.

Always make sure that your website is properly serving your potential and existing clients!

Do You Want More Great Business Building Tips? Subscribe by RSS Now!

This is the second in a series of posts excerpted from a conference call between OneCoach CEO John Assaraf and Jill Lublin, CEO of Promising Promotion. See the first post in this series here.

One of the first steps in the publicity process is simply getting known.

One of the best ways to get known is to create the “I’ve Heard of You Somewhere” syndrome. It’s a simple tactic that costs nothing and can generate big results.

Here’s how it works: send out periodic announcements that focus on what’s going on with you or your business.

For example, your company opened a new store or hit an important sales target. You hired a new VP of Operations. You joined the board of your local industry group. Anything that might be noteworthy about you or your business is a candidate for an announcement.

At first glance, this would seem to violate the first rule of publicity: don’t focus on yourself. It also doesn’t provide much in the way of useful information for people looking to solve problems.

However, announcements work because they are not the same as a press release. An announcement isn’t your main message, and it doesn’t tell your story. Instead it is nothing more than a simple four- or five-sentence “sound bite” about you, your company, and what you’re announcing. The goal is merely to keep your name in front of the media on a regular basis.

Who do you send it to?

Most markets in America have a Business Journal, a weekly publication that focuses primarily on local business news. These journals usually have a section called, “People on the Move,” “Movers and Shakers,” or “Business Briefs.” Send your announcement, along with your photo, to the editor of these sections.

Your daily paper probably has a similar section that publishes once or twice a week. Send your announcement and photo to that editor as well.

Other good sources include:

• Local organizations you belong to, such as the Chamber of Commerce
• Regional or national associations or trade groups you belong to
• Industry groups
• Alumni magazines

Once you have identified your sources, send an announcement every 45 to 60 days as part of your ongoing publicity efforts. If you don’t have anything noteworthy, make something up. You’re not trying to dazzle the world, simply keep your name out in the public eye so that when you walk into a room and meet people they will say, “I’ve heard of you somewhere…”

Does it work?

Lublin once worked with a consultant who got a $25,000 contract from one announcement in the Movers and Shakers section of her college alumni magazine. An old classmate saw it, gave her a call, and hired her shortly thereafter.

Obviously, those kinds of spectacular results are few and far between, but announcements serve several purposes.

They give you a quick, and easy way to stay active with your publicity efforts. They help to generate momentum and most of all, they create the “I’ve Heard of You Somewhere” syndrome.  Once you become known, generating more publicity is a lot easier.

Next up in this series: How to do “Guerrilla Publicity.”

Members of the OneCoach Business Coaching program have unlimited access to hundreds of interviews like this one — see OneCoach.com to learn more about building your business fast.

This is the first of a series of posts excerpted from a conference call between OneCoach CEO John Assaraf and Jill Lublin, CEO of Promising Promotion and author of Guerrilla Publicity and Networking Magic.

P. T. Barnum once said, “A terrible thing happens without publicity — nothing.”

He was right. You can have the greatest product or service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, your business won’t last very long.

Despite the dire need for publicity, many small business owners shy away from it for two main reasons. They think, “I can’t afford it” or “I’m not ready.”

The reality is if you’re in business, you’re ready. If you have an idea, product, service, book, or anything you need to sell, you’d better be doing something to create credibility and visibility, which is what publicity is all about.

The good news is that once you’re ready, effective publicity doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. In fact, it actually costs very little, as long as you go about it in the correct manner.

To generate publicity:

• Just do it! Make a decision that you are going to do publicity, even if you don’t feel competent or experienced.
• Keep it simple. Don’t over-complicate your message because of a perceived need to look smart. To stand out in today’s media-cluttered world, communicate a simple message with laser-like precision.
• Be consistent. Think of publicity like a snowball rolling downhill — it builds momentum and keeps getting bigger as it goes along. Creating publicity requires a constant effort.
• Focus outward. Any news that focuses too much on you isn’t news.  Instead, talk about what helps the listener, viewer or reader and then relate it back to your product, service or business.
• Be the expert. When reporters and interviewers perceive you as having valuable information, they will actively seek you out. A large part of generating publicity involves establishing yourself as someone the media can go to for reliable information in our field.

If you don’t feel like an expert, “fake it ’til you make it.” In other words, start thinking and acting like the expert in your industry and you will soon become one.

If you believe in your product, your service, your business and yourself, then you have a story to tell. When you act like you have a story worth listening to, people will start looking to you as an expert in your field.

You may not feel like an expert at first, but don’t let that stop you from getting out there and telling your story with passion and confidence. If you want people to believe in you, you must first believe in your business and your ability to deliver the goods.

If you don’t believe in your story, your competitors will darn sure believe in theirs. They’ll be out in front of you telling their story. And once they become the expert in the public eye, it can be very difficult to take that position away from them.

For more about Jill Lublin, visit her site at www.jilllublin.com.

Members of the OneCoach Business Coaching program have unlimited access to hundreds of interviews like this one — see OneCoach.com to learn more about building your business fast.

Next in this series: Creating the “I’ve Heard of You” Syndrome.