Business Insights

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!

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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.

What if we could show you a simple, easy, step-by-step process that would increase your revenue from $50,000 per year to $250,000 per year… all within 12 months?

Watch this video from OneCoach CEO John Assaraf and find out how you can create a “roadmap to wealth” with a Gap Analysis and Revenue Plan which will take your business to an entirely new level of performance. Make sure to join us for this week’s Webinar and we’ll reveal how to create and design powerful marketing that works… every time!

If you’re not signed up yet, then register now >>> http://www.OneCoach.com/call

P.S. If you can’t make it, register for the series so you can be notified when the recording is available!

In the last year, social media has become very popular.  Everybody is talking about it and almost every online marketer has used it. However, most of them have failed at it. Why? They just don’t get the way it works. I am about to share with you some of the things we discovered promoting over 80 clients using social media.

1. Don’t Steal Other People’s Work
I see this all the time. Someone takes the time to create a group, sends them great information, and builds a relationship with his followers. Then someone else wants to take advantage of this group that took the owner so much work to put together and starts posting promotional comments about his own company. Needless to say, these comments are always removed and the poster ends up looking like a spammer. If you want to succeed in Social Media, create your own group and post your own content, don’t try to cash on someone else’s efforts.

2. Avoid Self-Promotion
Don’t talk about yourself and your company all the time. People don’t care about it. Give them something of value, build relationships, and get people to trust you. Let them know what you do but don’t try to sell them anything. They will call you when they are ready to buy.

3. First Give, then Ask
Don’t you just hate it when someone sends you an email every other day asking you to do something (check out a website or register to get their free ebook) but they don’t do anything for you? We encourage some of our clients to join lead groups. The first thing we recommend that they do is to send leads to other members. Then these members start sending leads their way. That’s how it works. 95% of the people take, take, and take. They never give. Do things the other way around and I guarantee that you’ll be noticed.

4. Use Your Real Name
I get about 10 friend requests per day on Facebook and LinkedIn from companies. I ignore all of them. If you want to network with me, tell me who you are and show me your face.

5. Do It Only if You Enjoy It
I love meeting people and networking. I love having conversations with strangers and exchange ideas. I am not always thinking about how I can make money out of the person I am talking to. If you don’t enjoy the process, you are not likely to be successful at it. People can read between lines and they can tell if all you care about is their money.

6. Don’t Annoy Your Followers
Send them a message or a request only if they will be useful to them and don’t do it ten times per week. I immediately unsubscribe from lists that send me more than 3 messages per week. This guy sent me 15 emails per day last week! That’s not the way to get others to buy your stuff. Monitor the number of people that unsubscribe from your lists. If that number is too high, revise your strategy.

Follow these tips and you’ll have a strong basis in utilizing social media for your business!