Posts Tagged ‘brick and mortar business’

   As long as there was web design there were clients asking for a fancy intro page (sometimes called a splash page). An intro page is a specially designed welcome page, meant to be the first page a person sees before entering a website. They often have fancy graphics, sound or flash animation that welcomes the visitor. They usually include a link that say “Skip Intro” or “Click here to enter site.” Although most people agree they are beautiful to look at, professional web designers and search engine optimization specialists universally agree that splash / intro pages are a BAD IDEA. Here’s why:

1. They Annoy Visitors. Visitors to your website want to get to the information on your website as quickly as possible. Intro pages waste your visitor’s time by forcing the visitor to take unnecessary steps to get to the content of your website. The main goal of a website is to provide easily accessible information to visitors and splash pages stand in their way.
2. Lower Search Engine Ranking. Two of the most important things Search Engines look for are text-based content and text-based hyperlinks, neither of which is available on a splash intro page usually. The other goal of a website is to be found by Search Engines, and intro pages make this difficult.
3. 80% of Consumers Hate Intros! Here’s a market research report done by Marketing Sherpa https://www.marketingsherpa.com/barrier.html?ident=23442
4. Newfangled did some digging into their access logs and had this to say about their findings: “The number one reason for getting rid of our splash page was that it turned away at least 25% of our site visitors, sometimes more. This percentage has actually been researched and it turns out that at least 25% of site visitors will immediately leave a site as soon as they see a  message for a Flash splash screen (even if there’s a ’skip intro’ link). Our access logs confirmed this for us and this over all the other reasons caused us to get rid of it. The opportunity to improve our creativity was not worth the loss of such a high percentage of visitors. “
5. “Click to Enter” is redundant. By visiting your site your visitor already agreed to enter it, why do they have to do it again?  It’d be like opening the door to a store only to find another door that says, “Ha-ha, just kidding.  Open this door to enter for real this time.”
6. Minimizing steps. You want to minimize the number of steps involved in reaching your offerings. Having an extra click from an intro page does not align with this idea.
7. You need to have uniform navigation. Most splash pages don’t have the same primary navigation as the rest of the site. Some even drastically change the design when you go from the intro page to the real site. This is confusing to users who respond best to navigation that is persistent. Splash pages also enforce the idea that they are visiting two separate sites.

Technorati Tags: brick and mortar business, usability, Website Design

   Local search can be a very valuable tool. A lot of people use Internet for product and service research purposes and then go transact locally. It is important to keep in mind that as with any direct marketing tool the focus should be on the return on investment (ROI). Track results you get from customers that contact you through the site to calculate your ROI. Many internet marketers say this is not possible for regular brick and mortar stores and local businesses. This is not true. The problem is they forgot the old school tactics  of using coupons for tracking. Display discount coupons for people that come to your website from local search in cases like these and you’ll be able to track your ROI by tracking sales you get from each specific coupon code.

Technorati Tags: brick and mortar business, double my sales, leads generation, promoting your business

Website is not a substitute for old fashioned foot traffic and many people still seek human help and customer service, but small business owners should use their website to complement their business. Here are a few reasons why:

• Easy website name is much easier to remember than a phone number. Imagine you are passing by one of those bench ads in your car and the ad is for a local plumber. At 60 km/h you are much more likely to remember www.torontoplumber.com than a 10 digit phone number. If your customer misplaces your business card or a brochure chances are you lost that customer, but with an easy to remember website name they can still find you.
• Your website can provide information about why people need to call your business instead of somebody else. If you advertise in other mediums like yellow pages, newspapers, tv, radio, etc. you are usually very limited in terms of how much information you can put in those ads. Your website on the other hand is not limited in terms of the amount of information you can provide your customers with. You can mention your website address in these other advertising mediums and “close the sale” with additional information about benefits of your products/services on your website.
• Properly managed website will generate online customers and regular foot traffic. Depending on the type of business you’re in you can either add to your sales by selling your products online or attract more foot traffic to your bricks and mortar business. In both cases you do need to promote your website to attract traffic to it. Just like with your regular business you need to think about who you are trying to attract to your website (location, interests, etc.) and promote your website to this audience.
• Today everyone expects a business to have a website and it just means that you are serious about your business. Today people expect to find information they need online. Many people research products and services online even if they buy them at local stores. Not having your information online will definitely harm your business in this day and age.

Technorati Tags: brick and mortar business, managing website, web site