Tag Archives: website

My new website

Business, Computers, Internet, Marketing, , , , , ,

Last most I got back into the business of creating websites.  I did this mostly because the hardware part of my business has gotten a bit slow recently.  I did a few websites for some of my customers.  There are still thousands of small businesses just in my city that STILL do not have websites.  It is crazy.

Anyway after doing a few of these sites I looked at my own site.  It was version 3 of the Emerald Computers site, I have had it for about 2 years.  It was very limiting because I was in a fixed width and fixed height template.  It limited how much content I could have on any one page.  I decided it did not look good enough for a company that was going to create websites, add to that it simply did not generate sales.  So I spent 3 days designing and building the New Emerald Computers site.  I found a nice template that I liked, but the menu was simply too small so I created a pull down menu, for the first time.  I also did a few other firsts on this website.  I built the entire site without using tables AT ALL.  Tables are so lame and hard to work with.  I also made the entire site with proper CSS, no more setting fonts in the text.  Something else I did, for the fourth time is that I divided the entire site up using PHP.  I have found that this makes it SO much easier to edit a site.  Everything is server side includes.  Most of the pages are 5-8 different PHP files spliced together, the server does all the work so the user can not even tell.  But what this lets me do is change just one file and all of my pages are changed.  Yes I KNOW this is not new, in fact this was been going on for 10 years, but I have only used it for 2 years.

On sunday I decided that the site was better than my old one, even though only 60% of the content was written so I deleted the old one and uploaded the new one.   I did something on this page I never did on any of my other pages, I put a call to action at the bottom of all the services pages.  A visitor simply can fill out a short form and then I can all them and set up a service call, it also has a link to our contact page.    I just did it because I thought it would be nice, but to my huge surprise I have had over 10% of the people who visited this page fill out the form, and I called them tuesday and two have been converted into sales!!!  WOW.  On top of that my volume of phone calls is up over 50%, with almost half of the calls mentioning my website.  This is crazy, I did not expect results this fast or this good.  Google still has not even indexed the new site.  I am working quickly to get the rest of the site down.  Yesterday I wrote a huge page about dropshipping, and I also wrote one about how to upgrade a computer.

I hope this keeps up, I will keep my readers informed.  By the way this is why I have been fairly quite on the blog, I am too busy with this to blog much, even though some really important stuff is going on.

The StoresOnline meeting, what I thought

blogs, Business, Computers, concepts, Entrepreneurship, Internet, , , , , , ,

I always am trying to learn about business. Today I attended an event that I received an invitation for. It is for a company called StoresOnline or StoresOnline.com. It is a company that sends our huge amounts of direct mail with invitations to an event about how to make money on the internet. They promise free dinner and a free (128MB) MP3 player to everyone who shows up and stays for the whole event.

Well let me tell you what it is all about, and what you should expect if you ever go to one. First off they seemed professional and they really has their act together. While we waited for it to start they were showing a slideshow with facts about the internet and how big of an opportunity it is. It started on time then they spent about 30 minutes telling people about the internet, and how powerful it was. They then offered a website you could build yourself, selecting from about 40 templates, inserting your text and photos, and setting up your shopping cart with the items you want to sell. It was almost like the one that I currently use, PrecisionWeb, but they made everything through the website, no FTP, no domain name, no email or any of that (At least they did not mention this). For this service they charge a set-up fee of $199 (That if you bought before you left the room and thought about it would be reduced to $50.). Then they charged a hosting fee of $24.95 per month. I pay only $19.95 a month for my service and I get MUCH MORE than they offer.

Now here is where it starts to get really bad. They took some polls. First off most of the people there were over the age of 65. Next of the 200+ people there only 7 of the people in the room currently had a website of any kind. (That includes MySpace or blogs or anything) Next at least 2/3rds of the people I talked to there did not even own a computer. Now at the end of the meeting they handed everyone a order form/contract. If you sign it says they will bill your credit card the monthly fee until you cancel in writing. For me it was crazy. But I was surprised when I looked around almost half of the people there were signing up, handing over their credit card info and their money. One guy who signed up for his own web site did NOT even have a computer, and only used one a few times in his life.

The people who run StoresOnline know that almost all of these people will NEVER make even one sale. Whenever they talked about their success rate they always said “Very active clients” or something to that extent. Should you really be selling this service to people who you know with 98% certanty that they will never do anything with it, is that really ethical?

Now I would say that everything they said was very honest (They were careful about this), and they did disclose a lot of things about but they did not mention and success rates or anything that would make people think twice about this. Many times the pointed out how much that they were disclosing, even though the most important things were not. It was very polished.

Now they started talking about the fact that if you have a web site but nothing links to it, and no one knows about it, it will never be successful, which is very true. They now said that they have the fix for this, and they will show you how you will found with ease and how you can make a ton of money using their secret tricks to get listed first in every search engine. They then showed some examples of their clients, like the one who is FIRST on google with the keywords “inland empire thomas guide”. OK anyone that knows about SEO is laughing right now, I know. It was hard for me not to. If you search for “thomas guide” they are middle on the second page, not too bad. They listed 10 different methods that they will teach you to drive traffic to your site, such exciting things as, “Permission Email”, “Newsletters”, and “Affiliate Programs”, and they promised to teach you all the secrets of these. What was missing from the list is anything that is Web 2.0, such as blogging or and community like linked in or myspace. Everything they were showing was right from 2001.

Next they pushed an event in two weeks where they would be talking more in depth about internet marketing. You would need to buy the plan today in order to go to this event. And then they dropped the bomb, at this event in two weeks they will offer a package that will give you access to these secrets and the other things that you need to get people to go to your site it will ONLY cost $3,600, but they will make a special offer at the event, but you have to go to hear about it. They then talked a bit about dropshipping and how it is the KEY to success, then they told the only lie of the night about how people can go to your site, order something and some of the money is “Wired” to your paypal account while the rest of the money is sent to your dropshipper and it all happens while you sleep with nothing from you. I talked to them later and they said that it really is not possible to do this but they just wanted to make it simple to understand for the people there, and I found that acceptable. They talked a lot about dropshipping and that they had a special secret list of dropshippers. I do not know for sure but I would bet you that this is NOT included in the $3,600 that it is an extra charge. They also talked about 1 on 1 consulting and how important it is, this may or may not cost more.

So here is what I what I think about it all. If someone is clueless about what is out there, and they are really motivated to build a business and need someone to hold their hand they could be successful with this system. (But how many smart motivated business people are clueless, they don’t coexist.) There is always the few successful people in any group. But for the VAST majority of these people it will keep their hopes up, BUT they will never make a penny, and many will spend thousands. I think their products seems good, I have seen others sell less for more money, but I also know if you look you can get much more for much less. Of course when people pay a lot for a little many of them get angry and upset, I just found a blog that some of these people have created, visit it HERE. Be SURE to read that site before you do business with this company.

One really annoying thing is that during the break I started talking to some other people there about computers and how I sell them. One of the StoresOnline people came up to me and was not happy, he basically asked me to sit down and stop talking to people. It was too late, I already gave them my business card.

I am really impressed with their presentation and how it all works, it was very slick, and I am sure they make a ton of money. They really controlled the room, no one could talk to each other and every time someone tried to ask a question they would stop them, one guy even got mad and yelled over them, but he was ignored. Who would of thought you could sell $100 worth of stuff for thousands and still have people lining up. They are able to send out targeted direct mail, then hold a meeting, give away free food, and free gifts and STILL make a profit. I need to figure out how to do this with one of my businesses. Maybe get business owners in a room and talk to them for 90 minutes on how to get the most out of computer technology, then sell them computers, and show them send out cards. At least I would only talk to people who I knew could use the product, not just any dumb person with a credit card like these guys do.

The Secrets to Better Marketing

Entrepreneurship, Marketing, , , , , , ,

For the last week or so I have been thinking a lot about the idea of graphic design, and the image your company gives to the world.  What is clear is that SO MUCH of what is out there simply does not work and is very bad, there is plenty of room for improvement.

One thing is that the world has changed and people are hit with much more, but better targeted advertising.  But because there is so much more, so many people ignore it, so you really need to get right to the point.  I can not figure out what they are selling on at least half of the online ads that I see.  If you are a small company you don’t have the time to do this huge ad campaign where you spend a ton of time talking about something that is unrelated to your product.   Just simply tell people what you do, and what make you DIFFERENT from your competition.

The different thing is key, open up any phone book and almost all of the ads say the same things.  Like under plumbing they all have basically the same list of what they fix.  As a small business with a limited budget you need to look at what your competition is doing and basically say we do everything they do plus this and this that they don’t.  Focus on the differences.  Never say things that can’t be proved, or are total cliché like “Fastest Service” “Friendliest techs” or “Cheapest Prices”, everyone has heard this 1000’s of times and they just don’t get it.  You need to PROVE it.  Say “We are at your house in 20 minutes after you call” or “Our hourly rate is $45 while the average of our competition is $85”.  This will bring people to you.  If you don’t have any differences then maybe you need to change your business so you do.

If you are starting a company it is important to pick a name that is EASY for people to understand what you are doing.  Our new company we are in the process of making is called World Sales Team, because we are a team of sales people that will be located all over the world.  You chance at success is MUCH higher with a good name.  Also think about the future, you don’t want to be called a regional name if you plan to grow larger.  In most cases you also don’t want to have your personal name in the company name, it causes problems if you want to start over, or sell the company.  Also someone may have the same name and work for your competitor and that can cause issues.  Before you  name your new company make sure you can get the domain name, because people often look for you online.

Just as important as a name you want a good slogan, probably show your major benefit or your major difference.  If you make a product that has packaging you also need to be very clear and direct.  When you item is on the shelf you will only have a second or two to get someone attention and they will be far away, so make your text large, bold and to the point.

So I wrote all of this because I have been thinking about how to make my web sites more effective.  What I have seen that seems to work VERY well for the companies that use it is to create a video, talking about the company or the product.  I have seen VERY few companies actually do this, but every one that has is doing much better than their still counterparts.  To this effect I am learning video editing.  So far I am very bad at it, but I have just created some new videos and posted then on my youtube.

The next thing is that most web sites are either too much stuff or too little stuff.  I think the best website is one that has only a small amount of stuff, but that all the details are there somewhere, in an organized easy to find way.  That is what I have tried to do with my Emerald Computers website.  I don’t think I am there yet but it is getting better.  One of my biggest peeves is when I find something that I am interested in and the companies web site has almost no information.  I then search Google or somewhere and half the time I find negative stuff about that company, and they just lost my sale.  Please, if you want to make money, keep people there, tell them the whole story, let them go as deep as they want to.  Also put photos on the site, of people using your product.  I too need to follow this one much more.   If you have enough active customers then consider creating a forum for your customers to interact.

So here are my resolutions, make things much more to the point.  Have a clean website, but have more info there somewhere, remember content is king.  Put video online.  Put more graphics online.

I hope this helps you, please leave a comment.