Here are some alarming statistics for every business owner and marketing manager who is responsible for building or managing a business website:

A report released by Sensis in August 2007 stated that:

• Only 10.4% of business websites delivered additional sales, orders, bookings and customers, and
• Only 8.45% of business websites produced an increase in enquiries.

Source: Sensis e-Business Report - The Online Experience of Small and Medium Enterprises

What this means is only one in 10 websites delivers a profit-generating benefit to the business. In other words, 90% of websites just sit there and do nothing! That's right… no sales leads, no new customers, nothing.

Now with 11% more value-destroying website mistakes!

I have updated Your Website Sucks! to address another value-destroying website mistake: failing to convert browsers into leads.

The second edition of the eBook includes a simple yet effective strategy for turning your website into a lead generation machine. This will be of particular interest to B2B marketers.

Also, here's some praise I've had for Your Website Sucks!:

"If you own a website, you need to read this book."
Will Swayne, internet marketing consultant

"It's a fab book! You have captured the practicalities of web development in an easy-to-read manner."
Raphael Murphy, lecturer in Advertising Management at UniSA

Download your free copy here

Building a website without a traffic strategy is like producing a brochure and then leaving it in a box in the storeroom.

But the end goal is not more traffic… it's more profit. So once you have a stream of visitors to your site you must convert them into sales leads or customers.

First there was SEO.

Then came PPC.

Now the latest TLA (three-letter-acronym) in search engine marketing is SMO.

It stands for "Social Media Optimization". Basically it's about reaching your target market using Web 2.0/social media channels, such as blogs, YouTube, tagging, etc.

Frankly I'm not a big fan of Web 2.0 for business, for the simple reason that from my experience most Australian businesses are yet to successfully implement Web 0.7.

I believe marketing resources are better spent on the low-hanging fruit of online marketing, such as creating compelling content, SEO and PPC, rather than dabbling in a corporate blog.

However, Marketing Experiments recent exposé on SMO really caught my attention. They pitted a $10/hour blogger against a PPC (Google Adwords) campaign to see which would produce the better ROI.

The Adwords campaign generated 2,057 visitors for a cost of $1,250 (or 61c per visitor).

The blogger generated 93,207 visitors for a cost of $3,600 (or 4c per visitor).

Bottom line: SMO yielded a 1,427% greater ROI than PPC!

Read more about this experiment

BTW: the Marketing Experiments e-newsletter is a fascinating source of information on what strategies and tactics actually work in online marketing.

A review of BRW's "definitive guide to winning on the internet": Australia Online, in the form of a letter to the editor.

Dear Sir

I regret to inform you of my grave disappointment with your flagship edition Australia Online. Given that it was billed as "Your definitive guide to winning on the Internet" I was hoping for at least a couple of insights and some inspiration on how to realise a return on investment on business websites.

Whilst your website boldly declares, "BRW's core theme is innovation", all I found was a tired line up of the usual e-business suspects. Google, Sensis, Fairfax Digital, Seek, etc. are making a lot of money from online advertising. Ancient e-commerce strategies. Blogging for corporates. Yawn.

And yet hidden amongst the dross lies the true story of the current state of e-business in Australia. Here is the story you missed:

On page 62 we're told, "Chief executives of companies have until now struggled to derive any real benefits from on the fastest-growing phenomena on the web…." From my 10 years' experience working in the web marketing industry I would say the overwhelming majority of chief executives, business owners and marketing managers have struggled to derive any real benefits from the web. Period.

For the vast majority of Australian businesses e-commerce is simply not appropriate. And yet they can still benefit from a website. How? By taking a leaf out of GM Holden e-business manager Peter Wicki's book. Surely he is the canniest e-marketer interviewed for this issue.

On page 45 it says GM Holden, "doesn’t sell a thing online. Despite this it shows a clear return on investment." How do they do this? By realising: "The crucial point is identifying where online is going to be most effective for a corporation's strategy."

For most businesses their website is going to be most effective if it's used to direct the web's legion of information-seeking prospective customers into their sales lead generating funnel. Because, as we're told on page 48, "A federal survey last year on accessing and using e-government services showed the majority of internet contacts (54%), were to obtain information."

In a nutshell, most businesses should forget about online shoppers and focus their efforts on getting the attention of online information gatherers. As Peter Wicki states on page 48, "Eighty per cent of people check out the internet before they purchase a car." So GM Holden, "established the site as a clear sales-support channel, not a marketing tool" (page 50).

It seems so obvious. But despite being a well documented e-marketing strategy in the US it's been slow to take hold here. Why? Perhaps the answer lies within your story on innovation consultant Darrel Rhea, which begins, "The culture of marketing, design and research in Australian is 10 to 20 years behind that of Europe and the United States…"

Rhea is also quoted as saying, "Agencies and design schools need to educate designers about the commercial realities of business. Designers need to understand how their work affects the bottom line."

While his comments were directed to designers, interactive agencies and web designers and developers should take note. From my experience they know little of the basic concepts of marketing and their main goal is to build pretty websites without any regard to achieving a return on their clients' website investment.

"Dealing with a web developer can be completely bamboozling," Freedom Furniture's general manager tells us on page 50. That's something poor old Charmaine Papallo wasted $20,000 to find out (page 80), and I'm damned sure she's not the only one.

The trick to building a profitable business website is to find "the magic intersection of technical, creative and business strategy," as stated on page 48. Unfortunately strategic e-business thinkers seem to be thin on the ground in Australia.

So I wonder, where are the people who are getting it right? Which are the companies that have built websites at the magic intersection of technical, creative and business strategy and how has this impacted their businesses? Perhaps you could fill us in your next flagship issue.

Yours faithfully

Charles

Despite being one of the most efficient, cost effective and intelligent marketing weapons, direct response marketing (aka DR) has an image problem. It's usually associated with junk mail, infomercials, and ads for nasty porcelain figurines in the back of the TV guide.

However, the principles of DR can be applied widely and it doesn't have to be "tacky" or "low rent". Knowledge of DR is particularly important for internet marketers as the web is the most interactive and responsive of all marketing environments.

DR is all about getting people to take action. And that's also the goal of your website e.g. click here, download this report, sign up for our newsletter, read this, buy now, etc.

Last month Will Swayne from Marketing Results invited me to join him on a podcast to discuss how to apply the principles of DR copywriting to websites.

Listen in and you'll discover how to write direct response website copy without appearing “tacky”. Those hype-y, looooooooooong scrolling sales letter-style websites are obvious examples of online DR copywriting (which some may consider tacky), but there are also many other useful applications.

New free eBook: Your Website Sucks! 9 value-destroying mistakes most websites make… and how to avoid them

I've just completed my latest project. My new free eBook titled Your Website Sucks! 9 value-destroying mistakes most websites make… and how to avoid them is waiting for you to read.

Please download it and feel free to pass it on to friends and colleagues who might enjoy it. You're also welcome to post it on your blog or website.

Do you have some feedback?
Are you inspired to agree, disagree or otherwise comment? Please share your comments below.

A couple of weeks ago web copywriter Nick Usborne queried readers of his (excellent) Excess Voice e-newsletter about what makes a website credible. The question was: "If testimonials are somewhat unreliable as a means for establishing credibility, what DOES make you trust a site and believe in its integrity?"

While the results may not be statistically reliable they raise some interesting issues for web copywriters. The respondents' biggest credibility buster was lack of a physical address and contact telephone number. This is also Jakob Nielsen's 8th biggest web design mistake of 2005.

Even if your business is conducted 100% online it's crucial to include your full contact details. Prospects will feel more confident about doing business with you if they know you have a brick and mortar office and you can be contacted by phone if necessary.

Other factors that improve credibility according to the survey are a guarantee and return policy, testimonials, independent product reviews, and good writing that's not too hard sell. To that I would add professional and attractive design, good usability, complete information about products and services, a prominent privacy policy and sensitive use of email.

Read the full results of the survey

Sign up for Excess Voice e-newsletter

My first job after uni was working at a small publishing company. One of my boss's favourite sayings was, "If you don’t know where you're going, any road will take you there." It was a reminder to his staff that the first step in any project is to establish what you want to achieve i.e. setting goals or targets.

In my experience few websites have any goals. Often they're built on the reasoning, "We've gotta have a website because everyone else has one." Even now, many people think a website is a kind of marketing panacea. They think that by simply putting a website up they'll be deluged with sales enquiries. Unfortunately it ain't so.

Realistic and achievable goals for a website fall into the following categories:

Click to continue reading