I have been playing around a bit with Google Sites lately and thought it would be worthwhile writing a quick review and investigating whether these “do it yourself” website services are appropriate for businesses.

One of my most popular blog articles is How to Build a Free Website, so I suspect this one will be popular, too!

The first thing I must say is that as these “what you see is what you get” (WYSIWYG) template-driven website creators go, Google Sites is very flexible and easy to use. As you would expect from Google I suppose. Naturally, there are limits, but the built-in functionality and the extendable nature of the system makes for a compelling case for those of us not blessed with natural design and coding abilities.

There is no software to download or install, everything is done from within the web browser. You start by selecting a blank template or one from a fairly extensive selection, many created by users rather than Google themselves. You then choose a theme to match, which sets the colour scheme and background style for your pages.

Once set up, you can play around with the layout, colours and images used in your theme and template. Within a few minutes, I had a template looking like this:

Not the prettiest, but it demonstrates how easy it is to start playing around with things and shaping them to your taste. Remember, I hadn’t started to add any content at this stage, but doing so was easy – just click the Edit Page button and type away!

You should be able to make out in the screenshot above the editing controls, like a simple version of Microsoft Word. This is the classic “WYSIWYG” editing mode. It’s easy to insert images, make links, or add one of the thousands of Gadgets available for iGoogle. One thing that is missing is the ability to add files or documents for download – to do that, you’ll need to upload them somewhere else and make a link to them.

The options you have for changing the layout, colours, backgrounds and so on is very impressive, certainly compared to many similar systems I’ve encountered over the years. You are ultimately limited to having your navigation on the left or right, where many sites are now favouring navigation along the top. The amount of functions you can add in via Gadgets is huge, although many of them are pretty useless for business (Free Online Frogger anyone?)

You can point your own domain name at the website, so it has a professional address, and you can register the site with Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools, giving you great statistics on your visitors.

So, it’s easy to use, has a wide variety of functions you can add in and the design is easy to tailor, within the restraints of header/left sidebar/right sidebar/footer, which to be fair most sites use anyway.

Is it, then, a good idea to build a business website on the Google Sites platform?

I don’t think so, and I’ve compiled my reasons why:

1. You don’t own the site, it’s Google’s. Look at what happened to Geocities a couple of months ago.
2. Someone still has to design and build the site, even if it is easy. Does anyone in your business have the requisite graphic design and Photoshop skills? There is no training included in Google’s free offer.
3. Zero support if something goes wrong. Yes, there are online tutorials and a Google Group for support, but you can’t actually pick up the phone and demand something be done about it if there is a problem. There is no SLA on fixing problems. If the website is down for a reason out of your control, Google can’t be pressed into doing something about it!
4. You are limited to Google’s templates, which you might not want, or paying an approved Google supplier for a custom design. You will always have the header, left (or right)-navigation, middle-content layout, even if you want something different (e.g. a navigation menu along the top).
5. Tailoring the look and feel of additional functionality such as Calendars is nigh-on impossible, plus it will only do what Google allows you to do. This may be sufficient, or you may want it to work in a different way, but you won’t have the option to change it with a system like this.
6. Uploading files for your visitors to download requires the use of a third-party service, increasing the risk of files not being available and other technical problems.

These problems aren’t unique to Google Sites by any means and their system is actually one of the most flexible I’ve come across. Sadly, though, for businesses it just doesn’t make sense and in fairness to Google, they aren’t pushing Sites as a business solution, except for collaboration (i.e. internal or project-based use, rather than a main business website).

My opinion is that if you are serious about your business, you need a proper website, designed and built to your specification, so that you can be sure it does everything you want. Otherwise, you may well find yourself frustrated at the limits imposed by a system like Google Sites.

Contact me for information about independent website consultancy: How I can help you develop your website strategy and find the right web developer.

Google have developed a cool new tool that shows what a “typical” user sees when they visit your website if they choose not to scroll.

Your browser size determines whether we need to scroll up or down to see content, and Browser Size gives you a visual estimate of what people can see on your site, and whether they need to scroll to see your content.   The assumptions are based on Google’s own data of it’s visitors’ browser characteristics.

Of course your business may get more visitors with high resolution monitors, or lots of visitors using mobile devices, but it is useful starting point when considering your web design.

My own website is being redesigned, and here’s my report:

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Take a look at the content that 99% of people can see, and the content languishing where only 20% of folk can see it.  It is my Web Review service that is positioned badly where folk can’t see it. Time for a redesign, eh?

This tool may over simplify matters, but the principle of “above the fold” is one of those basic truths in web design that we should all swear by.

“In a newspaper, the most important story is featured on the front page,” comments Google Senior Software Engineer, Bruno Bowden. “If it’s a really important piece, then it’s placed ‘above the fold,’ which means you can find it on the top half of the first page — the bottom half is folded behind and isn’t readily seen when you first look at the newspaper.”

“The same concept applies to browsers as well,” he adds. “There’s no clear line for “above the fold” on a browser — there are many different sizes of monitors, browsers are not always full screen and other things like toolbars can take up space. “

4Q is a free survey tool that gives you feedback direct from your website visitors.

Why did they come to your website (their intention) and how satisfied they are with their experience of your site?

When you came to the website today, you may have been presented with an invitation to participate in a 4Q survey after your visit.

4Q stands for “four questions” that will help you to better understand their user experience, and most importantly task completion: did the visitor manage to complete what they intended to do?  And as a result, how satisfied were they?

The four questions:

1. On a scale of 0 to 10, how satisfied are you with my website?
2. What is the purpose of your visit?
3. Did you manage to achieve the purpose of the visit?
4. What do you like the most about the website?

It is all about conversion based on the tasks your visitors want to complete, and how to improve your website for a better user experience.

Setting up the survey is simple, and it designed to work straight “out of the tin.”  You can change the wording of some of the 4 questions, and upload your company logo.  You then need to upload the tracking code to your website, in much the same way that you installed Google Analytics tracking code.

iPerceptions have shared the typical survey response rate as 2-4%, although my response rate is significantly lower.  As a result, small businesses might want to set the survey invitation rate (the proportion of visitors invited to take the survey) to 40% or even higher so that you get sufficient visitor data.

And the system uses cookies so that, in principle, a visitor should only get invited to participate in the survey once.

Looking at the Survey Results

The data is presented in your 4Q dashboard, and you can also download the findings straight into a spreadsheet.

Why are visitors coming to my website?

And what do they value most on the site?

4Q shares the daily overall satisfaction measures of all the companies using the service, so that you can benchmark your own satisfaction results:

Great Ideas to Take Away From the Survey

The most valuable part of the 4Q process is discovering actionable ideas that your business can take away and work on.

For example, I discovered that a number visitors wanted to access the materials in the Client Area, but did not have a password to get in.  They took the time in the survey to write about their frustration.  I need make a way to provide delegates with a simple way to recover a lost password.

In terms of our course booking process, one visitor provided me with a detailed breakdown of how it didn’t work, and then asked me to give him a ring to discuss his requirements.  The survey provided another way for customers to get in touch with the business

And finally, I can see that that visitors value the free information, the impartial advice.

Conclusions

4Q is quick, it’s free, and it gathers valuable data for better understanding your visitors’ expectations of your website, and their experience engaging with your site.

Gathering the visitor data is only the start of the process;  the more difficult task is then making the changes to your website, and testing new assumptions for improving your visitor experience.

My main hesitation for recommending this service? I’m not keen on intrusive pop-up invitations, and have no way of knowing what the impact of that pop-up might be. Is there any chance a visitor would bounce as a result of the pop up?

http://www.4qsurvey.com/

Efficient Frontier have published its Q1 2009 UK Search Engine Performance report based on a sample of UK search engine advertisers and there are a number of very interesting take away messages:

Search marketing advertising spend in the UK dropped 6% in Q1, year on year.

Advertisers’ Cost Per Click (CPC) is falling steadily, with average price falling from 44 pence in Q1 2008 to 30 pence in the same period 2009.

The volume of advertising impressions is on the rise as more consumers are using the Internet, and as the networks have lowered their minimum bid price bringing formerly inactive keywords into play.

As a result of the higher number of impressions, advertisers’ click through rates (CTR) have declined. By way of example, Google AdWords typical CTR dropped from 2.94% in Q1 2008, down to 2.06% in the same period in 2009

These results are based on a sample of advertisers in the financial services, travel, entertainment, retail and telco sectors.

You can read the full report here (PDF).

What does your business do? If I were to limit you to just 25 words, would you be able to delight me with your business proposition?

Stop right now and think: are you able rattle off a succinct sentence that conveys the breadth and depth of what you do, as well as make it clear what makes your business special, and the benefits you offer me?

And do you have that 25 word statement slapped prominently on your web site home page?

The lack of a simple, clear statement like this breaks a number of cardinal rules of web design:

• Don’t make me think. I don’t want to hunt around to figure out what you do. If I can’t see it straight away, then I’m hitting the back button.
• Don’t assume I know your business. You know what you do, but I don’t. So make it simple for me, and tell me what you do.
• Don’t keep your light under a bushel.  You know your business is great, so go right ahead and tell me.  Tell me the benefits of using your business rather than your competitors.

This 25 word statement isn’t just for your Internet marketing. As they say, there is nothing new under the sun, and this statement means you have a handle on your business.  It might form part of your marketing collateral, or your elevator pitch (That’s the 30 seconds you get to clinch the deal with me if we were trapped in a lift together. Heaven forbid.)

Your 25 word statement is essential in Internet marketing because:
• My attention span is short on the web, I’m scanning your website, so keep it short and sweet
• Your statement is very likely to be naturally keyword rich, which will help in your search engine optimisation. And if it isn’t keyword rich because it is full of waffle, or using those wasteful words like “quality” or “solutions” then rethink your statement.
• You can reuse the statement when it comes time to include a description of your website in directories, or as part of your pen picture.

So, what exactly is is that you do?

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Would you like me to take a look at your website, and write up a review of the kinds of improvements I think you should make?

For £100 + VAT I’m offering a one hour review of websites during which I’ll take a look at your:

• search engine optimisation
• usability of your site
• legal compliance
• and give a general warts and all review

I’ve been offering this service to delegates when I speak at conferences, and I’ve been surprised at the demand.

Don’t expect a fancy-dancy report;  I’d rather spend my hour writing up plain speaking analysis of specific steps I think you could take to improve your site.  And if your feelings are easily hurt, then this might not be the report for you!

The kinds of people who have requested the report include companies who are:

• wanting to improve their rankings in the search engines
• doubting whether they are getting value for money from their search marketing agency
• needing a plan of action to use with their web designer
• planning a new website redesign
• wanting to improve the conversion rate on their websites

Get in t0uch by dropping me an email or use the Contact Us form on the website.  Tell me a little bit about your business and what’s going on with your website.

And I’ll get back to you by return to get the ball rolling.

Your Bounce Rate is that depressing Internet statistic that measures the proportion of visitors that look at one single page of content and then bounce away, immediately leaving your site.  Bounce Rate has to be one of the most talked about statistics of the year, and yet one of the least well understood or interpreted.

We all want to reduce our bounce rates, that is to say we want to entice visitors to look at least one more page of content on our sites.  And a high bounce rate is a generally accepted signal that something is wrong, whether it’s your website content, or bad navigation, or poor user experience, or lousy business proposition.  A high bounce rate means your site has failed to engage your visitor enough to look at another page, and it might be that simple design changes can often lead to significant improvements in your bounce rate.

But in my experience, small businesses actively pursuing a search engine optimisation strategy may well experience a rise in their Bounce rate.

You must keep in mind that  Not all Bounces are Created Equal. You need to look at your Bounces on their individual characteristics and merits, and decide which Bounce rates provide significant information for your business, and which need addressing as a matter of priority.

1.  Evaluating Bounce on a “Page by Page” Basis

Let’s start with your Home page.  It should have a low bounce rate, as it is typically one of your most visited pages, and it acts as a signpost to encourage visitors to explore further.   It typically will have a linear path of links encouraging people to click through for further information.

By way of comparison, your search engine optimisation activities will often result in a huge number of what Jakob Nielsen calls “deep dips” – visitors arriving on interior pages that are highly relevant to their search phrase.  Obviously, these pages should be of interest to your visitors because the page is exactly what they were looking for. A high bounce rate for these pages might be a reason to worry.

However, you may also find that your pages may also be ranking highly for search phrases that are not appropriate, or do not show intention to buy your products or services.  And so these visitors will bounce, and because they were never really a prospective customer, you just can’t worry about them.

The danger would be to start redesigning your pages based on this spurious visitor activity.  You need to identify a strategy to focus on the behaviour of your real potential customers, not the time wasters.

2.  Bounce Rate for Particular Key Phrases

Some of your phrases do indeed show intention to buy, and you will want to carefully monitor these specific phrases and have a strategy in place to drive the bounce rate down.

Use your Google Analytics to segment out these phrases, and generate reports that help you to keep an eye on them.  Lose sight of this bounce rate at your peril, because it is at the heart of both your search engine optimisation and customer conversion strategy.

3.  Bounce Rate for Entry Sources

Your search engine optimisation activities will result in visitors coming from sites such as Digg, or Stumble Upon, who may well be idly browsing the web, and to be frank will never become a customer. Their bounce rate may be high, and my advice is don’t worry about it.  If appropriate, segment this traffic out, and review their bounce rate separately from other traffic sources.

How about links from other websites?  Visitors coming in as referrals from other sites should have a lower bounce rate, after all it is a recommendation that led them to visit your site.  You need to determine if the inbound link is indeed a recommendation that shows some intention on the part of the visitor, or again is just driving in random traffic.

Visitors from search engines are showing a high level of intention:  they have searched and clicked through to your site, and they should start engaging in your content.  High levels of bounces from search traffic should be a warning signal.  Either there is something wrong with your landing pages, or there is something wrong with your search engine optimisation strategy.

And of course, for a Pay Per Click campaign, a high bounce rate means wasted money with serious repurcussions for the overall cost of the campaign.  Keep a beady eye on your paid traffic sources, whether PPC, banners or other forms of paid advertising.

4.  Loyal Visitors

What about all you lovely people who follow visit my website in order to read my blog postings using either the RSS feed, or my email  marketing newsletter.

If I were thinking purely in terms of Bounce Rate, then I have to say you disapppoint me:  you often read one article, and then you leave.

But you are loyal visitors to the site, you come back week after week.  And to be honest, I’m happy if you usually just look at a page or two, because I suspect you’ve read some of my other articles already, and I hope from time to time I’ll lure you into clicking on the shiny new courses I’m running.

And finally…

One of the best techniques for reducing bounce rate is to offer specific links to further information at the bottom of the page, and hope your visitors will be motivated to learn more:

Search Engine Optimisation Myths:  don’t fall for these scams (PDF)

What’s happened to my search engine rankings?

I am trying out a new free customer feedback service that provides an independent, unedited source of evaluations from my customers.  I can display this feedback on my website, helping to build business trust and credibility as part of my marketing strategy. And of course it provides a valuable feedback loop as part of my process of continuous improvement of the business.

Feefo is a  customer feedback tool being used by household names like the BBC and Charles Tyrwhitt, as well as number of small businesses ranging from retailers to service providers.

The customer review process is quite simple:  I provide Feefo with all the email addresses of my customers and details of what they bought.  Feefo invites them to provide comments that will be published, unedited, on the Internet.  I have undertaken to give Feefo all my customer addresses (not just those who I think will say nice things!) and also understand that whatever the customer says, good or bad, will appear in my reviews. And finally, I do have the ability to reply to comments as appropriate.

Best of all, Feefo keeps the evaluation process short and sweet, with just two questions:  provide a rating of your product and give a comment.  Keeping it simple seems to work well.

It is a British company, and they have been very helpful in providing support when it was needed.  I think there are some areas that still need refining, for instance the icons aren’t particularly intuitive, and the reporting is a bit ropey, but I have the impression they are open to suggestions and constructive feedback.

The first question is an open ended box to write in comments. I have used Feefo’s very simple editor to write the introductory text:

Feefo can take automatic notifications of the details of your sales direct from your website, in much the same way you send details of your sales to your credit card payment processing provider.  Alternatively, you an upload the details of your sales by creating a simple file using a spreadsheet.

It is a free service, provided you only need 100 feedbacks per month. If you require more feedbacks, or want to customise the service, then they provide the Pro version.

Be sure to take a look at my article discussing the value of customer reviews as part of your Internet marketing strategy.

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Successful websites need to get alot of visitors, and alot of your visitors should be coming from search engines, particularly Google.

I’m often asked why a site isn’t ranking well in the websites, or why they’re getting the wrong kind of visitors.

In short:  what’s wrong with my website?

I want to talk about 3 problem scenarios that are typical for small business websites:  that they’re not ranking well in Google, that visitors just bounce right off the site, or that they’re getting the wrong kind of visitors.

1.  I’m not ranking well for my key phrases

Google is constantly tweaking the search engine results, testing sites for their quality and relevance.  These quality signals are coming from the content on your site, where your website fits in the rich mesh of links that Google trusts, and the behaviour of the visitors searching for and visiting your site.

If your site is not ranking well, then you need to review these factors:

Check the content on your website.  You want to be looking out for these poor quality signals:

• Duplicate Title tags used across multiple web pages
• Duplicate Meta description tags
• Duplicate content, either duplicated pages, or pages with duplicated elements such as large menus
• Pages with little or no meaningful content
• Keyword Diarrhea, also known as keyword stuffing, which applies to Title tags, Alt tags, meta tags
• Keyword rich content contained in decorative graphic images
• No coherent keyword strategy, often referred to as keyword density
• Pure keyword stuffing, without using keywords within a meaningful context

Check that your inbound linking strategy is delivering quality, topical links.  You want to be looking out for these danger signals:

• You’re purchasing links from a link brokerage service
• You have a high proportion of reciprocal links
• Your recipricoal links are not with quality, relevant, topical websites
• You don’t have outbound links to those authorative, quality sites
• You have acquired a flood of inbound links, and then just as quickly stopped link building

2.  I’m getting lots of visitors, but they bounce straight off the site

Your web analytics software will let you know what proportion of your visitors look at just one page of your website, and then decide to leave straight away.  Your bounce rate is a good measure of what kind of first impression your site is making, and an indicator of the quality of your site.

Google make it clear that Bounce Rate is an important contributor to their AdWords quality score, and I think it is reasonable to assume (and I’m only assuming) that bounce rate is also taken into consideration when determining your search engine rankings.

So a bad (high) bounce rate is a double whammy:  you are losing visitors after just one page view, and their decision to leave your site may have an negative effect on your rankings.

You need to figure out what your visitor’s don’t like about your site.  Of course, it may be that your site is perfect and they found exactly what they wanted in a single page.  Bravo for you, and dream on.  For the rest of us, it means checking:

• that the design of the site reflects your business core values.  Does your website look professional, or home made?
• that your site looks trustworthy, someone I want to give my money to?
• that your site loads quickly
• that the navigation is clear and easy to use

3.  I’m getting lots of visitors, but no buyers

Once upon a time I wrote an article about the mystery canoeist who faked his death and went to Panama with his wife Pam.  I wanted to highlight the fact their fakery was discovered by a casual searcher discovering their photograph on Google Images, and the importance of image search.

My article, John and Anne Move to Panama ranks highly in Google for people searching for John and Anne, is the landing page for many thousands of Google searchers, and it’s even been translated into Russian.

But it hasn’t earned me a penny.  It’s a badly optimised page delivering irrelevant traffic.  But it is useful as an example in my workshops!

If you’re getting lots of visitors, but no buyers,then check your web analytics to see if you are receiving traffic for irrelevant key phrases.  If you are, then:

• amend the culprit pages to have more appropriate keyword rich text in the Title Tags, headings, body copy and all the other relevant places on the page
• generate more content relevant to your key theme
• work on getting high quality inbound links from appropriate websites
• and accept the fact that you will be getting a proportion of irrelevant traffic

So, if you are struggling with your rankings, your visitor behaviour, or getting the right kinds of visitors then these are some suggestions to help you out.

Good luck!

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I’m aware that my company website design is nearly three years old, and that the design is looking a little tired and is due for a website refresh.

Why not take a peek at the draft design of the new site. Your comments would be most welcome, keeping in mind this is a work in progress! The real site will not have my ugly face on the front, but it is a useful image to use at this stage!

The idea is to put a new “skin” on the site, retaining the existing file names in order to preserve all my search engine optimisation efforts.

I’ve worked closely with my graphic design partner to design something that looks corporate, and modern, and clearly conveys the key messages. I am also looking to include more Web 2.0 functionality, but I’ll let you know more about that later.

Further progress regarding the site development to follow-