Platonik blog

Take a look at this screenshot. It's something I've just purchased on Amazon.
It's November and Amazon's order confirmation screen enables me to share the product I have purchased on Facebook, Twitter and Email.

Now let's say I did share this.

Where's the Christmas surprise when I tell others? I'm sure the cat will get out the bag somehow.

Isn't that the point of Christmas to surprise and delight loved ones. The surprise and the anticipation of what you are going to get on Christmas morning.

Isn't it part of Christmas, whether you are a big kid or a little kid, all about the exciting build up ?

Doesn't the joy the gift giver get derive from the loved one not knowing what they are going to get ? Teasing them incessantly for weeks before Christmas.

Please don't spoil Christmas. It's a day of giving, not sharing socially before hand.

Sometimes all it takes is a ps: at the end of email that confirms you are doing what you do for the right reasons.

I got an email after a lengthy conversation with someone yesterday. He just finished the email with

It took me a while to be able to articulate why i do what I do. I build websites with business in mind. I've got clients that have built things to save people's lives when cycling, to give kids a sporting dream and chance, to make lighting safer on the environment.

These have always appeared to be more noble and worthy than a marketer who builds websites. So the why is vitally important to me. It's what gives you the reason to get up in the morning and to keep on trucking ahead.

You see when business owners approach a web designer or a web developer and ask for a website, well, they deliver a website.

And that's where all the problems start. You see the business owner doesn't actually need a website. He wants :

His company or products to be more visible
He wants those coming to this website to be prospective customers
He wants those finding out about his stuff to get in touch. By phone, email or whatever means
And ultimately he wants to sell his products or services.

But most business owners can't articulate that to a web designer or developer.

It is also a huge mistake to assume that other web creators have had any knowledge, training or experience to be able to interpret what a business owner really wants.

Sure, these other guys can knock up some beautiful stuff and some perfect code, but they miss the vital ingredient of any venture.

A Business Perspective.

I very much doubt there is a web designer or developer out there that does the research and pre planning of a website like we do.

Go check out this 17 minute video which basically gives away all the research into a niche market.

In our latest project we have created over 100 search engine friendly pages for a client. These pages are all targeted at the types of searches this customer is looking to attract.

And this bring me onto why we build websites when everyone is doing social media ?

About 8 years ago, a brand consultant advised me to get real, put a stake in the ground. Basically put your neck on the line. And every project we do  is me putting my neck on the line.

We have recently we've gone one step further by building sites with loads more content that previous websites. And here is why.

From experience, we know 80% of business owners will give up on their internet adventures. The real day to day business issues take over after the brief love affair with the internet.

So we provide them with a real solid presence which will generate traffic and sales leads and enquiries for months and years ahead. Even if they take the foot off the break.

For example, we built a restaurant website about 18 months ago. The chap is too busy to do anything on the internet. But he's had 80 online only bookings in the past 30 days. Do the maths, 80 bookings x £40 a table.

Try taking your foot off the social media pedal. Stop tweeting and you are forgotten. Stop Facebooking and people will stop commenting on you. And you are left without a real tangible presence.

So that's why we do what we do. 

Being of the Gemini star sign, I've always regarded myself as having 2 sides, 2 personalities, 2 states of minds. One week I can be totally motivated, next week uninspired. Last night I was feeling totally demotivated and uninspired.

So I dug out Earl Nightingale's The Strangest Secret.

 This guy is the originator and godfather of all things self help. The nuts and bolts of The Strangest Secret is to have a goal ingrained in your mind and give of yourself like you've never done before.

The audio recording is from the late 1950's and touches upon some quotations from the bible.

• Ask and it shall be given
• Seek and you shall find
• Knock and it shall be opened for you.

And also, if you want more, you have to first give more. So, today was a day of totally giving.

1. Kennett, the men watches brand, I updated and cleaned up some product images.
2. A close friend wants to start a new career but lacks the belief. She got a huge inspirational email.
3. I spent 2 hours of research and video editing so everyone on Twitter and Facebook and Linked would receive a 17 minute video on doing your homework before building a website.
4. Massimos, the Italian Restaurant next to the Kings Theatre in Glasgow, got a email campaign promoting Christmas bookings.
5. Sam Jarman Golf got Facebook commenting added to his blog.
6. A digital advertising agency client got a new blog added for one of their clients.

And everyone of the above clients gets a fairly valuable backlink to their website from the above contextual links.

Others might think, you fool giving stuff away for free. I've been guilty of giving too freely in the past before. Personally, I get slightly torn between the whole giving thing and making sure of deal flow and cash flow.

But what if Earl is correct. What if no man can be enriched without first enriching others and you do type of stuff more frequently than usual ?

If your website is not working for your business, if it's not getting enough traffic, if it's not getting enough enquiries or sales, then I would recommend you watch this 17 minute video.

It's a screencast of research I've done into the "home made cushion" market.

I know, not my thing either. But if you are serious about your business and leveraging the web, you will find this dynamite.

This video will give you a firm grasp of :

• What people search for versus what you think they search for
• What traffic there is for hundreds of search phrases you never thought of
• It will show you the difference between search and likely traffic to your site
• It will show you the competition and whether you can or cannot compete in certain markets.

Then it goes on to building a framework for a website based around what people are searching for and finishes off with a wireframe - an outline of a website.

This is what we do unlike most web developers and web designers. This is what we do before we even look at design or coding.

This type of research and planning is what differentiates a website that works for a business and one that is just pretty pictures and code.

Here's the link to download the file if you wish to save to your desktop. The file is near 100MB in size. So give it time to download and also time to load up if you are watching below.

Here's a short video showing you how to create SEO friendly documents, literature or files you add to your Adobe Business Catalyst website.

If you were to look closely at how other web developers build your website, you will find that they bolt together lots of different services to make up your website. Typically they have:

1 Supplier for Hosting
1 Supplier for Email
1 Supplier for the content management system (where you add pages)
1 Supplier for the database (where you add customers and contacts)
1 Supplier to add a contact form to your website (so you can receive enquiries)
1 Supplier for e-commerce (so you can sell things)
1 Supplier for a secure certificate (so you process orders online)
1 Supplier for sending out email newsletters

Now that's a lot of bits and bobs to look after. What if one breaks or has to be updated? What if one part stops working with the other part? What if your guy goes on holiday or disappears or won't answer your calls during the day?

So ask them how they will support and service all these bits and bobs and what happens when and if things stop working.

Unlike other developers and designers, we don't have these kinds of issues. This diagram shows how all these unconnected parts are all held together under the one roof and all are maintained and updated by our engineers.

 

I want to tell you a story about this new age of digital working. In certain industries, some skilled workers do very nicely with evening work, moonlighting and extra odd jobs.

My father was a director in his own family business and even he did work outside the family business.

Today everyone has a laptop, camera, internet connection, mobile phone and they are hooked up to Google, Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. They have Paypal, Google Checkout and internet banking to send and receive payments by mobile phone.

And as a business owner you object to them jumping onto Facebook. You tick them off when you find out they did a little home job for a friend and you even get mad when find out they have more twitter followers, Facebook fans and their website ranks better than yours.

Yes, my father was a director in his own family business. 

My dad wanted to expand into new areas for the business. The others didn't so he set up a retail business with my mum. He then bought up old property and rented out or sold on.

He did this because he wanted to create other opportunities for himself which his own family business wouldn't allow. And no one could object.

And I see the exact same thing happening with your business right now. Instead of embracing the entrepreneur within your company, you scold him. Instead of trying to leverage all the new skills you staff are learning in their free time, you ignore them.

I really think it is time you realise you have incredible staff and resources at your fingertips.

Why do I know this ? Because they work for me from time to time. You'd be amazed at the work they do. They get new opportunities with me. A chance to test and push their design, problem solving, marketing, photography, writing and digital skills.

So here's what you can do about.

1. Send a memo out. Say it's cool you do freelance or extra work as long as it doesn't compete with your business or interfere with your day job.
2. Set up an internal blog. Let staff post up, anonymously, things they have done or learned that could help or improve the business.
3. After a couple of months of this, reward them for their efforts.
4. If you like the ideas you see, set them a business challenge and ask for a project manager to lead this.
5. The project manager will then work out the cost of extra staff hours to do this, timescale, who does what. He sets up the project in something like Basecamp with milestones, to do lists. And sets you, Mr Business Owner, up as the client.

You now have your own little team working for you on a business goal with a plan and your own staff working extra hours for you on challenging work. And yes they do the work outwith office hours.

You see, that's all employees want. To be challenged, to put into practice that which they learned. To solve a problem.

Embrace the moonlighting because these people are really talented you have..

Log into your google analytics and I'm fairly certain over 50% of your website traffic will be coming from new visitors. These are people who have taken the time to come to your website.

Undoubtedly, you will have a small percentage who enquire and a small percentage who will buy.

So you've probably racked your brains wondering what you are doing wrong. You've probably spoken to your marketing, web design and web development team. And I am certain you have gone looking for problem and errors.

But the real reason people visit and leave is that they are just at the very start of their decision making cycle.

They have used Google, primarily, to find a solution to their problem. They have found you, looked around at what you are offering but at the moment they are just not ready to buy.

They need to evaluate alternatives. That is human nature and part of the way we buy. It's human nature to search and explore alternatives.

So they have come, they have left, they are evaluating someone else. That freaks out most business owners. They build everything to capture that immediate sale.

But here's the thing. When people are searching for your kinda stuff and then leave, they don't go immediately searching for your competitor straight away.

Nope, they'll go to Facebook and spend time there. They will go to their favourite music website and preview some mp3's. They will go read something on their favourite celebrity gossip website.

They switch from searching for a solution to their problem back into enjoyment mode.

You, as a website owner, can now capitalise with Google's ReMarketing advertising tool. Essentially, you can display your adverts to people who have visited your website on OTHER websites they visit.

The above image shows a website I visited this morning and adverts, outlined in red, are 2 websites that I have previously visited.

It may sound a little creepy at first. 

But it's a great tool. Keep your brand top of mind as people search around the website. Reinforce the solution they were searching for. Communicate a call to action as they near the end of their decision making process. 

I guarantee you the competition aren't doing this or thinking about this.

The alternative is the invent something that solves a problem no one else has though of or create something people can't find anywhere else; but that's a story for another day.

We do things a little differently around here. You won't get a website built by your typical web designer or web developer the way we do it.

We build a website from a business perspective; that's because we are business folks. Here's a resource for you to freely download that will give you an insight into our build process.

Sure, we may be a little more expensive than the other guys, but it's business results that primarily matter to the companies we work with. Just click the version you prefer to save and download; yes we even have a word version.

How we build a website that generates sales leads

How we build a website that generates sales leads (word version)

I recall a few years ago meeting the CEO of a fashion retailer to discuss the opportunity of selling online. I won't go into all the details except what I took away from that meeting. He said, I'll sell online but you must "de-risk it" for me.

De-Risk it for me. In other words, he needed a guarantee that he would get a financial return on his investment.

And that's exactly how most business owners feel about moving their website to another company or even if you are just starting out.

There are so many issues to consider that it can be pretty mind boggling if you get into the details.

Forgot the detail for a moment. You simply want to know if your investment will generate you sales enquiries and sell your products online.

Nothing but sales leads and sales matter.

I'll be perfectly honest. We can't re-risk anything. The fact is nothing comes with a guarantee. You still need a good product, you need to make the right people of aware of you, you do need to explain how your product helps and you do need to prompt people to take action. And you do need to add the people, time or financial resources to the mix so that what you are doing is in alignment with your financial and business objectives.

But we are business people and we do go about things in such a way as to maximise every chance of getting you tangible results.

So we've created a document to download that outline the top 10 mistakes business owners make when selecting a web developer or company.

Top 10 Mistakes when selecting a web developer or company

Top 10 Mistakes when selecting a web developer or company (word version)

This is just part of how we de-risk your website investment.