Archive for the ‘Online Strategy’ Category

Size and shape of buttons will influence conversion.

Depending on the size, shape, placement, color, or wording of your call-to-action button, you may not be seeing enough action.  Testing variations will help you determine which button is optimal for your specific needs.

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I had a client contact me today to make comments on the Zarbo website.  I wasn’t going to spend time breaking it down, but I did immediately noticed the URL strings.  I said, Zarbo would always struggle to gain organic prominence in the search engines because of the technology that was powering it.  Two hours later, my client sent me a Zarbo case study and told me I was wrong.  The key statement in the case study read:

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When a new business starts its life, whether it is online or off, one of the biggest and more costly challenges is to acquire new customers.  This cost is a reality, however, the growth of any online business can be balanced with direct marketing strategies and around the use of building a database.

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When growing an online business, the challenge is in your methods to vary the sources of qualified traffic coming to your website.  Both SEO and PPC efforts will do a very good job but like all businesses, building depth in qualified traffic sources will assist in reaching growth targets.

Affiliate marketing is the act of building commercial relationships with other websites who acquire the targeted traffic you would like sent to your website.  If traffic is referred on to your website, you provide the referring website a commission (percentage of the sale). 

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The potential problem all online businesses face is, as sales increase, ROI decreases.  This is due to the increase in cost/resource to deliver the orders.  It is fine for online businesses to say they are acquiring 250 + orders per day through the website, but how profitable are they?   The automation of processes reduces cost and builds efficiencies.

The focus on fulfilment is two pronged, building fulfilment processes is critical in both building customer loyalty and in creating a scalable and profitable business.

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To acquire new customers typically costs money, whether it is online or off, so there needs to be methods in retaining and building their long term value.  True online customer service is defined as all the activities conducted once the customer completes a purchase.  This is referring specifically to the conduct of the customer service team towards their customers.  

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Our brains respond to colour. It’s no accident that Coke and Ferrari use red, IBM blue and black, and the UPS courier service use brown. People tend to relax in green rooms, weightlifters have been found to perform better in blue gyms, babies cry more in yellow rooms. Prisons and hospitals now use specific colours to influence the behaviour of inmates and patients.

If you’re thinking of redesigning your website, or re-branding, it pays to research your colour choices carefully before you commit.

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Our consultants talk with hundreds of businesses each year who ask our advice about buying Google Adwords versus optimising their sites for free organic listings. Lets face it, Google dominates the search landscape both here in New Zealand and Australia.

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Here’s a question for you, “If one of our greedy little banks offered a deal on one dollar coins for fifty cents, how many would you buy?”

Most normal people would say, “I’ll take the lot”, right?

Why then do companies have an advertising budget?

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This approach is so simple, yet so powerful, that most clients mentally kick themselves that they had been wasting time struggling with how to do shipping online. It may take a little time to get your head around, however it has succeeded for every one of Exceed’s eCommerce clients to date.

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