Most people want to see who they are dealing with. Test subjects actually speak the words, "Who are these guys?" early on in their web research. Unless they find a satisfactory answer, they leave. The reasons are varied:

• Geographical. Proximity implies reduced shipping issues and problems regarding either cost or perishability.
• Nationalism. For a variety of reasons, people like to buy from companies within their nation or region.
• Customer service. Inadequate "about us" information raises concerns regarding returns or other potential service issues.

What to Include in Your About Us Page

Your "About Us" page should include:

Where you are located with address and contact information.

• Some of your principal staff. Pictures can help as well, with easy ways to contact these folks directly.
• Business organizations of which you are members.
• Recent significant industry awards.
• Company value or mission statement.
• Customer support links.
• Guarantee/warranty links.
• Testimonial links.
• Email and customer information policy links.

"Green" Issues

Here’s another reason to revisit your "About Us" page — the "green" factor. Visitors to your website are more likely to buy – as long as products are of equal quality and price — from companies that:

1. Manufacture energy efficient products (90%)
2. Promote health and safety benefits (88%)
3. Support fair labor and trade practices (87%)
4. Commit to environmentally-friendly practices (87%)

I have always recommended that companies share the news about their good works, if only to help support the organizations they support. Now it appears that it can be important to clarify your policies regarding key "green" issues.

As your company makes plans to help make the world a little better during the holiday season, share the good news on your "About Us" page. We all enjoy a little good news. We all identify with a "conscious" company — and if it helps business along the way, that’s a good thing. Do I need to add that the focus is not: "See how wonderful we are"? Rather: "Join us in helping."

Consumers make most of their buying decisions based upon emotional factors. Our ability to persuade a buyer to act needs to press both conscious and unconscious "buy" buttons.

Need to find out more about your About Us page? Contact John here or call/sms 0414 955 743

The Mailto: Link

The easiest method, of course, is to include a mailto: link on your webpage, such as: "Please contact me if you desire." When your visitor clicks on the hyperlinked words, it pulls up the visitor’s e-mail program to send an e-mail. The HTML syntax is relatively simple:

Please contact me if you desire

By adding the subject after a question mark you can segregate these e-mails by subject line as they are delivered to you.

Please contact me if you desire

Nearly anyone can add a mailto: link to a webpage. But there are two drawbacks:

• Spam. The underlying e-mail address is inevitably sucked up by spambots, resulting in an increasing deluge of spam.
• Incomplete Data. Though you can control the subject line and will retrieve your sender’s e-mail address (and perhaps name), you often don’t get essential information such as phone number, address, etc. that enables you to provide immediate help.

A step forward is the use of an online form that provides fields for each piece of data you ask for. You can make some fields required, thus providing data consistency and completeness. An old standby is Matt Wright’s legendary FormMail program written in Perl (http://www.scriptarchive.com/formmail.html). Matt plugged some serious security holes in 2002, but such programs continue to have two weaknesses:

• Spam. Though hidden from view, your recipient e-mail address may still accessible by spambots unless the program is custom written.
• Security. Many generic form programs like FormMail can expose to view the file structure of your server, making it much easier for malicious or thieving hackers to attack your server, find your server password file, download your data, or perhaps even corrupt or destroy your site. Hackers also attempt to insert characters into data fields that will trigger errors that, in turn, expose your web server’s file structure.

Modern forms are designed for greater security against both spam and hackers.

Here are form tools that may prove helpful. As you look for a program for your site: (1) observe how highly it is rated and by how many users, (2) read user reviews, (3) see if an online forum is available for support and user questions, and (4) look for a recent update date, a sign that a program is still under active development.

• PHP Form Mail Script from Stadtaus.com offers a powerful program that provides form customization within your site, error messages, hidden configuration, attachments, customizable e-mail templates, and a CAPTCHA feature. Free for non-commercial sites, $29 or 19 EUR for a license. Installation service is available, but is relatively simple for those with some basic programming skills. http://stadtaus.com/en/php_scripts/formmail_script/
• The PHP Resource Index under "Form Processing" lists and provides ratings for more than 150 programs written in PHP. http://php.resourceindex.com/Complete_Scripts/Form_Processing/
• The CGI Resource Index under "Form Processing" lists and provides ratings for more than 100 programs written in Perl. http://cgi.resourceindex.com/Programs_and_Scripts/Perl/Form_Processing/
• Stephen Poley, "JavaScript form validation � doing it right," offers sound guidelines, examples, and code for field-by-field JavaScript verification. http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/formval.html
• Jcap (CAPTCHA Validation JavaScript)  by Jonathan Feaster (Archreality, January 10, 2006) is a JavaScript implementation of a CAPTCHA application. It installs with relative ease and works well. It lacks, however, an alternate e-mail address for sight-challenged users.

Need to find out more about your Getting your online forms happening? Contact John here or call/sms 0414 955 743

Fortunately, however, an SEO expert usually needs to spend only a few hours to review your web design at certain crucial stages to save far greater expenses and headaches later on.

Stage 1: Concept and Marketing Strategy

You probably have a vision of the content and general site structure you are looking for. Before you meet with your web designer, contact your SEO expert who can provide you with marketing insights and ideas that perhaps you hadn’t considered. As a result of this meeting, your website plans could change dramatically — for the better. At this stage, a lot of money can be saved by firming up a more concrete, search engine friendly site plan.

Stage 2: Presenting the Vision to the Designer

It also helps to have your SEO expert meet with you and your web designer (in person or by telephone) when you lay out your vision and site plan. Your SEO expert is there to answer questions and ensure that your search engine marketing objectives are not thwarted should a grand design concept change the previous site plan.

During this meeting the designer will often provide a time schedule for deliverables and explain when you can weigh-in on each step of the design process. In the presence of the web designer, ask your SEO expert at what checkpoints it is best for him or her to check in on the progress.

Set up those checkpoints and clearly state that the design cannot continue without an official sign-off from your SEO expert. Without this it is far too easy for the design process to build momentum and breeze by these key checkpoints. Important: Even if your designer claims to have SEO experience, you’re still wise to include an independent SEO expert. Your designer’s SEO techniques may well be out of date.

Stage 3: Final Draft Review

Before you sign-off and agree to your final website, make certain to clear the final product with your SEO expert. At this stage any SEO mistakes that may have made it through the design and review process can be caught before final sign-off.

Once you sign off on the final website, subsequent corrections get very costly. There is no question that money can be saved — and in fact made — from having a search engine optimizer involved. After all, if your website is search engine friendly right out of the gate, you are one major step closer to profitable search engine rankings.

Need to find out more about Better Search Engine optimisation for your website? Contact John here or call/sms 0414 955 743

Yet small businesses listen to them, because they don’t know any different.

Before I tell you exactly I do to get your web page to land top 10 in Google, there are a few facts you need to know about the Search Engine Optimisation industry.

1. If your SEO professional isn’t using techniques from the past 4 months or less, you’re paying hard earned cash to them for nothing.
2. The search engine industry is changing almost daily. Google alone uses 200+ double-degree propeller heads to improve their search results accuracy. If your SEO person isn’t constantly studying and learning the new ways Google wants them to react, he’s taking your money under false pretext.
3. If anyone guarantees you a result, they are conning you.
4. SEO professionals should know when NOT to optimise a web page. That’s just as important as knowing how to optimise a page.

Now here’s the meat – here’s exactly what it takes to get your web page to land number one in Google”

Step 1: Each web page must have a primary key word or phrase. We first make sure that your chosen keyword/phrase is the best choice to turn your visitors into buyers.

Did you realise that is a vital step? It’s not about whether you land Top 10 in Google, but it’s about whether the customer buys from you, or contacts you.

It’s of no use to you if your page lands top 10 in Google every ten minutes but the visitor doesn’t click on your link, land on your web page, then do business with you.

Step 2: Next, we check the cache of the page in Google. We want to make sure it’s been freshly visited by the little Google Spiders. If it’s not ‘fresh’ then we know the marketing on your page needs a ‘caffeine’ injection. If it does, we

1. provide suggestions for your content, title, description and body copy
2. organise 5 to 10 quick, real, good-quality links to your page. By ‘good’ I mean links which aren’t buried between Viagra and penis lengthening ads or Free Online Casino chip links
3. Finally, we organise some blog links to your page. Most SEOs don’t even know they need to be doing this in order to most effectively market your web pages

Step 3: We verify the projected traffic levels to your chosen keyword/phrase. Some keywords/phrases are so seldom searched they don’t get hardly any results from one month to the next. We prefer use your money on the pages which deliver you the best results.

Step 4: We check the search engine results pages (SERPS) for your keyword/phrase. Are there Premium ads at the top? Local Ads? YouTube and GoogleVid ads? Are the top 6 places take up by ‘immovables’ like Amazon, Wikipedia, eBay or EzineArticles.com? If this is the case we’ll stop analysis right there and move on to your next keyword/phrase. Again, we don’t want to waste your money.

Step 5: Next, I verify that there’s room for you in the market. We need to size up your competition. We have special software which makes sure what your competition really is when your keyword/phrase is searched. Hey, and do you think we care how many results are against you? We don’t. We’re only interested in the Top Ten search engine results. That’s all.

I mean, if I get you from 200^th right up to 50th, will that do you any good? No way. Almost no-one clicks more than twice after they search. So that’s why I’m on about top 10 all the time. For me, if you not landing top 10 in Google, you’ve still got a way to go.

Step 6: Now I take a look at your page itself. I’ll check your On-Page Optimisation. I look for things like the page name, title, description, keywords and some other metatag stuff which doesn’t show up on the web page people see. I have some more specialised software which helps me out here as well. We might even try for an indented listing if the page looks like it stacks up OK.

Step 7: If it warrants it, now is where I’ll create a focussed page of original content which hones in directly on your keyword/phrase. Compelling title, proper use of the keyword/phrase and body text. Then we upload it up to your server.

Step 8: It’s no good having a hot new page ‘up there’ if it’s not noticed. So at this point I ‘market’ the page using a blog-based technique which should normally get your new page indexed in about 3 hours.

Step 9: I now recheck the new page and verify it’s scoring more than 85% in my ‘yardstick’ software. If not, it’s back to Steps 6, 7 and 8.

Step 10: Now I use two other proprietary applications to narrow in on which Top Ten results are vulnerable, then go after them. In SEO a lot of the deal is all about pages which link back to your own page. Usually if there are a couple of results pages with low back links, we can have their spot or better inside 40 days.

And that’s it. Using the techniques above, you’ll be amazed at how much overall improvement your website can enjoy in just 90 days.

Need to find out more about getting your website Top 10 in Google? Contact John here or call/sms 0414 955 743

Nothing is more important to getting your message noticed than your headlines. If you’re not allocating a sizable percentage of your time and creative effort to the headline used on each page of your website, you could be losing out on a large chunk of business.

Top copywriters understand this concept well. They know how essential it is to capture attention by literally stopping pre-occupied prospects in their tracks.

Following are five good reasons why your site headlines deserve greater emphasis and attention.

1) Headlines Are Natural Attention Getters. Most online prospects quickly skim web copy looking for a reason to stay or a reason to go. No one reads the body copy of a page without first being pulled in by a strong lead, delivered by a compelling headline or sub-heading.

Headlines are the first things your visitors see. They jump right out visually and command attention by being set distinctly above the rest of the text. Often the typeface, size, and style used for headlines contrasts with that used in the body copy. This proven approach naturally attracts eyeballs, virtually forcing interested prospects to grasp the key message and to read on due to its magnetic appeal.

According to advertising legend David Ogilvy, 5 times more people read headlines than body copy. Although Ogilvy was talking about print advertising in general, the observation is certainly applicable to websites as well.

With 5 times the readership, headlines have the power and capability to make any message much more successful.

2) Site Headlines Serve As Valuable Guides To Busy People. Headlines reveal key details. They tip off readers as to what follows. A strong headline provides clear signals to help readers decide whether they should stick around for the full message, or dash off to something else – something better suited to their own special needs and interests.

As a summary of the entire piece, headlines either help sustain continued interest and readership, or they repel it. Without a headline, the reader is forced to wade through a portion of the text to understand the meaning and relevance. Forcing readers to do this is to risk losing them altogether. It’s sales suicide. In effect, having no headline will cost you at least 80% of your potential audience.

3) Headlines Create Anticipation and Stimulate Interest. They captivate, arouse curiosity and stimulate the desire for more. It’s the headline that starts the reader’s motor running. A good headline sets up a feeling of expectation as the reader anticipates discovering more — and can’t wait to get it!

Successful headlines address specific audiences. They open prospects minds to new possibilities and expand their level of enthusiasm and interest. The best headlines involve prospects, increasing the likelihood of their sustained attention and engagement.

4) Headlines Simplify The Learning Curve. Every headline serves to introduce whatever follows. As an opening or lead-in, the role of the headline is to succinctly communicate the essence of the message it precedes in an interesting and compelling way.

Effective headlines and sub-headings reveal key bits of information, often with the added power of emotion. A review of the various headings alone often delivers the gist of a given message. This makes it faster and easier to understand, remember, and review.

Use your headings to generate emotional involvement and you boost the chances prospects will go back and read more of your copy. When you make it easier to read and comprehend your messages, you increase the chances of making the sale.

5) Headlines Allow You To Deliver Your Biggest Bang Right Up-Front. Capture attention and interest at the outset, by using your most appealing selling point. If the strongest, most desirable product attribute (benefit) fails to pull prospects in, surely nothing else you could ever say would do the trick, either.

The stronger and more compelling your headline, the more time prospects will spend at your site. Create each headline to grab attention and inspire interest. The more alluring and irresistible you can make it, the more genuine prospects you’ll attract and ultimately, the more sales you’ll record.

Headlines are powerful marketing tools when used effectively. Take a good look at your site headline. Could you add more benefit power, intrigue, curiosity, or interest?

Test different headlines by trying various appeals and offer combinations. Keep an eye out for additional headline opportunities throughout your sales letter, as well as on other pages on your site. Make your headlines impossible to miss and difficult to ignore… then, watch your results soar!