Read what Brad Martens has to say about this subject….

‘Browsing through some websites can feel like an obstacle course. This week, I’ve endured all kinds of annoyances, which made me ‘re-direct’ my personal spending. I would have put money in their pocket.

I’ve been exercising and my wife says I need new clothes. Knowing what I want, I visit a few clothing websites to eliminate the pain of being dragged through the shopping centre. I’m in a hurry. The first website wants me to watch an introduction before reaching the homepage. I close it. The second website looks funky but, with poorly designed flash animations, is slow and cumbersome to browse. My patience is worn out.

The third shop sports a quick and easy to browse website. It takes me 15 minutes to whip through the catalogue and select five items I want. I can even order them online if I want but I want to try on the sizes first. The next day, I walk into that shop and spend five minutes buying the items I picked online the previous night.

Missing Information

I go online to book accommodation for a holiday. Tourism operators are reeling from the downturn so there are bargains everywhere.

I find the website of a hotel recommended by a friend. It looks pretty, but lacks information. It lists prices for Standard, Superior and Deluxe rooms but there are no details and few images to indicate the differences. Why should I pay an extra $30 for a Deluxe Room if it doesn’t tell me what I get? There’s no map to tell if the beach will be one block or ten blocks away. Should I risk booking? No—I can’t decide, which room to book for lack of information.

One of its competitors has a great website with descriptions of each room type, a map and labelled images. I get my credit card out.

Losing Money By The Day

I want to buy a gift voucher for a friend at a massage clinic but the website doesn’t mention if these are offered. I email an enquiry but by the time the eager owner calls me to say they have gift vouchers, I’ve already made the purchase elsewhere. Why waste time?

I want to sign up to an airline’s email list to be notified of sale fares. But it makes me fill out ten different fields and gives error messages if one is missed. No deal.

I want to buy a new monitor, but the online computer shop makes it compulsory to register an account before buying. I can’t be bothered.

Pointless Extra Steps

I prefer the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) website over News.com.au for my news. But lately I’ve visited News.com.au more instead. Why?

SMH splits longer articles into multiple pages. I have to click on ‘next page’ or ‘view single page’ to read the whole article. With this extra, annoying step, SMH is slowly losing me—and advertising revenue—to its competitor, News.com.au, which conveniently displays each article in whole on the page.

See It From Your Customer’s Eyes

I might sound like a grumpy man now. But mistakes like these cost businesses thousands or millions of dollars a year. When you design your website, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. They are time-poor, attention deficit and impatient. They possess a low threshold for irritating features.

When it comes to buying decisions, they don’t care much for fancy graphics and presentations—they just want information. Well-worded descriptions and details are important. And for many products, like hotels and fashion, a good selection of quick to browse images is also important.

Your Competitor Is A Click Away

Don’t overlook the fact your customers can click onto a competitor’s website at any time. The moment they can’t find the information they want or see an obstacle, they may use Google to bring up several alternatives.

In fact, customers will often open several competing websites simultaneously for comparison.

Disable The Obstacle Course

You’re unlikely to get feedback if your website is afflicted with some of these problems. Few visitors bother to tell you why they didn’t make a purchase or enquiry.

Often, the only symptom of the problem is a poor conversion rate. If your website receives 500 visits per month and only generates a handful of enquiries, you should suspect there’s something wrong. Here are some of the pitfalls to look for:

Splash Pages & Introductions

Splash pages and introductions often add little value and serve only to frustrate or delay visitors from finding information they seek. To you or your designer, an introduction can seem like a great—almost necessary—way to distinguish your website, give it a “wow factor” or push your brand message. Step into your customers’ shoes and you soon realise they see it as an annoying extra step when all they want is to reach the homepage to find the information they want. A better alternative is to put animated introductions on the home page as a banner so your customers aren’t delayed.

Bogged down by Flash

Flash is a fantastic tool for creating a visually pleasing look but it has some serious downsides. Too many animations make your website slow and prevent users opening multiple pages at once. Flash cannot be read by Google so your search engine rankings may suffer. If you plan to use Flash, make sure your developer knows what they are doing or it can put your website at a severe disadvantage.

Long  Loading Times

Ensure your website loads quickly. The longer each page takes to load, the less your customers browse and learn about the benefits you offer. If you run an online shop, longer loading times mean customers see fewer products. It’s like ushering a customer out of a shop before they’re done browsing. I recently reviewed an online shop. Each page took ten seconds to load. At such speeds, how many products would customers have the patience to view? The business had invested a high five-figure sum to build the website and was left reeling with few sales. While most internet users have fast broadband, be aware many people now browse through their mobile phones or with slightly slower mobile broadband connections.

Poor Information Architecture

A website missing important information is like a salesperson with poor product knowledge. Check if your website has all the information visitors need to make a buying decision. Think of the questions customers ask and check if answers are easily found. Are the pages logically structured and easy to find? Are they visible in the main menu?

Design: Creative But Impractical

The design of your website should facilitate the flow of information rather than hinder it. Ensure the text font used is not so light or small that your key selling messages become invisible. Make critical engagement points like menus and buttons visible and prominent.

Internet users often shop by elimination. Check your website for obstacles to avoid being eliminated.’

–Brad Martens is the Managing Director of Seeclear – www.seeclearonline.com.au.

Don’t Let Your Badly Designed Website Lose You Customers is a post from: OE Design Blog

7 Amazing Lessons from 7 Distinguished Billionaires and thought I’d share.

We all know most of these lessons but we all need to get better at them and remind ourselves of how important they are to remember.

A quick overview of the 7 lessons:

1. Look for Opportunities
   
2. Believe in Yourself
   
3. Create an Atmosphere of Success
   
4. Empower Others
   
5. Focus
   
6. Learn From Your Mistakes
   
7. Only Go Forward

You can read the full article on the Dumb Little Man website.

7 Amazing Lessons from 7 Distinguished Billionaires is a post from: OE Design Blog

‘For years after its initial release (remember when you had to be invited?), Gmail was in “beta”, or the software equivalent of “previews”.  It was years before Google stripped the beta moniker from its logo on Gmail, Calendar and a lot of its other products.

Could a consumer have told the difference over the last 5 years?  Not likely.  Beta was just Google’s way of protecting itself, yes, but also its way of saying, “We are committed to changes on a daily basis until we make our product  better, and then we’ll figure out even more stuff to change until we can better it still.”

Not a bad way to think about any product, don’t you think?

I heard a Web Marketing Guru speak about how to design a website, and he said that websites are never final; great websites are in a state of perpetual beta.

He was right, of course. By studying analytics, conversion rates, etc. we should be making constant changes to our designs to make even the smallest of improvements (increasing an surfer’s time on the site, whether they sign up for email lists, etc.).  A small improvement a day adds up to a monstrous improvement in a year.  Your website will be a conversion machine!

But why not apply perpetual beta to other things as well?

Your advertising campaign should be in perpetual beta. You should constantly be looking at your results, making adjusting, surveying, modifying, and beta-ring your campaign.   

What else?

Well, shows, as opposed to movies and books, are in perpetual beta.  Films get shot, edited and released, and are never tinkered with again.  Books are written, edited and published, and are pretty final.  But plays and musicals change a bit each night with each audience and new actors, etc.  And that’s what makes them exciting.  You can always find a way to improve.

What about non-show stuff?

Well, if you’re a yoga-ite, then you’re in perpetual beta; always stretching, extending, reaching for more.

And you know what else?  Without getting too self-helpy . . . our lives are in perpetual beta.

It takes a lot of time and a lot of hard work to take long intense looks at ourselves, our products, our campaigns, and push ourselves to make improvements . . . and then start over again.  It ain’t easy

But being in a state of perpetual beta is what leads us to professional and personal success.’

Source: The Producer’s Perspective

In A Constant State Of Perpetual Beta is a post from: OE Design Blog

If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. There is no focus! I often say – if you chase two rabbits, they will both escape.

When I assist businesses (and not-for-profit organizations) these days, I take them through a 4 to 5 hour planning process that asks these questions. From their answers we develop an actionable plan.

Here is the process you can apply:-

Where do you want to be in three years?

Do you want to grow by 10%, 30%, double your size, expand nationally or Internationally, even sell?

I will not accept “I want to stay where I am” – why?

1. They will soon move backwards and go out of business due to inevitable cost increases and loss of customers.
2. They will not action the plan anyway.
3. There will be no momentum, leading to complacency and eventually the organisation will die.

What are the barriers to achieving where you want to be in three years?

When you can list the barriers, then you will be able to start writing actions to address these. Later in this article we will deal with actioning these.

Vision – what is your vision?

Examples:

“To be the most loved and respected coffee company in the world.”
- Gloria Jean’s Coffees

“We desire to create an automobile culture of putting customer first via developing human–centered and environment–friendly technological innovation.”
– Hyundai Motor Company

“That every Australian has the opportunity to access trusted Christian media and resources that connect faith to life”
– United Christian Broadcasters Australia

Vision keeps you focussed – both good things and bad things will come along to take you away from where you want to go.

Note: The higher and larger the vision the more creative you need to become to achieving it.

Under Vision set your…

Mission Statement –

This is your statement of purpose it fleshes out the vision and makes it plain.

Examples:

“We are committed to serving you, our guests, with the consistently highest quality coffee and outstanding personalised service in a vibrant store atmosphere..”
- Gloria Jean’s Coffees

“Our ambition is to provide our customers with the widest range of home improvement products at the lowest prices everyday, backed with the best service.”
– Bunnings Warehouse

“UCB is passionately committed to building communities of mature Christians through engaging media and resources”
– United Christian Broadcasters Australia

And your…

Values -

The things you want to represent, and what you believe in as a company.

Example:

• Safety and the Environment
• Integrity
• High Performance
• Win-Win Relationships
• The Courage to Lead Change
• Respect for Each Other – BHP Billiton

Are any of us going to be perfect in these? No – but it reflects how you want to operate and helps you work towards it.

Tip:- Look up other websites for their vision, mission and values statements.

Do your S.W.O.T. Analysis

Strengths                   Weaknesses
Opportunities         Threats

Divide an A4 sheet into four quarters. Title each section with the four categories and complete for your organisation- ask valued staff, clients and external friends for input.

Look at your Marketing

Get all examples of the marketing you do now including stationery. Have a look at how your company or brand is looking to the market.

Look at your Structure

Draw up the current structure of your company. Who reports to who? Warehousing, office space, location etc. (as it applies).

Now to the Actions

Draw up a list of actions with the following headings

ITEM          DETAIL          BY WHO?          BY WHEN?

Review all previous headings and the information you have listed under each. What needs to change to achieve the vision set? Brainstorm creative solutions for the obstacles, weaknesses and threats. Assign tasks and dates.

Look at everything

Staff Structure – Training, Reviews, Future employment needs

Warehouse – Stock, Buy Prices

Pricing – Sell Prices

Marketing – All Materials inc. websites and stationery.

Review Costs – Telephones, loans, travel, insurance etc.

o You may want to get an outside person to help with planning
– they can bring out crucial things you might miss.
o Make sure you are not nominated to do most items on the list.
Involve your staff – or employ outside help in specific areas.
o Some items may involve several steps to achieve.

The Future is Out There!

Once you start actioning your plan, you will start to see focus and momentum. There will be bottom line savings, improved cashflow and many other benefits.

The key to this process is making sure your staff (in business or not-for-profit) buy into the vision. Make sure you employ people who want to be part of the journey, not just do the job.

A business or organization run with real purpose by people who believe in what they are doing can go places never dreamed possible.

This article has been written by Peter Irvine
Peter is Co-Founder of Gloria Jean’s Coffees, author of “Win In Business”, business consultant and speaker.
Source: http://www.achieversgroup.com.au

Have a Plan That Works! is a post from: OE Design Blog