This post was originally written for the Bluewire Media Web Strategy Blog.

If you’re not in the business of making websites, it might surprise you to learn how many people decide they need a website, seemingly for the sake of having a website. As a freelancer, I get lots of enquiries for small-budget websites, most of which can’t clearly articulate WHY they need a website, other than to check it off the list. Even at Bluewire Media, a high-end web strategy company, the “Website Goals” section of our getting started questionnaire is all too often left blank.

But this just won’t do. Even for small projects, it’s important that we begin with some goals.

Why?

• So that we have something to base future decisions on.
• So that the website becomes an asset to your business, rather than a liability (yes, an out-of-date website is a liability).
• So that we can gauge the value of the website to your business.
• So that the website actually has a purpose, other than to “simply exist”.
• The number one way to ensure your website doesn’t work for you is to not define any goals.

Note: when I say we, I don’t mean Bluewire Media specifically, I mean the business and the web company (whoever they may be) collectively.

So, what might your website goals be? And how should you go about setting them?

Start with your business goals

A good place to start is with your overall business goals. These might be something like:

1. Become the biggest seller of XYZ widgets in the Asia-Pacific region by 2014

2. Grow to 100 staff in the next 3 years

Now these might not sound like website goals, but they’re certainly things that a website can help you achieve. We can now say that our overarching website goals are:

1. Increase sales.

2. Attract high-quality staff.

What we’ve just done has probably already been the difference between having a ‘Careers’ page (if not a whole careers section with job listings) and not having one. We also now know that we need to figure out what we can do on the website to increase sales.

Of course, not every business goal can be assisted by a website, and not every website goal will be related to one of your specific business goals, but business goals are a good starting point. Some other examples of goals could be to:

• Improve your reputation as a trustworthy, industry-leading organisation
• Coerce people into using your services
• Build your database of contacts to whom you can market your products/services
• Generate leads for a sales team to follow up
• Any number of other things

Again, the simple fact that you’ve come up with goals at all will result in a better end product. But lets dive in a bit further.

Now that we have our goals, what do we do with them?

It’s pretty simple really. For each goal, lets see what we might be able to implement on the website to help achieve it.

Increase Sales

If you have the time, money and available staff, you might decide you actually want to sell your products online. If not, that’s ok, your website can still help by providing detailed information about your products (or services), and why anyone would choose them over your competition. You can also point people towards where they can buy the products, and make it easy for people to contact you with questions.

If you’re looking to increase sales, it’s important that you provide as much information as possible about your products or services – whether you’re going to be selling them online or not. Remember, you need to cater to customers at all stages of the buying process, and the more information you provide, the more likely they’ll be to keep your product or service in consideration at later stages of their decision process.

Attract Staff

If you’re looking to attract staff, it would be a good idea to have a “Careers” (or similarly named) page on your website that explains the perks of working for your awesome organisation. This page could also link to current job openings (whether they’re on your website or SEEK, MyCareer etc), and encourage anyone to apply even if no positions are currently being advertised. Some companies even put up a more noticeable menu item “We’re Hiring” when they have a job opening.

Improve Your Reputation

The internet makes it easy for a potential customer to research your company before ever contacting you. Fortunately, it also makes it easy for you to make sure they like what they find. If you’re looking to improve your reputation, start a blog.

Blogging is a great way to demonstrate your knowledge, culture, leadership etc; and the chances are, if someone is researching your company online, they’ll probably come across your blog.

Build Your Marketing Database

If you’re looking to get more newsletter sign-ups, you might want to include a little feature box somewhere on your website (E.g. the sidebar, or under each blog post) with an incentive to sign-up. For example, Bluewire Media offers a free Ebook to anyone who subscribes to our newsletter. The more enticing your incentive is, the more sign-ups you’ll get!

Generate Leads

A whole blog could be devoted to covering ways of generating leads online, in fact there is already at least one very popular one; the hubspot blog is devoted to “inbound marketing” (a term they coined). Inbound marketing is an online lead-generation method that focuses on attracting potential customers (leads) by creating content that they will find useful.

The hubspot blog is itself an excellent example of inbound marketing. Hubspot have a software suite (called hubspot) that helps marketers generate and nurture leads online. By constantly publishing content and resources on their blog that marketers find useful, they are attracting potential customers to their website. If you haven’t been to the hubspot blog before, I highly recommend that you do. This is a good post to get started with.

The second step in online lead generation after creating fantastic, useful content, is to capture those leads. A good way of doing this is to publish a downloadable resource (for example an ebook, template, checklist etc), then require at least a name and email address before allowing the resource to be downloaded. You now have the names and email addresses (at least), of a whole lot of potential customers. Remember though, the more closely related your resource is to your actual product or service, the higher quality the leads will be.

So how have our goals changed the final outcome?

If we’d decided to go ahead and design our website without  thinking about our goals, it might have looked something like this:

Without any pre-defined goals, your website may end up looking like this.

If, however, you’d gone ahead and defined some goals like the ones we discussed above, your website could end up looking more like this:

With some pre-defined goals, your website starts to look a lot more useful.

It’s pretty obvious at first glance that the “with-goals” outcome looks like a much better website, but there’s more to it than that. The second design specifically attempts to address our goals, and is therefore much more likely to become an asset to your business – increasing sales, attracting staff, improving your reputation, building your database and generating leads.

To sum up, setting goals is an absolute necessity before beginning a website project of ANY size; whether you’re a one-man plumbing business or a multi-national widget corporation. Just setting some simple end-goals could make a huge difference not only to the look and functionality of your website, but also to the return you get on your investment.

Freelance Web Designer Brisbane

Original post starts here…

After a morning of deliberation over what the first real Link Lures post should be about, I was struck with a brainwave. Why not point out the very thing that converted me from the ‘link-building as labour’ ideology and start thinking instead about attracting links naturally. Ironically, it was a blog post about link building.

If you’ve ever googled ‘link building’, ‘link building tips’ or something similar you’ve probably come across Aaron Wall’s article, 101 Ways to Build Link Popularity. I say that because it’s been the number one result for quite a while.

Image taken from Aaron Wall's link popularity article.

A couple of years ago when I was first getting my head around SEO I stumbled across this article and started reading. The fact (and reason) that it was the number one result didn’t dawn on me until I got to the first tip:

1. Build a “101 list”. These get Dugg all the time, and often become “authority documents”. People can’t resist linking to these (hint, hint).

It occurred to me then that the reason that I’d found this post wasn’t because Aaron had gone and posted links to it in article directories and blog comments. It was because it was such a useful, well written and definitive resource that people couldn’t resist linking to it from their own blogs, websites and social media accounts (5 years later and it’s still getting links – i.e. this article).

At that point I already knew that the best links you could get (in terms of SEO) were ‘real’ links – links from the body of a blog post (not the comments), a real website (not a directory) etc. So when I realised that this post had been sitting there attracting good quality links for years after Aaron wrote it, it dawned on me that while some link building was good for small sites in less competitive niches; a far better strategy was to produce something that would continue to attract links on it’s own long after the labour and effort had been taken to complete it.

As time went on I continued researching SEO and the methods that people use to improve their search rankings, and I started to realise that most SEO tips and hints were small technical things, most of which would only make a small difference if you already had plenty of inbound links.

Over time I became less and less interested in these meaningless and usually ineffective hints, and more interested in using link bait as a primary SEO method.

The advantages of using link bait over manual link building are not only numerous, but they’re BIG advantages:

• You don’t need to hire a SEO company,
• It’s more fun,
• The links are worth a LOT more,
• It continues to work after you stop working on it,
• The links actually get seen by humans (and not just search engines),
• Link worthy content can help create trust.

What do you think, is link bait worth looking into?

Freelance Web Designer Brisbane

I’ve also recently joined the movement and made the switch to iphone, a decision I made based on past experiences I’d had with other apple products.

Now overall I think the iphone has a great user interface and the overall experience is in most cases un-noticeable (a good sign – usually you would only notice a bad user experience). The exception though, is something that might surprise you (although I gave it away a bit in the title) – it’s the On/Off switch (just to be clear, I mean the On/Off switch in the settings, not the switch to turn your phone on).

Before I get into why I think the On/Off switch needs some work, I’ll just clear up what I think the characteristics of a good On/Off switch are.

As I mentioned earlier, a good user experience is usually an un-noticeable one. The more I have to think when using software, the more likely I am going to be to notice that my user experience has not been as easy and pleasing as it could have been. For something as simple as an On/Off switch then, I really should not need to think about it at all. This is where the iOS On/Off switch falls down.

Take a look at an apple iOS On/Off switch:

Airplane mode - set to off

Can you see what I might be referring to about needing to think?

There are two possible ways of interpreting the current status of this On/Off switch, and unfortunately, they are opposite.

The first (and correct) way of interpreting the status of this switch, is that it says off, so it must be off. This might sound obvious and not open to mis-interpretation, but I beg to differ.

The other way that this could possibly be interpreted is that it’s a sliding switch, and ‘off’ is on the right hand side, therefore I need to slide it to the right to turn it off.

It may sound trivial and silly, but I actually struggled to figure out whether all my settings were on or off when I first got my iphone. Despite the fact that the ‘on’ setting lights up, I still couldn’t be sure. I probably don’t need to name an example of where a mis-interpreted On/Off switch could be troublesome, but here’s a worst-case.

Imagine a new user who mis-interprets whether airplane mode is on or off, leaving it off during a plane trip and causing the plane to crash! (I’m sure this is quite improbable and that flight mode is only an extra precaution, but you get my point).

So how could the On/Off switch be re-designed to provide more obvious feedback as to the current status? I spent a long time thinking about this and sketched quite a few alternatives. In the end though, the change I made was quite a small one.

This alternative avoids confusion by combining both ways of interpreting the old switch.

This alternative avoids confusion by combining both ways of interpreting the old switch. It has  well-labeled on and off sides, plus it shows the current status more obviously than the opposite option.

What do you think? Does this fix the problem, or could you design a better version?

P.S. I’d be interested to see any other alternatives, if you post a link to your design in the comments I’ll add it to the post with a link credit.

Freelance Web Designer Brisbane

Immediately distracted from completing my intended task, I decided to look at some other banks’ websites to see if they would score as well as NAB had.

They didn’t.

The whole exercise gave me the idea of reviewing Australia’s big 4 banks’ websites in a blog post. I did it. You’re reading it right now.

So to start with, In case you didn’t know, Australia’s big 4 banks are NAB, Commonwealth, Westpac and ANZ. Before you read on, have a quick look at each of their websites and form your own opinion. I’ll be interested to hear if your thoughts are similar to mine.

In the spirit of keeping things brief, I’ll only review the home page of each website. Originally I had planned to review each website one by one, comparing good and bad points, but when I found it hard to list good points for Commonwealth, ANZ and Westpac, the system kind of fell apart. Instead, what I’ve done is compared what NAB does well, to what the others do poorly.

Font Size

The text on some of these websites is simply too small. Anyone with poor sight would find it extremely hard to read; and remember, these websites need to cater for a huge range of audiences. I can just imagine my grandmother leaning in and adjusting her glasses, slowly reading each word aloud as she went through the menu.

Old people like my grandmother are not likely to know how to adjust the text size in their browser either. The Commonwealth site has font-size controls, but they themselves are small and light-grey on white, making them some of the hardest words to read on the whole page. What’s the point of that?

The Commonwealth Bank's font size controls: hard to read and not even in an obvious place!

NAB has purposely used extra large fonts all over their website to cater for those with poor vision. Especially in menus and for important options. They’ve also managed to do it in a way that actually looks good!

Some of the main options on the NAB website. Actual size.

Too Many Options

The home pages of these sites are too crowded with options. Sure, banks have lots of products, announcements, offers, etc. But as users, when we’re presented with so many options we can’t help but feel slightly overwhelmed. And the more options we have, the longer it takes us to find what we’re actually after.

The ANZ website is overwhelming with too many options

This is where I think NAB is a class above the rest. Check out just how well they’ve managed to keep their home page simple and basic.

NAB's website doesn't overwhelm me with options and promotions

NAB’s use of whitespace helps to separate the different groups of options, making it easier and less painful to find what you’re looking for.

Navigation

The navigation and options systems of some of these websites are complicated and convoluted. For example, take a look at the header of the Commonwealth Bank’s website.

The Commonwealth Bank's header, with 4 different menus and a search bar.

The Commonwealth Bank website’s header has:

• a main menu (Home, Personal, Business, Corporate, About Us),
• a secondary menu (Locate Us, Contact Us, Security Centre, Help),
• a “Log on to or register for” menu,
• a toolbox menu with font size controls and a print option, and
• a search bar.

That’s just too much to take in, especially when it’s all so close together. NAB’s menu system comes across as being a lot simpler.

NAB's menu system is much simpler

If you count, you’ll notice that NAB’s header only has one less element than Commonwealth’s, but by condensing the number of main menu options down to two and keeping plenty of space between each different option set, they’ve managed to make it come across as a much simpler system. It’s quicker and easier to take in which makes it faster to choose an option.

Internet Banking Login

Without knowing for sure, I’d estimate that at least 60% of visits to these websites (or more) would be for internet banking purposes. It’s going to be important then, to make the login process as quick and easy as possible. This will consist of two components:

1. The internet banking login section on the home page should be blatantly obvious.
2. Once you’ve found the internet banking section on the home page, it should be as fast as possible to actually log in.

The poor example in this case will be Westpac. Rather than put up a screenshot, in this case I’ll get you to go to the Westpac home page and look for internet banking.

How long did it take you?

If you eventually found it, you’ll notice that it didn’t say “Internet Banking” at all, it simply says “Sign in to…” on a dropdown item. Sure, if you’re reading this post you’re probably pretty tech-savvy, so it probably didn’t take you all that long. But for those that are less experienced with dropdown menus etc and that are specifically looking for the words “Internet Banking”, it’s going to be a far more difficult process than it should be.

The other problem with Westpac’s system is that it requires you to click once, then wait for a drop down menu to drop down, re-orientate yourself with and read that menu (tiny things I know, but they certainly add up), and then click again to go to online banking. All the other banks require only one click.

Conclusion

While a lot of the points I brought up were negative, overall each bank has done fairly well, which I guess you’d expect from organisations with such huge budgets.

It’s the NAB website though that impresses me the most with it’s simplicity and ease of use.

Do you agree? What are your thoughts?

Freelance Web Designer Brisbane

The process of writing a review on Google Maps is a fairly long one, so it’s likely that people will only write a review if they’re NOT happy with how you’ve treated them. What you need to do then, is make it easier for your happy customers to write reviews. The best way (that I’ve thought of) to do this is to give them the option to go straight to the “Write a Review” section of your places listing when they are feeling satisfied with your service. The most obvious such situation that comes to mind is in email correspondence with your clients/customers, but there are certainly many other ways such a link could be utilised.

So how do you create this link? Well, it’s not fully documented anywhere (that I’ve found) but it is possible; and here’s how.

1. Go to your Google Places listing by searching Google maps for your business and clicking on “more info” next to your listing.
2. Click on “Link” in the top right corner (it has a chain link icon next to it). This link alone will take you directly to your places page.
3. Copy the link and paste it into a text editor such as Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac).
4. Next, copy and paste the following line onto the end of the link:
&view=feature&mcsrc=google_reviews&num=10&start=0&action=open
5. The link should now look something like this:
http://maps.google.com.au/maps/place?cid=17014096076660835175&q=ar+web+design&hl=en&dtab=0&sll=-27.509499,153.043452&sspn=0.006295,0.006295&ie=UTF8&ll=-27.505588,153.03674&spn=0,0&z=17&view=feature&mcsrc=google_reviews&num=10&start=0&action=open

So this is the link that we want, it will take a user straight to the “Write a Review” section, but it’s extremely long and ugly (notice it even ruins my blog layout?), and may not travel well in emails (which is where we want to use it). We can fix that by using a URL shortening service like bit.ly. URL shortening services such as bit.ly are quite easy to use, and if you sign up for an account you can even track how many people clicked your link (I’m sure I don’t need to tell all you marketers how valuable that can be!).

So that’s it! Here’s my link, write me a review if you found this helpful

What other uses (other than in emails) can you think of for this link?

Freelance Web Designer Brisbane

I’ll be publishing new blog posts every week or two (hopefully) on web strategy, internet marketing, social media strategy, SEO and anything else that comes up.

Anyway this isn’t an interesting post so I’ll keep it short. I hope you enjoy reading the posts to come, and if there’s something in particular you want me to write about let me know.

Freelance Web Designer Brisbane