A couple of people in my office have recently been searching for a new home, and have both lamented at how the real estate agents haven’t quite embraced the web as well as they could, especially considering they’re such an ideal web-based business. The frustrations they’ve experienced are echoed worldwide in other industries too.

Here’s how we think real estate agents could stand out from their competitors:

Detailed and accurate information

The biggest thing driving us mad are the things wasting our time. Finding out the property doesn’t match the description written in the listing is big on the time wasting list, but also needing to call the agency to ask for an address is driving us insane.

The primary reason customers turn to the internet is to save time researching. Agents compound this problem with boring, short descriptions that provide very little information.

Agents need to carefully consider the suitability of properties to particular target demographics and consider the questions that demographic would ask when seeking a property.

Take great photos

We’ve been giggling about the abundance of awful photography. Some are photos are date stamped 2004, there’s a great kitchen shot with a big FLU INJECTION reminder tacked onto the fridge, and someone tried to rubber stamp something out of the back yard and botched it up. Many listings have no photos at all!

Photos will do more of the selling than any words you write, so ensure they’re clear, in focus and recent. Have a peek at my previous post on taking photos for your website.

Real estate cliches

There are so many sayings that need to be erased from the agent’s vocabulary. Here’s the shortlist of ones making us shudder:

• Neat as a pin
• Location, location, location
• Properties like this do not come up very often
• If you sleep on it, you won’t sleep in it

Don’t these just get your goat? OK, enough with the cliches.

A colleague of mine introduced me to a unique eCommerce concept from an Australian website, Zazz.

Zazz sells just one product each day, which is a curious decision for any shop, and sells that product until it runs out. A new product is released the next day.

Perhaps the thing I love most about Zazz though is the owner’s quirky sense of humour going into great detail about each product listed and sometimes posting videos of the products in use.

I must confess, I haven’t bought anything yet, but I read the new product almost every day and have no doubt I’ll purchase something in the near future.

A great example of how a unique twist on a normal sales process can win untold loyalty (and perhaps riches too!)

Today’s product, the Puchi Puchi was sold out.

One of the major factors responsible for a cost blowout on website development is continually making changes and tweaks whilst the site is still under development.

Most web development companies will charge you hourly for changes made to your website, so it’s important from a cost perspective to get all the glitches, spelling mistakes and formatting ironed out before you hand it over to your web developer.

Lots of little changes add up, and can put a project significantly over budget. Even worse for businesses with marketing deadlines, it can also cause your website to be late.

When you’re approaching a web developer for a website, ensure you have the following ready:

• A high resolution/vector copy of your logo.
• Your branding materials like company tagline, colour scheme, mood/attitude of your business.
• A collection of images you’ve used in marketing collaterial or a good list of images from a stock photography website that matches your brand.
• List of the websites you love.
• List of the websites you hate.
• Copy for your website in word documents for each page.

Do your new customers ask the same kinds of things time and time again? Save your admin time by adding the answers to your website. You’d be surprised how many customers inspect your website prior to contacting you.

Here’s some logical things could consider adding to your site:

Employment Information

We hear lots of stories of how difficult it is to find staff in today’s tough labour market, but you’d be amazed how many positions are advertised in newspapers that don’t ever get entered on a company’s website.

There are lots of great reasons to have an employment page:

• It makes your business appear dynamic, successful and growing in size. This gives customers confidence that you’re a legitimate business that employs good staff and cares about their workforce.
• An employment page is a much cheaper advertisement than any other form of advertising, and allows for extensive information and interactivity.
• It never sleeps… you’ve probably heard this one before about websites, but an employment page will work for you even when you’re not actively looking for staff. Savvy new people coming into town will often do a Google search to find employment in their preferred industry - wouldn’t you like to be hiring the best!

Refunds & Privacy Policies

When I recently had a problem with my laptop, it was after close of business and I wanted to know the process for obtaining work done under warranty. Unfortunately I ended up needing to call the company the next day and waiting on hold for 30 minutes while the receptionist chased up the relevant information for me. It would have been far less frustrating for me if the company had simply chosen to publish this info online.

Information about refunds and privacy are required when you conduct transactions online, but most other businesses leave these important bits out.

If you have a policy, put it up online.

Prices & Rates

Despite price being the primary motivator for online shopping, lots of service-based businesses are still not transparent about their prices online preferring instead an enquiry page in place of publishing the actual rates.

Customers have a lot of choice online, and if they can’t find the price information they’re after from your website they’re more likely to buy from a competitor who is open and honest about their pricing online.

Frequently Asked Questions

For the miscellaneous questions you are asked, include them on an FAQ page. For website which include an FAQ page, these are frequently the most popular pages after the prices page.

Include all the information you can’t fit onto other pages.

I keep a running list on my desktop of the questions I am asked most days… and I publish the answers in this blog!

We’ve had the ideaology of business plans, marketing plans and other plans drummed into us by business success professionals for a long time now, but one plan we don’t here a lot about are website plans. So, where do you start? With the goals!

Like all things, a website will have one or two major goals, and a number of minor goals. Usually the minor goals support the major ones. Throughout most websites we build, the major goals don’t change.

Major Website Goals

• Making money
  The reason a business exists in the first place, and certainly the ultimate goal of any eCommerce endeavour. Making money is a broad goal and the method for achieving this goal will change depending on the website. Methods include generating bookings, making sales and attracting advertisers.
• Increasing credibility
  This goal is especially utilised by the professional services industries like accountants, lawyers and even web developers! This goal centres around informing your potential customers of your company’s spectacular history, and key staff’s qualifications. Artistic and creative industries will increase their credibility through visual portfolio pages.
• Saving time
  Often this goal exists in tandem with one of the other two above, but many businesses choose to save administration time by having a web application built for them that automates some of the mundane tasks they do often. It might be as simple as referring cold enquiries to a page on the website for frequently asked questions, or it might be more complex like a customer management system.

Minor Website Goals

• Encourage leads and enquiries
• Conduct research on web user habits
• Provide an easy contact platform
• Allow quality media downloads
• Increase subscriptions to newsletter database
• Develop a community around your product or service
• Encourage customer loyalty

Does anyone have further suggestions on other goals websites might try to achieve?

Sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of your goals when building a website. We get ties up by the visuals; where photos go, how logos are positioned, what shade of green should you use… those sorts of fiddly bits. But the important part, perhaps the most important part, is keeping focussed on the goals.

Each page of your website should be trying to kick some goals, and before you even start writing the text for your pages you should have a firm grasp on which goal you’re aiming for.

Here’s some examples of what goals your website should be targeting.

Home Page

• Encourage further exploration of your website
• Allow easily visible contact details
• Provide a clear path to the revenue stream of your website

Company Profile Page

• Raise credibility of the company and its key staff

Newsletter Archives Page

• Increase subscriptions to your newsletter database
• Provide great content for search engines

Contact Page

• Encourage enquiries

Usually your website will have many goals, with most having the ultimate goal of generating sales. Achieving your website goals will be infinitely more successful with the use of strong calls-to-action.

There’s a dreamy romance about the notion of making money while you sleep. This is one of the major motivations for new online entrepreneurs – which is understandable when you read stories about the gobs of money made by the great global success stories such as Amazon, Google, facebook and eBay.

Many people concoct amazing new web ideas every day; lots don’t get developed, and lots don’t make it online. Some run out of budget after launch, and sadly fizzle in the market. Here are some aspects to consider when trying to make it in the web world.

New, Unique Ideas are Rare

It’s hard to believe, but the web has been mainstream in Australia since 1996. In 12 years the web has evolved significantly with some 5 billion websites. Just on numbers, the big winners are few.

The internet is experiencing an era like the industrial revolution where multiple people fought over who was the first to invent particular machines. Brilliant ideas are dreamt up every day, and there’s a good chance someone else in the world has already thought of it. In fact, there’s a good chance someone else is developing it already.

Many people believe the web money now lies in narrow niche markets. For example, there’s not a great deal of room in the market for another major player like Amazon. But there are strong online opportunities for antique book dealers, collectible book specialists, rare and hard to find online bookstores.

Similarly, as more people seek to purchase local goods and services online, geographically niche concepts will become more important, and certainly more profitable.

Concept Development

The first step of any online entrepreneur is to get some advice from people in the know. Sit down with a number of IT gurus and thresh out your concept. Refining the idea early on will save you a lot of money down the track.

It is best that once you’ve talked to a few friends in the industry that you seek the advice of seasoned internet professionals. Most web developers who’ve been in business for 5 or more years are considered veterans and will happily work in a consulting capacity to assist you.

People mistakenly skip this step and try to keep ideas to themselves for fear of someone else stealing it. The reality is ideas need substantial development to make it to market, so it’s well worth investing in the professional advice of people ‘in the know’ and experienced with your market.

Traditional Rules Still Apply

The great rules of traditional business are equally but arguably more important for online business. A business plan, start-up capital and a strong marketing strategy are required for online success.

Business plans for websites are different beasts to those of bricks-and-mortar businesses, but you most certainly should not skip this step. Most web development companies will have somebody on staff to assist with the conceptual planning and realistic goal targets from an online perspective.

Start-up capital for most online operators needs to cover the cost of website development as well as realistic marketing costs to get the idea off the ground.

What’s your idea going to cost? Most customised websites with unique and interesting features start from $20,000.

What’s Hot

All the awesomeness of the web’s automation has won hearts in the past but customers now crave the essentials of traditional businesses; customer service and reliability. Unfortunately, it is usually the automation features that attract budding online entrepreneurs and it’s important to remember that customers require so much more to become regular website customers.

Automation trends now only impress when intelligent interpretation and intuition is used throughout websites. An example of this is where you fill out an online form and upon answering a question the form tries to predict the answer to your next question.

Delivering superb customer service through intelligent automation should be the goal of emerging web businesses. Think carefully about the text in automatic emails sent to your customers when they complete certain actions on the website, such as asking for more information or subscribing to your newsletter, as you can keep a visitor for much longer if you can continue to satisfy their curiosity.

Making More Money

Ultimately once your website is built, you’ll need to sink some marketing dollars into drawing visitors. The quickest way to do this is through Google’s AdWords program, or advertising on high profile websites within the region or industry in which you operate.

Many new websites skip some of the user testing techniques employed by the big websites to maximise profits. Try this simple one: find 5 to 10 people you know to participate. Just friends, work colleagues and family will be fine. Give them all a slightly different job to do on your website. For example, purchase 3 items using the shopping cart, or make an enquiry. Watch how they traverse the website, where they need to stop and think about their next action, and where they find the site easy and intuitive. Use this information to improve your customers’ experience.

The web is undoubtedly an exciting place to do business, and if you don’t lose sight of the basics of business, the road to success and profits will be much smoother.

This article was published in the May 2008 edition of In Touch In Business magazine.

Google has made it so easy to include a map on your website. Once you include the map it has all the same great functionality you see on the Google maps site: zooming, dragging, different views.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Go to Google Maps.
2. Search for your address.
3. On the right hand side of the map, click Link to This Page.
4. Copy the embed in website link, and paste it in an email to your web designer.

Below is an example of the result - and a map to my office if you’d like to chat with me over coffee.

View Larger Map

This article appeared in the April edition of In Touch In Business magazine.

Website statistics are an endless source of joy, wonder and mystery. Many website operators love to look at them, check the totals, admire the rises and lament the falls. They are the most important tool in online marketing toolbox. Carefully analysing a website’s statistical data allows unique and acute insight unparalleled by any other media. Through understanding the statistics a website can be in a constant state of improvement based on measured, proven observations.

All web hosting companies have statistics software running on the websites they host, so first thing to do is find out how to access these. Hosting stats are often very basic, and sometimes lack the detailed information required for a thorough analysis, but they’re good enough to get started.

Most people are keen to see how many people have visited their website, and are often shocked at how high the number is! The number which is most interesting to look for is the number of unique visitors that have visited a website. This number represents the people visiting a website within a given timeframe, usually a month. By comparing the number of unique visitors for each month over the course of a year seasonal trends can easily be seen allowing comparison with the same season in previous years.

Keywords are the next most exciting part of website statistics. These are the words people have typed into a search engine to find a website. Compare these against a list of desired keywords to see where the website might need more optimisation and content.

The most startling thing about examining a keywords stats list for the first time is that for most websites 80% of the traffic comes from keywords that have only been searched once, or twice. It is this reason that internet marketing experts encourage businesses to include more pages on a website, and to write articles, newsletters and blogs in order to capture the many highly relevant website visitors who search for niche and specific things.

Search engines and link partners which have sent visitors to a website are referrers. Most businesses will see Google as their top referrer, and this reflect Google’s position as having the lion share of search traffic within Australia. Websites which have unique content, and have actively sought quality link partners will see many websites in their referrer lists.

Quick Statistical Analysis

Monitor keywords by grouping them into themes. Compare the performance of these themes between months, checking changes against the number of enquiries, bookings or sales the website received. Using this method will quickly establish which themes are the ones that make money.

Monitor referring websites that deliver significant amounts of traffic and observe fluctuations. This is particularly important where online advertising is being paid for. Consider talking to referring webmasters about fluctuations in traffic, especially if a spike in sales has been experienced during this period. In the same way, pay close attention to new websites that have recently become referrers.

When comparing analyses to previous years, be sure to check against the season to observe trends.

Acting On Analysis

Sometimes analysing stats reveal the website advertising that isn’t working. Ensure you check how much traffic you’re receiving from any paid advertising and report this to sales staff when you’re asked to renew your advertising. Don’t be swayed by any numbers of ‘hits’ or visitors the website might claim to receive. What matters is how much traffic you receive from the advertising.

Changes in country demographic groups are easy to monitor, and quite interesting to investigate. Check to ensure website customers match target demographics of the business, otherwise changes to the website text might be in order.

Observing which keywords are working well, and which you don’t have a presence for. Specifically target the flagging keywords by improving the text content of the website. The search engines will only rank a website for words which exist strongly within the text.

A cleaver way to use stats is to identify downward or upward changes in traffic that will cause an unexpected change in sales trends. This allows for the swift introduction of pay-per-click advertising to boost sales numbers, where necessary.

Statistics Software

While hosting stats are quick and easy, many people prefer the deeper information that can be gathered from beefy statistics software such as Google Analytics.

Google’s software is completely free to use and install, and has strong customisable features which allow you to exactly track sales and enquiries to the city of origin, the keywords searched for within a search engine or the referring website. It also links with pay-per-click advertising programs such as Google AdWords.

Although Google Analytics is free, a web developer will need to install it. This will take between 30m – 2 hours depending on the level of customisation required.

Many business owners don’t get the chance to even give their website statistics a cursory glance, but serious web businesses will spend hours each month pouring over the numbers and tweaking their website for maximum results.

Now that everybody owns a digital camera there are a far greater number of amateur photographers who take their own photos for their website. Whilst I strongly recommend you hire a professional photographer, I realise this is cost prohibitive for many small businesses.

Here’s some tips for making your website photos look more attractive.

- Don’t ever use blurry or out of focus photos. Always reshoot these until you’ve got a crisp subject.

- When taking a series of photos of a similar theme, keep the background and lighting the same in each photo. This is particularly important when you have a shopping cart website and are displaying many products on the same page.

- Because the photos displayed on websites are quite small, less complex photos look much better. Try for shots with a single subject and a simple, plain background.

- Putting people in your photos will help your visitors put themselves in the picture. Carefully consider the age and look of your models though, as you will put some demographics offside by choosing models who your market don’t identify with.

- Include photos of you (the business owners), your team looking smart in their uniforms and your building. The internet is anonymous so photos of the management give visitors some people contact they miss from a face-to-face transaction. It also raises your credibility through recognition.