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

Many businesses like to use testimonials to raise their credibility. But because testimonials are easy to make up, they’re also difficult for some people to believe. Here’s what you should do to make your testimonials carry more weight with your visitors:

• Use the referrer’s full name.
  So if you were listing a testimonial from me, you’d use Nicky Jurd. Don’t use N.Jurd, or Nicky J, or NJ.
• Include a photo.
  People will recognise faces they’ve seen in the community, and it’s harder to fake a testimonial provided by someone who also is willing to show their face.
• Include a logo.
  When your testimonial is provided by someone within a company, with if that company will allow you to post their logo with the testimonial. Logos are instantly recognisable as a corporate symbol and will add considerable weight to the testimony.
• Link to their website.
  If the referrer has a website, include a link. They will then get some benefit from providing you with the testimonial, and visitors can review their website to check the credibility of that company.
• List the referrers position.
  This is particularly important with business testimonials. So if you were quoting myself you might use: Nicky Jurd, Partner, cityofcairns.com.

Have a look at these two testimonials and give me your thoughts on the one which appeals to you most:

Love your blog Nicky! I subscribe to your RSS feed and always gleefully read the snippets of website goodness you write every day. I encourage others to sign up for the RSS feed too. Keep up the good work.
B. Vere.

OR

Love your blog Nicky! I subscribe to your RSS feed and always gleefully read the snippets of website goodness you write every day.

I encourage others to sign up for the RSS feed too.

Keep up the good work.

Belinda Vere
Head Graphic Designer, cityofcairns.com.

Search engines don’t care what your website looks like. In fact, it even seems to prefer the ones most people would believe are old and in need of a re-design. Why is this so?

Google uses the text on your website to determine what you will rank for. It’s a major determining factor.

Google can’t read images. So it doesn’t matter how beautiful your sunrise picture is, or if you’re smiling on your corporate profile page.

Google isn’t fond of flash. Anything that moves, wiggles and blinks doesn’t contain a lot of information, so Google doesn’t look at it as seriously.

Google loves headings. Break up your text into logical pieces with headings on each. Don’t scrimp on this.

Google loves copy. The more text you write and the more pages your website contains will reward you with great rankings. Put important text up the top.

Google hates copiers. Don’t steal other people’s text. It doesn’t belong to you, and you wouldn’t like it if someone stole yours!

A trend of the 90’s which has persisted in the dark depths of the internet are background textures. These are images which when tiled next to each other produce a (hopefully) seamless pattern. Popular backgrounds in the early days were stars, logos, sand, crinkled paper and clouds.

Background textures should be used sparingly, if at all. They should definitely not have text written over the top of them.

If a texture is part of your brand, use it on the non-text areas of your website.

I’m fairly opinionated about this, but I an explicitly against including any sound on websites. Most especially background music.

Let’s say I’m sitting in my office surfing the web looking for a nice apartment by the beach to stay at on my upcoming tropical holiday to Cairns. I’m *supposed* to be working. The pleasant sounds of birds chirping and the beach rolling in starts blaring through my speakers. BUSTED! Everyone in the office looks toward my computer to see what I’m doing… so I quickly shut down my browser window to stop the sound.

You might think this isn’t likely on your website, but check your traffic stats. Most websites get a large percentage of their traffic during office hours, likely from people who are supposed to be working.

If you must use sound on your website, don’t play it by default. Allow your customers to turn it on if they want to hear it.

Small businesses, just by their size, have an air of uncertainty about them. Help your customers make the decision to do business with you by showing off your strengths as a small business:

1. You’re approachable.Include a good photo of yourself and your team on your website. Customers love being able to see who they’ll be speaking with and buying from.
2. You have a story.Hordes of small business owners went into business because they’re an expert, a specialist and have a great track record of doing what they do best. Tell the story on your website through a company history or professional profile page.
3. You’re easy to talk to.The phone number and premises address are easy to find on your site, and you answer your emails within 24h hours.
4. You take credit cards.Be confident about your payment methods, and proudly display the logos of the credit cards you accept on your website. Credit cards are big businesses. Displaying their logos acts as proof you’re operating a reputable business. If you accept credit card payments on your website also make a big deal of your secure payments area.
5. People already do business with you.Proudly display your business successes with testimonials of previous customers, informative lists of services you’ve conducted for which companies or a portfolio listing of people you’ve worked with. Wherever possible try to include full names, business logos and people’s photos - they’re much more effective.

Remember customers and businesses hide behind the anonymity of the internet. People will be happier doing business with you if you’re transparent, honest and keen.

One of the major annoyances customers experience with websites is trying to locate contact details, especially phone numbers. Amusingly, the worst offenders are often large corporations who should know better!

My preference is to include some basic contact details below the footer of every page on the website. This means that no matter which page your customer is on, the moment they make a buying decision they don’t need to search hard to find out how to contact you.

Have a clear, easy to find contact page. This should include your extended contact details including details like a map to your shop or office, your fax number, postal address and a contact form.

Please post great examples of contact pages you’ve seen on your surfing travels.

The text on your home page is the most important text on your website.

Your home page not only leads your visitors into the money-making parts of your website, but it also provides the most important terms search engines will use to rank you.

Without text on your home page you’ll fall behind competitors in the search engines, and annoy customers who’ve come to explore your site.

Consider the most important words you believe your customers will type into a search engine and ensure these are included on your home page. This might be your location and industry, like cairns web design, or it might be the product you’re selling, like tennis balls.

Summarise your website on your home page by including useful paragraphs and snippets about what information can be found throughout the website. Invite people to explore further through strong calls-to-action.

Most importantly, don’t let your web designer build you a home page with just images, and no text.

Small business owners on a tight budget are often tempted by the cheap prices of inexperienced web designers or the opportunities presented by tech-savvy family members. Unfortunately my firm has recently fixed a lot of problems caused by the creation of what we refer to as backyard websites.

If you’re serious about your business but don’t know much about the web here’s what you should consider when choosing someone to build your website:

• Has this person done a number of other business websites before?
  If so, have a look at them and ask other people what they think. Typical mistakes of an inexperienced developer include flashing or blinking text, dark coloured backgrounds with white text and blurry photos. If they have no previous experience with businesses, I strongly suggest you look for another developer.
• How much will the website cost?
  This might be a really simple consideration, but I strongly advise you to get a quote in writing which outlines what you will get. Websites are custom written, so be aware if you make lots of changes this will be more expensive. Your quote should detail how much extra changes will cost, and what warrants a chargeable extra.
• Will the website be search engine friendly?
  Many less-reputable website developers don’t know much about internet marketing, so this is a sure fire way to find out if they’re worth their money! Everyone wants their site included in Google, and your web developer needs to know what stops the search engines from good rankings.

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.