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Actual for You - Understanding Website Users
Let's say you've gotten to the point that you have an online business plan. You've found your niche and your particular way to make money online. You've broken it down into logical steps and found the services and tools you'll need to make it happen. But the risk of your plan falling into bits is still looming on the horizon.What is this great and unthinkable force? Is it some societal conspiracy to insure you remain downtrodden? Are all the nasty things people have been telling you about your business aspirations real? The good news is that the source of the problem is well within your control and nothing remotely sinister. The bad news is that far too many people don't do anything about it. In fact, they don't do anything at all, because the best way to kill an online business plan is
The Answer Lies In the Sound of the Human Voice
With the advent of high-speed connections, more and more websites are employing audio voice-overs to resolve the problem of ineffectual Web-copy and the need to get to the point quickly and effectively before the prospect loses interest.
Unfortunately many of the audio voice-over installations that now populate the Web are 'home-made' and as a result are amateurish and counter-productive. As important as it is the to add a human voice to your site; it is more important to do it properly.
One of the things we have always said to clients is that the Web offers small companies the opportunity to look competent and substantial, and the danger for big companies to look inept and irrelevant. Having a CEO drone-on in mind-numbing market-speak is as damaging as having an overly excited entrepreneur indulging in exaggerated hyperbole. Even highly successful sales
We hear a lot about business ethics issues in the United States and yet our businessmen and women are some of the most ethical business practitioners anywhere in the world. The transparency, integrity and accountability in American business is not found anywhere else in the world. With all the disclosure, over regulation, lawsuits and government forms it would be difficult to call any American businessperson unethical. Yet, we find that the mass media hysteria, incited by folks who do not understand commerce has cheated the positive American opinion about business ethics.The truth of the matter is that ethics in business, the military, sports, government or even the nonprofit sector in the United States is a reflection of the overall ethics of the average human in our civilization. For someone
How Do Visitors Use Websites?
What UIE has found is that websites fail when visitors can't easily find what they're looking for. Now that may sound obvious, but the fact is most websites do not do a good job of presenting appropriate useable information to their users.
In designing a website we must take into consideration these facts:
1. people find it harder to read text on a computer screen,
2, people read 25% slower on computers than from print material, and
3. 79% of people merely scan Web-text for headlines, captions, and bulleted points, ignoring the rest until they find what they're looking for.
Faulty Design Loses Customers and Business
This scanning process has a definite affect on the information visitors are able to garner from your site. Unless your copy-text is specifically formatted in this type of headline-point-form style, you stand a good chance visitors will:
1. miss your critical marketing message,
2. only pick-up a portion of your message, and/or
3. misunderstand your message altogether.
UIE's research has come up with some startling facts that most IT people will find hard to accept:
on-site search engines receive a consistently low level of user satisfaction,
on-site searches only receive a 30% satisfaction rate,
well-organized links are more effective than searches, and
appropriately categorized links receive a 53% satisfaction level.
Seducible Moments
Jared Spool of UIE also found in his research that you couldn't attract visitors to company-desired information until those visitors have at least partially completed the task they initially intended when they entered your site.
There is an appropriate spot on your site to present website visitors with the information you want them to see. Spool refers to this as the 'seducible moment,' the time when a visitor can be lured away from their quest to respond to your pitch. Finding the seducible moments on your site requires an understanding of how people look for information.
Instrumental and Causal Searches
There are basically two kinds of information searches: instrumental and causal. Instrumental Searches occur when a visitor knows exactly what he or she wants to find; for example, a parent might be searching for the latest edition of a specific video game for their child.
A Causal Search is more general; the same parent may be searching for video games but not know which one they want to buy. Recognizing how people search and what they need to find to satisfy that search will help in deciding where your lures and pitches should be placed.
The Pitch and The Palaver
Most business websites deliver too much extraneous material and not enough decision-making information: the information people need to answer your call to action. To avoid frustrating Web-visitors and losing them to alternative website options, your Web-based information should fall under one of the following categories:
how to use the site,
defining the need,
describing the solutions,
refining the choice,
building confidence, and
call to action
The question remains, no matter how many headlines and bulleted lists we use to present this material, how much of it will attention-deficit, time- constrained visitors actually scan, and more importantly how much of that will they retain? And what if your offering is complex? The abbreviated short-form information presentation approach may lead to confusion rather than clarification.
The Answer Lies In the Sound of the Human Voice
With the advent of high-speed connections, more and more websites are employing audio voice-overs to resolve the problem of ineffectual Web-copy and the need to get to the point quickly and effectively before the prospect loses interest.
Unfortunately many of the audio voice-over installations that now populate the Web are 'home-made' and as a result are amateurish and counter-productive. As important as it is the to add a human voice to your site; it is more important to do it properly.
One of the things we have always said to clients is that the Web offers small companies the opportunity to look competent and substantial, and the danger for big companies to look inept and irrelevant. Having a CEO drone-on in mind-numbing market-speak is as damaging as having an overly excited entrepreneur indulging in exaggerated hyperbole. Even highly successful sales p
As a Work at Home Business you need to have at least 7 E-Mail Accounts.1 - Personal Account yourname@Domian.comThis is the Account you only give Your Friends and Family.It is just that a Personal Account. To keep this account asSpam Free as Possible Never Mix this Account with yourBusiness Account.2 - Business Account Biz@Domain.comThis Account is your Main Business account and should begiven only to your Business Partners and Associates. Againyou do not want to Advertise this account or use it to signup for Programs.3 - Sign-Up Account(s)Most Internet Marketer will have many Sign-Up Accounts.These are the Accounts to use to sign-up for programs andinformation on the Internet. Here are Some Exampl
Faulty Design Loses Customers and Business
This scanning process has a definite affect on the information visitors are able to garner from your site. Unless your copy-text is specifically formatted in this type of headline-point-form style, you stand a good chance visitors will:
1. miss your critical marketing message,
2. only pick-up a portion of your message, and/or
3. misunderstand your message altogether.
UIE's research has come up with some startling facts that most IT people will find hard to accept:
on-site search engines receive a consistently low level of user satisfaction,
on-site searches only receive a 30% satisfaction rate,
well-organized links are more effective than searches, and
appropriately categorized links receive a 53% satisfaction level.
Seducible Moments
Jared Spool of UIE also found in his research that you couldn't attract visitors to company-desired information until those visitors have at least partially completed the task they initially intended when they entered your site.
There is an appropriate spot on your site to present website visitors with the information you want them to see. Spool refers to this as the 'seducible moment,' the time when a visitor can be lured away from their quest to respond to your pitch. Finding the seducible moments on your site requires an understanding of how people look for information.
Instrumental and Causal Searches
There are basically two kinds of information searches: instrumental and causal. Instrumental Searches occur when a visitor knows exactly what he or she wants to find; for example, a parent might be searching for the latest edition of a specific video game for their child.
A Causal Search is more general; the same parent may be searching for video games but not know which one they want to buy. Recognizing how people search and what they need to find to satisfy that search will help in deciding where your lures and pitches should be placed.
The Pitch and The Palaver
Most business websites deliver too much extraneous material and not enough decision-making information: the information people need to answer your call to action. To avoid frustrating Web-visitors and losing them to alternative website options, your Web-based information should fall under one of the following categories:
how to use the site,
defining the need,
describing the solutions,
refining the choice,
building confidence, and
call to action
The question remains, no matter how many headlines and bulleted lists we use to present this material, how much of it will attention-deficit, time- constrained visitors actually scan, and more importantly how much of that will they retain? And what if your offering is complex? The abbreviated short-form information presentation approach may lead to confusion rather than clarification.
The Answer Lies In the Sound of the Human Voice
With the advent of high-speed connections, more and more websites are employing audio voice-overs to resolve the problem of ineffectual Web-copy and the need to get to the point quickly and effectively before the prospect loses interest.
Unfortunately many of the audio voice-over installations that now populate the Web are 'home-made' and as a result are amateurish and counter-productive. As important as it is the to add a human voice to your site; it is more important to do it properly.
One of the things we have always said to clients is that the Web offers small companies the opportunity to look competent and substantial, and the danger for big companies to look inept and irrelevant. Having a CEO drone-on in mind-numbing market-speak is as damaging as having an overly excited entrepreneur indulging in exaggerated hyperbole. Even highly successful sales
Most small and medium size bricks and mortar businesses now have websites. Thats a good thing, right?It depends.Lets face it. Most business websites are a waste of electricity and bandwidth.Here are my top five reasons why you need to can your website:1. Unclear purpose.Why did you create or pay someone to create a website for your business? Because everyone says you need a site? To sell your products or services? To handle customer service?If you don't have clear objectives as to what you wish to accomplish with your website, you can be sure your visitors won't have a clue.2. No content worth reading.Free information is the coin of the Internet realm. Visitors who stumble upon your site don't care about your company history, your mission sta
There is an appropriate spot on your site to present website visitors with the information you want them to see. Spool refers to this as the 'seducible moment,' the time when a visitor can be lured away from their quest to respond to your pitch. Finding the seducible moments on your site requires an understanding of how people look for information.
Instrumental and Causal Searches
There are basically two kinds of information searches: instrumental and causal. Instrumental Searches occur when a visitor knows exactly what he or she wants to find; for example, a parent might be searching for the latest edition of a specific video game for their child.
A Causal Search is more general; the same parent may be searching for video games but not know which one they want to buy. Recognizing how people search and what they need to find to satisfy that search will help in deciding where your lures and pitches should be placed.
The Pitch and The Palaver
Most business websites deliver too much extraneous material and not enough decision-making information: the information people need to answer your call to action. To avoid frustrating Web-visitors and losing them to alternative website options, your Web-based information should fall under one of the following categories:
how to use the site,
defining the need,
describing the solutions,
refining the choice,
building confidence, and
call to action
The question remains, no matter how many headlines and bulleted lists we use to present this material, how much of it will attention-deficit, time- constrained visitors actually scan, and more importantly how much of that will they retain? And what if your offering is complex? The abbreviated short-form information presentation approach may lead to confusion rather than clarification.
The Answer Lies In the Sound of the Human Voice
With the advent of high-speed connections, more and more websites are employing audio voice-overs to resolve the problem of ineffectual Web-copy and the need to get to the point quickly and effectively before the prospect loses interest.
Unfortunately many of the audio voice-over installations that now populate the Web are 'home-made' and as a result are amateurish and counter-productive. As important as it is the to add a human voice to your site; it is more important to do it properly.
One of the things we have always said to clients is that the Web offers small companies the opportunity to look competent and substantial, and the danger for big companies to look inept and irrelevant. Having a CEO drone-on in mind-numbing market-speak is as damaging as having an overly excited entrepreneur indulging in exaggerated hyperbole. Even highly successful sales
We all know that ranking #1 in search engines, especially Google is the most sought after achievement of any websites that are online now. Because of the vast database of search results, the average users only bother to look at the first few results to hope to find what they are looking for.Before, there was only statical reports that at least showed prove to this. Recently however there are studies that show the eye movements of Google users with the latest eye-tracking tools. The results of the study showed very compelling evidence on the behavior of an average user. A dominant "triangle" like visual can be seen from this result.The researchers called this pattern a "golden triangle" at the top of result pages. The triangle extends across the top natural search result, then angles back to
The Pitch and The Palaver
Most business websites deliver too much extraneous material and not enough decision-making information: the information people need to answer your call to action. To avoid frustrating Web-visitors and losing them to alternative website options, your Web-based information should fall under one of the following categories:
how to use the site,
defining the need,
describing the solutions,
refining the choice,
building confidence, and
call to action
The question remains, no matter how many headlines and bulleted lists we use to present this material, how much of it will attention-deficit, time- constrained visitors actually scan, and more importantly how much of that will they retain? And what if your offering is complex? The abbreviated short-form information presentation approach may lead to confusion rather than clarification.
The Answer Lies In the Sound of the Human Voice
With the advent of high-speed connections, more and more websites are employing audio voice-overs to resolve the problem of ineffectual Web-copy and the need to get to the point quickly and effectively before the prospect loses interest.
Unfortunately many of the audio voice-over installations that now populate the Web are 'home-made' and as a result are amateurish and counter-productive. As important as it is the to add a human voice to your site; it is more important to do it properly.
One of the things we have always said to clients is that the Web offers small companies the opportunity to look competent and substantial, and the danger for big companies to look inept and irrelevant. Having a CEO drone-on in mind-numbing market-speak is as damaging as having an overly excited entrepreneur indulging in exaggerated hyperbole. Even highly successful sales
What are some tips for having an effective human resource management plan? First of all, it has to address the facts that business fortunes rise and fall periodically, employees and talent needs change and evolve, workforces age and retire in perhaps unplanned ways that do not match business needs. Also the market value of talent changes over time, sometimes becoming more valuable or less valuable.Business focus:Be a best business place to work, not just a best place to work. Create a human resource management strategy to live with throughout the business cycle. Test some alternative solutions assuming growth and shrinkage of the number of customers and their profitability. Reward people who have helped the organisation to succeed.Emphasise key skills:Mentor staff with the cruc
The Answer Lies In the Sound of the Human Voice
With the advent of high-speed connections, more and more websites are employing audio voice-overs to resolve the problem of ineffectual Web-copy and the need to get to the point quickly and effectively before the prospect loses interest.
Unfortunately many of the audio voice-over installations that now populate the Web are 'home-made' and as a result are amateurish and counter-productive. As important as it is the to add a human voice to your site; it is more important to do it properly.
One of the things we have always said to clients is that the Web offers small companies the opportunity to look competent and substantial, and the danger for big companies to look inept and irrelevant. Having a CEO drone-on in mind-numbing market-speak is as damaging as having an overly excited entrepreneur indulging in exaggerated hyperbole. Even highly successful sales people can fail at delivering effective voice-over messages because voice-overs alone lack the visual clues used in face- to-face sales presentations.
Effective website voice-over presentations require:
properly written scripts designed for oral presentation,
professional voice-over talent with a signature character,
an understanding of how and where voice should be used, and
accompanying key-phrase visuals to increase memory retention.
A lot of the sites we see, or should I say hear, merely parachute audio into their sites without a great deal of thought as to why and how it's being used. Adding voice to your website is not about implementing the hottest trend or using the newest do-it-yourself presentation application; it's about giving website visitors the information they need to do business with your company.
As mentioned earlier website visitor satisfaction is measured by whether visitors find what they're looking for. In order for prospects to find what they're looking for, they need to know
1. how to use your site,
2. what problems your offerings resolve,
3. what choices they have to make,
4. how to refine those choices to the best option,
5. how to respond to your call to action, and
6. what you do if things go wrong.
All these customer satisfaction elements can be delivered with a properly planned professionally executed audio voice-over implementation.
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