Blogs

The introduction of Google Sitelinks in 2007 came as part of major changes in the evolution of Google’s search result pages, and fundamentally changed the way searchers discover content. But how well do they really perform for us? Read more...

Before you launch into building a blog because everyone else is doing it and you think it'll drive millions of people to your site, have a little think about it. Read more...

Many years ago, the Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto figured some stuff out that led to the 80:20 rule. (For example 80% of your revenue comes from 20% of your customers). Based on this principle, many business books recommend getting rid of the 80% and focussing on the 20%. Seems sensible. Then came the internet and chaps like Chris “The Long Tail” Anderson who explain that niche markets contain massive revenue – selling small numbers of things to many people. Read more...

It's your customers who will make you a million. It is your customers who will:

• tell you what they want
• teach you what makes them choose one supplier over another
• visit your site
• buy your things

YOU DO NOT KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS.

In terms of what makes a website convert, the only thing you can truly trust is the behaviour of a significant number of visitors.

Don't trust articles that tell you what converts best (though they may have good ideas and they could well be right). You never know for sure until you run it by lots of customers.

We highly recommend usability groups to find out areas of your site with which you can experiment, just don't trust what you're told until you've thoroughly tested it. Read more...

Sure not all ugly sites make you rich. Nor do all sites that make you rich need to be ugly. However you can have an ugly site that makes you rich.

Consider the client Video Vultures who sells DVDs online. Their goal is: “to sell £50,000 worth of videos each month”. All they need is enough relevant traffic and sufficiently high conversion rates. How the client feels about the look of the site is unimportant. Read more...

We often come across highly motivated leaders who are passionate about their business. However their passion can sometimes cloud their judgement. With a vision of their website in mind, they demand design after design, iteration after iteration before finally agreeing to their perfect version.

However the goals of their website probably have nothing whatsoever to do with their vision of how the website should look. This is particularly apparent with website with clear conversion goals. How the website looks to the boss is irrelevant, all that matters is how it performs. Read more...

The SMART concept will take many of you back a few years but it’s still as relevant as ever. Businesses agree and set out goals to help them maintain a clear direction. To be most effective, goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-framed.

There’s some debate over what the “R” stands for. Most cases suggest “Realistic” but I’m not clever enough to understand how that differs from “Achievable”. I prefer “Relevant”.

Here’s my take on the definitions, using one of Video Vultures’ goals. Read more...