In “11 Reasons Customers Don’t Trust Your Web Site,” writer Lisa Barone shares common sense tips and easy-to-stop-doing strategies for making your site better.It’s more of a list of Web site mistakes you may be making including:

• It’s littered with typos. Do your best to find typos and squash them dead. It’s hard to believe what someone has written when every other word is spelled wrong. Also, it looks bad if your phone number is wrong. My number changed recently but I didn’t change it on my site until last week. (Oprah, if you tried to call before, try again!)

• You don’t say why you’re different. Guilty as charged. This is one of the points I hadn’t considered but will be changing shortly. No matter what type of expertise you have, there has to be something that sets you apart from your competitors. Highlight that difference on your site.

• It’s hard to navigate. If I’m struggling to find your Product pages, than your site must be for people way smarter than me. I’ll go elsewhere. When you’re closely tied to your company, product and site, you may not realize how easy your site is to navigate. Do an informal survey with business associates whose opinions you trust and make any changes to make it easier for visitors to find the information they need.

• There’s no About page. Help people trust your Web site by telling them about yourself, why you do what you do, how long you’ve been doing it, and by introducing to the people who run your store. Include a photo so people can attach a name to a face.

The beauty of a Web site is that you can make changes whenever you want. Finding the time to make those changes though, can be the challenge.

In a recent blog post HubSpot, a company that offers Internet marketing software and strategies, shares “10 Ways to Keep Your Blog Full of Content.” Many of their strategies are doable and best of all they cost little to no money to implement.  A few of them are:

• Think Beyond Text — You could create a blog post with pictures taken at an industry trade show. For a day, remove text as a possible form of blog post content and think about other content types that can be valuable to your readers. Yes, it’s time to pull out the video camera and get to work. I use a flip video because it’s small, reliable and the videos are easy to edit.

• Seek Out Guest Authors — Let other people think of ideas for you. Think about other experts and leaders in your industry and approach them about contributing a guest article to your blog. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to get others to contribute to your blog. Just make sure they provide helpful info instead of a long sales pitch.

• Make Lists — Lists can be how-to, best of, etc., but often serve as a catalyst for coming up with a fresh angle for a common topic. Whether you’re making a to-do list or a topic list, lists work. The annoying catch? After you make a list, you have to refer to it if you want it to work.

HubSpot offers free, online seminars about social media and Internet marketing (I’ve attended a few).  They always offer helpful tips that are easy to implement right away.  Aren’t those the best kind of tips?

In a recent blog post, New Marketing Labs, LLC president Chris Brogan stresses the need to develop a strong core. In this case he’s referring to your database, your email marketing, and some kind of community of prospects. He describes his four core tools of marketing.

Database – Your client and prospect list, your database, is the base of everything. If you don’t know who your customers are, who your next customers will be, then that’s where you start. Brogan uses BatchBook by BatchBlue for his contact database.  Constant Contact is another database manager to consider but a product endorsement by Brogan carries a lot of weight.

Email Marketing – Done well, email marketing is still the best, most effective marketing tool the digital world has ever created. The information you include in your e-mails needs to offer helpful information instead of endless sales pitches.

Message Boards/Forums – I co-launched Third Tribe Marketing with some of the world’s best bloggers, and we’ve got a thriving community going there (we talk about online marketing). I joined the program yesterday.  Their sales pitch was too hard to resist plus I’ve learned so much from the folks at Copyblogger (love their blog!) who are involved in the program.

The Frilly Stuff – I write a blog (actually several), and I shoot video reviews and interviews all the time. Multi-media including videos, photos, podcasts and other media are going from optional to mandatory. It’s time to shoot some videos this week!

What are you doing to develop your core?



“Unpaid public speaking is a fantastic way to drum up new business. Associations and Chambers of Commerce are always looking for free speakers educate and entertain at meetings. You’ll make your money from the “back of the room” after the event selling products/services, getting referrals and booking more gigs.”

—Leslie Guria, SpeakingBonanza

“As the person responsible for marketing our new website, I am online all of the time, blogging on all different websites. I share content from our site with others that currently have more traffic than ours, create links, and use Social Media (Twitter and Facebook) to post relevant information.”

—Julie ArnheimCo-Founder, RubbingNickels

“I launched a home-based publishing business in 1997 and by 1999 I was running it full-time and was able to hire my husband away from his “real job.” One of our marketing tips is to publish a free, opt-in weekly ezine or newsletter that provides high-quality content to your readers (potential customers) that they can’t find anywhere else. This reminds them that you and your products are there for them.”

—Angela Hoy, Publisher, BookLocker, WritersWeekly

Obviously they’re brilliant, generous and Internet savvy because they’re offering Internet Marketing for Smart People, a 20-part, free email course and continual newsletter. This course is down and dirty, quick and easy and best of all, packed with useful advice about Internet marketing.

Check the Internet and you’ll find hundreds of programs that promise to give you the “secrets” to Internet marketing. Sometimes you’ll see a photo of a guy on his yacht who wants to make it perfectly clear that he’s made a fortune from Internet marketing and you haven’t. My advice? Shop carefully and if you can get a high quality marketing course for free, grab it immediately.

After you’ve read through the free course, check out Copyblogger often. You won’t believe how much information is on their site. I never leave Copyblogger without learning at least one new thing. They know everything and I want to know it too (insert evil laugh).

“Something I’ve found very effective in increasing traffic is writing articles and then transforming them into multiple media. I’ll post the text version on article directories, the audio version on Associated Content and the video version on YouTube and Facebook. Then when I have four posted, I create a Squidoo Lens.”

—Carma Spence-Pothitt, President & CEO  DragonWyze Solutions

“Promotional strategies I’ve used include providing donations for silent auctions and welcoming new Chamber of Commerce members through my involvement in the local Chamber. Having recently added a retail site as another line of business, I’m exploring new ways to promote that.”

—Lynn Maria Thompson, President, Thompson Writing & Editing, Inc.

“To help reposition myself and my business from the competition, I decided to write a book titled Stretching A Dollar To Save And Make Thousands: An Entrepreneur’s Guide To Doing More With Less. To help promote my book and my business, I decided to start my own Internet radio show on Blogtalkradio.com, Stretching A Dollar For Entrepreneurs.”

—Lisa Sims, Author

What are you doing to market your business?

As a web developer, I’m often asked how much it costs to build a Web site. If you want a simple and generic Web site that doesn’t do much, it can be relatively cheap. If you want something custom with beautiful design and interactive features that will really appeal to your site’s visitors, it gets a bit more expensive. Here are a few tips to set expectations up front and get exactly the website you want.

Share Examples of Sites You Like

One of the best ways for a developer to get a feel for your tastes is to show him or her a few sample Web sites. Discuss what you like/dislike about each example, evaluating elements such as fonts, colors, layout, graphics, functionality, sections, navigation, and content.

Show Your Existing Stuff

If you’ve done any sort of marketing for your brand in the past, show samples of those campaigns. This can include logos, brochures, business cards, catalogs, giveaways, newsletters, old websites, and advertising. Even if some of these things contain branding you no longer want to use, it helps the Web designer get a feel for where you’ve been, where you are, and where you’re going with respect to your brand’s evolution.

Have Some Ideas

Bring your brainstorms, daydreams, things you’ve seen, and things you haven’t seen. If there’s a feature you’ve never seen on a competitor’s Web site that you think might work on yours, discuss it with your design firm. In the age of Web 2.0 the sky really is the limit. However be open to feedback. Designers spend a lot of time on the web and can offer guidance on things that may or may not work.

Think About the User

Why would people visit your Web site? Why would they come back again and again? Can your Web site essentially become a virtual customer service employee for your company? Focus on the user. A lot of brands try to create a website with cool features and things that are there to make the company look good, but they forget the site is there for the user. Cater to them. If your end-user is having a great experience, you’re going to be happy with the investment you’ve made in your new Web site.

Determine the Essential Pieces

You may not be able to afford everything you want in the first iteration of your new Web site. That’s fine and if you plan accordingly, adding features at a later time should be no problem. Dreaming big is good, but focus on the clearest path to launching a site that looks professional, has good content, and is shaped around the user’s experience. The bells and whistles can wait if they need to.

The more you can plan up front, the smoother the Web site development process will be. These tips will help both you and your designer visualize the Web site that you really want and put you on the path to a successful site launch.

Dave Yankowiak is a web-minded individual and owner of Lift Development LLC. He lives in Grand Rapids, MN and blogs about his “work anywhere” lifestyle on http://www.anywhereman.com.