(Time to read this Blog is about 3.5 minutes)

Before we get to the main topic, here are a few things to get you thinking or smiling:

1. My Biz Quote of the week:
   “Create and effectively communicate a clear and compelling brand promise and brand personality.  If you don’t know who you are, how can we know who you are?”    
   …Donald Cooper.
    
2. Quick Biz Tip:
   4 tips to building a powerful brand…how do you rate?
   1.  Be relevant and authentic.
   2.  Be consistent…but also surprise and delight.
   3.  Be a story…and tell your story. From the beginning of time humans have loved stories. Stories engage us, draw us in and deepen relationships. 
   4.  Inspire sharing. Social Media allows your customers to share their experiences with you  and become ‘Brand Ambassadors’ for you.  Give them experiences worth sharing.

3. Traffic jams in space. There are 8,300 active satellites in Lower Earth Orbit (LEO) which is 250 km to 2,000 km above the earth.
    
4. News Flash! Today, March 20, is the ‘International Day of Happiness’.  It’s also ‘National Proposal Day’.  I don’t dare comment on the ironic juxtaposition of those two events.
    
5. What’s littering our beaches? According to environmental group, Ocean Wise, cigarette butts are the most common form of trash found on Canada’s beaches.

Now, to this week’s important topic:

 Cooper’s 8 important  tips for your website:  

Research shows that 81% of consumers and 94% of B2B buyers do online searches before making a purchase.  So, for many businesses, their website is the single most important part of their total marketing effort.  Here are my  8 important tips on how to improve your website.

Tip #1:  Strong graphic design that demands attention and clearly differentiates you from your competitors.  This is an art…not a do-it-yourself project for a side hustle for your 18-year-old niece. 

Tip #2:  ‘Up your video’.  Your website should have lots of video clips.  A website without lots of quality video is way out of date.  Most of us have become ‘lazy learners’.  We’d far rather watch a video than read a long article.  Video gets attention and video ‘sells’. 

Tip #3:  Use effective ‘Search Engine Optimization’ (SEO) to get your website at or near the top on major search engines.  If you’re ‘below the fold’, you don’t exist.  Once again, this is not task for amateurs.  Effective SEO is a science and an art.  Use a pro. 

Tip #4:  Check for typos, bad grammar and amateurishly written text.  In my work I see so many websites that are riddled with typos, bad grammar and badly written text that make them look unprofessional.   Everything we do, or don’t do, makes an impression and creates or destroys confidence.  How we tell our story matters. Writing great copy is an art.  Don’t have it done by amateurs.

Tip #5:   Make sure your website and the info on it is current.  I’ve just visited a client’s website and under ‘Events’ they list two events from 2013, three from early 2014…and nothing since then.  The clear impression is that nothing new and exciting has happened in this business for 3 1/2 years and that they’re dead from the ass up.  WOW, that’s bad for business.

Tip #6:   Be the ‘Caring Coach’. Offer lots of free info and ‘coaching’ tips on how to wisely choose and effective use and / or store or maintain and eventually dispose of what you sell.  What do people need to know about you and what you sell?  Help them make wise choices.  Does your website deliver that info in a simple and interesting way?  If not, fix it.

Tip #7:  Have a ‘Meet our Team’ page that creates confidence, build’s relationships with your target customers and honours your staff.  

Tip #8:  On your ‘Contact Us’ page, don’t use that stupid ‘fill-in-the-blanks’ grid that every business uses…and every customer and prospect hates.  Give actual names, telephone numbers and email addresses.  Make it easy for people to do business with you.

So, how do you find someone to update or replace your website? Here are my 4 key requirements for an effective website creator:

1. Strong Graphic Design as it relates to websites,
2. SEO Optimization expert,
3. Marketing and business smarts. Knowing what motivates people to make a buying decision? 
4. Compelling content creation and word-smithing that’s congruent with your Brand and style.

Very few web designers are experts or even journeymen in all of these requirements for a great website.  Most are mediocre graphic designers pretending to be excellent website creators.

Before you can start the website improvement journey you need to be clear about:

1. Who your target customers are. What do they value?  What do they fear and what are they really trying to do, functionally, emotionally and financially when they buy what you sell?
2. Who you are. What is your clear and compelling value and experience story that will ‘grab’ your target customers, clearly differentiate you from your competitors, make you ‘famous’ …and grow your bottom line? 

So, how will you use these tips and insights to improve the effectiveness of your website?   

That’s it for this week…

Stay safe…live brilliantly!       

Donald Cooper 

Donald Cooper speaks and coaches internationally on management, marketing, and profitability.  He can be reached by email at donald@donaldcooper.com in Toronto, Canada.