John Allsopp

Professionally engineered Internet solutions for humans

The power of celebrity: 30 June 2009: Marketing by numbers: Scroll down in this The Paragon bed and breakfast in Scarborough website and you'll see a lovely picture of Hayley from Coronation Street endorsing my client. It was pinned to the back of the bar.; They mentioned it, I photographed it, retouched the pin holes off it, and put it on the website last Wednesday (six days ago).; Since then the conversion rate (enquiries/visitors x 100) has risen 55% compared to the equivalent period a week prior, and 155% compared to two weeks ago. OK, some volatility there, so this isn't a scientific test, but it seems likely Hayley has helped.; So when Hayley sent her publicity photograph to The Paragon with her note, that must be part of her routine. She must do it every day as part of being a celebrity.; It's a gift. She knows (probably better than we did) that that was money in the bank for us. With that on our website, we just got half as much business again as without her.; Her sending of thank-you cards relies also on our knowledge of its worth. We might just say "ahhh, she's nice" and pin it up somewhere. But if we know what it's worth, we'll use it far and wide. We'll blog it. We'll use it in direct mail. And in doing so, we'll also be sending out a message that Hayley is a nice person, building her 'brand' too.; It's a win-win situation, good for everyone.; It's my first encounter with celebrity endorsement. If Hayley can add 50% to the business of a local B&B, well, I'm beginning to understand.
Pic test: 29 June 2009: Marketing by numbers: Google provides the ability to split test your web pages. You just create two different versions of your page and Google chooses which one to serve. It then measures the difference in conversion (what percentage of visitors buy something or enquire) and once you have enough traffic through the site to be confident in your conclusion, you can run with the best option and split test something else.; I've recently split test a photograph on a page. I inherited the page and the photograph was a standard, boring photograph that almost everyone else had a version of on their site too. It was like an unwritten rule that everyone had to use the same sort of pic.; So I applied the rule about us fearing loss more than we want gain, and I found a photograph that showed not the thing you'll get if you buy, but the problem we were trying to solve. I split tested that against the original pic.; The result? A 32% increase in conversion.; Run lots of split tests on your site so it can evolve and become better. It saves arguments anyway. Disagree with someone about something on the page? Run a test.
Page title change gets page 1 position: 24 June 2009: Marketing by numbers: I'm working for a local b&b and, having spent £300 on pay per click ads, worked out that while those were generating traffic, pay per click visitors weren't turning into enquiries at anything like the rate that normal Google Organic enquiries were.; I'd previously worked out which combination of Scarborough and b&b was most often searched, so I knew which phrase to target. No point working hard to get a good Google search position on a phrase no-one searches on, we want traffic.; I also knew that the page title was important for page ranking. So I optimised the page title for their homepage, that was on the 29 May.; I left them alone for a while and came back to it today. Whereas they used to rank 35th for the favourite phrase, they now rank 13th. Sounds like a second page listing. No, 13th after Google Local. So, a search for my key phrase brings up a Google map and 10 local listings, then there's a directory double listing, then there's us. Jeepers Creepers, that's a number 3 listing just below the best performing directory and against all the other b&bs in Scarborough. OK, maybe b&b's aren't the best online marketers around, but they employ perfectly good web developers.; The curious thing is, I'm not sure when the ranking changed and if I assume perhaps it happened after a week, well traffic from Google organic has only risen by 27% comparing 6-23 June to 16 May - 2 June. I don't think it's a seasonal variation because the sum of all the other traffic is essentially unchanged.; I have to say I expected more traffic from such a great position but it's possible it's only just happened. Comparing yesterday's traffic from Google organic to Tuesday last week, it's up 143%. That's more like it.; The other nice thing about page title changes is, yes there's some intelligence to apply in choosing what to write so perhaps it takes at most half an hour, well that's a great result for half an hour's work.; So, what's next? Well I've still not hit my traffic waypoint, and the home page isn't the only page I could optimise, there are all the others too. So I don't have to just target one high-traffic keyphrase, I can target a handful ...
Wix sticks it to web norms: 24 June 2009: Client "I've decided to use wix.com to build my website for now". OK, well, I know what to expect but go to check it out anyway. Here's what the wix.com homepage looks like for me:; So, what are the chances of whatever wix.com does working on Mac or Linux, on handheld devices, on different screen sizes. It looks like accessibility and usability are just ignored.; But the guy's got no money. And he wants to sell on the Internet. I said eBay, etsy, Paypal, Facebook pages, YouTube, blogger. You don't need a website. He obviously thinks different. What can I say?; Imagine I sell cars and a guy comes in and wants to buy a car. His budget .. £1. So I say he'll need a little bit more than that, but I've got a banger for £50, buy that and AA Relay and you're good to go. He says, actually, I've a shopping trolley and an old lawnmower motor. He'll use a torch at night. He thinks that's a better option. I know it's not legal on the roads and is dangerous. But the customer leaves the showroom anyway. It's that sort of thing. Really curious.
The psychology of persuasion: 23 June 2009: The other day I had an enquiry from someone with a well developed website. When I wrote about the market it seemed (to me) clearly to be addressing, she said later she got upset because that wasn't really the market she was aiming at.; Everyone wants everything "today", but her problem was, she'd gone quite a long way like that and ended up with a nice website addressing the wrong problem. And no sales. She'd spent her money, and her project wasn't working.; So there really is something to be said for looking before you leap, and I don't think there's anything more important than defining your market. Forget 'ideas'. Markets are it.; When writing, you have to write to. You need a clear idea of who you're writing to. What is your reader like? What would attract them? What would persuade them?; You know I'm trying, on and off, to develop this taxi insurance business. I wanted to write to taxi drivers, so I needed to understand them better.; I started with a questionnaire, and then I let my partner loose on the ones we got back. She's a work psychologist.; Her report really shocked me. After the introductory page, the findings boiled down to one page of seriously actionable advice. And it meant a complete rewrite of my taxi page. In other words, I'd been getting it really wrong.; So, that text is at the client for clearance, once it's up I'll link you to it and you'll see what I mean. Assuming I don't get fired for being too clever for my own good I'm going to test it and we'll see if it makes a cash difference. If so, we're on to something.
More writing: 19 June 2009: Hmm, I kinda missed the point with that last blog. The point was that I spent a little time working for the Microloan Foundation which might become my favourite charity if they are not careful. They basically seek out Malawian women who, if they weren't in poverty would be supporting their families and community. If they have a way of making a living and are just missing a bit of equipment or whatever, the MLF makes a small loan.; Christina from CGA Management had been running a .. I don't want to get my terminology wrong here .. basically she'd been helping the MLF work out what their 'forever values' are. For instance, one value is they listen to the people they are helping and they provide the means for them to achieve what they want. There's no dictating what we think would work best. No big irrigation projects. It's a million small helps.; Having done all the workshops and meetings, CGA had identified key values but wanted someone to put them into words so they could be communicated and 'lived' by everyone concerned.; Given that writing isn't what I have as my uppermost strength, I did wonder whether I was the man for the job. I mean, there are actual writers around.; But I worried away at it and managed to reach some clarity. Peter, a/the founder of the MLF, is very hands-on so I expected a whole load of feedback from him about the words I'd written. But in the end, we wrestled some big ideas that ended really as a couple of minor tweaks and it was done.; All of which is a pre-amble to reporting what Peter (MLF) said: "These are wonderfully written. You have captured everything, they really put the icing on the cake of Christina's work." and "Just to let you know that the values in their rewritten format were formally agreed at the Trustee meeting yesterday and received some warm words of support across the board. Christina thanks for everything you have done on this and John you have worked magic."; Which is all rather beautiful. I'll show you the text if I spot it published somewhere. It's for them to publish, not me.
Writing: 18 June 2009: I wasn't triffically good at writing at school and I still wonder (every time) when I write what I've done in the day for a client and head the email "Today's progress" whether that apostrophe should be there. And yes, I've read (and enjoyed) Lynn Truss.; And as you know, I studied Internet Computing for three years to get my degree, and I've been studying Internet marketing for as long.; So it really does surprise me that people come to me for my writing. For some reason .. some say there's a rhythm to it.; I think what it is is that when I took three aptitude tests in the careers office in my final uni year, one was numerical skills, one was shapes, and the other was written comprehension, I discovered that I'm really not good at written comprehension.; I think that forces me to be clear and to the point. To chop things up and make them simple.; Isn't that weird though? My weakness turns out to be a strength.; Ha! One more thing to hit mediocre training companies over the head with when they turn up wanting to discover everyone's weaknesses and bring them all up to speed. I never 'got' that. Nope .. work on your strengths, let others (whose strengths are in your weak spots) do what you're bad at.; Except writing. Hmm. This is getting complicated. I'll get my goat.; /Coat. Damn smellchecker
Marketing by numbers: 16 June 2009: I wonder if I could sustain a marketing by numbers blog series, or even a brand. For instance, 4 days ago I improved the meta-title of a web page. The page was in the depths of nowhere: position 196 in Google. 4 days later it's at position 145 and we've had 27% more visitors.; You can get Google to rank sites by just considering their page title alone. By that method, my page's ranking was below the ranking is was getting by an ordinary search. Therefore, the page title was dragging the whole page down.; Running the same check now, the page ranks higher than normal by page title alone. The page title is now an asset that's pulling the page up.; Fabulous. Make a great change to your page title, get 27% more visitors. Next up is the page content.; And the "marketing by numbers" thing? I think that's what I do. But the problem with branding myself as Mr Marketing by Numbers is it misses out the inspiration part. I use the numbers to tell me where to focus, then I use psychology, sales and marketing acumen and usability for inspiration and ideas on the human level. I'm quite big on trying to deliver warmth and love over the Internet. Big on relationships. Big on humanity and emotion. So it's a mixture. Maybe I'm the Kraftwerk of Internet marketing. Or maybe no-one would understand that either.; Google doesn't understand it. The Google ads to the right there ---> which are supposed to be relevant to the page content, when I first published this page: "Huge Curtains Sale Now On". How?