I wasn’t able to cover everything I had written down as talking points, so I have decided to post my notes and suggestions covered in the segment below.

Discussion Topic: “How can business owners leverage their websites and online marketing to increase revenue?”

• What are some ways business owners can improve the performance of their website and increase traffic?
  • Creating good content that people want to share – Search engines are looking for well written content that is most responsive to the searchers request. The more content you have out there, the more search traffic you can potentially get.
  • Writing articles for other websites, which positions you as the expert – Offer to guest blog on industry websites. This will open you up to a new audience, position you as an expert, and provide valuable backlinks to your website.
  • Issuing press releases – Brings credibility, targeted traffic, and back links to your website.
  • Making your website simple and easy to navigate, make sure to fix problems like broken links or formatting issues, and make sure the phone number, address and contact link are display prominently.
  • Getting high quality links to your website. Links are in a way, the currency of the internet. If search engines see other websites are linking back to your site, they assume you have good information people care about, and that you must be an authority on that subject, and as a result, you’ll perform better in search.
• Once you’ve been able to get more traffic, how can you convert that new traffic into more revenue for your business?
  • Psychology of user interaction – In the same way people read a newspaper, web users interact with a website. Position important call to action elements in locations that grab the users attention, and drive them to take a specific action. Remove clutter and make sure each page focuses on a specific call to action – eg., adding an item to their cart, filling out a contact form, signing up for your newsletter, etc.
  • Tracking user data and metrics – Just as you track specific metrics of your business, you should also be tracking metrics of your website. Where are users coming from, which pages are they leaving (or bouncing) on, which keywords are they using, etc. and then analyzing this data to continually improving the performance of your website.
• Is there value in devoting resources to social media?
  • It’s different for every business and industry. It will come easier for some, and harder for others. Social media is all about connecting with people on a personal level. It can also level the playing field with your competition, even if they have larger marketing budgets. This is a place where you can get creative, express who you really are, who your company is and their values, and provide real personal service. You can create a community of people who really care about your service or product, and will be willing to share it with others. If you are a consultant, it can be an easy way to communicate your ideas, build a following and establish yourself as an expert
• Should business owners be spending money on “paid advertising” such as Google Adwords and similar marketing avenues?
  • Search Engine Marketing, Adwords and others can be effective when supplementing your organic efforts as we just talked about. Many business owners put up a website, and don’t bother (either because they don’t know, or don’t have the time) with the organic website optimization, they go straight to paying for clicks. Which is great, it can get you traffic, but it’s a bit like building your house on sand. If you run out of money, you lose your traffic. It’s also important that you’re able to track the performance of these campaigns, setup A/B split testing to find out what ads and landing pages and messages work best, which keywords perform better than others, and so on. Never trust anyone who guarantees results or placement – no matter how effective our efforts are, no matter how much we know about what search engines look for, we ultimately cannot control how they look at us and place us in search.
• What’s one thing businesses should focus on with their websites in 2013?
  • Making your website and message more mobile friendly. 20-40% of your website traffic is likely to come via mobile devices, and that number will continue to grow. Making sure your website is responsive to these devices is key to having an effective website that converts. Try accessing your website from a mobile device – Is your website easy to use? Is it easy to read? Does it format correctly? Is there are clear message? Can you easily be contacted? Mobile users are looking for specific information, and quickly. They want to find your address or phone number, or pictures and information on a product – Make it easy, and make sure it “closes the deal”
  • If you look at your competitors, I’d bet many aren’t doing a lot of these things. You only have to do just a little bit more than they are, and you’ll come out ahead.

Why should you care about your brand colors? Studies have shown that a product’s color influences 60 to 80 percent of a customer’s purchasing decision, meaning color can make or break a product. Consumers are acutely aware of whether or not a brand and logo color really connect, and color is the first thing a consumer will notice about your logo. It costs your company next to nothing to choose a color, but making the wrong decision could cost your company in the long run.

To find out more about choosing the right colors, click here.

Embrace Your Website and the Internet

Is your website generating revenue? Is your website bringing in customers? How many dollars are your website and Internet efforts bringing in each month? If you don’t know these numbers, you should.

Unique visitors, abandonment rate, conversion rate, traffic sources, fans/followers, Search Engine Optimization. If you don’t know these terms, you ought to learn them.

There is money to be made selling parts online. Lots of money.  The operators who are growing every month are doing it by selling more online. Don’t be left behind.

Whether you hire a firm to do your web marketing or DIY, you need to have a roadmap. In this article, I will provide a brief guide to help you think strategically about how to increase your online sales.

Developing a Winning Strategy

Begin by defining your goals and setting expectations. This strategy session should include any firm you’ve hired, and any employees and managers who will be involved in helping your prospects find your site and make inquiries and purchases – even the part-time kid who will be writing your blog posts and Craigslist ads should be sitting in.

This meeting should help create a vision for a new site that includes the pages and functionality it will have. You need to think about why visitors come and how the site can help them get the information they need to make an inquiry or purchase. You should emerge from the session with a clear picture of what the new site or redesign will look like.

Finding the Keywords: Free Tools

If part of your strategy for bringing visitors to your site is having them find you based upon inquiries made in Google, Bing, other search engines, you need to know how people look for the parts you sell.

Your customers probably don’t ask for parts with quite the same words you use. Think of it this way – You keep track of what cars and parts sell, so you can buy more of those parts. You don’t guess what parts sell (we hope). So keeping track of the words that your customers type in to Google will help you create web content that helps them find you when they need what you have.

Google has a free tool you can use for keyword research. You start with a group of keywords and phrases that are relevant to your yard.  For example, used domestic parts, used ford parts, etc. Google will then give you a list of related keywords and phrases that its users type in when they are looking for those things.

You may find some you never thought about. That’s what this exercise is for. You may also find phrases that are not relevant at all – just remove those. You should download this list. We’ll be using this later. To find the free keyword tool, go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Content is King

Creating content regularly is probably the single biggest factor in achieving better search rankings. How often you add content is less important than that you add some regularly – once or twice a week or even every day.   Google favors content that is both new and useful.

Write articles and blog posts that use the keywords and phrases from your keyword research. For example, you might write an article about used Ford motors. The user of the search engine wants information that helps find the right Ford engine for his car or some other specific.

The search engine wants hints to help it determine that the content you have created is the answer that the user needs. You can give the search engine hints by placing the keywords in the right places. The phrase should be on the page in headings on the page and in the page’s title tag.

The search engine is also looking at what links point at your page and the text of those links is to help it determine what your page is about.  Make it easy for both the user and the search engine to see what your pages are about and why they are the best answer to certain searches.

Converting Traffic to Dollars

Converting the user is getting them to take an action that you want them to take. That could be filling out a contact/lead form, dialing the phone number, adding a part to their basket and checking out, etc. You should have a goal of converting as many of your visitors to customers as you can.

The key to converting your users is to write compelling content, and lead them into the direction you want, with pictures, video, or words. You want to maintain a clean, flowing website that has a clear direction, focus and call to action. Make it clear what the next step is and make it easy for the visitor to take it.

Maintaining an email list is vital to your success. Most businesses fail to build an email list, mostly because they fear asking for email addresses. Have the guys at the counter ask. Pay them $.10 cents for every one they collect. Make sure you have a form clearly on your website where users can sign up for an email newsletter. Give visitors an incentive to get it.

This is a game of numbers, and small numbers over a long period can become large numbers. Before long, you will have hundreds or thousands of email addresses of quality leads and customers that you can market to at very low cost.

Other Low Cost Online Marketing Venues

Craigslist and eBay are two more places to find customers. Using Craigslist should serve two purposes. The first is to sell parts. The second is to generate paths to your website for visitors and to give your pages ranking power for your keywords by linking to them from eBay and Craigslist using your keywords.  Links that point at a page are still a very important factor in how the page ranks for a phrase. The more quality links you have pointing to your website, the better your site will show up in Google’s search results.

If you’re not already on eBay, you should be. If you are, small changes can produce big results. An operator I talked to recently told me he dramatically increased sales by making small changes, such as not using stock photos. The buyer feels better about the purchase because he sees the part he needs, and sometimes even sees other parts he wants when he looks at the car. This same operator mentioned electronic modules and interior parts sell best. He stopped selling some kinds of parts on eBay because they generate too many questions from users.

His formula: Sell parts on eBay to people who know what they’re looking for. Be straightforward with them, address any issues before the sale, and reinforce your return/exchange policy with them.  He has created a uniform system of processes for managing eBay and made one of his employees responsible for it.  You can do the same.

Tracking Your Success

Just as you would track the number of vehicles dismantled per day, brokered part sales, warranty sales and so on, you should have a set of key performance metrics for your online sales. Without measuring, you will never really know if what you are doing is working or not. I recommend Google Analytics for your website. It’s free, and gives you a wealth of information about how your site is performing. You can track where users came from, what keywords they used to find your site, which page they left from, which websites have sent you traffic, and many other metrics. If you study the reports from Google Analytics, they will tell you what is working, what isn’t, and what to tinker with.

If you’re able to follow these steps, you should get targeted traffic (people looking for what you sell) and you should begin to see your web marketing contributing more to your bottom line.

It’s fun to see even small yards outdoing their larger competitors. Smart beats big in the online world and even a little yard can bank serious part sales by using the Internet the right way.

In addition to the new facelift, we also produced new content and backlog of blog posts. The goal of this new website was to begin ranking higher in search, through a new content strategy, and to convert more leads through the contact forms.

If you would like more information on website design and development, using HubSpot or another CMS, contact us to get a free consultation below.

Our goal was to create a fully functional e-commerce application that utilized multiple payment gateways and shipping method rules. We successfully migrated their product, customer and sales data from the previous website.

The new website features original art and design, as well as a new logo for the National Auto Tools brand.

If you’re looking for help with your e-commerce project, give us a call or send us an email today.

It takes time to learn the HubSpot platform, templates, and so on. Time is money, and you can’t wait for a developer to get up to speed. I’ve successfully developed many HubSpot websites for marketing agencies around the country, many of whom are now regular clients.

Josh Davis, 817.726.1770, or send me an email

Apache Enterprises, Inc.

In December we launched a new website for Apache Enterprises, Inc. A Fort Worth based company that specializes in the design, fabrication, testing and distribution of complex replacement and retrofit components for military and commercial aircraft. The company offers an extensive line of products including airframe parts, night vision imaging (NVIS) lighting systems and avionics integration kits.

We took this website from concept to launch in about six weeks. It has received many positive comments and great feedback from their clients and employees. We are pleased to work with another great Fort Worth based company.

“The team at Made in Fort Worth made it their business to learn about our business and design a site that has produced positive results. We’re extremely pleased with the finished product and have received several compliments from our customers.”
Lisa Richardson, General Manager, Apache Enterprises

Cookies, like searches, are best when they're fresh

Google has just altered their algorithm in an effort to produce the most recent results to user searches. This means that it is even more important than ever to be producing regular, quality content that is relevant to your users. This can be a real advantage if you have competitors that rank higher than you for important keyword searches. If they aren’t producing regular content, here’s your chance to potentially leap frog them in search results.

Google continues their emphasis on quality content that is the most relevant to search queries. “Search results, like warm cookies right out of the oven or cool refreshing fruit on a hot summer’s day, are best when they’re fresh.” – Google

According to Google this will impact 35% of searches.

If you need help developing a content strategy and publication schedule, get in touch with us today.

Most companies would love to see their website obtain targeted traffic, and convert that traffic into leads and ultimately increase sales and revenue. Unfortunately, most do a poor job of that.

Investing in inbound marketing services can dramatically improve the effectiveness of your website.

Inbound marketing consists developing a strategy for search engine optimization (SEO), competitor and market research, content creation including advanced content such as whitepapers, email marketing and blog posts. It also includes managing your social media presence and campaigns. This is essentially managing your entire web presence with the end goal of increasing your revenue. Using advanced metrics and analytic tracking, we can make informed and quick decisions about what works and what doesn’t, and adjust our strategy accordingly.

For a free inbound marketing consultation, please give us a call or drop us an email today.