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1. • CommentAuthorDIANA SMITH
   • CommentTimeJan 11th 2007

    
   Please advise the worst three things on my landing page that needs to be changed.
2. •  
     CommentAuthorvishen
   • CommentTimeJan 11th 2007

    
   First, let me know your goals. Are you selling speciality pens, retail...wholesale....bulk....customized for individual businesses.
   
   Tell me about what it is you sell (what niche of the pen industry) and what your primary goal is (leads, sales etc) and I'll respond with some solid advice.
3. • CommentAuthorDIANA SMITH
   • CommentTimeJan 13th 2007

    
   Thanks for your time.
   
   I sell branded pens , ( logo, name, website, phone etc) for Companies and Groups. Min qty 100.
   Don't do brand names eg. Waterman, just trendy pens.
   
   I pay Google $800 per month PPC to be in the 2 - 4th spot.
   
   I believe if you are looking for pens, once you have been on 3 sites, youv'e viewed over 400 pens, so you've foiund the orange ones, ( or whatever.) Just want a higher conversion rate
   
   Generally two types of people are looking.
   a) Small business, so it is usually the owner, and he will make a decision on the spot, ordering on line or the toll free number.
   
   b) Large Company, so the job is given to the receptionist. This will be a long "affair" requesting samples, drawings etc etc etc.
   
   I believe we are one of the cheapest suppliers of pens with a one colour print in Australia.
   
   We also have the ability to turn around product very quickly, as we will work 24 / 7 to get a job out on time.
   
   Any advise would be greatly appreciated,.
   
   Also I appreciate that you are not going to keep giving away your time freely, so what are your charges for managing my PPC programme?
   
   Thank you
4. •  
     CommentAuthorvishen
   • CommentTimeJan 14th 2007

    
   Diana - your sites does not speak to a visitor. I can't what you offer or sell. My first advice is - make your site explain what you do: the same way you just explained it to us.
   
   The copy should speak in plan English. It needs to carry your picture, your name (add the human touch). And SAY what you do. For example.
   
   --------------------------------------
   
   Looking for Custom Branded Pens that Will Wow Your Employees?
   Let Diana Smith Help You.
   
   Hi, this is Diana Smith. I've been helping small and big businesses create custom branded pens
   for _____ years. I know what companies want, how to develop the best designs, and how to create
   custom branded pens that your employees, customers and business partners will truly appreciate.
   
   Let me tell you what I do and how I do it. And in the process, you'll agree that AllAboutPens should be
   your first choice for Custom Branded Pens.
   
   First...we do ......
   
   Next we do .....
   
   We offer a ...
   
   And follow this process to keeps down....
   
   ----------------------------
   
   Notice how the text above seems almost like a speech? That's exactly how someone should be communicating on the web. Just like you're talking to a group of potential customers live.
   
   Your site Diana, fails because you have no human touch.
5. •  
     CommentAuthorvishen
   • CommentTimeJan 14th 2007

    
   Here are some more concrete tips to getting that Human Touch
   
   1. Show Photos of Yourself or Your Staff
   
   All else being equal, if you give people the option of dealing with a real-live person or a faceless corporation, they will choose real people every time.
   
   If you're a small business, you are effectively your own brand. Use this advantage by prominently displaying your photo and signature on your website. If your site relies on your expert advice or name you might want to put the picture on the first page. Otherwise the picture could be on the About Us or Contact page.
   
   A digital image of your signature (make one up if you're afraid of someone copying your original signature) can also be used to create trust. This signature can be placed below your Guarantee or Sales Letter.
   
   If your business is a little larger, consider using pictures of your staff on your About Us page or Customer Service page.
   
   If you own an existing brick and mortar store, consider placing a picture of your store on your site. This can help greatly to reduce the uncertainty many buyers experience about purchasing something online while not knowing if the company will be around later to handle returns or questions. Notice the prominence of faces in the site for AudioGenerator.com - an internet tool allowing people to play audio on their ecommerce sites.
   
   Here the creators of the product use their pictures and faces to create a sense of "reality."
   For an example of a well constructed bio page, please refer to our About Us section on .
   
   
   2. Add Any piece of information that makes the visitor LIKE you.
   
   One of the first principles of sales is that people buy from people they LIKE. What's likeable about you? It could be a unique hobby, the fact that you have grandkids, or that you love your pets. Share yourself online and don't be shy. For an example of someone who runs a successful site (in this case selling Australian dogs) check out Family-Pets.com. On the "About Kate" page the owner not only sums up her qualifications as a dog breeder, she also includes pictures of her husband, children and pets. Seeing someone share their family pictures like this builds a lot of trust.
   
   We use this same tactic on our About page. We added our dog Ozzy as our Director of PR. Not only did this get us some good early publicity, it also instantly built some degree of trust. Everybody loves puppies! By the way, Ozzy came from Kate's Farm (Family-Pets.com).
6. •  
     CommentAuthorvishen
   • CommentTimeJan 14th 2007

    
   More tips (had to break up this post to avoid character limitations in this forum)
   
   3. Add Information that makes the visitor RELATE to you.
   
   If your site sells gardening tools, talk about your experience as a garderner, tool manufacturer or simply talk about your passion for landscaping. Tell the customer the story of why you started the site. Another principle of sales is that people buy from people who are SIMILAR to them. Your gardening site likely attracts a lot of gardeners, so create a bond with them by sharing information on yourself so they can see just how similar you are.
   
   4. Add Information that shows your EXPERTISE.
   
   If you're an expert on the topic your site is devoted to - share this. People respect experts. If you happen to not just sell karate equipment but also have a black belt in karate, let your audience know this. This will build your credibility significantly.
   
   If you happen to run a larger web business and do not wish to create a single face for your company, write about your business story instead. Talk about how the business was started, your vision, goals, the early hardship you encountered, the joy of running the business and the way it was growing. These all make for excellent stories. And these, honest, personal stories build trust.
   
   
   5. On the Web - speak like a Human Being!
   
   The internet is a conversational medium so talk like a real person and avoid annoying corporate-speak.
   
   In fact, one of the surest ways we've found to identify incompetent businesses and experts is by observing the language they use on the web. When a website opens with "our goal is to optimize the client-business relationship by strategically aligning core elements of your web infrastructure to create a highly convergent....." we know this company knows little about the web business.
   
   On the internet you're selling directly to people so refrain from corporate speak and sound human. If you're good at what you do you should be able to explain it plain and simple.
   
   Take the following blurb:
   
   "Mita Solutions delivers Information Technology Services or IT Services focused on helping customers realize their business goals by delivering tangible and best in class solutions. We offer our existing software packages and their customized versions. Along with this we provide system and requirement analysis, as-is to-be analysis data conversion, and other implementation services. All these software programs have multiple installations."
   
   Can you understand what the site above is trying to say? We can read that paragraph several times and still not understand what they mean by phrases like "requirement analysis, as-is to-be analysis data conversions."
   
   For the record, that site is www.mitasolutions.com. It was a Bangladeshi company that ran a front in the US, collecting money from US businesses for web projects that it never delivered on.
   
   Now here's how we describe our service on our site http://www.mindvalley.com/
   
   "At MindValley e-Commerce, we seek out Joint Ventures with people with hot new ideas and help them market these ideas through the Internet. We're selective about whom we work it - the idea or product must be highly profitable, serve a social cause, and provide excellent value to the consumer. If you happen to have a hot product that you'd like to market to the world via the Internet, drop us a line."
   
   Isn't that much easier to understand?
   
   If you have a genuine product, refrain from corporate-speak and tell your audience what your product is about without high-level language or big words. When you write for the web - pretend you're talking to someone face-to-face and use the same words and dialogue style you would use in a personal conversation.
   
   We recommend you read Nick Usborne's fantastic book, Net Words, available from Amazon.com for around $12. Nick is a British marketer who does a wonderful job of explaining just how you should write online.
   
   Hope these tips helped
7. •  
     CommentAuthormike
   • CommentTimeJan 14th 2007

    
   Hi Diana,
   
   Here is how our PPC services work:
   
   We offer a complete AdWords consulting service. For new AdWords users we charge $5,000 for:
   1) Full review of keyword list and detailed research to grow list of targeted keywords
   2) Detailed optimization and grouping of keywords for peak performance in Google AdWords
   3) Full review and one-time optimization of Google AdWords account
   4) Full review of landing pages and detailed tops on how to optimize them
   
   After the complete optimization if our clients want us to keep tweaking their AdWords account, we also do that at a fee of 10% of the monthly AdWords payments and charge a min. of $200 per month. In other words, there is a min. charge and we usually work with bigger clients where that is not a problem. If these fees are too high, you could also check out http://www.adwordssystemexposed.com where we share a lot of our knowledge. But only buy this guide if you have not already bought our full ecommerce guide.