Break Up With Your Website

Breaking up with your website means that you should remove any emotional attachment to your site. We see this problem infect many small businesses when they begin treating their website like a relationship instead of a tool. I know – you spent a lot of time and hard work on that site…

But when all relevant data points you in a specific direction and you ignore it in favor of your emotional attachment to “your baby” – you are only hurting yourself.

Some common scenarios

You spent a lot of time on that home page making sure everything looked perfect. You made some images and wrote a bunch of great copy about you and your business and what you do. But no one signs up. No one clicks. And visitors leave right away (psst you can measure all that in Google Analytics)… The data says you should make a change – but you don’t because you spent a lot of time on it.

You have a great product or service that nobody ever signs up for on your website. You think that having that elaborate sign up form will help you better target potential clients that you want to get to know. Really – people only want to enter their Name and Email Address so they leave your sign up page (psst you can measure that in Google Analytics).

You spend time setting up hundreds of widgets that you think are cool – but nobody ever uses them and they make your site load slow. By adding a ton of fluff you lose site on the main functions and goals of your website. You don’t want to distract visitors – you want to convert them.

Breaking up with your website allows you to…

• Make data driven decisions
• Focus on function
• Focus on usability
• Test everything

Data Driven Decisions

When making marketing decisions about your website try focusing on search and web analytics data you have. In a recent workshop with a client we found they were targeting the completely wrong demographic online. The market they were targeting online were not searching for what the website had to offer. This meant that search traffic was low and irrelevant. By tweaking some marketing copy and targeting a different market with content we completely change their web strategy. It wasn’t easy but it’s what the data said to do.

Focus On Function

I love a good design but when you focus on your design more than how your site functions you are likely losing out. There are well defined standards for laying out and designing a site that converts – whether you want someone to comment on your blog or buy your widget. By moving your focus away from what works to what you like is a bad move. Stay focused on the goals for your website and make sure your site functions to meet those goals.

Usability Matters

We’ve had clients with great products that were not selling online. In one case the reason was the shopping cart. The process sucked enough that they began to lose a significant amount of sales from it. If you’ve spent a ton of time on a process that doesn’t convert – it’s okay to start over. You could be losing sales or conversions online every day that you have an unusable sales funnel. Try buying your own product once in awhile. If you get confused – chances are your visitors are too. This is the same for any type of conversion. If your email list  is too confusing to get subscribed to – your visitors will have the same problems.

Test Everything

Once you have broken up with your website you have begun to remove any emotional attachment. This is good – now you can start testing. If you look at things like data instead of having an emotional reaction – you may learn that your well thought out headline really sucks and another works 100% better.

Do you have any questions about breaking up with your website? Let us know in the comments or jump in the forums!

[flickr photo from WebRanking]

Using Data To Better Connect With Your Customers

Are you making data driven decisions?

“Attracting the right customers to your website will help you finish off 2009 strong and charge ahead in 2010. Few marketers realize that there is free data available, which is easy to access and can help you better target your advertising.

Avinash Kaushik leads a discussion to share ways for Using Data to Better Connect with Your Customers. You’ll learn how to find and use data from Google Trends for Websites, Insights for Search, and Ad Planner. Avinash offers tips for using this data to focus on your most relevant audiences and maximize your return-on-investment immediately. And you’ll walk away knowing how to make the most relevant decisions to drive your business forward.”

via YouTube and Think2010

5 Tips For Creating A Data Driven Business

Are you often wondering if you should sell that new product?

Or if you should lower your prices?

Or if you should reduce your inventory?

Wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to make these decisions based on your “gut feeling”? If you let data decide you will be much better off. The data is there – and it’s free. You just need to sit down and analyze it, or hire someone to do it for you…

A data driven business is one where actions and decisions are based on data – in our case web analytics data.

Here are 5 Tips for Creating a Data-Driven Business

1. Create and Measure Goals

2. Make Business Sense of Your Data

3. Test Your Decisions

4. Segment Data to Find Meaning and Behavior

5. Research Before You Launch

Do you have any questions on data driven decisions? Let us know in the comments or chime in at the forums!