TCwebsite » Case Studies

Get your website found in Google search for free

TCwebsite — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:09:06 +0000

If you want to be found in the search engines the answer is simple:

Write news articles on your website’s blog. It’s free and each article attracts visitors from Google search like a giant magnet. Check out the image below and look at the the #7 page (It’s a news article about a “voice over ip checklist”). See how a site attracts visitors with 1 blog article? This article is the 7th most popular page on a large site. And this is only 1 news blog article. Imagine the visitor traffic that would be attracted if news articles were being written on a regular basis!

Take a look at the 7th most popular page on the site

Print magazine goes 100% online and gains subscribers

TCwebsite — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 20:50:38 +0000

Yes you read right.

In January of this year we launched Front and Finish magazine, moving them out of print and into our IssueManager™ web based magazine solution. They were previously printing their magazine and also had a number of flip-book digital magazine subscribers. The digital magazine was not producing a natural reading experience for subscribers (and could not be read on ipads, phones or kindle readers) so they came to us to convert to a web based magazine that was fully integrated with todays mobile technology.

After launch and the announcement that their print magazine was being replaced by an online only version the dust settled. Front and Finish gained more new subscribers than it lost in January, and most readers were excited about the new format.

We are extremely happy for them!

Business blog = Google magnet [video]

Peter Ericson — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 18:38:03 +0000

In the video below you will see how one short blog post becomes a Google magnet and instantly attracts the right visitors to your website. If you are not blogging in your business you are…
Read the rest

Search Engine Optimization – Before and After!

TCwebsite — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:55:28 +0000

Case Study: Print Resource is a successful printing company in Framingham Massachusetts. They are a high quality resource for print services but wanted to capture more of the Boston area printing business. Acknowledging that more and more people use the internet to find facilities such as theirs, the principals of Print Resource decided to optimize their website.

Before optimization Google couldn’t find the Print Resource website unless someone was searching for their company name or website address. A company in the next town over couldn’t have found them with an internet search if they didn’t know their name. TCW came in, worked with them to identify their key products and the business areas they wanted to promote, and went to work.

In a little over a month, Print Resource was ranked in many searches that had previously been unavailable to it. It is now the #1 result returned for Framingham printers, Framingham printing company and a few others.

Previously ranked #1 for two phrases (their company name and their website address) Print Resource is now ranked #1 for 16 phrases. Previously returning only 3 times in the top 20 search results, it now returns 68 times in the top 20 search results.

Gary Tramonte of Print Resource told us recently, “The SEO that you have helped us with has worked quite successfully. We have gained a number of clients that in the past would have become clients to our competition. Thanks!”

We continue to watch the Print Resource results improve. And, this search from Google proves that SEO is successful in getting companies found in Google.

$60,000 from the Web: TetiLandscape.com

Shelly — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:13:00 +0000

Teti Landscape (tetilandscape.com), a local landscaping contractor, came to us earlier this year with the intention of building website that would attract new business. After having an in-depth discussion of their business we concluded that their primary business focus was: stone work, irrigation systems, lawns and pool removal.

We built the website to reflect these areas of expertise and illustrated the work done with before and after pictures.

We analyzed the most popular keyword use, configured and promoted the website to all the major search engines, and included a geographic search element. Since their business is local we made sure the search keywords would capture the local market. Landscaping, Boston, Natick, Framingham and Sudbury became the final search criteria.

The New Yellow Pages:

What we found was astounding. Their first spring, Teti Landscape had already taken in $60,000 worth of pre-season work. According to one of the owners the pre-season (Jan-April) was typically dead and this had exceeded all their expectations.

From my perspective this was a landmark case. If a traditional business such as landscaping could be so impacted by the web then the web is truly becoming the new yellow pages. We sit at work in front of our terminals and can search for things with just a few keystrokes. Who wants to lug out and flip through a heavy book anymore?

Selling Through Email: ExecutiveFlyers.com

Shelly — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:10:49 +0000

Executive Flyers Aviation (EFA), based at Hanscom Air Force base, is the largest flight school in the greater Boston area. Their business teaches New Englanders how to fly. With a fleet of 30 aircraft their priority is to keep planes flying all day long, 7 days a week.

We encouraged EFA to collect email addresses and send out a weekly availability newsletter. Addresses are collected manually from their students, pilots and also from their website. Each Thursday their marketing director sends out an email announcing rental slots available for the weekend.

They have had terrific results. On average they fill 3-4 extra slots per weekend. At $100/hour and the average rental running 3 hours they have impacted their business. Each week they get to cost effectively reach out and touch their best customers… creating awareness and profit in one fell swoop.

Understanding Your Website Activity Produces Sticky Visitors: SouthernCrossClub.com

Shelly — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:09:51 +0000

The Southern Cross Club (SCC) keeps visitors longer on their website by giving them more what they want.

SCC is a top rated luxury dive resort on Little Cayman (rated the Best Caribbean Dive Resort of 2001 by Scuba Diving Magazine). Their website (SouthernCrossClub.com) has been instrumental in attracting new and veteran divers.

Our first challenge was to create an overview of the property that would be easy for visitors to digest. We started by creating a Virtual Tour on their website. The Virtual Tour gives the visitor an easy to follow structured slide show like tour of the property. We then studied the web activity (which shows how popular pages are) and discovered this feature had become an instant hit. After some brainstorming we decided that we needed to create a Virtual Dive Tour to deliver more specific diving information. As expected the Virtual Dive Tour became the next most popular feature on the website.

The web activity information was crucial to understanding what visitors craved and empowered us to give those visitors more of it. Visitors now stay on the website longer (viewing both tours) increasing the odds of contacting the Club for more information or booking a vacation.

Reducing Paperwork & Building Client Relationships: Nexums.com

Shelly — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:08:31 +0000

Nexum Development is an ecologically friendly residential builder in the greater Boston area. One of their latest projects was an exclusive 42 acre wooded development designed for nine building lots.

A complex project such as this created enormous amounts of paper. One of the large documents created was a set of covenants… which describe in detail the zoning for the development. Nexum decided to post these covenants on a private area on the web for prospective clients to download and view.

Not only did this reduce paperwork and speed the information flow to the client, it also created an opportunity to make that client feel special.

During a phone conversation Nexum could direct the client to this private area on the web reserved specifically for them. This created an opportunity for a more productive phone conversation.

Inexpensive to accomplish and simple in scope… this creative use for the web became a powerful sales tool for Nexum Development.

Ecommerce – Saving $ and Driving Orders: Seeleys.com

Shelly — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:06:30 +0000

We humans are:

Lazy
Creatures of habit and
Respond well to ultimatums

…at least as far as ecommerce usage goes. With the formerly glamorous, suddenly useless, and now back in vogue shopping cart or online catalog, we behave exactly in this manner when faced with purchase decisions on the web.

I am so accustomed to buying things online that I assume EVERYONE prefers to avoid the crowded malls and traffic jams by shopping online. Not so.

The Department of Commerce shows steady annual Ecommerce growth with purchases at an all time high… and yet still less than 2% of total retail sales in the US are online (Q4: $17 billion online vs. $918 billion in stores).

Let’s look at a website that supports my previous rants:

Seeley’s Inc. is a manufacturer of hobby ceramic and porcelain supplies and has been promoting a 1500 item ecommerce catalog since Jan 2002. Their customer base consumes clay and paints, thus their buyer will come back for more purchases down the road to keep the hobby going.

Seeley’s used to print an 88 page full color catalog which was out of date immediately after printing (since new products are added constantly) and also very expensive to produce.

Today, the company maintains its online catalog (updating all of the items themselves) and prints a smaller (and much cheaper) black and white brochure that encourages customers to visit the online catalog.

The company has been collecting email addresses for the last few years and has created a mailing list in excess of 6000 subscribers. Its primary method of customer contact has shifted from direct mail (paper) to its current quiver of e-newsletters. New product information and sales are delivered to this list regularly with direct links to the online catalog.

Website sales have been steadily growing and each month produces new buyers that have registered themselves in the shopping cart system.< Recently Seeley’s promoted its 1st ever “online only” catalog promotion. The sale in January 2004 produced 138 orders (versus 76 in Dec 2003 and 62 in Nov 2003)

They also ran a sale in February 2004, and the number of orders were also up at 128.

Seeley’s gained 121 new “internet” customers in Jan 2004, which they thought was excellent. Many customers had not ordered via the internet before and had problems understanding how to buy online, but Seeley’s helped each of them work through the issues… a learning curve for some of the customers.

This information leads to some interesting conclusions:

The growth of their online sales seem in synch with the growth of their email mailing list.
Buying something online creates a small but immediate barrier by requiring visitors to create accounts online to finish purchases.
These sales barriers can be overcome by bribing customers with a discount.
Once buyers have established their accounts, they come back month after month to buy more.
Don’t expect explosive growth after installing a shopping cart… but expect a steady increase in sales.
The majority of the market still prefers to purchase items in brick and mortar stores, but that group is shrinking.

The upside for future online sales is good. Please feel free to contact us to discuss whether you should enter the ecommerce world.

See Seeley’s Online Catalog

Motivating Email Subscribership: CoachAndrea.com

Shelly — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:52:16 +0000

So you have a whiz bang newsletter that you pour your heart and soul into and delivers content rich, client focused tidbits of gold. You’ve added everyone to the list including your not-so-internet-literate relatives and now you are staring at your homepage wondering just how to encourage a website visitor that doesn’t know a thing about you to drop their email address off on your site.

I am NOT going to cover the pitch – “the benefits and reasons why one MUST subscribe to this newsletter.” I am going to discuss the MECHANICS that have proven to work in getting visitors to sign up. I am assuming that you have your addictive newsletter content worked out… that you know your client and know exactly what kind of information they want to receive in a newsletter (ok, I know that’s a big assumption, call me and we’ll talk).

Let’s take a look at a successful approach to generating subscribers:

I have worked with Andrea Novakowski (personal & executive coach) for over 7 years now and we have learned quite a bit about email newsletters. Recently she passed the 500 subscriber mark, giving us the notion that this approach works.

Do this: go to coachandrea.com to see the implementation of the following 6 steps:

Homepage: encourage visitors to click to READ your LATEST newsletter right here – See the “Read our Tip of the Week” button? It works. Don’t put the signup right on the homepage. Website visitors want to know what they are getting into before committing their email address to you. In fact, go ahead and add some text next to this button that “sells/describes” the newsletter (we have an ongoing discussion on perfecting this language)
Tip of the Week page: Guess what? This is Andrea’s most popular page after her homepage. Make sure you have the email subscription box proximate to the current newsletter.
Archive your old newsletters and provide an Archives link proximate to your current newsletter. Archives give you greater credibility.
If you have a testimonial or two about your newsletter, include it proximate to your current newsletter.
Add a link to a Privacy Policy page. Check out Andrea’s Privacy Policy.
Add your signup form, a short newsletter description, and link to the current newsletter on other subpages. See the Privacy Policy page above.

Think about the approach as relationship building. Let’s say I hear of your business, find you, and start formulating an opinion of your business as soon as I visit your homepage. Do I give you my email address without so much as a peek inside your website? Not likely. Imagine a brand new visitor gazing at your homepage. Here’s what they might be thinking:

“Hmm… ‘Read our Latest Newsletter’. Well, newsletters are great insights into businesses since they cover current activities… so I’ll bite and click into the news. A quick read and oh, yes the newsletter is great stuff! I might subscribe… still cautious. A Privacy Policy… that helps. A testimonial on the usefulness of the newsletter – wow, people seem to love it. Archives… impressive… look at all this content! This is serious. Hmm well I’m a skeptic but, what the heck, I can always unsubscribe right?”

Follow these steps and watch your subscriber list grow!

Improving Website Inquiries: Clock-Repair.net

Shelly — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:43:30 +0000

The lowly “contact us” page on a website generally suffers from neglect, yet it could be the 2nd most important page on your website. Sure, it doesn’t have the panache of the home page but, like a top salesperson, it has the power to close. Think about it: a visitor comes to your website, moves from your homepage through your website and then decides they might contact you – so they click on your “contact us” button.

Now what? When I first got into this business, I assumed that all a visitor was looking for was the email link or phone number. Many websites in the late 90′s also had overeager marketers that thought big long questionnaires on the contact page would deliver lots of demographic information from that visitor. Yeah, right. Visitors clicked away in droves. I trumpeted my “keep contact pages simple” mantra and all was good… sort of.

Basic email links were certainly better than big long pain in the neck forms but, as it turns out, a small form that collects 2 or 3 bits of information is today’s contact solution. On one website (clock-repair.net), we more than tripled our response rate as a result of the form we installed on the contact page. In fact Doug, the owner, got so busy we had to pull the form off!

Why are the shorter forms more effective? Answer: with an email link alone, visitors are unsure of how to initiate a contact. The more complex a business offering, the less certain a visitor is about how to approach an organization. An email link prompts a window that requires them to fill a big blank void… what does the visitor say? Where does he/she start? Email links are great when a visitor KNOWS what they want to ask. The form provides a clear path for the visitor to contact you when the visitor is UNSURE.

Keep the form as short as possible and don’t ask for unnecessary information that you can get later. For example, don’t lengthen your form with a request for a street address. If you don’t need it now, get it later. Plus, with many visitors having privacy issues, the less asked about them specifically, the more willing they often will be to converse with your company. The crux of the form should be to gather enough information to start a dialog (via phone or email). Once a prospect has contacted you you can continue the dialogue with more detailed information.

The clock repair request form (from the above link) asks the model, age, and number of keyholes of the clock in need of repair. These are all answered with simple clicks. After a few clicks the visitor is warmed up and ready to type their real question in the general comment box. This format works. Follow this logic and you will find more visitors knocking on your virtual door.

Branding: Mike Goulian.com

Shelly — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 14:38:01 +0000

Did you know that Black Flies have branded themselves in NH, VT, and Maine? That’s right: these pesky flies have earned their status as a “season” up here… directly following “Mud Season.”

How do they do this?

Consistency of message and focus. Beginning EVERY Mother’s Day and ending around Father’s Day, they strive to buzz our heads and bite so incessantly that many folks have countered by wearing beehive nets when they go out for a stroll. Joggers seem extra motivated to outpace the maximum flight velocity attained by these critters.

Every year at this exact time the Black Flies make their presence known… so consistent is the message that they have branded themselves into the minds of each and every one of us here.

Last issue we discussed some important lessons learned regarding the habits of online shoppers. This issue we look at the branding part of getting your customers to remember you for a specific product or service.

Make Your Own Golden Arches

“Branding” means creating a collusion of images, words, sounds, smells, sensations and themes that speak directly and precisely about a particular business or product.

A prime example of branding would be the Golden Arches. I’d be willing to bet that just about everyone reading this not only thinks but also smells McDonald’s french fries, which is exactly the intended outcome. Every commercial on TV, every bit of packaging for the food they produce contains those ubiquitous Golden Arches. Many children will recognize Ronald McDonald before even George Washington. This is what continuity and consistency of branding will create.

One of our clients here at the Complete Website is professional aerobatics pilot Michael Goulian. Michael takes branding very seriously and is meticulous about that continuity. Recently, Castrol Aviation became a major sponsor of Michael’s and his plane has been repainted to reflect the Castrol brand colors. As a result, his website, www.mikegoulian.com, is undergoing a similar transformation. Older images of the formerly red and blue plane are being replaced with images of the new plane with its new paint job. The base color of the website has become Castrol green. Michael’s flight suit now reflects the Castrol colors and the green continues to spread throughout all of Michael’s airshow program.

While most businesses will not have as many individual elements to maintain, this same attention to detail, no matter how many or few details there are, will serve to “create” that business brand. Now, when people who have visited Michael’s site and seen his show go to the hardware store, Castrol will pop out at them from the shelf as a recognizable brand. Its logo placement on Michael’s flight suit and on his plane offers Castrol return on its sponsorship dollar by creating a connection for the consumer from an enjoyable airshow to an accessible product. “If Castrol likes Michael’s show well enough to sponsor him – and Michael trusts it enough to use it – then it must be a product worth using.” That’s what Castrol wants the consumer to take away from the sponsorship. It all links together. Similarly… seeing the Golden Arches causes you to crave those french fries.

How can your own company utilize branding and create that same sort of return on investment?

Branding starts with the most basic of elements, like a color, logo, shape or even a font. Each marketing piece – on the web, paper, signs, newspaper ads etc. – should maintain a consistent use of one or more of those elements. Using different logos for different marketing approaches undercuts each piece’s effectiveness. When in doubt, go with repetition. In a world of constant sensory bombardment through radio, TV, movies, magazines and more, the strongest competitors have the most consistent presentation. Since websites are many times marketing driven we often find ourselves in the middle of branding discussions. Please contact us if you would like some finely tuned thoughts on strengthening your own brand!

See MikeGoulian.com’s new Castrol Green website!

Real Estate Agent Website Coddles Clients: TeamClifford.com

Shelly — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 15:16:13 +0000

“My listing clients love the exposure their homes get on my website!”
-Ronnie Clifford, real estate agent, Grantham, NH

Did you know that the more photos a listing has the fewer days on the market it generally sits? Don’t take our word for it.. ask the NAR. Ronnie’s clients love the extra photos of their home on her website. Ronnie often posts over 30 photos on a listing and she tells us it inspires great confidence in her clients. Our experience confirms that many photos of a listing draws traffic and creates excitement. An open house ad with a direct website link in it draws more visitors as well as promoting your web address on signage outside a home.

Want to see a website in action? Have a look and you will find a creative and customized website for this real estate broker.