The W3: It's A Numbers Game

Analyzing Analytics:

Turning Data Into Action

When you build a website, the next step is to market that site and to do that, you need numbers – hard data that shows what’s working and what isn’t.

There are plenty of metrics software packs that provide piles of hard data – but what do all of those numbers mean in terms of site performance? If your pay-per-click rate is $1.86, is that good or bad and how do you know?

What’s the significance of the most common metrics and how can you better use these facts and figures to sell your site?

Metrics in General

First, a quick tour of what site metrics are in general and an explanation of why these numbers can do more harm than good.

First, site metrics tell you what has already happened – how many visitors you site saw yesterday, how many click-throughs you got last week, how long visitors stayed on site and other “yesterday’s news.” Keep this in mind when employing these numbers. On the world wide web your site may appear on page one of Google’s SERPs on Tuesday and page 23 on Thursday even though you didn’t change a thing on the site! Now you have to figure out why and fix the problem fast.

Second, site metrics are raw data, raw data that can be interpreted in any number of ways. In fact, interpretation is one of the biggest mis-uses of site metrics. Example: You conduct an A/B test using two AdWords. One pulls significantly more than the other. So you assume that the more productive blue block of text (60 characters total including the site URL) is the better choice.

That’s an assumption that may well be your undoing. There are any number of reasons one PPC ad pulls more than another including add placement on relevant site pages, cost per click (based on keywords), presentation parameters you set (I only want this AdWords to appear in Canada.) and so on. So, warning sign on the road ahead: remember that metrics are wide open to interpretation and your interpretation of this data could be 180 degrees off.

But, you can learn what metrics are commonly used and why. Take a look.

1. PPC – Simple. Pay per click. You only pay when someone clicks on your PPC ad. The more clicks, the more it costs you whether the visitor makes a purchase or not.

A good number of click-throughs is an excellent indicator that you’ve written a good PPC ad and that it’s being placed on good SERPs (based on your bid for laser keywords). PPC can also be compared to other raw data like CPM (see below) and conversion rate – the number of visitors who actually buy something or perform some other action like make a donation or opt-in for a monthly newsletter.

2. CPM – Stands for cost-per-thousand (M) of impressions. An impression is just that. The ad appeared on a web page or SERP but no action was taken on the part of the visitor. The PPC ad, potentially, was seen (made an impression) but you have no way of determining that from raw data alone.

So what good is CPM data? It provides a ratio of the number of impressions compared to the actual number of click throughs that were generated by the viewed ad. The more click-throughs per impressions the better. If only one visitor is clicking through even though 5,238 impressions were made overnight, you have a pretty sad click-through rate – an indication that the text of your PPC might not be pulling as much as you’d like.

3. Reach is a broad term the describes how well your marketing plan is working overall. If you’re getting lots of click-throughs and lots of sales from people all over the world (assuming that was your plan) your PPCs have a wide reach. Conversely, if you’re getting tons of impressions but no one is clicking, check and re-check your PPCs for the problem. It could be something as simple as a spelling error or something as complicated as the keyword headers you’ve selected.

4. Frequency is an indicator of how often visitors return to your site, and this depends on site stickiness. Is there a reason to return? The daily horoscope, the site blog or forum, the sale of the hour? All of these create site stickiness, important because the more times a visitor stops by your site, the more likely s/he is going to make a purchase, sign up for your newsletter or perform some other action you’d like to see.

5. Click depth is often used to determine a site’s bounce rate. A bounce is a visitor who lands on your site (homepage or interior page) and immediately bounces to another site. Click depth indicates (1) how deep the visitor went into your site and (2) did those interior pages lead to a sale, opt-in or some other desired action?

If you find that your click depth numbers are low, it indicates that visitors aren’t sticking around long enough to perform an action, like make a purchase. And this is where many new site owners start leaping to conclusions – the wrong conclusions: we chose the wrong domain name, the color scheme isn’t right, the typeface is all wrong and so on.

Click depth tells you whether your site is keeping the attention of the visitor. It doesn’t tell you why that interest is maintained. However, if click depth is low on your site, the bounce rate is high and that’s going to require some tweaking.

6. Calls-to action is a good metric to measure the quality of your site text from granite-solid hard sell to the soft sell required of certain products or services. (When was the last time you saw a funeral home announcing its ANNUAL FEBRUARY CASKET CLEARANCE SALE.)

The measurement of calls-to-action indicate the number of times visitors add something to their shopping carts, whether product, service, newsletter opt-in or some other desired action like a request for a price quote. It may not be a sale but it is a contact and an email opt-in that you can back sell, so it’s a good metric to track.

7. $$$ per Transaction indicates how much each paying customer spent on your site. Absolutely critical information when placed in the proper context. If you’re selling party favors online and your dollars per transaction are running $20 a piece, that’s pretty good for party hats and birthday napkins.

On the other hand, if you’re selling high-end wrist watches with a couple of cheapies thrown in to expand buyer appeal, and your dollars per transaction are still $20, umm, you might want to consider dropping the cheap watches – unless your margins are really sweet and you pick up another 5% on shipping and handling.

Again, dollars per transaction, all by itself, is a useless number. Placed in some larger context, it becomes a useful (and reliable) metric.

8. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) is the actual dollar amount spent to generate a sale and, to develop a true CPA, you must calculate the costs of building your site plus the cost of the PPC, or other sponsored advert. Plus monthly hosting costs.

CPA does NOT include the cost of goods (which are fixed by your wholesaler), postage or your time to process and ship the order – even though your time does have a dollar value, it shouldn’t be figured into your monthly CPA figures.

9. Site referrals is a great way to measure the usefulness of your site. This form of viral marketing is 100% word of mouth. BTW, if your site doesn’t have a “Refer a Friend” feature, you’re missing out on a great opportunity.

10. Net is the amount your web site generated after all expenses have been paid except for your time which, as the site owner, isn’t necessarily calculated as part of the site’s net profit. Net profit is, in fact, your salary if you want to take it. Or, you can reinvest that net into more advertising outlets like hosted content, links buying and other traction-building promotional efforts.

Just a couple of reminders:

Metrics tell you what has happened, not what will happen if you do such and such.

Metrics are raw data open to interpretation. A professional SEO may view metrics data positively while the next SEO predicts doom and gloom for your site.

Metrics analysis almost always requires making assumptions. This raw data are open to interpretation and many times these interpretations are dead wrong.

Use analytical software that converts this raw data into visual representations such as heat maps (the red blotch shows where people clicked; blue blotches are invisible to visitors). These analysis software packs make interpreting data easier, thus making the data more valuable.

Finally, establish a baseline for all your metrics – CPA, PPC, depth and so on. You’ll use these baselines as measuring sticks as you tweak the look of your site and your marketing efforts.

Yeah, the W3 is a numbers game and if you're working with bad number, you're drawing illogical conclusions that can blow your e-biz right out of the water. learn more about the numbers that matter at webwordslinger's site.

Webwordslinger.com

IS YOUR WEB HOST ON YOUR SIDE?

HOW MANY WEBSITES ARE CRAMMED ON YOUR SHARED SERVER? YOU SHOULD KNOW.

Web Hosts Don't Always Do the Right Thing:

Does Yours?

Web hosting is a business. Hosting companies are in business to hook up their clients to the world wide web. That’s their function. Unfortunately, some of these web hosts employ what can only be called “unethical business practices.” Not illegal but definitely not cool.

As a business, the hosting company has to make decisions to improve its performance while, simultaneously improving the company’s bottom line. Think about that for a sec. It’s not an easy thing to do.

That’s why many smaller, “unethical” web hosts slice services razor thin and don’t always act for the benefit of their clients, which, of course, would be the ethical thing to do.

Let’s look at some of the unethical behaviors common to the hosting industry. And, when searching for a web host, be sure to ask about some of these points. They may well affect your business – and not for the good.

Please don’t cram my server with 3,000 other sites

A web host uses servers (nothing but big ol’ hard drives) to store web sites. And with hard drive storage space growing exponentially, a web host can shoehorn a lot of web sites onto a single server. This makes money for the web host (site server cramming) but often diminishes the functioning of all of those shared-hosted websites competing for bandwidth, CPU access and other common server functions.

The ethical host will limit the number of sites it places on a server to ensure that all clients have ready, easy and complete access to server resources as needed. These hosting companies are run ethically – and smartly. The host company owners recognize that their long-term business success depends on thousands of smaller successes on the part of their clients.

Keep Me Online, Please

Perhaps the most important aspect of web hosting service is uptime. When your server is down, so’s your e-biz. Often, unethical providers are slow to respond to system failures which may cause more than a few problems with your site:

• Customers and clients won’t be able to access your site. No sales.

• Webring owners may drop your site if ring users contantly find an error code when they log on to your site. Many of these rings employ automated software to ensure that all members abide by their agreements and if your site is often tardy or off line, you’ll get the boot eventually.

• Another potential problem of humungous magnitude? If your site happens to get spidered while your server is being rebuilt, you may well be dropped by search engines for lack of attendance. That’s about the end of your business.

Please, Oh Please, Tell Me What’s Going On

If you’re planning on shutting down a server for maintenance, don’t just do it. Tell the site owners involved and provide them with the opportunity to back up data and put out the “Down for Maintenance” sign.

In fact, every time a web host adds new hardware or new features, an automated email should be sent out to let webmasters know about the new benefits you offer. Regular communication with people you do business with – people who are paying you – is just an ethical (and smart) thing to do.

Stand and Deliver

Not all web hosts deliver all services but if your adverts claim that server side software, like CGI, is in place, it darned well better be. Or, if the host is planning to add new services – PHP, MySQL, ASP and other goodies, these should be ready to go online when promised.

It’s more than a little sleazy to sell a client on the interactive benefits of active server pages (ASP) and not offer the service. That’s a client who’d be willing to break any service agreement s/he signed. “You promised ASP. I don’t have ASP. I’m gone.” And rightfully so.

Provide Service Tickets

The web host system is a complex tangle of plugs and wires and all it takes is a loose wire to create problems on a single site. Provide clients a means of creating service tickets for your IT staff.

These tickets should be delivered directly to the service department and followed up with an auto-responder stating that the ticket was received and steps to fix the problem are already underway – even at 3:00 AM.

Service tickets should be tracked in a central location in the tech support department using a content management system that tracks each ticket from receipt to resolution. There is nothing more frustrating or unethical than to leave a client hanging without any word of hope.

An Open Message to All Web Hosts

Remember where the cash flow is generated. By your clients. And if they don’t feel that they’re your top priority at the moment (when troubles are afoot) they won’t sign up for another 24 months of second-rate service.

Owners of these important companies have an obligation to keep uptime at 99.9%, to provide communication between host and company, to provide a 24/7 tech support line and a means for producing a service ticket.

They should receive all services promised the day they sign up. They should receive notifications of maintenance downtime and downtime should be as short as possible.

In any industry, web hosting included, there are business owners who run their companies ethically – with customer needs always placed before company needs. Then, there are the crooks, liars, cheats and people without conscience.

When choosing your web host, consider the company’s standard practices to ensure that the business is a straight-up operation. Not sure where to do the research? Visit any webmaster site and go with a company other webmasters recommend.

Never settle for less than the best when it comes to a company’s ethics. These "rights" and "wrongs" form the foundation of the treatment you can expect from any given host.

Go with the company that does the right thing – for you.

You have too much time, energy and money invested in your web biz to cut corners on hosting services. Need help finding the right host for you - the one who partners with you for success? OK, drop me a line.

Webwordslinger.com

SEO No-Nos That'll Get Your Site Slammed by Google

It's Not Nice To Mess

With Google

Search Engine Traps:

Don’t Get Snared

Most of us know a bit about search engine optimization (SEO). We know the importance of a solid list of keywords. We know the importance of certain HTML tags. Maybe we’ve even added a site map and submitted it to Google’s site map reader function – the fast track to being recognized by Google.

There’s plenty of information on how to optimize your site but no where near as much info on what not to do – what search engines don’t want to see. And many of these search engine “traps” are in common practice so the simple fact is, you may have actually taken steps to improve your site optimization only to diminish site quality in the “eyes” of search engine spiders.

SEO rumors run rampant on the web and spread like wildfire. One blogger posts that Google doesn’t like the color red and the next thing you know 100,000 webmaster are reworking their color schemes. But there are some activities that Google itself will tell you to avoid. Here are some tips from Matt Cutts, the head of Google’s SEO spam squashers and if anyone should know what not to do it’s this guy.

Duplicate Content

Cutts mentioned a problem site that he’d encountered. It was owned by an on-line entrepreneur who also owned almost two dozen other web sites all, more or less, selling the same products.

No problem owning and managing 20-something web sites (good luck with that) and certainly nothing that would raise suspicions on the part of a Googlebot. But bots (also called spiders or crawlers) have become much more than letter string munchers. They’re little automated detectives, today.

Cutts pointed out that this site owner used the same content on many of his sites. The bot even discovered the same pages appearing on different sites. A money saver, to be sure, but, man, did this site get slammed.

Another example (not from Matt Cutts). A doctor put up a web site on women’s health topics with a strong emphasis on good pregnancy health. The site was well designed, the owner had a back-end maternity store and he was getting between 10K and 12K hits a day. And, he ranked number two or three on Google’s SERPs so he was generating a lot of organic traffic. Sweet.

Then, one morning, Doc log’s on and discovers that his PR has all but vanished, he’s no longer on Google’s first page and organic sales have all but disappeared. Devastating.

So, he hires an SEO expert who analyzes the site top to bottom and can’t find anything unusual. But, this SEO talks with his client and discovers that the doctor had been writing informational articles for his web site and had decided to syndicate them to other sites through URLs like ClickBank and GoArticles. So, his beautiful original content lost all of its value to the home site because it was now duplicate content, and it took months to correct the problem. Who knows how many dollars were lost.

The point? Something as simple as syndicating content with links pointing back to your site can get you squashed like a Googlebug – even though you thought your SEO strategy was sound. In this case it wasn’t.

Bottom line, original content scores points. If you own more than one site, don’t recycle content and never use the same pages on different sites. SE bots will notice quickly and your moves to cut costs will also cut your chances for SEO success.

Elephantine Site Maps

In general, creating a site map is a good thing to do. Submitting that site map to search engines is also a good thing to do. It’s like sending a search engine spider a personal invitation to stop by and check out your cool self.

Problem. If your site has hundreds or thousands of pages, that site map is going to be huge – way huge – and frankly, bots ain’t bright so a gigantic site map may confuse these crawlers to the point where they don’t know what you’re about.

Problem solved. Break that huge site map into spider-sized portions. You can place all of these site maps into one XML file for easy spidering but you won’t overload the limited capacities of SE bots.

Yes, create a site map. (Check out site map generators.) It’s good for visitors and for spiders that follow links when crawling a site – links that appear on your site map. Just keep the size of the site map manageable for the minimal “minds” of site crawlers.

What Works for Google Gives Yahoo a Headache

True. Each search engine has its own weighting algorithms and its own set of indexing protocols. Example: your site might have a problem with Yahoo spiders because your uppercase URLs that appear on site pages won’t sync with Yahoo’s requirement for lowercase URLs according to Yahoo’s Site Explorer.

There are two ways to go here. First, if you’re a coder, create separate submissions for the big three search engines: Inktomi (MSN), Yahoo and Google. This requires that you carefully review submission guidelines, rework the site, submit it for consideration (or re-evaluation) and keep your fingers crossed.

The other alternative is to buy a site map generator. These software packs won’t break the bank (many under $100 and you can even find some OSS versions, though not recommended) and they take the hassle out of site submission.

You or your designer create one, generic site map. The software then formats the single site map to meet the demands of Google, Inktomi, Ask and literally dozens of other search engines, large or small.

If you wait long enough, spiders will find you but (for real) there are stories of sites being overlooked for months and even years. So, make sure your site map is properly formatted for each specific search engine before submission.

Link But Not Too Fast

Google’s recent patent application for its new algorithm (before Orion comes on line) indicates that the search engine is taking a closer look at inbound links to a site.

In the past, lots of inbound links indicated a quality site – one that other, similar sites would reference to their own visitors. Of course, this was abused. Links would be added for a month or two then disappear. Google’s new algo also watches the growth rate of in-bound links. If it sees too many too quickly it will raise a flag and tag your site as suspect.

Site link growth should happen naturally over a period of time. Vary anchor text to give links a more “natural” look and avoid what Google calls “burst link growth” which smacks of search engine spam. On the web, no one grows that fast. Slow and steady wins the race.

Avoid Session IDs

Eliminate session IDs from URLs. Long URLs are a challenge for the URL-challenged bot and are very likely to cause bot confusion and either a partial indexing or worse, mis-indexing by the search engine. Here’s how Google puts it in its own guidelines:

“If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a simple text browser, then search engine spiders might have trouble crawling your site.”

- Google Site Guidelines

Too Many Websites

There are people earning a living by building websites, adding a bit of informational content to get the attention of crawlers and loading up these sites with Google Adwords – those contextual ads you see on some web pages. Ads by Goooogle.

If all you’re doing is building sites to generate Adwords revenues, you aren’t really providing a service to visitors and search engine spiders don’t like that. Not a bunch of links to other sites, spiders want visitors to access information quickly and, if possible, right off the SERPs without any secondary clicks to other sites. Even Googlebots don’t like to see lots of Google Adwords links on every page of every site you own. Spiders want relevant, useful content, helpful to the visitor, not a page with a bunch of links – even if they’re Google-sponsored links.

Avoid Private Whois Listings

Whois is the directory of site ownership – who owns what domain. You can choose to keep that information private but it looks suspicious to spiders that crawl this directory regularly.

The perception is that those with numerous private listings have something to hide. Maybe yes, maybe no. But as far as spiders are concerned, too many private Whois listings can hurt you by adding certain search engine filters to your site when indexed at HQ.

The key to SEO is to recognize that it’s a process and there are some short cuts but not many and unless you know precisely what you’re doing you could end up hurting your SEO rather than helping it.

Read the protocols of Google and Yahoo. (Inktomi’s protocols aren’t readily available.) Make sure that your HTML is properly formatted, that content is informational and useful to visitors and that inbound links don’t happen too quickly and that every link has some relevance to the subject of your site.

It takes time to optimize a site – it’s a process, not a goal. Be patient and play by the search engine rules. To do otherwise is simply shooting yourself in the foot – and you know that’s got to hurt.

Looking for some understandable advice about search engine optimization for your new web biz? Drop me a line and let's have a look.

Webwordslinger.com

Building A Successful Not-for-Profit Site Is Hard Work

Giving on line makes giving easier.

Not For Profits (NFPs):

10 Quick Tips to Boost Donations

Visit any webmaster blog (like this one) and you’ll find plenty of information on how to improve the performance of a commercial site – a for-profit site. Give-aways, sales, clear navigation and all kinds of good tips to boost sales.

The objective of a not-for-profit is different. Here, you aren’t selling a product. You’re selling an emotion – sympathy or empathy. As such, the rules are a little different.

1. Skip the hard sell. It sounds like begging.

The hard sell, with lots of descriptors like “the best,” “most powerful,” “winner of the 2008 XYZ Award for Excellence,” and so on.

NFPs should skip the hype altogether. A short, poignant story of how your organization helped one family or one individual is enough to make your case that your NFP is worthy of a donation. This is a soft sell site.

2. Clearly define the problem and how you intend to address it through visitor donations.

Does your organization fight world hunger (savethechildren.org) or build homes for those who can’t afford to buy a house like Habitat for Humanity?

Describe, in detail, exactly the purpose of your organization and how the visitor’s donation will be used to help others, help animals, help the world – help something.

3. Provide a detailed example of your organization’s success.

If your organization has been a success, don’t hide your light under a basket. Success stories are what potential donors are looking for. They want to know their donations are doing good, not providing the head of the NFP with a limo to the airport.

In this section of the site, use a lot of pictures. Show the village before and after the school was constructed or the well dug. Show an individual who has the disease or condition scientists are trying to cure. In the case of soliciting donations, a picture really is worth 1,000 words.

4. Provide the percentage of each donation that goes directly to helping others.

There are a lot of unsavory characters on the world wide web. (Lots of savory people, too, but you don’t have to worry about them.) An NFP, by law, must open its books to any contributor.

A good NFP will be happy to tell you that 90% of your donation goes to help others while only 10% is used for administration and fund-raising costs. Good ratio.

And by the way, if this information isn’t available on the site you should probably move on to another good cause. There are lots of them that proudly display their numbers to show that nobody’s getting rich at ABC Charity. Your donation helps others; it doesn’t feather the nest of organization leaders.

5. Provide several means of making a donation – easy means.

Some people want to talk to human when making a donation. They may have questions that haven’t been answered on the web site. For these generous donors, provide a toll-free number to accept credit card donations. Also, be sure to provide the mailing address of the NFP for those who prefer to use the postal service to get that donation where it’s most needed.

Finally, provide a secure page wherein donors can make online donations. And provide donation option packages and other options such as:

• In memory of
• In honor of
• A monthly gift (automatic withdrawal)
• A gift from one organization to another
• Other related charities

6. Backsell. It’s okay for NFPs.

Once a donation has been made, the name of the donor and all relevant information should be added to the organization’s database. This information can be used to solicit donations in the future. If an individual or family made a donation once, they’re likely to make another donation when asked.

However, don’t slam the donor with request after request for more money. The difference between the belief that an organization is performing worthwhile work and just raising cash is a fine line. Send a request regularly but (1) not daily or weekly and (2) not the day after a visitor makes a donation.

7. List your professional affiliations.

There are organizations that audit the books of non-profits to certify that donations are being delivered as promised. Become a member of at least one of these organizations. More than one is even better.

Then, explain what these organizations do to ensure that the visitors’ donations are being properly deployed. It’s a good idea to include a link to these verification organizations so visitors have an even better understanding of what they do, and how commited you are to keeping operating costs down and putting donations to work where they’re needed.

8. Follow Through

Once a donor has made a donation, follow through with a “thank-you” auto-responder. This does a few things. First, it tells donors that their donations have been received. Second, it provides your organization another opportunity to thank the donor one more time and verify the email address.

Finally, your follow up AR can also serve as a donation receipt required at tax time to prove the donor’s largesse to the IRS. Make sure to tell site visitors that their donations are 100% tax deductible – assuming that’s the case. If donations aren’t tax deductible, that information should appear in a prominent place on the site, i.e. the donation form itself.

9. Spread the word.

Ask donors to spread the word about your organization to their employers and to like-minded people.

Many generous companies match donations made by their employees – some dollar for dollar, some 50% on the dollar – it really doesn’t matter. It won’t cost you anything and it’ll do more good, making a donation go further in helping others.

Like-minded people are, most often, friends who share the same interests. For example, The Animal Center, an organization to which you regularly donate, might be of interest to your cat friends or dog lovers. SavetheHorse.org cares for injured, old or abused horses – a fine mission. The point is, chances are your friends share similar interests, one of whom just might make a donation to a worthy cause.

10. Assure donors their information is secure.

Many people are fearful that if they make a donation to one charity, their names will be added to the fund-raising business “donors” list,” which will lead to an avalanche of emails and snail mail and even telephone calls asking for more money or some kind of donation such as your time or your old car.

“Your name and other personal information will never be given or sold to other organizations. We respect your privacy as much as your generosity.” acts as a security blanket for the prospective donor fearful of being blanketed with requests from other NFPs for more donations.

Then, think of the blessings that have come your way and give until it hurts.

If your organization needs a web site, please drop me a line at webwordslinger.com. I work with many NFPs to develop the resources of giving.

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software Made Simple

An unhappy customer is NOT good word of mouth (WOM)

As a webmaster, you know what’s involved in designing, constructing and administrating an online business – everything from paying the bills to syndicating content, a well-run e-biz is a multi-faceted operation. And you run the show.

However, if you try this, then re-do that, test such-and such and hire people who don’t “get it,” your online business won’t be the dream come true you’ve been planning. The key is to integrate all of your business activities into a single strategy called CRM – customer relationship management. CRM is at the heart of any growing business. The principles are simple, you don’t need an MBA and it doesn’t cost a lot of money (much of CRM doesn’t cost any money).

CRM is an important consideration for corporations, NFPs, NGOs and public sites, all of which seek to implement the basics to manage relationships with customers, clients and stakeholders (upper management, shareholders, etc.).

It’s all about the acquisition and analysis of customer data, vendor information and the in-house procedures you design to connect satisfied customer to eager vendor. Think of your website as the intermediary between buyer and seller – your customers and your wholesalers.

What Purpose Does CRM Serve?

Customer relationship management weaves together a variety of business functions to deliver the best product and retain the customer or client. Client retention is the ultimate purpose of CRM but, in the process of developing a CRM strategy, you’ll be required to consider all facets of your business including: professional development (for you and any staff you have, paid or otherwise), customer service (this specifically includes training customer service representatives, if you outsource this task), sales, marketing and promotion and, finally, compensation – who gets what.

If you’re the only participant, this won’t be a difficult decision to make. Any compensation comes back to you as either salary or operating capital to expand the business further.

The Building Blocks of a Solid CRM Strategy

In addition to your learning curve (assuming you’re a sole proprietor), which takes time and costs money in lowered productivity, you’ll need several tools to develop a workable and effective CRM strategy.

Your Database

Your business database contains all customer/client information along with inventory data, shipping dates and other order processing and marketing data. It is the focus of any CRM. In fact, without this information, there is no CRM.

This means, when designing your first website, you install a reliable, simple, automated database (MySQL, for example) to track all business activities. These activities fall into four distinct categories: (1) analytical CRM, (2) operational CRM, (3) interactive CRM (interactive with site visitors) and finally, (4) integrated client support and customer service throughout the business itself.

Analytical CRM

To undertake these CRM-based activities you’ll need some tools and some time. Analytic CRM requires software that can deliver useable stats. If the software delivers reams of indecipherable numbers, the data won’t be as useful to other members of the business team. The CFO may understand what that 250-page financial report shows, but the CEO may not.

Employ analytical software that delivers data in graphic formats – heat maps, pie charts and other visual representations. This equips your whole team (even if you’re the only player) to understand, assimilate and use site metrics with greater effectiveness.

Operational CRM

Where’s what?

The daily administration of your site is greatly simplified through the use of CRM tracking software. Using this software, you’re able to automate many routine functions such as auto-responder emails when orders are placed and news updates sent during an email blast to those customers and opt-ins stored in your database.

However, operational CRM also enables you to make the best use of the data you maintain in the system. If the bank account number of a key vendor in Korea is written on the back of a scrap of paper, you’ll spend more time looking for that information than if you were able to bring up all of that vendor’s information on a single screen via the CRM software loaded on your work station.

Tracking data – sales data, order data, site metrics, order status and other critical information – becomes much simpler when (1) it’s easily accessible in one place and (2) you’re able to automate routine functions, giving you more time to focus on more “human-oriented” tasks like developing your next marketing campaign.

Interactive CRM

A relatively new digital phenomenon but one web users have quickly adopted and now expect from sites selling goods or services.

Interactive CRM enables the visitor to customize a product search using a site search feature that delivers the desired content whether the visitor enters a product name, brand or even part number. Fast. The visitor is in and out – and hopefully you’ve made a sale and a new customer.

Forms are another use of CRM interactivity. More and more sites collect data on their visitors who don’t seem to mind providing it, especially if they’re tempted with a free eBook download.

This information provides opt-ins (pure gold) and marketing data to better define your demographic and its needs. And again, the automation of the data acquisition and generation of the download key code integrates operational and interactive CRM, creating a business synergy.

Interactive CRM also delivers the ability to the client to ask a question via email. The “Contact Us” page of a site is where you’ll usually find this feature. It’s another channel to keep your clientele happy and to collect opt-in email addresses for future messages and updates.

Integrated CRM

CRM should be the focus of all your site design, marketing, ordering and management of customer objections. Instead of dealing with sales as a separate aspect of your operation, it’s built into the master plan employing operational, interactive and analytic CRM data drawn from an up-to-date data base.

When a CRM program is designed, it should look like a flow chart with automated decision points, QC statements, data collation and other business activities functioning as a unified whole. This is the ultimate goal of developing your site’s plan for customer relationship management.

In a cosmically competitive marketplace like the web, every advantage you gain over a competitor makes your business stronger. If you can deliver an order a day faster than the competition, you win. The relationship with those happy buyers is strong and they will be back to buy again.

Using CRM software to chart the course your online business may take a day or two to figure out, if marketing and customer care aren’t a part of your professional background. But that learning curve will pay off many times over by providing data that drives solutions to online retail problems.

Looking for synergies between marketing and order taking? Trying to figure out your percentage of repeat buyers over the past 12 months? Trying to resolve a customer complaint? You want (no you need) CRM tools just to keep up.

CRM Software Recommendations (Check ‘em out.)

Microsoft Dynamics™ CRM 3.0

SalesForce

OnContact

SugarCRM (open source software)

Maximizer 10

InfusionCRM (excellent choice for small online businesses)

How you doing with client/customer management? Got questions? Drop me a line. You're a click away from optomized web site performance courtesy of webwordslinger.

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DOES ANYONE HAVE RECEIPT #21398?

Tracking Orders: All Part of the Job

If the plan is to sell products online, take a long, hard look at order fulfillment – how orders are delivered to those buying customers that make up your clientele. Online retailers, for the most part are mail order shippers, though with the growing popularity of local search, buyers may stop by your shop downtown, and in this case, order fulfillment is no problem. It takes place at POP.

The Space Factor

Where are you going to store 3,000 festive sombreros or 100 queen-sized mattresses? If you don’t have the room (or the desire) to store inventory in a spare room, you’ll need to rent storage space. And that costs money.

In calculating your operating expenses, determine how much space you’ll need. Then call one of those “U-Store-It” places and start adding up the numbers.

The Time Factor

Let’s say you hit a home run right out of the box and you’re shipping 150 different orders worldwide each day. How much time each day will it take to prepare the paperwork on those 150 shipments, wrap and box each order so it arrives safely and drive those 150 orders to the local shipper – UPS, the USPS, FedEx or other shipper?

If it’s taking you and your kids all day to manage order fulfillment, that doesn’t leave much time for marketing, site revisions and other online business chores.

The Cost Factor

There are order fulfillment companies that do nothing but take orders and oversee all handling and shipping for their clients. But this service costs money – sometimes a great deal of money, money you don’t have. May be a problem, may be not.

Kind of depends on what and how much you’re selling and shipping. If you’re selling dozens of extension ladders each day, you need order fulfillment help. No way you’re going to be able to handle shipping all on your own – and your spouse will be none-too-happy with 118 extension ladders stacked in the spare bedroom.

On the other hand, if you’re shipping 10 or 15 small items – figurines, for instance – order tracking software is relatively inexpensive and a must-have for the small, online business owner and retailer.

It’s all about taking good care of your customers.

Customer Care

Even the best run mail order business makes mistakes. We’ve all received the wrong order at one point. This is where client care becomes critical.

How quickly can you fix the problem and make that unhappy buyer a happy camper? No one says a thing about correct orders that are delivered on time. No problem. It’s expected. But, if you want that dissatisfied buyer who just received 12 pair of purple PJs to ever shop with you again, time to get busy.

The importance of resolving shipping errors can’t be overstated. Companies like LL Bean and Amazon have reached the heights of success through the quality of their customer care.

When you call LL Bean’s with a problem, someone in Maine (home of the company) answers the phone and stays with you until the problem is solved. Oh, and no automated routing system. An actual human being answers when a customer has a problem and the customer gets the satisfaction s/he requires.

If It Weren’t For Humans…

Most fulfillment mistakes are caused during the manual phases of order processing. The stock picker grabs the wrong item, the wrong label is affixed to the wrong box – most errors are human errors so, whether it’s just you at the dining room table, or a warehouse full of order pickers on Segues, remember that human error is the cause of most problems so a quality control system is always a good idea – a final check before the order ships.

Order Fulfillment Houses

These companies manage order fulfillment and store your inventory. They capture the online order at the same time you do. They do all the packing and haul the orders down to the shipper. They provide you with complete fulfillment information including names, dates, back-orders, returns and other s&h activity.

These companies work on a flat rate plus postage system or percentage of order system. Ask around. There’s likely an order fulfillment company in your area and it’s always nice to stop by to check inventory stats in person.

Order Fulfillment Software

If you are going to handle order fulfillment out of your home or work space, you’ll need order fulfillment software, sometimes called inventory management software. Basically the same tool.

This software automatically captures online orders or equips telephone service reps to enter orders manually. Each order is assigned a number and entered into the order database. From here, you can track the stage of each order and identify problems before they become problems.

These tools keep a running total of inventory on hand so you can re-order before running out of a hot seller.

These software tools also print out shipping labels and invoices. The invoice is placed in the shipping box, the box is sealed, labeled affixed – next! It streamlines the process so instead of taking hours out of your day, order fulfillment software cuts this critical chore down to size.

Further, it tracks the status of problem resolution. As the business owner, you can quickly see that something has been back-ordered and get an auto-responder out to all buyers of that item. All done with a few clicks.

The More Orders the Better

Of course. Why else are you working so hard to build an online business? However, there are other important aspects of your job as webmaster, business owner, order shipper, marketer and custodial engineer. Order fulfillment is simply one aspect of your business, albeit a critical factor.

So, as you put together the big plan and start making sales projections for the next five years, don’t forget order fulfillment costs in addition to postage and handling. It’s going to cost time or money, but it has to be a cost factored into the operation of your business.

So where do you want your business to be in five years? And how many orders a day is that?

Need some help getting orders under control? Webwordslinger is on top of it. Drop me a line or give me a call when you have a sec.

Don't You Dream Of Owning A Web Biz?

Starting An Online Business?

What’s the Plan? The Business Plan?

There are over 16 billion websites out there. That’s a lot of entrepreneurs all gathered in one place – the cyber marketplace. And if you plan on joining this dynamic collection of giant retailers and small, one-person shops operating out of the basement, you’d better have a plan – a business plan.

I Have a Plan. It’s in My Head.

Are you kidding? Most of us have trouble remembering our kids’ birthdays much less inventory costs six months out. No, a business plan isn’t some general idea, some amorphous blob of dreams and ignorance. Your business plan is your road map to success. And without one, you might just as well stay home.

What Should I Include in My Business Plan?

Of course it’s going to depend on the type of business. Are you selling goods or services or some combination of both? What are your best (and least expensive) marketing channels? Who’s your ideal buyer – your target demographic? All of these questions, along with many more, will shape the information in a business plan.

However, all businesses operate on the same economic and marketplace principles – profit and loss, expanding competition, economic viability and other ABCs taught in Business 101.

At the very least, your business plan should include:

• a vision statement – where you see the business in five or 10 years and how you intend to get there. Keep it concise. The shorter the better, in fact, because if you can state your vision in a sentence, maybe two, it’s at least worth pursuing. If you have to write a book just to explain your business vision, try another business or another approach to the business.

• business scope. How big? How many employees? Remote sites? Market reach?

• a short explanation of the business concept

• feasibility analysis (do you have the resources to pull this off and if so, what are those resources?)

• market analysis. Who are your biggest competitors? How many online competitors are there? How do you plan to compete against this more established and perhaps better funded competition?

• business structure. This includes the people who will be working on the business along with detailed job descriptions. Detailed.

• manageable finances. Nice thing about a web-based business is that you don’t need a ton of cash to open the store front. Getting people inside the store, well that’s another matter altogether. You can start on the cheap but you’ll have to spend money to make money eventually. Got $10K hidden in s shoebox? How about $500 in the penny jar? Either way, you better know, going in, what it’s going to cost to design and build a website, pay web hosting costs and the cost of administrating your business.

Mistakes That’ll Doom Your Business from Day 1

The biggest mistake prospective business owners make is being overly optimistic. They over-estimate revenues, underestimate start-up and operational costs and they rarely prepare for the unexpected. Be realistic. Be pessimistic and if you can still show a profit on paper, move forward.

Ignore the plan’s weaknesses. The whole point of a business plan is to identify and address soft spots and fix them before you undertake the plan. If your approach is, “I’ll deal with it later” chances are you won’t deal with it at all and it may form the underpinnings of your entire business plan. Face problems head on and develop solutions before you start, not as you go along.

Focus on long-term projections. This one is a bit more subtle but if you project turning a profit in five years and you’re losing more than you ever imagined possible, turn some of your attention to short-term projections and get your costs under control.

Lack of testing. You and your dad think it’s a great idea but is the world ready for your vision to become reality? Test market. As much as you can. And don’t just ask friends and family if they think this is a good idea. Ask professionals.

Aren’t professional business consultants expensive?

They can be if you go with the guy in the $2,000 Hugo Boss suit, but there are lots of very knowledgeable people who will give it away – free. There are experts with literally decades of real world experience who will show you precisely how to design a successful business AND put it in writing.

SCORE.org hooks up fledging business owners with experienced, often-retired business people just looking to give a kid (you) a break. This site has an “Ask the Expert” feature if you’re just looking for some quick information on a single topic. Or, you can enjoy online courses, receive SCORE’s newsletter filled with solid information provided by experienced pros and even get hooked up with a local SCORE volunteer with the site’s zip code search.

The federal government offers free advice and counseling (including a business plan template) through the Small Business Administration. A lot of folks believe the SBA will bankroll a new business no matter how off-the-wall it is. Not true. In fact, the SBA should NOT be viewed as a viable lender for an online business.

However, the SBA should be viewed as a terrific source of information and personal consultation. The SBA site offers small business planners, a long list of business services, an expansive menu of tools and even local resources. Want to talk to a successful site owner a few towns over? The SBA may be able to help.

Industry Organizations

In a free market (and the web is the freest by far) industry organizations recognize the need for expanding competition. That’s how these organizations grow themselves as they share industry information with corporate and individual members.

One helpful site that provides links to hundreds of trade and industry associations is Google’s Business Directory > By Industry. You’ll find associations for professions from accounting to web design.

Mentors

The best. These men and women have learned the ropes and they’re happy to share what they’ve learned with you. SCORE employs a mentoring system but you can also find your own mentor through business day networking channels.

Join the local Chamber of Commerce. It’ll cost a little but the networking and mentoring opportunities are priceless. The Jaycees, Elks, Lions and other community service organizations are excellent sources for excellent mentors. There’s no experience like real-world experience and that’s what you gain from your own mentor.

Just Because It’s an Online Business Doesn’t Mean It’s Not a Real Business

Whatever route you choose in the development of a business plan, you must have that plan. Written down. With pessimistic projections (you’ll make less and it’ll cost you more to do so. You can almost bet on it.). With resources, hurdles and challenges, problems and solutions.

No pie-in-the-sky dreams. Facts and analysis. The real deal.

Finally, the most important point of all and the best reason to develop a business plan:

If you don’t have a business plan, you won’t have a successful business.

Now, wasn’t that simple?

Need help getting your on-line biz off the ground. Call or click webwordslinger. You'll have a much better chance for success if you know where you're going and how to get there.