4. How to Tell If Your Web Designer or Developer Is Any Good

The Internet is by far the most significant development in terms of computer applications that I am aware of. Like no other tool it allows ordinary people to gain enjoyment, mental stimulation, find what they want and even make lots of money by giving them immediate, low cost access to a world market a market which is growing rapidly and one in which anyone who chooses to do so can compete with anyone else, anywhere in the world AND on level terms.

You just need to know how to make use of it and it is far easier (but not easy) than you think once you know how

Here at last is a what you know and not who you know medium.

Large traditional established stuck-in-the-mud organizations full of their own importance are vulnerable because no longer is a brand name or deep pockets enough to protect a market position.

4.1. One question is all you need to ask

The question is

How often do you use Wordtracker?

If the answer is rarely, not at all or something like What is Wordtracker then look for another web designer. And I mean this

In my opinion web designers not intimately aware of and users of Wordtracker cannot successfully design a website geared to attracting large volumes of traffic.

What you should immediately do is click the link below go and get the free trial and play with Wordtracker so you can follow the next few chapters more easily.

Click here for free trial ... DO IT NOW

This is SO important. Almost all future success with any website be it one designed for a PPC web campaign or a campaign designed to get high organic (free) search engine rankings will fail without a thorough understanding and application of keywords.

At the time of writing there is no tool on the Internet to rival the power of Wordtracker in seeking out important keywords and creating accurate and meaningful data to accompany the keywords discovered.

What I mean by "KEYWORD

The word keyword whenever used throughout the rest of this book means the following and keyword can also refer to keywords or keyphrase i.e. more than a single word.

A searcher typing words into a search engine box enters keywords these words are substitutes for needs. For example I type solar heater for swimming pool into Yahoo. This means at that point in time I am looking for information of a general nature about the use of solar heaters for swimming pools I have no need for information about solar heaters for my living room or office. I will thus be happy to see SERPs that are meeting my needs and I will be unhappy to see SERPs that do not.

If I just type solar heaters into the search box Im probably a casual browser or I might just want to use this 2 word phrase as a starting point to dig deeper. The fact is that the SERPs will almost certainly be a lot less targeted to my real needs (interpret this as less useful to me). You can be certain that at this stage Im a long way from any possible buying point and would not be at all attracted by a shop front page or a catalogue.

The art and science of SEO is to discover exactly what real people are REALLY typing into the search engines. If I know this then it is reasonably easy for me to meet those needs by writing a targeted web page. By meeting needs I make searchers happy and happy searchers may just one day follow my recommendation and buy from me just maybe.

Without the intimate keyword knowledge how can I possibly hope to write a targeted web page?

Without in-depth keyword knowledge web page creation is a guessing game and is the main fundamental reason for the failure of most websites.

This concept of keywords and the research required is the heart of good.

I know you didnt do it (if youre like me) so heres the advice again. STOP reading this book click this link below and play around even if its only to look at the home page and download the manual.

Click here for free trial ... DO IT NOW

4.2. You don't need a designer anything like as much as he needs you

Web designers like to get paid by the page not by the hour. Of course Im biased but such a model is totally inappropriate.

Depending upon which system I use 1,000 web pages + in 1 hour is not difficult. So If I charged R100 per web page my hourly rate would be as high as R10,000 per hour and frankly neither myself or anybody else I know is worth that.

Charging per page is a smokescreen and you should know this.

In fact no web page should even be started without keyword research having been completed ... after all if you havent identified the real search terms what should the web pages and especially the home page be about?

The true cost of any website is in the following 2 points and the time taken to accomplish these tasks. Web design (i.e. appearance, look and feel, is easy and quick in the right hands). Its important but FAR less than you think.

• Keyword research (which is best done in-house)

• Content creation (which can only be done satisfactorily in-house because nobody knows your offering better)

Keyword research must be completed before any web page design is contemplated. In fact the choice of domain and file names is not recommended until this work has been completed.

Number 1 page for internet banking

Take a look at the ugliest website in the world . And it ranks number 1 on an important search engine competing with the largest corporations in South Africa for the critical banking term internet banking. It was created by my friend and colleague William Kelly to make a very valid point to a major online bank about Internet marketing he was totally ignored by the way but thats another story.

If you click the link to http://www.internet-banking-online.com this is what youll see below

Where are all the banks with massive resource, deep pockets and money to burn? By the way William doesnt even have any money in the bank .

Award wining web designs are not necessary in fact for 99.99% of websites are NOT wanted this website is number 1 page 1 for the term internet banking

4.3. What does a designer really do anyway that adds value to your website profitability?

It depends

A good web designer is worth a fortune but they are few and far between. Good web designers know from scientific testing what a layout should look like and why.

A couple of obvious example but its the not so obvious that are most important

Where is the best place to locate the most important piece of customer-centric info on any web page?

Wheres the place to locate a traditional banner ad if you want it ignored?

How do you draw attention to secondary but important points?

Here's my view of a good web designer. Top web designers ...

• Use Wordtracker

• Understand and practice good direct marketing copywriting skills

• Implement calls to action on every web page

• Identify most wanted responses on every web page

• Value and implement visitor tracking

• Always use simple link text on every web page

• And perhaps first and foremost he measures results of the website designed.

4.4. Website design my way is easy almost free

My websites are all created in Microsoft FrontPage. This is a program that allows anybody to create all types of websites without any need to know html or have any specific design skills. Another popular program is Dreamweaver.

I have never used any other web design tool. FrontPage does everything Ive ever needed to do.

FrontPage WYSIWYG web page creator simple, effective, powerful

Tools like FrontPage and Dreamweaver are called WYSIWYG programs. In other words what you type, cut and paste into the software will appear just like that once the web pages are placed on the actual www. The programs automatically create the html code that enables your web pages to be viewed by anybody with any kind of web browser in the world.

FrontPage costs about R1600 in South Africa and is worth every cent. Youll often hear web people speak badly of these WYSIWYG tools and while I can only speak for FrontPage Ive never yet heard a single good reason why I should not use the software. It is quite magical and it allows ordinary people to make money on the internet and take control of their own destiny.

FrontPage is powerful, easy (once the initial learning curve has been mastered) to use and sophisticated too.

Still not convinced? Ask yourself this question.

When someone else designs your website who does most of the work anyway? YOU DO probably

• You give instructions (the brief)

• You provide the content in terms of text and images

• You pay for the photography if needed

• You check the various drafts and correct them and so it goes on.

Once the picture and text is available it can take as little as 5 minutes (yes it is true) to do the website itself.

4.5. Yes you can do it ... here's some motivation

To me the Internet is useful for learning from others on any subject you like. It is about tracking what is happening in the real world at any instant in time. It is also about preparing to share your own knowledge with others and, if you prefer, its about making money and it is possible to make lots of money.

The only snag to making lots of money is you need a product (or somebody elses) which many people would want to buy and of course one that you (or a 3rd party) can deliver when the customer wants it and how the customer wants it. The Internet is absolutely fantastic when it comes to delivery depending on your product delivery can take place in seconds to any point on the globe. Whats more delivery charges can be almost FREE if you sell or promote virtual products (like this pdf book or software for example).

This book assumes you already have or can create a useful product. A product can be a physical item, it can be a service, it can be a training course or it can be a book like this for example. It hardly matters what the product is so long as there is a need out there. This book will show you how to check if there is a need, and how big that need is so you can prioritize your efforts.

Once you have established a need and you have the finished product all that remains is for you to get the traffic through your virtual store. This is one of the reasons for this book. Do as I suggest and you will get the traffic guaranteed.

On the Internet the volume of traffic passing through your store is critical. The numbers have to be high because percentage success rates are low even for the very best sites.

To give you a feel for this it is reckoned that for a successful search query to a number 1, page 1 search result ranking only 10% of the visitors will click through to that page. Lets assume you then get 1,000 click-throughs to your website in a month. Once the click through to the page has been achieved a maximum of 5% will click to a sales page or landing page as it is called and only about 2 to 5% will actually buy if you have written a good landing page. That means if you are good you will sell between 1 and 2.5 products. This puts things into perspective and hopefully explains why so many companies have been unsuccessful on the web.

It was not the web that was at fault it was the inability to get traffic to the website and then the inability of the website to persuade the customer to buy.

This book will help you overcome in a serious way these two different but equally important objectives. Your website MUST:

• Attract large numbers of visitors

• Your website must be constructed in such a way it entices the visitors who click through to your site to buy or do what your website wants them to do (MWR = most wanted response).

Seth Godin who wrote Permission Marketing states categorically that the only reason for a commercial website is to 100% focus on attracting total strangers so that you can market to them. Think about this it makes great sense to me.

I would hazard a guess that 99% of people who have tried to sell products using the Internet have been greatly disappointed. This disappointment could have been so great that they even became disillusioned with the Internet.

There are only two reasons for failing to sell on the Internet:

• The international community has NO NEED for the product for whatever reason: design, usefulness, price and so on.

• The seller DID NOT KNOW how to reach the market for the product or to put it another way the customers could not find the product.

This is probably the reason for 99% of failures. As discussed earlier if youre not on the first 3 pages of a search engines results you can assume you will not be found in any significant numbers. The only meaningful alternative to search engines for getting traffic to your site is through linking programs and traditional media.

The fact that you are now reading this book does mean I do not have to convince you of the absolutely critical and uncompromising need to get onto the web or die as a business sooner or later.

Websites have to be updated frequently in many cases, even daily possibly. If you cannot do it yourself the only option to be successful is to have deep pockets and dedicated designers who know what they are doing. I am going to repeat this message:

To be successful on the Internet you must do (or at least be able to do and therefore be able to manage) most things yourself. It really is far easier than you think and it takes a small amount of time once you know what you are doing. The learning curve can be a little steep however.

Unfortunately you will probably only realize how very true this is once you have done it and had some success I remember clearly the feeling on seeing my first page 1 number 1 SERP on Google.

This book will encourage you to DO IT (or at least try) YOURSELF.

This is not a book based upon what I think you should learn to succeed.

It is a book based upon what I have done to succeed and a book in which I have learned from others who have succeeded before me these are the paraphrased words of Michael Fortin, another of my web marketing heroes. It is the result of numerous failures, failed attempts, wrong starts and ultimately wonderful success.

My success is measured by the fact that I have many thousands of page 1 SERPs on Google, Yahoo, MSN, AllTheWEb, Ask Jeeves and so on covering most aspects of water gardening, which is one of my areas of specialization.

It took me some 2 years from first becoming interested in selling on the Internet to completing my first project. It took so long for the very simple reason I did not know where or how to start or what was important and even critical as I discovered later All I knew was that I wanted to sell a product I believed in and knew with some certainty there was some need for. I did not even know if there were similar products already available.

This period was taken up learning on a step by step trial and error basis using mainly paid-for information from Internet experts who I found using Internet resources (I never met a single one of these contacts such is the power of the Internet) .

I spent considerable sums of money to learn the trade secrets and can honestly say that with very few exceptions the money spent was never regretted. Yes, some was wasted but this was an important and probably necessary part of the learning. I never felt however I had been ripped off.

There is lots of free stuff about web marketing but almost without exception the free stuff hides the really important bits of information not surprising because most Internet experts make their living by selling intellectual property.

Nowhere could I find a complete How To Do It . that would have satisfied me knowing what I now know. The information was there but spread around a lot and mainly in the USA with some excellent resources, but far fewer, in the UK, and Australasia .

The information was also always changing.

It is still changing The SEO industry remains in its infancy.

This book will save you a great deal of money and time and frustration. You will learn all the good things that allow success to be achieved. You will be warned of the real pitfalls . Lets start working.