Denver Startup Week: 10 Common Website Mistakes and How to Fix Them
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The presentation addresses key issues in SEO and content marketing, highlighting common mistakes that hinder website conversions, such as unclear calls-to-action, lack of customer journey content, and the failure to utilize testimonials effectively. It urges businesses to optimize their online presence through accessibility, mobile-friendliness, and the proper use of schema markup. The session aims to provide actionable solutions to improve user experience and search visibility, ultimately driving conversions.
Denver Startup Week: 10 Common Website Mistakes and How to Fix Them
- 1. TITLE OF PRESENTATION Person Namehere 7/28/16
- 3. HEADLINE SPONSORS PARTNER SPONSORS MEMBER SPONSORS AutoDesk Bradford, ltd CenturyLink City & County of Denver, OED Colorado House of Pod The Commons On Champa Cooley DCPA - Seawell Ballroom eTuk Ride General Assembly Hired.com Husch Blackwell ImageSeller Intelivideo Luna Gourmet Coffee & Tea Mass FX Media Nanno Netsuite Nordstrom OfficeScapes The Passport Program Peak Beverage Perficient Slalom Consulting Spectrum Test Double Verizon Wireless Workiva Xactly Zayo Granicus Hogan Lovells Meyer Law Photomadic Slifer Smith & Frampton Swiftpage
- 4. ABOUT ME •7+ years working in search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing •Experience both in-house and at agencies •Former freelance writer/blogger, SEO consultant •Started career as an English teacher abroad, special education background Increasing conversions on your website. @alliberry3 | aberry@fool.com Awards • Top 100 Content Marketers of 2018 (Express Writers & BuzzSumo) • Moz Blog Top 50 of 2017 • 2017 Finalist for Best Conversion Response from a Content Marketing Program (CMI)
- 5. WHAT PROBLEMS ARE WE SOLVING IN THIS SESSION? 1. SEO – issues preventing people from finding your website in search 2. Content – mistakes that make prospects more skeptical of your business 3. UX – issues that prevent more users from converting
- 6. NOT HAVING CONTENT FOR EACH STAGE OF THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY MISTAK E 1
- 7. The Customer Journey Image Source: moz.com
- 8. Discovery I have a problem. What’s the solution? • Informational articles • Best X for X • 1st Person Stories
- 9. Consideration Is it right for me? • Comparison Content • Product Specific Content/Reviews • 3rd Party Reviews
- 10. Conversion Where should I buy it? • What makes your business special • Location page (if storefront) • Customer testimonials • What to expect from our team/visiting our store Image Credit: Conversioner
- 11. Conversion Can I afford it? Am I getting a deal? • Special offers • Financing explainers/calculators Image Credit: Conversioner
- 12. Retention Am I satisfied with the product/service? • How to use product/service more effectively • Opportunities to share your story/get reviews and testimonials • New relevant initiatives from the brand Image Credit: http://davidsusman.com
- 14. WHAT IS A CALL-TO-ACTION (CTA)? A call-to-action is an image or line of text that prompts your visitors to do something. Often in a button form. Could also be within an article, in a side bar, etc. AKA: a pitch. Image credit: thecreativeagency.co.uk
- 15. Why are CTAs Important? You’ve done the hard part of getting visitors to your page…now you get to tell them what to do next! If you don’t, they are more likely to leave your website.
- 16. TYPES OF CTAS Discovery Phase Read More: Get People to Keep Reading Subscribe: Get People to Subscribe to Your Content Download eBook: Lead People to Deeper Content + Email Capture
- 17. TYPES OF CTAS Consideration Phase Demo: Tool: Provide some info for free. Free Trial/Demo: Intro to product. Case Study: Deeper dive on how you can help.
- 18. TYPES OF CTAS Purchase Phase Apply: Visit affiliate website for final conversion. Contact Us: If you don’t have a product to buy online Buy: Self- explanatory.
- 19. Best Practice 1: Plan Your CTAs with Your Content • What’s the next logical step for a visitor to this content? • Know the buying cycle for your product/service. • Don’t sell too soon.
- 20. Best Practice 2: Test CTAs Frequently • Button language • Side callout vs in- text • Imagery • Size • Placement • Icons • Form fields Free Tool: Google Optimize
- 21. TESTIMONIAL S NOT USED TO THEIR FULL POTENTIAL MISTAK E 3
- 22. •Does your website have a testimonials or reviews page?
- 23. The trouble with testimonials pages… People often ignore them.
- 24. Why? Source: Chiropractic Reputation Management Software
- 25. Add them to appropriate pages on your website. The best way to use testimonials
- 26. Good Places for Testimonials •Relevant product or service pages •Near CTAs •Home, About, and Bio Pages •Callout on blog pages (especially if a lot of traffic comes from search)
- 27. Example
- 28. Example
- 29. Example
- 30. Best Practices for Testimonials Ask recent customers Follow up Ask your best customers individually Ask good questions How much time/money does our product/service save? What’s the best benefit/feature of this product/service? Put thought into the design of testimonials
- 32. Main reason pricing not listed Pricing depends on something.
- 33. The problem with this… • It makes prospects doing research really mad • They may drop off if they aren’t ready to talk to someone at your company yet • Or you’ll get unqualified leads
- 34. The solution Even if “it depends,” talk about what goes into pricing Provide ranges based on variables Consider a pricing calculator
- 35. Example 1: Better than nothing
- 39. When does local content matter? •When you have a storefront •(ex. Boutique store) •When you have a service area •(ex. Handyperson) •When your product or service has a local component to it •(ex. Online distributor of Wisconsin cheese)
- 40. Why does local content matter? •Establishes relevance in local searches •Provides useful information that matters to your target customer base •Shows your business’s involvement in the local community
- 41. What is local content? Examples: Location page with hours, details, and contact information Article about a local event the company sponsored Incorporatin g location into reviews/testi monials Case study/use case that incorporates location Unique study about trends in a certain area Addresses the needs of an audience in a particular area
- 42. Examples
- 43. Examples
- 44. Examples
- 45. SPEAKING IN JARGON INSTEAD OF TO YOUR CUSTOMERS MISTAK E 6
- 46. How this happens • Just trying to get words on the pages to launch • Copywriter is too close to the product • No one does any keyword research • No one externally reviews the content Image Credit: Literacy Teaching and Teacher Education
- 47. Signs this is a problem • Not ranking well in search • Getting unqualified leads • High bounce rate • Low conversion rate • Customer feedback
- 48. Copywriting best practices What is the product and why should a prospect care about it? How will this product make the prospect’s life easier/better? What’s the next step? (CTA)
- 49. Use Customer Stories They’ll give you the language you need to talk about your products!
- 51. What is duplicate content? When the same content appears on more than one URL.
- 52. Why is this an issue? 1. Search engines aren’t sure which version of the page to index and rank. 2. It can dilute the authority of your page if you have links pointing to all versions. 3. Search rankings can suffer as a result.
- 53. “25-30% of the web is duplicate content.” – Matt Cutts, Former head of web spam team at Google
- 54. How this happens 1. URL Variations • http vs https • www vs non-www
- 55. Moving to https Google says…. • Protects the integrity of your website • Protects the privacy and security of your users • It’s the future of the web • Non-https sites marked as not secure in certain browsers • Google favoring https sites in rankings
- 56. How this happens 2. Print Versions
- 57. How this happens 3. Duplicate URL Paths (ie. Multiple Categories)
- 58. Best Solution: 301 Redirects • Permanent redirect the duplicate URLs to the correct (canonical URL) • Search engines only crawl and index the correct URLs • Users only reach the correct URL
- 59. Next Best Solution: Canonical Tags • Tag in code that tells search engines which version of the page to pay attention to • Users can still fall on any version of the page
- 61. Why Accessibility? • Improves the lives of people with disabilities. It’s the right thing to do. • Provides a larger potential customer base. • Helps you avoid bad PR and potential lawsuits. • Better for SEO. “About 56.7 million Americans (19% of the population) have a disability.” – US Census Bureau
- 62. Types of Disabilities • Physical • Visual • Auditory • Cognitive • Seizure Disorders
- 64. Best Practices Using alt tags on images
- 65. Best Practices Providing transcriptions and captions for videos
- 66. Best Practices Avoid mouse dependent interaction
- 67. Best Practices Using proper header tags
- 68. Best Practices Having content accessible in a number of ways – navigation, site search, sitemap
- 69. Best Practices Use color schemes with high contrast Minimum contrast: 4.5:1 Check your colors here: https://webaim.org/resources/contrastchecker/
- 71. In March 2018, Google starting rolling out MOBILE-FIRST INDEXING Image credit: Quora
- 72. WHAT DOES THIS MEAN? •Historically, Google has used the desktop version of content for indexing and ranking. •They recently switched to using (mostly) the mobile version of content for indexing and ranking. •This is a reflection of how searchers have moved predominantly to mobile devices. Image credit: extradigital.co.uk
- 73. TYPES OF MOBILE WEBSITES 1. Responsive Design 2. Adaptive Design 3. Separate Mobile Site Image credit: Iconfinder.com
- 74. RESPONSIVE DESIGN Definition: Layout changes based on size and capabilities of the device. Mobile-first indexing doesn’t impact responsive websites. Pros: • Cheap to build and maintain • Future-proof for new device sizes Cons: • Not a fully optimized mobile experience for users • Tend to be slower to load on mobile Image credit: Surgeonsadvisor.com
- 75. ADAPTIVE DESIGN Definition: Set designs for multiple sizes of devices; system detects device size and serves appropriate version. Mobile-first indexing could impact adaptive websites. Pros: • More optimized mobile experience Cons: • Complex and often expensive solution • Not future-proof for new devices • More maintenance required than responsive Image credit: uxplanet.org
- 76. SEPARATE MOBILE WEBSITE Definition: Completely separate mobile-version of a website (often m.domain.com). Mobile-first indexing DOES impact separate mobile websites. Pros: • Potential for fully optimized mobile experience Cons: • Potential for duplicate content issues • Requires more maintenance • Bad link sharing experience between mobile and desktop Image credit: clickseed.com Don’t do it.
- 77. Starting a website now? Responsive Design – Best solution if you are resource strapped. Easier to build and maintain than adaptive. Lots of templates to utilize. Adaptive Design – Will give a better mobile experience, and faster site speed. Will require more developer time and maintenance than responsive. Separate Mobile Website – Generally, don’t do this. If you have complex tasks and lots of 3rd party integrations, this might be a good solution. But please hire SEO help.
- 79. What is Schema? • Schema markup is code (semantic vocabulary) that you put on the backend of your website to help the search engines return more richer results for users.
- 80. Why does it matter? Provides more context and clarity to search engines about the contents of your pages. Allows you to occupy more space in search engine results pages, which can help click-through-rate. Does it help search rankings? Likely not. No study has proven it.
- 81. Examples
- 82. Examples
- 83. Examples
- 84. Examples
- 85. Other Popular Types of Schema Local Business Restaurants Articles Event Organization Person Place Product Job Postings Go to schema.org to see what Schema is available for your vertical.
- 87. Implementation
- 88. Implementation
- 89. Implementatio n
- 90. WRAPPING UP…. Content Fixes: 1. Have content for all stages of the customer journey 2. Have clear CTAs (UX) 3. Incorporate relevant testimonials in your content 4. Talk about pricing 5. Create locally relevant content 6. Speak the language of your customers
- 91. WRAPPING UP…. Technical SEO and UX Fixes: 1. Clean up duplicate content 2. Design for accessibility 3. Make your website mobile- friendly 4. Use Schema markup