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Congratulations! You've Gotten Visitors To Your Site! Now, Can They Find What Theyre Looking For?
As search engine marketers, we spend an enormous amount of time trying to get targeted traffic to our site. But, once those visitors get to our site, can they find what they're looking for? If not, guess what? We've lost a customer. Think about it this way. How many times have you found a site through a major search engine or directory, only to visit the site and not be able to find what you're looking for anywhere on the site? What do you do next? You go back to the search engine and click on the next site. That site has lost a customer: you. Helping your visitors find what they're looking for on your site can cover a great many areas, such as navigation, user interface issues, and the lack of a clear "call to action." But one way around many of those issues is to offer an onsite search engine, so that once visitors hit your site, they can easily find exactly what they're looking for. The really neat thing about onsite search engines is that many of them are FREE. Yes, you read right: free. Of course, that also means that you may have ads in your search results, which may or may not present problems for you. However, even if you choose to purchase an onsite engine, the cost is generally not expensive. What should you look for in an onsite search engine?
In my training material and resource library at the Academy, I had an onsite search engine for a long time. Then, the company folded. Until recently, I hadn't set up another onsite engine, because the one onsite engine that I really wanted to use didn't index password-protected areas. So, I "patiently" waited for the onsite engine, FreeFind, to add this to their list of features. When they recently did, I jumped on it, and now both of my online training programs have excellent onsite search engines through FreeFind (http://www.freefind.com). But why did FreeFind stand out among the others, and why was it so important to me to wait until they could index password- protected areas? FreeFind offers some features that I couldn't find on other onsite search engines, features that would help me tremendously with my work. For example:
In Conclusion Look closely at your site. Is it time to add an onsite search engine? Is it time to make sure visitors can find exactly what they're looking for when they land on your site? Are you losing customers who get lost and can't find what they want? FreeFind (http://www.freefind.com) is an excellent onsite search engine that met my exact needs. However, to be fair, and because this article isn't meant to be an advertisement for FreeFind, here are some other onsite engines that you may want to consider. Look closely at their features, and find the one that works best for you. Other Onsite Search Engines Atomz: http://www.atomz.com PicoSearch: http://www.picosearch.com SiteLevel.com: http://www.sitelevel.com/ FusionBot.com: http://www.fusionbot.com A listing of numerous onsite search tools: http://www.searchtools.com/tools/tools.html Copyright 2002 Robin Nobles. All rights reserved. About The Author Robin Nobles, Director of Training, Academy of Web Specialists, has trained several thousand people in her online search engine marketing (http://www.academywebspecialists.com) training programs. Visit the Academy's training site to learn more about their online search engine marketing training (http://www.onlinewebtraining.com) and search engine optimization (http://www.se-optimizer.com) software. She also teaches 3-day hands-on search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe with Search Engine Workshops (http://www.searchengineworkshops.com). Email: RobinN@acws.com
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Website Savvy: 10 Key Steps to Turn Your Customers ON! "How to turn "slightly interested" customers into "I've got to have it!" customers!"I am truly amazed as to the lack of information websites contain. You would think that a business would realize that a potential customer would at least like to know how to contact the customer service department. Website Design Mishaps - How to Avoid Costly Errors That Can Crush Your Chances of Success Designing your website can be a difficult task especially if you decide to do it on your own and you have no experience. There are many websites and web hosts that provide tools to allow you to build your website, but if you have no knowledge of what works and what does not work in web design, you could be setting yourself up for a big fall. Are You Driving Away Potential Customers? When a prospect lands on your website will he or she understand what you are presenting? Do your ordering/sign up instructions make sense? Can prospects easily find the information they are searching for? If you don't know the answers to these questions you may be driving away potential customers.As a writer I put a lot of effort into making ideas clear. How to Create A Homepage That Works Want to know what the worst thing to say on a homepage is?"Welcome to our homepage." And yet, time after time, we all come across such homepages on the Internet. A Website Checklist If you've just finished building your new website (or revamping your old one), how can you be sure it's "ready for prime time"? Or maybe your site's been around for awhile and you think it may be due for a makeover. Because Web technologies, techniques and standards change so rapidly, even a website that seems "cutting edge" when it's built can look obsolete a year later. Web Templates: Replacing Designers? I've seen articles (and websites) that suggest you can buy a website template and skip the expense of hiring a professional website designer. Recently, I read several testimonials from the very satisfied customers of a website template vendor that mentioned how quickly they were able to get their sites done. Tips For An Effective Website A successful website is something that everyone venturing into the new arena of Internet marketing and communications wants to have. Your website will often be a potential client's first impression of you and your business. Choose & Use the Best Colors, The Psychology of Color Are you using the best colors for your web site? Many web designers often overlook the issues of color in web design. When choosing colors for your web site there are three main areas that should be addressed. How To Create A Stunning Drop Capital Effect On Your Web Pages Drop Capitals are frequently used in many newspapers, books and magazines in the offline world. You will frequently see the large capital letter sinking down into the first paragraph of articles, stories and chapters in the majority of publications you come across. Testimonials Can Increase Your Web Traffic We've all seen and read product testimonials. They're a very valuable tool for merchant sales and can often tip the scales in determining a customer's decision to buy. Why You Should Hire a Professional Website Designer Your web site should always adhere to standards!A professional web site designer will provide you with a standard compliant web site that is cross-browser supported.What does this mean to you? Why should you care? Any site that isn't standard compliant can "break" in older browsers, or simply not display at all in, say, text-based browsers. Having A User Friendly Website Let's look at what your user wants to see at your website.1. Sell Yourself First...Your Key To More Sales Selling on the internet is a challenge. There is no way to come "face to face" with your potential buyer. Five Common Web Design Mistakes There are often many mistakes encountered when creating a webpage or website. Learn about the top five website mistakes, and how to avoid them. Building Your First Web Site? Before doing anything on the technical side, you need some kind of basic idea to work with. I suggest first getting some paper and a pencil. Click Here See, works every time. Seriously now, for some reason people keep leaving your website and you can't figure out why. Content is Crucial! Content is undoubtedly the most important element of a website. It is the defining factor for a website, that which catches the interest of your visitors and keeps them hooked to your site. How To Get A Pay Raise From Your Web Site How many of the visitors to your web site take the action you want them to take? Whether you want them to buy something from you, sign up for your newsletter, enter your sweepstakes, or give you contact information to follow up on, you want them to do something. The percentage of visitors who actually do that something is called your "conversion rate. Usability and Considerate Design I hate to imagine that in your web development project team meetings, the one thing that will be overlooked is consideration for the end user. Yet, how many white boards have you seen lately that have "ease of use", or "be polite to customers" scribbled anywhere on them? Rather, the discussion hits on revenue generation, business requirements, colored backgrounds and information architecture. Web Advertising: 10 Little Known Tricks To Help Convert Your Traffics To Buying Customers You may not believe it, but people still judge things by their appearances.How does your website look?The appearance of your web site text can actually increase or decrease your sales.
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