Raw 04 - December 2008 - (Page 82)

RAW THE MARVELLOUS MEDIA COMPANY Beyond the Search Engines As more and more business owners become aware of the huge growth in internet marketing the focus on search engine optimisation and pay-per-click increases. But many business owners are missing out on potential business because their website is destroying their SEO and PPC efforts with a sky-high bounce rate. We’ve all been there. Scouring the search engine results for that special something, that perfect product, the superlative service. You run your cursor down the list of pages and there’s something about one of them that makes you think ‘that’s the one’. side of that equation. That’s your website, and those are your visitors leaving in their droves. How sick do you feel now? doesn’t matter how slick your SEO or PPC is, it doesn’t matter how many visitors you drive to your website, if you don’t get them over this ﬁrst hurdle, you’re just wasting a whole lot of time and money. So what are people basing this decision on? What can they possibly draw from your website in a twentieth of a second? Look at your own website. If it was written in a foreign language, would you know what it was selling? A picture is worth a thousand words People like to see what they are buying. Just peruse the shelves of your local toy shop and you’ll see how much effort the packaging designers put into making the toy as visible as possible, some even allowing you to touch and interact with the toy. They’ve gone to this trouble for a reason – it sells more toys. First impressions count There is a whole raft of research out there on how quickly people make their mind up about a website. I’ve seen ﬁgures that The search for perfection range from a few seconds to In your mind’s eye you already precognition. Some have an idea of what you’re going to see Visitors make a research carried out by when you click the ﬁrst impression Carleton University, Canada suggests that link. You expect of your website visitors make a ﬁrst to see images of in a staggering impression of your what you’re looking website in a staggering for, an appropriate twentieth of a twentieth of a second. colour scheme, and second. a supporting layout. The research goes on to You can almost see it. You click the link, your heart sinks, suggest that no matter what they read after this they are unlikely to the site stinks. You hit the back change their initial view. If your button and, chances are, you’ll website isn’t generating the desired never visit that website again. impression in that fraction of a second it could be disastrous. It Now put yourself on the other

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Raw 04 - December 2008

Raw 04 - December 2008 Contents Imran Hakim Linda Klassen Brown Bradley Chapman Heidi Weir Colin Stroud Emma Thompson Raw Business Have a Care JPR Mortages TLB Events Alexander Davis

Raw 04 - December 2008

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