Critical Web Mistakes to Avoid
Key Information About Increasing Your Web Site Traffic
What You Need to Know About Content on Your Site
Secrets of Getting More Sales from Your Site
How Harold Hingle Can Help You on the Web

DAVID:

What are the biggest problems you see with people’s Web sites, before you start working with them?

HAROLD:

David, most people are not clear on the purpose of their site to begin with. You know, having a Web site is not an end in itself, but that’s the way most people approach it. Almost like they had “put a site up on the Web” on their to-do list; they did it; and that’s the end of it.

DAVID:

What’s wrong with that?

HAROLD:

Nothing, if all you want to do is put a site up. But most people have bigger ambitions. That’s fine – except you have to build your site to help you reach the goals that you’ve set. And most people don’t. They don’t connect what they want out of the site with the way they’ve put their site together.

DAVID:

I see what you’re saying. But could you give me some examples of purposes for Web sites?

HAROLD:

Sure. I work with a lot of professional speakers, and the purpose of their site is typically to give people who are thinking of hiring them, enough information to either make a phone call, or book them for a speech, right on the spot.

A site that promotes books or ebooks usually has the purpose of closing the sale, right there on the Web page.

A site for a big company often has the purpose of building the company’s brand, and telling prospects, customers, investors and the media more about the company’s products or services.

DAVID:

Okay. So one mistake to avoid is: not being clear on the purpose of your Web site. But let’s say you are clear on your purpose. What are other mistakes people make?

HAROLD:

The funny thing is, David, you can be crystal-clear on the purpose of your site and still mess things up by not having content that fits that purpose.

DAVID:

What do you mean?

HAROLD:

Let’s say you’re a professional speaker, and your passion is health and fitness. And you know the purpose of your site is to get speeches booked.

But instead of telling people what you speak about and how to book you, you have a long philosophical statement about health and fitness. Yet there’s no information about your actual speech topics, who you’ve spoken for before, what they say about you – testimonials – and how to get more information.

People make that kind of mistake all the time. They leave out the content that customers need to have, in order to take the next step.

DAVID:

I agree. That is a big mistake. Any other common mistakes you notice?

HAROLD:

Another big mistake is not including appropriate keywords in your content so prospects will find your site in the search engines.

DAVID:

What would be an example of that?

Let’s look at the health and fitness speaker. People searching for a health and fitness speaker might type the words "health" "fitness" and "speaker" into a search engine.

As obvious as this sounds, a lot of people wouldn’t make sure those words are in the content, high up on the page, so that their site would get a high ranking when someone typed those words into a search engine.

Key Information About Increasing Your Web Site Traffic

DAVID:

That makes sense. And that brings us to the subject of getting traffic for your site. Why don’t people get as much traffic as they’d like to their sites?

HAROLD:

Often, people think the most successful Web site is the one with the greatest number of visitors. But that’s not necessarily true.

What they want is the largest number of targeted visitors – people who are in the market to buy what they are selling.

It would be better to get 100 visitors who are good prospects, instead of 1,000 visitors, all of whom don’t want or can’t afford what you offer.

DAVID:

What mistake do people make in this regard?

HAROLD:

I find often they haven’t really pinpointed who their target market is, so they are going after too broad a market. Or, they are going after the wrong market.

DAVID:

And what’s the solution?

HAROLD:

Well, once you know who you’re looking for, then you use key words in the content that specifically target that audience. And then you really ramp it up.

DAVID:

What techniques do you use to increase targeted traffic flow?

HAROLD:

•  Pay-per-click search engines. These search engines allow you to buy search terms. You can bid on these terms and put yourself at the top of the search engine this way.
   
•  Put your keywords in metatags. These are hidden in the HTML code that creates the Web site. You don’t normally see the metatags when you look at  the Web site, but the search engine knows it’s there.
   
•  Make sure your customers learn about your Web site at every point of contact with your business. My client Patricia Fripp is a master at that. She puts her Web address on her voicemail… on her letterhead… in her ads… on handouts, when she speaks… and on the tapes and CDs that she sells. This way she gets a huge amount of just the right traffic to her sites!

DAVID:

Could you give me a specific example of how you’ve helped a client increase traffic to their Web site?

HAROLD:

Yes. One of my clients is Brian Halquist
(http://www.halquistproductions.com ) and when he came to me, he asked me to build him a Web site from scratch.

Brian’s company does entertainment promotion – he promotes boxing matches and rock concerts, primarily.

DAVID:

What did you do for his company?

HAROLD:

When Brian came to me, he said, "Harold, I don’t really know Web that well, but I want to have a popular site, and I want people to visit my site. I have a lot of information to offer them."

So, I designed a site for Brian and within one month, he had over 1,000 hits on his site. Within three months, he had had over 26,000 visitors.

So he’s very happy with his site. We’re constantly working on it to make it a lot more marketable. He has a lot of events so we have to change the site frequently – either to advertise new events or to change and to drop the old events, for example.

DAVID:

26,000 visitors! How did you do that?

Linking to other, already popular sites was one thing we did. For example, Fight News and such like that, and he had those people linked to his site. So those very popular Web sites are now linking to his thing and making his site a lot more popular.

DAVID:

Have you done anything in the music world for Brian?

HAROLD:

He’s also involved with promoting concerts and such, so he is having a lot of top-rated bands, a lot of popular bands linked to his site as well.

DAVID:

Having well-placed links to your site is important for getting people there… but, what should you say about the role of content in keeping them there?

HAROLD:

It’s crucial. You need to keep people interested in what you have to say, and give them something of substance, in order to get them to hang around on your site.

DAVID:

Why is that?

HAROLD:

How do you make it interesting? You need to inform people, or entertain them – or both. And providing good content is the best way to do that.

DAVID:

Could you talk about how you’ve used Tom Blake’s content on his site, both to attract visitors, and to keep them on the site once they get there?

HAROLD:

Sure. Tom’s site is http://www.findingloveafter50.com , and it’s mainly for middle-aged and senior people who are looking for someone for companionship. Whether they’re widowed, divorced or simply single and looking for someone new, Tom wants to be able to help these people try to get back out in the world and find what they’re looking for.

We looked at people in this market, and we picked keywords like "middle-aged dating" and "senior dating" is another one.

Also, his name, Tom Blake, is a draw by itself, because he’s a newspaper columnist. So even though he’s not as well known as a movie star or famous politician, Tom does have name recognition to his target market. And that makes his name a key word in and of itself.

DAVID:

Great. Now, tell me, what have you done with his content?

HAROLD:

Tom has written over 600 columns, and these are of interest to people who come to his site. Even though his articles are on the newspaper’s site, we’ve created links to them from his site. That’s the beauty of the Web – everything’s interconnected!

DAVID:

What other content does he have on his site?

HAROLD:

Well, he talks about his books that he has available, and lets people purchase them right on his site. And, he moderates a discussion group on the topic of middle-age or senior dating. Those are just a few of the things Tom’s done with content.

DAVID:

You mentioned with Tom Blake that he sells books from his Web site. Could you talk about selling from the Web, and what it takes to make it work?

HAROLD:

That’s an important topic. Many people want to sell from their Web sites but get very disappointed when there are no sales.

DAVID:

What are some key things to bear in mind regarding sales?

HAROLD:

The first thing is, you need to sell something people are willing to buy over the Web.

DAVID:

What do you mean by that?

HAROLD:

Well, I worked for a number of dot-coms a few years back. A few that I didn’t work for proved that people won’t buy things like furniture or pet food over the Web.

DAVID:

True enough. But what do they buy?

HAROLD:

People will buy books and other forms of information – like with Tom Blake. They’ll book tickets to events. And, sometimes, they’ll buy consulting services right over the Web.

DAVID:

Can you give us some tips to maximize sales over the Web?

HAROLD:

Yes. The most important thing is to keep content on your site is focused, and to give people the key information they need in order to make a buying decision.

DAVID:

That’s good. What else?

HAROLD:

If you are selling a book or an ebook, you should have an image of the cover up on the Web site. But keep the size of the graphic as small as possible, so the page doesn’t take too long to load.

DAVID:

Great point. One final tip?

HAROLD:

On the other hand, when “all the cylinders line up” – that is, when everything is working smoothly and in concert with everything else – you can develop a nice extra income stream from your Web site.

DAVID:

How refreshingly unusual.

HAROLD:

Thank you, David.

DAVID:

By now, I’m sure most of the people reading this are wondering what you do for your clients. Why don’t you summarize the services you offer?

Okay. If someone is just starting out, I begin by asking questions to get them to focus in on why are they are creating a web site, so they can get the results they’re looking for – whether it’s to sell a product, to publicize events, to get them clients, to generate sales leads, or whatever it is.

DAVID:

That’s important. Once you’ve determined what they want to do and the best way to do it, what’s next?

HAROLD:

From there, I take care of the mechanics – setting up hosting, registering domain names, forwarding email from the site to their current email account – and I work on the creative and marketing portions of site: the graphics, helping them to arrange their content, and optimizing the site for search engine ranking.

DAVID:

That sounds good. Once you’ve created the site, do you offer any follow-up services?

HAROLD:

Yes. That I like to help people all the way through the process, and I want to make sure that they’re having a successful, that their web site is what they expect out of it, and that it’s very successful.

I can do ongoing maintenance, upgrades and improvements. I want my clients to be successful over the long haul, and I make myself available to help make that happen.

DAVID:

That sounds great, Harold. How can people get in touch with you?

HAROLD:

A couple ways. They can email me: hhingle@haroldhingle.com , or, give me a call on the phone: (415) 564-5146.

DAVID:

Harold, thanks for taking the time to give this interview. You have given me a lot of great information.

HAROLD:

It was my pleasure.

Your initial consultation with me is free.
Call me at (415) 564-5146, or send me an email at hhingle@haroldhingle.com

I'm looking forward to talking with you.

Sincerely,
Harold Hingle