Keno Vigil Multimedia Solutions

How to Create Successful Product Websites that People Love

You just launched a new product. You want people to tell others in their social network. You want word of it to spread like a virus from person to person, eventually resulting in more buzz, attention and sales.

And you want to do it using the internet. Purely online. No TV, newspapers or radio. No print ads. Assume you’ve already done all of the above (you should have) and just want an online strategy that will work.

There are many things you can do. Every experienced online marketer will agree that the first step is to set up a home base or launch pad. Some website where people can find you and your product online. Some place where you can funnel attention and traffic towards. It’s where you pitch your work. It’s what people will be sharing.

This article will talk about how to create an effective website to promote your new product (or just about anything you want).

How People Usually Promote Products Online

The most common way of promoting a new product involves the development of a new website or web page to showcase it. In both cases, the goal is to provide information about the product, capture attention, generate interest/desire and sales.

If a new webpage is built, it usually takes the form of a straightforward sales page and is hosted on an existing domain. If a new website is developed, the sales page format can be extended into an informational site with a community built around the product.

It’s impossible to say what works for every product out there. So let’s avoid generalities and assume a specific scenario. Say your product is a new book and you want to promote it. Here are some of the common methods used:

• Method One – Set up a landing page for the book on your existing personal website or blog. A product page is also often created on the publisher’s website or a distributor like Amazon.com. This is usually a page with promotional blurbs or recommendations, along with a synopsis of the book and reviews from the press.




• Method Two – Buy a new domain name exactly similar or related to the book’s name and set up a website just for the book. This will include a blog where you can share knowledge by posting essays, articles related to current events or updates/news regarding the book. Press reviews, testimonials and author bios are included too.

From what I’ve seen, all book authors or publishers take either one of the above two approaches. If you’re really savvy and smart you’ll do both method one and two: Optimize your own personal website and set up a new hub just for the book. Connect them together.

Then proceed to put up regular articles, not veiled infomercials for the book but actual content that informs and benefits the general reader. Provide value first. Sales is almost an after-thought. First thing to remember when creating successful product launch websites.

Develop a Laser Like Focus on Delivering Maximum Value

Image Credit: Dashu Pagla

Let’s retrace our steps. You want people talking about your book and telling their friends and family. You want word-of-mouth to spread naturally and ripple outwards. Every day you want someone who has never heard of you to discover your book and tell someone else about it.

In order to do that you need to increase the value you offer to everyone who lands on your website. You need to sculpt that value until it has a laser-like focus. It should be extremely engaging and incredibly tangible.

For most book marketers, method one and two is the extent of what they will do. But it often results in a pretty boring website. And boring doesn’t help you to get word of mouth.

Here’s what I think: Method one and two do work. But they aren’t focused enough to deliver maximum impact. People can be easily distracted online. After getting to your site, they first have to orient themselves and then after that, search for the value you offer. What’s so cool about you or your book? What’s your message? Why should I care about your book?

Imagine being a visitor who lands on your website. What do they see? A bunch of testimonials and blurbs floating around somewhere to the side, a blog with content related to the book’s topic, news of a book signing in a city they don’t live in and even if they do get so far… a bio of someone they don’t know and most probably won’t care about.

Is that the best way to encourage word of mouth? Refine your website. Make it better.

Create an Experience to Magnetize the Attention of Your Visitors

Image Credit: roujo

Thought-provoking blog posts are valuable for your audience. So is a free chapter from your book. Sure, they are all beneficial. But there are many other types of value. Some of them are better for encouraging massive word of mouth.

You goal is to make your entire website a buzz generator. The whole website functions as a congruent whole. Every page has a certain mood. It is designed to elicit a specific thought in the viewer’s mind. That thought could be ‘this is intriguing’, ‘this is really cool’ or simply ‘wow’.

Ideally, that thought should end with ‘I have to let others know about this..‘ or ‘XXX will be really interested in this..’. You want them to pull the pass-it-on trigger and share your site.

Follow the AIDA model. Get their Attention first with your landing page. The first image they see. Hold their Interest and lead them through your site so they don’t wander off and click away. Make them Desire to know more by teasing with your best bits. Get them to take Action by asking for the sale/share and making it easy for them to proceed.

Want an example of how to do it? Check out PhoneSextheBook.com

It’s a website set up to promote a book featuring interviews with phone sex operators. There’s still room for improvement but I think it’s a good example of a product launch website. Apart from the naturally stimulating topic, the entire website is designed in a minimalist way which provides maximum value up front. Here’s a picture of the homepage:

The only way you can navigate through the simple but inviting front page is to click. And you will click. Because you’re curious.

Once you’re in the curious mindset, you’re presented with a short introduction to prime your thoughts. Notice how the minimalist design is maintained after the first click. Just one click after the introduction and you’re IMMEDIATELY in the frame of exploring the product. There’s no need to search for anything, scan headlines, read testimonials or click to download a free pdf. It’s just there. Right in your face. You cannot avoid it.

People don’t come into this website looking left and right for something interesting or cool. The juicy value-added content is shown directly in the middle. The best bits come first.

Instead of putting out large chunks of text that may be a turn-off, this website uses only brief snippets of content and pictures. This is a great because of two reasons: 1) It teases by providing only a taste. 2) Less information to process facilitates movement through your site. Not everyone has the time to invest 10 minutes on each individual page.

If you don’t like just sharing snippets and want to share more content, try using infographics. They can pack a lot of usual information into an image that can be read in a glance or two.

The last page of the website has the publisher/author details, link to a PR agent, a downloadable press kit as well as a link to Amazon.com. Not pushy at all. No hard sell.

Personally, I would have included a few other elements to enhance a product website like this:

1. A blog. This could be created as a sub-directory at phonesexthebook.com/blog. On the last page, a ‘find out more‘ link to the blog could be added. This blog will use a more conventional layout and will include news, more info on the making of the book and other related topics. It can also be used as the place from which to create content that will attract links and traffic.




2. More pages. Since the pages displayed are visually engaging and not text-heavy, more of them could be included to make the whole site more substantial. This might not be suitable because the whole book only has 50 pages but in general, giving a little more away increases the overall value for your visitor. People don’t want to share 5 pages and a sales pitch at the end. People want to share something that’s worthwhile enough to add value to their social network.




3. Click prompters. For additional usability, I would prefer to have a small but noticeable ‘next’ or ‘continue’ button/link somewhere on each page, which will encourage continuous click movement towards a definite end. It’s like turning a page and taking your visitor on a journey through a story. If you design the site well, they WILL keep clicking and seeing what you want them to see.




4. Opt-in form. Depending on the type of book or product, you may want to collect emails so you can update your prospective audience. They may not buy immediately but want to stay in touch. You can set up an opt-in email newsletter to share news about the book or general research tips on a certain topic. Other types of capturing attention include displaying a RSS of your blog or a link to your Twitter profile. This is all optional of course, but it never hurts to nurture a following.




5. Pass-it-on buttons. After going through the content, many of your visitors will want to share what they learned or experienced with others. Make it easy for them to do so by including a simple email-a-friend form or post-to-Facebook-Twitter button on the last page or somewhere on your site. Don’t underestimate their ability to generate word of mouth traffic. Assuming you get 10,000 visitors in a day and 1% of them used the pass-it-on buttons. That’s 100 people. And they may refer a substantial amount of people to your site, especially if some of them are influencers with a large social network.




6. More copy. I liked the introduction used because it seemed like an authentic artist statement. It’s not snobby or sale-sy and it succeeds in giving the book some gravitas. If you’re selling a different type of product you may have to use a different style of copy. The words you use are extremely important because of the minimalistic set up. The introduction page sets the mood for the rest of the pages so prepare your text carefully.
   
   
   I like the idea of telling a story but choose what works for you. At the last page, it would be useful to include one or two high profile testimonials. This works very well to seal off the experience. Look at it this way. Your visitor has just finished perusing content and their opinions might not be fully developed yet. Testimonials reveal what others think and tune your visitor towards a favorable perspective.

Such a site is noticeably quite different from a salespage or a blog. Simply put, it’s a distraction-free experience that’s 100% content-focused. But careful. Don’t go overboard with the design. The site should be easily usable and the pages must load really FAST. I cannot emphasize this enough. Slow loading pages built with flash or other unnecessary design elements will result in impatient visitors clicking away.

Can minimalistic multi-page slide-style websites work for every product type? Of course not. But I think it works really well for many products and offers. Can this work even if you don’t have your own product to sell? Of course. Affiliates, non-commercial organizations, artists and individuals promoting themselves can use this method as well.

The key point is to lead them through your web site towards a result you want. Be it a new subscriber, greater awareness on an important issue or an affiliate conversion. Go test it. It may work better than what you’re doing now.

How to Create Successful Product Websites that People Love

Social Bookmark

11 Ways to Influence People Online and Make Them Take Action

Influence can be defined as the power exerted over the minds and behavior of others. A power that can affect, persuade and cause changes to someone or something. In order to influence people, you first need to discover what is already influencing them. What makes them tick? What do they care about? We need some leverage to work with when we’re trying to change how people think and behave.

But there’s a problem. You won’t be able to meet and get to know everyone. You won’t have the luxury of learning their life history and what they hate or love. In the online world, people are ghosts. They drift into your website, showing up only as a number in your traffic statistics. Who are these people that come in to your website? Who is viewing your content and checking out your products?

If you don’t know the answer to all these questions, how are you going to influence them? The solution is to find and analyze general patterns of human behavior or thought. These patterns are indicators of how most people operate: by learning them you would have acquired the tools to exert influence over them. You don’t need to know everyone personally to understand what drives them and what they love or hate.

I recently read Neuro Web Design: What Makes Them Click by Susan Weinschenk, a book about how our online behavior is influenced by both conscious and unconscious thought patterns. I found it fairly interesting because it provided some scientific explanations to tactics that many marketers have been using for the longest time.

At only 130 pages long, the book is a very easy read because its tailored for the average person and not specialists. The downside of this is that it only offers a very general overview of brain science and how it relates to websites.

Contrary to its name, it also talks more about psychology than general web design/usability. If you’ve read Robert Cialdini’s work or other books on persuasion tactics you would easily recognize many of the concepts mentioned in the book.

While I would preferred a lot more depth on some topics covered, it did offer a handful of helpful tips you can implement immediately to improve your website. I thought I’ll do a quick summary of these tips while adding in my own unique analysis and comments.

But before we begin looking at what you should do on your website, you must first understand how your brain works.

Trium Brain Model – We Have Three Brains, Not One

The trium brain model is a theory developed by Paul MacLean in the 1960s to explain how the human brain has evolved. This simplified understanding of the brain became an influential paradigm amongst psychologists and some neuroscientists. As the name suggests, we don’t have one brain but three. These are all layered on top of each other and were developed during different stages of evolution. They are as follows:

1. The old brain. Also known as ‘R-complex’ or reptilian brain. The old brain is primarily concerned with your survival. It scans the environments for threats and benefits. It controls instinctual survival behavior and is also in charge of autonomic functions such as heart beats, digestion, movement and breathing.
2. The mid brain. Also known as the Limbic System or mammalian brain. The primary seat of emotions, memories and attention. This is where your emotions are produced and where positive or negative feelings arise. The mid brain includes the amygdala, which is involved in connecting events with emotion and the hippocampus, which is responsible for memory recall and converting information into memories.
3. The new brain. Also known as the neocortex. This is the logical part of the brain that involves rational thoughts, thinking skills as well as language and speech processing.

According to this theory, we are only fully conscious of our new brain, the neocortex. But our mid brain (limbic system) and old brain (reptilian brain) are largely unconscious. Our unconscious is incredibly efficient, smart and useful. Neuro-scientists have estimated that our five senses receive 11 million pieces of information every second with our conscious brain only processing around 40 pieces. The rest is being assessed by the unconscious automatically.

The unconscious brain helps you to determine what you should pay attention to with your conscious brain. Your decision-making behavior is greatly influenced by the unconscious brain. According to Weinschenk, the best website is designed to talk to all three brains, both the conscious and unconscious.

+Read More

Marketing Your Website Without Search Engines

I’m not old enough to remember what the internet was like without search engines. Apparently, there were lists of web-servers: they were manually updated and publicized in news updates like this. And then the search engines came crawling, indexing and sorting out pages. As the web expanded with more users and businesses putting up websites, search engines became an essential way to immediately find information.

There’s a common saying: build your site for visitors, not for search engines. A famous Google webmaster guideline asks the question: “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?” It’s actually quite a challenge: Pretend search engines don’t exist. How can you grow your website, get visitors and make lots of money?

I recently built a couple of sites without any focus on search engine rankings and getting organic search traffic. I didn’t block the search bots from indexing the site but I optimized nothing. Didn’t focus on site link architecture, title tags, meta-descriptions, meta-keywords, link building, competitor analysis. Forget about search engine algorithms.

I also wasn’t interested in methods of search-based marketing like finding long tail phrases and placing them on article directories or social media properties in order for these pages to rank and send traffic to my site. That would have involved researching search keywords and competition, so I did nothing of that sort too.

Ultimately, you’re dealing with a situation where the convenience offered by search engines is non-existent. No quick answers to quick questions for everyone. So how are people going to find what they need? How are they going to find my site?

Image Credit: assbach

Without search engines, people will do what they’ve been doing for thousands of years. They rely on each other. They rely on the community, on the collection of publications known within their geographic location or industry. They rely on word of mouth. And they also rely on getting information from common resources like a public square, library, forum or marketplace.

Go where people gather. There you will be heard. It sounds like rudimentary marketing but quite honestly, until I’ve tried ignoring search engines and focusing exclusively on gathering points, I didn’t realize how much actual marketing I was NOT doing.

There were far more forums, social networking sites, blogs than I ever imagined even for small niches. And then there are mega-sites like Youtube and Facebook. If I were to put a number to it, I would say I’m missing out on at least a few thousand visitors every day by NOT being active in these online communities. And that doesn’t include offline marketing.

This is a good amount of visitors who are likely to become supporters of your content, clients or buyers. And the truth is I’ve always made money much faster by going to them instead of waiting for them to come to me. It sure beats the usual plan of waiting for my site to get indexed, rank for longtail phrases and THEN hopefully convert into an ad click or sale.

Traffic from these sites can be as targeted as search engine visitors: many are looking for recommendations from peers or actively engaged in a specific activity that is relevant to my site. But unlike search visitors, they aren’t coming in blind into your website from a query.

They know more than your page name, url and meta-description. They know your avatar, they know your history of contributions. They have a rough idea of who you are. Your words are in their face before they even click over. You’ve already presold them by making yourself familiar.

Image Credit: assbach

The most common problem we face is the lack of time. Can we outsource something like forum, blog or social site marketing? Yes, of course. But use people who know what they’re doing or else you’ll be wasting your time. If you’re a one-person operation, it might not be good for your brand to have someone that’s not you out there, even if you have an excellent ghost.

But small businesses, big businesses and multi-author content sites? No problem.

In any case, the whole experience of marketing without search engines is educational. It forced me to go out and represent my brand. This is me, I own this website. Hello, here’s what I do. Take a look. Here’s why this will be interesting.. and so on.

Once again, nothing revolutionary but when you’re not depending on search engines, its a make-or-break situation. How can I not just get clicks but the most value out of each click? What web page should I link to, who should I target, what content angle to use etc.

It forced me to work and persuade on a social level you don’t really think about because you’re always focused on existing traffic/users or things that will improve a machine’s reading of your site’s worth. Then you realize the value in having a strong brand and reputation.

I would recommend that you try pretending that search engines don’t exist, even just for a week or so. Especially if you’ve got a new website. Search engine traffic is invaluable but there’s a lot of visitors out there just waiting for you to show them your site. 

If you’ve already reached a plateau in organic search traffic and its not making you as much money as you like, why not focus on promoting your site outside of search engines?

So, how would you market your website if search engines didn’t exist?

To get easy updates on new articles, subscribe to dosh dosh today.

Marketing Your Website Without Search Engines

Social Bookmark