A noisy business website distracts visitors, which negatively impacts the bottom line.

Websites often become convoluted over time because businesses don’t invest the time and resources to remove obsolete information.

Many businesses just add content on an as needed basis. But, just as important, businesses should regularly maintain websites. Scheduled clean-ups promote positive online experiences, which translate to increased conversions.

Things to watch out for:

• Outdated information, events etc.
• Too many menu items or links
• Irrelevant web copy or graphics

For a typical business, websites can be maintained by investing one hour, just once a month. During a website audit, I recall an employee who detested the idea of cleaning up a few web pages. But the handful of hours it took him to make those changes are saving thousands of prospects and customers several seconds each visit, which makes it more than worthwhile.
 
Clean your website to make it easier to do business with you. It makes perfect business sense.

To help your visitors enjoy a positive online experience, it’s important to prioritize the information in your web content.

An effective strategy is to separate the “need to know” from the “nice to know.”

Group your need to know information – anything that is critical to your messaging. And place this relevant information on the top pages of your website.

Then take the nice to know information and place it on secondary pages. Links should be clearly labeled and point to this supporting information.

This nice to know/ need to know strategy complements the inverted pyramid organization, which is the best way to present information on your website.

By neatly providing visitors the relevant material first and support material second, you provide an intuitive information flow. That leads to satisfied visitors and completed tasks.

Knowing your audience is imperative to achieve high conversion rates with your web content.

As you attempt to define your reader, pay heed to his knowledge of the subject. If he’s informed, get right to the key facts and figures. Otherwise, you’ll bore him and turn him off with generic information.

If he’s not well versed with the subject, ensure you provide some basic, high-level information, and offer plenty of references to helpful background material. Sidebars can also be an effective tool in this case.

If you need to cater to a mixed crowd, which is common on the Web, provide high-level material, but include clearly labeled links to all the particulars. This is a web content strategy called link layering, and it’s an incredibly effective way to provide online visitors information that’s relevant to their specific needs.

For instance, a personal wellness coach might have a page that outlines what services and products she offers clients:

Discover Dr. Smith’s unique approach to herbal body cleansing, menopause, chronic fatigue…

In the above example, it would be beneficial to link each of the topics — herbal body cleansing, menopause and chronic fatigue – to a separate page that comprises additional details. That way, the extra information is there for the taking — if desired.

That’s the beauty of the Web. Your web content can cater to specific people about very specific topics, which is the key to engaging visitors.

Keywords are the foundation to successful web content.

Use the right ones, and your business can thrive. Use the wrong ones, and your website will reap you few rewards, if any. The trick is to ensure your web content writer or writers use the same language as your target audience.

Business executives and managers are often surprised when they find out internal lingo isn’t used by prospects and customers. “Talk shop” with consumers and you risk alienating them.

For instance, airline executives religiously use the term “reduced fares.” But that term is used in search engines less than 10 times a day – and that’s on a global scale.

Meanwhile, “cheap flights” is plugged into search engines by Internet users more than 10,000 times a day.

If you were running an airline, which search term would you want to target?

Purposefully written web content that effectively tells your prospects why they should buy from you can really help your business on the sales front. In fact, if done right, it can completely disqualify your competitors.

As noted in the article Brand strategy: distinct or extinct, you should leverage your business’ unique points and strengths, which may entail your:

• Selection
• Experience
• Knowledge
• Credentials
• Expediency
• Style
• Technology
• Geography
• Alliances
• Tools
• Customer service

But when you do, make sure you nail the point on the head. Don’t be subtle. Use clear, short and relevant web content to drive the message home.

And don’t be afraid to repeat your most potent points. It will drill the facts and ideas into your prospect’s brain, and make it memorable.

It’s a sound way to exclude your competitors from the final decision-making process.

Hitwise announced that Google accounted for 67.90 per cent of all U.S. searches in the four weeks ending April 26, 2008.

Yahoo! Search, MSN Search and Ask.com each received 20.28, 6.26 and 4.17 per cent, respectively.

The remaining 45 search engines in the Hitwise Search Engine Analysis Tool accounted for 1.40 per cent of U.S. searches.

Author and super marketer Seth Godin made a good point on his blog, where he touches on the fact that the closer you are to the point of need, the more you can charge clients.

In one example, he cites pizza at the airport costs five times more than pizza on the way to the airport. That’s true in most cases, including Frankfurt and London Heathrow, where the price for a hot dog and a beer will give you the impression you’re fine dining.

However, some airports choose not to charge premium. The Vancouver International Airport is a prime example.  Tenants are required to offer “street pricing,” which means franchises like Flying Wedge Pizza can’t inflate their prices. A big mama’s bacon special will cost you $4.99 on the east side of town, and it’ll cost you $4.99 as you’re running for the departure gate.

As a result, many people skip a meal in anticipation of eating at the Vancouver airport. Or passengers grab some grub ‘to go’ in a bid to avoid preservative-laden airline food. And they even shop at the airport. Why not? You’re checked in and now you can cruise for last-minute gifts. Chocolates? Books? Some souvenirs, anyone?

It goes to show, when the opportunity is there, charging premium is an effective scheme. But when such circumstances appear, it can also be wise not to charge top dollar.

Other opportunities can emerge,  fuelled by appreciation and loyalty.

Google published its earnings last month, reporting its search result sites generated revenues of $3.40 billion in the first quarter of 2008.

Meanwhile, an iProspect study showed that 60.5 per cent of Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOL users selected a natural (unpaid) search result over paid search result as the most relevant on a sample query. Additionally, 60.8 per cent of Yahoo and 72.3 per cent of Google search engine users chose a natural search result as the most relevant.

The conclusion: appearing on natural rankings is most valuable to businesses. Natural search results are more trusted by online users and attract more clicks.

Despite the pressure to become a profit center, most organizations’ customer service and contact centers continue to miss the mark on becoming a strategic business partner and are not considered part of the corporate revenue strategy, noted Forrester Research’s Natalie L. Petouhoff.

However, the research firm added new Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations and data are making decisions about positioning customer service for success more relevant than ever before.

“This presents an opportunity for customer service professionals to accomplish goals they may have previously lacked the data to justify,” suggested Petouhoff, adding the transformation of customer service from a “cost center” model to a “profit center” paradigm entails a commitment to change from all levels within an organization — from C-level executives to call center agents.

Customer service leaders can serve their companies well by helping executives decide if customer service is a financial priority, advancing their own leadership and business case development skills, and demonstrating to agents why and how customer service is key to a company’s brand and bottom line.

Rogers Customer Service should take heed.

Web content is not about you. It’s about your prospect or customer.

This is critical to making web content successful. However, based on frequent discussions with business clients and students alike, it’s a concept that’s often not recognized and appreciated.

The digital world has sped things up. Television and billboards have much less impact and ability to influence the masses. There are more choices, more noise. Less time, less patience. As a result, consumers are now exceptionally proficient at ignoring marketing messages.

Effective campaigns are no longer built around clever ads. Today’s successful campaigns comprise clever, relevant ideas, which spread virally. The idea must be about the consumer and his or her needs and wants. Think iPod, personalizing entertainment; or Blackberry, keeping you connected.

The fact is consumers don’t care about your business. Today’s consumer invests time considering your offerings with the mind-set: The world evolves around me. With the advent of the Internet, consumers are in power. And businesses need to respect that.

Next time you review your web content, do your best to look at it from the eyes of your target audience. If you’re not conveying what benefits you have to offer, chances are you’re delivering self-absorbed web content.

If you’re creating web content to turn yourself on, there’s a good chance you’re turning your prospects and customers off.