Is your website useless? I mean, is it really doing anything for your company? Or is it just taking up space in the digital wasteland?

Unfortunately, many businesses have useless websites. The typical company launches a website without much thought. They do it because they’re supposed to have one, but they don’t put any effort into making it special or effective on any level.

Here are 5 common warning signs that a website is useless.

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You expect people to come just because you’ve built it—Just because you have a website doesn’t mean people will visit it. There are billions of websites out there. Why would anyone visit yours? You have to promote your website if you want to get traffic. Otherwise, your website will just sit there and not serve a purpose. Your website isn’t optimized for the search engines—Search engine optimization is no longer optional; it’s essential. If your website isn’t optimized for the search engines, no one will ever find it. Even if your website looks great, it won’t matter because you won’t attract traffic. You must focus on optimizing your website and ranking for relevant search terms. Your content is all about you—Yes, it’s your website, but that doesn’t mean the content should be self-serving. Instead of talking all about yourself, shift the conversation to talk to your customers. Your content needs to address the customer’s needs. It needs to answer their questions, earn their trust, and provide them with value. You have no calls to action—Smart marketers know that a website’s success isn’t just measured in the number of clicks it gets. No, your website’s true success will be measured in how many conversions it gets. If your website isn’t generating leads or sales, it’s not doing its job. And to get those conversions (leads and sales), you must have a strong call to action on each page of your website. Let visitors know exactly what it is that you want them to do (e.g. fill out a form, place an order, call you, etc.). You don’t have analytics plugged in—If you don’t have analytics hooked up to your website, there’s no way you can measure your site’s performance. Use Google Analytics to monitor activity as it happens on your site, so you can see what’s working and what’s not.

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Take an honest look at your website. Is it useless?

Every blogger wants traffic. More and more of it, in fact. No blogger, no matter how big or small, would ever turn down more blog traffic. But the truth is most of us aren’t doing all the right things we should be doing to ensure we get the traffic we want. As a result, blogs underperform, and over time, bloggers get discouraged and might even quit.

Don’t let this happen to you! There is hope. Traffic is out there to be had. You just have to first understand the reasons your blog isn’t getting it.

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No SEO—Optimizing your posts is essential for getting long-term, steady traffic to your blog. The search engines love fresh blog content, but if you don’t optimize your posts for relevant keywords, you’re not going to rank well, causing traffic to suffer. Boring headlines—When someone sees a headline for your post on Twitter, Facebook, another website, or in the search results, will they be interested enough to click on it? If you’re not writing clear, compelling headlines, you won’t get clicks. No significant sharing on social networks—Twitter, Facebook, and other social media sites are some of the best traffic sources out there. It’s important to really focus on getting your posts shared as much as possible. One way to do this is to have share buttons located prominently on your blog. Another way is to focus on building your connections, so you can have a strong promotional network at your disposal. Your blog doesn’t look professional—How your blog looks matters. If you’re using a generic template, you risk looking amateurish. I recommend investing in a custom design to give your blog a more professional appearance. Your blog lacks focus—What’s your blog about? What topic do you cover? If you lack focus, you’ll have a hard time building a core audience. You aren’t bringing anything new to the table—Are you giving your readers content they can’t get anywhere else? Or are you just recycling posts found on countless other blogs? You’ve overlooked the power of guest blogging—I’ve spent a lot of time on here talking about guest blogging. I believe that every blogger should be submitting guest posts to other blogs, so they can build awareness, increase authority, and drive traffic back to their blog. I also believe that you should allow others to guest post on your blog so they’ll bring their followers to your site. You don’t post on a regular basis—While I’ve recently pondered if having a blogging schedule is a good idea, I do still believe it’s important to post new content on a regular basis. You don’t have to post daily, but you do need to keep your blog alive so you can’t disappear for weeks at a time and expect to get lots of traffic. The community suffers from poor comment moderation—Successful blogs are built around a community. The readers comment and interact with the author and each other, but if you do a poor job moderating comments—such as being slow to approve comments or letting SPAM run rampant—you’ll never build a strong community. You lack patience—Getting traffic takes time. Sometimes, there are no real problems, and your blog just needs some time to grow.

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What are some of the other major reasons blogs don’t get traffic?

 

If you want to build a successful blog, you need to earn the trust of your readers. After all, if people don’t trust you, they’re not going to keep reading you. Trust is a critical attribute that every blogger should strive to earn.

How can you make your blog more credible? Here are some tips to help you out.

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Invest in a professional design—Appearances matter. While you might not like the idea of paying for a professional, custom blog design, it’s a good idea. If you use a cheap or free blog template, your site will look, well, cheap. Visitors will judge your site by how it looks when they arrive. You have to make a strong first impression and have a sharp, branded design. Post your credentials—Has you blog won any awards or top rankings? Post those badges prominently on your site. What about you? What are your credentials? Make sure your blog has an About page with a bio that explains who you are and what you’ve done. You have to position yourself as an authority if you want people to trust you. Don’t write about things you don’t know about—This one speaks for itself. If you’re not knowledgeable in a particular subject, don’t write about it. You’ll only end up sticking your foot in your mouth and killing your credibility. Link out to great sources—I’ve always encouraged linking out to other blogs. Not only does it give your readers a fresh perspective and capture the attention of the blogger you’re linking to, but it also builds your credibility by validating your statements with reliable resources. Don’t let ads overrun your blog—There’s nothing wrong with having ads on your blog, but when the ads become overwhelming and eat up too much real estate, it creates the impression that you’re just blogging for bucks. And that can be a serious blow to your credibility. Edit and fact check before posting—No, you’re not writing for the New York Times, but that doesn’t mean that you can afford to get sloppy with your blogging. You should still hold yourself to a high standard. Edit your posts to make sure they don’t have any silly typos or grammatical errors, and more importantly, check your facts to ensure you’re giving readers correct information.

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What are some of the things you do to make your blog more trustworthy? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

 

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You might not say it, but you know that not all your customers are created equal. Some bring more value to your business than others. And you know that the key to really growing your business is to increase loyalty among your top customers, so you can keep your best customers and attract more like them.

But relationships are tricky. Keeping your best customers happy and loyal is going to take some work on your part. It’s just like any other relationship. You can’t just ignore your wife, husband, girlfriend, or boyfriend and expect everything to be hunky dory; you have to put time and effort into keeping the relationship strong.

With a romantic partner, that might mean going out on a date or just spending quiet time together talking, but how can you keep the spark alive with a customer?

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Keep regular contact—You can’t build a relationship without communication. Think about it. If you go a long time without seeing or speaking to a friend, things just aren’t the same when you see them again, right? The relationship weakens without regular communication. That’s why you have to keep in touch with your best customers. Check in with them regularly, connect with them on Twitter and Facebook, send them holiday cards, invite them to events…do whatever you have to do to stay in touch so the relationship doesn’t fizzle out. Always deliver above and beyond expectations—One of the keys to keeping a romantic relationship fresh and exciting is to “wow” your partner from time to time by doing something truly amazing for them. The same goes for keeping customer relationships strong. You have to “wow” customers every time, and the best way to do this is to always exceed expectations. Give them an experience they’ll never forget. Ask for feedback—Show your best customers that you care what they think by asking for their feedback. They can suggest ways to make your company even better. Just make sure that you’re actually taking their feedback into consideration and implementing the good ideas; otherwise, it’s all for nothing. Reward them—Loyalty should be rewarded. There are many different ways you can reward your best customers, including giving them discounts, service/product upgrades, exclusive information, and much more.

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What do you do to keep relationships strong with your best customers?

Even if you handle most of your client communications via email or other digital methods (such as social media), you likely have to speak to clients on the phone at least occasionally. And it’s in your best interest to make sure that you have great phone calls with clients…phone calls that don’t consist of two people trying to talk over each other, awkward pauses, or incoherent mumbling.

With that in mind, I’ve come up with some tips that will help you communicate more effectively with clients on the phone.

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Stop saying  “umm..”—You probably don’t even realize how many times in a typical conversation you say things like “umm…,” “uh…,” “you know…,” and “like…” When you say these things, it makes you sound unprofessional, unsure, and unreliable. You have to cut these weaknesses from your verbal communications. Be a good listener—Too many times, people on the phone are just waiting for their chance to speak. They’re not even listening to what the other person is saying, but rather, they’re thinking about what they’re about to say. You have to be a good listener if you want to have a good phone conversation. Avoid speaking at the same time—There’s nothing more annoying than when someone on the other end of the phone is interrupting you and trying to speak over you. It makes it impossible to hear anything. If the client starts speaking at the same time you start speaking, pause and let them go ahead. Take notes—If you don’t take notes during your phone call, you’ll likely forget at least some of the details of the conversation. This means that the whole conversation will have been a waste of time, and you’ll have to talk about the same things over again. Sound interested—Tone of voice is incredibly important on phone calls because the person on the other end of the phone has no visual clues to go by. So, if you don’t sound interested in the conversation, they’re going to take it as a sign of disrespect. This can be especially tough if you’re multitasking while on the phone or just tired from a long, boring call. You have to project your enthusiasm and interest.

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Any tips you’d add to this list? Leave a comment below.

When sending emails, your first priority is to make sure your messages get read, not deleted. You can’t achieve any bigger goals without first overcoming this major roadblock, and while it sounds simple enough, the truth is that most companies struggle with low open rates.

What can you do to make sure your emails don’t get deleted? Here are 3 quick tips that will help you write better emails.

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Lure them in with an irresistible subject line—The subject line is the first thing the recipient sees. It determines whether they’ll open your email or delete it, so it has to be good. Your subject line needs to create intrigue. It needs to be so compelling that the recipient simply has to click it to find out what’s inside. It should speak to their needs and give a clear, interesting preview of what awaits in the email. Check out this list of 7 tips for writing better subject lines. Tighten up your message—Email length matters. Your readers don’t have the time, patience, or desire to read any email for more than a few minutes. Keep your message tight, and don’t try to discuss too many different things in a single email. Give them content that speaks to their needs—What do your recipients care about? What are their biggest needs and goals? What are they looking for from you? If your emails don’t align with their needs and goals, they’re going to get deleted. It’s that simple.

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What are some of your best tips for writing emails that don’t get deleted? Share them by leaving a comment below.

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I recently wrote a post detailing the reasons I like to schedule my Tweets. I understand that it’s a topic that many people disagree over. I’ve talked to people who tell me that scheduling Tweets is a terrible idea, and I’ve also spoken with others who share my belief that there are many benefits to scheduling Tweets in advance.

In the interest of presenting both sides of the debate, I’m going to present the case against scheduling your Tweets. I encourage you to add your opinion to this debate by leaving a comment after you’ve read this post.

So, what are some of the potential drawbacks of scheduling your Tweets?

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It could remove the social element—The whole point of Twitter is to interact with other people. If all of your Tweets are written in advance and scheduled, you risk losing the social element that makes Twitter so popular. That’s why I don’t rely only on scheduled Tweets. I still stay active on Twitter to take part in real-time conversations. You may get behind the times—Think about this. You write a Tweet today that’s not scheduled to go out for another few weeks. What if things change between now and then? What if that Tweet suddenly becomes outdated or even inaccurate? Or what if the conversation in your industry has simply shifted to a new topic but you’re still discussing the last trend? You don’t want to get behind the times when you schedule your Tweets. Breaking news could make scheduled Tweets irrelevant or awkward—This blog post tells the story of Twitter users whose scheduled Tweets were popping up at the exact same time news was breaking of Osama Bin Laden’s death. The pre-written Tweets came across as irrelevant, very awkward, and even insensitive given the major news that had just broken. That’s always a risk you’ll run into when scheduling your Tweets.

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Are there any other reasons you can think of to not schedule Tweets? Share them with us by leaving a comment below.

Sharing links on Twitter is one of the most popular types of status updates. It’s an easy way for you to stay active on Twitter, and it can be a good way to provide useful, interesting information to your audience, garnering their attention and even sparking conversation.

But it probably goes without saying that not all links are worth Tweeting. You don’t want to Tweet just anything and everything you come across while surfing the web. You need to put careful thought into which links you decide to Tweet.

So, how can you tell if a link is worth sharing? Ask yourself the following questions:

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Will my followers be interested in this? Above all else, you want to make sure that you’re sharing content your followers will actually care about and enjoy. If you’re Tweeting things that your target audience has no interest in or use for, they will quickly begin to tune you out. Every Tweet matters. Don’t share content if you don’t think your followers will be interested in it. Will anyone be offended by this? Sharing content that could be deemed offensive can be dangerous. You don’t want to lose a chunk of your followers and customers by sharing offensive content, but on the other hand, you may be the type of person who likes to push the envelope and wants an edgier audience. It all depends on the type of person you’re trying to appeal to. Will the content start a discussion and get a reaction? Ideally, you want to share content that sparks a discussion. You want people to be so compelled by the content you share that they respond and interact with you. That’s how you build relationships that matter on Twitter. Who produced the content? There’s nothing wrong with sharing your own content, but you do want to mix things up. Sharing content from a range of trusted sources will position you as a good resource to your Twitter followers.

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Do you put thought into what links you share on Twitter? What’s important to you?

“Above the fold” is a term that was originally used to describe the top half of the newspaper, the part you would see first because papers arrived folded. The most important information was always placed “above the fold.”

Today, this term is used in web design to describe the part of the page a visitor sees without having to scroll down in their browser window. Again, this is the part of the page where you want to place your most important information.

But when we usually talk about “above the fold” on websites, we’re discussing static websites built for selling, not blogs. Does “above the fold” even matter in blogging?

Of course it does! As with newspapers and other websites, it’s important that you place your most important elements “above the fold” on your blog. Which elements should earn this coveted space?

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Subscription button—One of the most important things that you need to do to build a successful blog is to attract an audience of loyal readers. That’s why you need to build up your list of subscribers. The more subscribers you have, the bigger and more successful your blog will be. That’s why it’s so important that you place your subscription button “above the fold”. It should be among the first things a visitor sees when landing on your blog, and it should compel them to click and subscribe. Your branding—There are millions of blogs crowding the web. Even in your niche, there are likely thousands of other blogs fighting for the attention of your target audience. A key to differentiating your blog is to brand it. You need a unique name, look, and logo for your blog so that it stands out from all the others. You want your blog to become a known brand. So, you should create your branding and place it “above the fold” on your blog. Blog content—You can’t have a blog if you don’t have content. When you get down to it, your content is the most important element of your blog. It’s why people come to your blog in the first place, so it only makes sense to make sure your content is featured prominently. When someone arrives at your blog, they shouldn’t have to scroll around to find your content.

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Are there any other important elements I missed that should be placed “above the fold” on a blog?

Almost every website uses contact forms for one purpose or another. On my website, I use contact forms on my home page and service pages as a conversion tool. It’s how I generate leads.

But having success using contact forms on your website requires more than just slapping up a form on each page. Here are 5 tips to help you create better contact forms.

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Make them visible—Visitors shouldn’t have to search your website high and low to figure out how to get in touch with you. Your contact forms should be clearly visible on your home page and product/service pages. Most studies I’ve seen recommend placing the contact form along the right-hand side of the page, above the fold in order to get the most responses. Add an interesting design element to them—Don’t just add lifeless contact fields to your page. Spruce things up and create a contact form that jumps out from the page. After all, you want people to see it and be motivated to fill it out, right?  A creative design for your contact form adds life to your page and can increase response rates. Just make sure you don’t sacrifice usability and simplicity while designing your contact form. Keep them short—The purpose of the contact form is to get only the most essential information from the visitor. You’re just trying to get the ball rolling. All you need is their name, email address, and information about why they’re contacting you. Don’t ask for anything more, or else you’ll kill your conversion rate. Explain the benefits or purpose of completing the form—Why should anyone spend their time completing the form to contact you? People don’t do anything without a good reason. Let people know what the benefits or purpose is of completing the contact form. If it’s to get a free quote, put that on the form. If it’s to subscribe to your email list, give them some benefits of becoming a subscriber. Don’t just say “contact us” and expect people to do it. Avoid CAPTCHAs—Not only are CAPTCHAs on contact forms annoying and frustrating to complete, they can also harm your conversion rates. I hate SPAM as much as the next guy, but I’m not willing to lose quality leads in my battle to reduce SPAM responses.

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What’s your best tip for creating more effective contact forms? Share it with us by leaving a comment below.