After only 4 weeks this website including custom order form for online orders goes live.

Fresh is The Best operate a Brisbane Fresh Fruit and Vegetables delivery service. Melissa Burrell, owner of Fresh is The Best said…

We are extremely happy with the work you have done. It has given us exactly what was wanted and needed. Thank you for your professional advice along the way and thank you for taking the time to understand our business.
It has been a pleasure working along side of you with this project and I have no hesitation recommending Matter Solutions to anyone.

The website includes an order which although simple-to-use has a number of special features to help the customer select and customise their order with the minimum of fuss.

When it comes to ordering fresh produce in northern Brisbane www.freshisthebest.com.au is the place to do it, my wife is already planning our first order.

Facebook

Fresh is The Best has had a fan page on Facebook for quite sometime with quite a few fans so now way for Melissa and her staff to turn that online interest into customers.

Fruit & Vegetable Delivery Service

The website has been created to enable full reporting to the managers. The order administration shows number and value of pending and completed orders.

Google Analytics – Goal Tracking

In tune with the talk I (Ben) gave last month at the Brisbane Web Design Meetup Group I have included full Google Analytics and enabled Goal Tracking to tie traffic and internet marketing activities back to actual sales results.

Nice to look at but no substance. Empty between the ears.

I’m not sure how politically correct the term bimbo is so I apologise immediately if you are offended, but you probably typed Bimbo into Google to get here so it’s your own fault if you clicked and arrived here

Bimbo Website – A website that does nothing

Do you have a Bimbo Website?

What would a web professional say if he (well I) reviewed your website?

Looks nice but the text is completely missing any decent keywords, it is probably poorly organised and isn’t trying to capture any sort of action or enquiry from it’s visitors.

Same old, same old – Ker-ching!

For me (and other web consultants) some of these answers become repetitive because business owners almost always ask for a free website review when they are unhappy so it is usually a no-brainer and any chimp trained to sell websites can say the right things:-

1. You need a better, more flashy/professional design
2. You need a Content Management System (CMS) website
3. You need to organise the pages
4. You need to use the right keywords in your text
5. You need calls to action that convert visitors to customers

Even if the chimp in question does actually get as far as step 3 he is already on a mission to sell you a CMS website with a flashy graphic design and move on to the next website, ker-ching!

Trust me, I rescue clients from this situation again and again.

They get into cycles of buying Bimbo Websites that include the first two steps above but completely miss the really important stuff, steps 3-5, because the design ends up taking priority over everything and everyone gives up on the project when it looks nice. You need to beware of the BIMBO WEBSITE ALERT!

Back to Basics – How to get customers online

Simple. Three steps.

1. Get a great website
2. Get some traffic into that great website
3. Look after it to keep it great and bringing in the traffic

Tada! Here’s my bill for consulting… only joking.

A Great Website is nearly impossible

The Reality of Websites

Firstly, step 1 is very difficult and for most of the people who are in the market to build websites it is completely impossible.

“Eeeek” I hear you say? Yes, IMPOSSIBLE. “but Ben, my website looks great”. Yes, I’m coming to that.

Most of the men and women out there building websites for clients don’t really give a fudge about your business.

• They care about their business
• They want to build you a pretty website because that is what will make you happy, it’s a visual thing you can look at and say ah isn’t that nice to your mates and co-workers. This is only a fraction of a great website but is closer to the truth than it should be
• They want a pretty website that they can show to prospective clients who want a pretty website because they don’t know any better and so the cycle continues
• Rubbish website perpetuates the need for more rubbish websites
• Groan

Professional Websites – Do it Right

Don’t let someone dazzle you with flashy graphics and swirling colours. See steps 1 & 2 above…. remember, you run a business!

• You want customers!
• You want income, leads & sales!
• You want success!

The website has to pay for itself somehow. Just looking pretty isn’t worth that much! Yeah!

So getting a professional website is about finding someone who can do much more than a pretty design:-

• thinking about target keywords right from scratch
• getting content organised and written specifically for the web
• laying out pages to turn visitors into leads that become customers

Yeah, yeah whatever – Ben, Design is everything man!

Okay I can imagine some people reading that and thinking design is critically important. Yes, it makes a difference when you’ve got the content, keywords and the conversion approach right but in my view it is nothing more than a component part of the package.

Here are a couple of “ugly” websites… each make a fortune because they do what they are meant to.

1. Take a look at craigslist.com (new window) it is a hugely successful website because it works… it does what people expect.
2. Maximise your metabolism, this is diet package sold by affiliate marketers on clickbank (I’ve done this diet and it works) but read the page…. it seems like the most amazing long dull page but it works. When someone is in the zone to buy a diet this will convert!
3. Ebay, the daddy of badly designed websites. They try but to me it still just looks a bit shabby

Internet Marketing – What can you learn from this?

• Pretty websites without substance are a complete waste of your money
• A website with substance and the right keywords will work so long as the design is okay

From years of experience I can tell you that both substance and design together are a force to be reckoned with, like a money generating super model, you’ll be able to get customers online in no time.

As almost every part of the business is still managed by me I decided to take a new direction and feature prominently on the website, check it out. I’ve never had a professional photograph taken before.

BUT… in the time it took between getting the photo done and getting enough time to actually sit down and build and write the website I’ve lost another 5kg, so apparently the photo “doesn’t look quite right” according to a client I went to see the other day.

I guess I need to thank Denny from OMG Fitness again for helping me keep up the Weight Loss and go to get some new professional photo’s done.

Website Professional

I’ve spent a while writing the information on the website as I wanted to make sure people realise there is a professional person behind the Matter Solutions name. I also wanted to show how simple it is to get a really successful website…. there are really just three steps, go and have a read: Brisbane Web Design
or SEO Services Brisbane

Google Adwords too

I’ve also begun a new camapign with Google AdWords, if you’re interested in learning how you can get on the first page of Google super fast, contact me today
it’s all part of my Internet Marketing Brisbane service

I’ve just finished a major project for The Betting Guru. This website includes a full PayPal subscription service to protect the valuable private content.

The service

What is it? Well I’ve never been much of a gambler, only the odd horse race, Grand National, Melbourne Cup or Soccer matches (I am from the UK) but his predictions are simple to understand.

As a programmer (and trained as an Aero Engineer) I do know a bit about maths and constructing algorithms. It’s quite clear after spending time with the betting guru that his statistical model is extremely well developed. He has used this model to make predictions on the NRL for some time.

Almost the entire 2008 season NRL match predictions were presented on a previous website with great success. Look at the profit and results here.

Each week the Betting Guru presents a predictions on a selection of matches in the NRL or AFL. He is also investigating models for other sports

Internet marketing

The website went live mid afternoon yesterday (Friday, 20th March) and we emailed subscribers to last years free predictions. Within 3 hours, half of the recipients had already read the email, and clicked through to the website and 6% of these had actually bought memberships!

What a great start

I also helped the Betting Guru get to grips with Twitter, he’s getting there. Follow him at twitter.com/bettingguru

Visit www.bettingguru.com.au for NRL & AFL match tips

How it is built

After listening to the Betting Guru’s need for monetising this unique content I came up with a plan to provide a website environment which enables the following…

• Easy previews of content so potential customers can see what they could get access to after subscribing
• Smooth joining experience
• Secure area for members to access premium content
• Simple subscription model, weekly or annual for NRL only, AFL only or both

PayPal’s subscription system has worked very well in this instance and we already have plans in place to use this on another project.

The system is based on the latest version of WordPress (like this one). I also bought a full copy of the MemberWing premium WordPress plugin. All the PHP code is very heavily customised to enable all sorts of features.

I particularly liked the time that the MemberWing saved in terms of handling the PayPal Instant Payment Notification (IPN). I can happily recommend this plugin

This is a nice simple website that the client can edit as often as they wish using the wordpress blogging content management system.

After the content management training Jenn, the office administrator, was well away. She added page after page of content about plumbing all guided by Mark Aleo’s years of plumbing experience. This was all well underway while the website’s design was still being finalised.

This concurrent working and inclusion of the client early on means I can deliver professional websites fast! In this case it just took just three weeks from deposit paid to going live!

I helped the client rewrite this text to…

• Style the prose for the web, i.e. using a direct simple style to convey meaning efficiently.
• Use the right key phrases for search engine optimisation (SEO) results, and I explained how this can deliver results over time with regular (easy-to-do) updates.
• Retain the focus on the website’s objective…. get the phone to ring or customers to complete the enquiry form, i.e. leads, leads, leads!

Take a look at the new Gap Plumbing website at www.gapplumbing.com.au

Also, here are a few of the key phrases that we’re aiming at with some search engine optimisation (SEO) work…. I’m going to measure the rankings of the website on these terms for my client and help them get a strong position on the search engines.

Key topic: Plumbing and Plumber
Geographic: The Gap, Ashgrove, Keperra, North-West Brisbane and Brisbane

So for example a target key phrase is

• Plumber Keperra
• Plumbing Brisbane

… there are many more…. but I’m not going to give them all away here.

The client also has full access to Google Analytics reports so they can see the results for themselves.