Here’s the deal. A few days ago, I noticed a promotional offer on Google allowing me to take advantage of another $100 coupon. This time, I pounced right away. In about 15 minutes, I had a Google Adwords account set up that went active today.

In just a few hours, my ads have popped up on 12,540 computer screens and I’m seeing clicks going straight to my services pages. Adwords works like a charm and now I’m kicking myself for not getting on this earlier.

I’m also kicking myself for not remembering that coupon from a few weeks ago. Apparently, the value of the coupon dropped to $75 on August 27. And the thing is going to fully expire on September 10, next Saturday. I can’t use this introductory coupon because I just used one already . But you can. There’s still time!

To win the $75 Google Adwords coupon, leave a comment on this blog post about why you think you deserve it. The winner will be randomly chosen on Monday, September 6, by my good pal and social-media averse Luddite, Lyle Neff, in return for a pint of local beer.

Make sure the email you leave with the comment form is one that you actually check, since that’s how I’ll contact the winner.

To all my social media chums out there who might already have taken advantage of Google’s offer and thus are also ineligible to win the $75 coupon, feel free to promote this in your own blog. Or, if you’re eligible but are feeling especially generous and open to competition, promote it on your blog anyway. Cheers.

What’s BBB all about and what does it mean to you as an existing or potential customer? BBB’s are leaders in advancing marketplace trust. Here’s a little excerpt from the BBB site about their mission and standards:

BBB sees trust as a function of two primary factors – integrity and performance. Integrity includes respect, ethics and intent. Performance speaks to a business’s track record of delivering results in accordance with BBB standards and/or addressing customer concerns in a timely, satisfactory manner.

BBB ensures that high standards for trust are set and maintained. We exist so consumers and businesses alike have an unbiased source to guide them on matters of trust. We provide educational information and expert advice that is free of charge and easily accessible.

BBB Accreditation is an honor – and not every company is eligible. Businesses that meet our high standards are invited to join BBB.

Long story short, we’re honored to be members of this trusted and respected business organization. I look forward to meeting and learning more about my fellow members and engaging with my local business community.

I took the liberty of checking out the speaker bios and realized I also had the chance to provide a bit of a teaching moment. To wit, How To (And How Not To) Promote Yourself In A Bio On A Website:

First, showing how not to do it, we have Dave McClure of 500 Startups. Dave decided to take the quick attention-getting route of making himself out to be kind of a weirdo. I’m not sure it paid off for him, unless you subscribe to the idea that all publicity is good publicity — which hasn’t really worked out that well for BP, Conrad Black or the junta in Burma.

(And before any of Dave’s friends start talking about stones and glass houses, I know very well that I’ve crossed the line on a number of occasions using this very strategy [examples here and here]. So yes, I’m a hypocrite. Such is life.)

I’ve highlighted the, uh, best bits:

Dave McClure is a greedy, blood-sucking venture capitalist & founding general partner at 500 Startups, an internet startup seed fund and incubator program in Mountain View, CA. He likes to hang out with entrepreneurs, and occasionally help or invest in their startups if they are foolish enough to let him. Dave has been geeking out in Silicon Valley for over twenty years, and has worked with companies such as PayPal, Mint, Founders Fund, Facebook, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Twilio, Simply Hired, O’Reilly Media, Intel, & Microsoft. Years ago he used to do real work like coding or marketing or running conferences, but these days he mostly does useless stuff like sending lots of email, blogging, and hanging out on Facebook and Twitter.  Dave also likes to play ultimate frisbee when his knees don’t hurt

As I said, I’m not too fond of the above. But what do I know? I just put words together for a living.

Next, to show what I think is a good example. To compare, I’ll use Clarity Digital President Leonard Brody’s bio. It’s a bit long, but it works. Again, I’ve highlighted the parts I like — phrases that focus not so much on who he is as what he does and why he appears to rock the flock:

Leonard has been called “a controversial leader of the new world order”. He is a highly respected entrepreneur, venture capitalist, best-selling author and a 2 time Emmy nominated media visionary. He has helped in raising millions of dollars for startup companies, been through one of the largest internet IPOs in history and has been involved in the building, financing and/or sale of five companies to date. In 2004, Leonard co-founded, and was CEO of, NowPublic.comnamed by Time Magazine as one of the top 50 websites in the world, was inducted into the Newseum in Washington and was recently acquired by the Anschutz Corporation. Currently Leonard sits as the President of the Clarity Digital Group responsible for overseeing one of the largest online news conglomerates in the world including Examiner.com and NowPublic, which between them, share over 20 million unique visitors a month and over 200,000 contributors. which is a pioneer in the field of citizen journalism. The company was

I see the difference. Can you see the difference?

There are two schools of thought when it comes to listing prices for services. Some like it. Some really don’t. Let’s start with the latter.

The problem with listing prices on your website: dropped sales leads (at least in theory)

Particularly for businesses that quote per project, some owners think that quoting prices on the website will discourage leads.

For instance, what if a visitor comes to the site, sees a price that doesn’t really fit their budget and moves on? The owner listed a price that perhaps was on the high end of that type of project’s range, say $5000, because they didn’t want to list the lower price of $1000 that they might charge for the smallest project of that type. The customer’s budget was actually $3000 — well within what the business might have charged for this sort of project, depending on the scope of work.

The compromise is typically for the business owner to stress in plain language that the quote will depend on the nature of the project. Hopefully, the client is understanding, decides this business is offering the type of service they need and is willing to call to get a quote — without even knowing a ballpark figure for how much this company will charge.

In reality, few customers are this patient or understanding.

The benefit of listing prices: more sales leads

More people will probably buy products and services from your website if you list prices.

Imagine you’re in a real, physical shop. You see one product with a price tag. A competing product with similar benefits and features is right next to it. It doesn’t have a price tag. You’re in a rush to get to the movies to meet your friend. Which product do you buy? The one with the price listed, of course.

The same theory applies to listing prices on your website. Customers know what they’re getting into.

If you’re concerned that customers may get the wrong idea and will want to get a huge scope of work for the minimum price listed on your website, use squishy language (as I have) like “X SERVICE starting at…” or “YZ PRODUCT as low as…” It’s far better than not listing anything at all.

The price of procrastination

If I’m so enthusiastic about listing prices, why have I waited so long to do it? I’ll have to admit that I got a bit complacent. Writing and strategizing are how I like to spend most of my work hours. My business website is based on WordPress and is simple to manage, so I’ve never out-tasked the design. As such, those prominent black and white services buttons listing prices waited and waited and waited. And I’m quite certain I’ve lost sales leads as a result.

So what prompted me to make the change? I was having coffee with the business-development person for Pieoneers, a Vancouver-based website design firm. She was showing me her website and it looked beautiful, funky and absolutely original. She showed me some sites her firm was working on and many of them looked just as eye-catching.

In comparison, my website was relatively free of graphics and buttons — because my strategy was to emphasize the words, the text, the content. Images look great, but the danger is that they can also distract from persuasive copy.

I suddenly recognized my mistake. I’ve always said that great content complements great design. It’s also true when you reverse that order. So I’ll be making changes to the design of my site over the next while. And the first step was adding buttons showing prices for my services.

I should probably add that many websites — including Pieoneers and quite a few of my business colleagues in other industries — still don’t list prices. The debate over how best to boost sales leads and the efficiency of your e-commerce is far from over.

But for now, it seems to me like I’ve made the right decision. And since I’m a metrics-obsessed guy, you can bet that I’ll be able to tell you by next quarter whether or not my ideas about listing prices really paid off.

It’s far easier now for your customers to search for what they want — and if they don’t find it, they can customize their choice and spend money without any effort on your part.

How does this work, exactly? Watch Supermarket 2.0 and learn.

Don’t get the comparison? In a typical D & D game, you’d have an exchange that inevitably made you question whether or not the activity could rightly be considered a “game”:

Dungeon Master: You’re in a room with doors going left, right and straight.
Player: Um, is there anything in this room?
Dungeon Master: Not really. A couple of goblin skulls in the corner, There’s probably some more exciting stuff further in.
Player: OK, that’s kind of lame. I guess we’ll go straight.
Dungeon Master: You go through a dark tunnel. It divides into two more tunnels.
Player: What’s the difference?
Dungeon Master: Well, I can’t tell you. All I can say is they lead somewhere else.
Player: Fine. I guess we’ll take the one on the right.
Dungeon Master: You come into another room. Now, you can go left, right or straight again.
Player: Is there anything interesting in this room?
Dungeon Master: Let me check the module… that would be “no.”
Player: Fine. we go right.
Dungeon Master: OK, after about five minutes you come to another room, but there are no other exits from this one. There’s a dead troll lying in the corner and a couple of gold coins near the wall.
Player: The troll’s dead?
Dungeon Master: Yeah, but you get five gold coins!
Player: Great. Thanks. No other ways out of this room, eh?
Dungeon Master: I’m afraid not.
Player: OK, we go back the way we came. God, I can’t wait until we’re old enough to buy beer.

Website visitors shouldn’t have to go through a labyrinthine process of links and buttons that lead nowhere. Plan the website so your customers get to the information they’re looking for — so they’ll show you the gold pieces.

Ah, This Takes Me Back

As a website copywriter, I use information like key phrases and popular search terms to refine content and make it more SEO-friendly. Basically, I use the info to make your website easier for your customers to find.

But for my clients, business owners and managers, tracking clicks can help refine entire marketing campaigns or even help guide key business decisions. You track where your sales are coming from offline, right? So why wouldn’t you do the same for your online marketing, when you can do so fairly easily and scientifically, with minimum effort?

I’ve heard from several clients that Google Analytics just seems complicated. I sympathize. It can seem a bit overwhelming.

Have your webmaster sit down with you for an hour or so and go over the metrics. If you’re running your business site off of WordPress or similar software, you can use a site stats plugin that provide only basic information you want to track.

Unlike print marketing, online marketing tools make it a lot easier to track results. Business owners, marketing executives and advertisers would have killed to have these tools even a few years ago. Now you can use them, and they don’t cost you a thing. Take advantage.

How Google Analytics Works

Just about any business I can think of would benefit from a website. While it’s true that some some businesses don’t “need” a website to survive, relying on a steady stream of referrals or other alternatives to online marketing, what these companies are doing is essentially turning down money. It’s weird.

That said, there may be some instances where businesses probably shouldn’t have a website. The top ten reasons are:

1. Your life sciences start-up idea involves shooting thousands of volts of electricity into a composite being stitched together with body parts from half a dozen corpses.

2. You think the Internet is a passing fad.

3. You’re a pirate and don’t want to publish a case study hinting at where you buried all of those Spanish dubloons.

4. You are building a Death Star planet-killer and haven’t yet worked out a way to monetize it.

5. You’re a blood diamonds trader, and not in a charming Leonardo DiCaprio kind of way.

6. You sell crack.

7. Your employees sell crack.

8. Your philosophy has always been that “my product sells itself. Why would I need to actually do any marketing? If customers can’t find my business, that means they’re stupid and I don’t want to deal with stupid people.”

9. Your name is William Randolph Hearst.

10. The last time you decided to run a business website, the FBI raided your office.

Case in point, I found this on a website I came across today:

Some customers prefer to talk to a real live person. Sure, customers might follow your directions and send you an email. But is your company so wildly successful that you can afford to throw away a percentage of clients just because you’re too lazy to check your voicemail?

On this note, a client who’s starting a new business told me they didn’t want to advertise a phone number because that would mean having to pay for a second line. But all this person has to do is get one client for one session or two sessions a month to be able to justify the cost.

If you’re so unsure about your business model that you don’t know if you can get one client one day a month, you’ve got way bigger problems than paying for an extra phone.

There are things that you have to have in your website content if you want your business to be found in search engines like Google. Web copywriters and other professionals call this being “SEO (Search Engine Optimization) friendly”.

1. Make sure your pages all have titles that relate to your specific business services. This is particularly important for small businesses that are branded around a person’s name, since it’s unlikely that people are going to Google “Joey Blackwell Consulting” unless Joey Blackwell is already a movie star, NBA athlete or Trump-sized tycoon.

2. Make sure your content uses keywords and key phrases that customers are going to use to find your business. If you’re in a field that’s highly competitive, like graphic design, you’re going to have to be a bit more creative, including information on location or niche areas of expertise. For instance, you’re much more likely to be found with a search like “Vancouver graphic designer conference posters” than just “graphic design”.

3. Publish useful information. I know, this tip sounds about as helpful as “sell a product that people want to buy”. But informative pages like case studies, white papers and glossaries help make your website more useful and encourage incoming links. This helps boost your Google ranking.

Obviously, this just covers a few of the basics. If you need help getting well-written, SEO-friendly content for your website, we can do that for you. Interested?

To get a free initial consultation to learn more, contact WRITEIMAGE today at 604.230.2638 or email info@writeimage.ca

“Don’t be afraid to stand out. That’s how the lost get found”