Your Company’s New Website – and it’s Logo and Slogan

bottle caps

There are some obvious advantages to having a company logo and slogan — and a couple of other good reasons to have them when considering your new website and its ability to be easily found on the internet. This post discusses those.

Lately, I’ve begun to do some website design and consulting work for a few clients who are coming to me with literally nothing established in the way of company branding. While they’re relatively-small and locally-based service firms, each is involved in an extremely competitive market. Lots of folks are regularly browsing the internet and looking for the services they offer. All things being equal, they’ve got to do anything and everything to stand out from the crowd.

A corporate logo and a slogan are two ways to stand out. Often these will differentiate you significantly from competitors and you’ll gain a bonus SEO (Search Engine Optimization) edge as well!

Company Logo

A company logo doesn’t necessarily need to be a graphical representation of the company’s products or services. It’s often tough to come up with a simple image that conveys something like ‘I design and build backyard decks’ or ‘we provide in-home massage services.’ A hammer or a screw or a row of planks would all be too ambiguous for the former and I have no idea of a single image that even comes close to representing the latter! So perhaps the ingredients of a good logo for your business might only involve the use of a specific typestyle (font), in a consistent way (e.g. all capital letters) and be shown in one or more consistent colours. That might be all that’s needed to make it relatively memorable. And if those elements could be put together by somebody with a creative bend who did such things for a living, all that much the better because it would probably be even more original-looking and memorable.

An original corporate logo is well within the grasp of literally any business on earth these days due to digital services-finding websites such as Fiverr and 99designs. In the case of Fiverr, you simply browse through literally dozens of profiles of logo artists from around the planet, all happy to design and make you something for less than the price of a good restaurant meal! These are people who, once they’re told a bit about your business and perhaps some ideas you have and a favourite colour or two, will design you something pretty stunning. And if you want some choice, 99Designs gives you the means to hold a contest for your logo design business! Designers submit ideas and you pick your favourite. Do an online search for “logo designer” and you’ll find even more sources for these graphic designers, many who live in the third world.

Website Logo Bonus

Here’s another reason to have a company logo: SEO traction.

Is it too obvious to state that Google and other search engines can’t “read” photographs or other graphic images in the same way you can? Currently, they can’t, leaving them to build indexes of websites based solely upon the words that the web-crawler bots encounter there. Believe it or not, the addition of a company logo on your home page and elsewhere on your website actually gets you the ability to use your company’s name and some choice SEO keywords more than without a logo!

Not everybody browsing the internet has a fast connection and many people have disabilities that prevent them from seeing and reading what others can. Those with an ultra-slow connection will turn off their browser’s rendering of detailed graphics whose size can quickly clog their digital pipeline. Folks with sight-related disabilities will use screen readers to read, through text-to-speech software, whatever is on the web page before them.

In both of these situations, “alt tags” are used in place of displayed graphics. For the user with the slow connection, alt tags tell her what images are on the page that she’s not seeing. Similarly, the screen reader is reading the alt tags to the blind person, telling him descriptions of what images are on the page.

The bonus here is that we can put SEO-helpful words into these alt tags and not be penalized for doing so by Google and other search engines. In fact, leaving alt tags blank for graphic images will actually lower search engine rankings.

Company Slogan

As a general rule, your company’s name should tell what it does. But many of us had no control over this or the business changed its mission but couldn’t change it’s name. For example, Kenny’s Carpentry seemed to be a great business name when Kenny began it, offering general carpentry services. He eventually realized he built great backyard decks and that there was a big and profitable market for them, but didn’t want to change his company name and lose all of the goodwill and superior reputation it had amassed.

They’re also known as straplines or taglines and personally, I think that any business is at a great disadvantage when they don’t have one. Why? Because those extra three to ten words that you might often place beside or below your logo can strike a chord with its reader and, in a perfect world, sum up your company’s mission in a few well-chosen words. If nothing else, they announce to your website visitor that they’re at their intended destination. They also help considerably, as I mentioned above, if your company name is fairly non-descriptive.

Company Slogan Bonus

Similar to the alt tags situation with company logos, a company slogan beneficially lets you inject some heading words onto your website’s pages that are directly related to your business and its mission. So, if the strapline of Kenny’s Carpentry is “Building solid yard decks since 2010” then we’ve got another chance to use the word deck — the company’s specialty — and surround it with SEO-helpful words like ‘building’ and ‘yard.’ See how we just got a bit more SEO traction from the addition of a descriptive company slogan?

Summary

Whether it’s as elegant and simple as the Nike “swoosh” or the script font used in the Coca-Cola brand name for over a century, logos and brands make and support the image of a business regardless of its size. Similarly, a company without a straightforward and informative slogan infers that it hasn’t a clear mandate or mission. If either is omitted from your website, you’ll be at a significant disadvantage because of competitors who do have and regularly and repeatedly use them in all of their marketing materials.

Additionally, you get the chance to once again use primary and related SEO keywords not only in the text that your website visitors read, but also in the text that they can’t read that’s embedded into those helpful alt tags!

The Importance of Testimonials on Your Website

Client Testimonials

You see them on many websites, often down near the bottom of the home page. They’re short snippets or parts of positive critical reviews. They come from past customers and clients. Is it really worth the time and effort to get these and post them on your website?

Most definitely!

People are guided and motivated by the behaviour of other people. You can use the experiences of others to convert “lookers” into “buyers.” What’s amazing is that it works if your website visitors don’t even know them!

Testimonials all boil down to a term known as “social proof.” That’s where people reference the behaviour of others to guide their own behaviour. It’s known as a psychological phenomenon. We all have a natural desire to be “correct.” That is, to behave as the world wants us to in most circumstances. This greatly influences not only what we say and do, but also where we buy. Nobody wants to make a mistake. Nobody wants their friends to say, “Oh no! You didn’t buy your widgets from them did you? Their quality is horrible.”

So testimonials – words from complete and total strangers – have the ability to “tip the scale” as it were. They can nudge people into acting, especially when they’re not totally sure of what to do next. That’s social proof in action.

Testimonials Are Beneficial – So What Do They Look Like?

So, let’s admit that posting real testimonials on our website could influence many of our website visitors. What should these testimonials look like? What should they say and how lengthy and detailed should they be?

Testimonials should be from people that your prospects can relate to. They should be from people who, in the past, didn’t use your product or service. So it’s always best to have the testimonial infer that.

If you sell to consumers, then you really only need to name the person. So, “Mary P.” or “John Smith, Toronto” are adequate.

If you sell to businesses, then you generally need to add another level of credibility. You’ll have to give their work position and/or company. It might have to be, “Jean T., Marketing Manager” or even “Bob Robertson, Managing Partner, Global Bathtubs.”

Here’s a typical testimonial:

“I bought this set of widgets three months ago from Bob at Acme Widget. I have to say that it’s a superior product! They’re much better than the other widgets I’ve bought elsewhere. Highly recommended.”

There’s nothing all that wrong with that testimonial. But it’s not likely to bump someone hard enough to make them buy.

Is There A Proven Testimonials Format?

Good testimonials follow this formula: Before + After + What they’d tell someone.

Here’s an example, broken down into the three parts of the formula:

Before: “Before buying this widget set, I struggled with getting them to work properly. I tried installing them myself and I even took tutorials online. In the end, I was a widget idiot.

After: “That’s when I tried Acme Widget’s Super Widget Packs. Within minutes, my widgets were up and running. It was life-changing.”

What they’d tell someone: “If you’ve been frustrated by other widget packs before, I can totally recommend Acme’s widget packs.

The before statement tells the reader what the customer’s life was like before they tried Acme’s widgets. That way, the testimonial is more relatable – perhaps dead-on relatable to the reader’s problem.

The after tells the specific results that your customer got from you and your product or service. It could be anything from, “Now I’m saving over four hours each day using Acme’s widgets over doing things manually” to “I can attest an increase of over 30% efficiency when using Acme’s widgets.” Being able to quote a number or some other metric is beneficial here. But really, anything that indicates the benefits or advantages they received is probably good enough.

Finally, there’s the what they’d tell someone. In a way, this sums up – in a sentence or two – what the person would say to someone who’s considering this product or service. Because this statement is coming from a customer, it is very believable and credible.

Obtaining These Testimonials

Many people don’t know how to ask for testimonials. Maybe they feel uneasy about requesting such things.

Most of us don’t prompt others for compliments about us personally. It’s socially unacceptable. Asking someone, “How do you like my new haircut?” or “Do you think I look handsome/pretty?” might be thought of as narcissistic. But asking a customer how they like our product or service is a totally different thing! Anyone who understands even the slightest thing about business knows that getting feedback from customers is how we know if we’re running our business properly.

We’ve all had customers that we’d wished had done business with our competitors. So, stating the obvious, we’re not going to be asking these folks to relate rosy stories of dealing with us. We want a situation where we’ve over-delivered on value. Where we’ve offered and supplied a product or service that truly solved a problem. A situation where our team provided stellar customer service and made our customer feel as if we were totally in business to benefit them. Those are who we want to approach about providing us with a positive review of their encounters with us.

In my experience and in doing research on this subject, there are two significant things that can get you the customer testimonials you need:

  • Ask them immediately or as soon as possible.
  • Make it easy for them to respond.

Time – Or Timing – Is of the Essence

There is an excellent time to ask for a customer testimonial – and you already know when that is! If you’re in the service business, it’ll be immediately after the service (or project or whatever) is complete. If you’re in the product biz, it’ll be as soon as your customer has received and begun to get value from whatever you provided to them. The longer you wait, the prospect of getting any response from them decreases greatly. They’ve moved on to other problems and looking for other solutions.

So, if you’ve got your timing down correctly and you’re going to solicit a reference from your customer, how can you make it easy for them? One of the effects of asking for testimonials is that it puts pressure on people to come up with something perfect. So, what do they do? They freeze and do nothing.

I think there are two possible ways to get good and detailed positive testimonials from your customers and you’re going to have to determine which method is best. It’ll depend on what kind of selling you are engaged in and what kind of established relationship you already have with your clients. If you’ve been mostly selling and delivering your product or service verbally, then I’d approach them with a phone call. If most of the sales process has been handled through email and online, then perhaps sending them an email or two is the best approach.

Verbally Obtaining a Testimonial

Call your customer on the phone and say, “I know you’re quite happy with our company and its products/services. Thank you once again for being a customer. I’m hoping that you might give a short testimonial about your experience in working with us. Nothing big, just a few words. We might end up putting part of it up on our website or using it in other marketing materials.”

“But does that mean people are going to be phoning me, asking about your company?”

“No way! We’ll just give your first name and initial. How’s that sound?”

“Not bad. I’m happy to help out.”

“Super! It’ll only take about five minutes. Can we do it now, or would you rather make a specific date and time?…”

When you’ve got your customer ready, simply ask her or him for responses to the three same statements I’ve already indicated. The best way to approach this would be simply put those statements into these questions:

  1. What were things like before you used our product/service?
  2. What were they like after you used our product/service?
  3. What would you tell others who are considering our product/service?

Ask the questions one at a time and take down some notes. Your notes don’t need to be perfect because your customer isn’t going to remember exactly what they said. You’re just paraphrasing and trying to get the gist of their testimonial. You’ll eventually be cobbling those words into a few written statements.

Getting a Testimonial by Email

For this strategy, you’re going to ask your customer the same three questions. Here’s what you might write in your email as a lead-up to those questions:

Thanks for being an Acme Widgets customer, we really appreciate your business.

You might have noticed that our website has a few customer testimonials on the home page. We’ve found these relevant and short statements to be very helpful in highlighting the strengths of our products/services to prospective customers. We like to keep them fresh and relevant. I’m reaching out to you, hoping that you’ll share a personal testimonial about your experience with our company. It’ll only take a few minutes and would be greatly appreciated.

Please respond to these three questions:…

This method unfortunately isn’t as reliable as a phone call. You’re not at the other end of the line, subtly pressuring your customer. They can choose to ignore or put off answering your email. So, you’re going to have to them a little here, by priming them with some potential answers. You know your product or service inside-out and you know what the typical answers to those questions are almost certainly going to be. So, prompt your customer with some further questions to help them along.

If, for example, you sell a cream that relieves itching, you might state your questions like this:

  • What were things like before you used our product? Was that itchiness driving you crazy? Did you itch in one place or many? Where? Had you tried other products? Which ones?
  • What were things like like after you used our product? Was your relief instant? Did the itchiness go away completely? Was the product easy to use?
  • What would you tell others who are considering our product?

Note that I didn’t indicate that you’d be helping with the third question. That’s because it’s going to be a lot easier for your customer to answer that one. Answering the first to are a natural lead-in for getting them to tell you what they’d tell others about your product or service.

Get Final Permission

Yes, this is a hassle – but you legitimize your relationship with this customer by never assuming anything. You’ve allowed them to have the final say on what you’re going to publish to the world. So drop them an email and ask for their approval for the testimonial they provided to you. If things have gone well, it should read something like this:

“I’d suffered for years with an itch to my right foot big toe. Nothing would make that itch go away, not even Brand X. Two minutes after I applied Acme Itch Cream I had total relief! I thought I was going to be itchy forever – but not after using your product!”

Note that this testimonial contains those three required ingredients: what it was like before, what it was like after, and what I’d now tell someone else.

Summary

As we all know, word-of-mouth is generally the best type of marketing for most any business. If people like a product or service, they are naturally inclined to tell their friends and acquaintances. Friendships and relationships are strengthened through help and advice.

Similarly — though admittedly not as strongly as word-of-mouth — testimonials on your website support your product or service with words from someone who has been down the road your potential prospect is thinking of going. Most people don’t want to make a mistake and a few choice phrases that are presented in the three-part format I’ve outlined may “tip the balance” of a prospect who’s sitting on the fence and needs just one more nudge in your direction to commit to your offer.

The Colours of Your New Website

website colours

There are countless articles and psychological studies that have been done on the subject of colours and how they affect people. The colours used on your website — as well as in your logo and branding — have a tremendous effect on your website visitors. Here’s a quick guide to choosing your new website’s colour scheme.

What Colours?!

Know that what I’m referring to here isn’t the predominant colours of photographs or illustrations that are used on your website but rather the other graphical elements. That would include the colours of icons, fonts, and buttons; the backgrounds of things like menu bars and error messages; and boxes, circles, and other geometrical shapes that border and define articles and calls to action. Even the colour that backs the normal text of your website — if it’s not white or black — all need to be decided and be part of an overall and consistent website colour strategy.

Dark or Light?

Initially, you’re going to have to choose whether your website is mainly of the dark or light variety. That is, is the predominant background of the pages of your site on the dark or light side? Perhaps a couple of illustrations will best show the difference:

An example of a light-themed website.
An example of a dark-themed website.

The obvious difference is the background. Pictures and text that appear on a white or light background appear as if they’re printed on paper, perhaps existing like the pages of a news magazine. When pictures and text are on a background that’s predominantly dark, they’re a bit more artistic-looking, maybe like an advertisement in a fashion magazine. One overwhelming fact of dark backgrounds is that light text needs to be used to be readable and that’s typically called “reverse printing.” Such text is generally not as easy to read as dark text on a light background. One could make that point, however, that a lot of white space on a typical computer screen throws a lot of light at the eyes of the user, potentially tiring them.

And please know that just because you choose a website that is predominantly one way that some parts of it can’t lean the other. It’s very common these days, for example, on light-themed websites to have a footer that’s dark-themed. If nothing else, this identifies this repeating section as being different.

How Many Colours?

First of all, assume that black (or a dark grey) and white (or an off-white) are going to be part of your website. It’s pretty tough to make something that looks nice and not employ one or both of these standard colours. So what I’m addressing here are those colours that are in addition to those primary two.

If you think of most any modern brand or logo used in the modern marketplace, it’s seldom comprised of more than two colours other than black and white. Two colours are significantly more memorable and align with branding schemes better than three or more colours.

As a general rule, three extra colours for a website should suffice. Two of them will be predominant, being used for the standard graphical elements (boxes, lines, shaded backgrounds, etc.) of your website. The third will be reserved for special, attention-getting uses, such as icons and the background of buttons used in call-to-action and other extraordinary elements. This colour should be, to some degree, complementary to the other two colours. If you know anything about such colours, they are typically from the other side of the colour wheel. That means they’re not derived from the same colour families of your two main colours — they’re the opposite! If you want something on your website to be attention-getting you need to make it stand out and, of course, you can’t use it too much. If it’s seen repeatedly it’ll lose its usefulness.

Your Logo

If your logo has already been designed, whatever colour schemes used within the elements of your website must align with your logo. If your logo is comprised of two or three colours, then you probably won’t have to decide on which colours to use on your website because they’ll have already been decided for you! If your logo has only one colour, then you’re going to have to find two more colours to use with it on your website other than variants of black and white.

Website Colour Schemes

Before considering what other non-logo colours you’re going to use you must first determine the colour(s) currently used in your logo. In the world of printing, these are referred to as PMS (Pantone Matching System) colours. If you’ve had business cards or letterhead printed, you should be able to obtain these numbers from the printing company.

If your logo colours have, to this point, only been digital, then you’re going to have to find out what they are from whoever designed your logo. In the digital world, these can be expressed a few different ways, but the most common is called hexadecimal. They will typically be expressed as a six-character “word,” comprised of numbers ranging from 0-9 and letters from A-G, often preceded with ‘#.’ The hexadecimal code for Coca-Cola red is #FE001A.

If you only know the PMS colour(s) or have been told the digital colour in another scheme (e.g. RBG), then just Google the term “PMS to hex convert” or “RGB to hex convert” and you’ll find numerous online utilities to do the conversion for you. Hexadecimal (“hex”) is the standard scheme for expressing website colours.

If you have to determine one or two added colours to be used, you’ll want to compare them to whatever has been predetermined logo-wise. An excellent tool for doing this — and for finding other suitable colour combinations — is available from coolors.co. Click the ‘Start the generator’ button and then edit (by directly clicking on the current hex numbers) the leftmost coloured panels and enter the hex codes of your already-chosen colours. Once you’ve done that, click the little padlock icon on each panel so that they’re locked-in. Then, just press the space bar on your computer to let the tool go to work, displaying various potential colour schemes for your consideration. If you happen to like one or more of the colours shown, move those panels leftwards and lock them in so you can view them beside your already-chosen colours. Experiment! Know that you can save any of the schemes you think you like with a name so you’ll be able to come back and look at them again. This requires a sign-up to the site and I don’t believe I’ve ever received spam from enrolling.

One other way to choose a colour scheme — especially if you don’t have a logo designed yet or maybe your logo is black and grey — is to just peruse a bunch of “off-the-shelf” colour schemes and choose one of them! A hundred schemes are shown here, all with quick explanations of what feelings they might emote from those who view them.

If you want to go further on this subject, do some searches of “choosing website colours” or similar; you’ll find dozens of online articles written on the subject, bound to get you even more confused and choosing between a dozen different schemes instead of two or three!

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Photos and Graphics for Your Website

raindrops on window

While the words that are present in your website copy are ultimately responsible for most of the content that gets indexed by Google and sought by seekers, the graphics are equally important for human visitors. In other words, the “meat” of your website might be what is written there, but the “magnets” are the graphics:– photographs, icons, diagrams, background videos, and illustrations. This document deals with how you might find and acquire those lovely pieces of artwork.

The first impressions of visitors to your new website will be more impacted by the graphic elements they see there. This is why having sharp, clear, illustrative graphics scattered about your site is so important. Poor graphics turn people off from the start. They make your website (and by extension, your business or organization) seem amateurish and not very well thought-out. They might think, ‘If they can’t even show nice pictures and clear graphics explaining their what they do, where else have they cut corners?’

You might be starting out in business and don’t have any pictures amassed yet. It might be that you’ve been around for awhile, but none of the photos you’ve taken of your operation look all that good or professional. Good photographs that have actually been taken at your business and are of the people working within it need to be captured by a professional photographer – and they cost money. So, what do you do on a limited budget?

Fortunately, there is a whole world out there of online stock photography and graphics. There are literally millions of high-quality images, colourful graphics, whimsical icons, background videos, and lovely illustrations available to be used on your website. Some of these require some discernment; if you do tree maintenance in Edmonton, you don’t want a picture of someone trimming a palm tree!

If nothing else, stock photographs and graphics will act as excellent placeholders in your new website until you have the time and money to hire a professional photographer or graphic designer. Good quality graphics – even if they’re canned – are ultimately superior to something that’s of poor quality, because everything that’s on your website is going to be judged by its visitors. If they see pictures that look like snapshots taken on a smartphone, with darkened faces and irregular shadows and odd colours, then that’s the impression you’re going to leave on prospective customers.

How You’re Not Going to Get Website Graphics

Ever used Google’s image finder? Just go here, put in a search term (e.g. hummingbird) and you’ll end up with hundreds or even thousands of photos and graphics – some of them really quite nice – all available for download with a few mouse clicks! But you’re not going to download them. Ever. If you grab one of them and we use it on your website, chances are very high that we’ve broken a copyright law. We’ve appropriated somebody else’s work and most people don’t like it when their stuff gets stolen! When you’re using it in a for-profit business, that just adds insult to injury, let alone the fact that you can be sued – quite easily and successfully, in fact! It’s just not ethical.

You shouldn’t, but if you need another good reason to not pilfer some graphics online, here’s another: Go to the Google image finder and click on the little camera icon. That leads you to a spot where you can indicate an image that you want Google to search for exact or close copies of. It’s spooky just how good Google is at doing this! So, if you were the owner of an image that you thought people had pinched and were using improperly, you could easily find every copy of that picture in a few seconds – and know the exact website page where the image was displayed! Like shooting fish in a barrel, eh?

How You Are Going to Get Website Graphics

With that other method put immediately to bed, you have two alternatives here for quickly getting yourself some quality graphics:

  1. Find something suitable on a website that provides free images and graphics and use them, or
  2. Opt for finding something that’s at least equally suitable – and probably superior – from a paid-for service.

I know you now think I’m leading you into something expensive — but bear with me, okay?

Free Photographs, Graphics, Icons, and Illustrations

God bless the photographers and designers out there that have allowed their work to be placed on websites from which they can be downloaded for free. Whether they’re doing it for good karma or a slight ego boost or whatever, all of these people are very gracious. Most are even going to give away their work for not even a mention, although some free graphics sites insist that you give credit to the creator of the artwork on the page where it’s shown.

The biggest disadvantages that I’ve found with the resources acquired from these sites are:

  • You may not find the exact thing you want, especially if you need to be specific or are picky.
  • Crediting people for giving away their work is an honourable thing, but it takes away some of your website focus and can cheapen your image (although I’ll admit that, in some circumstances, it could enhance it).
  • Because the images are free, there will be a lot more websites using them. Imagine the horror of one day seeing the same primary photo you use on the header of your website’s home page on that of a competitor!

You can search Google for “free photographs” or “free graphics” and find dozens of sites that’ll provide them, but I’ve found these to be the best:

Reasonably-Priced Photographs, Graphics, Icons, and Illustrations

Getty Images is the king of the paid-for photograph – but I’d only recommend them if you really want a one-of-a-kind photograph or just can’t find anything on any of the other sites I’m recommending. In the end, if the perfect photo from Getty costs you $400 that’s still less than hiring a professional photographer for a couple of hours!

The reasons for acquiring assets from these sources are, essentially, for the opposite reasons for getting the freebies:

  • The catalogues of available images are more vast and you’re probably more likely to find something on one of these sites that’s either perfect or better-suited to your needs.
  • You don’t need to give credit to anyone for creating the photo or artwork (unless you want to!).
  • The chances of seeing any of these images on another website is substantially less than from a free resource.

These are my faves:

You can set up an account at any of these sites and pay for the photos and graphics yourself, passing them along to me.

Alternatively – and greatly to your benefit – I have purchased bulk purchasing deals with both depositphotos and yayimages. Literally any graphic you find there I can purchase and use on your behalf and it’ll only cost you $10 each.

What Do You Do If You Find Some Suitable Graphics?

If you’ve opted to acquire the images yourself, then please download and pass along the highest-resolution versions possible to me. I’ll then do my thing with optimizing them for your website.

If you’ve found one or more images on a free or paid-for site, please let me know which website you saw them on and what image or catalogue number they had. Pretty well every photo and graphics website identifies each of their images with a unique code or number. You often have to choose the image and then spot the code from the image’s description. Alternately, copy and pass along to me the entire description of the photo or its title, usually shown at the top of the screen.

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Branding and Your Email Address

email

Think those two things have little in common? Well, they most certainly don’t! Read on to learn how your potential website visitors — and clients and customers — can get a less-than-desirable impression of your business or organization from your email address.

Your website is a reflection of your business or organization’s brand, which is a sacred and valuable asset. Your brand and your website need to align perfectly if your message is to be consistent and understood.

The online business dictionary defines a brand as:

“Unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product and differentiates it from its competitors. Over time, this image becomes associated with a level of credibility, quality, and satisfaction in the consumer’s mind. Thus brands help harried consumers in a crowded and complex marketplace, by standing for certain benefits and value.”

Imagine yourself looking to hire someone for a position in your firm. You’ve got a stack of resumes and you’re going through them, looking for any reason to place one in the “maybe” pile and probably even more reasons to place one in the “no” pile. Looking at the emails of some of your prospective employees, you’ve spotted a couple of note: “” and “.” Which pile would you put these resumes into?

Now let’s take that thought a step further and consider what email address (or addresses) you’re going to use for your new fledgling business, “Annie’s Pies.” You’ve been baking pies as a sideline business for a couple of years now and has serviced you well (even though you appear to be a part-time spy!). That free email service from Google hasn’t ever been a problem. Well, Gmail has occasionally automatically filed legitimate emails into your Social or Promotions folder when they really belonged in your Primary folder, but that’s not a show-stopper. Why bother changing when what you’ve got — or what you can get for free — seems perfectly fine.

So, imagine you’ve sent me an email because you’re interested in my web design and consulting services. I’ve written my usual scintillating and engaging reply(!) and you’ve noted my email address, as most people do.

At this point you’re going to have to do some more in-depth imagining by considering the following three email addresses:

Which one do you think would best support the Websmithian brand?

Would one of those email addresses more strongly evoke an image of prosperity and longevity?

Which business email would you consider to be associated with a company that is reliable and established?

Does any of those email addresses belong to a company that you think has a lot of employees and a greater capacity to supply and support its products or services?

Get my point?

Here’s another point: Do you want something else (or someone else) to be privy to all of the written communications going between yourself and your customers? Given the choice, would your business partners prefer to deal with a business or organization that exclusively conducts private communications?

Not to be an alarmist or anything, but if you believe that only you and the recipients of your Gmail (or other freebie email service) are able to view emails sent through that system you are sadly mistaken. Do a Google search “how private is my Gmail?” and you’ll get a whole bunch of information — some of it quite contradictory — but most of it quite sobering.

What I do know is that the email mailbox I have that’s associated with my business, Websmithian, can only be accessed by myself or the email service host. I also know that any mail I send from that address can only be read by a recipient with a password-protected account. And if your account is a freebie (Gmail, Yahoo mail, etc.) then, unfortunately, I don’t have any control over our communication privacy anymore!

Email addresses associated with your domain (e.g. ) come at a few costs:

  • They have a monthly, quarterly, or annual charge for each unique email address.
  • There are limits on the size of your mailbox, so you might occasionally need to do some housecleaning. (Even freebie accounts have their limits.)
  • You will need to use a software email client (e.g. Outlook, Thunderbird, Bluemail) to send and receive emails or use an online email client (e.g. RoundCube). Fortunately, software email clients these days can also handle Gmail and other freebie email services, so at least all of your emails — personal, business, and otherwise — can be consolidated into one program.

To summarize — and add a few more advantages — here are the primary benefits of using domain email addresses:

  • Customers expect your business to have a website — and they expect email addresses associated with your website to have that @mybusiness.com suffix. When they do, it tells them you’re serious about your business.
  • People will doubt your credibility and professionalism if you’re using a freebie email service.
  • You can set up job-specific email addresses (e.g. , , ) and route those to anyone in the business your choose — even if that’s only you!
  • If you want to move your email service provider, you can do that relatively easily. Try to move all of your email from to !
  • Most email services offer different levels of spam filtering, email forwarding, and other useful functions that the freebies don’t provide.
  • You’ll get the highest level of email privacy and security possible.

Websmithian offers email hosting for a very reasonable yearly fee. Each account is typically capped at 5GB (more is available). Migration services from your present email address — no matter what type — are available.

P.S. If you want some unbiased advice on this subject, I urge you to read this article, Why your business shouldn’t use a Gmail.com address, and what to use instead, published by Zapier. 

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A Website Renovation

No matter what your reason, it might be easier – and less costly – than you think to give your website a renewal!

You may have concluded that your company’s website just isn’t bringing in the business like it used to.

Perhaps you realize that it’s looking dated or worn and needs a bit of a refresh.

It might be that a website reno project is more of a necessity because its visitors can’t properly view and navigate it on a smartphone or tablet computer.

Sadly, you might have invested thousands of dollars on that website just a few years ago and expected it to remain fresh-looking and fully-functional. But the online world relentlessly advances. Expectations get higher and your competitors have developed gorgeous new websites that make yours look and feel like a Chrysler K-Car!

Regardless of the reasons, Websmithian can take your tired and dog-eared website and totally renovate it from top to bottom — or just a little. And it can be done for probably a lot less cost than you anticipate.

The best thing about renovating a website is that much of the work is already complete. The copy you’ve written may only need a bit of polishing and updating. The customer testimonials and FAQs are all still valid, but perhaps they just need to be presented in a more modern and engaging way. Maybe even the photos you’ve used on the site are still representative of your product and service and can be reused in a new website.

In summary, much of the content of your current site can be recycled. It might just need to be reformatted or reimagined in a new layout and design.

Some of the ways Websmithian might update your website are:

  • Alter the website’s pages so that they are “responsive.” This is a term that websmiths use to describe a website that can be viewed and easily used on any computing device: desktop, laptop, tablet, or smartphone. With mobile devices now being used in over 40% of the world’s web browsing, every business really needs a website that’ll do this! An additional benefit is that your not-mobile-friendly website will no longer be downgraded in Google rankings.
  • Replace outdated photographs so that they reflect a more recent representation of your business. These could be pictures that you’ve captured or high-quality, high-resolution images from a stock photo supplier.
  • Update graphic elements, such as icons, lines, backgrounds, and diagrams to make your website look and feel more modern.
  • Introduce new corporate colours and/or branding to the website to enhance and coordinate your corporate image.
  • Add animation effects to make your website more engaging, entertaining, and memorable.
  • Add a customer contact or enquiry form that does more than simply capture a name and phone number. Perhaps the form can have fields to check-off or fill in, providing you with more up-front information before you respond to your prospects.
  • Reorganize your website’s structure and menu system to make it more logical and easier for visitors to find the information they’re looking for.
  • Collect visitor info so you can put them on your mailing list (virtual or snail mail).
  • Add customer testimonials to instantly gain the trust of website visitors and business prospects. Testimonials put the spotlight on your customers and their experiences with your business and relate directly to new prospects when building your brand’s products and services.
  • Fix the spelling and/or grammatical errors in your current website that have been driving you – and your website’s picky visitors – crazy!
  • Ensure that your renovated website is running snappy-fast. Slow-loading websites – especially in competitive markets – send impatient visitors to your competitors.
  • Implement some SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to your rejuvenated website. Are people finding you on the internet using the search terms you are set up for?

Of course, any renovation project we undertake will not be directly to your current website! (Unlike living through a kitchen renovation!) We will make a copy of your website and do the work to it in a dark, out-of-the-way corner of the internet where only you can find it. Once it’s ready to go, we’ll simply drop it into the place where your current website is located. There, the world can “ooh” and “aah” at your new creation and you can look forward to happier website visitors and the prospect of your renovated website contributing positively to the bottom line of your enterprise.

Contact Websmithian for an assessment of your current website and a detailed proposal for renovating it.

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Testimonials On Your Website

thumb up

You see them on many websites. They’re typically down near the bottom of the home page. Short snippets or parts of positive critical reviews. They come from past customers and clients. Is it really worth the time and effort to get these and post them on your website?

Most definitely! People are guided and motivated by the behaviour of other people. So you can use the experiences of others to convert “lookers” into “buyers.” What’s amazing is that they work — even if your website visitors don’t even know them!

Testimonials all boil down to a term known as “social proof.” That’s where people reference the behaviour of others to guide their own behaviour. It’s known as a psychological phenomenon. We all have a natural desire to be “correct.” That is, to behave as the world would want us to in most circumstances. This greatly influences not only what we say and do, but also where we buy. Nobody wants to make a mistake. Nobody wants their friends to say, “Oh no! You didn’t buy your widgets from them did you? Their quality is horrible.”

So testimonials – words from complete and total strangers – have the ability to “tip the scale” as it were. They can nudge people into acting, especially when they’re not totally sure of what to do next. That’s social proof in action.

Testimonials Are Beneficial – So What Do They Look Like?

So, let’s admit that posting real testimonials on our website could influence many of our website visitors. What should they look like? What should they say and how lengthy and detailed should they be?

Testimonials should be from people that your prospect can relate to. They should be from people who, in the past, didn’t use your product or service. So the testimonial is going to have to infer or directly state that.

If you sell to consumers, then you really only need to name the person. So, “Mary P.” or “John Smith, Toronto” are adequate.

If you sell to businesses, then you need to add another level of credibility. You’ll have to give their work position and/or company. It might have to be, “Jean T., Marketing Manager” or even “Bob Robertson, Managing Partner, Global Bathtubs.”

Here’s a typical testimonial:

“I bought this set of widgets three months ago from Bob at Acme Widget. I have to say that it’s a superior product! They’re much better than the other widgets I’ve bought elsewhere. Highly recommended.”

There’s nothing all that wrong with that testimonial. But it’s not likely to bump someone hard enough to make them buy.

Is There A Proven Testimonials Format?

Good testimonials follow this formula: Before + After + What they’d tell someone = exceptional testimonial.

Here’s an example, broken down into the three parts of the formula:

Before:

“Before buying this widget set, I struggled with getting them to work properly. I tried installing them myself and I even took tutorials online. In the end, I was a widget idiot.”

After:

“That’s when I tried Acme Widget’s Super Widget Packs. Within minutes, my widgets were up and running. It was life-changing.”

What they’d tell someone:

“If you’ve been frustrated by other widget packs before, I can totally recommend Acme’s widget packs.”

The before tells the reader what the customer’s life was like before they tried Acme’s widgets. That way, the testimonial is more relevant — perhaps dead-on relevant — to the reader’s problem.

The after tells the specific results that your customer got from you and your product or service. It could be anything from, “Now I’m saving over four hours each day using Acme’s widgets over doing things manually” to “I can attest an increase of over 30% efficiency when using Acme’s widgets.”

Being able to quote a number or some other metric is really beneficial here. But anything that indicates the benefits or advantages they received is good.

Finally, there’s the “what they’d tell someone.” In a way, this sums up – in a sentence or two – what the person would say to someone who’s considering your product or service. This statement is coming from a current or past user — so it is very believable and credible.

Obtaining These Testimonials

Many people don’t know how to ask for testimonials. Maybe they feel uneasy about requesting such things.

If so, it’s because most of us don’t prompt others for personal compliments. It’s socially unacceptable. People who ask, “How do you like my new haircut?” or “Do you think I look handsome/pretty?” might be thought of as narcissistic. But asking a customer how they like our product or service is a totally different thing!

We’ve all had customers that we’d wished had done business with our competitors. So, stating the obvious, we’re not going to be asking these folks to relate rosy stories of their dealings with us. We want a situation where we’ve over-delivered on value. Where we’ve offered and supplied a product or service that truly solved a problem. A situation where our team provided stellar customer service and made our customer feel as if we are in business solely to benefit them. Those are the people who we want to approach.

In my experience and in doing research on this subject, there are two significant things that can get you the customer testimonials you need:

  1. Ask them immediately or as soon as possible.
  2. Make it easy for them to respond.

Time – Or Timing – Is of the Essence

There is a good time to ask for a customer testimonial – and you already know when that is.

If you’re in the service business, it’ll be immediately after the service (or project or whatever) is complete. If you’re in the product biz, it’ll be as soon as your customer has received and begun to get value from whatever you provided to them. The longer you wait, the lesser the possibility of getting any response from them. They’ve moved on.

So, you’ve got your timing down correctly.

Now, you’re now going to request a reference from your customer. How can you make it easy for them?

One of the effects of asking for testimonials is that it puts pressure on people to come up with something dazzling and perfect. So, what do they do? They freeze and do nothing.

There are two possible ways to extract good and detailed positive testimonials from your customers. You’re going to have to determine which method is best. It’ll depend on what kind of selling you do and what kind of established relationship you already have with your clients.

  • If you’ve been mostly selling and delivering your product or service verbally, then I’d approach them with a phone call.
  • If most of the sales process has happened through email and online, then sending them an email or two is the best approach.

Verbally Obtaining a Testimonial

Call your customer on the phone and say something like:

“I know you’re quite happy with our company and its products/services. Thank you once again for being a customer. I’m hoping that you might give a short testimonial about your experience in working with us. Nothing big. Just a few words. We might end up putting part of it up on our website or using it in other marketing materials.”

“But does that mean people are going to be phoning me, asking about your company?”

“No way! We’ll just give your first name and initial. How’s that sound?”

“Not bad. I’m happy to help out.”

“Super! It’ll only take about five minutes. Can we do it now, or would you rather make a specific date and time?…”

When you’ve got your customer ready, it’s pretty easy. Just ask her or him for responses to the three same statements I’ve already indicated. The best way to approach this would be to put those statements into questions:

  1. What were things like before you used our product/service?
  2. What were they like after you used our product/service?
  3. What would you tell others who are considering our product/service?

Ask the questions one at a time and take down some notes. Your notes don’t need to be perfect because your customer isn’t going to remember exactly what they said. You’re just paraphrasing and trying to get the gist of their testimonial. You’ll eventually be cobbling those words into a few written statements.

Getting a Testimonial by Email

For this strategy, you’re going to ask your customer the same three questions.

Here’s what you might write in your email as a lead-up to those questions:

Thanks for being an Acme Widgets customer, we really appreciate your business. 

You might have noticed that our website has a few customer testimonials on the home page. We’ve found these relevant and short statements to be very helpful in highlighting the strengths of our products/services to prospective customers. We like to keep them fresh and relevant. I’m reaching out to you, hoping that you’ll share a personal testimonial about your experience with our company. It’ll only take a few minutes and would be greatly appreciated.

Please respond to these three questions:

This method unfortunately isn’t as reliable as a phone call. You’re not at the other end of the line, subtly pressuring your customer for responses. They can choose to ignore or put off answering your email. So, you’re going to have to nudge them a little here, by priming them with some potential answers.

You know your product or service inside-out and you know what the typical answers to those questions are almost certainly going to be. So prompt your customer with some further questions to help them along.

If, for example, you sell a cream that relieves itching, you might state your questions like this:

  1. What were things like before you used our product/service?
  2. (Was that itchiness driving you crazy? Did you itch in one place or many? Where? Had you tried other products? Which ones?)
  3. What were they like after you used our product/service? (Was your relief instant? Did the itchiness go away completely? Was the product easy to use?)
  4. What would you tell others who are considering our product/service?

Note that your customer doesn’t need much help with the third question. That’s because it’s going to be a lot easier for them to answer that one. Answering the first to are a natural lead-in for getting them to tell you what they’d tell others.

Get Final Permission

Yes, this is a hassle – but you legitimize your relationship with this customer by not taking it for granted. You have to allow them to have the final say on what you’re going to publish to the world. So drop them an email and ask for their approval for the testimonial they provided to you. If things have gone well, after some editing on your part, it should read something like this:

“I’d suffered for years with an itch to my right foot big toe. Nothing would make that itch go away, not even Brand X. Two minutes after I applied Acme Itch Cream I had total relief! I thought I was going to be itchy forever – but not after using your product!”

Clark K.

If what you’ve written is essentially what the customer told you, then they should give their immediate approval.

Note that this testimonial contains those three required ingredients:

  1. what it was like before
  2. what it was like after, and
  3. what I’d now tell someone else.

Go and Get Some Testimonials!

These are my opinions and searching across the ‘net you’ll find others. Regardless, having some testimonials on your website are better than none at all.

Good luck!

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Website Fonts

fonts
Almost as important as the colours you choose for your new website are the fonts. Also known as typestyles (which fall under the general heading of typography) the style of the lettering used in your website for headings and in the body can be very evocative. Some might say that they are subversive in nature in that they help to support your brand and corporate image. Regardless, some thought — and perhaps even some experimentation — should go into choosing which ones are going to be best for your new website. As a general rule, you will go with one type of font for headings and one for body text. While a third font might be introduced and used for special headings, warnings, and other extraordinary uses, you should generally stick with two — at least at the outset. Fonts fall into five categories:
  • Serif. Fonts that have little “tails” on them. It’s a generally-accepted fact that serif fonts are the easiest and quickest to read and digest. This is why they’re preferred for body text in long passages (e.g. books) and certainly make sense in blog posts that have lots of large paragraphs and long sentences. Serif fonts can be used in headings, but they’re not as common that way. The most commonly-known and -used serif font is Times Roman.
  • Sans-Serif. These are plainer fonts and don’t have the serifs (tails) on the characters, giving them a more modern and streamlined look. They’re okay for body text if they’re not in long paragraphs, but are more commonly used in headings. Sans-serif fonts (the most common one is Helvetica) are also good for use in short “labels” in websites; buttons, menu headings, and such.
  • Display. These fonts are the show-offs of the world of typography. They evoke significantly more in the ways of feelings and style than the previous two categories of fonts do and would never be used in body text. These most certainly can be used in headings and would almost certainly be employed in any website where style is important (i.e. an online fashion store). One thing to be very careful of here is that display fonts are very trendy and can often be overused. Thoroughly check out similar websites to yours — especially those of competitors — to ensure nobody else is using the same display font. It’s kind of like two women wearing the same dress to a party!
  • Handwriting. These fonts are obviously designed to represent handwriting and, as tempting as some might be, I would strongly recommend never using these on a website. The only possible exclusion would be to use one of them very sparingly, to carry words that were “being spoken” by the company owner or a customer giving a testimonial. Used in this way, they may evoke significant credibility, as if the owner or customer were directly writing the words on the website.
  • Monospace. Pretty well all of the above-mentioned fonts are proportionately-spaced. That is, some letters take up less lateral space than others. (For example, a small ‘i’ takes up less space than a capital ‘X.’) Characters that are this way look nicer; as if they came from a typeset book. Monospace fonts look as if they’ve been typed by a typewriter or printed on an old dot-matrix computer printer. Each takes up exactly the same lateral spacing. Monospace fonts look boring and there are few good reasons to use one on a website, although their use in a style-centred website might be considered radically-trendy.
Additionally, fonts can have a number of different aspects:
  • Size. Fonts are measured by their height and are most typically expressed as ‘points’ (pts). A single point is 1/72 of an inch, so a character printed or displayed at 12 pts is 1/6 of an inch high (i.e. 12/72″). It stands to reason, therefore, that the letter ‘C’ in 24-point is exactly twice as tall as the same character (in the same font) printed at 12 points. However, font size is exclusively stated as a height; the breadth of the font will change depending upon the font type. So, some words (or sentences or paragraphs) will consume more lateral space.
  • Emphasis. Fonts can be altered slightly in order to give the words they build more emphasis. Bold, italic, and underline are but three of the most common. Capitalization, letter spacing, and strikethrough are other ways of adding emphasis to words. Of course, words can be double- or triple-emphasized by adding on emphasis aspects. For example, bold-italic.
  • Weight. The font’s weight is the thickness of its elements. When a font is printed in bold, its weight is greater because the lines that make up each character are thicker. Many fonts have multiple weights available, ranging from thicker than bold to thinner (lighter) — sometimes even lighter than regular.
  • Leading. While not directly a font aspect, this parameter has some effect on the look and readability of a font because it indicates the amount of space that goes between each line of text. (This term is also called “line spacing.”) As we’ve all experienced, having too little space between each line makes it harder to read, as having too much spaces also does. (This term’s first syllable is pronouced like the lead in a pencil because it relates back to the days of manual typesetting and how much lead, in the form of narrow strips, the typesetter would place between the lines.)

Choosing Your Website’s Fonts

One of the benefits of the way I code website design is that the website’s primary two fonts (body and headings) are noted in a single parameter that can be easily altered; I change any aspect of a font (typestyle, size, weight, etc.) in one place and everywhere it appears within the website changes. So, changing your mind in this aspect is not a big deal if you realize you’ve made the wrong choice! In book and magazine typography, a sans-serif or display font is almost always used for headings and a serif font was used for the body. This rule is regularly broken these days and there really is no rule; whatever you think looks good is what we can go with. However, if the use of any font gives a website visitor to exert even the slightest bit of effort to read — you might as well have never written anything in that font in the first place. Website visitor can have very short attention spans and we don’t want to cater to them! The internet is rife with folks that have used decorative fonts in colours and sizes that are almost indecipherable on many screens — which is why we need to test out your fave fonts on a wide range of devices before implementing them. Google has created a wide range of public domain fonts that are available at no cost and can be used within any website I create. Unless you’re really particular, you should find something here that you like and that’s workable. Note that the Google Fonts website allows you to actually type directly into the demo boxes of the fonts and to change and view them at various different sizes and with different aspects. This is very helpful in envisioning what they’ll look like when displayed in your new website. The primary heading and body fonts that you eventually choose are often termed a “font pair” and the FontPair website does an excellent job of showing you two Google fonts together in a context where they’re juxtaposed as they would be on a web page. An interesting article indicates the 15 most-used and fastest-growing in use Google fonts of 2018. However, you might want to use this list as those fonts to not consider. After all, do you want your website’s content to look like so many others?! Do some Google or Bing searches on choosing website fonts and you’ll come up with a whole lot of opinions and perhaps end up even more confused! In summary, if the fonts you use on your website are easily readable by your visitors and do a good job of immediately indicating which are subject headings and which are content, then you’ve got it pretty well figured out already.

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Explainer Videos Now Available from Websmithian

video

Video is a fantastic informing and educating tool. Because it involves both sight and sound, it provides a lot more impact than just words – and even more than any picture. Almost all of us is addicted to TV, to some degree, so moving pictures on our computer screen along with sound, voices, and music are very compelling and automatically draw us in – especially if the subject matter is interesting and well-presented.

Many businesses and organizations now use video to inform and train visitors to their website. Businesses use video to explain their products and services and service organizations use it to tell folks what they do and what they stand for.

The use of explainer videos has exploded in the recent past. Often, they do a better job than words or pictures of explaining services or products that are hard to describe in a clear and succinct way. By simultaneously addressing the visual and auditory senses of human beings, explainer videos increase retention rates to websites.

Most of these videos run for one minute or less, as few website visitors are open, at least initially, to putting in a larger investment in time. Some have voice narration, but many simply convey their message through the visual animation of words and pictures.

In summary, explainer videos use a simple story to convey something that’s much bigger: the reason that the business or organization exists.

I’ve always had a sophisticated video production and edting software program in the Websmithian toolkit: Corel VideoStudio. I’ve used it to create and edit music videos for my trio and to put together travelogues and the like. For a consumer software product, it’s pretty well-featured and is capable of some amazing visual tricks. However…

Using VideoStudio to make “quickie” explainer videos is overkill; they simply don’t require a software tool that takes the “Swiss army knife” approach. So…

I recently purchased a subscription to Rocketium, a video creation and editing tool that takes a streamlined approach to making short informational videos. Rocketium not only provides me with the software, but also access to a wide-ranging library of graphics, photos, video clips, animations, and music – pretty well all of the ingredients one needs to quickly produce an explainer video!

My first project with this software was to author a video for Websmithian that tells the viewer, ‘Five things your new website has just gotta do.’ It’s obviously a quick pitch for my business and, I hope, explains five of the things that I do as a website designer for my clients that are critical to having a successful website. It lasts just short of a minute-and-a-half (I just couldn’t seem to make my five points in any less time!) and took me just a few hours to create.

The other great thing about my little video is that it really is little! All 101 seconds of it are crammed into a file that’s less than 9MB in size – so it’s quick to load on my website and I don’t need to rely on YouTube or another host. The video is actually hosted right on my website.

Consider just what an explainer video might do for your business or organization and how relatively inexpensive it might be for me to produce one or two for you!

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Chatbots Are Here!

chatbot

Have you been to a website where something popped up, usually in the bottom-right corner of the screen, and offered to provide some help and direction to you? Not the kind of pop-up where you expect a real human to be at the other end. Rather, an automated “website concierge” who attempts to understand what you want and then fulfill your request.

Also known as a chatterbot, talkbot, IM bot, or interactive agent, these little pop-up software programs interact with the user in a messaging-like way – the same as you and your friends do when texting via a smartphone. The “dialogue bubbles” that form each side of the conversation typically scroll upwards as the chat progresses. Amazon’s Alexa or the Google Assistant are chatbots, although they interact via voice rather than through the keyboard. This article solely discusses text-based chatbots and how you might employ them within your website.

chatbotSome chatbots are relatively simple, with a few built-in functions and no ability to “think on their own.” The one that greets visitors to the Websmithian website is a perfect example. (His name is Smitty.) Its primary purpose is to gather some statistical information regarding visitors to my website and somewhat-subtly obtain information from prospective customers. (To come clean, it’s also there to demonstrate that I’m more than the typical website designer!) More sophisticated chatbots use AI (artificial intelligence) when engaging with users. Some use natural language processing systems. The majority, including the one that I use and make available to my clients, simply scans words from users’ input and then pulls a reply with the most matching keywords from a built-in database.

Every good salesperson knows that the most important things to know at the outset are about the prospect and their want or need. If you don’t know these things, then it’s pretty tough to help a client solve their particular problem. Ironically, most people in need actually don’t want to give up this information. They think the salesperson will end up using it against them somehow and they’ll end up with something they don’t need. Therefore, coercing this information out of a sales prospect is a lot easier if they’re engaged in a conversation rather than an interrogation!

I think there are some definite parallels here when considering website design and functionality. A contact or enquiry form is a very standard component of many websites. Businesses and organizations use them to obtain helpful information from prospective customers so that they can react in a calculated and helpful way. For example, it might be helpful to know of a prospect’s location (town or city) so that the enquiry can be routed to the proper salesperson. Obviously, a well-constructed contact form could easily get that information from the website visitor.

But imagine that you were wanting to learn the budget or anticipated expenditure of the prospect visiting your website. You could ask for that information in a field on your enquiry form, but you probably wouldn’t want to make that input required. Doing so might spook your prospect to the point where they abandoned submitting the form altogether!

On the other hand, what if your chatbot has engaged in a conversation with one of your website visitors and learned a bit about their need? The chatbot has then conversationally asked-for and obtained the name, phone, and email address of the prospect. If the ‘bot was to then ask for the visitor’s budget number and the process then came to a halt, at least you’d have ended up with some usable and actionable contact info! If nothing else, a call could be made to the visitor thanking them for engaging with the chatbot and then empathising with the prospect’s reluctance to provide such information. In the end, a valid and qualified lead would be provided to the website owner and a live salesperson could then take over the process of learning more about the prospect and their needs and, presumably, providing a solution.

Do a Google search on “chatbot success stories” and you’ll learn of dozens of companies – most of them large – which have saved millions of dollars and increased website leads exponentially via chatbots. And just because you’re a small business doesn’t mean that you can’t get a decent ROI from employing a basic chatbot in your website. If nothing else, it certainly makes your organization appear to be significantly larger than it probably is – and that’s usually not a bad thing! (Unless you’re a website designer, of course. Then it’s “smaller is better!”)

Chatbots can be used for a myriad of other uses:

  • welcoming people to the website and potentially directing them to common destinations within the site
  • scheduling an appointment
  • getting feedback from website visitors
  • obtaining information from a customer who’s returning an order
  • directing job applicants to the proper website page
  • getting information from a customer for booking a trip
  • directing givers who are making a donation
  • providing basic customer care and support resources

I have purchased a chatbot software tool that will allow me to begin constructing simple- to moderate-functioning chatbots for Websmithian clients. While most of my clients will only want and need one chatbot, you should know that I can put two or more different ‘bots in different areas of your website, allowing them to handle different functions. And it goes without saying (but I’ll state it nevertheless!), that all data obtained through these chatbots – whether they complete their help or information-gathering process or not – will end up directly in your hands, where you can then use it to your advantage.

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And that's nothing compared to what I can do!