Creating a Website for Your Personal Brand (5 Mandatory Steps)

Dan Waldschmidt's website is a great example of a personal brand site
that embodies the five tips outlined in this post*

Although the concept of transforming yourself into a personal brand isn't a new one, it's more prevalent than ever these days. This is true for many reasons--the influence of Internet/social media, ego, and an ever-evolving definition of what's cool. Not to mention, the following factors:

• It's no longer taboo for public figures to endorse brands or to put their own names on products. In fact, whereas even ten years ago, actors, musicians and other high profile people risked losing all street cred for shilling a product, it's now cooler-and more profitable-than ever.
• In the age of transparency, faceless corporations are, like, so 1998, while having a well-known face that consumers can relate to at the front of your company is totally in vogue.
• Personal brands can charge people more for appearances, books and other opportunities, than they could if they didn't have a solid brand platform. In other words, if there are two people with the exact same expertise and value to offer, the one with the stronger personal brand platform will always 1) be the first choice for most opportunities, and 2) get paid more as a result. Not only do they come with an existing audience, they also offer a certain cachet.

Really, the main tenets of creating a solid personal brand platform are the same as creating any brand platform: good messaging, widespread appeal, finding a way to say the same old thing in a new and exciting way, and smart overall packaging.  When it comes to doing this in the online world, you need to start with a website. Here's how to get started:

1. Use your name as the URL. Sounds obvious, right? You'd be surprised how many people don't do this. Even people who have made a conscious decision to transform themselves into brands are often timid or uncomfortable with the idea of, well, transforming themselves into brands. And this usually results in using some seemingly clever URL that encompasses the essence of what they're trying to communicate with their brand, rather than using their name, which is one of the simplest and most effective ways to reinforce and brand your brand.

2. Put yourself at the center of it. Duh. This might sound even more obvious than the above tip, but again, it's not always a given. You have to remember that many personal brands are not expert marketers, so they have a tough time branding themselves. Personal brands are often people who are experts at what they do, thought leaders, or other standouts in their industries. They know that they could be effective as the public face for a particular concept, but that doesn't mean that they're particularly savvy when it comes to implementing a brand strategy. If this is you, make sure that your beautiful mug is front and center on your website.

3. Showcase whatever it is that people know you for or what you want people to know you for. Your personal brand website should not just be a shrine to you and the things you like; it's got to have a very clear objective. As much as your brand is all about you, it's even more so about your audience. Are you known for you great insight into X? For your stunning looks or dazzling sense of humor? Do people gravitate toward you because they can always count on you to do Y? Well then, make sure those are the things people get the moment they land at YourName.com. This will yield a much better response than your list of "100 things you didn't know about me." (Yes, these are fun, but they shouldn't be the centerpiece of your message.)

4. What do you want people to do? So, you've done your due diligence by giving people what they want, and thus given them a reason to come to your site in the first place. Now it's their turn to return the favor and do what you want them to do. Is this inviting you to offer a keynote at their next event? Is this an interview with popular media outlets on your area of expertise? Maybe you want to pitch your own show, become the next Oprah, get a book deal or simply attract more interest in an organization you're associated with. Whatever it is, make it obvious-your being a brand alone is not enough.

5. Partner with someone who knows you better than you know yourself. For the same reason that every writer needs an editor, every personal brand needs to partner with someone who can give critical feedback and offer an outside perspective. Because you know yourself so well, it's easy to misinterpret the way you appear to others. In other words, your image of yourself is based on a well of information that other people don't necessarily have access to. For this reason, you must take into consideration an outsider's point of view. And make sure that outsider is qualified to do such-meaning, they must know your industry, understand what you're trying to achieve, and have experience with what you're trying to accomplish. Going back to the writer-needing-an-editor  example-your mom and best friend are always going to tell you that they love your book-but  at the end of the day, they're not necessarily qualified to give you a credible opinion that matters. Find someone who is.

*What can we say? We practice what we preach: site created by us.

8 Things to Consider When Designing a Site for Lead Generation and Inbound Marketing

 

What steps should a company take when it wants to transform its website from an informational, brochure-style one to a lead-generating marketing tool?

In the case of our client Praxis Consulting, a new website meant addressing their clients' and prospects' needs with content, content, content!

Praxis is a subrogation services company, which means they help insurance companies determine the at-fault party in auto accidents. Up until now, they've done just fine attracting business despite their very services-centric website, but that business didn't come in through their site; it came from traditional avenues such as trade shows, cold calls, etc. In essence, they realized they weren't taking advantage of this very important tool and were thus overlooking a huge source of leads by not speaking directly to their audience online.

Our solution was a content-rich site with multiple landing pages, and customer-centric language that would speak directly to insurance industry professionals. We also chose to build it on HubSpot's lead generation CMS to account for SEO and inbound marketing best practices.

Following are our objectives for this site, which should top the list for any company looking to make the transition from a navel-gazing informational site to a prospect-friendly one that attracts inbound traffic and leads:

• Position Praxis as THE expert in the subrogation industry. By placing Praxis's thought leadership content (such as benchmarking studies, eBooks, processes and industry acknowledgements) front and center, it's clear that Praxis is driving the conversation on subrogation and recovery.
• Directly address customer and prospect's needs in the context of the industry at large, rather than focus solely on Praxis's offerings.
• Enhance ability to be found by prospects in internet searches with extensive content and ability for easy and quick regular updates that will work to drastically improve Praxis's online rankng.
• Decrease bounce rate. In other words, we want people to DO something once they get to the homepage, rather than leave without clicking through and learning more. (Getting them there is only half the battle!)
• Introduce lead generation capabilities for Praxis's sales team. There are approximately 10 landing pages on the site where users are encouraged to offer their contact information in return for proprietary information. This information is then stored in a private database.
• Detailed lead details. Once someone offers their information, Praxis gets a digest of every page they've ever looked at and every page they look at going forward. This will allow for targeted messaging as it will give the sales team an indication of what problems prospects are trying to solve.  We will also get email updates when a lead returns to the site.
• Compare Praxis's success to that of its earnest competitors' in terms of online rankings and top keywords.
• Make it look pretty. Hey, it's a superficial world we live in!
  

The only thing we're missing now is a blog, something we highly suggest, but hey, it's not for everybody. We have a feeling we'll get our way eventually, though!

Our Clients' Extreme Makeovers...

 

 

Even more exciting than taking on a new web project is taking on a web redesign project. I’m not sure why this is the case, but it brings me back to an old Brady Bunch episode where Marcia decides she’s going to take the geeky girl at school and gussy her up a bit. Of course, after taking off her glasses and letting down her hair, geek becomes chic and the rest is history. It’s an exciting proposition but not one that’s easy to come by. You see, you can’t just go after a prospect and say, “Hey, your website really blows, but not to worry, we can make it awesome.” Well, you can, but we don’t. So, when that geek comes a-knockin’ at your door with a plea for just a little bit of cool, well, you just have to jump right in and lend it a helping hand.

That’s what happened with two of our most recent projects and, since we haven’t updated our website for months (new one coming in April), I thought I’d display them here while we’re geeking-to-chicing our own site. I’ll make this quick and painless. First up is HuntBigSales.com. What was once a template-lookin’ disaster, laden with a bunch of “About Us” info and a couple of black-backgrounded blogspot blogs (paging 1997), is now a content rich (e-books, webinars, essays, podcasts, custom blog, newsletters, you-name-it, etc.) dream girl of a site with traffic it never thought possible.

When we started working with Hunt Big Sales’ CEO Tom Searcy he was a bit skeptical about the whole giving-away-free-content thing, but he tried it anyway. Working with someone who’s open to jumping head first into new ideas—he’s even a Twitter expert now, bless his heart—is always fantastic.

BEFORE:

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AFTER:

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Our second before and after tale revolves around USWellnessMeats.com. U.S. Wellness Meats is a grass-fed meat company (a real one that feeds its livestock ONLY grass, rather than half grass, half grain or whatever the loose government standards allow). Their site was once a garbled disaster with a bunch of randomness going on (yes, this is the professional diagnosis). When we first started talking to John Wood, the managing farmer/owner/partner he complained about the lack of accurate information out there about grass-fed meat and sustainable farming practices. He hated the loose definition of “grassfed” and that you have to pay someone off to have the “certified organic” label on your products.

But why wasn’t anyone talking about it? Of course, this is where we turned that question around and asked him why he wasn’t talking about it. And thus was born USWellnessMeats.com 2.0.

What was once a traditional e-commerce site is now a regularly-updated destination site for those looking for facts on sustainable eating, the difference between grass-fed and grain-fed meats, and the health benefits of their products. Inspired by their customers’ passion for health and cooking and the many communications they’ve received over the years, the newly-launched U.S. Wellness Meats 2.0 features regular professional and home chef profiles, a Wellness blog, and “Wellness Kids “among other features. Now, instead of relying on outside media to educate its consumers, U.S. Wellness Meats can do it on their own with full knowledge that the information they’re offering is accurate (not to mention, encased in a gorgeous skin, if we do say so ourselves).

BEFORE:

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AFTER:
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ME FEEDING A CALF:

 

As an interesting aside: We had a chance to go out to Missouri and spend a few days on the farms, interview the farmers, and really dive into U.S. Wellness Meats’ story (check out the picture of me feeding a calf). We learned that because of their sustainable farming practices, while all of the farms in the area flooded last summer, John’s didn’t (naturally-occurring ponds somehow contributed to a flood-proof environment, although I couldn’t give you an intelligent explanation as to how). We learned that John’s farm relies purely on the elements—meaning that he doesn’t even have an irrigation system. For years, neighboring farmers scoffed at his “alternative” farming practices, but the delineation between his farm’s health and his neighbors’ couldn’t be more pronounced. He spoke of turning solar energy into protein energy, showed us how he gives the cattle a plot of grass everyday so that the pastures can replenish themselves before the next grazing (as opposed to free-roaming cattle that eat only the healthy tops of the blades and don’t give it enough time to grow back and gain the proper nutrients), and even answered the obvious question I couldn’t help but ask: “Do they know they’re going to die?” Nope, but a lot of traditionally-farmed animals do. You can tell by looking at the meat: burst red capillaries indicate an adrenaline rush right before slaughter. They realize what’s going on and “freak out,” for a lack of better words. There’s a lot more to tell, but you get the picture.

Live from OMS: The 7 Deadly Sins of Landing Page Design

Posted live from the Online Marketing Summit for the Online Marketing for Marketers blog

I'm in a GREAT session with the lovely Tim Ash, President & CEO of SiteTuners.com. He covered a lot of good stuff, but skip to the bottom if you're just interested in the list of 7 deadly sins.

He says that if there's one thing you're going to take away today, it's that when it comes to websites, the customer's always right. (Am I sensing a trend here?)

Are you still letting webmasters design your site? Is your boss suddenly a conversion and SEO expert? Did you launch your site after deciding that "the green looks pretty, so let's launch this baby"?" Well then, clearly you've got the wrong person designing your site and a skewed opinion of what's important to the visitor. The customer should be designing your site and the info on your landing pages is far more important than "the sage green is prettier than the emerald green" situation.

There are several important variables for landing pages...

• Page header
• Navigation bar
• Headline
• Call-to-action
• Photo sales copy
• Endorsements
• Question labels
• Question delimiter
• Question explanations
• Button text
• Button format

And all of these MUST fit within the proper context.

Are you performing A-B Split Testing?

• Test on e variable at a time (with 2 or more values)
• Send equal traffic to all versions
• Very simple to implement and track
• Minimum Data RAte: 10 conversions/day
• Typical Test Size: 1 - 10 recipes (two is typically sufficient)

Case study: "Free Quote Request" The company wanted to encourage prospects to request a free quote but had a small form accompanied by 36 client logos (to gain credibility). Thinking that the number of logos was affecting low interaction rates, the company tested the form with varying numbers of client logos. Using Google's free optimizaiton tool, the company was able to determine that the number of logos didn't necessarily matter--it was the combination of all features working together. And finally...

The 7 Deadly Signs of Landing Page Design: 1) Unclear call-to-action

• What am i supposed to do on this page? Don't waste an opportunity by not telling customers what you want them to do. Also, don't clutter the page so that they have no idea wat you want them to do
• Anything that's not obvious is wasting your money
• Don't make people think

2) Visual Distractions

• Entry pop-ups such as instant chat with a representative (Do you really want people to focus on your chat option?)
• Too many products on one page without one big call-to-action that ties everything together

3) Too much text

• Just ask yourself: "Would I want to read all of this?" If the answer's no, then assume your audience's answer is the same.

4) Lack of Upstream Continuity Does your landing page keep the promise that your traffic sources make? Remember that your visitors came to your site via somewhere and they want continuity. In other words, they came their with a purpose. There was some context and they want the same context when they get there. For instance, if you get to a site that promises a ton of product reviews and their main call to action is "join today," there's no continuity. The call-to-action should be related to the context (product reviews).

5) Long Forms

• Is the information you're requesting absolutely necessary to complete the current transaction?
• If the information is requested but not required, get rid of it
• The longer the form, the lower the conversion rate. Period.
• Give them a ton of value and promise a lot of return (free white paper, e-book, etc.)

6) Invisible Risk Reducers

• Make visitors feel less anxious. If you have trust and credibility symbols on your site (such as security certificates for ecommerce transactions, etc.), make sure they're above the fold.

7) Lack of Trust Indicators

• Why should I trust you?
• I need proof that other people have had a good experience with you and had a good outcome
• Trust indicators: client logos (especially of recognizable brand clients if you have them), and media mentions (or just the logo of outlets that have mentioned you)

Live from OMS: Does Your Website Suck? Let Your Visitors Guide the Way.

Posted live from the Online Marketing Summit for the Online Marketing for Marketers blog.

Now I'm in a basic-level session where Michael Whitehouse, Senior Marketing Analyst of iPerceptions, is addressing the things that your site's visitors tell you and how you can use that information to make your site better.

Michael gets pretty philosophical from the get-go, talking about Socrates and how his "Know Thyself" aphorism is directly relevant to why marketers should know their visitors. (Although, to clarify, this aphorism has been attributed to five other Greeks as well.) And I'm going to roll with it because another part of this philosophical discussion promises to answer the following existential questions about my online visitors:

Who is here?
Why are they here?
How am I doing?
What do I need to fix?

Sure, you and I both know that a great user experience pays off. Even so, what we might not know is exactly how it pays off. Here are a few main points...

Visitors who report great user experiences are:

• Twice as likely to return to the site
• Four times as likely to report enhanced brand opinion
• Four times as likely to report higher future likelihood to purchase.

Unfortunately, there's no magical formula that will make your site suck less and improve your users' experience. It takes a lot of work, listening, analysis and management.

[I want to interject here really quickly to say that while this might be a cliche, I can't tell you how many of our clients are looking for magical solutions (fairies, wizards, the whole thing). I actually had a guy say this to me last week: "What do you mean when you say, 'If I build it they might not come?' My friend told me I would make eight million dollars a year once I launched my site." Yeah, buddy, that's why you're talking to us now: he was wrong and you're still broke.] Now, let's get to work.

Fortunately, while there isn't necessarily a magical formula, there are some winning ones. What the successful sites--Google, MySpace, Amazon, to name some of the more obvious ones--have in common is that they know their audiences, and that they base their sites around them. They know who their audience is, what they want and need, and they use that information to match up their experience with those needs.

So what tools, practices, methodologies do you have at your disposal?

Start with the basics. Find out your visitors' education, gender, location, career, etc. You can do a lot of this with simple, free analytics tools such as google analytics. Also, surveys, consumer feedback, comments, etc.

Align this knowledge with visitor intent. Let your visitors tell you why they're on your site: To read a blog? Compare prices? Post a comment? Research? Upload a picture? Make a purchase? Watch a video? Make a reservation? Check shipping order? Download a file? Pair behavior with the type of user. For example, "teenage males from the east coast tend to do X." (Although, that particular conclusion is pretty specific.)

Create real delineation. Distinguish between the people who are there to Learn (about your products for future purchase), Shop or Support (your brand).

--> Change your site's Orientation to cater to distinct user segments.

Use powerful metrics to measure outcomes. When you're building your site, these metrics become just as important. They allow you to know your bounce rate, conversions, and user behavior. Sure, we all know how to use metrics here, right? Maybe not. While we might know how to read it, we often don't know how to analyze it correctly in order to make necessary improvements.

Conversion versus Task Completion. Michael contends that while the average website in North America converts at 2-3%, marketers obsess over conversion when they should really obsess over task completion. The difference lies in the three user behaviors we identified above--Learn, Shop & Support. If two thirds of your visitors (or more) are there to Learn or Support, then they aren't even candidates for conversion. Only those who are there to Shop have the potential to convert. So, what tasks do you want "Learners" and "Supporters" to complete?

Feedback is the golden nugget. Listen to users' feedback! These should force you to act. Metrics can be hard to read but feedback is very clear.

Qualitative datas from surveys. These often go hand in hand with organic user feedback. But as great as they are for gathering candid commentary, survey's are interruptions. They're not necessarily fun to do. Understand that if you ask people these question, you need to be unobtrusive, be polite and sample only what you need. If not, this type of interruption might interfere with their feedback.

The state of the user experience. Customer confidence is clearly down across the board. Marketers are thus challenged with providing a good user experience and negating this skepticism online.

Michael offers a quote from a Best Buy memo that supports this notion, as well as offers a solution about what marketers can do right now:

"We can't change the overall level of consumer spending, but we can focus on deepening our relationships with customers wherever we interact with them: in our stores, on our websites and through our call centers. We must find ways to win the customers who are coming to us today."

Michael also notes that the web businesses that will not only survive the downturn, but come out ahead, are those that will address customer confidence issues through their Web contact point.

So this is the end of my post. I'm sure you're thinking, "but wait, I thought I was going to find out how to make my site not suck??" Remember: there's no magic formula and listen to your visitors.