A little while ago I wrote about Ursula going to Namibia to help Homeless International with some much needed building projects to transform the lives of the local people of Omaruru. The fund raising is going great guns thanks to the help of many of our friends and family – Of the 19 people going to Namibia they have raised over £40K!!

In an effort to raise even more money and have a little fun on the way, she is holding a charity gig with her band and another band from First Wessex. If you would like to attend Email Ursula. Details are below:

Click here to find out more

We are happy that we have got the certified status as it allows us to show a swanky badge on our site. As we often say, this will help with conversions as it helps to allay some objections. So our question for you is… What badge can you place on your website to assist conversions?

Check out the badge on our Google AdWords PPC Management page.

We are working tegether to improve their online presence which includes helping them to get the new website optimised, build quality links and get them some good PR. We will return soon with the fruits of all our labour and report on the effects of them investing in their online business.

We very much look forward to helping them succeed online.

This particular project is in Namibia and its my wife Ursula who is raising the funds herself and then going to Namibia to help with some vital building projects for very deprived communities. I am very proud!

Anyway, its not until next July but it would be fab to get some publicity as well as raising additional funds. Ursula is paying half of the £3000 required herself and we need as much as possible for this great charity and an amazing project. She is doing it through First Wessex, her employer who support this charity.

You can find out more about the Namibia Community Challenge 2012 on this handy pdf or you can donate if you wish on the Challenge Website.

You can also visit the Homeless International website.

What did he do?

I came home to find an A4 sheet of paper with a headline, a few pictures, a price and a great testimonial. Actually, you could tell it was printed at home and was not professionally crafted, but it really didn’t matter. It simply had a before and after picture of a house in my road showing the guttering that had been painted. It stated the house had recently been done and therefore you could go and see.I did.

What did I do?

With leaflet in hand I walked the few doors down and stood and admired the work. The next thing I did was to call Johnsons Decorating Services in Southampton (07807 356 840) to book in and to congratulate him on his marketing. (no commision for me – Just rewarding great initiative!)

Why did I call?

Well he had done a couple of key things. He identified his market. (My gutters clearly needed work). He showed me it was clearly a good job he does. Crucially, his pricing was carefully thought about and was at a price point where I could see it was a no brainer. I didn’t want to do it. It was too dangerous (Mrs T did not like the idea of it) and he could do it much quicker than I could.

What happened next?

I’ll update this bit as he’s booked in this week. I just wanted to share how marketing can be simple AND effective (as well as cheap). Don’t spend too long getting your marketing perfect, its better to have something good that you send out than something perfect that you don’t!!

Good luck.

Solatricity are leaders in their field in the solar panel supply and installation industry. They have an ISO9001 quality management approval and only employ approved installers who also meet requirements for quality and service.

We very much look forward to an ongoing relationship with Solatricity and helping them achieve great success online.

Caller from Comms Firm:   “We can save you lots of money off your bill, with our packages and streamline your telephone systems to be more effective in running your business”

Me:  “I would like more information please but can I call you back as I am quite busy right at this moment”

Caller from Comms Firm:  “Erm, we have just moved office, erm, hang on”, (shouts to colleague). “Shirley. What’s out number?”

Superb!

While carrying out some keyword research, I popped into the Google Keyword Research Tool. You are often asked to enter a security capture to prove you’re a a human. Captures are supposed to be random words, but this is what I found:

For those of you who don’t understand… Nevermind…

But here is a picture of Pingu if you just wanted to be reminded:

So as it turns out Google has a sense of humour – So look out for any amusing captures and feel free to post them if you have any!

The issue:

These pages had everything that you would expect would achieve a great conversion rate, certainly better than before – However, they had significantly dropped in the number of forms being submitted. Now it could have been due to August being a holiday month and it would have been easy to assume that.

The solution:

I didn’t think it was the holiday season as the impressions and click through were still good – This was a problem with the landing page! It took me a few minutes to discover that the reason was one of the nice new email sign up forms was not working properly. Had this been tested when it was uploaded there would have been many more sign ups.

So, make sure you test all the actions on your site that are important to you. If its an ecommerce store then buy one of your products or get someone else to do it. You can even zero rate a products to test the buying process.If it is email sign ups, check that it works – Do you receive the emails?

Think about the following:

• Is the process unnecessarily long?
• Do all pages or forms work?
• Is there a clear call to action that matches the action required?
• Are the pages easy to read and navigate?
• Let the buyer know where they are in sign up process
• Be clear on what they will receive

So have a look at your site and don’t wait until something looks wrong and don’t assume why it may be going wrong!