Hardware Show Tips
Once again, thanks for your patience with respect to the creation of this webpage. The response to the talks at the Hardware Show was fantastic. The Hardware Show folks told us the attendance and feedback were off the charts. That makes me and the rest of the speakers feel great about the investment of our time and resources.
After each talk, people approached me in the hallway asking for more in-depth information. They realized, as probably you did, that it is impossible to cover the topics we did in just 45 minutes. Many people asked if I would think about putting on a two-day seminar.
The answer is Yes Look for an email later this summer about a conference I will host in the fall. You can help shape the conference into a perfect one by telling me what you want covered. My guess is that many people have the same needs and desires and the outline for the conference will be attractive to all. Send your suggestions to me at:
tim @ askthebuilder.com(remove the spaces around the "@" symbol)
Now, I am going to give you a recap on the speakers, then give you handy links to get the tools we talked about and some additional sweet tips.
First, you already know me and how to get in touch with me. I offer telephone consulting and you can call me for 15 minute Q & A sessions during the week.
Here are the six other speakers:
Janet Attard -- Janet owns www.BusinessKnowHow.com . She is a small-business expert and is very sensitive to the hurdles a small business faces as they try to satisfy customers each day AND then run a second business on the Internet. She has countless tools to help you run your business. I urge you to contact her and tell her you saw her at the Hardware Show. Here is a direct email link:
Don Crowther -- Don was the thin energetic speaker with a mustache. His blasts of information are all pearls of wisdom and he shares lots of them at www.GreatResults.com . Don is a Pay-Per-Click expert and has a fantastic Ebook that teaches you how to buy effective ads on Google and other search engines. Click Her to learn all about this Ebook. Don also does consulting work and you can reach him directly at:
Ken Giddens -- Ken was the tall gifted speaker who talks very smoothly and has a story every 5 minutes. Remember the one he told about the woman who was at a Catholic wedding and wanted to know where the lady next to her bought her shoes? That was hilarious! Ken is a Search Engine expert and is getting ready to teach a class in Atlanta. HE also does tons of independent consulting for those people who really want to learn how to avoid the search engine ups and downs. Contact Ken at:
Dan Murray -- Dan is one of the owners of Ravenwood Marketing, Inc. Remember him? He spoke the last day and spends (and makes) a lot of money on Google AdWords. I think it is safe to say Dan knows a little
bit about how to buy ads and make them work.
Dave Taylor -- Dave is easy to spot. He had the dark beard and has written 16 books about computers and the Internet. His latest book is due out in a few months. It is a book about how to get your website noticed by Google. Dave does all sorts of Internet consulting and he will gladly answer questions. Contact him at:
Jeff Walker -- Jeff was easy to spot. He also was a dynamic speaker who told you all about getting a buzz going when you try to interest your website visitors about anything. He is an expert at using email newsletters to get people to become raving fans of your products. Contact Jeff at:
Handy Links:
Click Here for the link to Wordtracker. This is the invaluable tool that lets you see exactly what people are typing into search engines. You can buy daily, monthly or annual passes into this awesome data base.
Click Here for Don Crowther's Ebook about buying ads in Search Engines. It is called Pay Per Click Money Machine.
Click Here for the Power Point presentation for the last day's talk about Buying Ads in Google.
Here are some other valuable tips from Janet Attard:
Web Site Usability
If you get people to your web site, you want them to USE it. How it's set up can make the difference between customers that stay, find your information and products and take the actions you want (call, buy, etc.) and customers who click away. Here are several criteria to look at before signing off on the final design.
For all sites
- Can visitors find information and products easily?
- Is the navigation clear and consistent throughout the site?
- Does the back button always take them back to the preceding page?
- Can visitors bookmark individual pages?
- Do the pages load quickly (10 to 20 seconds) on standard modem connections?
- Can visitors easily find out who runs the site?
- Can visitors easily find an email address to contact if they have difficulties using the site?
- Are the most important elements of your site visible without scrolling up and down or from side to side on screens set to 600 x 800 size?
- Does the site look good and work from IE , FireFox, Netscape and other browsers
- Do you have alternate text tags under graphics (to allow visitors who are blind or who have graphics turned off to find important links)?
For eCommerce sites
- Can visitors tell immediately what you sell?
- Can they quickly find products and product descriptions?
- Are there links to related products (accessories to wear with a ladies suit, for instance)?
- Can they tell what to click on to place an order?
- Can they find your phone number from every page in case they have a question?
- Can they find your name and address, and fax number on every page?
- Can they find an order blank in case they need to, or prefer to mail in their order?
- Can they find your email address?
- Can they find price information?
- Can they find information about the company and its management?
- Can they find any other important information you want them to have?
Copyright 2005, Janet Attard. May not be reprinted or redistributed without permission.