Website Design and Promotion

Google's Website Optimizer

Google has yet another new tool--The Website Optimizer-- that will help you test and track your socially responsible or alternative health website pages to see what aspects of your site (design and copy) are getting your clients or customers to respond.  From Google:

The Website Optimizer allows you to test changes in the website content of your pages in order to determine what will be most effective in getting conversions. You choose what parts of a page you'd like to test -- headline, image, promo text – and we'll run an experiment on a portion of your site traffic to determine which content on your site users respond to best. When we've collected enough data, we'll provide you with reliable reports and a suggested course of action in order to optimize your site for maximum business results.

I am always trying to convince my clients to use tools to test and track their sites. While I haven't tried this one yet, it looks quite good. Check it out.

Podcasting for Beginners

Podcasting is clearly here to stay. For anyone who's new to the idea and wants to get started, have a look at Stefan’s Killer Podcasting Tips. Stefan Mischook, from KillerSites.com provides 7 basic tips on how to create an effective podcast:

1. Speak slowly.
2. If you make a mistake, pause and then repeat the sentence.
3. Edit everything later.
4. Speak as if you're speaking to a single person.
5. Use a relaxed, conversational tone.
6. Use a quality microphone.
7. Be concise.

These are all good tips for the podcasting newbie. Having your website visitors able to put a voice to what they see — e.g., your photo or socially responsible products — can increase their interest and trust in you.

Greenpeace Puts the Pressure on Apple

A cool campaign by Greenpeace attempting to put the pressure on Apple computers for environmental waste. Make sure you watch the TV commercial at the site.

In case you haven't seen the original Apple commercial that Greenpeace is spoofing here it is. It's actually very funny, even though it's also very sexist. If you haven't seen it yet, watch it first before watching the Greenpeace version.

Improve Your Email Marketing Campaigns

Darren Rowse points to a post by Steven Spencer that addresses the issue of decreasing open rates for email marketing campaigns. I have heard a lot of people recently talking about how it is getting increasingly difficult to reach your market via email.  I too have noticed a drop in my open and click through rates.

Steven provides some great tips on how to improve response rates to your email campaigns. Here are his main points:

• Clean up the email format to make it more ’scannable’.
• Consider smaller, more targeted campaigns, tied to broader campaign strategies.
• Get more specific in your Subject line.
  
• Practice spam filter avoidance.
• Experiment with send times.

You might also want to read a post I pointed to earlier that tells you how to improve your response rate with HTML emails.