|pros • per • ly|

I know, I know it has been a long time since I last wrote. I have been busy with filmmaking and other projects but I’m back.

Onto the good stuff…

I often run tests on pages of my site through crazyegg.com. They show you exactly where visitors are clicking on your website. It is very useful to see if your visitors are doing what you want them to do.

So on the home page of LawnCareDirectory.com I have a section that pushes people who want to start a lawn care business to a kit that I sell. I have a picture of the kit and 2 buttons one that goes to the kit and one that goes to a free lawn business course.

When I created this part of the site the button that went to the kit said “Lawn Business Kit” which I mainly did so I could fit the text on the button.

So I ran a crazyegg report on the home page and had it track about 1600 visitors to that page. Here is a snapshot of that section of the home page. The little colorful dots are individual clicks:

So as you can see with over 1600 visitors to the site that part of the page only got 3 random clicks not one of which was on one of the buttons.

So when I realized how ineffective that button was I knew right away why. I learned a long time ago that if you want someone to click on something you need to tell them why they should.

You need to make a call to action. Don’t try to be un-intrusive with your visitors. They don’t know their way around your site. They need guidance.

So I changed the top button from “Lawn Business Kit” to say “Start Your Business Now” and ran another report through crazy egg. This time I only did 500 visitors but the difference was stunning:

Not only did people actually click on that button, but by changing the text it also got visitors to click on the button below it as well. It’s amazing what one minor tweak can do to your website’s usability.

I should probably keep playing with the text on these buttons until I find what generates the most click through.

I recently sat through a webinar by Marketing Experiments. They are a web marketing company that puts on free webinars all the time showing the results of testing different elements on a website and how it increase conversion.

The webinar I attended was on getting singular focus on your home page. Chances are that on your home page you are trying to cater to every single person that comes to your website. Unfortunately this is a backwards way of thinking.

The right strategy is to figure out exactly what your primary goal is for your visitors and make that as prominent and easy to find as possible.

For example, one of the websites I run is Lawn Care Directory. It is national (US based) directory of lawn care and landscaping companies. I really wanted to cater to people that were searching for a lawn professional and so I changed the design of my home page to cater to that group of people immediately when they came to the site.

Here is the OLD design:

Here is the NEW design:

Here is the crazy egg report on how the new design is doing. This is a heatmap that shows where on the page people are clicking:

As you can see the result of giving the visitors to the site one main option eliminates confusion for the visitor and drives them to do the thing I want them to do. So it is a Win Win.

The secondary goals that I have on the home page are still available and represented but I give the most weight and real estate to the thing that is my number 1 goal.

I woke up this morning at 5:25am to go play basketball. I played for an hour and a half and then came home to get ready for the “work” day. As I was driving to work I was so tired that I literally fell asleep waiting for a stop light.

I thought to myself, “what can I do to give myself more energy?” I have to ask that question because I don’t consume anything with caffeine in it. Then I remembered reading somewhere that an apple had the same effect on your body as a cup of coffee in the morning.

I decided to put the apple to the test. Our office building is next to a gas station and so I went over and bought me an apple (which cost me $1.38, don’t buy apples at gas stations) and ate it on my way back to the office.

Before I was finished eating the apple I already felt 100% rejuvenated. I had morning energy like I had never known before. This truly is something revolutionary for me because I have a healthy way to get energized in the morning.

Just thought I would share it with you all.

Yesterday Adam and I decided to enjoy the nice weather (65 degrees!) and golf (well, first we went to put downpayments on some scooters).  On the way to the course, this being the first time playing for the season (second time for me since I played down in Phoenix while at Infusioncon), we made some score predictions for the front nine:

Adam predicted 55.

I predicted a 43.

I was jokingly optimistic, seeing as how a 42 is the best score I’ve ever shot.

At any rate, here are the results:

If you’re wondering what the other numbers are, bottom left is the tee shot, Y means the fairway was hit, N means it wasn’t.  The bottom right corner is where we record the number of putts.  You’ll also see if there were any OB penalty strokes, or if we had to deal with any bunkers.  (This is content for another post entirely — tracking your progress to stay motivated and promote smarter decision making).

Speaking of bunkers, Adam had to deal with three of the four on the ninth hole.  He had his best tee shot of the day, smashing it probably 290 yards, but the ball ends up in a fairway bunker.  He hits it out of that bunker and back into the next fairway bunker down.  Then he hits it out of that bunker and ends up in the next bunker further down.  Finally he escaped the sand completely only to land in some dirt next to a bulldozer (they’re renovating).  Once on the green, he one-putted for a triple.

Anyway, did you notice the final scores?

Adam: 55

Jesse: 43

Let’s set aside the fact that I beat Adam by 12 strokes in nine holes, and just think about the fact that the score we specifically targeted for ourselves was the one we reached.  Adam padded, knowing it was his first time playing in several months.  Don’t you find it terribly interesting that he dealt with all of those troubles on the final hole?  Maybe it was his subsconscious willing the 55 to happen.

No?

Alright, maybe that’s stretching it a bit.  But it did cause me to raise a curious eyebrow.

Adam and I have very specific goals when it comes to our overall portfolio of sites.  I won’t share our specific goals, but the key is in the specifics.  They are extremely specific.

If you want to start making money online, you’ll need to set some specific goals.

Bad Goal: I want to start making money online.

Good Goal: I want to make an extra $300 per month online within the next three months.

(I want to shoot a 43…today.)

You can’t be driven or motivated by the bad goal from above.  How will you reward yourself with the satisfaction of finally reaching an unreachable goal?  You can’t. You won’t.

Not all niches are profitable (measuring of course profit / time, not just profit absolutely).  Not all niches will work for you.

But when you have the choice of building out a site that is about clothing, my recommendation would be to focus on attractive female sweaters for large women.

Once you have a true niche, you can dive deep and be insanely profitable on a per visitor basis.

With your focus on a market that small, you won’t get a lot of traffic, but your traffic will be qualified and ready to spend.  Why?  They’ve found just what they’re looking for.

When you’re focusing on a niche, you have clarity.  It’s much easier to develop and execute on a strategy that’s all about female sweaters for large women.  Much easier than focusing on ‘clothing’ — or even ‘women’s clothing’.

That’s part of the upside of a niche.  Your clarity will be greater, so your execution will be better.

The other upside of your niche is the fact that you’re offering only one (or very few) things to your customers.  They have clarity.  They know exactly what you’re about.  You dive deep with them and tell them why you’re the absolute best when it comes to womens’ plus-size sweaters.  No, you don’t do shoes.  But you know sweaters and how they should be cut for plus-size women, and you’re a master at it.

That clarity converts.

I’d rather have 50 visitors out of 1000 convert, than 5 out of 5000.

Niche’s cost per visitor as far as traffic acquisition goes is much cheaper, even if you’re going the “free” organic search engine route.  Why?  You don’t deal with near the competition, and also you don’t deal with people that don’t really know what they’re looking for anyway.

Sales copy in a niche is simple because your audience is small enough, all you need to do is speak directly to them.

Niches rule.

And yes, there are still plenty of niches available where you can make money.