How to Sell More with Neuro Web Design

Designers often don’t take time they should to learn basic psychological principles that will help them produce websites more usable for the visitors. As a rule they omit some valuable principles considering either unnecessary or to complicated, but in fact they are neither. Generally there are dozens of tricks and techniques to implement, but mostly they are straight-forward and can be applied to any eCommerce website. Eventually these principles became more complexed what turned into the new trend in web design and marketing called Neuro Web Design.

This new methodology includes all previously implied concepts but now they are backed by fundamental scientific research provided by psychologists and marketologists and includes following stages: motivation, trust, decision-making, and neuro-marketing. When these methods are applied they create an incredible effect that allows to predict user preferences on the stage when user, himself haven’t yet made a decision.

Psychology based approach can have a positive effect on your end result. Before you start, take your time and think about what your visitors want and how they want to get it. When you catch the idea you’ll be ready to get on the right track to creating a site that will tap into the psychological drives of your target audience. Considering the visitor psychology you are likely have lots of happier visitors that will perform actions you wanted them to (get in touch with you, buy your product, refer their friends to your resource). Now let’s have a closer look at these stages.

Motivation

There are numerous methods used for user motivation but the most productive are the following:

• Call-to-action buttons – make your visitor do some action, that can be adding a product to the shopping cart, downloading something, requesting information, or just about anything else.

 

 

Good copy – text is the most important part of your resource along with visual presentations. Carefully written texts always help to answer the “whys” and the “hows”, when illustrated with corresponding graphics the whole presentation works way more effectively. (Make sure your images fit the text).

Freebies or low-cost goodies – users are fond of getting some useful things for free or for a hay. Do not forget to notify your users about the pricing.

Social Medias – the best possible way to motivate your users. Add reviews, comments, testimonials of those who already used your products. Comments of satisfied customers may help change mind sets of those who are still in doubt.

Sign-up process – long form is what creates user’s frustration, make sure your forms indicate number of steps they are going through, this helps to improve the ease of using the form.

Color presentation – one of the most complicated approaches to the motivation of user. Unfortunately all people react differently to various color schemes. That is why it can be really hard to choose major colors for your web resource. Make sure the colors you pick reinforce your message and the image you want to portray.

 

Building Trust

If you want your visitors do specific actions on your website you need to start from making them trust you, the information you provide and the goods you sell. Trust is not what can be gained easily especially with all that scams schemes, and unsavory characters appearing constantly online. Users always react suspiciously if they’re asked any personal information, no matter how necessary it is, or how highly-recommended the website is. Somebody may even consider the Internet a huge black hole which consumes their personal info. With this in mind, you can use design psychology making your website look more trust-worthy to the average visitor. This can be done through a combination of design and the language used on the site.

Decision-making Process

Our decisions come from our brain and exactly from its specific part, which is the oldest in terms of evolution – the Reptilian part. This part is responsible for the basic necessities of survival: sleeping, breathing, reproduction, response to external stimuli and it controls decision-making action. That is why it’s important to appeal to this part with sales and marketing messages that use the “language” it understands the best. Two other brain sections, the New Brain and the Middle Brain have a supporting role.

• The New Brain is logical and it makes deductions based on facts and data. It shares what it has discovered with other two parts.
• The Middle Brain is an emotional center. It processes intuitions and feelings, and then, it shares its discoveries.

The Reptilian part is an ultimate decision-maker. There are four steps you can use to convince this decision-maker to make a sale.

1. Diagnose the pain – Reptilian part “wants” to avoid pain at all costs, show how your product will help cure its pain and frustrations;

2. Differentiate your claims – you need a hook that shows how your product stands apart from others, create a real contrast to help the Reptilian part see you as special and decide in your favor;

3. Show benefits – show it the gain it will get from choosing your product, you need to demonstrate concrete evidence of your benefits using simple and easy to understand messages;

4. Deliver your message – to complete your effective sales technique, your messages and presentations should be filled with visual stimuli and emotions that grab the attention of the Reptilian part and cause it make a buying decision in your favor.

Neuro-marketing Concepts

Neuro-marketing is the latest form of marketing study its aim is to study brain’s responses to advertising including messages and images. It assumes that human brain has discrete functional areas that manage consumer behavior which is mostly driven by the subconscious. This advanced technique allows to influence our subconscious. With Neuro-marketing you can develop effective marketing mix that will satisfy consumers better (what is the main objective of marketing). Eventually Neuro-marketing study will be used to customize products and marketing communications according to the brain type of potential customers.

Neuro-marketing study provided marketers with a secret weapon that is focused on making websites more engaging. Some of these tips can be familiar to most of us, but when used together, these tips will be your weapon of mass attraction.

1. Too many choices – if people have too many choices they will not choose at all, that is strange but it’s the fact, the wider the range of products is – the more time user needs to choose the one (you can try to reduce the amount of similar products);

2. Social validation – reviews and testimonials, users consider reviews of other customers more important than those submitted by the experts, or provided by the website specialists (try to engage your customers in submitting reviews considering the products they’ve acquired);

3. Scarcity principle – if something is unavailable it is considered to be more valuable;

4. Food, sex and danger – powerful triggers for action (feel free to use but not overuse);

5. Power of faces – fusiform facial area, part of a brain that makes us focus on the faces of people, when using pictures of people make sure they look right;

6. Story – information that is presented in a form of a story is processed better, you can personalize your fact presentation with your own thoughts if it is appropriate (this will be effective when presenting video reviews of the products you offer);

7. Commitment – by asking small commitments you will get more loyal customers after some time, similar to social validation.

Some examples of eCommerce websites that successfully use tips mentioned above:

Onlineshoes.com

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Rawk.com

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Gnc.com

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Us.dockers.com

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Lamps.com

Conclusion

Tips provided in this article will help you increase website usability and user response, when used right they will help you achieve sky-high conversion rate and you’ll get a handle on the best way to present design and content that entices visitors and helps generate business to your company. One thing needs to be pointed out these tips won’t be helpful if you don’t have a solid product or service to begin with, so get that down first. The rest will only serve to deliver it to the consumers successfully.

 

Written by Alex

Quote of the Day

"Don't fear failure so much that you refuse to try new things. The saddest summary of a life is: could have, might have and should have."
Author, Louis E. Boone

Your action for today is to write down three things that you "should be doing" and then pick one and do it.

5 Ways to Create More Value

Value exchanged for payment constitutes the most basic aspect of business. It’s why a business exists, how a business survives and why it continues to innovate.

Daniel R. Blume via Flickr

Value, however is not what the business says it is, it’s what the buyer says it is by their willingness to purchase from one business over another and their willingness to meet the price asked by the seller.

Businesses that truly appreciate this understand that one of their primary jobs is to increase value in an attempt to sell more at higher prices.

One way to increase value is to stuff more features into your products and services in an effort to make them seem better than what others have to offer, but the problem with that approach alone is that it’s so easy to copy.

A far better long-term approach is to do the things that make your brand worth more in the market. To be the one that people talk about most.

You do this by committing to creating more value in the lives of your customers through tangible and intangible acts that allow you to build deeper relationships. This is how you build value that can’t be mimicked. This is how you build a brand that attracts customers that expect to pay a premium. This is how you create more value.

Measure

The first way to create more value is to understand the value you already deliver. So often we blissfully go about creating happy customers and doing as promised, without stopping to measure what exactly our client realized from our product or engagement.

The funny thing is, more often than not, they got more than we promised, received value that far exceeded what we felt was a reasonable fee. When you create some form of results review you can start to make real assessments about value and communicate these results as proof over promise.

One of two things should happen when you get serious about measuring value: You’ll discover you are not charging nearly enough or you’ll discover your clients are not getting nearly enough – either way you’ll have the information to confidently readjust your business based on value.

Lead

One of the most potent ways you add value is to lead. Your clients are quite often looking for someone to offer them direction. Take a stand and declare a point of view about your industry that you consistently support and become a leading voice for your point of view. Don’t worry about pleasing everyone, leaders take a stand, welcome all points of view and defend what they believe – and that’s where the value is created.

Create groups in social media for those that are attracted to your point of view. Write article, make presentations, blog and invite others, including your competitors, to share their views.

This kind of thought leadership is how you establish more value for your brand, but it’s also how you build a community that wants to be a part of something more dynamic than the typical me too players in your industry.

Teach

If you’ve learned how to something well, one of the best things you can do for your own growth, and those that follow you, is to teach others how to do it well.

This idea certainly applies to the natural elements of your business offerings, but where the real magic happens is when you expand this concept beyond what anyone would logically expect from your business.

For example, if you sell plumbing supplies, but you’ve figured out how to get a lot of value from your Facebook page, take the time to teach your customers how to do the same.

Bring in experts in every area of your customer’s life and make them available as part of what your brand stands for.

Inspire

Many people draw inspiration from art and creativity. One of the best ways to inspire and differentiate your business is by investing in and caring about great design.

Spend the time, effort, thoughtfulness and, yes, money to get design that inspires.

This is a tricky one because design that inspires is so relative, but know this, great design in your marketing materials, websites, products, packaging, even your invoices, is one of the easiest ways to stand out and differentiate your business. It is an investment that will return many times over.

It’s hard sometimes to convince people that design adds value, but all you need do is look around at most industry leaders in every category to find examples where great design is the leading difference.

Listen

I’ll end with another not so intuitive way to add value – listen to what you customers care about.

I know that seems pretty obvious, but we rarely do it.

Invest in the tools that allow you to monitor everything your customers are saying publicly in social media and invest the time to ask them what they need in face-to-face settings.

When you sit with someone and ask them something meaningful about their life, you shut off your phone, look into their eyes and really focus on and care about what they are telling you – you add value. Nobody listens much anymore and people know when they are being heard.

Doing this in the manner I’ve just described is harder than it sounds, but it’s how you fill your relationships with confidence and that’s a kind of value that people cherish most.

by John Jantsch

Quote of the Day

"To the world you might be one person, but to one person you might be the world."
An Unknown Author

Your action for today is to see if there is someone who when asked, would choose you as the currently most important person in their life.

Have an extraordinary day!

Great computer support from Business Remedy -http://BusinessRemedy.net

PayPal Rolls Out To 15 More National Retailers, Announces Deals With 6 Top POS Software & Terminal Makers

PayPal is expanding its in-store payments technology to 15 new national retailers, following its initial brick-and-mortar rollout with Home Depot earlier this year.  At a press conference held yesterday at PayPals’s San Jose HQ, the company confirmed it is now adding new merchants including Abercrombie & Fitch, Advance Auto Parts, Aéropostale, American Eagle Outfitters, Barnes & Noble, Foot Locker, Guitar Center, Jamba Juice, JC Penney, Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, Nine West, Office Depot, Rooms To Go, Tiger Direct and Toys “R” Us.

The merchants will soon be integrating PayPal technology at their point-of-sale, allowing customers to choose it as an alternative payment option to cash, check or charge.

As with the Home Depot integration, customers can either use a PIN code or a special PayPal credit card that can be swiped, in order to deduct the payment from their PayPal accounts. The solution is appealing to retailers, because it doesn’t require a significant investment in new technology, like replacing POS systems or installing some sort of NFC-based solution, for example. In the future, the vision is to scale the PayPal integration to support more merchant-friendly services, like real-time location-based ads and in-store offers.

PayPal is attempting a massive land grab in the race against buzzy new startups like Square, as well as alternative mobile payments and wallet solutions from startups and established players alike. And time appears to be of essence for PayPal. The company says that it went from a 5-store pilot test with Home Depot to a full rollout to the chain’s nearly 2,000 locations in just two months.

In addition to the new retailers, PayPal also announced deals that will allow it to reach mid-market businesses, which have multiple locations and some sort of point-of-sale solution already in place. PayPal is now making it possible for merchants using POS software providers Leapset, ShopKeep, Vend, and Erply to very quickly enable PayPal within their stores – again, without replacing their current POS infrastructure. PayPal notes that through these customers combined, they reach some 50,000 offline businesses. Some of the POS software vendors’ customers have already switched their PayPal integrations on, though the company did not detail how many or who.

Finally, PayPal also announced deals with VeriFone and Equinox, the #1 and #3 POS terminal manufacturers, respectively. These companies will now integrate PayPal into their payment terminals. PayPal is already working with Ingenico, which means it will now reach nearly 40 million POS terminals worldwide.

PayPal hasn’t always been the most beloved brand in the payments space, but its a well-established player with a significant user base, traction, brand recognition and, as demonstrated, the ability to scale quickly. Last year, the company saw over $118 billion in total payment volume, and expects to top $7 billion in mobile payment volume this year. 2012, says President David Marcus in the official announcement, is about testing and learning what works in the offline retail market.

Despite the competition it faces, it’s impossible to count out PayPal’s potential for success in this arena just yet.

By Sarah Perez

Quote of the Day

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn."
Futurist, Alvin Toffler

Your action for today is to learn something new -- a new word, a new system or a new tool in your computer program.

Have an extraordinary day!

Great computer support from Business Remedy -http://BusinessRemedy.net

Quote of the Day

"Reality is above all else a variable and nobody is qualified to say that he or she knows exactly what it is. As a matter of fact, with a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before."
Novelist, Margaret Halsey

Your action for today is to stop for five minutes, close your eyes and visualize in detail where you’d like to see yourself in two years -- make a commitment to take this time at least two times a week.

Creating Google Alerts Directly in Google Analytics

A few weeks back I wrote about the powerful new metrics that small business owners can glean from the new Social reports within Google Analytics. And since that post, even more neat features have been released to help business owners learn more about not only what’s happening on their site, but what’s happening off of it, as well.

It’s no secret that I’ve long been a fan of Google Analytics. For a consultant or small shop looking to monitor keywords or keep their ear open to conversations, Google Analytics provides a simple, yet powerful, way to do that. However, with the new data tucked inside the new Social reports, you can now get your Google Alerts data directly in your analytics. It’s a one stop shop!

Over on the Google Analtyics blog, we hear about new ways to expand Google Analytics Social Reports and track links (aka trackbacks) to your site content directly from your Analytics console.  By monitoring trackbacks, webmasters learn who is linking to their sites and which content generates the most links. This is invaluable insight for any content marketing strategy.

To access the reports go to Traffic Sources -> Social -> Source and click on any data hub partner (Google+, Blogger etc.) Above the graph a tab named “Social Referral” will be selected, click the next one “Activity Stream” and in the top selector hit trackbacks.

From there, you’ll get an automated list of all the sites that are linking to your content. Use the data to thank the author for mentioning your content, keep track of what content is being most passed around, or to use it to build a larger influencer list.

According to Google:

These reports provide another layer of social insight showing which of your content attracts links, and enables you to keep track of conversations across other sites that link to your content. Most website and blog owners had no easy mechanism to do this in the past, but we see it as another important feature for holistic social media reports. When you know what your most linked content is, it is then also much easier to replicate the success and ensure that you are building relationships with those users who actively link to you the most.

I couldn’t agree more. While setting up Google Alerts was already an easy way to help site owners keep track of links and mentions, putting this information directly into their analytics data makes the process even easier. It’s also a great incentive for sites who haven’t set up analytics on their Web sites to do so.

But it’s not just links you can track via your analytics, you can now spot the actual conversations happening, in near real-time.

To use Google Analytics as a conversation tracker, go back to the Activities Tab screen and select Conversations. Once on this tab you’ll get an interactive look at how your content is being shared on Google’s social network, as well as the specific users who are doing the sharing.

 

Those are the people talking about your brand in the wild. In the drop down on the right, select the option to View Activity, Google will take you directly to the page where the comment happened. From there, you can interact, answer a question, thank a user for the mention, etc.

This is incredibly powerful information now sitting perfectly (though a little hidden) in your analytics. Currently, this information is only available for Data Hub providers, but with any luck Google will be able to expand it soon.

Alert Photo via Shutterstock

By Lisa Barone

Quote of the Day

"Every now and then go away--for when you come back to your work your judgment will be surer."
Leonardo DaVinci

Your action for today is to schedule on your calendar a personal day or two just for yourself.

Have an extraordinary day!

Great computer support from Business Remedy -http://BusinessRemedy.net

Quote of the Day

"Take charge of your attitude. Don't let someone else choose it for you."
American Writer and Lecturer, Dale Carnegie

Your action for today is to see if you can choose to be happy regardless of what happens to you during the day.

Quote of the Day

"You must have long-term goals to keep you from being frustrated by short-term failures."
Major General, Charles C. Noble

Your action for today is to take a specific action that will move you towards one of your long-term goals.

How This Kid Made $170 Million in Two Years

Aaron Patzer launched Mint.com as a user-friendly alternative to Quicken and other personal-finance software out there. Little did he know that just two years later, Intuit, which makes Quicken, would fork over $170 million for his website. So how'd he do it?

Step 1: Create a product that makes a difficult, tedious task easy and fun

"What set us apart from 95 percent of other start-ups is that we served a real need," Patzer says. "Personal finance is so complex and too difficult for most people. I was frustrated with the existing tools and found out that others were frustrated as well."

Step 2: Choose a market that's really, really big.

"There are 250 million people worldwide who already use online banking," Patzer says. "With our 1.5 million users, we've barely scratched the surface. Intuit made a billion dollars on its tax business alone and that's a once-a-year thing. People do online banking every day."

Step 3: Develop a business model that actually allows you to, well, make money.

"Our product is free, but we make our money by helping people save money," Patzer says. "We understand where people spend their money so we can say, 'You should refinance' or 'You should change your auto insurance.' The only ads people see on Mint.com are ones that will save them at least $50. Financial institutions then pay us for new customers."

Step 4: Don't pay to acquire customers. Ever.

"All of our customer acquisition has been free -- through social media, blogs, and the press," Patzer says. "We don't pay a dime for advertising. We also use business partnerships with Motley Fool and the credit-report companies. And Apple has given us a lot of free advertising as a featured application."

Step 5: Be a compete stickler about who you hire.

"In the last start-up I worked for, hiring was done haphazardly," Patzer says. "We have a very rigorous hiring process. For tech people, we might screen 50 people and hire one. For all managers, we use a technique called top grading which reveals patterns in behavior. In the history of Mint, I've only fired two people and only one has left voluntarily."

by writer from inc.com

How This Kid Made $170 Million in Two Years

Aaron Patzer launched Mint.com as a user-friendly alternative to Quicken and other personal-finance software out there. Little did he know that just two years later, Intuit, which makes Quicken, would fork over $170 million for his website. So how'd he do it?

Step 1: Create a product that makes a difficult, tedious task easy and fun

"What set us apart from 95 percent of other start-ups is that we served a real need," Patzer says. "Personal finance is so complex and too difficult for most people. I was frustrated with the existing tools and found out that others were frustrated as well."

Step 2: Choose a market that's really, really big.

"There are 250 million people worldwide who already use online banking," Patzer says. "With our 1.5 million users, we've barely scratched the surface. Intuit made a billion dollars on its tax business alone and that's a once-a-year thing. People do online banking every day."

Step 3: Develop a business model that actually allows you to, well, make money.

"Our product is free, but we make our money by helping people save money," Patzer says. "We understand where people spend their money so we can say, 'You should refinance' or 'You should change your auto insurance.' The only ads people see on Mint.com are ones that will save them at least $50. Financial institutions then pay us for new customers."

Step 4: Don't pay to acquire customers. Ever.

"All of our customer acquisition has been free -- through social media, blogs, and the press," Patzer says. "We don't pay a dime for advertising. We also use business partnerships with Motley Fool and the credit-report companies. And Apple has given us a lot of free advertising as a featured application."

Step 5: Be a compete stickler about who you hire.

"In the last start-up I worked for, hiring was done haphazardly," Patzer says. "We have a very rigorous hiring process. For tech people, we might screen 50 people and hire one. For all managers, we use a technique called top grading which reveals patterns in behavior. In the history of Mint, I've only fired two people and only one has left voluntarily."

by writer from inc.com

5 Ways To Get The Best Links For New Websites

Guest Blogging

I cannot stress enough how important it is to guest blog for links, especially if no one knows who you are. Get the right topic on the right blog, and the results can be pretty astronomical. You get the link juice, sure, but you also get traffic, brand awareness, and potentially even conversions.

One guest blog post brought us 72% more traffic.

As I mentioned last month, I swear by guest blogging communities like Blogger Link Up and My Blog Guest. Instead of you finding the opportunities, they come to you. Blog owners will send out a query on the type of post that they’re looking for, and you can respond if you’re a good fit.

Offline To Online Relationships

If you’re new to the online realm, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re new to the offline world.

The first place I go when building links for a new client is finding any partnerships, relationships, or even just friends they’ve worked with or built offline. Then, parlay that connection online. People are much more likely to link to you when they already know who you are and can vouch for the work you do.

Forums & Online Communities

Whoever your target audience is, they’re probably already hanging out somewhere online. You need to be there.

Find these online communities, forums or discussion groups and join them. You can use these search queries to find these forums or discussion groups:

• inurl: + keyword + forums, discussions or groups
• intitle: + keyword + forums, discussions or groups

Word of the wise: Establish your credibility first. If you go in there firing out links and praise, it’s like saying “I’m Erin. Marry me?” Take some time first to get to know people there: ask questions, answer questions, tell your story, whatever. Just build the relationship first. And when you do post a link, don’t let that be your last post.

Go Local

Every community has a local chamber of commerce. Join it. You get a great link and great exposure to other networking opportunities. If you live in a bigger city, there are also directories specifically to list local businesses in that area.

Also, target your local press. Local journalists are craving for content to write about, so if you’re doing something within the community, let the media know about it.

Whether it’s your staff doing a day of community outreach, helping a local charity or nonprofit organization, or just doing something really cool, people will write about it. We got press coverage and a link just because we hired 24 people over half a year. Whatever you’re doing, let people know.

Give Stuff Away

I don’t know where you stand on the link bait debate, but frankly: I dig it. The whole point of link building is to create things that people like and want to link to. (Of course, don’t do something for the sole reason of going viral.) And what people like is to get free stuff. Host a giveaway or contest that is related to your business (don’t just giveaway an iPad ) which will put you in touch with people in your target audience.

What are some other good links to get for new websites?

by Erin Everhart

Don't let your niche become an empty buzzword

Takeaway: When a reader asks for advice about whether to be a cloud migration specialist, Chip Camden suggests how to expand the substance of his niche offering.

TechRepublic reader Michael Nicholas sent me an email which said in part:

I’ve been working in IT as a middleware administrator with some project management. I worked on contract as an email migration consultant and loved everything about it.

I want to become a full time consultant on my own but want to specialize in the next generation of enterprise IT. Some say that’s cloud computing. Keeping with the migration theme I was thinking of a cloud migration specialist. Email, apps etc.

In what area of training should I focus? Storage in the cloud? Microsoft cloud services? Any ideas you can offer I would certainly appreciate.

I certainly agree with the idea of establishing a niche for yourself that’s in high demand, and it seems like everybody these days is trying to take a ride on the magic cloud. I often wonder, though, how much of that is mere fad versus solving a real business need. If you tie your identity too much to the fad, then when it inevitably fades, so will your business.

That doesn’t mean it isn’t a good niche, but it does mean that you need to be careful to make a solid business proposition out of it, and not just ride the hype. There are at least two dimensions in which you can expand the substance of your offering. We’ll call them depth and breadth.

• Depth: get beyond the fanboyism and analyze exactly what benefits and constraints the various cloud-based strategies provide, so you can tailor a solution to exactly what the client needs rather than forcing them into a “one size fits all.” From that perspective, it doesn’t make sense to me to limit yourself to one vendor’s solutions, even if you tend to prefer one over the others. Remember that the most important thing is solving your client’s problems in a way that will make them want to come back to you with their next problem.
• Breadth: avoid limiting yourself to only this specialty. Cloud-based strategies aren’t the best solution to every problem. Think about auxiliary or alternative services that you can provide as well. If you demonstrate an ability to work with different technologies, then your client will call on you to advise them on all sorts of problems. Most importantly, you won’t get written off as the cloud guy once something else becomes the new cloud.

Most new technologies go through a hype phase where they’re touted as the answer to everything. Some of them pass and we never hear from them again, but most survive in some form or another because they contain important innovations that led to the hype in the first place. For the long haul, it’s important to identify the substance, and exploit it for the benefit of your clients.

I have to admit I haven’t really addressed Michael’s question about training. Are there any cloud migration specialists out there among our readers who would care to offer suggestions?

By Chip Camden