They’re known as Manitoba Mutts, and they are a 100% volunteer organization that rescues dogs all across Manitoba – dogs that have been abandoned, abused or otherwise left to fend for themselves.

In order for them to gain as much exposure as possible, in the quickest amount of time, we identified their top 3 most searched for phrases that would bring in the would-be dog adopters:

These would be the primary hit list for any organization such as their’s.

So What Happened?

Well, as of Mar. 21st – here’s the results:

Top #1, 2 or 3 Google Rankings Achieved for All Keywords. Success!

Next steps?

As with any great Winnipeg SEO plan, now is the maintenance phase where we continue to build the rankings up, and ensure they remain consistent for the future.

How Did Manitoba Mutts Feel About All This?

Here we breakdown some of the most common areas Winnipeg business owners tend to be losing sales on their websites.

Keep in mind that although certain tweaks may seem small – given your web traffic spread over time, each little improvement can mean drastic sales increases.

It’s all about adding up the +1% changes.

For those who missed part 1, you can view it here and get caught up on reasons 1-3:

Winnipeg Website Tips For Sales Leads

Now on to reasons #4-6 …

4. You’re Using Big Blocks of Small Text.

Although YOU are a huge fan of everything you’ve written on your company website, the same does not go for the average visitor.

They don’t have the same types of loyalty & understanding with everything you’ve presented.

99% of the time they are looking to skim pages for a solution to whatever problem they are having.

Imagine for a moment you are browsing for Winnipeg dental clinics, and you get to a company’s website only to find a huuuuge page of seemingly endless material on the subject.

Block after block of size 12 font, explaining in detail everything about their particular company.

But as a visitor with no previous relation, you don’t care about their company, and the time it would take you to sift through the page outweighs the potential benefit. You have a problem, and your looking to be presented an answer to it. You do a quick skim, and move on.

This is how the majority of people browse the internet – if it’s not easy to read, directed at their problems and in nice digestible pieces …. They ain’t sticking around!

It’s tough, but life isn’t always easy.

Here’s an example of bad text layout:

Here’s an example of good text layout:

Same content, easier to read.

Here’s Some Actionable Guidelines for Your Pages:

• Keep paragraphs in the 1-3 sentences range.
• Write like you would talk – allow for pauses and breaks in the text.
• Avoid run on sentences. Whenever possible, break them up into 2 different parts.
• Ex. – run on sentence: “The red dog jumped over the doghouse, and then went inside for a bite to eat because it was dinner time.”
• The fix: “The red dog jumped over the doghouse. After that he went inside for a bite to eat – it was dinner time.
• Use authoritative language and write confidently about the topic you are presenting. Avoid words like “I think, this might, it seems that, it’s my opinion that, etc.” These phrases just decrease your credibility and make it look like you are unsure of what you’re saying. Very bad when you are trying to sell a prospect …. I think? That’s my opinion anyway.

5. Your Sidebars are Diverting Potential Sales Away.

The tendency with web designers is to lose sight of the individual page GOAL.

You want to live by the rule of “1 page, 1 goal”. Whatever action you want the visitor to take, whether it be to go to the contact page, call a phone #, or buy a product, you want to streamline the page to facilitate and direct them towards that specific action.

Sidebars, excessive choices and long, overbearing navigation menus muddy the waters. It strays your visitor away from the desired action you want them to take. This puts the them in a “browsing cycle”, clicking various links and looping around on your pages, without converting an actual sale.

We want to eliminate that.

Let’s look at a page that is common to most business websites – a services page. The desired goal will be to get the visitor interested, and direct them over to the contact form.

Here’s an example of a common services page done wrong:

Here’s one done correctly:

You will notice in the first example, the page contains a sidebar with distractions about their newsletter.

Yes, you do want the reader to check out your newsletters, popular blog posts, etc – but not when they specifically clicked over to check out the services you offer.

At this point in your sales funnel, wouldn’t it be far more beneficial to address their problems and get them over to a contact form/phone #?

You better believe so – and any other option presented to them would be considered a deterrent. It will DECREASE your conversion rate.

The correct example is from Shine Dental. Their sales writing is top notch, and they actually make use of the sidebar to display contact information (which auto-scrolls with the user) – making it even more painless for the visitor to choose them.

You can see they’ve also included a large call to action at the bottom of the page – “Request an Appointment”.

It’s extremely important to direct the visitor to the action you want them to take. I’d imagine their conversion rates are fairly high.

For any page that isn’t a “content page” (blog post, etc.) you want to make it as painless as possible for the prospect to go from interest to action. This means:

• Eliminating your sidebars and going full width pages.
• Whenever possible get rid of unfavourable navigation options.
• Several points throughout your page where the visitor can take the desired action.
• Make your call to action’s BIG and OBVIOUS. If you take 10 steps back from your monitor, and it isn’t blatantly obvious what you want them to click on, it’s not big enough! Plain and simple.

6. Your Testimonials are Poorly Constructed, and/or All Grouped Together.

Although testimonials are one of the most effective ways to show your credibility and reduce perceived risk to clients, there’s a few ways to make sure you are getting the optimal effect.

We want to minimize the “gloss-over factor”, which happens when you present the prospect with large amounts of anything all at once.

To do this, you want to adopt the approach of sprinkling the testimonials into your site’s content, some here, some there – as a reinforcement to your messaging, rather than grouping it separate as a message itself.

This means no “Testimonials” page!

Let’s face it, if you track the testimonial page’s performance it would fare poorly.

Instead – sprinkle your best testimonials in your home page, on your services/about us pages, and wherever else you see fit. The function should be to supplement your value propositions and messaging to the customer.

Effective Testimonial Formatting

We want the visitor to deeply relate & connect with those people who already love your business.

Here’s the most effective way I’ve found to do this:

• Be sure to consistently ask your past clients for testimonials!
• In your request, ask them to loosely follow this format:

• Whenever possible, include a picture of them.
• Then you will want to restructure it a bit.
• Take their most powerful statement or feeling towards your business and move it to the top of the paragraph(s). Make it your testimonial headline. This will draw more people in.
• Feel free to exclude any redundancies, or any sentences/areas that don’t really add hard hitting value to the testimonial.
• Include the person’s name, city, and any designations or job title’s that can potentially add to their credibility.

Here’s an example of an effective testimonial:

You don’t always have to follow the same format, but consistently be thinking ”How can I best present what others say & feel about us?”

Have questions about how to put testimonials or any of the other above points to work for your business?

• How to get more clicks to your site with existing Google exposure
• The most important part of your Google site listing, and the mindset shift to make it work for you
• Why 90% of businesses fail at it
• Tools to track results

Double it up. Van Damme style.

For most businesses, it’s unfathomable to spend less money and still reach twice as many people.

But the truth is, every business, even fairly new ones, have untapped resources and alternate means of customer acquisition.

Let me explain …

Let’s say you are a tailor of high end custom men’s suites.

Business can be a bit slow certain times of the year, and despite how much money you sink into more ads … the return just doesn’t seem to be there. There’s a cap on it.

But there’s another, highly profitable way to acquire new customers that you wouldn’t have found otherwise. Ask yourself this:

Where Else, and WHAT ELSE Does My Target Market Purchase?

Well, men who purchase high end suites also tend to buy high end watches and cigars, for example.

Suppose you, a clothing retailer, called up a nearby cigar shop and proposed a deal.

You have a large supply of suites you want to sell off fast at an attractive discount.

The cigar shop has a customer list of around 5,000 people, most of which have never bought from you before.

Your proposal is to use the cigar shops list, mail out an offer on your high end suites, and split the profits with the cigar shop owner.

You love this deal because:

• It gets rid of your excessive merchandise
• You get a large # of brand new first time customers
• You make money

The cigar shop owner loves this deal because:

• He does nothing, besides letting you market to his list
• He makes money he would have never made otherwise

How Many Businesses ACTUALLY Do This Type of Marketing?

Little to none!

That is, outside of the “Internet Marketing” community.

See, Internet Marketer’s have been using these types of joint venture strategies for years now, partnering with other marketers and cross-marketing to different audiences, increasing and often times DOUBLING their customer base.

This practice just hasn’t caught on in traditional businesses because frankly, most establishments just aren’t educated on it.

Try it out!

Think of some other local businesses that sell a different product than yours, to the same types of people. Go out there and start making those deals! You’ll be surprised at some of the lucrative relationships you end up forming.

It sure as hell beats listing your products for 90% off on some “daily deals” website … which unfortunately seems to be all the rage at the moment.

Let me know how it goes, I’d love to here from you

Less than three short weeks ago

It’s important to us that our clients know just how serious we are about marketing.

It’s important that we not only talk the talk, but walk the walk as well… and do it in amazing ways … that our competition just can’t replicate.

Our aim: to the top of Google for some competitive keywords.

How’s Our Rankings Now?

After just two and a half weeks of Gustindustries search engine optimization, here’s our current standings among the industry top 5:

WARNING: SOME STEEP CLIMBS AHEAD!

Even Though We Made ASTOUNDING Progress On Our Rank … Our Journey Has Just Begun …

We aren’t happy until we’ve totally crushed it.

Stay tuned for our next case study, where we present our SEO results for a client who runs a completely different type of business! You’re gonna love this one!

Curious About How You Can Generate MORE SALES by Dominating Google?

Luc Bohunicky run his business selling custom fit mouthguards out of the office of Kildonan Crossing Dental in Winnipeg.

These mouthguards are customized to fit, offer long lasting protection and are very reasonably priced.

Luc had been directing traffic to his page using Facebook ads, and approached us looking to better showcase the products to potential customers.

His market: Parents age 35-55 with kids who play mostly hockey (primarily males)

Let’s see what we’re able to do for him …

Here’s the Before Shot:

And After – First the “Like” Screen:

The Welcome Page:

And Finally the Deals Page:

Some key points:

Want to Give Your Fan Page a Face-Lift?

Meet James & His Company – Healthy Home Lifestyle Solutions.

Why is James so happy in this picture?

Well, to be honest he’s usually very enthusiastic already, but also … we like to think our service produced a pretty massive grin, too.

Like a smart business owner, James was already setup with a Facebook page and actively interacting with his audience.

But, like most small businesses, there were many areas of the page that could benefit from a few tweaks.

This would result in an impressive, professional feel as well as a much higher conversion rate on his traffic. Let’s explore …

Our Goal

It Begins!

We started by taking a look at James’ main site – HealthyHomeLifestyle.ca, and took note of the general “feel” of his brand – the color scheme, logo, identity, how James describes his business, how they help the customer, and the specific pain points a typical customer must have based on the verbiage.

We brought forward these major points:

Pretty simple.

We then took his main business points and combined it all together. This creates one cohesive message for the consumer – that draws them into action.

Let’s see a before & after …

Fan Page: BEFORE

Fan Page: AFTER …

First the “Like Gate”, the first thing a new visitor sees …

Then the welcome screen, to optimally showcase his business to potential clients.

BOOM!!!

Some key highlights:

I hope you enjoyed reading this case study as much as we enjoyed creating it.

For more information on James & Healthy Home Lifestyle Solutions, join their Facebook group here!

Do you have any comments or questions about the new design? Feel free to post ‘em up below!

Interested in fan page services?

Lack of sales makes Jack upset. At least he has a nice laptop?

So you decide to setup a website for your business.

You put together some pictures, some information about your product or service and start sending people to the page.

But sales are slow.

Not many people are filling out your contact form, calling the phone number, joining the Facebook group or buying the product.

Is your business a doomed venture?

Not so fast, chief. Perhaps maybe something else is at play here.

But what? And how can you go about fixing it?

Here are 3 reasons why your website visitors might be hitting the back button and taking there business elsewhere.

It Isn’t Explicitly Clear What Your Business Does for the Customer.

Most business owners have problems explaining what they do in a clear concise, effective manner.

It’s because the owner knows damn well what the business does. In his mind, it’s a no-brainer.

But not all customers will – and this is tough to keep in mind. The reality is that the customer may not know a single thing about the business when visiting the website’s main page.

It needs to be explicitly clear:

This needs to be 100% clear to visitors.

The funny thing is – the above list is in the exact opposite order of how most people think.

But it’s THE right way to connect with the people who stand for what you stand for, and will be loyal customers for life.

This concept is explained best in the below video by Simon Sinek – and are absolutely vital. I strongly encourage you to watch the entire video, as it will likely change how you do business forever.

So how can you test if you’re clear enough?

It’s called the header removal test, and it works like this …

If you were to completely delete your entire page header – logo, tag line, navigation menu, and whatever else is up at the top of your page … would it still be obvious to the brand new visitor what the page is about?

Open up your homepage right now.

Take a moment and imagine in your mind that your page header was gone. Will a complete newbie still know what you do?

Does Our Own Website Stack Up to the Header Removal Test?

Let’s Take Away the Header Now …

Yup! Our Service is Still Obvious!

Now on to reason #2 …

Your Navigation Menu Has Too Many, or the Wrong Choices.

Too many choices have a negative impact on sales.

It’s a problem of confusion which hinders the buying decision.

Let’s imagine you were shopping for a computer. You walk into the store and the salesman shows you 12 different models, all slightly different from each other, and asks which one you think you’d most enjoy.

That’s a damn hard decision.

Now imagine there was only three computers to pick from – each of them distinctly different from each other, and there are no other options.

Traditional thinking would say the limited selection is a negative. But that’s actually wrong.

By limiting the choice, your getting rid of the buyer’s potential doubt, enabling a quicker decision and making them think much less.

Steve Jobs used this approach when he revamped Apple’s computer lineup back in the late 90′s. The same concept is still alive and thriving today.

Pretty limited choices for one of the world’s most profitable companies, right?

Notice how clean and simple it is. The maximum amount of navigation links any site should have, in our opinion, is around 8. Many businesses would do best with around 5 (such as us, for example).

Now there’s also something to be said about having the wrong choices.

Notice what the most popular topics, services, products or features of your business are.

These need to either be options on the navigation, or on the pages the customer are brought to by the most commonly clicked menu items.

Think about getting the visitor into your sales funnel. Clicks are essentially interest – you need to be building the interest up towards the sale!

Your Headline Fails to Grab Attention.

The goal of your headline (or page title) is to grab the visitor’s attention, intrigue them, and get them convinced you have the solution to their problems. Be so compelling to them that there is just simply no way on earth they aren’t going to keep reading.

I see a lot of companies going down the route of using titles as “labels” (a simple description of what the business is).

Bad. Very very bad.

My toilet paper! Why, boy?

Let’s see an example of this type of headline:

“Quality Computers in Winnipeg”

Horrible. This gives no attention to what the customer actually wants.

How would we make this better? Let’s use a simple formula (credit Dane Maxwell):

In the strictest sense, this would equate to something like:

“NEVER be Stuck Without a PC Again. Get Winnipeg’s Newest Model Right Now – Complete Satisfaction or Your Money Back.”

Can you imagine how this would hook a computer shopper in much better than the first example?

Take a look at your own headlines, tag-lines and business adverts and see if you can identify any areas for improvement.

Stay tuned for Part 2!

In the meantime … if you like this post, why not share it with others via Facebook, Twitter or Google+?

Any comments or questions hit me up below!

We have decided to document OUR OWN journey to the top of Google, as part of real-time undeniable proof of our search engine ranking services, as well as an interesting case study for ourselves & our audience to follow along with.

So let’s get started!

We have begun search engine optimization (SEO) work on our site TODAY, January 8th 2012.

Our site is brand new, and has absolutely no history as far as Google is concerned.

Search Competition for SEO Companies (Like Us) Are Fierce!

This search ranking endeavor is going to be 10 TIMES harder than it would be for pretty much any other local Winnipeg business.

Think about it … everyone who runs a search engine ranking business wants to rank well on Google!

Search Terms We Want to Rank For:

How Do We Currently Rank for Each?

We don’t!

But that’s OK, because our SEO campaign has just begun!

Let’s Take a look at Who We Are Aiming to Beat:

“Winnipeg SEO”

You can see that this search phrase is dominated by the company “Fresh Traffic”, who does nationwide SEO services. Their Winnipeg landing page & main page are the #1 & #2 spots – both having many thousands of links pointed to them!

“Internet marketing Winnipeg”

Again, Fresh Traffic as well as a few other companies are owning the top 5 spots.

“Social media Winnipeg”

This search phrase is less competitive, as each site has lower incoming link volume.

How Many Companies Will I be Able to Wipe Out?

Subscribe to the blog to find out as the rankings improve in the next few months!