Teaser Articles as Calls to Action

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Eighteenth E-Webstyle.com SEO Podcast June 5th 2009.  Third page of Transcription

Chris: And we had to have the mosquito net and we were, you know, lathering with mosquito repellant all the time. So people love that, I did! And that’s what people are looking for, so I didn’t see that he captured those terms. Now, he’s not, maybe he’s not specifically luxury or exclusive and that may be why, but we’re going to have some more conversations with him to understand the target market that he’s going after and, you know, ask him the two things: what makes you the most money? And what do you sell the most? Because he’s got different levels of rooms, or different levels of villas and stuff. So, I think we covered keywords, I think the next number 4 item is calls to action.

 

Paul: What I, let me see. On these calls to action, I tried to be very nice in my way that I talked to him, but I didn’t see any calls to action. So, I just didn’t, and I was like “that’s a big thing, we’ve got to have some of those on this site”, and the way I worded it was “There’s nothing that makes me want to buy right now, RIGHT now”, you know, and then he takes reservations. I believe he takes reservations, yeah there it is, he takes reservations on the website. There was nothing that was saying “Right now, right now, you have to do this right now! Pick up the phone and call me for information” or “Fill out this form and I’ll make a reservation.”

 

Chris: Or “We fill up fast, so make a reservation today.”

 

Paul: Yeah, there you go. “We’re…slots…booking, whatever.” And so that was one thing I said “you can really do a lot of improvement on the calls to action, and I think it would make a very big difference in your calls, or your conversions.”

 

Chris: And I think I came up with a couple of interesting ideas for different types of calls to action that you can do. One of them should be a call. I mentioned also that he is—he did mention to you Paul I think, his target was US and Europe, right?

 

Paul: Yes.

 

Chris: So he should have a toll free number for US and Europe.

 

Paul: Does that work internationally?

 

Chris: They can. I was looking at a service today that, where they can just take an 800 number. They forward it to your Costa Rican phone number, you pay a not-so-cheap per minute rate, and these are clients who can pick up the phone easily and give you a call, and that’s really, it’s worth it’s weight in gold if the clients are actually picking up and calling you and finding out about more details about you. The next thing that I mentioned was just some sort of full color brochure or options to print stuff because as soon as people print stuff—you know if there’s a nice image and it’s about the particular location if they print it, when you are doing…planning a vacation something that’s printed out and sitting on your desk is going to have a little bit more weight than something else.

 

Paul: Than talking about it.

 

Chris: So the call to action of just having them print it. You know, “Print this now!” Then they print it, now it’s on they’re desk.

 

Paul: A perfect example. Buddies and I were planning a trip to Costa Rica last month, when they sent the house we were renting, the FIRST thing I did was print them. I printed two pages of color—and I, full color and it was, I was very excited about that, so I think that’s a perfect example.

 

Chris: Yeah, it’s just, you know, again, anytime you can convert them from electronic to tangible is going to have some value. The other thing I thought is, ok, so maybe a full color brochure, I also thought a lot of people like these kinds of lists, a lot of people are leery when they are going into Latin America. So, maybe writing a simple document about top five things to watch out for when dealing with Costa Rican resorts. It’s a small little PDF file. Again, it’s an opportunity to get your name printed out on their desk, or for them to read it or whatever. And in order for them to get that, of course they would have to enter their phone number and email so you can call them and follow up and say “Did you enjoy our top five things to watch for, and when are you coming? Because you don’t have to worry about those here.”

 

Paul: “And if you sign up today…”

 

Chris: Exactly, yeah. So that was calls to action, we’ll see how that goes, we’ll see which one of those we’ll be able to implement. The next was look-and-feel, which we got different opinions here and there, but what was your opinion on the look and feel?

 

Paul: I liked the look-and-feel, I thought it was very warm and soft and inviting, and if I were looking to do an international vacation, or any vacation, that’s exactly what I’m looking for, like, “welcome me in, bring me in, show me your place, and make me feel like I am a king” you know, and I liked it. I was like “ok, I give you a five out of five,” I really did enjoy his, the look-and-feel—it made me want to stay there more. And really I was like “Man, I want to see more pictures”, I’m just staying there looking for more pictures, and I, there’s so many sites—I feel like it’s rare that I find a site that really makes me want to stay there.

 

Chris: And have high quality photos that you can keep viewing.

 

Paul: Yeah.

 

Chris: So it looks in your notes, you gave it a five out of five for look-and-feel. I’d have to give it four out of five. One of the things, one of the comments that I made, although the page I just brought up has lots of people in it, but for the majority of the website most of the images don’t have people in them, and you know, it’s a lot easier to image yourself in that situation when you can see somebody sitting there, you know, if they’re sitting there in the villa. And this is ironic because most hotel pictures you see without somebody sitting in it.

 

Paul: That’s true.

 

Chris: But I think it’s actually important to have somebody in there enjoying it, maybe two people having a conversation or having a—just enjoying a glass of wine watching TV—whatever it is, all of the sudden you’re like “I can be that guy.”

 

Paul: Yeah.

 

Chris: And not just, how do you put yourself in this room? You don’t have any sense of special relationships, you don’t have a sense of how big it is. As soon as you put somebody… drop somebody in the image, all of the sudden it becomes something where you’re in their position. So that was really my only comment about, and it was on the VIP page that I noticed. One person relaxing on the beach, and I was like, you know, “that’s actually the most inviting…”—of course it’s an attractive woman on the beach, she’s way off in the—well, we assume she’s attractive, good from afar,

Paul: Her physique is awesome.

 

Chris: Yes but you know, it’s the one picture that’s really like “Wow, I could be sitting there in…”—it’s a picture of her actually barely in the water as it’s coming up on shore—you can see yourself there.

 

Paul: Yes.

Chris: Laying in the water, enjoying this, and the other pictures are like “wow, that’d be pretty, it’d be interesting to see”—you know, I kind of, like, the bar scenes, I kind of like “wow, I wonder if it would really work if there were a lot of people there.”

 

Paul: Yeah.

 

Chris: You know, you’re like “Hey, an empty bar is not so fun to go to.

 

Paul: Yeah, show me people who are hanging out and having a drink, enjoying themselves. You know, just talking with each other…I want to go to that bar!

 

Chris: Exactly! Exactly. Alright, so we’re going to run a little bit long on this one, but we want to wrap this up because now we’re on our bonus, bonus point, point number six is navigation, and Paul, what did you notice about navigation on this website?

 

Paul: Let me see…I thought navigation was pretty good. Let me see, the only—where are my notes, there we go—the only break in the navigation, there was break in the navigation, I did notice that when you click on one part, like if you’re going towards, I think it was like “wedding planners,” and you click on “wedding planners”, you have to go back to the… Like ok, there’s one area and it says there’s four or five things available here at this resort. I clicked on one of them “wedding planners”…when I got to wedding planners, I had go… excuse me…to hit the back button…

 

Chris: To go to special packages.

 

Paul: Yeah, to find the other three options. Like I’d recommend, “Hey, if they click on wedding planner, you still need to show the yoga or the special packages—whatever it was that was on that initial page.” People still need to be able to find that, and I had to hit the back button to get there—that was really the only thing.

 

Chris: Well, and then they have a couple of kind of, look like stickers on the top of the website. One of them says “Yoga Sanctuary,” the other one says “Tropical Honeymoon.” They are stickers. They’re actually links, but you can’t tell. It’s not obvious that they’re links.

 

Paul: Really good point. I had no idea that that was link until I just randomly had my mouse run over and it switched from a pointer to a fist or whatever. That would be one thing that I would—I would definitely change that. I was trying to think of like “what would I do to make that stand out?” Because it really just looks like a sticker or a badge that you just stick on you’d slap on your website.

 

Chris: You might rotate it…

 

Paul: There you go, ok.

 

Chris: And then have it, you know, have the backside say “click here” or something.

 

Paul: That’s perfect, that’s a perfect example: “click here.”

 

Chris: So—which they do rotate the 360, but you’ll notice even the 360 is still—and when I say 360, that’s actually the virtual tour—it’s still, you can’t, it’s still hidden. Even though it’s moving, it’s hidden, and then there’s a lot of value in that, so…and a virtual tour, it should actually be on each of the pages, as you’re highlighting your particular villa it should say “See a virtual tour of this villa.” That’s what it should do.

 

Paul: Would you put it at the top?

 

Chris: I would actually put it on each villa.

 

Paul: No, I mean of the page. I feel like now it’s just kind of hidden.

 

Chris: So, it’s here? But it still stands out. It doesn’t stand out, you know, right? That’s really, you got to make that stand out a lot more. So that’s what I would do there. So it looks like we’re out of time. We’ve gone through a whole lot of good information here. Again, please send us your emails, you can send them to podcast@e-webstyle.com, and feel free to give us a call. We can get that five plus a bonus point analysis for you…

 

Paul: While it’s free! Get it now, while it’s free.

 

Chris: It’s not going to be free forever.

 

Paul: Hah! You see it? That was my call to action.

 

Chris: Really good, wow. Yeah, high five! Oh yeah, that’s right! We’re in sales. You have got to celebrate everything.

 

Paul: Everything.

 

Chris: Give us a call 713-592-6724. Give us a call, while it’s free, and we can help you out. Until next podcast, make sure you join us. You know, because it’s going to be another awesome podcast.

 

Paul: You got it.

 

Chris: Until next time, I’m Chris Burres.

 

Paul: And this is Paul Hanson.

 

Chris: Bye-bye for now.