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Question Time: Your Biggest Challenge.

by Ed on 11th March 2008

Question and Answer Time I’ve never had an open question time before, but now this blog’s getting higher readership, and following the ‘blog launch’ of my book, I’d like to open the floor to questions.

Q: What’s the single biggest challenge you have with making the Internet really work for your business?

• Getting prospects (qualified traffic) to your site?
• Compelling visitors to buy?
• Understanding split-path and multi-variate testing?
• Or any aspect of the testing process?
• Do you have trouble finding ‘good’ web developers?
• Is some aspect of Landing Pages bothering you?
• How to get leverage on Google Adwords?
• How to read and use web site statistics?
• Or how to make money online as a business in itself?

Internet Business is not the main focus of this blog, but I’d be interested to know how many readers want to know more about that than using the Internet to grow what I call an ‘everyday business’.

Or perhaps your number one challenge is simply… “what to do next?”

(I’ve noticed ‘Internet Marketing Paralysis’ afflicts a lot of small business owners… too many things to do so they end up doing nothing.) Let me know if that’s your particular challenge — I’ve got plenty of suggestions.

HOW TO ASK: Simply add your comment to this blog post (you may first need to click the link below which says either “No Comments” or “X Comments”).

NB: This question time is open until 3.30pm (GMT) tomorrow afternoon (Wed 12th March 2008) so fire away. (Please submit only one question… your most pressing or troublesome would be a good one.)

At 3.30pm tomorrow this post will be closed (no more questions after that time) — then I’ll set about answering each one on Thursday.

-Ed.

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Article by Ed Rivis

I'm the Amazon 5-star rated author of three books about web marketing, and since 2008 have spoken to more than 4,000 business owners at conferences and seminars around the UK. I've also developed software that automatically generates lead pages and home-study programmes that help small business owners like you generate more sales-leads and win new customers and clients, online.

Ed has written 326 awesome articles.

  • http://www.ecs-sw.co.uk phil hill

    internet marketing paraylsis

  • http://www.thekissbusiness.co.uk Karin H.

    Hi Ed

    Main worry: Trying to write proper English instead of filling my websites and blog with ‘double Dutch English’ ;-)

    No, seriously. Our business is what I like to call a ‘New Customers Only’ type of business – the first purchase is normally the largest in money for any of our clients, plus how many floors do you need per year? So hardly any repeat sales on the same scale as the first purchase.
    Still we want to make more ‘money’ online, hence our new ‘webshop: http://www.mamut.net/woodyoulike/ that will replace our ‘old’ online catalog.

    Small purchases are made online – maintenance products etc, but real wooden floors aren’t really bought online (yet?). Should I concentrate all my webmarketing efforts on trying to establish a conversation which could result in a purchase over the telephone or by email – we are doing that already, but still – or should I concentrate more efforts in convincing visitors that it’s ok to buy online from us?

    Karin H. (Keep It Simple Sweetheart, specially in business)

  • http://www.simplymindblogging.com Dave

    Hi Ed,

    My biggest challenge is trying to find one or two sources of reliable information about the basics of building a blog, SEO, traffic, etc.

    I mean really, for a novice like me (and others) who or where do we go to understand SEO, really?

    How about one source for just understanding what the hell a plug-in is and which of the gazillions out there do I or don’t I need?

    I guess the biggest thing is: distillation and reliability.

    Thanks,

    Still New @ Blogging
    Dave

  • http://bizRichard.com Richard Calderwood

    Hi Ed – the biggest hurdle I’m finding is how to find the initial traffic – how do you get people (of the type you want) along when they don’t know you are there?

  • http://www.ask4art.com Steve Burt

    Hi Ed – Mine’s the first on the menu!

    Getting prospects (qualified traffic) to our site, and then to enter into a dialogue, with a view to start an ongoing buying relationship.

  • http://www.ultimax1.com Andy Tain

    Hi Ed
    One of the few blogs I always read, thanks for all the info.
    My main problem (& fears) is not having the resources to build a great web site in house and the fear of external suppliers either being full of bull, a rip off, having no idea about marketing, not being able to make the web site “work” after making it look pretty and functional. e.t.c.
    This induces paralysis by default – or am I just making excuses!
    Regards

  • http://SuccessNavigator.co.uk Graham Pears

    Hi Ed. This is really for Dave, who asked Q 3. If you don’t mind me sticking my oar in, may I ask you Dave whether you have bought and not just read, but learnt, Ed’s book? And also bought and followed his blogging course? I found these blew me away – I learnt so much in just a few hours – would have taken me months and months and literally thousands of pounds in wasted money paying for things like SEO – which I came close to doing. I’m sure you will find Ed’s advice is that SEO for example comes way down the list of things to be thinking about.

    With best wishes.
    Graham Pears

  • http://www.dynamicbusinessstrategies.co.uk Alan Briggs

    As a business growth consultant part of my work is to look at any e-marketing and web presence. Now my recommended reading is your book, ‘Ultimate Web Marketing Strategy’ .
    But one problem area I see more and more is legal complience. ie Non geographical phone numbers, no company registartion numbers and address and the biggest no terms & conditions.
    A simple guide to this would be a real help.

    Keep up the great work

    Kind regards

    Alan Briggs

    http://www.dynamicbusinessstrategies.co.uk

  • http://www.morethanmowers.co.uk Juliette Player

    Problem: Differentiating commodity products
    We are a small business (3 people) selling, servicing and repairing garden machinery.
    We have established a reliable, trustworthy and personal service (we collect/deliver / show people how to operate machinery), customers like our workshop and we are also good on price. This differentiates us locally from our larger, impersonal competitors. ‘However, we operate on low margins and really need to drive garden machinery sales for profit ; hence as part of our marketing we have developed in-house an eCommerce site http://www.morethanmowers.co.uk with the intent to sell nationally.
    I’m currently working through much of your material on optimisation in terms of keywords etc. but my big sticking point at the moment is this:

    How do we differentiate what are essentially commodity products ( lawnmowers!) on our site when someone buying nationally is probably not interested in our workshop/local reputation or anything we can offer locally in terms of back up/free servicing?

    We are coming into Spring and need the sales – with so much to achieve on the site what would be your No.1 top tip to help us?
    Many thanks for any help!

  • Graham

    What does traffic rank 153,577 mean on your site? Is that the number of subscribers, or the ranking of your website in the world or what? And why have you put it there? Intrigued.

  • http://www.thekissbusiness.co.uk Karin H.

    For those interested:
    http://www.alexa.com/site/help/traffic_learn_more

    Alexa is one of the various traffic counters – so you can keep an ‘easy’ eye on how your site is doing.

    Karin H.

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