This year was truly an eventful one, especially for the tech sector. Talks of mergers, bids, layoffs and dismal sales flooded the media this year. Here is a month by month look at this year’s biggest tech happenings:

January

• Bill gates announces he will leave the day to day operations of Microsoft.
• Oracle Acquires BEA Systems.
• Sun Acquires MYSQL.
• Ebay CEO Meg Whitman steps down.

February

• Microsoft puts in a bid to Yahoo which results in a drawn out soap opera and shareholder tradgedy.
• Apple announces that it will attempt to make the IPhone more business friendly.
• Netscape vanishes off the list of active browsers.

March

• Analysts begin to scrutinize over the monetization of Google’ s advertising programs after rumors of slowing profits arise.
• Yahoo begins to defend itself against Microsoft’s attempted acquisition.
• AOL acquires Bebo in an attempt to enter the social media market.

April

• Microsoft considers raising the stakes in it’s bid for Yahoo but refrains.
• Yahoo tries to form an alliance with Google in attempt to thwart Microsoft.
• Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang agrees to take a 1$ salary, which would prove to be appropriate pay in the upcoming months.

May

• Microsoft steps away from Yahoo – kind of…
• Sun lays off workers and blames the troubled economy.
• HP Buys EDS

June

• Carl Icah, a billionaire investor enters the Yahoo/Microsoft soap opera and indicates he wants Yang gone.
• Yahoo makes pact with Google’s search marketing technology.
• Microsoft finally truly leaves any further discussion about the Yahoo acquision.
• Gate’s leaves Microsoft as an executive for good.
• IPhone service and problems begin to unveil.

July

• Michael Dell buys 100mil of his own companies stock and ends up losing money.
• Amazon suffers a S3 outage.

August

• FCC nails Comcast for network Neutrality violations.
• Microsoft showcases Silverlight on the NBC Olympic website in an attempt to enter competition with Adobe Flash.
• IPhone’s recently launched 3g receives complaints.

September

• Google enters the browser marketplace with “Chrome”.
• Microsoft launches a Vista campaign with Jerry Seinfel. It flops.
• Wall street begins to melt, which hurts many tech companies.

October

• Economies worsen which directly impacts tech earnings.
• Yahoo shares continue to dive and Yang looks silly for not taking Microsoft’s earlier offer.

November

• Google Walks away from Yahoo search deal.
• Yang steps down from Yahoo CEO post.
• Verizon unveils the Blackberry Storm, an alleged IPhone killer.
• Barack Obama wins election and adds a U.S. CTO to his cabinet.

December

• IT Expectations are low for 2009.
• Google Chrome leaves beta.

What will find out in 2009? How will Yahoo’s layoffs assist with restructuring?  Does Sun have a future? What are Microsoft’s plans?

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Too many developers focus on increasing traffic, when conversion (gaining customers) should be getting as much, if not even more, focus. Michelle Howe of Internet Word Magic has an excellent view on how to address this issue.

The average internet site has only a three percent conversion. In other words, out of 100 people who come to your internet site, only 3 will make a purchase. So the challenge is how to get those other 97 people to make a purchase and increase your conversion rate.

Just getting internet site traffic is not enough; they need to buy, or at least make contact through an e-mail or phone call.

Relate to Your Customer

Your homepage should immediately start building rapport with your visitors. Make sure it is very clear who you are, what you do and why they should do business with you.

Think about what you need to do to start a conversation with your customer. What are the buying habits of your customers? What language is being used in the searches to find your internet site?

Align yourself with your customer so that you are looking out for their best interests. Think of ways you can improve their buying experience on your internet site by using words that are familiar to your customer. Give them enough information so that it is easy to make a decision to do business with you.

Build Customer Relationships
Let your potential customers know that you understand their problems and that you have a solution to their problems. One effective way to do this is to put testimonials on your internet site Make them feel that you can be trusted by posting testimonials from other satisfied customers. You can tell them how great your product or service is and how it is the right choice, but why believe you? It’s better to have the positive statements coming from someone who has successfully done business with you.

Don’t you tell people how you solve their problems; let someone else tell the story. Testimonials are powerful and necessary to a successful Internet Presence / Presentation. Testimonials not only say you can do the job, but they say how well you can do the job. And they are so much more believable than you trying to promote yourself. Let others speak for you.

Include testimonials throughout your Internet site. Don’t make the mistake of having one page just for testimonials. Rarely will someone click to a testimonials page and read the whole thing. So, you are in essence wasting your time and resources with a testimonials page.

Instead, sprinkle testimonials wherever you think they might help convince your audience that what you are saying is true. Back up your statements with testimonials and you start building relationships with your readers.

Make It Easy to Find Information
The navigation on a internet site can make or break a site. You can have the best content in the world, but if readers can’t find what they are looking for, they will leave.

Use simple, descriptive headings and subheadings to direct visitors throughout your Internet site. Put keywords in the headings and subheadings so that the search engines have an easier time indexing your pages.

Think about the problems you solve for your readers and make sure you offer solutions to those problems. Remember, people are searching for information and solutions to their problems.

The easier you make it for them to find information, the more likely you will be able to entice the visitor to stay awhile.
And, the longer they stay, the more likely you will gain a customer.

Conclusion
More than ever, in these bad economic times, companies need to improve communication with customers to increase website conversion. Making sales on a website is more than generating traffic. To increase the conversion rate, consider relating to your customer with easy-to understand language, build your customer relationships through testimonials and make the website navigation easy to find information.

Posted by Paul under All Content & Internet Marketing | No Comments »