What is Cash Flow?

Your business, like any other (and even if you are a freelancer without an official limited company) takes money in in return for work, and spends money out in expenses, wages and so on. The money that comes in is based on the work you have completed, but more often than not there is a delay between finishing the work and being paid for it.

If the money isn't in the business to pay expenses and wages, you may find yourself out of business - even if you have taken on as much work as you could handle. You can be profitable on paper, but out of cash and out of business, just because cash wasn't coming in quickly enough. Having enough cash to pay your bills is referred to as being "liquid".

Woohoo! You Got a Gig!

Well done! Convincing somebody that you are the right person to take on a paid job is the first step on the road to successful freelancing. Now, what does that mean in terms of cash flow?

Most people will look at a project, and will base their forecasts on something like this. We'll assume this job is estimated to take one month - a good sized job, and starts on January 1st. The job finishes on time on February 1st, and the invoice is sent immediately. The client pays in good time, and the money is received on March 1st. Based on this, a freelancer just starting out will only need to cope for two months with no income - achievable with minimal savings.

This would be lovely, but it's often not how things work in practice. Let's look at how cash flow can go wrong. To begin with, we'll assume this project runs long for some reason - although the bulk of the work was complete in one month, the client finishes their copy after two months, and once the copy is in they request a few changes. The job is eventually signed off in mid-March. With 30 day terms, the invoice is due in mid-April. And the client pays late - initially because they didn't receive the invoice, and then because they were just slow to pay. After a few weeks of chasing, money arrives in late May.

Four, nearly five, months, from the project being agreed to money being received. That means, assuming this was your first gig, and you had two months of income saved up at the start, you'd be looking at surviving over two extra months with no income. For most people, surviving with no income isn't an option. So you're left with two choices - take out a loan, or give up and take a salary at a company. Neither is a great start to your freelancing career!

How Many People Pay Late

I've been asked several times how many invoices are paid late, or how many clients pay late. Unfortunately, there's no right answer. Some people go for years with no late payments. Some have a particularly bad period where everybody pays late.

In my experience so far, around:

• 25% of clients pay invoices a week or more early (deposits especially)
• 50% pay in the few days before the invoice due date
• 20% pay within a couple of weeks after the due date
• 5% pay later than a couple of weeks after the due date

My latest payment was three months overdue when paid. The fastest payment was under an hour.

How to Keep Your Cash Flowing

There are three ways (other than reducing your business expenses) to keeping your cash flow from being a problem:

1. Make It Easy to Pay On Time
2. Chase Late Payments
3. Reducing the Impact of Late or Non Payers

Make It Easy to Pay On Time

Paying other people money is not something people look forward to. There is a financial incentive to delaying payment as long as possible (interest earned), and it might be sensible to keep money within your company as long as possible, in case a more important bill suddenly needs paying. With that in mind, it makes sense to make it as easy as possible for people to pay on time.

Bill in stages for large projects so you're not left with a single large payment outstanding at the end. Billing at the end of each month for work completed during the month is a good way to manage long projects. And it gives smaller invoices for your client to cope with. Paying a set of small invoices over time is easier on their cash flow than paying one large invoice.

Once an invoice is sent, chase it up within a few days to make sure it has been received. It is not unknown for unscrupulous people to claim to have never received an invoice to avoid paying for another few weeks. Confirming receipt of the invoice gives one less excuse for a payment to be late.

Many people incentivise or reward quick payment. Some people give a percentage discount if payment is received within a set number of days, for example. People's experiences with this are varied, but this post by Astrid, a freelance translator matches what I have heard from other freelancers - it may work for you and your clients, but there are risks.

Make sure you accept as many payment options as is practical. If your client finds it easiest to pay by cheque, that's fine. It might not be your preferred method, but if it means they pay on time, then let them do it. By the same token, if someone offers to pay early, always accept. There's nothing stopping you charging more later if needed, or refunding money if the project is under budget, but always opt to take the money when it's offered.

Chase Late Payments

This video, from Mike Monteiro and San Francisco Creative Mornings, offers one (NSFW, language) perspective:

Chasing overdue payments can be time-consuming and stressful, but it is inevitable. Everybody handles it differently, and there is a lot to consider.

First, establish whether this is a client you want to do business with in future. Some businesses have cash flow problems themselves, but that doesn't mean they can't be a valuable client later. On the other hand, if the project has not been great for either party, you might not want to work with them again.

Some people advocate contact every day once a payment is late, ideally by phone. I tend to adopt a slightly less aggressive approach - I send a chasing email once a payment goes late, and then chase regularly every few days from there by email and phone. If I don't hear back, I will continue to keep contacting until I do. If I do hear back, then the next stages are dependent upon the client response. If not, and it's been a few weeks, I'll send recorded delivery post, and if necessary begin the paperwork for small claims court.

If the client is in contact, that's a good sign. You need to start worrying when they're avoiding you - the fact they're speaking to you indicates that they are likely to be willing to pay. Try to work out why the payment is late, if possible. If the client is having cash flow problems, you are probably not the only person chasing them, and you may find that offering a payment schedule is the best way to get the bill resolved. This kind of friendly approach may win you loyalty from your customer, and you might find that, once they are over this particular tough patch, they are a great client.

Some companies will tell you they have "45 day payment terms" or "60 day payment terms". You should have your payment terms clearly outlined in your proposals, your contracts and your invoices - and the terms they would like to pay on are irrelevant - the terms agreed in proposals and invoices are what matters. If they pay late, by the terms agreed, you can chase payment and, if appropriate, invoke penalty charges or clauses. If you didn't agree payment terms before starting, you're pretty much stuck with their standard policy.

If the client is refusing to pay, and you have delivered what was agreed, your position is tougher. At this point, you first need to establish whether it is worth chasing payment at all. There is no sense wasting days of time if there is only a small amount owed.

If you have tried to resolve the issue and got nowhere, look at your legal options. In the UK, for amounts under £10k, you can use the small claims court, which is a great, cheap option (no lawyer required) (there's a great guide to using the small claims court here). As long as you can demonstrate you have delivered what was agreed, and that you have tried to resolve the issue without resorting to court, you will likely find the court siding with you.

Unfortunately, that isn't the end of the story. The judge may not award you the full amount you have asked for. The client may still be unable to pay. And the client may still refuse to pay, at which point you will need to obtain a warrant of execution to recover goods to the value of the money owed. Between this, the initial court fees, and the time involved in chasing, you can easily end up out of pocket even if you win.

Reducing the Impact of Late or Non Payers

Some people won't pay. Some people will pay late. Some will delay for months over trivial amounts of money. Some will attempt to find excuses not to pay. These are unavoidable, but there is plenty you can do to ensure that any damage caused by late payments is kept to a minimum.

Consider getting a credit report on clients before starting work. Many people do this as standard, and pay a flat fee for the ability to do so. It's not something I've done so far, but I would do it for a client where a failed payment meant the end of my business.

Make sure you have enough cash reserves to cope with a few months of waiting. Expect people to pay late and prepare for it. If you only have enough cash reserves to cope with one payment being a week or two late, you don't have enough cash reserves. Make it a priority to build up enough of a cushion to cope with as much as you are comfortable with. Enough money to cope with at least three months with no income would be sensible.

Always ask for a deposit before starting work. I usually ask for 30%-50% in advance, except for small projects or overseas projects, where I ask for full payment in advance. This weeds out the time-wasters pretty quickly. You will find that sometimes there is a lot of pressure to start a job before the deposit is paid, and it is up to you to decide whether to do so. I have done, for time-sensitive projects, but try not to unless unavoidable. If the deposit invoice goes overdue, you may have a serious problem - I won't continue a project until that deposit is paid, and would happily insist on a further deposit also being paid in that situation. And if the client ultimately doesn't pay their final invoice on time, or at all, then you are not left having earned nothing for the work.

Add a provision for penalty charges for late payments to your estimates, contracts and invoices. Even if you never actually charge it, it is a good bargaining tool once a payment is late. The penalty charge should include a percentage fee charged on a regular basis, so that the longer the money is owed, the more the penalty. Charging a single, fixed-price penalty is only of limited use, as once it is applied there is nothing to stop the payment being delayed even further.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you can spread your risk by taking smaller jobs with more clients. If you have just one client, you're at much greater risk if they have trouble. If you have several, you should be able to cope better with one or two paying late (or not at all).

My approach to this last point is to differentiate between projects (work which is more than 2 days) from small jobs and maintenance work. I book in project work based on a three day week (so a 15 day project is delivered over 5 weeks). The other two days I can spend on the smaller pieces of work or my own projects. This means that even with a larger project I am still billing smaller jobs frequently. As a result of this I can also cope better with projects taking longer than expected, as I can have two projects on the go at the same time - something I couldn't do if I based projects on a five day week.

Back to Michael

Michael's comment was pretty typical of the fears most freelancers have about getting started. The beginning is stressful, and with no guarantees of rewards. But with some decent planning, a bit of hard work and some careful money management, it's all quite manageable. And while I can't speak for everyone, for me it's been worth it in every meaningful way - six months in I am happier, financially better off, working with interesting clients on interesting projects, and able to spend more time with my family, all at the same time.

Your conversion rate is a measure of the number of potential customers that go on to buy. In the context of a website, it is usually the percentage of visitors that make a purchase. Many websites concentrate solely on increasing the number of visitors they have, when often they have fairly simple problems with their site that, if solved, would have a huge effect on their conversion rate and improve their site's bottom line at minimal expense.

Improving a website conversion rate can be relatively simple. Here are 10 techniques for doing just that:

10. Make The User's Life Easy

Let's start with something that sounds simple, but apparently is too complex for many companies to get right. The more difficult you make your web site to use, the less people will buy from you.

A well designed website should aim to prevent nobody from buying - to allow 100% of the people who want to buy to do so. So where do they go wrong?

• Accessibility
  Making a site accessible is a legal obligation in many countries. Despite that, inaccessible websites are still being created. That can affect your sales, depending on how inaccessible you are, as visitors find the site impossible to use and go elsewhere (and end up recommending one of your competitors to their friends as well). A fairly typical inaccessible site could be losing 5% of potential sales because of this. (A really inaccessible website could even prevent search engines indexing it, giving a far higher amount of potential lost sales.)  
• Browsers
  Many designers only pay attention to Internet Explorer. The justification for this is usually that 99% of the site's users use IE. It never seems to occur to the designers that perhaps the reason they have so few visitors with other browsers is that their site is fundamentally broken - it doesn't work in anything else. Percentages of people not using IE varies from site to site - over 60% of visitors to this site use an alternative browser, for example. The number most often quoted though, is that 80-85% of web users are using IE on Windows, which means that an average site that doesn't work in anything else could easily be losing 15-20% of sales.  
• Be Bold!
  What happens when a user decides to buy a product? They add it to a shopping basket. How do they add it? They click a button or link (usually a button). What happens when they can't see the button? They go elsewhere. There are some users who are still uncomfortable scrolling. Having things above the fold is still important. And yet there are still plenty of sites out there with buttons that are too subtle, or don't say the right thing, or are hidden away at the bottom of the page. "Add" is rubbish button text. "Buy" is ok. "Add xxx To Your Basket" is great. "Add xxx to Your Basket" in big letters on a big, bright button, near the top of the page, is even better. Calls to action, like this, don't have to be gaudy or tasteless, but they do have to be obvious and clear. Sites I have worked on where just the call to action was changed have reported anything from a 1% to 30% increase in sales as a result.  
• Usability
  If your potential customers want to find out more before they buy, can they? Is it obvious to the user where to go to find the technical specs on your products? Are they online at all? Are they in PDF format? Can users even find your products in the first place? This is probably the most common mistake I see on any website - a complete failure to think of what the user wants and needs, and how they might use a site. Plenty of sites have product pages with a photo and some sales patter - and nothing else. Anything from 1% to 99% of potential sales can be lost through poor usability.

When you combine all of the problems above, it becomes fairly clear how easy it is to have a site perform poorly. Make your site accessible, make sure it is usable, make sure it works in common browsers, and make your calls to action clear and unambiguous, and you should be in a position to start converting the people who want to buy.

9. Be Clear, Open and Honest

If you have a product out of stock, say so. Few things annoy users as much as reading all about a product they are after, adding it to a cart, and starting the checkout process - only to find out the product isn't actually available.

The same applies to pricing - a user might spend $100 on a product, but when they find out the shipping is $100 on top of that, they are unlikely to continue the sale. Showing delivery pricing is tricky business, but not impossible. An Ip to Country database will allow you to work out where a user is from and show them a likely delivery cost, for example. If you can't do that, show delivery prices for the countries most appropriate to you - where your products are most often delivered, or for major world regions.

8. Don't Waste Time

One of the biggest mistakes sites make is asking for too much information. Your conversion process may be sale, or it may be a request for information. Either way, don't waste the user's time asking for things you don't need to know. This is, of course, doubly important when it comes to asking for information the user deems private, and that they don't want to give out without good reason.

You don't need to demand the user's email address before letting them download a PDF. You don't need their phone number when they fill out an email enquiry form. A user may not want to buy from you twice - so why make them create an account so they can buy again later before processing their first order? You can give the user the option to do all of these things by all means, but make sure it's not compulsory.

7. Help The User Trust You

Most people are still cautious when buying online, and rightly so. There are plenty of people you really shouldn't give your credit card information to! It's important to give the potential customer every reason to trust you.

An address - bricks and mortar, not a P.O. Box - is a good start. A phone number, with people answering the phone, also helps. Showing a privacy policy and explaining shipping procedures clearly can also help the user to trust you. If you have a SSL certificate, show the "VeriSign Secured" logo to the user.

Design and content also play a part in trust. A poor design gives off an unprofessional feeling. If a company can't afford a decent website, or won't spend the money on it, how can a user be sure their order will be treated with the importance it deserves? If content is inaccurate or badly written, the same applies - show that you take pride in what you do.

6. Have a Clear Returns Policy

Returns on the web are, and are likely to remain, a major issue for consumers. With a bricks and mortar shop, the customer knows where the shop is and that to return the product they simply have to go back there and explain the problem. With the web, this is more of an issue. This is especially true for clothing (where people cannot try things on before buying).

Users are impressed with sites with a good returns policy and are more likely to buy from them. Have people phone for returns - they can then explain the problem to a real person, which is always a good first step. Free return shipping is usually a good option, if commercially viable. People don't like to pay to return things, especially if it is a mistake by the retailer. Finally, give the user plenty of time to return things. 28 days is fairly common, but if it takes you that long to deliver a product, what use is the return policy? 28 days from the date of delivery is better.

5. Keep the User Informed

When somebody buys something online, they want to know when it's going to arrive at their door. People are impatient, after all. Giving them an estimated delivery date during the checkout process is a good start. Emailing them when their product is dispatched is great. Giving them a tracking number if using a delivery service that supports online tracking is even better. Keep the user informed at every step of the process, before and after sale, about as much as you can.

How will this improve your conversion rate? Leaving the customer happy once they have made a sale means they are more likely to speak favourably about you later. They may even recommend you to their friends and within online communities. They are also far more likely to buy from you again.

Think about it like this - if a salesman is doing their absolute best to help you, and to make your life easy, and answering your questions, you might buy what they were selling. If they completely ignored you after you'd bought from them, how would you feel about them? They might well have undone all the good work they put in, because once you'd completed your purchase they see no immediate value in you. A company that shows it cares about their customers, even after they've finished shopping, will make a user far happier and far more likely to return.

4. Offer Different Payment Options

It might sound obvious, but you should offer the user a reasonable selection of methods of payment. Not everybody has a credit card, and those that do don't always want to use them. You don't have to accept cheques, but when deciding on payment methods, consider alternatives to the usual methods. Make the user's life easy and give them what they want.

3. Improve the Value of Visitors

People that buy from you are doing so because they like what it is they see. If a user adds a product to a basket, show them other things they might like as well. If they are viewing a product, the same applies - show them similar items. While they might not buy the product they first saw, other similar ones may not have issues that put them off the first. Upselling and cross-selling are tried and tested sales techniques, and there is no reason not to use them on the web.

2. Be Memorable

A good site will include information. A poor one is just an online catalogue. Information (articles, advice, reviews and so on) all help the user early in their buying process. Users start with research online, just as they do offline. If you can make contact with the user at that stage of their process, and give a favourable impression, there is a good chance that they will come back and buy from you when they finally decide to make a purchase.

Being memorable, and making sure you stick in the user's mind, is dependant on a lot of factors. You must have a USP (see the next point), and branding is important (no good if your visitors remember why you are great but don't remember your name), as well as the quality of your site and information.

1. Know Your USP

Finally, the most important point of all - your Unique Selling Point (USP). Your USP is what sets you apart from your competition. If a visitor goes to several sites looking for a product, why would they decide to buy from you instead of somewhere else?

Many companies do not know their USP. Almost all companies have one, but not all of them are aware of it. If you are a family run business, that's a potential USP. Great customer service, low prices, products that can't be bought elsewhere, free delivery, great support - all of these are USPs. Tell your users what yours is. Shout it from the proverbial rooftops.

Part 2

In March 2009, part 2 of this series was added: Nine More Tips for Improving Your Website Conversion Rate.

Bonus!

One excellent (and practical) way to increase your website conversion rate is to add consumer reviews to your store. They are a proven way to increase sales, and they have an excellent positive effect on your search engine optimisation work. A service like FeedbackFair will give your reviews extra credibility.

It is amazing how many people hire online marketers without the faintest idea of what online marketers actually do. Search engine optimisation (SEO) is fairly simple - SEOs will try and improve your site's performance, usually by trying to leverage their knowledge of how search engines work and tricks they can use to make sites seem more relevant than they actually are to specific keywords.

Marketing online, though, need not have anything to do with search engines. Search engines are irrelevant - good positions and traffic are a by-product of effective online marketing.

Unfortunately, after educating a client on what online marketing is, they usually assume that if they pay you a few hundred pounds, you can make their site compete with the very best out there.

• Client:
  'Ok, I see. Great positions aren't necessarily worth much unless there are customers searching for those keywords.'
• Me:
  'Right. We want high traffic, but not if it's not going to be bad for your bottom line. Traffic that doesn't convert to sales just costs you money. Same applies for phrases people never search for. No point being number one for the phrase "fish banana druid" - it's likely to get you as many customers as peeing on people that walk past your shop will.'
• Client:
  'Ok, so if I pay you, say, £300, how long before I'm at number one for this list of relevant phrases?'
• Me:
  'You wouldn't get in a boxing ring with Joe Calzhaghe after jogging a couple of miles and doing a few push-ups, would you?'
• Client:
  'Well, no.'
• Me:
  'Exactly. To compete with the big dogs, you need to think bigger. Your site is a 10 stone weakling at the moment, and the aim is to turn it into a champion. It needs to be Rocky Balboa. You won't get the top spots quickly - this takes time and hard work. And it's not cheap.'

People are obsessed with money. Absolutely obsessed. Even more so in a company environment. The chances are the most of the time, the person you are talking to at a client (or potential client) company is not the top dog. They have to justify their decisions, and they certainly have to justify what they spend.

The problem is that the way most people look at SEO (and they are thinking SEO, not marketing - it's up to you to show them the difference) is that they're going to pay a certain amount of money for the top spots for certain keywords. You can guarantee they've been told another company will guarantee 10 number 1 positions for $50.

This is where ROI comes into play. ROI stands for "Return on Investment". Paying $50 for a $0 return is a bad idea - but people do it all the time, because it's cheap. Paying $5,000 for a $50,000 return is a great idea - but people gasp at the very idea they could spend that much in the beginning, despite the potential.

In order to measure a return, you need to use tracking. If you're focussed on natural search, measure natural search traffic. See how many people come to the site, and where from. See where they go in the site. See if they view products, add them to a basket, and complete sales. See if they view products then come back weeks later to buy them. Measure that over time and you can tell a client exactly what effect your marketing campaign is having - and you will be able to show them what they are getting for their money. Usually, telling a client you are going to do this will also put their mind at ease - much easier to spend money on someone when that person tells you how they're going to measure their success. Most companies involved in SEO and online marketing focus on positions, not results.

• Client:
  'That's good to know. If I can see what's going on, I can give hard numbers to my boss. I'd rather tell him we have 10% more visitors and 20% more sales than tell him we're in top positions for our target phrases but traffic has gone down.'
• Me:
  'Woohoo! You've taken your first step into a larger world.'

The other thing to bear in mind with money conversations is that most companies think of their site like a brochure. They think of it as a print-like cost, where they pay a fixed sum and that's it. They put the site up, leave it, and expect results. They should be thinking of a site like a salesman. A salesman that never sleeps, rarely gets ill, and can handle virtually unlimited enquiries. As such, they should be thinking of the money they spend more like a wage.

• Client:
  'We're spending $200 a month on our site now for hosting. Are you saying we should be spending a lot more?'
• Me:
  'What would you pay a salesman with the figures your site has, ignoring PPC?'
• Client:
  'Probably $3000 a month.'
• Me:
  'Then that's what you should be spending on the site. As the figures get better, spend a little more. Remember that that needs to include redesigns, hosting and other costs.'

(Note: PPC is something of a difficult subject to bring in to a monthly spend on a site. You should have a monthly spend on PPC, but it should be managed as a separate entity.)

The same traffic you are monitoring to see where site visitors are coming from and what they are doing when they reach the site can also give you some good places to start making changes. Break the traffic down by area, by language, by time of day (user time of day, not server time of day), and track who converts to a sale and who doesn't. Track people through the sales process, and watch which links they click to navigate and buy products.

This will tell you a huge amount about the current users of the site. It will show you quick wins, opportunities, and highlight problems. Forget search - if on your first day marketing a website you can spot that there is a problem with the site checkout process and get it fixed, you could double sales from existing users. That's a good start to any campaign.

Look at language and area closely as well. If a site is getting traffic from the US, but only sells to the UK, look at similar companies only serving the US and strike a deal with them. You direct US traffic to them, they direct UK traffic to you, and you both do slightly better.

Check browser usage stats, especially if the site is a tables-based dinosaur. The chances are that it is an inaccessible mess. Get it cleaned up! Semantic markup is key - it allows user agents (browsers, search engine spiders, screen readers) to attach specific meaning to different areas of a page. Unlike with tables, semantic markup allows you to differentiate between a header and normal content, or to identify an address. Accessible coding is likely to draw attention, and should help you retain a higher percentage of your visitors, and should help reduce the running costs of your website (lower bandwidth bills and quicker turnarounds on redesigns, for example, both save you money).

• Client:
  'I don't care about different browsers though - they only make up 1% of my traffic. Everyone else uses Internet Explorer'
• Me:
  'Perhaps it is because your site doesn't work in other browsers that that number is so low. Even if you do have 99% of users on the same system, the other 1% is still important. Techies use different browsers and operating systems. Techies are also often the people who are asked by their families if they know a good site to buy something from. Many directory editors are in the same boat, and techies can create links to your site.'
• Client:
  'Ok, techies are important. But do I need to care about blind users and all that accessibility stuff?'
• Me:
  'Yes, of course. It's a legal obligation for one thing, but users with sight problems make up a far larger proportion of your audience than you might think. They have a voice too - and it's far harder to undo the damage some adverse publicity can do than it is to make a site work properly in the first place. Finally, search engine spiders are blind users with no JavaScript support.'

Dynamic sites are slightly trickier to improve. Most of the time, they are restricted, with the original authors not allowing access to the website code. Even if access to the code is allowed, changes may be overwritten later or worse cause immediate problems on the site. That said, making a site easier to use is important, and often dynamic sites are not easy to use.

Look at the pages users visit in the site, and how they get there. Look at the products they buy and spot themes. Use that information to make the important sections and products easier to find and organise. For example, if listing products, don't make people click through 4 levels of navigation to find them - improve the product navigation. Once they get there, allow them to reorder the page according to what they consider important, be that name, price, manufacturer - whatever is possible.

Remember also that people like to tell other people about things they find. If a user likes something on your site, they may email the address of the page they are on to a friend. Most people use forms to set the ordering criteria of a page. That means that the user will be sending a friend a URL that will show that friend something different to what the user currently sees. Make life easy for your users - use URLs, not forms, wherever possible in a site.

• Client:
  'I am curious about one thing. We're already really well ranked for the name of our main product, and lots of people search for it. The people that visit our site tend to buy the product. But I can't help feeling that there should be more people coming from the engines. Any ideas?'
• Me:
  'Yes. The Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool', capitalising my speech for no good reason, 'shows that millions of people search for that phrase. I can see you have a top spot. And your traffic is surprisingly low, but converting well.'
• Client:
  'So I'm not imagining it then - we have a problem?'
• Me:
  'Yes, we do. When a user looks at search results, they scan the first two or three words of each link. Your link says "Arthur Jackson Ltd. Sheds and other garden products." That comes from your page title.'
• Client:
  'And that's bad?'
• Me:
  'Most people will only glance at "Arthur Jackson Ltd". You need to show them, in the first two or three words of your page title, that you have what they are looking for. And you're not doing that. The user has no reason to click on your link ahead of all the others they see.'

Titles are tricky. They're important to the user, they provide the text for bookmarks, they appear in search results, and search engines use them as part of ranking algorithms. You need for fit branding into a title, and describe a product, ideally also incorporating a call to action. Tricky stuff. But not impossible.

First, consider the brand. Most companies think their company name should be the first thing in a page title, even if the rest is unique for each page (as it should be). However, unless the company has a household brand name, the company name is irrelevant to the searcher. They're looking for a product (or the answer to a question), so show them you have it.

Next, remember that as titles are used as the text for bookmarks, links and appear in search engines, they should, when taken out of context, by themselves, leave no doubt what a page is about.

A good example of a title is:

• "Norwegian Blue Parrot - Buy Norwegian Blue Parrots from Mr. Praline's Pet Shop".

You've included the all-important product name twice in the title, along with a call to action, a hefty dose of branding, and not added irrelevant information. It's a title that tells the user straight away what the page is about. No messing around.

• Client:
  'Ok, the titles need sorting, but what about the content of the site? I keep hearing that "Content is King".'
• Me:
  'Content is, ultimately, King. Sites with lots of great content will, over a decent time period, far outperform sites with no original content. But content doesn't just have to be on site ...'

Product is important. The object you sell though is only half of the picture. A user will want support from you. They will want information. They may want news. All of this is part and parcel of the package a company offers. Your site needs good, visible support (including a phone number), as well as plenty of good, original information. Guides to products, online manuals, FAQs, advice - there are always areas, in any industry, where content can be added.

Content need not be solely posted on the website either. Big news should be released as a press release, and there are plenty of services that will distribute press releases for you. These will be reproduced all over the web, allowing more and more people to hear of the company. Most press release services will allow you to embed a link to a site in a press release, generating more direct traffic as well.

When writing content, or advising on the writing of content, remember that it is not about keywords. Sure, keywords are important, but there is more to it than simply stuffing as many keywords into text as possible. Content needs to answer questions - to provide information. It needs to give a user what they are looking for, and they need to feel that it has done that. Content that is written for SEO can read very badly with too many keywords in, and can mean that although more people see an article, most of them leave the site straight away to find a better one.

A good way to add content to a site is a blog, or a news section. Aside from adding plenty of information, this gives a great opportunity to connect with the user. Consumers are constantly being targeted, from every angle, by companies anxious to take their money. Sometimes they get trodden on. When adding content to your site, stay on the side of the average consumer. Recently, in the UK, the energy companies all raised their prices dramatically. Sites that allow users to compare fuel prices almost all missed a great opportunity to have themselves noticed - not one of them posted a decent news item denouncing the changes as unnecessary or over the top. They all simply commented on the change factually.

While on the one hand, some of these companies may be unable to comment in this fashion (and many companies have strict policies regarding neutrality and customer perception), at least one should have been able to stand out by taking a clear, customer-supporting position on the issue. That is the kind of thing that gets companies noticed and remembered, and spotting opportunities like that is key to a good marketing strategy.

Not all content need be inflammatory of course. It does need to be unique in some way, however. It can be controversial, but it could also be definitive - the ultimate and complete guide to a topic. Controversial content is interesting to the user, and definitive content is just plain useful - either makes for good content for any website.

Users go through different stages when buying products, and one of the early ones is a research stage. There is always a good chance that a user will come back to the same place that helped them or impressed them when they were doing research to buy what they were looking for. This is branding - associating specific ideas and feelings with your company. You want your users, when they revisit the web to make a purchase, to think of your company first.

Which brings us nicely to our last, and most important point. Why would a customer think of any company first, ahead of any other. Content will help, yes. A nice design might even make a difference. More than anything else, though, customers pay attention to the company that stands out from the crowd - the company that is different, that offers them something nobody else does. Often known as a Unique Selling Point, or USP, this is the thing that makes you memorable, or if ignored helps you blend into the crowd.

• Client:
  'But we don't have a USP. How do we get one?'
• Me:
  'Well, hang on one minute. You say you don't have a USP, but is there nothing about your product that makes it better than the alternatives?'
• Client:
  'Well, we sell Norwegian Blue Parrots. They're all the same, really. Although a rather large proportion of our competitors appear to sell mostly dead ones.'
• Me:
  'There you go then. Your USP is that your product is, in fact, not dead.'
• Client:
  'By that reasoning, a USP could be almost anything, when put in the right light. And when did we turn into a Monty Python sketch?'
• Me:
  'Be quiet about the Monty Python thing. Yes, though, a USP can be virtually anything. It can be quicker delivery than competitors, better products, better customer service, a freephone enquiries number, or simply the people that run the business. Almost every business has a USP - although most of them don't know what it is.'

Many businesses don't know their own USP. They can't tell you, when you ask, what makes them different. Many of them will just say "because we're better than the others", but can't explain why. Usually, however, a quick chat will reveal what makes them stand out. Whatever the USP is, it needs to be clear and obvious on the website. The customer can't miss it, because if they don't know what makes one business different from another, they're not going to remember it.

• Client:
  'What about search? You've not told me how to get my site to the top of the search engines!'
• Me:
  'Let's review, shall we. You've changed your site substantially, so that it meets current standards and you can sell to more of your users. You're showing your clients why you are better than your competition. You've started releasing press releases, and adding content to your site. You're championing the cause of the common man, increasing link numbers and getting people talking about your business. And you know how your users find your site, and what they do when they get there.'
• Client:
  'And?'
• Me:
  'You're positioning yourself as a great resource for your market. Your search engine rankings will come as a direct result of everything else you are doing. You're going to perform well in search, as a direct result of good marketing.'
• Client:
  'I'll get my chequebook.' (Hah. As if.)