This document provides steps for creating an effective website to generate leads and sales. It discusses: 1. Understanding that people are busy and distracted, so websites need a clear "banana" or call to action to attract attention. 2. Researching what problems people search for online related to the business's products or services. 3. Creating targeted landing pages that present the solution to the specific problem and prominently feature calls to action like "Get a Quote" buttons. 4. Testing and optimizing the site by measuring conversions and tweaking the design and content.

2. Table of Contents
Noisy, busy, distracted! 5
Go and do a Google search for anything.! 6
And here's you.! 6
Your website needs a banana !! 7
So, what just happened here ?! 8
But let's consider a normal business website.! 8
Once Upon a Carpet Bomb! 9
People have problems! 10
Why did I buy them?! 10
People have problems. Problems need solved.! 11
Not convinced ?! 11
Whose problem do you solve?! 12
You have a solution don't you ?! 13
So let's introduce a company who sell travel insurance.! 13
2

3. He breaks his solution, travel insurance, down.! 14
Sorry, that seat is taken! 15
I know you've had that phone call.! 15
Getting on the bus too early! 16
The rise of social media! 16
Step 1 - What are people searching for ?! 17
This is what he wants to figure out! 17
Step 2 - The banana! 19
Step 3 - Dangle the carrot on a website ?! 21
Wireframing it ! 23
Moment of truth! 25
It's our job to get as many people to complete that web form.! 25
Step 4 - Pretty pictures sell! 27
Before and After! 27
Step 5 - Building it ! 28
3

4. Step 6 - Measure it ! 29
Tweak It! 30
The Funnel! 31
Step 7 - Scale it up! 32
Example 1 - United Sports USA! 35
Example 2 - Earlsfield! 36
Things don't always go to plan! 37
Summary. 1000 piece jigsaw, no lid! 39
You must understand the fundamentals of business.! 40
About the author! 41
Further Reading! 42
4

5. Noisy, busy, distracted
Have you ever seen an 11 year kid use a computer or a smartphone ? My son is 11 years old and it's a
frightening experience sitting next to him as he crashes his way through the levels of an iPad game,
flicking over to YouTube to find the videos tips then dropping the iPad on the sofa to IM (instant
message) his friends on his Blackberry.
Or have you ever been in a restaurant or bar where lots of people have their smartphone out
constantly checking their Facebook comments, texting, tweeting and then coming up for breath for a
drink ?
This is the way of the world today. People are busy and distracted. They want things to happen in an
instant. If they don't get what they want, they hit the back button and leave your website.
5

6. Go and do a Google search for anything.
There's 40 million results for everything. Follow a current topic via a hashtag on Twitter and you see
thousands of people making comments and adding more and more noise to the already cluttered
digital space.
And here's you.
The business man or the web person trying to generate some business via a website or the internet.
What's an honest bloke gotta do to cut through all the clutter and get some interest or sales for his
business ?
This book attempts to help you find a way to generate interest and enquiries via the internet for your
business. It's based on my 20 years working in marketing and sales and the experience taken from the
last 50 websites I've built under the Platonik name.
6

7. Your website needs a banana !
It's my son's birthday party this week, so his mum asks me to find the discount vouchers or promotions
from Frankie and Bennyʼs restaurant. So I go to their website and bang, smack in the middle, is their
20% off your meal offer.
This is exactly what I wanted. So
immediately I fill out the form and get the
voucher; which I print off.
In fact this restaurant group even have
an iPhone and Android app so you can
show the offers on your smartphone at
the restaurant.
7

8. So, what just happened here ?
If I were a horse standing still and the restaurant, 10 paces in front of me, held out an apple, I'd walk
towards that apple.
If I were a tiny mouse, like Tom in the Tom and Jerry cartoon, peering out my little cut-out door in the
wall and you put cheese at the other end of the room, damn sure I'd start making moves on that
cheese.
Seth Godin uses the monkey and banana story in his book, the Big Red Fez, to explain that a monkey
would climb over a wall and through a bath of Jell-O to reach the banana.
Yes, perhaps it's a bit crude to think of people like animals who respond to bait like these animals do.
But let's consider a normal business website.
It gets a 700 visitors in a month, mainly from people looking for a product. 90 of them get to the fill in a
contact page but only 20 of them complete the web form.
So for every 100 people visiting this website, only 3 take any action. In internet terms today, that's
actually a respectable ratio. But there's no banana to entice more of these people to take immediate
action.
8

9. Once Upon a Carpet Bomb
I graduated in marketing from Stirling University in 1990 walking out with a bit of paper that said I could
memorise marketing books and pass exams. But it wasn't until I worked for a telecommunications
company where marketing and sales really worked in tandem and made sense for me.
We called some of our monthly marketing activity "carpet bombing". We would select a geographic
area, buy a postal mailing list, design up an offer and send out 50,000 of them in the mail.
For example, 'Call now and receive free installation worth £149 when you switch to us'.
Or 'Sports Channel free for 3 months, offer ends 30 June, Call Now'.
Every month, we did this. With direct mail, with leaflets dropped through letterboxes, in newspaper
adverts and on billboards. These offers were the apples, banana or cheese designed to provoke
people to take action.
When I was responsible for football sponsorship activity I would invite prospective business customers
to dine and watch football matches in our corporate boxes. Call them bribes or apples, bananas or
cheese but these people took action and we took their business as a result of it.
In both instances we knew who to target, what carrot to dangle in front of them, we knew our cost,
likely response rate and the revenue we would generate.
9

10. People have problems
Have a think about the last purchases you made. There are bound to be some memorable purchases
you made which you can recall the reasons why you made them. Let me describe to you the last few
purchases of mine.
• A Zara jacket and shirt
• A car service and mot
• Cinema tickets to see Star Wars in 3D
• iPhone 4S
Why did I buy them?
• Zara – needed to look good going to a corporate hospitality function.
• Car Service and MOT – I had to. Itʼs the law. I donʼt want pulled over by the police.
• Cinema tickets – I needed something to do with my son on Friday night.
• iPhone 4S - so I can project the iPhone screen onto my Mac to give App demonstrations without jail
baiting my phone. Thereʼs only one App and only the 4S that can do that.
Notice that in every single instance there is a problem involved. If I didnʼt get my car serviced, I would
get in trouble.
10

11. People have problems. Problems need solved.
Pure and simple thatʼs why they buy. People may not be able to express the problem they have. They
may not know of the right solution or even how to find the right solution.
There are problems that need solved and products that offer a solution to these problems.
Not convinced ?
Why do you go to your local doctor ? You have a problem with your leg, knee, arm or whatever. You
want it solved.
So whilst I was trained as a marketer to understand why people bought stuff and about product
features and benefits, people really buy to solve their problem.
11

12. Whose problem do you solve?
You have an existing product or service. You've done what you've always done and in a way that
you've always done it. And you figure that if you just put together some web pages about who you are
and what you do, people will simply gravitate to you and all your existing business problems will be
solved with a website ?
Not anymore. There are millions of other people doing what you do, all competing for a share of the
same pie. And your bite of the pie is getting smaller.
12

13. You have a solution don't you ?
So let's introduce a company who sell travel insurance.
They have been selling travel insurance steadily for the past 20 years. But the internet came along and
the big boys who used to spend their money on television advertising have diverted considerable
money to internet marketing and OWN the internet for "travel insurance" searches.
So our insurance man has to think differently. He cannot compete in this general market for insurance.
He has to dig deeper.
13

14. He breaks his solution, travel insurance, down.
• Travel insurance for students
• Travel insurance for over 60's
• Travel insurance whilst pregnant
• Gap year travel insurance.
And so forth.
So now he's starting to think about who would want to travel and why they would need travel
insurance.
And then he casts his mind back a few years and remembers there was the volcanic ash problem in
Europe.
So there's another one "volcanic ash travel insurance"
Our insurance man spends a few more days figuring out who travels and why.
14

15. Sorry, that seat is taken
The phone rings and you answer it. "Hello, this is Blah Blah Blah. We are a company who can save
you money on your gas and electricity bills. Who is your current gas and electricity supplier and how
much do you pay per month ?"
I know you've had that phone call.
Whilst it's a bit intrusive of them to telephone you during dinner, the real issue is that you ALREADY
have your gas and electricity problem solved. It's way too much hassle to consider switching. That seat
is already taken.
No matter what that telephone sales person says to you, 98% of the time people will not take up the
sales personʼs offer to switch supplier and save money.
If the seat is taken, the market has just shrunk by 98%.
15

16. Getting on the bus too early
Imagine you went to Pontefract local market on a Tuesday morning. Thereʼs no one there.
If you did a bit of research it would tell you that 3000 people go to that market to buy and sell things.
But the market only exists on Wednesday and Saturday when buyers and sellers come together. A
market only exists when people show signs of buying and selling.
The rise of social media
Now everyone is connected to friends, family, business contacts primarily sharing what they are doing
with some possibly trying to sell something. The problem, in the main, is that there aren't many signs of
people buying. But I'll come to that later on.
At the turn of the millenium, I worked for a company where I was marketing and selling broadband
internet. At the time the old crackly '56k connect a wire from your computer to your phone line' was
how most people got online. We tried to sell them 10 times faster, always on broadband. It met with
lots of blank stares and rejection by most.
The market was there but people were not ready to buy. Most people just presumed they did not have
an internet connection problem.
16

17. Step 1 - What are people searching for ?
Now, back to our insurance man, who has come up with over 50 different scenarios. Sure, he has 50
different insurance policies, but are enough people actually searching for these types of solutions
online ?
This is what he wants to figure out
• How many people are searching for his stuff?
• How many visits is he likely to get if he's number 1 in Google?
• Can he realistically get to number one and beat the competition?
So, he uses a bit of research software and plugs in the names of his policies; the things he thinks
people might be searching for. And the research comes back and delivers him a list of 700 different
search phrases.
17

18. But he has to filter those 700 search phrase results down. He eliminates search phrases that are too
general and competitive, like travel insurance, and search phrases where there are less than 10
people a month searching. And he filters out the brand names of some competitors as well.
So, his product called travel insurance has now turned into 350 different problems searched over one
and half a million (1,500,000) times a month (in the UK); of which 500k are likely to click to a website
result.
18

19. Step 2 - The banana
Let's face it, insurance is a boring commodity people shop around for and grudge paying for. Insurance
is a necessarily evil but always at the back of our mind is "what if".
So what's the apple, banana or bit of cheese for someone selling insurance ? Let me assure you it is
not an a sales person in a suit turning up on your doorstep with a briefcase.
It's a meerkat. Yes that cute but
annoying little creature in the
television adverts for the insurance
company, Compare the Market.
Take out insurance with these guys
and you get a cuddly Meerkat toy.
After years of raising awareness that
they are the insurance brand of
choice and when you are finally
ready to switch or purchase
insurance, a nice cute little toy is the
apple or banana that's going to
prompt you to take action.
19

20. 20

21. Step 3 - Dangle the carrot on a website ?
Now let's pull all this together and construct a website that can address the thousands of different
problems people search for and convince them to take some action towards your company or
products.
We need to figure out where to dangle the carrot on the website; that bait to prompt them to fill out the
contact form or telephone you.
Someone searches for "over 60s travel insurance"
And they land on the following page.
21

22. So the problem they are looking for is presented
right in front of them. They see a picture of a
couple on holiday and some text about the
policy.
The page says to the website visitor "This is the
right place for me"
We have a telephone number throughout the
website in the top right hand corner. Then we
have two large buttons "Get a Quote" and "Click
here to get a quote".
We also have a Get Quotation link in the middle
of the horizontal navigation; which, upon
reflection, could be displayed more prominently.
One click and they are on the quotation page.
That's fine if you have only one product, but we
have to cater for hundreds and thousands of
different products on this website.
22

23. Wireframing it
Many web companies will start with designing a home page. Not I. My focus is on the call to action, the
apple, the banana or whatever you want to call it.
The telephone number always goes top right hand corner of the website. And since millions of people
now have iPads and iPhone, make sure the website visitor can call you directly when they click the
phone number.
Then we have our Get A Quote and Telephone
Quote buttons on the right side of the product
page.
The right hand side of the page is where
people take action. If you look at any heatmap
studies, you'll see these are the most effective
places to position your call to action.
You will see on subsequent examples, I even
placed the enquiry form on the right hand side
of every page; to save the user one extra click.
Then we build the product copy and information
around this.
23

24. Once I am happy I've done a good selling job on one product, then it's time to think about how to group
all related products together with a left and upper horizontal navigation.
Whilst the items on the left navigation have been altered from the mocked up wireframes, you'll see
them grouped together below as they appear on the live website.
24

25. Moment of truth
There are only 3 things which can happen on this website.
• The person clicks the 'Get A Quotation' button.
• They pick up and telephone.
• They click and go elsewhere or worse, they leave the website.
If you are a Seth Godin reader, this is the Knock Knock e-book in action. So the user has clicked the
'Get a Quotation' button and they are presented with an web form.
It's our job to get as many people to complete that web form.
But not everyone does.
25

26. The form could have too many questions to fill out. It could ask questions irrelevant to this type of
enquiry. The live version of this form asks the user to do 14 things. Could we trim it down ? Absolutely.
If 100 people visited this page, yet only 25 completely filled in the form, you'd want to improve, wouldn't
you ?
26

27. Step 4 - Pretty pictures sell
If you were going on a date, a party or a job interview, you'd want to present yourself in the best
possible way. Some people can dress impeccably well, others either don't have the dress sense or
don't make the effort.
An internet website is no different. Pretty pictures sell. The end user wants to know they are dealing
with a trustworthy and respectable company. I'm not here to sell you on design. Whilst I invest in
working with good designers for all my clients, I'm here to sell you on generating business enquiries
from the internet.
Before and After
27

28. Step 5 - Building it
After I give my designers the wireframes, which they "paint" their designs over the wireframes and my
client has approved them, then it's time to provide
the web developer with the functionality required
for the build and development of a website.
So here's my designed product page with the
some orange circles I've draw. These are the
areas myself and my client will need the flexibility
to change or edit.
• We want the ability to change the phone number
or the Call Us message.
• We want a search function.
• We want to change, reorder, add or remove
products displayed on the left hand menu or
items on the horizontal menu.
28

29. Step 6 - Measure it
You finally get your website live. First thing I do is to install Google Analytics code into the site
template. This allows Google to tell me how many visits a client receives each month, how did people
find the website and what did they type into Google to find the site.
But more importantly, Google enables you to create a goal. What this free Google tool will do is tell you
how many people visited the website, how many people visited the enquiry page and how many
people completed the enquiry page.
For Example
Total Website Visits = 700
Enquiry page visits = 100
Completed forms = 20
Funnel Conversion = 20%
Visitor Conversion = 3%
29

30. Tweak It
So let's say this sales funnel happens fairly consistently for 3 months. We could improve it, right ?
Total Website Visits = 700
Enquiry page visits = 100
Completed forms = 20 (let's say we make the form easier to complete and improve it to 30)
Funnel Conversion = Was 20%, Now 30%
Visitor Conversion = Was 3%, Now 4.3%
30

31. The Funnel
Now let's say the business sells a service for £100. Of those completed forms, 50% of people who
enquired will pay for this service.
20 x 50% x £100 = £1000.
Our business owner now has a sales funnel.
Visits
|
Enquiry Page
|
Completed Enquiries
|
Completed Sales.
31

32. Step 7 - Scale it up
So now that you have a system or a model for turning website visitors into enquiries and following up
and closing the sale, you can feel pretty confident in spending some money to generate more visitors
and more business.
Let's say you are a car garage in London. You charge £100 for a standard car service. But you know
that there are always extras on top of the service; new tyres, new windscreen wiper blades etc.
And on average that initial £100 quotation becomes a £200 sale.
So you decide to purchase some additional visitors. You are going to use Google Per Pay Click to find
those additional website visitors.
32

33. You can purchase one visit for
just under £1.
You target people in London
searching for a "car service".
The user clicks and lands on
the relevant "Car Service
London" page.
From your experience of
creating and refining your web
pages, you can convert 20%
of them into an enquiry.
£1 divided by 20% = £5 per
enquiry.
33

34. And your girl on the telephone has a red hot enquiry for someone who is looking for a car service, has
a 2009 BMW that needs an interim service and the tyres may need replace.
Your lovely girl on the telephone can convert 50% of enquiries into a sale.
£1 divided by 20% = £5 per enquiry x 50% = £10 per sale.
It has cost your car garage £10 to get a new customer who will spend around £200.
If your car garage has the capacity to do an additional 100 car services per month, you turn on your
Google Pay Per Click tap and buys more clicks.
You buys 1000 clicks at £1000
1000 clicks x 20% enquiry rate = 200 enquiries
200 enquiries x 50% sales conversion = 100 sales at £200 = £20,000 per month
You have turned £1000 into £20,000 (less your costs)
You have added £240,000 revenue to your annual business turnover.
34

35. Example 1 - United Sports USA
Having been on a golf scholarship to the USA in 1985,
I knew a little bit about the mindset of a teenager
dreaming of going to play sport and study abroad. So
when I was approached by this consultancy, I advised
them to tear down their previous website and start
again.
After some online research, we knew kids were
looking for "football scholarships to the USA" but also
"soccer scholarships to the USA".
So when they land on the website, they knew they
were in the right place. A headline and football image,
text and an application form down the right hand side
of every single page.
For the parent visiting the website, the rest of the
content is to ensure them that are working with a
credible, professional and trusted consultancy.
When this consultancy had a visitor to enquiry conversion ratio, then it was simply a case of them
scaling up with marketing activity with SEO, PPC and other media.
35

36. Example 2 - Earlsfield
Before and after.
From an old 4 page website to a 150 page website built around what people are searching for
generating business enquiries consistently every week from the internet.
36

37. Things don't always go to plan
Clients who come directly to me, get my medicine. But sometimes I receive work via a 3rd party. This
is where things don't always go to plan.
Here's a wonderfully designed and unique website for a Dutch business club who are located in
Scotland.
37

38. The idea is a paid-for monthly business club and a space for people who work remotely to work from.
However, when it came to the website, their off the wall branding agency did not quite understand that
people searching for meeting room space or conference rooms just wanted to see pictures of the
rooms, the room capacity and the cost.
So, on the left image below, the website visitor receives a page with a large image and a book now
button. Yes, I take personal responsibility for the implementation of such a minimalist website. On the
right image, in pink, is how the page should be. Photo of the room, details, prices, book now.
38

39. Summary. 1000 piece jigsaw, no lid
So you are reading this thinking "great". But then the other part of you is thinking "this is far too
simplistic, I was expecting far more from this book".
This guy has completely missed out everything about Facebook, Twitter, responsive design and the
rise of mobile phone usage. And besides "my business is nothing like this".
A former client of mine, Luther Blacklock, a master golf teacher, uses the '1000 pieces of a jigsaw
puzzle, no lid' analogy when explaining the teaching of the golf swing.
The golf swing is very simple. If you know how to blend the body, arms and hands, you can quickly
learn to hit golf shots consistently well.
The golfer who goes out there seeking little tips from a magazine, different golf coaches providing
conflicting advice and tips from lots of well meaning friends is going to get into a right muddle without
comprehending the fundamentals of golf.
And I use the same analogy when it comes to business owners websites.
39

40. You must understand the fundamentals of business.
Who's problem do I solve ?
Can I buy traffic cheaply?
Can I convert traffic profitably?
Am I constantly measuring and refining ?
When you have the fundamentals of your website in place and you have an "engine of revenue
website" then you can go ahead and add all the fancy bells and whistles.
When you are spending £1 per click and generating £10 in revenue, then go ahead and start up a
Facebook page, go start Tweeting, go and get a celebrity to endorse your product.
Up to this point in the life of your business website, you have a 1000 pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and no
lid.
When you see a lid on a jigsaw puzzle, it looks easy to do, doesn't it ? That's why this book's message
is simple. It's a jigsaw lid. Of course the lid looks easy. Your job is to put all the pieces in place, which is
the hard graft.
40

41. About the author
I am Fraser McCulloch and here's the short version of how this booklet came into existence.
After a marketing degree and being brand and marketing manager for Reebok, NTL and some other
businesses, I was introduced to a web development company that needed some help growing their
business.
I ended up project managing the website builds of the various clients I brought to them. But they
needed an army of designers and developers and lots of different bits of technology to make a website
work.
I was then contracted to redevelop the website, e-commerce shop, email marketing, contact
management and marketing of another business. They still printed off email enquiries and faxed them
to their USA sales manager and they had no means for following up on leads or customers.
I specified a company called Adobe Business Catalyst to become the technology behind the business.
I fell in love with the solution. Every bit you need to run a web business under one roof and all the bits
talk to each other.
One night in the pub with a good friend and his client who said "built us a website". So I did. I then
became an Adobe Business Catalyst Partner and 40 clients later I've never looked back.
41

42. Further Reading
I'm heavily influenced by Seth Godin's marketing books and blog. I've read them all and by far I'd
recommend :
The Big Red Fez
Knock Knock
Fixing Micah's Site
It will cost you about £6 to purchase The Big Red Fez from Amazon, the other 2 are free e-books; just
google them.
The other guy I suggest you read is an American branding expert called Rob Frankel. Buy his book,
The Revenge of Brand X.
And then there's the author Steven Pressfield. I first found out about Mr. Pressfield when I discovered
he wrote the book of the movie, The Legend of Bagger Vance. I delved further into his work and it was
his War of Art book that helped me to stop quitting on things.
To your success
Fraser McCulloch.
www.platonik.co.uk
42