After stints working in software sales, health & fitness and even a period as a dealer for Star City Casino, Justen Freeman came to NetRegistry in 2001. If you have ever received a free website analysis from NetRegistry, you will have already benefited from Justen’s experience in helping websites achieve greater traffic and stronger results.

In this month’s profile, Justen reveals his opinions on common website issues, what bugs him when shopping online and problems with living under a flight path!

1. What gets you out of bed each day?

JF: Well, that A380 nearly landed on my joint this morning.

2. What are the most common website issues you are confronted with?

JF: From a search engine perspective most websites have non intuitive page titles, headings and link structure. Many have very few popular and relevant websites linking to them. Without these things, the search engines have no idea what kind of website you are.

3. What is the biggest misconception about online business you come across?

JF: That Google will automatically and instantly direct customers to me once I launch my website.

4. What is the most common question you are asked by potential customers?

JF: “How long before I’m on the first page of Google?”

5. What do you see as the key issues facing online businesses in the coming year?

JF: Google is getting better at separating the wheat from the chaff. Increasingly, we are becoming a winner take all market. If you look at any super successful website the bulk of the effort is directed at marketing. A perfect example is A href="http://www.rsvp.com.au">rsvp.com.au. An $800 dating website with a multimillion dollar marketing budget.

6. How do you stay on top of current online trends and ecommerce developments?

JF: I used to read more newsletters like SitePro News, WebPro News, Search News. Increasingly these are sitting unread in an Outlook folder. NetRegistry have hundreds of SEO clients and we continually monitor these sites to identify trends pretty quickly. I also conduct experiments myself, mostly proving what we already know - there are only two real ingredients to search engine success; relevance and popularity.

7. Online marketing is constantly evolving at an ever increasing pace. Are there any online marketing techniques that you think are now outdated or no longer useful?

JF: Those good old Meta Tags keep getting recycled every few years.

8. Is Search Engine Optimisation for everyone?

JF: It tends to work better for those who have a website **groan**

9. What is the most underrated online business concept deserving of more attention?

JF: Email newsletters, cheap, successful, easy.

10. Most websites use SEO to generate traffic these days, but not every site gets more sales this way. What should a website do to get more customers out of this traffic?

JF: Usability is a complex subject. In my experience a good call to action is offering a free service to generate enquiries. For instance, a mortgage broking website might offer a ‘home loan health check’ or similar to engage the user.

11. Do customers need to be technically minded to be successful online?

JF: It certainly helps. You don’t need to be a computer programmer, however I have seen the lack of investigation by the business owner doom a number of promising projects.

12. If you were to start a website today, what are the top five steps you would take before launch?

JF: That’s a bit harder to answer than it sounds. I have seen plenty of good ideas fail because the project wasn’t managed properly. I have also seen projects fail because the client only investigated without action. For most of my clients it would be: · Develop an idea · Specify the design · Engage a designer to build the website · Arrange a domain name and hosting · Contact me to encourage Google to smile on you fondly.

13. After working with so many NetRegistry customers, which result are you most proud of and why?

JF: I speak to people who remember setting up their website with me six or seven years ago. They tell me how helpful I was back then and can’t believe I am still here. I’m proud when my advice helps my clients make a few bucks and the results are still on display years later.

14. Do you shop for yourself online and what do you look for when you visit an ecommerce site?

JF: I can tell you what I forget to look for – postage! I’m always falling for that old scam. I’ll pay $22 to get something shipped but I can promise you that it doesn’t arrive with a $22 stamp on it. Postage is a major issue on converting customers so every website needs to be realistic and fair about the postage they offer and not leave it as a nasty surprise at the last stage of the transaction.

15. What websites do you currently visit regularly online, both professionally and for leisure?

JF: smh.com.au, nrl.com. I’m a bit of a book collector and am always on the lookout for hard backs and first editions so I’ve used abebooks.com a bit lately.

16. If you had control of the internet for a day, what would you change and why?

JF: I’d remove all scrapbooking websites, all those sequins and glue etc it just annoys me.

Get the Best of Justen For Free

If you would like Justen to show you how to improve your website, attract more traffic and turn more of them into paying customers, it’s as easy as booking a free website analysis.

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