#not allowing the sales team to make actual sales decisions or decent sales

[bettsfic]

hi, i was reading your years in review and i noticed that you quit a job of many years to go your own way. i was wondering if you would mind talking about this decision/if you struggled with it? idk i've always told myself that i wouldn't let the idea of a "career" get in the way of what i want (e.g. writing) and that one day (shortly after 30?) i would just quit whatever job i had and go my own way, but as that deadline comes up i find it harder to imagine how i could just uproot myself...

yes, i very much did struggle with the decision to quit (what i thought was) my very stable and lucrative career in finance to get an MFA in creative writing. it’s a bit of a long story so i’m putting it under a cut.

warning for suicidality and sexual assault.

i used to believe i grew up poor, but it was the 90s so poverty looked very different. my dad didn’t work for a long time, and so we only had one income, and we lived in an apartment that was kind of a lowkey hoarder home. as a kid, all i knew was that i didn’t get to have toys, or my own space, and i wasn’t allowed to have friends over. the concept of an allowance was totally alien to me. but it also wasn’t like i ever went hungry. the food we had wasn’t particularly healthy but it was always there.

i didn’t really realize how much that instability affected me until much later, when i noticed other people hadn’t lived their entire lives aware of and obsessed with money. i used to compulsively count the change in my piggy bank and beg my mom to take it so she could pay her taxes (i didn’t know what taxes meant, i just assumed they were the reason we couldn’t afford nice things). 

my safe haven was always my grandparents’ house, which was clean and had semi-healthy food and the door was always open. my grandpa was a high school chemistry teacher. my grandma worked at a bank. growing up, i had no idea what she did at the bank, just that it sponsored all the fun things we did, like going to amusement parks and baseball games. my parents never took my sister and i on vacation, but every year, my grandma would drive us to visit our family in missouri, which, even though it only cost the gas to get there, seemed like a wild indulgence to me.

i started working at 16 so i could have my own money. by 17 i was working illegally full-time and getting paid under the table. then i bought my own car, and shortly after i turned 18 i got my own apartment. even though i could pay my bills, i was still terrified about money. i thought about it all the time. i checked my bank account multiple times a day. i was a cashier at a restaurant and i would often open my drawer and just stare at the money or count it when i was bored.

but i hated working at the restaurant, and one day i thought to myself, how can i keep the money part of this job but lose the food part? then i remembered my grandma’s career at the bank (from which by then she’d retired), and that afternoon i sat down and applied to be a teller at the very same bank. obviously the bank was very large and it wasn’t like my grandma was in management. she worked in ATM operations. nobody on my hiring committee knew who she was, and honestly i have no idea how i got the job.

i stayed a teller through college, working 25ish hours a week. it didn’t pay very well and i was still nervous about money, so i picked up a job altering bridal gowns on evenings and weekends, and also an admin job at my university. so i was working 60ish hours a week, plus going to school full-time and trying to keep up my 4.0. in retrospect, i can’t remember how necessary all this was. i know i was living in an apartment whose rent was higher than i could afford, and i lived with my boyfriend who was struggling to find a job. anyway, it was definitely the lowest time of my life, and i was so exhausted that every day i hoped something horrible would happen to me so i could be hospitalized and rest. 

then something horrible did happen. my dad died. and even though everyone in my life was telling me to please dear god take a break, i did not. 

i got promoted to business finance, which paid what seemed at the time to be an ungodly amount of money. i was still part-time and finishing up my undergrad degree. once i graduated, i got promoted to full-time. for the first couple years, i really did try to be a banker. i was good at my job only insofar as someone who is left-handed can write with their right hand if forced for long enough. it felt very much like i was in the wrong place, but by that point i had so much unchecked trauma that i had convinced myself the highest human ideal was misery and deprivation. i wish i was kidding. i was the definition of ascetic and martyred myself. i didn’t believe happiness existed. work was all that mattered to me.

then i bought a house. so at this point, i had student loans, a car loan, a mortgage, and credit card debt. after my dad’s death, my mom had to file for bankruptcy because of all the medical bills. she abandoned her house. by this point i was 23, single, in six figures of debt with no familial support net, but i was making decent money at the bank, so it wasn’t like i was drowning. in fact i was doing pretty well. the bank was a rock in my very turbulent life. i got a lot of vacation time that allowed me to travel a bit. i had insurance and a matching 401(k). it was really a decent job.

but the bank was also in many ways an abusive relationship. i don’t mean that metaphorically. i had bosses who manipulated me, insulted me, humiliated me in front of other people. i had one boss who went so far as to look at my checking account and ridicule my purchases. i didn’t have any idea what it meant to stand up for myself or say no. in fact i wasn’t allowed to say no. my job at the bank involved solving other people’s problems. i could never say “i can’t solve that problem.” i could only say “i’ll figure it out.”

i had convinced myself working at the bank was a stable career because it was boring and i hated it. but actually it wasn’t stable at all. after 2008, there were mass layoffs and restructures every year while the bank tried to recover from the recession. i worked for a sales team, and so my job was dependent entirely on whether or not the salespeople did their jobs well. if they didn’t make goal, they’d get fired. if they got fired, i’d get fired. 

i started trying to date again and was sexually assaulted. after that i really struggled at work because i was dissociating a lot and couldn’t focus. my team, despite my having worked there for years, instead of being concerned for me decided to start complaining about me to my boss. finally i had to tell a coworker what happened and that i wasn’t doing very well. my team started being a little nicer to me but ultimately they didn’t care about me, they cared about how effective i was at my job. my boss didn’t want to fire me, so instead i was pushed onto another team.

that move came with a raise. then that team was dismantled and i was pushed onto another team. that was a demotion, but i got to keep my raise from the previous move. by then, i was working from home, and even though i was more comfortable i was also very isolated and miserable. my “fulfillment through deprivation” attitude was destroying me. i wasn’t eating well or taking care of myself. i was isolated and lonely. i still didn’t believe happiness was real and i constantly thought about killing myself. 

but i had started writing fanfiction, and even though i didn’t think i was any good at it, i was beginning to see a way out. i was beginning to learn how to dream, and want things, and give myself the things i wanted. i just couldn’t imagine leaving the bank, or selling my house, or moving out of my hometown. all of that seemed impossible to me.

then i had to go to a business conference where my team had a retirement party for one of my coworkers. she’d done what i was doing for 45 years. by that point i was at the 9 year mark. i’d spent my entire adult life at the bank. and i realized: the bank benefited from my fear and passivity, and nothing in my life was going to change unless i was willing to make sacrifices. 

but i still wasn’t entirely convinced. and then came the day i had to physically hold onto my desk to keep me from killing myself. i didn’t end up trying it, because i had another realization: this was a life or death situation now. if i kept working at the bank, i knew i would die. i knew eventually i would get low enough to do it. i didn’t actually want to die; i wanted an escape and didn’t know what else to do. suddenly i was off the hook. my options were not “financial stability or imminent poverty” but “live or die.” 

those were the big epiphanies i had, but the process of actually leaving the bank was a slow one. i wrote a bit about it here. i got into an MFA program basically by telling myself repeatedly i would figure out the money stuff later. when it came time to quit the bank, my boss convinced me to stay on working part-time, with the assumption i would move back to full-time once i’d graduated. i agreed to it, because just trying to quit was enough to convince me i could, and that better things were ahead of me. for a year and a half, i stayed on working two days a week while doing my MFA, which involved both coursework and teaching, and it felt a bit like it did during undergrad, having too many jobs and no time to breathe or think or feel anything.

between my first and second year, i had a looooong overdue mental breakdown. there were a lot of causes, but one of them was spreading myself too thin. shortly after, i quit for good. by then it didn’t feel like a big deal at all, i was so far removed from the work and my team and so focused on my degree. one day i turned on my work laptop and the next day i didn’t. i shipped it back to HQ and it was over.

then i graduated from the MFA and suddenly had to face the consequences of this life i’d chosen. my school kept me on as an adjunct, but it felt like being a ghost. i no longer had the community of my cohort. i had no health insurance. i was given my teaching schedule and a contract to sign, that’s it. there was no guarantee i would be getting classes the following semester, and after a year, that was what happened. i remember sitting in my favorite coffee shop trying not to cry when i got the email that said the department had nothing for me to teach the following semester.

i really wasn’t the same after the breakdown. i went from “i can do anything i put my mind to no matter how hard it is or how much it hurts” to “i have to step carefully, and treat myself gently.” i hadn’t fully realized that yet, though, so i tried to get a Real Job. i got the first and only job i applied to, because i am bad at nearly everything but somehow i’m exceptional in interviews. it wasn’t a bank but it offered the same sort of benefits package. it was a full-time salaried position at a non-profit. if i had found it earlier, i think it would have been my dream job. it was the kind of work you throw yourself into because you care so much about doing good. 

i lasted a month. during the first week something happened that triggered me in a way i’m very rarely triggered. i realized i needed disability accommodations, but i needed to go to a doctor to get an assessment and i had to be on the team 60 days in order to get insurance. i thought i could white-knuckle it, and i could, sort of, but every minute i was at work, it felt like i was forced away from the thing i should have been doing. i was constantly trying to write a few paragraphs here and there on my phone when no one was looking. i had to find excuses to take breaks and go to my car and breathe. at one point i told a volunteer i was an english instructor, and she looked at me very confused, and i realized i’d said it in present tense, like it was part of who i was and not a job i did for a while. then finally, my breaking point was an after-hours function. when i left i saw a field full of fireflies and thought about how, if i’d just stayed home, i could have sat outside and enjoyed them all evening, not just a glance at them on the way to my car. i liked the job but it was making me miss all the things i’d learned to love about being alive.

i quit the next day. i’d sold my house by then (which was its own feat) and moved in with my grandma, which hadn’t been a possibility until my grandpa passed away the previous spring. i paid off my car. i figured out finally that i would probably never be able to work full-time again unless it was teaching, and that the downside to this life would be accepting fear and instability, only being able to look ahead one semester at a time. staying open to the opportunities that arise. being a little selfish. 

i wrote a bit more about the financial realities of the writing life here. i can’t tell you what you should do, because the path i took definitely isn’t the path for everyone, but i do believe we all owe it to ourselves to pursue our best and happiest lives, because we only get one, and there’s no reason not to live it the way you want to. 

[solarianvoidthearoace]

Excerpt#4 from my JonGerry AU WiP

CN/TW: brief discussion of psychiatric medication, amiable/loving insults and banter

Gerry swallowed, putting his phone down on the table and grabbing their mug.

„Okay, what now?“, Jon shifted his elbow on the table, leaning closer. Gerry just sighed, handing over his phone, the messages with Gertrude still open. Jon raised a brow,

„So Michael gossiped“, he shrugged,

„I don’t see why you’re suddenly this tense.“ Gerry cleared their throat, taking his phone back and looking at Jon,

„Yes, well, I know my last art show was months ago, back when we were still feeling this out. Us. But actually, I do want to invite you to my art show“, they slowly smiled.

„Jon, would you like to come with to this art show? It’s primarily my work getting displayed but the rest of the gallery is open for the event as well. And while I know tickets and all sounds like it’s this scary exclusive high class thing, it’s more of a formality“, they made a placating gesture, expression a bit awkward,

„So they know who is associated with the organisation and to keep track of who is actually there to buy something.“ He shrugged, looking at Jon with an expression he thought wasn’t too hopeful. Jon just leaned even closer, pressing a kiss to their cheek,

„I’d love to come with.“ Cupping Jon’s face, Gerry turned their head, kissing him properly.

„Martin is also invited of course, I’ll send you the calendar entry so you can ask him about it when you’re out today.“

It was a Friday, the next day. Jon only worked a half the day, due to his half-year check-in with his psychiatrist. It somehow had happened to fall into the same week as Martin’s endocrinologist appointment. He was home rather soon because of that, allowing himself to sneak up on Gerry. Obviously he didn’t want to intrude on his partner’s workspace, but if they happened to be anywhere else in the loft? Jon wasn’t afraid to admit he was somewhat of a cuddle-kraken.

Where he found Gerry was in the bathroom, but the door was open so Jon poked his head in. Bend over the sink, Gerry was picking at strands of his hair, applying dye. They did spot Jon via the mirror, though.

„You’re home early“, slowly setting the strand aside so it wouldn’t smack him in the face.

„And you’re trying to do a full touch-up of your dye job on your own“, Jon sighed. Before Gerry could answer, Jon chucked off his sweater and went looking for their package of disposable gloves.

„Thank you“, their grin was a bit lopsided. Jon just rolled his eyes,

„Yea, yea, twerp. Just the roots?“ Snapping on the gloves, he took the brush Gerry held out.

„It’s black, doll. Not like it will get blotchy if there’s too much. Just needs to cover everything properly.“ Jon sighed, giving a gentle push so Gerry would tilt their head as he needed to part the hair. Before he actually started anything, though, he handed the brush back and went over to the shower to get the shower stool. Not doing the dye job himself, Gerry didn’t exactly need to stand to look into the mirror. Gerry held the bowl for him, ducking their head this way and that, so Jon could reach every area that was left. They remained in comfortable silence for some time.

„Why do you even still dye your hair yourself?“, Jon finally asked, using the pointed handle of the applicator brush to shift some strands.

„I just got used to it“, Gerry shrugged,

„Also I did step up my game. I started using proper salon-grade hair colour some years back.“ Jon snorted,

„Yea, I got curious and looked up the conditioner you use, once“, he shook his head. As good as they could, Gerry shot him a glare through the mirror. Jon actually blew him a kiss in reiteration, before he grinned.

„My appointment went well, by the way.“ Gerry raised a brow, he hadn’t been about to ask.

„Apparently my newly changed living situation benefits my mental health, as far as my psychiatrist was willing to dip into psychologist territory“, Jon continued, shrugging,

„I mean, obviously my anxiety dropped. Within the range that’s somewhat usual for general anxiety disorder, so there’s that. But unless I notice anything specific, eh. This positive change in my life isn’t a reason to change my medication or dosage. I’m honestly fine with that decision.“ Gerry hummed in understanding. Reaching up his hand that wasn’t holding the colour bowl, they gave Jon’s hand a squeeze,

„Understandable. Changing medication is a pain in the ass.“ Jon nodded empathetically,

„Oh, that does remind me“. He paused while he looked through the sections he had made of Gerry’s hair. Nodding to himself, he grabbed the disposable shower cap from the sink. Twisting Gerry’s hair up to get it all into the cap, he smiled when they helped fixating the loose tangle for a moment.

„Where was I? Oh, yes. So, when I was out with Martin yesterday, he said he had to pick up his hormones. We stopped by here real quick and I took your prescription with to the apothecary. Restock is in the mirror cabinet.“ He pointed over to the part of the long mirror cabinet where they kept their medication,

„I know you keep them in the bedroom but since it didn’t seem urgent, I figured I would just put them there.“ Checking one last time the cap sat properly, Jon finally pulled off his gloves.

As soon as Gerry had disposed of the colour bowl as well as his own gloves, they turned and took Jon’s hands in his.

„Thank you. Was I asleep while you snuck around here?“ He raised a brow, expression teasing. Jon rolled his eyes,

„Either that or holed up downstairs. It’s not like I checked, dipshit.“ Gerry hummed, tilting their head and giving Jon a scrutinising look. Leaning back against the sink to stabilise themself, Gerry pulled Jon in, gently moving him around until he sat across his lap. Hugging him, he pressed a kiss to Jon’s neck.

„I really appreciate you taking care of me, doll.“ Jon huffed, rolling his eyes,

„It’s not like it was lengths to go to or anything. Sure, Martin did give me a look about it.“ He shrugged. At that, Gerry looked up, giving him a quizzical look, Jon waved it away.

„He knows my brand of antidepressants by now, not like it changed. But the packet-size is rather universal anyway, so I honestly didn’t feel the need to explain this to him. It’s your business. It is easy enough to figure out if he actually caught what type of medication it is but I don’t really think so…?“, Jon scratched at his neck. Gerry grinned, before putting on a mock-scandalised expression,

„Are you keeping things from your boyfriend, on my behalf?“ That just earned him an elbow to the stomach, thanks to Jon’s position.

„Oh shut up, twerp.“ The accompanying huff was unmistakably on the fond side of exasperation. They just grinned again,

„Hm, no. But maybe I will let myself get convinced to put my mouth to better use than running it.“

With how involved Gerry had managed to get Jon, a bit of the hair colour paste had smudged onto Jon’s shoulder, discolouring the strap of his undershirt. Besides that, it had been a nice and quiet weekend for the two of them. And also the last one before Gerry got wrapped up in the acute preparations of the art show. The next couple of weeks turned out rather busy. Working with Gertrude’s team to set up in the gallery meant he had to switch their daily routine, as far as it existed, to that of someone working eight-to-five. Lining it up with Jon’s nine-to-five if it hadn’t been for the librarian-slash-archivist’s overtime.

It was getting a bit hectic, though. Meaning, they did reduce their shifts at the bar for the time being. Gerry, first off, had to work actual day-time hours to be involved in the organisation. On top of adhering to Gertrude’s instructions to them as the artist. Which basically summed up to the equivalent of working over-time as well. So his work schedule almost lined up with Jon’s after all. It was nice, to get home around the same time as their partner, or only having just arrived when the front door clicked.

Gertrude was strict but she also knew not to overwork them, meaning she cut Gerry some slack in lieu of being helpful with the event organisation. Not that they got payed for the administrative help or basically doing the same job as Michael for the time being.

But at least she didn’t push any commissions at him until the art show and follow-up around the sales would be done. In those weeks, he actually was off work when he got home. This, of course, also entailed there wasn’t much time Gerry was working when Jon brought Martin with him. Meaning, they were about anywhere in the loft except for the atelier.

“Uhm, what is the dress code for the event?”, Martin spoke up at some point during an evening at the loft. Jon paused,

“Actually I haven’t thought about that. He didn’t exactly mention anything, so I figured something around business casual?”, he didn’t look all that sure. Humming, Jon got up from the couch,

“They should be upstairs so I’ll just go ask.” Martin nodded, suddenly sitting a bit stiffer than he did before, making Jon smile,

“You can come along, you know?”

On the upper floor of the loft, the bedroom door was leant, a thin gap visible. Still, Jon thought it better to check,

“Gerry, are you decent in there?” From the inside came a snort, followed by a chuckled reply,

“Morally? Never! I’m wearing pants, though, if that was the root of your concern.” Rolling his eyes, Jon turned to Martin so someone would see his long-suffering expression.

“Since we pretty much corrupted each other in our youth, of course I meant the pants, dipshit!”, he snarled back,

“Martin’s with me and I don’t want any of us to have a weird situation here.” Some clattering and rustling came from behind the door,

“Come on in, then. No need to keep talking through the door, four-eyes.” With that, Jon pushed the door open and walked in, allowing Martin to enter after him. Gerry sat on their bed, still in their black jeans from when he had been to the gallery. But they had changed the button shirt Gertrude had forced upon him in favour of his pastel hoodie. Sitting cross legged near the foot-end, he was still in the process of tying his hair back.

“So, what’s up?”

“Ah, well…”, Martin’s voice came out even more meek than usual, probably from the nervousness of standing in someone else’s bedroom,

“I was wondering about the event you invited us to. First, thanks again, of course. I’m really excited about seeing your work, properly displayed even. Secondly, while I know the appointed time and everything, I was wondering whether there will be a dress-code.” At that, Gerry blinked, before humming.

“Well… for me, I have to stick to whatever Trudie will force me to wear that night, since I’m posing as her assistant again. But the general event dress-code is somewhere between smart casual and business casual, I think.” They turned and stretched to grab his phone from the bedside table,

“I’ll ask Sasha.”

While they waited on the reply, Jon’s brow creased,

“So you’re forced into… what? Business attire? I really can’t picture that.” Gerry rolled his eyes,

“More like cocktail attire. Not exactly a distinction to business dress but Gertrude is giving us all some leeway, as long as we look official enough. Last time Sasha wore a floaty silk blouse over high-waisted slacks”, they shrugged,

“Along those lines, I guess. I always try matching her in terms of formal dress, it’s at least more coherent than whatever Michael has got going on at any time.”

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Black Cat Annual #1 Thoughts

Not what I was expecting or hoping for.

Maybe less interesting than what I (and I suspect most people) were expecting or hoping for.

But...a really fun time nevertheless.

I must confess to having yet to read Black Cat #6, so maybe I’m wrong in saying what I’m about to say but...this is without doubt the best story from this whole series!

Let me get the minor negatives out of the way first.

The most significant of those is that I was hoping/expecting an AU story or a dream or something like that that’d show us a kind of what if scenario. In fact, whilst the solicits didn’t say that, I think the hype surrounding the issue kind of wanted readers to think that.

And I’ll be honest, that idea is a lot more compelling than the actual plot, which is essentially a heist in which Felicia and Spider-Man have to feign marriage to one another.

This leads me to my other negative, Felicia’s dress in the story isn’t reflective of the cover, and indeed in my highly unqualified opinion, isn’t as good as the one on the cover either.

That’s not really a fair critique given the whole cover is a lie and obvious sales gimmick. But hey...it worked so what do I know. The dress is something you could imagine Felicia actually wearing as it’s her wedding dress version of her actual costume, whilst it wouldn’t make sense for her to wear something like that in the actual story.

One other tiny nitpick is the reference to the Spec #300 backup story which I hated and also I don’t think really fits into established continuity.

Now my gripes are out of the way...this issue was actually really great!

As I said, maybe the premise promised us would’ve been better but the story itself is good. And considering the inclusion of Spider-Man, the extra pages and quality of the story it’s also worth the extra dollar cover price too.

Whilst reading the story I was ready to criticise the fact that Spider-Man is complicit in a crime and just legally married Felicia to do it, let alone that he was letting her run free in spite of her returning to her criminal ways, which was a major issue I had back in BND.

But to MacKay’s credit, he crossed the Is and dotted the Ts (that’s how that goes right).

The story actually happens BEFORE Black Cat #1, so the last Spidey checked Felicia was on a redemption tour or had reformed in Hunted.

Whether it’s because the Maggia’s ceremony isn’t legally binding because they’re the Maggia or because Peter and Felicia were pretending to be other people (or just cos they didn’t sign anything) MacKay made a point of emphasising the pair were only ‘sorta’ married.

Finally, by making the plot revolve around helping out a criminal Romeo and Juliet of sorts it justifies Spider-Man’s involvement. And in case that alone didn’t justify things enough, McKay made sure that Spidey knew that they were stealing from criminals and that the money would go to charity. He even made sure Spidey didn’t remember Korpse and Bruno (from ASM #194, Felicia’s debut) and that he felt sufficiently guilty for bending the law as he did.

I was so ready to pick that aspect apart but hats off to Jed MacKay he knew how to play things.

And it wasn’t just out of consideration of Spider-Man either. This is how their relationship often played out in the golden age of Felicia’s character in the 2000s. She was a morally grey Robin Hood type whom Spider-Man turned a blind eye to because of their friendship and helped ‘bend the law’ because he trusted that she was doing it for the greater good. It’s a magnificent return to that dynamic.

But what makes this story unique is that it’s Felicia’s story, not Peter’s and thus we get some insights into her head and MacKay does right by her. She’s fun, flirty, a thrillseeker, has genuine affection and a protectivness over ‘her Spider’ and puts her heart in the right place, even if it’s through the wrong methods.

I loved the fact that she did still keep a million dollars for herself without Spider-Man’s knowledge!

I love that he didn’t quite know she had crooks working with them and they were committing other crimes to pull off the heist.

Speaking of those crooks, MacKay did nice work with them too. Bruno’s insights into how people misjudge him didn’t do much to develop his character, but it was a lovely nugget that fleshed him out and even made me (and other readers) question our own presumptions of him. Korpse, the henchman with the most personality, was even better than usual and his own assessments of himself and Felicia also fleshed him out a little bit. These aren’t deep characters, but they’re fun and served well here.

Having the gang divided into three teams was also a smart decision as it allowed for a little variety in the annual and gave each protagonist a small story of their own. Which is actually a really cool way to make use of the extra pages in your typical annual, rather than simply plug a backstory in there. Similarly it more organically allowed for the use of multiple artists, all of whom were decent-great. In fact Vazquez was on fire, why can’t he be the artist on the regular book!

In fact I hate to say it, but why can’t the regular book be like this all the time? I don’t mean feature Spider-Man or have multiple artists. I mean I’d infinitely rather see Felicia bending the law for the greater good by ripping off other crooks (and skimming a little off the top for herself) than just being a regular thief like she is in the main title.

One final point, I already talked about how well Peter and Felicia’s relationship was depicted here, but I must also point out MJ gets a reference in here and again, it all harkens back to the good old days during the early-mid 2000s when Peter and MJ were together, Felicia was their friend and ally but there was that underlying romantic tension, that Felicia really did love Peter and Peter had much affection for her but they weren’t going to go there.

What annoys me is that this and the Venom Annual from last year (which coincidentally also featured Felicia) are so good and yet the ASM 2018 annual(s) and the Spider-Ham annual from this year sucked hard. Once upon a time both the regular books and the annuals could be good. In fact the annuals were an excuse to do something a little different and special, which is what this and the Venom annual from 2018 were. Shit, the original ASM Annual from the 1960s is one of my favourite Spider-Man.

Overall would I recommend this? HELL YES. Pick it up!

[long-bodyswap]

A long day’s journey

This is also one of my favorites too. Found it in an old yahoo bodyswap forum. Enjoy.

Mike woke with a start when the tires hit the rumble strip.  It was a long day, he was headed home after a few days on the road.  He had made a few good contacts and wrote up some decent sales, but he really just wanted to get home and into bed.  The road wasn’t the place for a 45-year-old guy, and Mike knew it.  “Better left to the young punks,” he thought.  He really wanted a comfortable desk job, there was one opening up in a few weeks when Murray retired, then all he’d have to do was send those young jerk offs to meet with customers, God -it couldn’t happen soon enough.

He flipped though the radio stations, sure wasn’t much on the air out this way, middle of nowhere. If he was going to stay on the road he’d pop for XM or Sirius but his road days were coming to an end. 40 miles to Medford, 6:30 PM and it was already getting dark.  Medford was a college town, decent food, he could stop there grab something to eat and make it home by midnight if he pushed it.  Mike always hated this stretch of the trip home, just vast open spaces nothing around for miles, the road cut through part of an Indian Reservation, he never bothered to find out which one.  But he did always stop to pick up some cigarettes for Murray at the gas station where he crossed into the reservation.  He never could understand how people could pay so much just to watch it go up in smoke.  At least without taxes the prices were better, but still…  Oh well, Murray was a friend and had put in a good word for him with the bosses so he didn’t mind.

The sun had set, the sky went from orange to deep purple.  35 miles to Medford…  Mike glanced down at the radio as he flipped through a few more stations, something caught his eye and as he looked up it was too late --- there was a brief sound as metal hit metal at 60 miles an hour then darkness as everything slipped away…

“Doctor!  He’s coming around”

Mike heard that at some level, everything sounded weird.  He was in that in-between state not quite asleep - and not yet quite awake.  He felt like hell.  He tried to open his eyes but his eyelids felt strange, heavy.  It wasn’t just his eyelids, he felt heavy and it was very difficult to move.  He managed to get his eyes open, the room was dimly lit, he could sense a presence next to him, a middle aged woman stuck her head in front of his face, “OK.  Doctor!  His eyes are open.”

“Don’t try to move, you been through a lot.” Somehow Mike knew that was directed at him.  He was more than willing to cooperate, it would take all his will power just to lift his hand up, even if he wanted to, which he didn’t.  He was ready to drift back to sleep, but the doctor came over, at least Mike assumed he was the doctor, he was 28 maybe 30 holding Mike’s chart.

“I’m Dr. Thompson, do you know where you are?”

Mike struggled to get “hoshpital” out, a little slurred but understandable.

“Great! That’s right” the Dr. replied, “Do you know what happened?”

Mike closed his eyes for a second, “Accident?” he managed to whisper.

“That’s right”, the Dr. responded.  “Do you know where you were headed?”

“Sleep…”

“No, don’t sleep, where were you going?”

“Home”, Mike was still in one word response mode, the Doctor wanted more.

“OK, can you tell us your name?”

“Mike Watson”

“How old are you?” “45” Mike croaked, “Water?”

“Nurse, just a sip..”  “Is that better?” the doctor inquired.,

“Yeah, think so”, Mike replied.

“Ok, I think you’re awake enough for me to fill you in on some of the details.” Dr. Thompson said.  “As you know you were in an accident, you were heading north to Medford, when a car crossed into your lane and hit you almost head on.  Your car was totaled, it was the airbags and seatbelt that saved you life, plus the fact that it happened in a wide open area, you were pushed into a field.”

Mike grunted ”Ummf.”

“We had to make some quick decisions.” the doctor went on,  “The collision knocked your ID a ways out, we didn’t know who you were, we had no way of contacting your family, the police only found it this morning after dawn.”

“Yeah….” Mike said waiting for the rest of the story.

Dr. Thompson hesitated, not sure how he should begin, after all he had never done this before…  “I don’t know if you are aware but Highway 40 cuts through an Indian Reservation, and that Reservation runs almost into town, the College actually borders it.  But anyway, the accident took place on the Reservation, so their local laws are enforced.”   Mike looked a little puzzled, why was the doctor telling him all this?  “Well, the driver that hit you was a local college student, with a bit of a history.  Josh had done this before, got drunk and killed another driver, but since he was underage and his family is well connected he was given probation and rehab and allowed to return to campus the next year.  There was quite a bit of outrage locally, but being on the football team and with his connections it was all down played.”  The doctor looked away, Mike could tell there was something he wasn’t telling him.  Dr. Thompson felt stupid, here he was giving a back-story, but how could he come right out and tell Mike what had happened to him?  The Dr. took a deep breath, “As I said, we had to make some tough decisions when you were brought in.  Josh had some minor injuries, and you were near death.  I guess you could say it was a function of where you were as much as anything, but…  we transferred your consciousness to Josh’s body.”  There, he said it.  

Mike looked at him dumbfounded, “Huh?”

The doctor went on  “The University has been doing a lot of research in the area of consciousness and it’s link to who we are, and with the influx of money from the casinos the Indians, or I should say Native Americans, own, our funding has gone up quite a bit and allowed us to progress rapidly.  Some of the expansion here at the university is onto the Reservation so their laws apply.  They have a very strict ‘eye for an eye’ philosophy that they live by.  When they found you and brought you in along with Josh and his buddy Tuck, the tribal leader was very upset that Josh was allowed to do this again.”  Dr. Thompson went on “ They insisted we rectify this situation, and while we had done human testing, it was always voluntary and reversible.  We were getting into a very ethically gray area, but the decision was made to go ahead. Josh was given the facts, he knew that tribal law dictated his execution if you died, and there was nothing anyone could do, it did happen on tribal land, their laws apply.  He knew he had a small chance of survival in your body, no chance if he didn’t do this and you died.”  The Dr. took a drink of water before he continued on, “By this point you were near death and we had to move quickly.  Normally the process takes hours, which we didn’t have.  So we had to make another hard decision.  We transferred the core of Josh out and transferred as much of you in as we could.  But this is a new area for us, we don’t know how this will all play out, you have Josh’s body, and his physicality.  You may have his knowledge and even some or all of his memories, we really don’t know.  You might end up as Josh with some of Mike mixed in, or Mike with some of Josh.  The two aspects may blend and you might decide you’re neither and decide to be ‘Jake’.   We just don’t know at this point.”

Mike laid there slack jawed, did he really hear what he thought he heard?  “But, but  --I’m Mike Watson!” was all he could say.  

“Yes, I know that.” The doctor said, “But at this point you really haven’t integrated with the part that was Josh, that won’t happen for awhile.  At this point you talk, and when you can, you’ll move like Josh, but you’re Mike.  Gradually you will become more aware of Josh and you will have to deal with that.”

Mike stared at the doctor for a minute taking it all in.  “Wha, what do I look like?” Mike asked.  “Well you’re about the same height, 6’3’’, you weigh a bit more, about 240 lbs, Blonde hair, Blue eyes.  We’ll let you up in a few minutes and you can see who you’ve become, we just have to make sure you’re strong enough.”

“My body?” Mike asked, looking like he didn’t want to hear the answer.

“It’s still alive, on a respirator.   Josh might survive in it, but he will be a paraplegic, plus there is a good chance of brain damage.  A blood clot broke loose after we did the transfer and he suffered a stroke, we’re surprised he lasted this long.  I should tell you this, if somehow your body survives and if you want you can be returned to it, it will be your choice.”

Mike lay there staring, was he dreaming?  This had to be a joke.  And a bad joke at that.

“Can you move your legs?” Dr. Thompson asked, Mike wiggled his legs, “Great, how about your arms?”

Mike lifted his arms, he took a look at his hands and had a shock, “The-the- these aren’t my hands!” Mike stuttered and he examined his hands.  They were big and beefy with long fingers, not at all like his average sized hands with short stubby fingers. He looked dumbfounded as he twisted and turned, open and closed his hands.  He looked at his arms, golden tan, very well muscled.  “This is real?” was all Mike could say.

“Yes, it’s very real.”  Dr. Thompson replied.

Now Mike knew why he felt so odd.  He was seeing with another man’s eyes and hearing with another man’s ears.  Everything looked a little odd, colors where somehow strange.  It seemed he could hear a bit more, softer sounds were clearer. He ventured a look down and saw a well muscled chest and he could feel his heart thumping rapidly.

The nurse came over and took his pulse, “Doctor, it’s quite high..”

“Mike, take a few deep breaths, try and relax a little”

“That’s easy for you to say, you’re not…” Mike stopped in mid sentence, was that really his voice?  It hadn’t connected before, he was talking with a soft southern accent!

“Mike, what is it?”

“My voice, why am I talking like this?”

The doctor took a long look at Mike before he went on, “As I mentioned before, it was a tough decision, but with the disparity in your bodies and ages, plus the time constrains we were dealing with, we opted to leave the physical side of Josh in place, so you have Josh’s characteristics, you talk like he does and you will find you move as he did.  Odds are you wont’ really be aware of it, since your physical aspects aren’t part of you any longer, your body is sort of on Josh’s auto pilot, it’s part of you now.”

“Can I get up now?” Mike said, “God, I’m really talking like this?”  The words sounded foreign to him.

“Lets try sitting on the edge of the bed first.”

Mike didn’t give it too much thought, as he quickly swung his legs over the side of the bed.

The doctor look a bit surprised, but pleased “Great, looks like you are integrating well.”

The doctor pointed over to a large mirror on the other side of the room, “Think you can make it over there?”  “Nurse can you open the shades a little so Mr. Watson can get a good look at himself?”  The nurse pulled the shade halfway up; the light caused Mike to squint. Mike took a few small steps, felt stable and proceeded over to the mirror.  He rubbed his eyes as they adjusted to the light.  Mike took a deep breath and steeled him self for what he was going to see.  “Ok, guy you can do this…” Mike thought to himself.  He did a quick headshake as if to clear his thoughts and faced his future staring back at him from the mirror.  “Shit” was all he uttered, his mouth hanging open.  “Th-th-that’s me?” he asked incredulously. The doctor walked up and put his hand on Mike shoulder, “Yes, that’s you…” and just left the statement hanging in the air.

“I-I-I’m a kid!” was all Mike could say.

“Well, technically you��re not, Josh is, was, 19, an adult.”

Mike just stood there staring.  He blinked once, twice, three times. The image in the mirror did the same.  Mike took his hands and brushed his cheek, rubbed his jaw.  The skin was soft and firm.  He looked at himself.  He had a strong jaw line and a crease in his chin.  His golden blonde hair was cut short, kind of buzzed off the way kids wear it now.  His bright blue eyes had a fire to them.  His nose was slightly upturned and positioned between two high cheekbones.  He turned his head a little and noticed his ears.  They were moderate size and close to his head, the earlobes seemed to connect to his jaw line, “Damn” he uttered.  Everyone had something about themselves that they disliked, for Mike one of these things were his ears.  They stuck out a bit and as a kid he was always teased about it, not any more he thought.  With all that’s going on he had no idea why that thought crossed his mind.  

He took a step back in order to get a better look at himself.  He looked at the image staring back at him, young, tan, muscular, naked. Naked!  Mike didn’t even realize he wasn’t wearing anything.  He looked down at himself and over to the doctor.

“ Hey man, it all right, you’ve been naked through out the whole process.” The doctor said.

Somehow it didn’t bother Mike as much as it used to- shit, he was a hunk!  He had a thick neck that flowed into broad shoulders that had caps of muscle on the shoulders.  “Damn, I look like one of those models in the magazines.” He said as he looked down the body that was now his home.  Well-developed pec’s sprouted two small dark brown nipples, he reached up to rub them, they had decent sized bumps and the action was very pleasurable.  He had never given any thought to his nipples before, he was much more interested in women’s nipples, that could change… As he looked down, that broad chest tapered down to a small waist that displayed abs that must have taken years to get that hard.  Mike noticed he now had an innie, a small disk recessed into those massive abs.  As his gaze continued, “Fuck” came out of his mouth.  Mike stood there looking at the piece of manhood nestled in a golden blonde bush of hair.  Mike was always comfortable with his 5 incher, but he was now big, and uncut, and he had a mushroom head to boot.  His new cock hung there, and there was no hiding it.  It was very prominent, Mike didn’t know if it was the muscles, or just this guy’s anatomy, but he knew that from this point on his dick would always be one of his prominent features, there was no way to hide this.  As he looked he noticed his nice smooth balls.  Not a bad size and hairless, damn I guess this kid shaves his balls Mike thought.  He finally pried his eyes off his dick and balls and looked at the legs that supported him now.  He could tell this kid spent a lot of time working on them, big hard ass, massive thighs and calves.  The thick ankles lead down to wide, big feet, had to be a size 13 or better.

“So, what do you think?” inquired the doctor,  

“Shit, I don’t know what to think, I’m a fucking 19 year old jock, I cain’t say I’d ever dreamed this was possible.” Mike shook his head did he really say ‘cain’t’?  Mike had always prided him self on his diction, he always felt it was the sign of an educated businessman to be able to converse with others and sound intelligent, now he not only had a 19 year olds body, he was talking like one.  Damn…

“Do you feel strong enough to get cleaned up and dressed?  There’s a walk in shower in the bath, and I sent one of the techs to Josh’s dorm room to pick up some clothes, I don’t think anything you own would fit that body…” the doctor said as he looked over toward the nurse when he heard her pager go off.

As it beeped Mike looked over toward her too, “ Damn, she ain’t bad looking for an older chic,” Mike thought to himself as he gave her the once over.  “ Nice firm tit’s” he thought.  He blinked and quickly looked away, this didn’t go unnoticed by either the doctor or the nurse, Mike blushed, though it was kind of hard to tell with that dark tan, but his dick at half mast was a give away.  Not only was he 19, Mike discovered he was horny as hell.

“That was the tech, he’s dropped off a bag with some of Josh’s clothes at the front desk, I’ll go bring them in” The nurse said as she waited for the Ok from the Doctor.  He nodded, and she left with a little smile for Mike.

“Doctor..Uh..Thompson is it?”

“Call me Jim, were going to be seeing a lot of each other for quite some time” the Doctor replied.

“OK, Dr. .. Jim, I’m sorry about that.”

“Tell me, what were you thinking?   ---No, I don’t mean it like that” Jim added quickly when he saw the look on Mikes face.  “I really need to know what was going through your mind just now.  It will help in figuring out what is going on with you.”

“OK, Jim,” Mike said as he sat on the edge of the bed, “ I was thinking she was pretty hot for an older woman, her tit’s looked nice and firm --.  Dr., ..Jim, that’s not me, hell she’s a lot younger than me, no way would I think of her as older.  Women her age don’t give me a second look.”

“Mike, you have to remember your body is operating with a 19 year old’s libido, physically you are Josh now.”

Mike sat there, he looked down at his hands and at his cock still at half mast.

“Listen, how about if I give you some time to get to know yourself.” Jim said with a little smile.  “A nice hot shower and some clean clothes will make you feel like a new man.” He chuckled.  Mike didn’t know if he was ready for levity about his situation, but he did get the drift of Jim’s other comment.  

“Yeah, sounds good” Mike replied.

“Tell you what, I’ll leave my cell number here, either give me a call or ask one of the staff to get me when your feeling up to a talk.  Take your time, I know it’s a lot to get used to.”  Jim said as he started out the door.

“You have no idea” Mike muttered under his breath.

“Sure I do” Jim replied, Mike looked a little sheepish; he didn’t think Jim could hear him.

“ Everyone involved in the program has had to go through the procedure.  Granted, it was only for a few weeks, and we all returned to our bodies after the trial run was over, but yes, I do know what it’s like.” Jim said matter-of-factly.  “ Listen, we’ll have lots of time to talk later about the program and our goals, but right now you have more pressing matters.” Jim chuckled as he walked out.

One of the ‘more pressing’ matters Mike had to deal with has the fact he needed to pee, bad.  As Jim left, Mike moved quickly to the bathroom and the toilet.  He quickly flipped the seat up and pulled back his foreskin and let a heavy stream flow.  “Damn.”  That felt good Mike thought as he looked down and the stream was lessening.  “Fuck, I didn’t even think about rolling my cock cover back” Mike thought to himself as he shook the last drops of pee off his cock.  ‘Cock cover’ Mike thought ‘where the hell did that come from.’  ‘Shit, why does every sentence start with an expletive’ Mike wondered.  He flushed, and flipped the shower on.  The warm steamy mist quickly filled the room.  Mike stepped into the shower and the warm stream of water felt great on his back.  His hand instinctively found it’s way to his cock and was massaging it before he realized it.  He was hard in seconds. Mike looked down and was surprised to see the large dark purple head of his cock.  It was so sensitive he could barley touch it.  It was much smother than his cock, the years of being exposed to his clothes had taken its toll on it, it was rough and desensitized.  The feeling was exquisite as he rolled the foreskin back and forth.  It hit him right then what a crime it was to circumcise boys, the pleasure he was feeling was so much greater than he had ever felt before.  He closed his eyes and went with the pleasure.  Images of big-breasted redheads filled his mind, he was playing with their breasts, he was eating them out, the pleasure grew. Before he knew it he was spurting his load, it came and came.  “Fuck, that was some load, I wonder when the last time this kid came” Mike wondered. Still feeling the glow Mike washed down the wall where his cum hit and proceeded to wash his massive body.  He thought about the redhead in his fantasy, he was always a sucker for blondes but that redhead really turned him on.  It felt good rubbing the cloth over his body.  He could feel the muscles that rippled just below his skin.  As he stood there and let the warm water rinse the soap off his body he realized something, he didn’t have any tan lines!  “Fuck, this dude must tan in the nude, I wonder if that’s why it didn’t feel strange walking around naked” he thought to himself.  That was a new feeling for Mike, he was never comfortable walking around in the locker room naked as some of the guys were, he was always ashamed of his pudgy gut.  “No more” he thought.  He toweled off, and stepped up to the mirror., looked at his face and decided he liked the little bit of stubble that Josh had cultivated.  The dark stubble matched his eyebrows and contrasted nicely with his golden blonde hair. Mike tousled his hair and it fell into place, “I guess that is one advantage to short hair” he thought.  Mike looked at what toiletries were available, he found a disposable razor he wasn’t going to need at the moment, a tooth brush and paste, some deodorant and a comb, all typical hospital issue.  Mike slid his tongue over his teeth, they felt gummy, he was glad to be able to brush them.  As he bent over to spit out the foam he noticed his lips – full, red, sexy.  He spit and looked at his large white teeth, they weren’t quite perfect, a couple of the lower ones were crooked, but the overall effect made his face look more masculine.  He stood there and took a long hard look at himself.  He was one good-looking dude.  A knock at the outer door stirred him out of his reverie,

“I’ll put the bag with your clothes on the bed” he heard the nurse say from the other room.

‘Great, thanks ma’am ” he replied. He reached for the stick of antiperspirant, opened it and was about to apply it when it hit him, he had some of the ‘fuckinest hairy pits he’d ever seen’.  Wow, where did that come from Mike wondered? The hair was golden blonde as was the rest of his pubes, but damn there as a lot of it!  He applied the goo, and then he noticed the bush of hair visible even when his arms were down, though the muscles held them a bit way from his sides.  He gave himself one last look and left the room.

There was a black duffel bag with the school logo sitting on the bed, Mike walked over and opened it up.  There was an assortment of clothes there, but all were athletic gear, sweats, cross trainers, Ts.  Mike found some boxers in the bottom, they all had funky prints, he chose the ones with a smiley face with its tongue hanging out.  As he slid them up over his legs, he noticed his legs were pretty hairy too, but since it was blonde he didn’t notice it before that.  With the amount of hair in his pits and on his legs he wondered if the kid waxed his chest, he decided he’d find out soon enough.  Mike found a pair of socks and he picked up a grey muscle T, it had a logo of course, and he slid on a pair of breakaway warm up pants, and he pulled out a pair of cross trainers.  After he tied his shoes he walked over to the mirror.  Mike stood there for a long look.  The T was tight and his prominent nipples showed through along with his pecs and lats. These were defiantly his clothes, they fit him well.  He looked down at his hands, he flipped them over and looked at his palms, he saw a few small scars he wondered how Josh got them.  He looked over to the clock, it’s had been over 2 hours since the doctor left, Mike was curious about what to expect, and to find out just how this had happened to him.  He picked up the phone and punched Jim’s number in…

Mike thought it was strange, his whole world had changed in the past few hours, he was walking around in some strange kids body, but he felt fine.  His reality shifted and Mike felt he should be terrified of what had happened to him, but somehow he didn’t, why?  That was the first thing he wanted to ask Jim when he got there.  Mike went and looked out the window, he could see the rolling foothills in the distance.  He saw all the students going about their business, laughing, running, goofing off.  Mike rubbed his eyes, “Shit I can see a hell of a lot better.” he thought to himself.    He heard something behind him and turned to see Dr. Thompson come in.

“Looks like you’re doing OK”,

“Yeah, I guess” Jim looked at Mike for a moment, not sure what to say, Mike turned to him,” This is so fuck’n weird -- how come I’ve never heard of even the possibility of doing this?”

Jim looked at him, “Come on man, you’re a smart guy, how would the world react if it discovered that there was a possibility that someone was not who they appeared to be – what if this fell into the wrong hands?”

It hit Mike, all the possibilities, “Shit.”

“Odds are you are getting hungry, want to go grab something to eat and talk?”

“Fuck, Yeah, ...” Mike responded.

As they walked down the hallway to the cafeteria, Mike asked, “How come it’s so easy for me to function in here, I’m walkin’ and talkin’ like nothin’ happened?”

“We’ve found that the consciousness is pretty resilient, it adapts pretty easily.  I was a woman for a few weeks when I did the exchange and that’s a lot bigger change than you’ve gone through.  At first it was weird but after an hour or so I was functioning pretty much as my self.”

Mike looked at him,” You’re shittin’ me”

“No- in some ways it a little like what you’re going through, Karen and I agreed that we would try leaving the physical in place and adding our ‘identity’ to the body.  I was me, but without the male side, it was --- interesting…”

Jim kind of trailed off in thought.  They rounded the corner and entered the cafeteria, picked up a couple of trays and proceeded down the line.  Mike and Jim continued to talk, and halfway through the line Mike looked down and noticed his tray, it was loaded with protein and no carbs, he blinked.  Just then the girl behind the counter asked him what kind of entrée he’d like, he looked up and smiled at her and immediately started flirting with her, she turned around to get him a plate and Mike undressed her in his mind.  He could just see her there, firm tight breasts bouncing around as she served and a great ass, he could feel himself getting more aroused by the second.

“Down boy!” he heard Jim whisper in his ear, he looked down and saw what Jim had noticed.  Blushing, he looked away.  They picked up the rest of their food and found a table in the corner, away from the rest of the late afternoon crowd.

“We can talk here.” Jim said as he set down his tray.

“Yeah, I do have a few questions.” Mike said with the emphasis on few…

“I know it’s a lot to take in, plus your dealing with a teenagers sex drive.” Jim stirred his coffee.  “I’ve got to warn you, you’re in the eye of the hurricane right now.  You’re Mike and you only have a bit of Josh to deal with. Over the next few days you’re going to be exposed to more and more of Josh, some you may like and some you may not.”  Mike looked at him with a bit of apprehension.

“One thing we’re going to have to deal with sooner than later is the fact that Josh has an addictive personality.  We’d like to go in and see if we can remove that portion of Josh, before it blends with you.”

Mike looked at him, “Huh?”

“Now that you’re stabilized, we’d like to ‘explore’ that part of Josh that made him drink too much and use drugs.  It’s in there with you, you just haven’t connected with it yet.  We’re hoping we can prevent that since our best guess is it will infect you, sooner than later.”  Jim let that statement hang there for emphasis.

“Hey man, I’ve had the occasion drink, now and then even a bit too much at times, but I’m in control of it.  Hell it’s been years since I even touched weed.  I should be able to handle this.”  Mike said a little indignantly.

“Like you handle the pocket rocket down there?

Mike blushed.   Jim went on,” You have to realize that you are dealing with a whole new set of needs, wants and abilities.  You’re 19 again, your in sexual overdrive, and that is just the beginning.  We don’t know too much about Josh, but what we do know raises some serious questions about what we may have done to you in our efforts to save you.  We have a small window to do this, we’d like to try and ‘correct’ this after we finish here…  I’m serious.”   He could sense Mike’s incredulity.

“What the HELL have you done to me!  I didn’t ask for ANY of this!  Now you want to fuck with what’s left of my mind!  SHIT do you hear yourself!  Did I get any say in any of this?  You ASKED Josh, he had a say, but me, I don’t get any input and it’s MY FUCKING LIFE!”  Mike hit his fist on the table.  The whole room was watching him.  He was staring at Jim and Jim just sat there looking like he was run over by a truck.

Jim sat there for a moment collecting his thoughts.  “Listen, this wasn’t my idea.  I’m a researcher, and I just happened to be working when this happened.  I’m the lead on this project, that’s why I’m here.  I never said I agreed with it, but the decision wasn’t mine.  I seriously thought about walking away, but I have had the most experience, if you can call a 3 week transfer experience, so I agreed to oversee it. You are unique.  You may be the first to experience a change in the way we look at life and death, you may be the last if we fail.  I don’t know if we just jumped off a cliff ethically.”   He sipped his coffee as he let that sink in.

“You are an intelligent man, you’ve lived 45 years, and you have to know what the implications of this are, if you only stop and think about it.  When I first got involved with this process I was intrigued, hell I still am, but you have to know that I wrestle with the ethical implications daily. Am I doing the right thing?  I don’t know.  I do know if I wasn’t here someone else would be, and that person my not have the ethical qualms I have.  I don’t need you to point out what I have done, I’m well aware of it.  I know it’s been done TO you, and I can only begin to fathom your anxiety, but Mike, you have to work with the cards you were dealt.  You could be dead now.”

Mike sat there for a long minute staring at his hands.  “Maybe that would be better.  Maybe it was my time…  Sure, this kid screwed up, we all did when we were younger, maybe not as bad as Josh, but we all were stupid and think we’re invincible at 19 or 20. Hell, my own 22-year-old son still does stupid things.  What right to I have to take another persons shot at life, no matter how bad he fucked it up?  He might have learned something sitting in jail for years, I don’t know.”  

Jim thought it was incongruous hearing this coming out of a 19 hunks mouth.  This was going to be interesting… “Listen, we have your whole life to argue the ethics of this, but we really need to address the issue at hand.  You are at risk if we don’t do something.  Face it, this kid is an addict, do you want to live the rest of your long life doing AA and NA meetings, that’s where this kid was headed, he just didn’t’ hit bottom yet   –well he might have now…  Anyway, I really feel we need to do this now, You don’t know me but your going to have to trust me on this.  Please.”  Jim sat there and looked deep into Mike’s eyes.  Mike had to understand the risks he faced.

Mike sat there.  What difference did it make if part of the kid he didn’t even know was removed?  Why was he fighting it?  Was it the part of him that was Josh?  Did he trust this guy sitting across from him? Hell, he just met him a few hours ago.  He mulled it over, what was that? He really wanted something, but what?   Damn, it was a cigarette!  He looked at his chest, how could anyone who worked this hard to build a body like this ever think of smoking?  It wasn’t an overwhelming urge, so he wasn’t a hard-core smoker, but the itch was there.  “Dude, I really need a smoke.” Mike said. More and more he was talking like Josh.  “If we do this can you get rid of that too?”

“I think so, but you’ll still have the carvings for awhile.  Does that mean you’ll agree?”

Mike took a long breath,” I guess.”  

Jim blinked, thank god, he thought, somehow he was beginning to really care about this guy.  He knew he’d be driven by his addictions for the rest of his life if he didn’t agree to this now, before they took root.  Still, there was no guarantee it would work, but he had had to try…

They picked up their trays, and dropped them at the pickup window and Jim led Mike toward the transfer facility.  Jim greeted some of his friends as they entered, “This is the team that oversaw your transfer” Jim said as he directed Mike to a chair that looked like it was appropriated from a dentist’s office.  Mike rested his heavy frame into the chair and tried to get comfortable.  Jim and a couple of his associates came over.

“This is Rick and Karen,” he said.

Mike took a quick look at Karen then at Jim, Jim gave his head a slight nod, otherwise nothing was said.  Now Mike knew what Jim was talking about.  She was hot, Mike felt his ‘friend’ stirring, and quickly looked away.

“We’re going to wire you up now’” Jim said. Rick and Karen attached leads to various parts of his head.  Jim brought over some heavy, dark, funky looking glasses.

“Here, put these on.”

Mike slid the glasses over his eyes, he couldn’t see through them.

“OK, we’re ready to start.  Mike, watch the image in front of you.”

Mike heard a click and some swirling colors appeared on the built-in screens of the glasses.

“The colors are keyed to your mind, and soon you’ll find yourself drifting off, just go with it.” Jim said.

The colors looked so great soon Mike couldn’t help himself and he was out.  Jim, Karen, and Rick worked hard exploring “Josh” and modifying aspects of his personality.  It was a long, time-consuming process, but at the end Jim felt confident he had been successful. He also felt he knew Josh better.  Mike would have an interesting life ahead of him, if Jim wasn’t mistaken.  Mike noticed a change in the swirling colors and slowly woke up.

“Is it over?”

“Yeah.” Jim said as he wiped his brow.

“Damn, I still want that butt.” Mike said,

“You will, it’s your body craving the nicotine, it’ll pass.  Rick, toss me one of your patches.” Rick threw a patch at Jim,

“Hope they work better for him.” Rick had been trying to quit for almost a year now, but the long hours doing research always did him in.  The University was smoke free, but luckily for Rick their wing was on the reservation, so again their laws took precedence. Jim handed the patch to Mike; he opened it, lifted his shirt, and attached it to his side.

“How long does it take to kick in?”

“Not long, 10, 15 minutes tops.” Rick replied.

Jim motioned Mike to get up and head back to his room,

“Hey, man – Good luck!” Rick said as they left.

“So that’s Karen” Mike said after they were out of earshot.

“Yeah, like I said, it was interesting.”

“Did you do it?”  Mike asked with a little smile.

“Wouldn’t you?”  Jim replied.  He let the conversation drop, he really wasn’t comfortable discussing his sexual experiences, especially as a woman, with anyone.  They got back to Mike’s room, quickly, the complex wasn’t’ too large.

“Listen,“ Jim said,  “ You are in for a rough night.  I’m going to stay in the room next to you in case you need me.”

“What do you mean, ‘rough’ night?” Mike asked.

‘Well, like I said, you’re in the eye of the hurricane, you are going to start to get to know Josh, I guess is the best way to put it.  The first thing is going to be your dreams, if it gets too bad, let me know and I’ll get you a sedative.”

Mike was tired; the experience in the chair did him in.  “OK, I guess, I am a beat.”  He put his hand out, “ I’m sorry if I tore you a new one earlier, it’s not you, it’s this whole fuckin’ situation.  Maybe it’ll be better in the morning.”

Jim took his hand and shook it, but he knew tomorrow would be worse not better.  “Get some sleep man, you’ve been through it today.” he said as he walked out the door.

Mike closed it, went to the bathroom pulled out his dick and let a thick stream flow.  He shook his dick before he let the foreskin roll back down, washed his hands and gave himself the once over.  “What the hell is going to happen to me?” he thought as he turned out the light.  It was dark already, he really lost track of time, glancing at the clock he saw it was after 11 PM.  He pulled off his shirt and tossed it on a chair.  He walked over to the mirror and twitched his pecks, it seemed natural, but Mike had never done it before.  “Must be part of Josh’s nightly routine,” Mike thought.  He pulled his pants off, dropped his boxers, and rubbed his balls, -it felt good.   He flopped into bed, pulled the covers up, and flicked out the light.  He put his hands behind his head and stared up at the ceiling, “What a long fuckin’ day it’s been” he thought.  Before long he drifted off to sleep.

Oh God, it felt so good, Mike just kept pumping, in and out in and out. He buried his head in those beautiful breasts, he wanted this to go on for hours, with every thrust his pleasure increased.  There was a tangle of legs, arms, fingers.  As he thrust from the front he could feel Tuck thrust from behind.  It was such a turn on to feel another cock finding pleasure separated only by a thin layer of membranes.  Tuck was ready to cum, he could feel him pressing on Kat’s back, Mike increased his thrusts as Kat moaned louder, no holding back now, he went deeper and deeper, OOOHHHH, GGOOODDD!  YES! He felt Kat’s spasms as she came, one more thrust and….AAAAHHHHHHH!!!  He collapsed on top of Kat, he could feel Tuck trying to roll out from under her. He looked at Kat, her body glistened with sweat, god she was beautiful!  He looked over at Tuck, his dark hair was all messed up, he chuckled, he knew how Tuck hates having is hair messed up, He’d tease him like hell about it tomorrow.  Kat slid over and kissed him, long deep and wet.  “Thank you, that was incredible!”  She turned and did the same to Tuck, he was lost in the afterglow.  They lay there in a tangle for a while longer then Mike felt he really had to pee.  As he untangled himself Tuck was feeling the same need. Kat rolled over and drifted back to sleep.  Mike and Tuck headed to the john.  Mike rolled back his foreskin and let the stream pour out, Tuck just let the stream flow.  They both arched their backs as the warm flow of piss gave them relief.  “Shit, bro’ that was fuckin’ incredible.” Tuck said as he slapped Mike on the back.  “Didn’t I tell you so.” Mike replied. He headed over to the sink and splashed his face with water as Tuck made his way back to the bed.  When Mike got there Tuck was curled up on one side of Kat, he took a position on the other side, he was glad Tuck was an ass man, he had those breasts all to himself…

Mike woke cold and wet.  He rolled over, “What the fuck ---!” He pulled the covers back and saw the cum covering the ripped abs.  For a moment he didn’t recognize the cock and abs he saw, then the previous day came rushing back to him.  He was in Josh’s body, “Shit”, was that a dream, or did that happen??  He wondered aloud.  Jim had heard him stirring and stuck his head in to ask if Mike was all right.   Mike quickly covered up, looking a little embarrassed.

“Hey man, it’s cool” Jim said, “ Go get cleaned up, I’m going to take a quick shower and change too, see you in 15…” and he was gone.

Mike flipped back the bedding, he and it was covered in cum.  “The hell with it” he thought and headed to the bathroom to pee and to get cleaned up.  After a quick 10-minute shower and a shave, the stubble was turning into a beard, he was dressed and hungry as hell.  “I wonder what’s taking Jim so long,” he thought as he reached for the phone.  Just then Jim knocked on the door.

“Damn, you really do look like a kid today” Jim said referring to Mike clean-shaven face.

“Yeah, I guess I know why he grew that stubble, I could pass for a fuckin’ 15 year old..” Mike said taking a quick look in the mirror. “Shit man, I’m starving.”

“ Me too” Jim said, “Lets grab something before we hit it today.”  They were feeling more comfortable with each other, but Mike skirted around what had happened last night.  Mike loaded up on protein again, and they found the same isolated table they had yesterday.  “So, you want to tell me about it?” Jim asked.

Mike got red,  “Do I have to?”

The simple reply was  “Yes.”

Mike proceeded to give him the highlights, getting hard in the process.

“Was it a dream?  Did it happen?  Who’s Tuck?”

“Tuck’s Josh’s best friend.  As to whether it happened, I don’t know.  But after rooting around in Josh’s subconscious yesterday, and reading up on his background, I’d say it most likely happened. “

Mike just stared at Jim.

“ I warned you.  There’s a lot more to come.  Josh was out there.  Sex, booze, drugs, it’s amazing he kept a 3.6 average and performed well on the field.  And, before you ask- yes he did do the work, the kid has, or had brains, and talent.  It’s too bad he was so fucked up.”

Somehow that bothered Mike.  Taking the body of a dumb jock was bad enough, but this kid had potential.  “I don’t know if I can do this.”

“Do what? Live?”  Would you rather be in that room over there on a respirator? “ Jim said as he glanced to the west side of the room.

“He… I...  Josh’s there?”

“Yes”

“Alive?”

“At the moment.”

“Can I…”

“No.  At least not yet.”

Mike let it drop.

They loaded up the trays and dropped them off on their way out.

Jim wasn’t looking forward to what was going to happen next, but he couldn’t stop it.

As Mike was strutting down the hall in his new, muscular body he stopped short, “Shit!  What day is it?”  Mike blurted out with a Southern drawl, “How long have I been here?  Fuck, they’re probably wondering where the hell I am at work!  My neighbor is wondering when I’m going to get back, I’ll bet she is running out of food for my dog!”  Mike turned and grabbed Jim’s arm –“Why am I only realizing this now, did you fuck with my mind too?”

Jim pulled Mike’s hand off his arm and got a strong hold of his shoulder and forcibly directed him to an empty office down the hall from where they were.  Jim was glad that Mike didn’t realize he could easily take him with this new strength.  He kicked a chair over to Mike and sternly said “Sit!’

“What the hell do you think you were doing out there?  That was a common area, there are people who don’t know a thing about this Department and what we do.  It’s partly my fault, I should have warned you after your outburst yesterday in the cafeteria, but I had bigger issues on my mind.  You have got to keep this among us.  Feel free to talk all you want when you’re in our section of the facility but SHUT THE HELL UP in the common areas! Understand?”

Jim looked at Mike, Mike looked at Jim   Finally Mike said “Sorry, I’ll try and be more careful, but what the fuck is wrong with my mind?  I didn’t give a thought to any of this shit yesterday.  Why?”

Jim looked at him, looked at his watch, then back up. He pulled a chair over to where Mike was sitting.  “I don’t have all the answers, I can postulate why, but I can’t claim to know.  I guess the best way to put it is that your personality is starting to ‘coalesce’.  Yesterday you were the bare essentials of Mike, hung on Josh.  You were lucky to function at all.  We were really surprised that everything went as well as it did.  You have to remember outside of our group of six, you are the only other conscious person to experience this.  You know, in a lot of ways we’re finding our way just as you are, I’ll never claim to have all the answers, feel free to punch me out if I ever claim to.” Jim said with a chuckle, trying to lighten the mood. “So, what do you want to do?  Do you want to go somewhere and talk, you look apprehensive.”  Jim said as he got up.

“Dude, I’ve got so many fuckin’ questions my head hurts!  I don’t know what I want, sumpthin’ is buggin’ me -don’t know what it is.”  Mike said with a perplexed look on his face, finally getting up too.  He stretched and wriggled his upper body like he had a kink, “I want sumthin’, need sumthin’ but I don’t’ fuckin’ know what.”  As he walked over to the window he reached in and scratched his balls, “Look, what about my life, it’s like I fuckin’ disappeared! My job, my house, hell what about my son?  Shit, I‘m what two- three- years younger than him now?  What about my ex?  How do I explain this to her?  Shit!”

“Ok, if it helps, you’ve been here a little over two days, they brought you in late Tuesday night.  You were out of it Wednesday, yesterday you woke up, today is Friday.  We think we covered for you at work, someone called and told them you got food poisoning and you were sick in bed.  That bought us some time.  It’s the weekend, so hopefully with you awake now we can come up with something that’s plausible by Monday.  OK?”

“Shit.”  Mike looked over at Jim, “How am I ever gonna’ get my life back?  I cain’t go back to my job looking like this – I’m a fuckin kid!  Nobody would believe me if I tried!”  Mike was turning toward Jim as he jerked and quickly flopped into a chair as images raced through his mind.  People he didn’t know - but then did, places that he’d never been that seemed familiar, things he had done but never done.  He was getting high, he was running, he was suited up on the football field, he was fucking his brains out, he was driving a convertible, he was lifting weights, he was talking of an older man who was his father but wasn’t, he was kissing a girl, he was waving to his mom, he was skydiving, he was taking an exam, he was with his brother, he was on a jet, he was skiing, he was in Europe, he was scuba diving, he was in his dorm room, he was drinking with his buddies, he was petting his dog. All these images and more rushed through his mind, they were there then they were gone. Mike stared blankly at his hands. “Fuck….” He said under his breath as he slumped into a chair.

Jim grabbed his head and lifted it up and looked in Mike’s blank eyes –“Man, you OK?”  He was impatiently waiting for some sort of response, a blink, a grunt, anything.  After what seemed like hours Mike pulled Jim’s hands off his face, “Yeah, I’m still here. Damn, what was that?”

“Wha, what happened?” Jim stuttered still unsure if Mike was OK.

“There were all these fuckin’ images, but not really images. It’s like I was doing stuff, stuff I’ve never done.  There were all these people I knew them but I never met them –does that make any sense? Mike asked with a tone of uncertainty.

“You connected with Josh.” Jim said matter-of-factly - relaxing a bit.  “They were his memories, odds are just a brief flash, but I was afraid we might have lost you for a minute.”  Jim pulled a small note pad out of his pocket and noted the time and what they were doing.  “Maybe we’d better get you back to your room.”

“How come I still know so much about myself?  Did you transfer all of me on top of Josh?  How am I going to sort all the crap out?  Back there when --whatever happened -- happened it was so fuckin’ real, I knew those people and places like it was me, but it wasn’t.  How the hell am I supposed to deal with being 2 people?”

Jim could see the terror creeping into Mike’s eyes, hell it was scary enough at first when he swapped with Karen, but it was only for a few weeks and he knew he would be back to himself then, this was so much more. ‘It’s going to take some time to sort it, you, out.  This is all new to us too.”

“So… so who am I?” Mike asked, “ I mean really.”

Jim stood there and looked at him.  ‘I don’t know if there is one answer. If we tested your DNA it would say you are Josh, if I asked you, you would say Mike Watson.  My hunch is if one of Josh’s friends came up to you he’d think you were Josh, if your son came up to you I have no idea if he’d know you.  These are things we need to find out.  As I told you when we first met I really have no idea who you will turn out to be.  I have to believe it scares the shit out of you, it would me, but you got to know we’ll do what we can to help.”

Mike got up, that brief experience had him wiped, instead of his now usual strut he shuffled back to his room.  Sitting on the bed he was afraid to sleep, what if he had another dream like last night – that was the last thing he needed now. Jim looked at him not sure what to do.  “You want something to help you sleep?”

“Fuck, I don’t know what the hell I want.  I need somethin’ but shit, I don’t know what it is.  It’s like a fuckin’ itch you can’t reach.”  Mike looked at Jim, pulled his shirt off and tossed it across the room.  Scratching his pits he looked up at Jim, “What the fuck is gonna happen next – am I gonna wake up as Josh?  Hell- will I even remember being me –uh Mike?  FUCK!”

“Hey man, chill.  You are NOT going to wake up as Josh.  But I do think you do need some sleep, let me give you a light sedative, it’ll let you drop out for a few hours, there are a few things we need to talk about this afternoon – OK?” Jim looked at Mike with a questioning look on his face.  Mike nodded and Jim went to get the meds.

“Shit!”

Jim came running back in  “ –What?”

“I was thinking about what a fucked up mess my life has turned into, and I remembered something you said when we first met – you said Josh, I, we, were in an accident and Josh’s friend Tuck was in the car – what happened to him?  Is he walking around in someone else’s body too?  Is he dead? When I get out of this place am I going to be charged with killing myself and this guy Tuck too?”

“Calm down, first off no one is dead.  Josh is still alive in your body and Tuck is in a light coma, but all indications are he’ll be fine. Second, it was the reservation’s Police force that handled it. The Chief assured us that once we rectified the situation that would be the end of it. OK?  But, that does lead me to what I wanted to talk with you about later, the University does have a responsibility to notify the families of students of any accident, and Josh’s father is flying in this afternoon. Tuck’s folks are already here.  In fact they’ve been asking about you.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck FUCK! “ Mike exploded as he beat the pillow.  “Can this Goddamned day get any worse?”

“Listen, we have time-“

“What to Fuck this up even more! Shit! We’ll just fuckin’ have to come clean, tell the tru-“

“Are you some kind of friggin’ idiot?”  Jim cut him off, “First, you KNOW this is top secret, second who would believe you?  Hell, you didn’t believe it at first and it happened to YOU!”  All this was getting to Jim he was loosing his objectivity along with his cool.

“I was hoping we’d have a little more time, that you might be able to access more of Josh’ memories so we could come up with some story that Mr. Hunter would buy.”

“Hunter?”

“Huh?”

Mike replied, ”You said Hunter, you never mentioned my- Josh’s last name before.”

“Oh, I guess I didn’t.” Jim let it drop.

“Shit, what am I supposed to say to him- ‘Hey dad, I don’t know who the fuck you are!’?” Mike just stated at Jim.

“Well, it’s an over used cliché but you could fake amnesia- that would buy us some time- you were pretty shook up in the accident and Tuck isin a coma...” God, Jim though, this was sounding more like a Soap Opera as each moment went by.  Jim stood there for a long moment, looked out the window at the rolling green hills that formed a backdrop for the University. Deep in thought, he tried various scenarios, finally it hit him -  “Just wing it-“

“Huh?’ was all Mike could say.

“You’re a father, you made the comment your son has screwed up, more than once I bet, right?”  Mike nodded.  Jim went on “did he ever really fuck up?”  “Yeah, there was the time-” Jim cut him off “ I don’t need the details, how did you react?  If you are like my father I bet you did all the talking didn’t you?  After all you totaled another car, injured your best friend, and this isn’t the first time.  No doubt he’ll go through the roof, all you have to do is react and mumble accordingly.  I’ll sedate you lightly, so you look a little out of it, Damn this might just work!” Jim was pleased with himself.  Looking at his watch, “the plane gets in at 2:30, half an hour to grab a cab and get here, it’s 11 now, that gives us about 4 hours…  Did you ever figure out what was bothering you?”

“Not really, I kinda’ feel like I need to do somethin’ I ain’t sure what.” Mike said as he kneaded his hands. “Maybe it’s all this energy I got, hell a few days ago I was 45, now I’m 19-“ it hit him “ Fuck, I need a good workout-“ his body was telling him things it’s mind used to know.  Looking down at himself, the large muscles waiting to be put to work, Mike had an urge to go for a nice long, hard, run, he needed to burn off some energy. “Listen, I, we’ve, got time -can I go out and run a few miles? It shouldn’t take too fuckin’ long-“

“No. Damn man, you’re supposed to be recovering from an auto crash, supposed to be a little out of it, it isn’t going to do much to convince Mr. Hunter to leave after he reaming you out if someone sees you doing wind sprints is it?”  Jim just stared at him.

Looking sheepish, Mike hung his head “No…”

“Here, take these.  They’ll knock you out for a few hours and leave you a just groggy enough to deal with your ”Father”. OK?” Jim set the pills on the table.  “I’ve got a few things that are demanding my attention to deal with right now, will you be alright if I leave?  Karen’s in her office around the corner if you need something, but I doubt you’ll be awake long enough to need anything after you pop those. All right?”

Mike nodded. Jim closed the door on his way out.  Mike decided to take a piss plus he needed some water for the pills.  As he walked into the bathroom he glanced at himself in the large mirror over the sink.  “Who the fuck are you dude” he said to himself. Washing up after peeing he stated deeply into his blue eyes, wondering what they had seen, what the kid behind them though of the world, of himself.  Walking out of the bathroom he looked around the room and out the window. He could see some girls lounging in the grass a few hundred feet away, and before he knew it he was hard.  He looked at the time 11:20, he wondered how long it would take to get this guy off, “shit, why not?” he thought.  He looked around for something to use as lube, didn’t find anything, and decided to play with his foreskin, he never really did get to examine it before…  Before he knew it he was deep into a fantasy about another red head, this one was a little on the thin side but damn she could move.  Too soon it was over, his chest was covered in cum, almost as much as yesterday in the shower, and this morning.  He chuckled to himself, “damn, high output balls, cool!”  He cleaned himself up and decided to pop the pills, soon he was in a deep dreamless sleep.

Jim flopped into his well-worn desk chair, “Problems, chief?” he turned, Karen was standing in the doorway. There was a time when he thought it was cute to be called “Chief”, after all they were on Indian land and he was their team leader, but not today. “God, I don’t know what we’ve gotten into, and hell if I know how we’re going to get out of it.  We’re all academic’s, not “Covert OP’s or even fucking Soap writers.”

“Huh?”

“Josh’s father is on the way in, and I have no idea how we’re supposed to cover this up, I even suggested Mike feign amnesia, but he wouldn’t buy it.  I really don’t think I’m ready to go public, even with Josh’s father, there is just too much we don’t know yet.”  Karen pulled over another well-worn chair that was pretty much molded to her form; all the hours they had spent over the years in the small office space took their toll on the furniture.

“How’s the subject doing?”

Jim glared are her, “The ‘Subject’ has a name, it’s Mike.” He said curtly.  He looked at her and realized he was loosing his scientific objectivity and he needed to take a step away from Mike, whom he felt was becoming a friend.  “He had a memory flash a while ago, I was afraid we lost him.  It was a little like what we went through, but a hell of a lot more intense.”  Karen nodded thinking back to when she flashed on being a man.  She had a little smile as she ‘recalled’ Jim’s first fumbling attempt at pleasing a women when he was 15.  Having shared memories was something they had learned not to bring up, for some reason it was painful for Jim.  It was interesting for her, she was the only woman on earth who had experienced sex from both perspectives, she thought it made her a better lover, though with the long hours they all put in she had little chance to put her theory to the test.

“I take it he came through it ok?  What was his pulse rate?”

Jim looked at her “I was more interested in his mental state, I didn’t check it.”  Karen was always a better clinician than he would ever be.  “It was weird, for a little while the cocky kid was gone, Mike kind of shuffled back to his room, he almost had an air of defeat about him.  It didn’t last long, I stepped out to get him a sedative and he almost exploded.  He’s still having a lot of feelings of guilt over surviving and when you couple that to all the changes he’s going through we are going to have to be very careful in how we handle him and the whole situation, this whole thing could blow up in our fuckin’ faces.  I don’t think we were ready for this, it was just too soon.”

Karen agreed, at least internally, she knew better than voice it at this point. “So, what’s next – how do you plan to proceed?”

“We, I just need to get him through the next few hours, then we can take a breath and try to deal with next week and creating a cover story for Mike’s family and employers.”

“So, have you checked in on Josh?  Some of the swelling has gone down and he is looking more human, but he’s still out of it, he may never regain consciousness.  I hate to say it but that may be a blessing for him and us.”  Jim knew she was right, but the scientist in him would love to see how Josh functioned and adapted in his new form.  “What if we just tell his family and co-workers he was in a serious accident?  It’s the truth… “

Jim thought about it for a moment “Yeah, but we already told them he had food poisoning how do we switch stories now?”

Karen looked out the window, it was on trait they both shared when they were deep in thought,  “Well… How about after he left the hospital he had a relapse while driving, and was nearly killed in the resulting crash?”  Jim chuckled, before this was over they could both be fiction writers.

“That might work, Josh is definitely too messed up to be moved, if he survives we could somehow insist on doing long term care at this facility, though I don’t know how we’d pull that off. But shit, it’s the best option we have at this point.  That just leaves one side of the equation to work with which is a hell of a lot easier.”  Making that decision lighted Jim’s mood, he glanced over at the clock and noted the time. “Damn, just a little over an hour to show time…  I gotta’ grab something to eat.”

“…up.. can you hear me… Wake up!  Mike, come on man you gotta wake up!” Jim was shaking Mikes beefy shoulder.

“Mmff?  Huh?  Shit! What time is it?” Mike sat up with a jerk.  He rubbed his eyes looked over a Jim,  “How fuckin’ long was I sleepin’ he drawled.  His southern accent seemed even deeper now.

“A couple of hours, it’s a little after 2.  We got about 45 minutes before Josh’ father gets here, do you think your up for this?”

“Shit, no.”

“Well you- we don’t have a choice.  We just need to get thorough the next few hours and then we can regroup and formulate a longer-term plan.  Karen and I have some ideas we’d like to discuss with you later, but now we need to get you ready for Mr. Hunter. Let’s go.”

“Go where?”

”I’ve got a room set up in the medical wing of the hospital.  I got lucky and got you a room on the floor above the one Tuck is on, I sure as hell didn’t want you running into his folks while we’re there.  We’re going to have to put that off as long as possible.  Luckily Tuck has a record too so his folk might go a little easier on you when you do meet up.  But in the mean time Mr. Hunter is on his way in.”

“Damn,  what the hell is his first name, I should at least know that.”

“Ok, thumbnail sketch of what we’ve been able to put together.  Josh’s father’s name is Jacob, his – your - older brother is Jacob III, but he goes by J.J., his mother’s name is Marie, they are an old southern family from Georgia.  OK man, get your ass in gear, we don’t have a lot of time.”

Mike had his swagger back as they walked to the main section of the University Hospital.  It was hard to keep focused, there were so many great looking women, Mike’s body seemed to have a mind of it’s own, Jim had to keep him on track for his first outing.  Before long they were on the 8th floor in a private room overlooking the main portion of the campus.  Jim tossed Mike a standard hospital gown and Mike changed into is and was getting into bed when they heard the commotion out in the hall.

“Listen little lady, I want to see my son NOW!  Where is he?!”  Shortly the young nurse showed the older man in to Mike/Josh’s room, “Right here Sir..”  “Thank you, you’re excused I want to see my boy in private!”

“OK BOY, WHAT THE HELL IN ALL THAT IS GOOD IS WRONG WITH YOU! HOW MANY MORE TIMES ARE WE GOING TO HAVE TO PUT UP WITH THIS CRAP!”  At point Jim cleared his throat, “WHO THE HELL ARE YOU!” the older man said.

“Jim Thompson sir, I’m in charge of your son’s care” Jim said as he stepped forward offering the older man his hand.  The senior Mr. Hunter ignored it.  “Leave!  I need to have a talk with my boy here.”  “Sir I can’t do that, he’s been through quite a bit and his condition is improving but it’s far from stable.”

“I DON’T GIVE A FLYING FUCK ABOUT HIS CONDITION, NOW GIT!”

Jim stifled a gulp, he didn’t want to show any weakness to the older man, “OK sir, just for a few minutes, but I have to ask you to keep your voice down, your son isn’t the only patient here.”  With that Jim turned on his heel and left closing the door behind him.

Mike’s eyes were wide throughout this whole scene.  He didn’t know what to make of it.  There was something familiar about his “father” but he couldn’t place it.  His mind was racing, but Jim was right, Mike would do little talking during this visit.  He tried to take a deep breath while his “dad” focused on the young doctor, but the older man could sense the terror in his eyes when he turned to talk to him.

“My God Boy!  You’re a Hunter! You Damn Well Know Better!  Is Your Only Focus In Life to Embarrass This Family!  Your Brother Fucked Up Enough When He Was Your Age, But He Doesn’t Hold A Candle To You Boy!”  The Senior Mr. Hunter had lowered his voice, but there was no mistake who was in charge.

Mike was searching his confused mind there was something so familiar about the older man.  Was it a memory from Josh?, he didn’t think so, the older man was just so familiar.  As the older man railed on, getting red in the face, Mike’s mind was working. “Shit” he thought to himself the synapses finally connecting; the older man was Senator Hunter!  Damn, Mike thought Josh came from old money, really old money.  The Senator had been a fixture in the senate for over a decade, as had his father before him.  Think man, what do you recall?  They did a piece on the Hunters on 60 Minutes a while back, a story about political dynasties, what were some of the details?

“BOY, ARE YOU LISTENING TO ME!”

That stirred Mike out of his reverie. “Yes sir.” Mike gulped.

“Good!  If your grandfather hadn’t set up those trust funds I’d cut you all off, your brother, your uncle and you, but the old man tied my hands. I’ll be Goddamned if you will fuck up my political career. We’ll do what we can to down play this in the media, but after this you’re on your own!  DO YOU UNDERSTAND BOY!!!”

Mike started to reply but the Senator cut him off ”Shut the Fuck Up, there is NOTHING you can say to me to explain you doing this again, we went through hell last time and you fuckin’ promised your Grandfather this would never happen again.  He’s barely in the grave 6 months and here we are agin’!  I don’t want to hear a fuckin’ word from you!  From now on, you will show up for photo op’s and what ever function I deem you to be needed at, but that will the extent of your involvement with this family! UNDERSTAND?!?”

“Sir –“

“Don’t’ fuckin’ Sir me, a simple yes or no will do!”

Mike said a quiet “Yes” under his breath. The older man glared at him, and turned an left, making Mike feel as if he took all the air in the room with him.

“Shit” Mike said to no one.

The senator saw Jim in the corridor.  Grabbing the lapel of Jim’s lab coat, Senator Hunter glanced around for an empty room, found one and pulled Jim in.  “I want you to keep a lid on this!  Understand?  Do what you need to fix the boy up; I doubt there is much you can do to fix his attitude.  Is there anything I should know?”

“N-no Sir.  He should make a complete recovery in a few days.  I really think this experience changed him.”

“How the hell would you know what can change my son?  Fuck, some of the best doctors in the world tried to straighten him out and failed, how the hell do you think you can make a difference?  Now, what about the man he hit? Is he dead? ”

“No sir..”

“At least that’s one fuckin piece of good news.  Is he talking about pressing charges?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why the hell not!”

“He, he’s in a coma- his family isn’t here yet.”

“Listen, you seem like a reasonable man, if you can prevent the man from pressing charges there is something in it for you.  Understand?”

“Senator, are you trying to bribe me to cover up a crime?” Jim’s mind kicked into gear.

“Hell no.  I’m just saying it would be in the best interest of all involved, the man, the University and your career if this thing went away, and I have the connections on the University board to make your life hell if it doesn’t” With that he turned and walked out.

Jim smiled to himself, “This could work out better than I ever thought.” He mused to himself.  Hell, he might even end up with a bigger departmental budget after this all blew over.  “Shit- Mike!’ he said as he trotted down the hall to the hospital room.

As he rounded the corner in to the room “ Dude, where the fuck you been?!?!”

“The Senator button holed me, what do you think happened?  I’ve got my marching orders where you are concerned.”

“Shit, you too?”

They shared a knowing look between each other briefly. “Let’s get the hell out of here before someone sees you. I sure as hell don’t want to deal with Tuck’s folks now, the Senator was more than enough for one day, hell he was more than enough for one lifetime!”

Mike changed out of his hospital gown, and they went out through the back corridors.  When they were safely out of the medical wing they both seemed a little more relaxed, “So dude, you said you had some ideas on how to handle my situation?”  Mike inquired.

Jim looked around, the halls were empty, “Yeah.  Karen and I brainstormed.  We called your office Wednesday and told them you had food poisoning and that you should be able to travel by the week’s end.   What we came up with is that you insisted on leaving, something about getting back to your job, or what ever you think would work, and you were still too ill to drive and you drove your car into a tree or embankment or something.  That would explain your, or should I say Josh’s current condition, and if “Mike” dies then that issue is settled – not that I want that to happen.”

Mike looked at him, “Shit, what a fuckin’ way to go out.  Weeks away from getting off the road and “I” buy it due to food poisoning.  I dunno…”

“Listen that would get your ”Father” off our backs too. Hell, he all but guaranteed me a payoff if I made this go away.  If we go this route, then the only wild card is Tuck and his family.  We’ve got no idea how that will play out.  Maybe we’ll have more to work with when Tuck regains consciousness; I’ll go in then and see how much he remembers.”

Mike stopped short “Who all know about what happened?” he drawled.

“You, me, my staff, the deputy that found you and the Tribal Chief – why?”

“Dude, was Josh driving?”

“Yeah.”

“But what if he wasn’t?”

“Shit, what are you getting at?”

Mike’s eyes lit up “What if Tuck was driving?”

Jim took a hard look at him “I don’t know if I like what you’re getting at, Josh was driving”

“Yeah but if we are goin’ to fuck with what happened to me, Mike I mean, what if we fuck with what happened to Tuck?  Would the Tribal dudes go along with it?

Jim looked a little incredulous “The chief is a great guy but I’m not sure he would go along with this.”

“Even to keep the project secret?”

“Well, perhaps… if he was approached in the right way he might go along..”

“You’re a fuckin’ doctor --how much is Tuck gonna’ remember?  I recall reading some shit about people in trauma never remembering what happened just before the shit came down.  If he is told he was driving who the hell is gonna’ tell him different?  You said he has a record too, if we’re both OK, and no one else was involved there’s no harm no foul.”

Jim looked at Mike, “I’m glad I never had to deal with you before this happened if that’s how your mind works.”

“Hey dude I ain’t no angel, I did my share of fuckin’ up when I was young, and I learned how to deal with people.  20 fuckin’ years of doing sales on the road you learn how to work the angles, I ain’t proud of it, but that’ just how it is.”

They walked the rest of the way to Mike’s room in the wing of the facility that housed Jim’s research department with out saying a word. Jim deep in thought, Mike tired and excited about clearing up some of this potential mess he found himself in.  If this all came together he’d be a free man, at least he’d be able to sort out who he was.  After the past day or so that was a lot more than he thought he could expect.

“Dude, can you score me a couple more of those pills?  They fuckin did the job and after the day we’ve just had I could use some z’s.”  ‘Shit’ Mike thought to himself, after things settled down a bit he was gonna have to work on this kid’s vocabulary.

Jim hesitated, he didn’t want to overmedicate Josh’s body after all the trauma it had been through, but hell he needed some down time too and if he had to keep an eye on Mike again tonight that wasn’t going to happen. ‘Yeah I guess so, but this isn’t going to become a pattern --we worked our asses off to get rid of Josh’s addictive personality yesterday, there is no way I’m going to let you get used to using these things.  Understand?!?”

“Doc, I’m cool – it’s just for tonight.  Cool?”

Jim reluctantly nodded and when over to the locked med room and punched in his code.  Mike stood there waiting, pretty much wiped out from the day’s activities and it was only early evening.  “OK, this is the last time. Tomorrow you deal with what ever comes when you sleep, cool?”

“Yeah, cool.”

Jim pressed the green pills into Mike’s big hand.  “With the dose you had earlier, that should easily put you out for the rest of the night and well into the morning.  If you’re not up by 10, I’ll come in and wake you – OK?”  Mike nodded, “OK man get some rest…” Mike went into his room and Jim went and collapsed into the chair in his office, it wouldn’t be the first night he slept there.  “Hey chief, how’d it go?”

“Huh?  Sorry I didn’t see you come in.”

“So how’d it go down, did it play out as you wanted? Karen asked.

“Yeah, pretty much, but I had no idea how much of a devious mind Mike had.”

‘What do you mean?”

“Not tonight, I just want to do a quick bit of dictation and go hit the cot in the on-call room.  We can talk in the morning, but I think this all may just work out.  Wake me at 9 if I’m not up, OK?”

Karen nodded “ No problem. ‘Night.”

“Night”

Jim turned back toward his desk and pulled out his recorder.  He spent the next 30 minutes dictating the events of the day and his observations.  Satisfied he didn’t leave anything out he was ready for a decent night’s sleep, he didn’t even mind missing dinner.

[prettywordsyouleft]

Too Good To Be Wrong - Part 1

Summary: No matter how much you tried, you couldn’t resist Park Chanyeol, even if you knew it would test everything that you thought family stood for.

Genre: childhood friends & “siblings” to lovers au / forbidden romance / older woman - younger man au

Characters: Park Chanyeol x female reader

A/N: This is a series about falling in love with your “brother” Chanyeol - your family took him in when you were younger. It will contain mature content in later parts, but for the majority of the story it’s about reconnecting as adults and discovering feelings for each other.

I am expecting Too Good to be Wrong to be around 10 parts long, but this could change depending on how the story progresses in further parts.

Too Good To Be Wrong will be posted every Tuesday at 10am NZST.

Prologue | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

You groaned when you checked your phone again, the short vibration indicating that it was a text this time. It was another message from your mother and in any other situation, you would have answered her when she called the first time an hour ago. But it was your second week as an intern at your new job and you were a little busy.

And by a little, you were literally being run off your feet.

Answering her call would have to wait but she seemed incessant about getting in contact with you that you started to panic. Was it something to concern yourself over? You had been preoccupied trying to balance two trays of takeout coffees as you dashed back into the office when she rung the last time. Then you were photocopying enough copies of the month end report for all the team members when you felt it vibrate in your pants pocket once more.

Deciding you couldn’t do anything about it until you could squeeze in a toilet break, you made the decision to place your phone into your bag under your desk and began typing up the sales reports your supervisor had just placed down next to you.

“Y/N, I need them in an hour!” she called out after her departure and despite your pleasant response, you were grumbling on the inside. You’d even have to hold on to go to the bathroom now too.

Finally, your work day was over and as you exhaustedly left the office you turned out the lights, being the last to leave for the day. You were barely out of the building before you heard your phone vibrate again and you groaned, fishing it out of your bag and pressing talk.

“Oh what, Mum?!”

“Finally, you answer!”

You sighed heavily from your outburst and pulled the phone away from your ear momentarily to see how many notifications had stacked up over the day. Gasping at the number, you pressed the device back to your ear. “Is everything okay there?!”

“It would be too bad if it weren’t with your lack of attention. What made it impossible for you pick up a call for five minutes?” she prattled and you heaved another sigh, your annoyance returning.

“Having five minutes to myself today would have been a blessing,” you admitted with a groan and narrowed your eyes on the darkened street ahead of you. All you wanted now was food, a shower and your bed.

“Well, do you have five minutes for me now?” she asked, her tone changing. You knew that tone all too well and it made you teeter between hanging up and listening on to what she had to say. “Do you?”

“What, what?” you bit back, hearing her triumphantly laugh at garnering enough of your curiosity. “Let’s hear what’s been so important for you to blow my phone up about!”

“Your apartment, remember how your father and I helped pay the deposit for it?”

“Please don’t tell me you took out a loan and now I’m homeless so you can pay it back,” you breathed down the phone and the older woman gasped.

“What do you take me for?! It was your Uncle that one time and I paid you back every cent I borrowed. Some filial daughter you are.”

“Fine, what?”

“Channie.” She started and you huffed out air at the mentioning of the real pride of your family. “He’s coming to Seoul.”

“So?”

“He needs a place to-”

“What, no! Mum, you know Chan and I never get along together. He’s so frustrating and I’m too old to put up with him,” you cut in, shaking your head at her half spoken request even though she couldn’t see it. “I can’t, I have adult friends and important things that I do with my life.”

Like order in Chinese food and cry over k-dramas romances, you thought sadly to yourself, unable to even bring your pathetic lifestyle up to the woman who raised you.

“You act like Channie is still that awkward kid who followed you about everywhere. He’s an adult too. It’ll only be for a couple of weeks, maybe a month at max. He’s landed a job up there as a music teacher at a university, so it’s not like he won’t be able to pay his way and I told him he has to treat your house rules as gospel. Come on, Y/N. He’s not even going to be in your way much.”

“But…” You had no comeback, and the woman on the phone knew it. “Ugh, fine but if he does so much as one thing wrong I’ll kick him out immediately, okay?”

“He’ll be there in two days, thank you!” The call disconnected and you let out an indignant scoff at her manipulative ways.

Fried chicken and beer it was for dinner tonight.

It was the weekend when Chanyeol arrived and it was far too early in the morning too. You stood in your doorway with sleep in your eyes and a scowl attached to your face. He grinned at you. “Some things never change.”

“Know that I only agreed to this because Mum made me aware that I’d get paid for you staying here.”

“Duly noted, what a generous heart you have towards your brother,” he admitted as he stepped inside with his belongings and you cringed, shaking your head at the tall boy.

“Ugh, brother is too much and you know it, Chan.”

“Our parents were thinking of adopting me last year but I told them I was fine with it being the way it is. I’ve been a part of your family for so long now I don’t need it to become legal. Besides, it’s fun being able to tease you about it.”

“What, that my Mum dotes over you more than her own flesh and blood?” you challenged and he smirked, nodding his head once. “You even admit to it now so freely!”

“You left home and I filled her heart, what can I say?” he retorted with a grin as he went back to the door to head out and grab more of his belongings. You merely stood there, watching as box after box filled up your small living space. Shaking your head, you waited until he closed the front door and smiled at you.

“I’m going back to bed.”

“It’s ten in the morning!”

You nodded slowly, as if he didn’t understand the need for sleep anymore. It used to be him that you’d be kicking out of bed in the early afternoon only a few years ago. “Try being an intern who works for one of the biggest editorial companies in Seoul and see how well you sleep during the week. I’m an adult unlike you most days!”

“I can’t guarantee I’ll be quiet,” he warned teasingly. You marched over to his side and gazed up at him, your nose scrunching up at how tall he was now. He had grown again, you were sure of it. He watched you bemused as you turned and climbed up onto your sofa to gain some height and authority over him. Chanyeol tried to suppress his laughter but his shoulders bounced and you swiftly kicked him in the leg. Yelping out a curse, he bent over enough and you smiled triumphantly. “My house, my rules.”

“Noona! Didn’t you just tell me you are an adult?! Still playing your dirty tricks with me!”

“Like you said before, some things never change,” you told him sweetly and shutting your bedroom door behind you.

Having Chanyeol living with you wasn’t as difficult as you imagined it to be. It was lively and you embraced any moment you had to tease him, the younger boy giving it back just as much. Such as your relationship was, nothing was ever serious and you had been laughing all weekend. You had learnt despite all this he had actually gotten himself a pretty decent job at the university near your work, and it allowed you to bribe him to take you to work in his car. This not only gave you an extra half an hour in the morning to sleep, but you would get to escape the woes of the crowded subway too.

You decided having him stay was going to benefit you in the morning.

“Remind me why I’m doing this for you?” he asked as he strapped in his seatbelt, glancing at your all too happy expression. “Noona, you look deranged.”

“Just drive Chan, I can’t be late.”

“Like I’ll make you late, I know how to drive,” he muttered and pulled out of the car park. It was silent for a few minutes until he reached over to turn on the radio, loud music full of drums and bass immediately blasting out which made you groan. Chanyeol laughed. “What? My car, my rules.”

“Petty son of a bitch.”

“I got taught by the best, what can I say?” he replied with a laugh as you reached to turn it down a little. You would placate his music taste as long as you could hear yourself think.

“So, this week should I be aware of any plans where I might need to vacate the apartment?” he asked and you glanced at him, your brows knitting together. Chanyeol smiled, keeping his eyes on the road. “Mum said I have to be mindful of your male friends. I of course asked her what friends but – oof!”

You slapped his chest and Chanyeol shot you a glare. “I’m driving!”

“You’re being a butthead!”

“You’re almost thirty and you still use language like butthead? And you say I’m not an adult?!”

You folded your arms over your chest in a huff.

“So, no male friends then?” he tried again, holding up a defensive arm as your own shot out to attack instinctively.

“Park Chanyeol!”

“It doesn’t suit you anyway,” he mentioned after laughing at you for a moment and you looked at him from the corner of your eye. “You and a man? I can’t imagine it.”

“I’ll have you know I am capable!”

His eyes widened. “I don’t want to know how much!”

“Then you shouldn’t ask such questions,” you surmised smugly, turning your attention to out the window. Inwardly, you whined over his attack and wished for the car ride to hurry up.

You were regretting not taking the subway now.

_________________

Part 2

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[ryanmeft]

No, Nintendo Does Not Hate Metroid

Nintendo, a company that makes video games, recently announced that after almost two years, they were scrapping all current work on Metroid Prime 4, taking it from whatever mystery studio was working on it, and giving it to the hallowed minds at Retro Studios to start over with, hoping to get it right.

This was greeted with rapturous applause by Metroid fans, who almost universally recognized how good Nintendo was being to them, and were highly appreciative of the fact they’d be willing to write off all the resources they’d spent so far, just because the game wasn’t up to snuff.

I am of course kidding. That up there was a joke. Metroid fandom contains the whiniest, most entitled, hardest-to-satisfy fans of any Nintendo property, and while the majority of fans were cool, the loudest ones were typically the whiners. Most notably, a not-insignificant section of the fandom has gripped, with an unshakable hold, the idea that Nintendo doesn’t respect or even dislikes the franchise. I’ve listened to this particular whine for years and years, ever since there was an unimaginable eight-year gap between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. Never mind that other beloved series of yore, from Mega Man to Final Fantasy, have also gone similar periods without a new game. Never mind that non-Japanese fans of Nintendo’s own Earthbound are still denied the chance to play the final game in the series, and probably always will be. Never mind that Sonic fans suffered under a notorious drought of good games lasting two decades before Sonic Mania finally happened. None of that means shit: Metroid fans are the most persecuted, victimized, and unfairly treated fandom in video games.

Now, I’m the last guy to feel I need to defend a massive company like Nintendo, but in this case I’ll make an exception. Because just like Ghostbusters fans who can’t figure out their particular obsession just isn’t as relevant as they want it to be, Metroid fans need to grow up and start appreciating what they have gotten, rather than what they haven’t. Below are the three reasons why Metroid fanboys aren’t even the least bit as ill-used as they think are.

Almost Every Metroid Game has Been Excellent

The nature of video games is such that many more entries in a successful series are usually produced than in other mediums like film. Even a series like Metroid, which has been iterated less often than Nintendo’s other properties, has had eight fully fledged games since 1986, and 10 if you count the heavily re-worked upgrades of the original game and Return of Samus. Of those, only a single one, Other M, has been poorly received, and there’s no indication that’s what Nintendo expected. After all, fans were excited when the series got handed to Team Ninja; the idea that this was callous on Nintendo’s part, for not developing the game themselves, is something that only took hold retroactively, and you know what they say about hindsight. The original Metroid, Super Metroid, Fusion, and two of the three Prime entries are among the more critically lauded games in history, and excepting only Other M, all of the others have received highly positive reviews. The Metacritic average for the mainline Metroid games is an 89 of 100. Boy, look how much Nintendo hates this franchise, going out of their way to make good games for it and crap like that.

The Bad Spin Offs are Nothing Compared to Other Series

One of the big pieces of evidence Metroid fans like to roll out to prove Nintendo loathes Samus like unto the heat of a sun is that they’ve spent some of their time on it making poorly received spin offs, like Blast Ball and Federation Force, that don’t capture the spirit of the series. “Look!” they shout, from atop the Tower of Cluelessness high on the Oblivious Cliffs, “They aren’t doing what a bunch of us fans who have never programmed a game or made a decision about a franchise think they should be doing, so they clearly don’t care!”

You might already see the flaw in this thinking. By this standard, nearly every company with a long-running series hates that series. Capcom has inserted Mega Man into soccer and allowed him to be licensed out for extremely shitty PC games, and have pooped out almost as many crappy Resident Evil-themed spin-offs as there are main Resident Evil games. Square has pimped Final Fantasy out to every possible genre, from racing to fighting to freaking tower defense, all while taking ages to finish the next main entry in the series. Nintendo themselves have slapped Mario on every possible thing they can, and despite strong sales to dumb people, Mario Party is notorious for being a bunch of slapped together mini games for people who like their games to be completely random.

If bad spin-offs proved anything about what Nintendo thinks of Metroid, the fact they’ve spared it from as many as other series get would actually support the idea they are more protective of it.

Metroid Doesn’t Deserve as Much Love as You Think it Does

Economics 101 is now in session. All right, children: why does a company make things?

“To make their fans happy, Mr. Eft!”

Wrong, little Dingleberry! They make things to---say it with me---MAKE MONEY!

See, companies like money. And this is especially important for an industry with relatively low margins and high costs like video games, because folks like the evil satanic Metroid-hating demons at Nintendo need games to sell well not only to justify further games in that series, but to fund further games in that series. Unlike, say, Disney, they don’t typically have the option of busting out an Avengers and making 1000% profit. Unless it is something really massive and popular and guaranteed to sell, like Call of Duty or Pokemon, most franchises live entry to entry, relying on the previous one being profitable to decide if the next one will ever be made.

And here’s some economic reality for you: almost from the outset, Metroid has failed that test more often than it has passed it. Yes, the series has sold decently---for a minor franchise. The fact that it is legendary among gamers and highly influential among designers has not traditionally translated into the kind of money it needs to guarantee the entries keep rolling out. One of the most frequent desperate cries of the Lesser American Hardcore Metroid Fanboy plays out something like this: “If only Nintendo put as much effort in as they do for Mario and Zelda, it could be a real blockbuster!”

Except it couldn’t. And it has proven that time and again. It has sold, it is often said, respectably. That’s a business term for “We didn’t lose money…but it didn’t exactly pay our salaries, either.” Metroid’s critical and fan status is simply not reflected in sales, where Samus is holding at the 14th overall spot in Nintendo’s history. She’s managed to scrap together around 17 and a half million units moved in three decades, compared to just over a hundred million for Zelda and hundreds for Mario (that’s including every Mario game of any kind, but if you only include platformers, the series is still on top).

Simply put, Metroid doesn’t get the same attention as Mario and Zelda for the same reason Luke Cage or Cloak and Dagger don’t get as much love from Marvel as Spider-Man and X-Men: financially speaking, it doesn’t deserve it. No one argues that means Marvel hates Luke Cage; the sales just aren’t there to justify an equal amount of time, energy and resources.

Given all that, fans ought to be grateful the series is still around at all. Nintendo has tossed all of the Prime 4 resources spent so far down the crapper and re-started it just to get it right, when they would have been fully justified with just abandoning it. As a big fan of many minor characters and series, take it from me: when your preferred fan obsession is far from being top dog in the overall culture, sometimes you gotta stop whining and take what you get.

[myrealtorroland]

9 Expert Tips to Buy a Luxury House in Ontario

If you are exploring the luxury home market, it makes sense to do your homework before you invest in the property that matches your specific needs. Whether you are seeking a mansion in the historic Glebe community of Ottawa, a lakeside home in Kerr Village, or a fancy penthouse in Downtown Toronto, finding the perfect luxury home entails a focused vision, some patience, and the right team.

Here are some expert tips from Roland Hack real estate service provider to help you find the luxury house of your dreams.

Hire the Right Real Estate Agent:  When planning to invest in a luxury home for sale in Ontario, you may require collaborating with a real estate agent broker who has the skills and experience required to help you find the luxury property of your dreams. The luxury real estate market is quite different from the regular one, therefore you should seek a real estate agent with the following qualities:

Relevant Experience:  You should look for an agent who has been working in the luxury home segment for a substantial amount of time, with a decent track record of selling luxury houses in Hamilton.

Familiarity with the Locality:  Liaising with a real estate agent, who is familiar with the community you are interested in, is crucial before making such an important decision. Your agent should be able to give you suitable choices as well as information on other similar properties in the area. Moreover, they should have important details such as how many days the property has been on the market, price adjustments, and so forth.

Right Connections:  Besides having their own luxury home website, your real estate agent should also have a sizeable network of peers and luxury home sellers. Your agent should be aware of more than what's available on new listings in Burlington and capable of finding you a home with the amenities you are looking for.

DetermineWhat You WantBeforehand:  It may sound obvious that your new home in Oakville should be a perfect match for you and your family, but at the same time, it may be quite easy to get distracted by all the choices available, and forget to make sure the property ticks all the right boxes. Getting started with the luxury home hunt with a list of ‘must haves’ will allow you to narrow your focus while ensuring that your family would be happy with your final decision. Ask yourself the following questions:

Which home will be best for me and my family?

Which house can offer the quality of life I am looking for?

Which home suits my family’s taste?

Which property is closer to the grocery stores, public amenities, work and school?

Don't Simply Depend On Online Listings:  This tip points towards working with a real estate agent broker who is familiar with the community you are interested in as well as with the luxury home market in the area. Many a time, luxury homeowners want to keep the deal private. Hence, you need a professional who is aware of the properties that are up for sale, but aren’t advertised publicly. Moreover, an expert luxury home agent may help you see properties before they are listed publicly, providing you with the edge you need in finding your dream home.

Don't Just Rely On the Photographs:  A picture can paint a thousand words. However, it is prudent to have several walk-throughs of the luxury house for sale in Hamilton before you make a purchasing decision. Try visiting the property at different hours of the day. This will possibly give you an idea how well lit the rooms are, how calm or bustling the neighbourhood is, and what the property looks like at different times of the day. You have to be fully satisfied with the property before you invest in it. It is important to note that such photos or even a video walk-through are customised to make the property more appealing and sellable. Moreover, you could actually get a feel for a home only by being physically present in that property.

Get to Know the Neighbourhood:  The value of your investment is primarily associated with its location. Hence, it is important to fetch as much information as possible about the locality. Roland Hack real estate service provider can help you perform the market assessment of similarly priced properties in the same neighbourhood. Also, this will serve as an opportunity to predict the neighbourhood’s future. For instance, you may want to ensure that there are no upcoming developments or high-rise projects in the area. Also, check for any construction-related restrictions in the neighbourhood since some areas may have limits on the maximum height of walls or the maximum number of storeys. Losing your view to a new home in Burlington can be seriously upsetting and may even depreciate the value of your property substantially. The more information you have on the luxury home you're planning to buy, the more satisfied you would be in your home.

Do Not Forget the Home Inspection:  The home inspection is a salient aspect of the property buying process. However, when it is about luxury homes for sale in Ontario, you require a professional inspector who is expert at assessing top-of-the-line features, like expensive appliances, advanced security systems, and the latest cooling and heating technologies. Your regular home inspector may not have the experience to scrupulously examine a luxury home. Instead, you should hire an inspector who can tell you about recommended upgrades and maintenance, while revealing possible defects.

Consider the Property’s Resale Value:  While purchasing a new house for sale in Hamilton, you should choose a home that is exactly what you are searching for. Your specific style, taste, and lifestyle will majorly influence your buying decision. Still, you should take the resale value of the house into account, particularly if you wish to keep the property for the generations to come. At some point in future, that house will be sold, so you should strive to maintain the appreciated value of the property as much as possible. Your real estate agent can offer you the most recent luxury home market report for the neighbourhood of your interest, which includes past sales trends, that will help you get a clearer picture of what the value of your property will be in the coming years. Particularly, you should understand the absorption rate for the local luxury home market. It is basically the rate at which properties are sold in a particular segment of the real estate market over a given period. This is a key feature in figuring out whether the market is a seller’s market or a buyer's market. It's possible for the properties that are worth below $2 million to experience a seller's market, whereas for those worth over $3 million to experience a buyer’s market.

Decide Whether to Finance or Not:  Many affluent home buyers looking to purchase a luxury property prefer to pay in cash. But, you may consider leveraging your finances and investments, based on the interest rates for the real estate market at the time of buying. As a well-to-do homebuyer, you may already be knowing a few reputable loan professionals. However, in case you need help finding a dependable lender, Roland Hack real estate agent broker can guide you in the right direction. If you want to finance your deal, it is wise to connect with your lender early on in the buying process. Having a pre-approval can strengthen your offer substantially. On the other hand, if you opt to make the payment in cash, your seller will most likely ask you for proof of your fiscal standing. So, be ready with the same in advance. Again, this is where your real estate agent will come handy in protecting your privacy as much as possible while making sure that everything is processed smoothly.

Trust the Right High-Value Home Insurance Brokers:  Once the process of buying your luxury home is over, it's time for the next step: having the right luxury home insurance. High-value home insurance can safeguard your property up to its replacement expense, which is the amount your insurer would require paying in order to replace it in the event of a calamity or disaster. It is different from regular home insurance. A standard policy may not provide enough coverage for a luxury house in Hamilton, but high-value home insurance offers more exhaustive coverage with higher limits. Moreover, you may customise your policy, per your specific requirements, which can give you peace of mind that your high-end belongings are amply

To Conclude

No matter where you are looking for luxury homes for sale in Ontario, Roland Hack real estate service provider can help you find and buy the home of your dream – not just at the best price possible, but also in the most hassle-free manner.

Get your home at the best price possible by joining hands with the highly experienced residential real estate agent broker Roland Hack, today!  

Direct: 416-543-7348

MyRealtorRoland.ca

MyRealtorRoland@gmail.com

Sutton Group-Admiral Realty Inc., Brokerage

[ravetaper]

Sullivan King b2b Wooli 6-11-2022 at Banc of California Stadium live set

This is a 40-minute audio recording of Sullivan King b2b Wooli June 11, 2022, at Banc of California Stadium, part of Excision's The Stadium experience. The set began at 8:00 pm.

Rave Tapes · Sullivan King b2b Wooli 6-11-2022 @ Banc of California Stadium live set

A little more than a day passed since the Excision show last Saturday at Banc of California Stadium. My head is still spinning. The bass and lights continue to pulse in my mind. Despite wearing earplugs for most of the evening, my ears continue to ring. Even when I try to block everything out, the inner voice in my head is actually an unrelenting stream of bone-crushing beats, a residual effect of attending last night's show.

I still consider myself in the tail-end afterglow of EDC. Barely a month out from EDC Vegas 2022, I'm still feeling the PLUR vibes, which in no small measure is being sustained by this playlist of edc live sets, recorded by yours truly.

When tickets went on sale for Excision back in March, I predicted I would want some kind of post-EDC fix. Seeing Excision and crew back in LA, at a venue I like, seemed very appealing at the time. In retrospect I'm so glad I pulled the trigger for tickets. This show provided the spirit boost I was hoping for.

Out of all the sets from this event, I will likely share only this one. Boogie T b2b Dirt Monkey was solid. Subtronics was predictably excellent, although the set wasn't too different than Subtronics at EDC Las Vegas 2022. Excision, the undisputed master of the genre, gave us a perfect set, although I hesitate sharing the recording. Back in 2018 my recording of his EDC detox set got flagged by his management team and was subsequently removed from SoundCloud and YouTube. Once I know an artist's label or management team actively goes after unauthorized recordings, I won't bother posting later sets by that artist. My goal is to share extraordinary sets to help promote artists and give fans a way to enjoy the music after the fact. My intention is not to piss off artists or their handlers.

The standout set for me was Sullivan King b2b Wooli. I had seen Wooli at EDC Las Vegas 2021 and knew he could throw down. Seeing Sullivan King last night was a first for me. But OMG these two together unleashed a massive set! It was dense with super-heavy beats but balanced with periodic respites of tinkling pianos and soothing female vocals. This contrast of hard and soft seems to be the preferred method nowadays. Sometimes it's a little cheesy – it's the reason I can't fully appreciate mega stars like Illenium and Seven Lions. But the rock-hard ferocity of Sullivan's and Wooli's selections almost required occasional light-hearted pauses, to give the crowd a moment to come up for air. A set without such breaks would be too relentless, too aggressive. Anyway, the musical breaks make the intensity of the hard parts all the more satisfying.

The sound quality of the recording is decent. For this show I was not positioned in the optimal spot, which is in the middle of the floor, somewhere around 50 meters from the stage. For this show I was in the first row of bleachers, off to the side, about halfway back. There are definite tradeoffs I have to consider when buying tickets. Obviously cost is a factor. I believe GA floor tickets were more expensive than seats in the stands. The other factor is my comfort level. When I'm on the floor, I have to hold up my device as high as possible over the heads of the crowd. At EDC, this isn't a problem because I can mount my device on a totem. But at normal venues where flags and totems aren't allowed, I have to rely on my arms to get the device high enough, which results in fatigue and sore arms. For some shows I am willing to make the sacrifice. But for whatever reason, this show I opted to be in the stadium seating. This means the sound quality is good, but it's not as high quality as some other recordings I've made.

So my first decision was whether I wanted to share this set at all. If it's not near perfect, maybe it's not worthy of posting. But in this case, the set is too good, too strong, I couldn't not share it. Throughout the recording, you can hear the audience screaming uncontrollably. A couple girls sitting near me kept losing their sh*t – completely understandably – during the peak drops. But their squeals were indicative of the unbridled extasy this set caused among the crowd. Numerous times I checked in with the people dancing around me. We all agreed the set was going hard af.

So here it is, for your consideration and enjoyment. Hopefully you'll find the quality acceptable. Next time I'll have to think hard about getting down on the floor and punishing my arms. For another set like this, I'll sacrifice personal comfort – and a few more dollars – for the sake of capturing even better sound quality. I've done it before, I'll do it again.

Listen to Sullivan King on Apple Music!

Listen to Wooli on Apple Music!

Follow Sullivan King on Spotify!

Follow Wooli on Spotify!

Follow Sullivan King on Facebook!

Follow Wooli on Facebook!

[alittletournesol]

Knit  {OnKey}

Kibum sighed as he leaned against the elevator’s wall, closed his eyes and let his arms dangle, his expensive Hermes bag falling on the floor yet he couldn’t care less. His working day had been a living hell and time had passed so slowly he had almost thought he had been cursed by a demon or something.

He actually enjoyed his job. He hadn’t spent four years of his life studying seam, fabrics and couture, including a whole year abroad to learn about haute couture in a famous French designer house, not to deserve his current status. He was still young yet his skills had been noticed enough to be recognized by a few labels, and even though his biggest dream was to own his designer house… being part of the fashion designers team of Beyond Closet was an honor.

He loved that label, it was his favorite for years and he could still remember how his first expensive purchase came from their shop : a gorgeous beige jacket from their Paris collection. He also was in love with the French city, wishing to live there one day and making the most of his job to attend the Fashion Weeks in the fashion capital…

Yes, Kim Kibum was ambitious yet a bit too dreamy according to his co-workers. It wasn’t easy to develop a designer house and since the twenty-seven years old man was more into luxury… it was even more difficult, almost unreachable. But he wasn’t someone who could give up so easily and he was always saying that even if he’s over seventy when he finally opens his house, he will do it.

The man opened his eyes and turned his head towards the mirror-wall of the elevator. He straightened up and faced it, adjusting his winter coat and styling his black hair. At least he was meeting to classic-beauty enough to become a model if he decided to give up… but it wasn’t in his plans.

On the first meetings, most people would see him as someone vain and bragging, thinking highly of himself and even able to put himself above anyone else. And to be honest, he was keeping this impression up since behind glitter and limelights, fashion was a world of sharks. To achieve his dream, he must be the alpha shark.

Kibum smiled to his reflection, his cold and closed face suddenly lightened and softened by this small gesture, before a ding informed him he had arrived at his floor. Yes, he was known as a shark in the milieu, yet he was actually the opposite. Only a few persons knew the true him and it was more than enough.

He was just a good actor and knew how to act in his own favor.

As he picked his bag up, he left the elevator and took his keys out to unlock his apartment’s door. As soon as he entered, he inhaled deeply to feel this soft home scent. His shoulders relaxed by themselves once he felt secure and able to be himself, he removed and hung his coat on the rack, heading to the laundry room to select dirty clothes according to their color in the basket before putting a load on.

It was the first part of the routine he was somehow loving more than his never ending working days, unless he was forced to do the dishes ; he hated to dirty his hands. As he opened the basket and instinctively put his arm in it to grab the first cloth… his fingers caught nothing. Kibum’s eyebrows furrowed and he glanced at the inside : it was empty.

“What the hell…” He whispered, kneeling to check if the washing machine was filled.

No clothes there either. Maybe the dryer ? Still nothing. Yet he was sure he had at least two laundries to do after he had checked the basket on the morning before leaving. The dark haired man sighed and stood up, walking to his bedroom to quickly change, replacing his work clothes with plain sweatpants and a warm hoodie.

He sighed with comfort and put his slippers on once he had removed his socks, and went to put all his clothes in the basket. He then headed to the bathroom, tending to his make up and cleaning his face from any trace of BB cream. As he put his moisturizer, he smiled : now, he was himself.

The soft guy who loved to stay home, only wearing comfy clothes and no make up on, in his boyfriend’s company.

Speaking of boyfriend…

“Baby ? You’re here ?” Kibum raised his voice, removing his lenses at the same time.

“Yes.”

A soft and unique voice answered him and he smiled as he left the bathroom, putting his glasses on and heading to the living room where the voice came from. There, sitting crossed-legs on the couch, his boyfriend was focused on his knit and that scene made Kibum smile. Knitting was actually the only fashion thing that was binding them and the young man found it… funny.

He approached the chestnut haired man to sit next to him but he stopped his movement when he noticed the iron table, unfolded in the living room and with a basket on it, filled with ironed and folded clothes. There he had found the missing clothes…

“Did you do the laundry ?” Kibum asked, raising his eyebrows with surprise.

“I did.” The other said without looking up.

“And you ironed everything too ?”

“Everything.”

“Oh. And… wait, did you vacuum the living room ?”

“The bedrooms too.”

“What about the bathroom ?”

“I moped it. Kitchen too.”

“Speaking about kitchen, I should cook dinner.”

“I ordered sushis for tonight, they will arrive at eight.”

“What about drinks ?”

“I asked for sake too.”

Kibum was in shock, speechless. Telling him everything he had done, his boyfriend was sitting there, his hands busy with his knitting and he wasn’t even glancing at him. Fine, he wanted to play that game.

The dark haired man sat on the couch and leaned backwards until the back of his head was on the other man’s hands, covering his work. His fingers stopped their fast movement and his almond shaped eyes finally look at his boyfriend’s face.

“And… what about your love for me ?” Kibum asked without hiding a smile.

“Stronger than yesterday yet weaker than tomorrow.” Jinki smiled in his turn before he leaned forward to put a kiss on the other man’s lips.

The latter chuckled to the cheesy words that were his boyfriend’s speciality, along with his questionable jokes. Jinki was the more natural person he had ever met, and it would surprise more than one person in the fashion world if they had seen them together, considering how different they could seem to people who didn’t know the real Kibum.

“Didn’t you work today ?” The fashion designer asked when the other male straightened up. “Laundries and ironing take time.”

“It’s Thursday, baby.” Jinki replied. “My day-off.”

The chestnut haired man was working in a famous music shop in Seoul for several years now, he was unbeatable when it came to the amount of CDs the shelves were proposing and most instruments they were also selling. He himself could play piano and acoustic guitar, yet he knew everything about every instrument and was one of the best advisers of the shop.

Kibum had met him four years before, when he was still a student and had just come back home after his year in France. His best friend had his birthday the week after and he hadn’t bought a gift although he had no difficulties to find an idea : Jonghyun played music for years and it was high time for him to change his so old bass. At that time, the fashion student had earned money thanks to his time in France, that had allowed him to work part-time in a designer house as one of the dressers for shows and runways’ models.

Thus, he had the money, yet he had no idea what were the decision criteria to buy a bass. He wasn’t even able to tell the difference between a bass and an electric guitar and he would have been in deep shit if Jinki hadn’t ran to him after observing him sweating for ten minutes. The sale assistant had asked him extremely simple questions about Jonghyun’s habits when he was doing music, things Kibum could answer to himself, and he eventually had advised him a bass whose price was decent.

His best friend had loved his present and when the fashion student had implied that he had actually listened to the sale assistant’s rabbiting only because he was handsome… Jonghyun had spent several weeks trying to convince him to go to the shop again. Kibum had always refused until that day in September, near his twenty-fourth birthday, when he had been brought to the music shop against his will.

Yet he could never thank his friend enough because it was that day Jinki had offered him a CD from his favorite band as a early birthday present, saying he would keep the secret. Kibum had then asked him on a date without even realizing what he was saying, and it had been where all had started between them.

They had move in together a few months ago, to celebrate their second year as a couple, and their house-life was pleasing both of them so deeply they were often wondering how they would survived this tough world if they hadn’t met.

“And on your day-off, you work at home.” Kibum laughed. “You’re a bit dumb, aren’t you ? Why didn’t you rest ?”

“I’m resting right now, you know knitting relaxes me.” Jinki said, pouting. “And I thought you would be tired since you told me today was the last alterations before tomorrow’s show.”

“Yeah, it was tiring as hell… I don’t know how I survived. Can you imagine ? One of our model lost weight ! His trousers didn’t suit him anymore and trousers are horrible to alter. And guess who was in charge of it ?”

“Let me guess. You ?”

“Exactly. What am I, a slave ? Trust me, I scolded him so hard. The poor boy is so well-shaped yet he still loses weight, he’s going to become a walking matchstick and he’s only twenty-three.”

“You sound like a worried older brother more than a scolding mom, you know. Do you even know him enough to scold him ?”

“Of course I know him, what’s his name again… Not Minho, that one is the tall handsome moron who thinks I’m his personal slave, watch me kick his ass with my Louboutin hobnailed boots next time he asks me to bring him a coffee. Shit, I can’t remember his name… I told you about him, he’s young and blonde, and his upper lip is weirdly shaped…”

“First of all, stop swearing, you’re ugly when you swear. Then, was it Taemin ?”

“Yes ! Lee Taemin ! I almost killed him when he told me his current weight. Tomorrow after the show, I’ll force-feed him.”

Jinki couldn’t help but laugh as he removed his hands from behind his boyfriend’s head, freeing his knitting at the same time.

“Tough day, then.” He stated, putting his work on the pedestal table next to the switched on lamp.

“Yeah… Thanks God I’m back home and with you.” Kibum sighed. “What were you knitting ?”

“A scarf, since your haute couture stuff doesn’t protect you from the cold I guess I have to do things my way.”

“You’re making a scarf for me ?”

“Of course baby. Slytherin style.”

“Oh my God, take me on this couch.”

“… For a scarf ?”

“Excuse me, you shouldn’t need a reason to do it in a first place.”

Kibum rolled his eyes as he straightened up, making a move to stand up when two strong arms circled his waist from behind and pulled him backwards. With a chuckle, he ended up sitting on his boyfriend’s thighs, held tight against his torso, and he turned his head to look at him.

“What time did you say for the sushis delivery ?” He asked, a familiar glint in the eyes.

“Eight.” Jinki replied as he put a soft yet warm kiss on his jawline.

“Perfect.”

The fashion designer smirked and turned over to face the other man, straddling him and crushing his lips against his as he held his well-rounded cheeks with both his hands. Jinki grunted and instantly made the kiss deeper, forcing his boyfriend’s lips open as his tongue invaded him to meet its twin. He held Kibum’s hips tight while they exchanged that kind of kisses that was always turning them on in such a short time ; wet, warm and noisy.

Soon, a familiar heat started to overwhelm their bodies as their kisses were going more and more intense, arousing them enough to almost make them short of breath. Jinki broke the kiss first to get rid of his lover’s hoodie, carelessly throwing it on the floor before taking his lips once again, his hands making their way up the naked back. Kibum’s skin was so soft… it smelled so good too…

The latter couldn’t wait more, the kiss became messy as he managed to unbutton Jinki’s shirt, his long fingers trembling with desire. Feeling his trouble, the elder helped him without separating their lips, their tongues fiercely dancing against each other. Soon, the shirt was completely opened and Kibum let his hands caress the slightly tanned skin, the tip of his fingers feeling the lines of his boyfriend’s torso.

Jinki had never been a brawny man, his abdomen was more cute than muscled yet he had strong arms and thick thighs, something Kibum adored. The latter’s arousal was going higher with the seconds passing and he left the other male’s lips to made his slide against his jawline, tracing a wet line of kisses down his neck.

There, he sucked and licked the skin, pretended to bite it while the elder sighed, his hands holding and caressing the thin waist. He closed his eyes when he felt the raven haired man going down his torso, endlessly kissing until he eventually kneeled between his legs. As Jinki opened his eyes, he met Kibum’s, sparkling with desire and that possessiveness that was proper to him.

In no time, the elder’s pants were down to his ankles along with his boxers, and the tip of his cock was the captive of the younger’s swollen lips. Without breaking the eye contact with his boyfriend, Kibum started sucking the glans, playing his tongue around it and earning a hoarse sigh directly coming from Jinki’s throat.

The latter ran his fingers through the designer’s hair, caressing them in a first place then slightly pushing the back of his head.

“More…” He moaned, his voice husky and his eyes darkened with lust.

Smiling, Kibum didn’t wait for a second order and worked his lips down Jinki’s shaft, slowly yet surely. With a muffled growl, the elder tightened his grip on his lover’s hair as he leaned against the couch’s backrest, his legs spread and one arm behind his own head. He was having troubles keeping his eyes opened since pleasure was invading him and taking control over him second by second, but he wanted to watch Kibum please him.

His cock’s thickness had been an obstacle when the dark haired male had tried to take it in his mouth for the first time, yet he was now extremely gifted to use this thickness to his advantage. As his head was moving up and down until the half of his boyfriend’s shaft, he was working his right hand around its base to strongly increase the pleasure, while his left hand was moving in his own pants, stroking himself.

Jinki sighed even deeper when a wave of pleasure shook his body, giving him goosebumps and drawing sweat out of his pores. Kibum had this amazing way to suck him off it was driving him crazy and he never needed a lot of time to come, yet it was out of the question to cum right now.

Softly, he tugged his boyfriend’s hair to make him let go of his cock, and the designer moved his lips backwards, dropping the member with a pop sound and a trail of precum and saliva taut between its head and his lower lip…

“Come over there.”

Jinki has ordered this with a soft yet husky voice that was betraying his increasing lust, and Kibum smiled as he stood up, wiping his mouth. But before he could sit on his lover’s thighs, he quickly headed to the bedroom to grab a bottle of his favorite lube — vanilla scented.

When he came back in the living room and approached his boyfriend, the elder suddenly grabbed him by his hips, making him standing still between his legs. Without warning, he approached the younger’s stomach and put his lips on the milky skin, kissing, sucking, licking it.

Kibum sighed, dropping what he had in his hands as he caressed his boyfriend’s chestnut hair, sliding his fingers in it as he appreciated the warmth of the lips against his stomach. Jinki worked his hands from the thin waist to the elastic of the sweatpants, eventually pushing them down the other male’s legs along with his underwear. The latter couldn’t help but blush yet he slightly lifted his feet to get rid of the clothes.

As they were now both naked, Jinki kissed Kibum’s abdomen before making his kisses going down his body until his lips met the base of his hardened cock. He put a soft kiss there, then grazed its entire length to arouse his lover even more. The raven haired male moaned and bit his lip when he felt lips almost touching the head of his member, literally holding onto the other’s hair to keep his balance when pleasure hit him.

Jinki smiled and made the most of his boyfriend’s disequilibrium to catch him by the hips and pull him towards him, lying him on his back under him, on the couch. Opening his eyes, Kibum smiled as he spread his legs, raising one against the backrest with his heel resting on top of it, the other one dangling. He was offering himself, and the chestnut haired man caressed his lover’s thigh, leaning forwards to take his lips with his into a rough, messy yet full of love kiss.

He had never been bothered by his own taste, Kibum always kissing him even after blowing him out. It had felt weird at first but he was now used to it, enjoying those wet kisses even more. As their tongues were messing with each other, the designer’s hands holding onto the musician’s shoulder and arm, the latter worked his free hand up the thin thigh, lifting it a bit more so his boyfriend’s butt was offered to him in a better angle.

He ran his fingers between the warm cheeks blind, his eyes still closed as Kibum moaned in their kiss when he felt his hole being tickled. His back slightly arched, his body asking for more when it knew what was coming, and Jinki obeyed this silent order as he broke the kiss to pick the bottle of lube up, generously coating his fingers with it.

Vanilla’s scent was strong yet sweet, the perfect allegory of their relationship.

Kibum bit his lip, lifting his arm behind his head while he grabbed his knee with the other hand, pulling it to spread his legs wider. Answering the invitation, the elder leaned forwards to put his lips on his boyfriend’s thigh, just a few inches above his privates. As he pressed wet and warm kisses on the white skin, he slowly inserted his lubbed finger in the younger’s tight hole, working it back and forth with an extreme delicateness.

Under him, Kibum kept his mouth half-open as a sigh turned into a low moan, his usual baritone voice going a bit more high-pitched and arousing the other man even more. Once he felt the flesh loose around his finger, Jinki pushed another on in and kissed his lover’s thigh and hipbone to distract him from the short yet sharp pain. Both his fingers were soothing him and the designer was already feeling close to lose it.

“More ?” The elder asked, his breath hot against Kibum’s thigh.

“Please…” The latter answered, pulling his knee more to support his plea.

Jinki smiled and carefully inserted a third finger, stretching his boyfriend almost to his fullest and earning a moan combining an unpleasant pain and growing pleasure. Kibum slightly arched his back when he felt as if he was being ripped for a second, yet the generous amount of lube added to his boyfriend’s expertise soothed him in no time.

Sweat was starting to run down his temple and neck as the fingers were moving inside him, massaging his prostate as if they knew exactly where to go, and he whined with disappointment when he suddenly felt empty.

“Impatient boy…”

Whispering with his husky yet so soft voice, Jinki was now smiling and staring at him with a wild flame in his eyes. Out of consideration for his boyfriend’s well-being, he generously covered his cock with lube since the lovers weren’t using lubbed condoms anymore, gently stroking himself at the same time.

Biting his lip at this view, Kibum lifted his leg from the backrest, his foot caressing his lover’s shoulder as a way to calling him.

“Will you come now or do I have to call someone else to fill me up ?” He asked, his eyes shining with lust and anticipation. “The doorbell can ring at any time, baby…”

“Not my fault if you like to take time for foreplays, love…”

Jinki had said these words while kneeling with one leg on the couch, between his boyfriend’s thighs, the other one out as he planted his foot on the wooded floor to help him keeping his balance and anticipating his thrusts to come. Kibum put his hand back behind his knee, pulling his dangled leg backwards as he put the other one on top of his lover’s shoulder.

It was like Jinki’s shoulder’s bone had been made to fit under the designer’s knee, and the musician put both his hands on the inner thighs to slightly push them apart even more. The tip of his cock approached his boyfriend’s hole, then pushed inside in a slow movement ; only the head was inside as Jinki made it move back and forth to soothe the entrance before the real thing.

“Oh God.” Kibum sighed as his free hand grabbed the armrest where he had his head resting, ready to tighten his grip when pleasure would invade him. “Come inside, please come inside…”

The chestnut haired man smirked ; he loved it when he was begged, and his boyfriend would often be impatient enough to. Yet himself was enough in love with this man to comply to everything… thus, he slowly pushed his cock between Kibum’s cheeks, relishing the sudden and warm tightness around him and the long and loud moan welcoming him.

It was the only rule the younger had established : to always be filled up to the hilt.

Soon, Jinki’s pelvis was against Kibum’s ass and he stopped there for a moment, leaning above the other male to look at him, his breath already short. When the designer opened his eyes, a flame dancing in his irises, the musician bit his lip, straightened a bit and held the leg on his shoulder as he started his thrusts.

Slow in a first place, Jinki was moving back and forth inside his partner, almost entirely leaving him to thrust deeper each time. It wasn’t as messy as their kisses, it was as calculated as Kibum’s lips against his cock earlier ; the elder was taking him slow yet fervently, playing with the whole length of his member.

Under him, his body making the couch squeak as it was sliding on it on rhythm with the waves of pleasure he was receiving from his boyfriend’s boosts, Kibum was panting. With seconds passing, he was being taken with more intensity and he had struggles holding his own leg open.

Jinki must have seen it, maybe felt it, because he suddenly put his hand on his, behind his knee, pushing himself to help him. He was now roughly thrusting between his thighs as his lover was fully stretched around him, his cock being engulfed with hunger. Slipping sounds were resonating in the living room along with both males’ sighs and moans in unison.

Sweat was running down their bodies, drop falling on Jinki’s neck and torso and making them gleam just as much as Kibum’s ; it was like their skin was encrusted with diamonds, making them reflected in each other.

“D-Deeper Jinki, deeper…” The designer asked between his sighs, spreading his legs as wider as he could.

Obeying, the elder grunted as he made his thrusts rougher, slapping sounds coming from the repeated meetings between his pelvis and the other’s ass cheeks. Kibum was losing it, not holding his loud moans back anymore. While Jinki was breathing loudly and shortly, he was moaning his name, asking him for more.

“You fucking talk too much.” The elder said as he grabbed both Kibum’s legs pushing him and almost bending him in half, allowing him to thrust in him deeper and to ravish his mouth at the same time.

The raven haired man muffled an umpteenth moan as he caught his lover’s hair, tugging it and kissing him full on the lips, their tongues dancing an ardent paso doble together. Their mixed saliva was running down their chin and the designer ended up keeping his mouth opened, letting the musician control their kiss all he wanted to, while himself worked his hand between their bodies to grab his own hardened cock.

He wasn’t seeing anything but stars, wasn’t feeling anything but a strong pleasure as Jinki’s powerful thrusts were shaking him against the couch, now wet with their sweat. Succumbing to his body’s desires, Kibum started stroking himself fast, in harmony with his lover’s movements and his breath running shorter and shorter.

Jinki himself was in his home straight, all his muscles tightening and his cock as swollen as possible. His heavy balls were smacking his boyfriend’s ass as he was taking him desperately.

“For fuck’s sake…” He swore out loud, out of intense pleasure just like every time he was close to his own climax.

“I’m gonna… I’m gonna come, oh my fucking gosh…!” Kibum replied, his voice croaky and  short-winded enough for his chest to jump. “Oh my God, fuck, Jinki…!”

As he moaned his man’s name, almost shouted it, the designer’s cock shooting milky and warm cum between their torsos, spattering their shining skin and even reaching Kibum’s neck. He had pushed his head back on the armrest, offering the view of his neck’s swollen veins to Jinki and wheezing as he couldn’t keep his eyes open nor his mouth closed.

In no time the elder’s thrusts lost in speed yet grew in strength, and he rolled his eyes to the back with his throat letting hoarse sounds out as he felt orgasm invading him, his warm cum surrounding his own member as it was making his movements more slippery and deliciously wet. Kibum welcomed this new warmth in his body with a high-pitched sound coming straight from his throat, and he instinctively tightened his hole’s muscles to keep both Jinki and his seed in him.

The latter moaned to the sudden pression around his abused cock, and he slowly reduced his thrusts until he was buried deep inside his boyfriend, unmoving. Both their breaths were short, their hearts beating so fast they could hear each other’s, feel it in their veins where their skin was making contact.

Kibum opened his eyes and closed his mouth, swallowing and deeply inhaling with his nose. Afterglow was making them gleam, with their skin and their hair wet with sweat, but also with their eyes sparkling. The designer slowly raised his head to look at his musician boyfriend, who was staring at him with his eyes half-closed.

The younger smiled, his lips drawing a loving and caring smile as he loosed his grip on Jinki’s hair, turning it into a soft caress. His fingers, still trembling because of his orgasm, ran through the chestnut bangs until the man’s forehead, pushing his fringe on the side and making their way to the wet and warm cheek. The elder smiled in his turn and leaned on to put a soft kiss on his love’s lips, which welcomed it with delicateness. With only his sense of touch, Jinki felt a something rugged on Kibum’s lower lip, a cut because of a moment he had bit it too hard, and he started covering the wound with kisses.

The raven haired man chuckled and tried to answer each kiss while he was caressing his boyfriend’s hair and back, afterglow making them cuddly. When he felt the need to relax his sore body, Jinki straightened a bit yet enough to move his member backwards, leaving Kibum’s hole with a sound that made them laugh.

Then, the musician lied between his partner’s still spread legs, putting his head on his chest and slowly catching his breath. The designer smiled and kept caressing him, hugging his hips with his thighs.

“It had been a while since we last made love on the couch…” Jinki noticed, his voice low and still a bit hoarse.

“Yeah… it’s been a while with the kitchen counter too…” Kibum replied, chuckling. “I’m kidding.”

“No you’re right. But please let me rest before getting up to date, okay ?”

“I love you.”

“So do I, more than everything on earth and a bit more day by day.”

Jinki raised his head and approached Kibum’s lips with his to kiss him.

And the doorbell rang.

[kjt-lawyers]

How Our Website Conversion Strategy Increased Business Inquiries by 37%

Having a website that doesn’t convert is a little like having a bucket with a hole in it. Do you keep filling it up while the water’s pouring out — or do you fix the hole then add water? In other words, do you channel your budget into attracting people who are “pouring” through without taking action, or do you fine-tune your website so it’s appealing enough for them to stick around?

Our recommendation? Optimize the conversion rate of your website, before you spend on increasing your traffic to it.

Here’s a web design statistic to bear in mind: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. If your site’s too slow, or unattractive, or the wording isn’t clear, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “leaky bucket”. Which is a shame, because you’ve put lots of effort into designing a beautiful product page and About Us, and people just aren’t getting to see it.

As a digital web design and conversion agency in Melbourne, Australia, we’ve been helping our customers optimize their websites for over 10 years, but it wasn’t until mid-2019 that we decided to turn the tables and take a look at our own site.

As it turned out, we had a bit of a leaky bucket situation of our own: while our traffic was good and conversions were okay, there was definitely room for improvement.

In this article, I’m going to talk a little more about conversions: what they are, why they matter, and how they help your business. I’ll then share how I made lots of little tweaks that cumulatively led to my business attracting a higher tier of customers, more inquiries, plus over $780,000 worth of new sales opportunities within the first 26 weeks of making some of those changes. Let’s get into it!

What is conversion?

Your conversion rate is a figure that represents the percentage of visitors who come to your site and take the desired action, e.g. subscribing to your newsletter, booking a demo, purchasing a product, and so on.

Conversions come in all shapes and sizes, depending on what your website does. If you sell a product, making a sale would be your primary goal (aka a macro-conversion). If you run, say, a tour company or media outlet, then subscribing or booking a consultation might be your primary goal.

If your visitor isn’t quite ready to make a purchase or book a consultation, they might take an intermediary step — like signing up to your free newsletter, or following you on social media. This is what’s known as a micro-conversion: a little step that leads towards (hopefully) a bigger one.

A quick recap

A conversion can apply to any number of actions — from making a purchase, to following on social media.

Macro-conversions are those we usually associate with sales: a phone call, an email, or a trip to the checkout. These happen when the customer has done their research and is ready to leap in with a purchase. If you picture the classic conversion funnel, they’re already at the bottom.

Micro-conversions, on the other hand, are small steps that lead toward a sale. They’re not the ultimate win, but they’re a step in the right direction.

Most sites and apps have multiple conversion goals, each with its own conversion rate.

Micro-conversions vs. macro-conversions: which is better?

The short answer? Both. Ideally, you want micro- and macro-conversions to be happening all the time so you have a continual flow of customers working their way through your sales funnel. If you have neither, then your website is behaving like a leaky bucket.

Here are two common issues that seem like good things, but ultimately lead to problems:

High web traffic (good thing) but no micro- or macro-conversions (bad thing — leaky bucket alert)

High web traffic (good thing) plenty of micro-conversions (good thing), but no macro conversions (bad thing)

A lot of businesses spend heaps of money making sure their employees work efficiently, but less of the budget goes into what is actually one of your best marketing tools: your website.

Spending money on marketing will always be a good thing. Getting customers to your site means more eyes on your business — but when your website doesn’t convert visitors into sales, that’s when you’re wasting your marketing dollars. When it comes to conversion rate statistics, one of the biggest eye-openers I read was this: the average user’s attention span has dropped from 12 to a mere 7 seconds. That’s how long you’ve got to impress before they bail — so you’d better make sure your website is fast, clear, and attractive.

Our problem

Our phone wasn’t ringing as much as we’d have liked, despite spending plenty of dollars on SEO and Adwords. We looked into our analytics and realized traffic wasn’t an issue: a decent number of people were visiting our site, but too few were taking action — i.e. inquiring. Here’s where some of our issues lay:

Our site wasn’t as fast as it could have been (anything with a load time of two seconds or over is considered slow. Ours was hovering around 5-6, and that was having a negative impact on conversions).

Our CTA conversions were low (people weren’t clicking — or they were dropping off because the CTA wasn’t where it needed to be).

We were relying on guesswork for some of our design decisions — which meant we had no way of measuring what worked, and what didn’t.

In general, things were good but not great. Or in other words, there was room for improvement.

What we did to fix it

Improving your site’s conversions isn’t a one-size-fits all thing — which means what works for one person might not work for you. It’s a gradual journey of trying different things out and building up successes over time. We knew this having worked on hundreds of client websites over the years, so we went into our own redesign with this in mind. Here are some of the steps we took that had an impact.

We decided to improve our site

First of all, we decided to fix our company website. This sounds like an obvious one, but how many times have you thought “I’ll do this really important thing”, then never gotten round to it. Or rushed ahead in excitement, made a few tweaks yourself, then let your efforts grind to a halt because other things took precedence?

This is an all-too-common problem when you run a business and things are just… okay. Often there’s no real drive to fix things and we fall back into doing what seems more pressing: selling, talking to customers, and running the business.

Deciding you want to improve your site’s conversions starts with a decision that involves you and everyone else in the company, and that’s what we did. We got the design and analytics experts involved. We invested time and money into the project, which made it feel substantial. We even made EDMs to announce the site launch (like the one below) to let everyone know what we’d been up to. In short, we made it feel like an event.

We got to know our users

There are many different types of user: some are ready to buy, some are just doing some window shopping. Knowing what type of person visits your site will help you create something that caters to their needs.

We looked at our analytics data and discovered visitors to our site were a bit of both, but tended to be more ready to buy than not. This meant we needed to focus on getting macro-conversions — in other words, make our site geared towards sales — while not overlooking the visitors doing some initial research. For those users, we implemented a blog as a way to improve our SEO, educate leads, and build up our reputation.

User insight can also help you shape the feel of your site. We discovered that the marketing managers we were targeting at the time were predominantly women, and that certain images and colours resonated better among that specific demographic. We didn’t go for the (obvious pictures of the team or our offices), instead relying on data and the psychology of attraction to delve into the mind of the users.

We improved site speed

Sending visitors to good sites with bad speeds erodes trust and sends them running. Multiple studies show that site speed matters when it comes to conversion rates. It’s one of the top SEO ranking factors, and a big factor when it comes to user experience: pages that load in under a second convert around 2.5 times higher than pages taking five seconds or more.

We built our website for speed. Moz has a great guide on page speed best practices, and from that list, we did the following things:

We optimized images.

We managed our own caching.

We compressed our files.

We improved page load times (Moz has another great article about how to speed up time to first Byte). A good web page load time is considered to be anything under two seconds — which we achieved.

In addition, we also customized our own hosting to make our site faster.

We introduced more tracking

As well as making our site faster, we introduced a lot more tracking. That allowed us to refine our content, our messaging, the structure of the site, and so on, which continually adds to the conversion.

We used Google Optimize to run A/B tests across a variety of things to understand how people interacted with our site. Here are some of the tweaks we made that had a positive impact:

Social proofing can be a really effective tool if used correctly, so we added some stats to our landing page copy.

Google Analytics showed us visitors were reaching certain pages and not knowing quite where to go next, so we added CTAs that used active language. So instead of saying, “If you’d like to find out more, let us know'', we said “Get a quote”, along with two options for getting in touch.

We spent an entire month testing four words on our homepage. We actually failed (the words didn’t have a positive impact), but it allowed us to test our hypothesis. We did small tweaks and tests like this all over the site.

We used heat mapping to see where visitors were clicking, and which words caught their eye. With this data, we knew where to place buttons and key messaging.

We looked into user behavior

Understanding your visitor is always a good place to start, and there are two ways to go about this:

Quantitative research (numbers and data-based research)

Qualitative research (people-based research)

We did a mixture of both.

For the quantitative research, we used Google Analytics, Google Optimize, and Hotjar to get an in-depth, numbers-based look at how people were interacting with our site.

Heat-mapping software shows how people click and scroll through a page. Hot spots indicate places where people naturally gravitate.

We could see where people were coming into our site (which pages they landed on first), what channel brought them there, which features they were engaging with, how long they spent on each page, and where they abandoned the site.

For the qualitative research, we focused primarily on interviews.

We asked customers what they thought about certain CTAs (whether they worked or not, and why).

We made messaging changes and asked customers and suppliers whether they made sense.

We invited a psychologist into the office and asked them what they thought about our design.

What we learned

We found out our design was good, but our CTAs weren’t quite hitting the mark. For example, one CTA only gave the reader the option to call. But, as one of our interviewees pointed out, not everyone likes using the phone — so we added an email address.

We were intentional but ad hoc about our asking process. This worked for us — but you might want to be a bit more formal about your approach (Moz has a great practical guide to conducting qualitative usability testing if you’re after a more in-depth look).

The results

Combined, these minor tweaks had a mighty impact. There’s a big difference in how our site looks and how we rank. The bottom line: after the rebuild, we got more work, and the business did much better. Here are some of the gains we’ve seen over the past two years.

Our site speed increased: we managed to achieve a load time of around 500-600 ms.

Our dwell time increased by 73%, going from 1.5 to 2.5 minutes.

We received four-times more inquiries by email and phone.

Our organic traffic increased despite us not channeling more funds into PPC ads.

We also realized our clients were bigger, paying on average 2.5 times more for jobs: in mid-2018, our average cost-per-job was $8,000. Now, it’s $17,000.

Our client brand names became more recognizable, household names — including two of Australia’s top universities, and a well-known manufacturing/production brand.

Within the first 26 weeks, we got over $770,000 worth of sales opportunities (if we’d accepted every job that came our way).

Our prospects began asking to work with us, rather than us having to persuade them to give us the business.

We started getting higher quality inquiries — warmer leads who had more intent to buy.

Some practical changes you can make to improve your website conversions

When it comes to website changes, it’s important to remember that what works for one person might not work for you.

We’ve used site speed boosters for our clients before and gotten really great results. At other times, we’ve tried it and it just broke the website. This is why it’s so important to measure as you go, use what works for your individual needs, and remember that “failures” are just as helpful as wins.

Below are some tips — some of which we did on our own site, others are things we’ve done for others.

Tip number 1: Get stronger hosting that allows you to consider things like CDNs. Hiring a developer should always be your top choice, but it’s not always possible to have that luxury. In this instance, we recommend considering CDNs, and depending on the build of your site, paying for tools like NitroPack which can help with caching and compression for faster site speeds.

Tip number 2: Focus your time. Identify top landing pages with Moz Pro and channel your efforts in these places as a priority. Use the 80/20 principle and put your attention on the 20% that gets you 80% of your success.

Tip number 3: Run A/B tests using Google Optimize to test various hypotheses and ideas (Moz has a really handy guide for running split tests using Google). Don’t be afraid of the results — failures can help confirm that what you are currently doing right. You can also access some in-depth data about your site’s performance in Google Lighthouse.

Tip number 4: Trial various messages in Google Ads (as a way of testing targeted messaging). Google provides many keyword suggestions on trending words and phrases that are worth considering.

Tip number 5: Combine qualitative and quantitative research to get to know how your users interact with your site — and keep testing on an ongoing basis.

Tip number 6: Don’t get too hung up on charts going up, or figures turning orange: do what works for you. If adding a video to your homepage slows it down a little but has an overall positive effect on your conversion, then it’s worth the tradeoff.

Tip number 7: Prioritize the needs of your target customers and focus every build and design choice around them.

Recommended tools

Nitropack: speed up your site if you’ve not built it for speed from the beginning.

Google Optimize: run A/B tests

HotJar: see how people use your site via heat mapping and behaviour analytics.

Pingdom / GTMetrix: measure site speed (both is better if you want to make sure you meet everyone’s requirements).

Google Analytics: find drop-off points, track conversion, A/B test, set goals.

Qualaroo: poll your visitors while they are on your site with a popup window.

Google Consumer Surveys: create a survey, Google recruits the participants and provides results and analysis.

Moz Pro: Identify top landing pages when you connect this tool to your Google Analytics profile to create custom reports.

How to keep your conversion rates high

Treat your website like your car. Regular little tweaks to keep it purring, occasional deeper inspections to make sure there are no problems lurking just out of sight. Here’s what we do:

We look at Google Analytics monthly. It helps to understand what’s working, and what’s not.

We use goal tracking in GA to keep things moving in the right direction.

We use Pingdom's free service to monitor the availability and response time of our site.

We regularly ask people what they think about the site and its messaging (keeping the qualitative research coming in).

Conclusion

Spending money on marketing is a good thing, but when you don’t have a good conversion rate, that’s when your website’s behaving like a leaky bucket. Your website is one of your strongest sales tools, so it really does pay to make sure it’s working at peak performance.

I’ve shared a few of my favorite tools and techniques, but above all, my one bit of advice is to consider your own requirements. You can improve your site speed if you remove all tags and keep it plain. But that’s not what you want: it’s finding the balance between creativity and performance, and that will always depend on what’s important.

For us as a design agency, we need a site that’s beautiful and creative. Yes, having a moving background on our homepage slows it down a little bit, but it improves our conversions overall.

The bottom line: Consider your unique users, and make sure your website is in line with the goals of whoever you’re speaking with.

We can do all we want to please Google, but when it comes to sales and leads, it means more to have a higher converting and more effective website. We did well in inquiries (actual phone calls and email leads) despite a rapid increase in site performance requirements from Google. This only comes down to one thing: having a site customer conversion framework that’s effective.

[xaydungtruonggia]

How Our Website Conversion Strategy Increased Business Inquiries by 37%

Having a website that doesn’t convert is a little like having a bucket with a hole in it. Do you keep filling it up while the water’s pouring out — or do you fix the hole then add water? In other words, do you channel your budget into attracting people who are “pouring” through without taking action, or do you fine-tune your website so it’s appealing enough for them to stick around?

Our recommendation? Optimize the conversion rate of your website, before you spend on increasing your traffic to it.

Here’s a web design statistic to bear in mind: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. If your site’s too slow, or unattractive, or the wording isn’t clear, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “leaky bucket”. Which is a shame, because you’ve put lots of effort into designing a beautiful product page and About Us, and people just aren’t getting to see it.

As a digital web design and conversion agency in Melbourne, Australia, we’ve been helping our customers optimize their websites for over 10 years, but it wasn’t until mid-2019 that we decided to turn the tables and take a look at our own site.

As it turned out, we had a bit of a leaky bucket situation of our own: while our traffic was good and conversions were okay, there was definitely room for improvement.

In this article, I’m going to talk a little more about conversions: what they are, why they matter, and how they help your business. I’ll then share how I made lots of little tweaks that cumulatively led to my business attracting a higher tier of customers, more inquiries, plus over $780,000 worth of new sales opportunities within the first 26 weeks of making some of those changes. Let’s get into it!

What is conversion?

Your conversion rate is a figure that represents the percentage of visitors who come to your site and take the desired action, e.g. subscribing to your newsletter, booking a demo, purchasing a product, and so on.

Conversions come in all shapes and sizes, depending on what your website does. If you sell a product, making a sale would be your primary goal (aka a macro-conversion). If you run, say, a tour company or media outlet, then subscribing or booking a consultation might be your primary goal.

If your visitor isn’t quite ready to make a purchase or book a consultation, they might take an intermediary step — like signing up to your free newsletter, or following you on social media. This is what’s known as a micro-conversion: a little step that leads towards (hopefully) a bigger one.

A quick recap

A conversion can apply to any number of actions — from making a purchase, to following on social media.

Macro-conversions are those we usually associate with sales: a phone call, an email, or a trip to the checkout. These happen when the customer has done their research and is ready to leap in with a purchase. If you picture the classic conversion funnel, they’re already at the bottom.

Micro-conversions, on the other hand, are small steps that lead toward a sale. They’re not the ultimate win, but they’re a step in the right direction.

Most sites and apps have multiple conversion goals, each with its own conversion rate.

Micro-conversions vs. macro-conversions: which is better?

The short answer? Both. Ideally, you want micro- and macro-conversions to be happening all the time so you have a continual flow of customers working their way through your sales funnel. If you have neither, then your website is behaving like a leaky bucket.

Here are two common issues that seem like good things, but ultimately lead to problems:

High web traffic (good thing) but no micro- or macro-conversions (bad thing — leaky bucket alert)

High web traffic (good thing) plenty of micro-conversions (good thing), but no macro conversions (bad thing)

A lot of businesses spend heaps of money making sure their employees work efficiently, but less of the budget goes into what is actually one of your best marketing tools: your website.

Spending money on marketing will always be a good thing. Getting customers to your site means more eyes on your business — but when your website doesn’t convert visitors into sales, that’s when you’re wasting your marketing dollars. When it comes to conversion rate statistics, one of the biggest eye-openers I read was this: the average user’s attention span has dropped from 12 to a mere 7 seconds. That’s how long you’ve got to impress before they bail — so you’d better make sure your website is fast, clear, and attractive.

Our problem

Our phone wasn’t ringing as much as we’d have liked, despite spending plenty of dollars on SEO and Adwords. We looked into our analytics and realized traffic wasn’t an issue: a decent number of people were visiting our site, but too few were taking action — i.e. inquiring. Here’s where some of our issues lay:

Our site wasn’t as fast as it could have been (anything with a load time of two seconds or over is considered slow. Ours was hovering around 5-6, and that was having a negative impact on conversions).

Our CTA conversions were low (people weren’t clicking — or they were dropping off because the CTA wasn’t where it needed to be).

We were relying on guesswork for some of our design decisions — which meant we had no way of measuring what worked, and what didn’t.

In general, things were good but not great. Or in other words, there was room for improvement.

What we did to fix it

Improving your site’s conversions isn’t a one-size-fits all thing — which means what works for one person might not work for you. It’s a gradual journey of trying different things out and building up successes over time. We knew this having worked on hundreds of client websites over the years, so we went into our own redesign with this in mind. Here are some of the steps we took that had an impact.

We decided to improve our site

First of all, we decided to fix our company website. This sounds like an obvious one, but how many times have you thought “I’ll do this really important thing”, then never gotten round to it. Or rushed ahead in excitement, made a few tweaks yourself, then let your efforts grind to a halt because other things took precedence?

This is an all-too-common problem when you run a business and things are just… okay. Often there’s no real drive to fix things and we fall back into doing what seems more pressing: selling, talking to customers, and running the business.

Deciding you want to improve your site’s conversions starts with a decision that involves you and everyone else in the company, and that’s what we did. We got the design and analytics experts involved. We invested time and money into the project, which made it feel substantial. We even made EDMs to announce the site launch (like the one below) to let everyone know what we’d been up to. In short, we made it feel like an event.

We got to know our users

There are many different types of user: some are ready to buy, some are just doing some window shopping. Knowing what type of person visits your site will help you create something that caters to their needs.

We looked at our analytics data and discovered visitors to our site were a bit of both, but tended to be more ready to buy than not. This meant we needed to focus on getting macro-conversions — in other words, make our site geared towards sales — while not overlooking the visitors doing some initial research. For those users, we implemented a blog as a way to improve our SEO, educate leads, and build up our reputation.

User insight can also help you shape the feel of your site. We discovered that the marketing managers we were targeting at the time were predominantly women, and that certain images and colours resonated better among that specific demographic. We didn’t go for the (obvious pictures of the team or our offices), instead relying on data and the psychology of attraction to delve into the mind of the users.

We improved site speed

Sending visitors to good sites with bad speeds erodes trust and sends them running. Multiple studies show that site speed matters when it comes to conversion rates. It’s one of the top SEO ranking factors, and a big factor when it comes to user experience: pages that load in under a second convert around 2.5 times higher than pages taking five seconds or more.

We built our website for speed. Moz has a great guide on page speed best practices, and from that list, we did the following things:

We optimized images.

We managed our own caching.

We compressed our files.

We improved page load times (Moz has another great article about how to speed up time to first Byte). A good web page load time is considered to be anything under two seconds — which we achieved.

In addition, we also customized our own hosting to make our site faster.

We introduced more tracking

As well as making our site faster, we introduced a lot more tracking. That allowed us to refine our content, our messaging, the structure of the site, and so on, which continually adds to the conversion.

We used Google Optimize to run A/B tests across a variety of things to understand how people interacted with our site. Here are some of the tweaks we made that had a positive impact:

Social proofing can be a really effective tool if used correctly, so we added some stats to our landing page copy.

Google Analytics showed us visitors were reaching certain pages and not knowing quite where to go next, so we added CTAs that used active language. So instead of saying, “If you’d like to find out more, let us know'', we said “Get a quote”, along with two options for getting in touch.

We spent an entire month testing four words on our homepage. We actually failed (the words didn’t have a positive impact), but it allowed us to test our hypothesis. We did small tweaks and tests like this all over the site.

We used heat mapping to see where visitors were clicking, and which words caught their eye. With this data, we knew where to place buttons and key messaging.

We looked into user behavior

Understanding your visitor is always a good place to start, and there are two ways to go about this:

Quantitative research (numbers and data-based research)

Qualitative research (people-based research)

We did a mixture of both.

For the quantitative research, we used Google Analytics, Google Optimize, and Hotjar to get an in-depth, numbers-based look at how people were interacting with our site.

Heat-mapping software shows how people click and scroll through a page. Hot spots indicate places where people naturally gravitate.

We could see where people were coming into our site (which pages they landed on first), what channel brought them there, which features they were engaging with, how long they spent on each page, and where they abandoned the site.

For the qualitative research, we focused primarily on interviews.

We asked customers what they thought about certain CTAs (whether they worked or not, and why).

We made messaging changes and asked customers and suppliers whether they made sense.

We invited a psychologist into the office and asked them what they thought about our design.

What we learned

We found out our design was good, but our CTAs weren’t quite hitting the mark. For example, one CTA only gave the reader the option to call. But, as one of our interviewees pointed out, not everyone likes using the phone — so we added an email address.

We were intentional but ad hoc about our asking process. This worked for us — but you might want to be a bit more formal about your approach (Moz has a great practical guide to conducting qualitative usability testing if you’re after a more in-depth look).

The results

Combined, these minor tweaks had a mighty impact. There’s a big difference in how our site looks and how we rank. The bottom line: after the rebuild, we got more work, and the business did much better. Here are some of the gains we’ve seen over the past two years.

Our site speed increased: we managed to achieve a load time of around 500-600 ms.

Our dwell time increased by 73%, going from 1.5 to 2.5 minutes.

We received four-times more inquiries by email and phone.

Our organic traffic increased despite us not channeling more funds into PPC ads.

We also realized our clients were bigger, paying on average 2.5 times more for jobs: in mid-2018, our average cost-per-job was $8,000. Now, it’s $17,000.

Our client brand names became more recognizable, household names — including two of Australia’s top universities, and a well-known manufacturing/production brand.

Within the first 26 weeks, we got over $770,000 worth of sales opportunities (if we’d accepted every job that came our way).

Our prospects began asking to work with us, rather than us having to persuade them to give us the business.

We started getting higher quality inquiries — warmer leads who had more intent to buy.

Some practical changes you can make to improve your website conversions

When it comes to website changes, it’s important to remember that what works for one person might not work for you.

We’ve used site speed boosters for our clients before and gotten really great results. At other times, we’ve tried it and it just broke the website. This is why it’s so important to measure as you go, use what works for your individual needs, and remember that “failures” are just as helpful as wins.

Below are some tips — some of which we did on our own site, others are things we’ve done for others.

Tip number 1: Get stronger hosting that allows you to consider things like CDNs. Hiring a developer should always be your top choice, but it’s not always possible to have that luxury. In this instance, we recommend considering CDNs, and depending on the build of your site, paying for tools like NitroPack which can help with caching and compression for faster site speeds.

Tip number 2: Focus your time. Identify top landing pages with Moz Pro and channel your efforts in these places as a priority. Use the 80/20 principle and put your attention on the 20% that gets you 80% of your success.

Tip number 3: Run A/B tests using Google Optimize to test various hypotheses and ideas (Moz has a really handy guide for running split tests using Google). Don’t be afraid of the results — failures can help confirm that what you are currently doing right. You can also access some in-depth data about your site’s performance in Google Lighthouse.

Tip number 4: Trial various messages in Google Ads (as a way of testing targeted messaging). Google provides many keyword suggestions on trending words and phrases that are worth considering.

Tip number 5: Combine qualitative and quantitative research to get to know how your users interact with your site — and keep testing on an ongoing basis.

Tip number 6: Don’t get too hung up on charts going up, or figures turning orange: do what works for you. If adding a video to your homepage slows it down a little but has an overall positive effect on your conversion, then it’s worth the tradeoff.

Tip number 7: Prioritize the needs of your target customers and focus every build and design choice around them.

Recommended tools

Nitropack: speed up your site if you’ve not built it for speed from the beginning.

Google Optimize: run A/B tests

HotJar: see how people use your site via heat mapping and behaviour analytics.

Pingdom / GTMetrix: measure site speed (both is better if you want to make sure you meet everyone’s requirements).

Google Analytics: find drop-off points, track conversion, A/B test, set goals.

Qualaroo: poll your visitors while they are on your site with a popup window.

Google Consumer Surveys: create a survey, Google recruits the participants and provides results and analysis.

Moz Pro: Identify top landing pages when you connect this tool to your Google Analytics profile to create custom reports.

How to keep your conversion rates high

Treat your website like your car. Regular little tweaks to keep it purring, occasional deeper inspections to make sure there are no problems lurking just out of sight. Here’s what we do:

We look at Google Analytics monthly. It helps to understand what’s working, and what’s not.

We use goal tracking in GA to keep things moving in the right direction.

We use Pingdom's free service to monitor the availability and response time of our site.

We regularly ask people what they think about the site and its messaging (keeping the qualitative research coming in).

Conclusion

Spending money on marketing is a good thing, but when you don’t have a good conversion rate, that’s when your website’s behaving like a leaky bucket. Your website is one of your strongest sales tools, so it really does pay to make sure it’s working at peak performance.

I’ve shared a few of my favorite tools and techniques, but above all, my one bit of advice is to consider your own requirements. You can improve your site speed if you remove all tags and keep it plain. But that’s not what you want: it’s finding the balance between creativity and performance, and that will always depend on what’s important.

For us as a design agency, we need a site that’s beautiful and creative. Yes, having a moving background on our homepage slows it down a little bit, but it improves our conversions overall.

The bottom line: Consider your unique users, and make sure your website is in line with the goals of whoever you’re speaking with.

We can do all we want to please Google, but when it comes to sales and leads, it means more to have a higher converting and more effective website. We did well in inquiries (actual phone calls and email leads) despite a rapid increase in site performance requirements from Google. This only comes down to one thing: having a site customer conversion framework that’s effective.

[epackingvietnam]

How Our Website Conversion Strategy Increased Business Inquiries by 37%

Having a website that doesn’t convert is a little like having a bucket with a hole in it. Do you keep filling it up while the water’s pouring out — or do you fix the hole then add water? In other words, do you channel your budget into attracting people who are “pouring” through without taking action, or do you fine-tune your website so it’s appealing enough for them to stick around?

Our recommendation? Optimize the conversion rate of your website, before you spend on increasing your traffic to it.

Here’s a web design statistic to bear in mind: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. If your site’s too slow, or unattractive, or the wording isn’t clear, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “leaky bucket”. Which is a shame, because you’ve put lots of effort into designing a beautiful product page and About Us, and people just aren’t getting to see it.

As a digital web design and conversion agency in Melbourne, Australia, we’ve been helping our customers optimize their websites for over 10 years, but it wasn’t until mid-2019 that we decided to turn the tables and take a look at our own site.

As it turned out, we had a bit of a leaky bucket situation of our own: while our traffic was good and conversions were okay, there was definitely room for improvement.

In this article, I’m going to talk a little more about conversions: what they are, why they matter, and how they help your business. I’ll then share how I made lots of little tweaks that cumulatively led to my business attracting a higher tier of customers, more inquiries, plus over $780,000 worth of new sales opportunities within the first 26 weeks of making some of those changes. Let’s get into it!

What is conversion?

Your conversion rate is a figure that represents the percentage of visitors who come to your site and take the desired action, e.g. subscribing to your newsletter, booking a demo, purchasing a product, and so on.

Conversions come in all shapes and sizes, depending on what your website does. If you sell a product, making a sale would be your primary goal (aka a macro-conversion). If you run, say, a tour company or media outlet, then subscribing or booking a consultation might be your primary goal.

If your visitor isn’t quite ready to make a purchase or book a consultation, they might take an intermediary step — like signing up to your free newsletter, or following you on social media. This is what’s known as a micro-conversion: a little step that leads towards (hopefully) a bigger one.

A quick recap

A conversion can apply to any number of actions — from making a purchase, to following on social media.

Macro-conversions are those we usually associate with sales: a phone call, an email, or a trip to the checkout. These happen when the customer has done their research and is ready to leap in with a purchase. If you picture the classic conversion funnel, they’re already at the bottom.

Micro-conversions, on the other hand, are small steps that lead toward a sale. They’re not the ultimate win, but they’re a step in the right direction.

Most sites and apps have multiple conversion goals, each with its own conversion rate.

Micro-conversions vs. macro-conversions: which is better?

The short answer? Both. Ideally, you want micro- and macro-conversions to be happening all the time so you have a continual flow of customers working their way through your sales funnel. If you have neither, then your website is behaving like a leaky bucket.

Here are two common issues that seem like good things, but ultimately lead to problems:

High web traffic (good thing) but no micro- or macro-conversions (bad thing — leaky bucket alert)

High web traffic (good thing) plenty of micro-conversions (good thing), but no macro conversions (bad thing)

A lot of businesses spend heaps of money making sure their employees work efficiently, but less of the budget goes into what is actually one of your best marketing tools: your website.

Spending money on marketing will always be a good thing. Getting customers to your site means more eyes on your business — but when your website doesn’t convert visitors into sales, that’s when you’re wasting your marketing dollars. When it comes to conversion rate statistics, one of the biggest eye-openers I read was this: the average user’s attention span has dropped from 12 to a mere 7 seconds. That’s how long you’ve got to impress before they bail — so you’d better make sure your website is fast, clear, and attractive.

Our problem

Our phone wasn’t ringing as much as we’d have liked, despite spending plenty of dollars on SEO and Adwords. We looked into our analytics and realized traffic wasn’t an issue: a decent number of people were visiting our site, but too few were taking action — i.e. inquiring. Here’s where some of our issues lay:

Our site wasn’t as fast as it could have been (anything with a load time of two seconds or over is considered slow. Ours was hovering around 5-6, and that was having a negative impact on conversions).

Our CTA conversions were low (people weren’t clicking — or they were dropping off because the CTA wasn’t where it needed to be).

We were relying on guesswork for some of our design decisions — which meant we had no way of measuring what worked, and what didn’t.

In general, things were good but not great. Or in other words, there was room for improvement.

What we did to fix it

Improving your site’s conversions isn’t a one-size-fits all thing — which means what works for one person might not work for you. It’s a gradual journey of trying different things out and building up successes over time. We knew this having worked on hundreds of client websites over the years, so we went into our own redesign with this in mind. Here are some of the steps we took that had an impact.

We decided to improve our site

First of all, we decided to fix our company website. This sounds like an obvious one, but how many times have you thought “I’ll do this really important thing”, then never gotten round to it. Or rushed ahead in excitement, made a few tweaks yourself, then let your efforts grind to a halt because other things took precedence?

This is an all-too-common problem when you run a business and things are just… okay. Often there’s no real drive to fix things and we fall back into doing what seems more pressing: selling, talking to customers, and running the business.

Deciding you want to improve your site’s conversions starts with a decision that involves you and everyone else in the company, and that’s what we did. We got the design and analytics experts involved. We invested time and money into the project, which made it feel substantial. We even made EDMs to announce the site launch (like the one below) to let everyone know what we’d been up to. In short, we made it feel like an event.

We got to know our users

There are many different types of user: some are ready to buy, some are just doing some window shopping. Knowing what type of person visits your site will help you create something that caters to their needs.

We looked at our analytics data and discovered visitors to our site were a bit of both, but tended to be more ready to buy than not. This meant we needed to focus on getting macro-conversions — in other words, make our site geared towards sales — while not overlooking the visitors doing some initial research. For those users, we implemented a blog as a way to improve our SEO, educate leads, and build up our reputation.

User insight can also help you shape the feel of your site. We discovered that the marketing managers we were targeting at the time were predominantly women, and that certain images and colours resonated better among that specific demographic. We didn’t go for the (obvious pictures of the team or our offices), instead relying on data and the psychology of attraction to delve into the mind of the users.

We improved site speed

Sending visitors to good sites with bad speeds erodes trust and sends them running. Multiple studies show that site speed matters when it comes to conversion rates. It’s one of the top SEO ranking factors, and a big factor when it comes to user experience: pages that load in under a second convert around 2.5 times higher than pages taking five seconds or more.

We built our website for speed. Moz has a great guide on page speed best practices, and from that list, we did the following things:

We optimized images.

We managed our own caching.

We compressed our files.

We improved page load times (Moz has another great article about how to speed up time to first Byte). A good web page load time is considered to be anything under two seconds — which we achieved.

In addition, we also customized our own hosting to make our site faster.

We introduced more tracking

As well as making our site faster, we introduced a lot more tracking. That allowed us to refine our content, our messaging, the structure of the site, and so on, which continually adds to the conversion.

We used Google Optimize to run A/B tests across a variety of things to understand how people interacted with our site. Here are some of the tweaks we made that had a positive impact:

Social proofing can be a really effective tool if used correctly, so we added some stats to our landing page copy.

Google Analytics showed us visitors were reaching certain pages and not knowing quite where to go next, so we added CTAs that used active language. So instead of saying, “If you’d like to find out more, let us know'', we said “Get a quote”, along with two options for getting in touch.

We spent an entire month testing four words on our homepage. We actually failed (the words didn’t have a positive impact), but it allowed us to test our hypothesis. We did small tweaks and tests like this all over the site.

We used heat mapping to see where visitors were clicking, and which words caught their eye. With this data, we knew where to place buttons and key messaging.

We looked into user behavior

Understanding your visitor is always a good place to start, and there are two ways to go about this:

Quantitative research (numbers and data-based research)

Qualitative research (people-based research)

We did a mixture of both.

For the quantitative research, we used Google Analytics, Google Optimize, and Hotjar to get an in-depth, numbers-based look at how people were interacting with our site.

Heat-mapping software shows how people click and scroll through a page. Hot spots indicate places where people naturally gravitate.

We could see where people were coming into our site (which pages they landed on first), what channel brought them there, which features they were engaging with, how long they spent on each page, and where they abandoned the site.

For the qualitative research, we focused primarily on interviews.

We asked customers what they thought about certain CTAs (whether they worked or not, and why).

We made messaging changes and asked customers and suppliers whether they made sense.

We invited a psychologist into the office and asked them what they thought about our design.

What we learned

We found out our design was good, but our CTAs weren’t quite hitting the mark. For example, one CTA only gave the reader the option to call. But, as one of our interviewees pointed out, not everyone likes using the phone — so we added an email address.

We were intentional but ad hoc about our asking process. This worked for us — but you might want to be a bit more formal about your approach (Moz has a great practical guide to conducting qualitative usability testing if you’re after a more in-depth look).

The results

Combined, these minor tweaks had a mighty impact. There’s a big difference in how our site looks and how we rank. The bottom line: after the rebuild, we got more work, and the business did much better. Here are some of the gains we’ve seen over the past two years.

Our site speed increased: we managed to achieve a load time of around 500-600 ms.

Our dwell time increased by 73%, going from 1.5 to 2.5 minutes.

We received four-times more inquiries by email and phone.

Our organic traffic increased despite us not channeling more funds into PPC ads.

We also realized our clients were bigger, paying on average 2.5 times more for jobs: in mid-2018, our average cost-per-job was $8,000. Now, it’s $17,000.

Our client brand names became more recognizable, household names — including two of Australia’s top universities, and a well-known manufacturing/production brand.

Within the first 26 weeks, we got over $770,000 worth of sales opportunities (if we’d accepted every job that came our way).

Our prospects began asking to work with us, rather than us having to persuade them to give us the business.

We started getting higher quality inquiries — warmer leads who had more intent to buy.

Some practical changes you can make to improve your website conversions

When it comes to website changes, it’s important to remember that what works for one person might not work for you.

We’ve used site speed boosters for our clients before and gotten really great results. At other times, we’ve tried it and it just broke the website. This is why it’s so important to measure as you go, use what works for your individual needs, and remember that “failures” are just as helpful as wins.

Below are some tips — some of which we did on our own site, others are things we’ve done for others.

Tip number 1: Get stronger hosting that allows you to consider things like CDNs. Hiring a developer should always be your top choice, but it’s not always possible to have that luxury. In this instance, we recommend considering CDNs, and depending on the build of your site, paying for tools like NitroPack which can help with caching and compression for faster site speeds.

Tip number 2: Focus your time. Identify top landing pages with Moz Pro and channel your efforts in these places as a priority. Use the 80/20 principle and put your attention on the 20% that gets you 80% of your success.

Tip number 3: Run A/B tests using Google Optimize to test various hypotheses and ideas (Moz has a really handy guide for running split tests using Google). Don’t be afraid of the results — failures can help confirm that what you are currently doing right. You can also access some in-depth data about your site’s performance in Google Lighthouse.

Tip number 4: Trial various messages in Google Ads (as a way of testing targeted messaging). Google provides many keyword suggestions on trending words and phrases that are worth considering.

Tip number 5: Combine qualitative and quantitative research to get to know how your users interact with your site — and keep testing on an ongoing basis.

Tip number 6: Don’t get too hung up on charts going up, or figures turning orange: do what works for you. If adding a video to your homepage slows it down a little but has an overall positive effect on your conversion, then it’s worth the tradeoff.

Tip number 7: Prioritize the needs of your target customers and focus every build and design choice around them.

Recommended tools

Nitropack: speed up your site if you’ve not built it for speed from the beginning.

Google Optimize: run A/B tests

HotJar: see how people use your site via heat mapping and behaviour analytics.

Pingdom / GTMetrix: measure site speed (both is better if you want to make sure you meet everyone’s requirements).

Google Analytics: find drop-off points, track conversion, A/B test, set goals.

Qualaroo: poll your visitors while they are on your site with a popup window.

Google Consumer Surveys: create a survey, Google recruits the participants and provides results and analysis.

Moz Pro: Identify top landing pages when you connect this tool to your Google Analytics profile to create custom reports.

How to keep your conversion rates high

Treat your website like your car. Regular little tweaks to keep it purring, occasional deeper inspections to make sure there are no problems lurking just out of sight. Here’s what we do:

We look at Google Analytics monthly. It helps to understand what’s working, and what’s not.

We use goal tracking in GA to keep things moving in the right direction.

We use Pingdom's free service to monitor the availability and response time of our site.

We regularly ask people what they think about the site and its messaging (keeping the qualitative research coming in).

Conclusion

Spending money on marketing is a good thing, but when you don’t have a good conversion rate, that’s when your website’s behaving like a leaky bucket. Your website is one of your strongest sales tools, so it really does pay to make sure it’s working at peak performance.

I’ve shared a few of my favorite tools and techniques, but above all, my one bit of advice is to consider your own requirements. You can improve your site speed if you remove all tags and keep it plain. But that’s not what you want: it’s finding the balance between creativity and performance, and that will always depend on what’s important.

For us as a design agency, we need a site that’s beautiful and creative. Yes, having a moving background on our homepage slows it down a little bit, but it improves our conversions overall.

The bottom line: Consider your unique users, and make sure your website is in line with the goals of whoever you’re speaking with.

We can do all we want to please Google, but when it comes to sales and leads, it means more to have a higher converting and more effective website. We did well in inquiries (actual phone calls and email leads) despite a rapid increase in site performance requirements from Google. This only comes down to one thing: having a site customer conversion framework that’s effective.

#túi_giấy_epacking_việt_nam #túi_giấy_epacking #in_túi_giấy_giá_rẻ #in_túi_giấy #epackingvietnam #tuigiayepacking

[bfxenon]

How Our Website Conversion Strategy Increased Business Inquiries by 37%

Having a website that doesn’t convert is a little like having a bucket with a hole in it. Do you keep filling it up while the water’s pouring out — or do you fix the hole then add water? In other words, do you channel your budget into attracting people who are “pouring” through without taking action, or do you fine-tune your website so it’s appealing enough for them to stick around?

Our recommendation? Optimize the conversion rate of your website, before you spend on increasing your traffic to it.

Here’s a web design statistic to bear in mind: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. If your site’s too slow, or unattractive, or the wording isn’t clear, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “leaky bucket”. Which is a shame, because you’ve put lots of effort into designing a beautiful product page and About Us, and people just aren’t getting to see it.

As a digital web design and conversion agency in Melbourne, Australia, we’ve been helping our customers optimize their websites for over 10 years, but it wasn’t until mid-2019 that we decided to turn the tables and take a look at our own site.

As it turned out, we had a bit of a leaky bucket situation of our own: while our traffic was good and conversions were okay, there was definitely room for improvement.

In this article, I’m going to talk a little more about conversions: what they are, why they matter, and how they help your business. I’ll then share how I made lots of little tweaks that cumulatively led to my business attracting a higher tier of customers, more inquiries, plus over $780,000 worth of new sales opportunities within the first 26 weeks of making some of those changes. Let’s get into it!

What is conversion?

Your conversion rate is a figure that represents the percentage of visitors who come to your site and take the desired action, e.g. subscribing to your newsletter, booking a demo, purchasing a product, and so on.

Conversions come in all shapes and sizes, depending on what your website does. If you sell a product, making a sale would be your primary goal (aka a macro-conversion). If you run, say, a tour company or media outlet, then subscribing or booking a consultation might be your primary goal.

If your visitor isn’t quite ready to make a purchase or book a consultation, they might take an intermediary step — like signing up to your free newsletter, or following you on social media. This is what’s known as a micro-conversion: a little step that leads towards (hopefully) a bigger one.

A quick recap

A conversion can apply to any number of actions — from making a purchase, to following on social media.

Macro-conversions are those we usually associate with sales: a phone call, an email, or a trip to the checkout. These happen when the customer has done their research and is ready to leap in with a purchase. If you picture the classic conversion funnel, they’re already at the bottom.

Micro-conversions, on the other hand, are small steps that lead toward a sale. They’re not the ultimate win, but they’re a step in the right direction.

Most sites and apps have multiple conversion goals, each with its own conversion rate.

Micro-conversions vs. macro-conversions: which is better?

The short answer? Both. Ideally, you want micro- and macro-conversions to be happening all the time so you have a continual flow of customers working their way through your sales funnel. If you have neither, then your website is behaving like a leaky bucket.

Here are two common issues that seem like good things, but ultimately lead to problems:

High web traffic (good thing) but no micro- or macro-conversions (bad thing — leaky bucket alert)

High web traffic (good thing) plenty of micro-conversions (good thing), but no macro conversions (bad thing)

A lot of businesses spend heaps of money making sure their employees work efficiently, but less of the budget goes into what is actually one of your best marketing tools: your website.

Spending money on marketing will always be a good thing. Getting customers to your site means more eyes on your business — but when your website doesn’t convert visitors into sales, that’s when you’re wasting your marketing dollars. When it comes to conversion rate statistics, one of the biggest eye-openers I read was this: the average user’s attention span has dropped from 12 to a mere 7 seconds. That’s how long you’ve got to impress before they bail — so you’d better make sure your website is fast, clear, and attractive.

Our problem

Our phone wasn’t ringing as much as we’d have liked, despite spending plenty of dollars on SEO and Adwords. We looked into our analytics and realized traffic wasn’t an issue: a decent number of people were visiting our site, but too few were taking action — i.e. inquiring. Here’s where some of our issues lay:

Our site wasn’t as fast as it could have been (anything with a load time of two seconds or over is considered slow. Ours was hovering around 5-6, and that was having a negative impact on conversions).

Our CTA conversions were low (people weren’t clicking — or they were dropping off because the CTA wasn’t where it needed to be).

We were relying on guesswork for some of our design decisions — which meant we had no way of measuring what worked, and what didn’t.

In general, things were good but not great. Or in other words, there was room for improvement.

What we did to fix it

Improving your site’s conversions isn’t a one-size-fits all thing — which means what works for one person might not work for you. It’s a gradual journey of trying different things out and building up successes over time. We knew this having worked on hundreds of client websites over the years, so we went into our own redesign with this in mind. Here are some of the steps we took that had an impact.

We decided to improve our site

First of all, we decided to fix our company website. This sounds like an obvious one, but how many times have you thought “I’ll do this really important thing”, then never gotten round to it. Or rushed ahead in excitement, made a few tweaks yourself, then let your efforts grind to a halt because other things took precedence?

This is an all-too-common problem when you run a business and things are just… okay. Often there’s no real drive to fix things and we fall back into doing what seems more pressing: selling, talking to customers, and running the business.

Deciding you want to improve your site’s conversions starts with a decision that involves you and everyone else in the company, and that’s what we did. We got the design and analytics experts involved. We invested time and money into the project, which made it feel substantial. We even made EDMs to announce the site launch (like the one below) to let everyone know what we’d been up to. In short, we made it feel like an event.

We got to know our users

There are many different types of user: some are ready to buy, some are just doing some window shopping. Knowing what type of person visits your site will help you create something that caters to their needs.

We looked at our analytics data and discovered visitors to our site were a bit of both, but tended to be more ready to buy than not. This meant we needed to focus on getting macro-conversions — in other words, make our site geared towards sales — while not overlooking the visitors doing some initial research. For those users, we implemented a blog as a way to improve our SEO, educate leads, and build up our reputation.

User insight can also help you shape the feel of your site. We discovered that the marketing managers we were targeting at the time were predominantly women, and that certain images and colours resonated better among that specific demographic. We didn’t go for the (obvious pictures of the team or our offices), instead relying on data and the psychology of attraction to delve into the mind of the users.

We improved site speed

Sending visitors to good sites with bad speeds erodes trust and sends them running. Multiple studies show that site speed matters when it comes to conversion rates. It’s one of the top SEO ranking factors, and a big factor when it comes to user experience: pages that load in under a second convert around 2.5 times higher than pages taking five seconds or more.

We built our website for speed. Moz has a great guide on page speed best practices, and from that list, we did the following things:

We optimized images.

We managed our own caching.

We compressed our files.

We improved page load times (Moz has another great article about how to speed up time to first Byte). A good web page load time is considered to be anything under two seconds — which we achieved.

In addition, we also customized our own hosting to make our site faster.

We introduced more tracking

As well as making our site faster, we introduced a lot more tracking. That allowed us to refine our content, our messaging, the structure of the site, and so on, which continually adds to the conversion.

We used Google Optimize to run A/B tests across a variety of things to understand how people interacted with our site. Here are some of the tweaks we made that had a positive impact:

Social proofing can be a really effective tool if used correctly, so we added some stats to our landing page copy.

Google Analytics showed us visitors were reaching certain pages and not knowing quite where to go next, so we added CTAs that used active language. So instead of saying, “If you’d like to find out more, let us know'', we said “Get a quote”, along with two options for getting in touch.

We spent an entire month testing four words on our homepage. We actually failed (the words didn’t have a positive impact), but it allowed us to test our hypothesis. We did small tweaks and tests like this all over the site.

We used heat mapping to see where visitors were clicking, and which words caught their eye. With this data, we knew where to place buttons and key messaging.

We looked into user behavior

Understanding your visitor is always a good place to start, and there are two ways to go about this:

Quantitative research (numbers and data-based research)

Qualitative research (people-based research)

We did a mixture of both.

For the quantitative research, we used Google Analytics, Google Optimize, and Hotjar to get an in-depth, numbers-based look at how people were interacting with our site.

Heat-mapping software shows how people click and scroll through a page. Hot spots indicate places where people naturally gravitate.

We could see where people were coming into our site (which pages they landed on first), what channel brought them there, which features they were engaging with, how long they spent on each page, and where they abandoned the site.

For the qualitative research, we focused primarily on interviews.

We asked customers what they thought about certain CTAs (whether they worked or not, and why).

We made messaging changes and asked customers and suppliers whether they made sense.

We invited a psychologist into the office and asked them what they thought about our design.

What we learned

We found out our design was good, but our CTAs weren’t quite hitting the mark. For example, one CTA only gave the reader the option to call. But, as one of our interviewees pointed out, not everyone likes using the phone — so we added an email address.

We were intentional but ad hoc about our asking process. This worked for us — but you might want to be a bit more formal about your approach (Moz has a great practical guide to conducting qualitative usability testing if you’re after a more in-depth look).

The results

Combined, these minor tweaks had a mighty impact. There’s a big difference in how our site looks and how we rank. The bottom line: after the rebuild, we got more work, and the business did much better. Here are some of the gains we’ve seen over the past two years.

Our site speed increased: we managed to achieve a load time of around 500-600 ms.

Our dwell time increased by 73%, going from 1.5 to 2.5 minutes.

We received four-times more inquiries by email and phone.

Our organic traffic increased despite us not channeling more funds into PPC ads.

We also realized our clients were bigger, paying on average 2.5 times more for jobs: in mid-2018, our average cost-per-job was $8,000. Now, it’s $17,000.

Our client brand names became more recognizable, household names — including two of Australia’s top universities, and a well-known manufacturing/production brand.

Within the first 26 weeks, we got over $770,000 worth of sales opportunities (if we’d accepted every job that came our way).

Our prospects began asking to work with us, rather than us having to persuade them to give us the business.

We started getting higher quality inquiries — warmer leads who had more intent to buy.

Some practical changes you can make to improve your website conversions

When it comes to website changes, it’s important to remember that what works for one person might not work for you.

We’ve used site speed boosters for our clients before and gotten really great results. At other times, we’ve tried it and it just broke the website. This is why it’s so important to measure as you go, use what works for your individual needs, and remember that “failures” are just as helpful as wins.

Below are some tips — some of which we did on our own site, others are things we’ve done for others.

Tip number 1: Get stronger hosting that allows you to consider things like CDNs. Hiring a developer should always be your top choice, but it’s not always possible to have that luxury. In this instance, we recommend considering CDNs, and depending on the build of your site, paying for tools like NitroPack which can help with caching and compression for faster site speeds.

Tip number 2: Focus your time. Identify top landing pages with Moz Pro and channel your efforts in these places as a priority. Use the 80/20 principle and put your attention on the 20% that gets you 80% of your success.

Tip number 3: Run A/B tests using Google Optimize to test various hypotheses and ideas (Moz has a really handy guide for running split tests using Google). Don’t be afraid of the results — failures can help confirm that what you are currently doing right. You can also access some in-depth data about your site’s performance in Google Lighthouse.

Tip number 4: Trial various messages in Google Ads (as a way of testing targeted messaging). Google provides many keyword suggestions on trending words and phrases that are worth considering.

Tip number 5: Combine qualitative and quantitative research to get to know how your users interact with your site — and keep testing on an ongoing basis.

Tip number 6: Don’t get too hung up on charts going up, or figures turning orange: do what works for you. If adding a video to your homepage slows it down a little but has an overall positive effect on your conversion, then it’s worth the tradeoff.

Tip number 7: Prioritize the needs of your target customers and focus every build and design choice around them.

Recommended tools

Nitropack: speed up your site if you’ve not built it for speed from the beginning.

Google Optimize: run A/B tests

HotJar: see how people use your site via heat mapping and behaviour analytics.

Pingdom / GTMetrix: measure site speed (both is better if you want to make sure you meet everyone’s requirements).

Google Analytics: find drop-off points, track conversion, A/B test, set goals.

Qualaroo: poll your visitors while they are on your site with a popup window.

Google Consumer Surveys: create a survey, Google recruits the participants and provides results and analysis.

Moz Pro: Identify top landing pages when you connect this tool to your Google Analytics profile to create custom reports.

How to keep your conversion rates high

Treat your website like your car. Regular little tweaks to keep it purring, occasional deeper inspections to make sure there are no problems lurking just out of sight. Here’s what we do:

We look at Google Analytics monthly. It helps to understand what’s working, and what’s not.

We use goal tracking in GA to keep things moving in the right direction.

We use Pingdom's free service to monitor the availability and response time of our site.

We regularly ask people what they think about the site and its messaging (keeping the qualitative research coming in).

Conclusion

Spending money on marketing is a good thing, but when you don’t have a good conversion rate, that’s when your website’s behaving like a leaky bucket. Your website is one of your strongest sales tools, so it really does pay to make sure it’s working at peak performance.

I’ve shared a few of my favorite tools and techniques, but above all, my one bit of advice is to consider your own requirements. You can improve your site speed if you remove all tags and keep it plain. But that’s not what you want: it’s finding the balance between creativity and performance, and that will always depend on what’s important.

For us as a design agency, we need a site that’s beautiful and creative. Yes, having a moving background on our homepage slows it down a little bit, but it improves our conversions overall.

The bottom line: Consider your unique users, and make sure your website is in line with the goals of whoever you’re speaking with.

We can do all we want to please Google, but when it comes to sales and leads, it means more to have a higher converting and more effective website. We did well in inquiries (actual phone calls and email leads) despite a rapid increase in site performance requirements from Google. This only comes down to one thing: having a site customer conversion framework that’s effective.

[nutrifami]

How Our Website Conversion Strategy Increased Business Inquiries by 37%

Having a website that doesn’t convert is a little like having a bucket with a hole in it. Do you keep filling it up while the water’s pouring out — or do you fix the hole then add water? In other words, do you channel your budget into attracting people who are “pouring” through without taking action, or do you fine-tune your website so it’s appealing enough for them to stick around?

Our recommendation? Optimize the conversion rate of your website, before you spend on increasing your traffic to it.

Here’s a web design statistic to bear in mind: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. If your site’s too slow, or unattractive, or the wording isn’t clear, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “leaky bucket”. Which is a shame, because you’ve put lots of effort into designing a beautiful product page and About Us, and people just aren’t getting to see it.

As a digital web design and conversion agency in Melbourne, Australia, we’ve been helping our customers optimize their websites for over 10 years, but it wasn’t until mid-2019 that we decided to turn the tables and take a look at our own site.

As it turned out, we had a bit of a leaky bucket situation of our own: while our traffic was good and conversions were okay, there was definitely room for improvement.

In this article, I’m going to talk a little more about conversions: what they are, why they matter, and how they help your business. I’ll then share how I made lots of little tweaks that cumulatively led to my business attracting a higher tier of customers, more inquiries, plus over $780,000 worth of new sales opportunities within the first 26 weeks of making some of those changes. Let’s get into it!

What is conversion?

Your conversion rate is a figure that represents the percentage of visitors who come to your site and take the desired action, e.g. subscribing to your newsletter, booking a demo, purchasing a product, and so on.

Conversions come in all shapes and sizes, depending on what your website does. If you sell a product, making a sale would be your primary goal (aka a macro-conversion). If you run, say, a tour company or media outlet, then subscribing or booking a consultation might be your primary goal.

If your visitor isn’t quite ready to make a purchase or book a consultation, they might take an intermediary step — like signing up to your free newsletter, or following you on social media. This is what’s known as a micro-conversion: a little step that leads towards (hopefully) a bigger one.

A quick recap

A conversion can apply to any number of actions — from making a purchase, to following on social media.

Macro-conversions are those we usually associate with sales: a phone call, an email, or a trip to the checkout. These happen when the customer has done their research and is ready to leap in with a purchase. If you picture the classic conversion funnel, they’re already at the bottom.

Micro-conversions, on the other hand, are small steps that lead toward a sale. They’re not the ultimate win, but they’re a step in the right direction.

Most sites and apps have multiple conversion goals, each with its own conversion rate.

Micro-conversions vs. macro-conversions: which is better?

The short answer? Both. Ideally, you want micro- and macro-conversions to be happening all the time so you have a continual flow of customers working their way through your sales funnel. If you have neither, then your website is behaving like a leaky bucket.

Here are two common issues that seem like good things, but ultimately lead to problems:

High web traffic (good thing) but no micro- or macro-conversions (bad thing — leaky bucket alert)

High web traffic (good thing) plenty of micro-conversions (good thing), but no macro conversions (bad thing)

A lot of businesses spend heaps of money making sure their employees work efficiently, but less of the budget goes into what is actually one of your best marketing tools: your website.

Spending money on marketing will always be a good thing. Getting customers to your site means more eyes on your business — but when your website doesn’t convert visitors into sales, that’s when you’re wasting your marketing dollars. When it comes to conversion rate statistics, one of the biggest eye-openers I read was this: the average user’s attention span has dropped from 12 to a mere 7 seconds. That’s how long you’ve got to impress before they bail — so you’d better make sure your website is fast, clear, and attractive.

Our problem

Our phone wasn’t ringing as much as we’d have liked, despite spending plenty of dollars on SEO and Adwords. We looked into our analytics and realized traffic wasn’t an issue: a decent number of people were visiting our site, but too few were taking action — i.e. inquiring. Here’s where some of our issues lay:

Our site wasn’t as fast as it could have been (anything with a load time of two seconds or over is considered slow. Ours was hovering around 5-6, and that was having a negative impact on conversions).

Our CTA conversions were low (people weren’t clicking — or they were dropping off because the CTA wasn’t where it needed to be).

We were relying on guesswork for some of our design decisions — which meant we had no way of measuring what worked, and what didn’t.

In general, things were good but not great. Or in other words, there was room for improvement.

What we did to fix it

Improving your site’s conversions isn’t a one-size-fits all thing — which means what works for one person might not work for you. It’s a gradual journey of trying different things out and building up successes over time. We knew this having worked on hundreds of client websites over the years, so we went into our own redesign with this in mind. Here are some of the steps we took that had an impact.

We decided to improve our site

First of all, we decided to fix our company website. This sounds like an obvious one, but how many times have you thought “I’ll do this really important thing”, then never gotten round to it. Or rushed ahead in excitement, made a few tweaks yourself, then let your efforts grind to a halt because other things took precedence?

This is an all-too-common problem when you run a business and things are just… okay. Often there’s no real drive to fix things and we fall back into doing what seems more pressing: selling, talking to customers, and running the business.

Deciding you want to improve your site’s conversions starts with a decision that involves you and everyone else in the company, and that’s what we did. We got the design and analytics experts involved. We invested time and money into the project, which made it feel substantial. We even made EDMs to announce the site launch (like the one below) to let everyone know what we’d been up to. In short, we made it feel like an event.

We got to know our users

There are many different types of user: some are ready to buy, some are just doing some window shopping. Knowing what type of person visits your site will help you create something that caters to their needs.

We looked at our analytics data and discovered visitors to our site were a bit of both, but tended to be more ready to buy than not. This meant we needed to focus on getting macro-conversions — in other words, make our site geared towards sales — while not overlooking the visitors doing some initial research. For those users, we implemented a blog as a way to improve our SEO, educate leads, and build up our reputation.

User insight can also help you shape the feel of your site. We discovered that the marketing managers we were targeting at the time were predominantly women, and that certain images and colours resonated better among that specific demographic. We didn’t go for the (obvious pictures of the team or our offices), instead relying on data and the psychology of attraction to delve into the mind of the users.

We improved site speed

Sending visitors to good sites with bad speeds erodes trust and sends them running. Multiple studies show that site speed matters when it comes to conversion rates. It’s one of the top SEO ranking factors, and a big factor when it comes to user experience: pages that load in under a second convert around 2.5 times higher than pages taking five seconds or more.

We built our website for speed. Moz has a great guide on page speed best practices, and from that list, we did the following things:

We optimized images.

We managed our own caching.

We compressed our files.

We improved page load times (Moz has another great article about how to speed up time to first Byte). A good web page load time is considered to be anything under two seconds — which we achieved.

In addition, we also customized our own hosting to make our site faster.

We introduced more tracking

As well as making our site faster, we introduced a lot more tracking. That allowed us to refine our content, our messaging, the structure of the site, and so on, which continually adds to the conversion.

We used Google Optimize to run A/B tests across a variety of things to understand how people interacted with our site. Here are some of the tweaks we made that had a positive impact:

Social proofing can be a really effective tool if used correctly, so we added some stats to our landing page copy.

Google Analytics showed us visitors were reaching certain pages and not knowing quite where to go next, so we added CTAs that used active language. So instead of saying, “If you’d like to find out more, let us know'', we said “Get a quote”, along with two options for getting in touch.

We spent an entire month testing four words on our homepage. We actually failed (the words didn’t have a positive impact), but it allowed us to test our hypothesis. We did small tweaks and tests like this all over the site.

We used heat mapping to see where visitors were clicking, and which words caught their eye. With this data, we knew where to place buttons and key messaging.

We looked into user behavior

Understanding your visitor is always a good place to start, and there are two ways to go about this:

Quantitative research (numbers and data-based research)

Qualitative research (people-based research)

We did a mixture of both.

For the quantitative research, we used Google Analytics, Google Optimize, and Hotjar to get an in-depth, numbers-based look at how people were interacting with our site.

Heat-mapping software shows how people click and scroll through a page. Hot spots indicate places where people naturally gravitate.

We could see where people were coming into our site (which pages they landed on first), what channel brought them there, which features they were engaging with, how long they spent on each page, and where they abandoned the site.

For the qualitative research, we focused primarily on interviews.

We asked customers what they thought about certain CTAs (whether they worked or not, and why).

We made messaging changes and asked customers and suppliers whether they made sense.

We invited a psychologist into the office and asked them what they thought about our design.

What we learned

We found out our design was good, but our CTAs weren’t quite hitting the mark. For example, one CTA only gave the reader the option to call. But, as one of our interviewees pointed out, not everyone likes using the phone — so we added an email address.

We were intentional but ad hoc about our asking process. This worked for us — but you might want to be a bit more formal about your approach (Moz has a great practical guide to conducting qualitative usability testing if you’re after a more in-depth look).

The results

Combined, these minor tweaks had a mighty impact. There’s a big difference in how our site looks and how we rank. The bottom line: after the rebuild, we got more work, and the business did much better. Here are some of the gains we’ve seen over the past two years.

Our site speed increased: we managed to achieve a load time of around 500-600 ms.

Our dwell time increased by 73%, going from 1.5 to 2.5 minutes.

We received four-times more inquiries by email and phone.

Our organic traffic increased despite us not channeling more funds into PPC ads.

We also realized our clients were bigger, paying on average 2.5 times more for jobs: in mid-2018, our average cost-per-job was $8,000. Now, it’s $17,000.

Our client brand names became more recognizable, household names — including two of Australia’s top universities, and a well-known manufacturing/production brand.

Within the first 26 weeks, we got over $770,000 worth of sales opportunities (if we’d accepted every job that came our way).

Our prospects began asking to work with us, rather than us having to persuade them to give us the business.

We started getting higher quality inquiries — warmer leads who had more intent to buy.

Some practical changes you can make to improve your website conversions

When it comes to website changes, it’s important to remember that what works for one person might not work for you.

We’ve used site speed boosters for our clients before and gotten really great results. At other times, we’ve tried it and it just broke the website. This is why it’s so important to measure as you go, use what works for your individual needs, and remember that “failures” are just as helpful as wins.

Below are some tips — some of which we did on our own site, others are things we’ve done for others.

Tip number 1: Get stronger hosting that allows you to consider things like CDNs. Hiring a developer should always be your top choice, but it’s not always possible to have that luxury. In this instance, we recommend considering CDNs, and depending on the build of your site, paying for tools like NitroPack which can help with caching and compression for faster site speeds.

Tip number 2: Focus your time. Identify top landing pages with Moz Pro and channel your efforts in these places as a priority. Use the 80/20 principle and put your attention on the 20% that gets you 80% of your success.

Tip number 3: Run A/B tests using Google Optimize to test various hypotheses and ideas (Moz has a really handy guide for running split tests using Google). Don’t be afraid of the results — failures can help confirm that what you are currently doing right. You can also access some in-depth data about your site’s performance in Google Lighthouse.

Tip number 4: Trial various messages in Google Ads (as a way of testing targeted messaging). Google provides many keyword suggestions on trending words and phrases that are worth considering.

Tip number 5: Combine qualitative and quantitative research to get to know how your users interact with your site — and keep testing on an ongoing basis.

Tip number 6: Don’t get too hung up on charts going up, or figures turning orange: do what works for you. If adding a video to your homepage slows it down a little but has an overall positive effect on your conversion, then it’s worth the tradeoff.

Tip number 7: Prioritize the needs of your target customers and focus every build and design choice around them.

Recommended tools

Nitropack: speed up your site if you’ve not built it for speed from the beginning.

Google Optimize: run A/B tests

HotJar: see how people use your site via heat mapping and behaviour analytics.

Pingdom / GTMetrix: measure site speed (both is better if you want to make sure you meet everyone’s requirements).

Google Analytics: find drop-off points, track conversion, A/B test, set goals.

Qualaroo: poll your visitors while they are on your site with a popup window.

Google Consumer Surveys: create a survey, Google recruits the participants and provides results and analysis.

Moz Pro: Identify top landing pages when you connect this tool to your Google Analytics profile to create custom reports.

How to keep your conversion rates high

Treat your website like your car. Regular little tweaks to keep it purring, occasional deeper inspections to make sure there are no problems lurking just out of sight. Here’s what we do:

We look at Google Analytics monthly. It helps to understand what’s working, and what’s not.

We use goal tracking in GA to keep things moving in the right direction.

We use Pingdom's free service to monitor the availability and response time of our site.

We regularly ask people what they think about the site and its messaging (keeping the qualitative research coming in).

Conclusion

Spending money on marketing is a good thing, but when you don’t have a good conversion rate, that’s when your website’s behaving like a leaky bucket. Your website is one of your strongest sales tools, so it really does pay to make sure it’s working at peak performance.

I’ve shared a few of my favorite tools and techniques, but above all, my one bit of advice is to consider your own requirements. You can improve your site speed if you remove all tags and keep it plain. But that’s not what you want: it’s finding the balance between creativity and performance, and that will always depend on what’s important.

For us as a design agency, we need a site that’s beautiful and creative. Yes, having a moving background on our homepage slows it down a little bit, but it improves our conversions overall.

The bottom line: Consider your unique users, and make sure your website is in line with the goals of whoever you’re speaking with.

We can do all we want to please Google, but when it comes to sales and leads, it means more to have a higher converting and more effective website. We did well in inquiries (actual phone calls and email leads) despite a rapid increase in site performance requirements from Google. This only comes down to one thing: having a site customer conversion framework that’s effective.

[ductrungnguyen87]

How Our Website Conversion Strategy Increased Business Inquiries by 37%

Having a website that doesn’t convert is a little like having a bucket with a hole in it. Do you keep filling it up while the water’s pouring out — or do you fix the hole then add water? In other words, do you channel your budget into attracting people who are “pouring” through without taking action, or do you fine-tune your website so it’s appealing enough for them to stick around?

Our recommendation? Optimize the conversion rate of your website, before you spend on increasing your traffic to it.

Here’s a web design statistic to bear in mind: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. If your site’s too slow, or unattractive, or the wording isn’t clear, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “leaky bucket”. Which is a shame, because you’ve put lots of effort into designing a beautiful product page and About Us, and people just aren’t getting to see it.

As a digital web design and conversion agency in Melbourne, Australia, we’ve been helping our customers optimize their websites for over 10 years, but it wasn’t until mid-2019 that we decided to turn the tables and take a look at our own site.

As it turned out, we had a bit of a leaky bucket situation of our own: while our traffic was good and conversions were okay, there was definitely room for improvement.

In this article, I’m going to talk a little more about conversions: what they are, why they matter, and how they help your business. I’ll then share how I made lots of little tweaks that cumulatively led to my business attracting a higher tier of customers, more inquiries, plus over $780,000 worth of new sales opportunities within the first 26 weeks of making some of those changes. Let’s get into it!

What is conversion?

Your conversion rate is a figure that represents the percentage of visitors who come to your site and take the desired action, e.g. subscribing to your newsletter, booking a demo, purchasing a product, and so on.

Conversions come in all shapes and sizes, depending on what your website does. If you sell a product, making a sale would be your primary goal (aka a macro-conversion). If you run, say, a tour company or media outlet, then subscribing or booking a consultation might be your primary goal.

If your visitor isn’t quite ready to make a purchase or book a consultation, they might take an intermediary step — like signing up to your free newsletter, or following you on social media. This is what’s known as a micro-conversion: a little step that leads towards (hopefully) a bigger one.

A quick recap

A conversion can apply to any number of actions — from making a purchase, to following on social media.

Macro-conversions are those we usually associate with sales: a phone call, an email, or a trip to the checkout. These happen when the customer has done their research and is ready to leap in with a purchase. If you picture the classic conversion funnel, they’re already at the bottom.

Micro-conversions, on the other hand, are small steps that lead toward a sale. They’re not the ultimate win, but they’re a step in the right direction.

Most sites and apps have multiple conversion goals, each with its own conversion rate.

Micro-conversions vs. macro-conversions: which is better?

The short answer? Both. Ideally, you want micro- and macro-conversions to be happening all the time so you have a continual flow of customers working their way through your sales funnel. If you have neither, then your website is behaving like a leaky bucket.

Here are two common issues that seem like good things, but ultimately lead to problems:

High web traffic (good thing) but no micro- or macro-conversions (bad thing — leaky bucket alert)

High web traffic (good thing) plenty of micro-conversions (good thing), but no macro conversions (bad thing)

A lot of businesses spend heaps of money making sure their employees work efficiently, but less of the budget goes into what is actually one of your best marketing tools: your website.

Spending money on marketing will always be a good thing. Getting customers to your site means more eyes on your business — but when your website doesn’t convert visitors into sales, that’s when you’re wasting your marketing dollars. When it comes to conversion rate statistics, one of the biggest eye-openers I read was this: the average user’s attention span has dropped from 12 to a mere 7 seconds. That’s how long you’ve got to impress before they bail — so you’d better make sure your website is fast, clear, and attractive.

Our problem

Our phone wasn’t ringing as much as we’d have liked, despite spending plenty of dollars on SEO and Adwords. We looked into our analytics and realized traffic wasn’t an issue: a decent number of people were visiting our site, but too few were taking action — i.e. inquiring. Here’s where some of our issues lay:

Our site wasn’t as fast as it could have been (anything with a load time of two seconds or over is considered slow. Ours was hovering around 5-6, and that was having a negative impact on conversions).

Our CTA conversions were low (people weren’t clicking — or they were dropping off because the CTA wasn’t where it needed to be).

We were relying on guesswork for some of our design decisions — which meant we had no way of measuring what worked, and what didn’t.

In general, things were good but not great. Or in other words, there was room for improvement.

What we did to fix it

Improving your site’s conversions isn’t a one-size-fits all thing — which means what works for one person might not work for you. It’s a gradual journey of trying different things out and building up successes over time. We knew this having worked on hundreds of client websites over the years, so we went into our own redesign with this in mind. Here are some of the steps we took that had an impact.

We decided to improve our site

First of all, we decided to fix our company website. This sounds like an obvious one, but how many times have you thought “I’ll do this really important thing”, then never gotten round to it. Or rushed ahead in excitement, made a few tweaks yourself, then let your efforts grind to a halt because other things took precedence?

This is an all-too-common problem when you run a business and things are just… okay. Often there’s no real drive to fix things and we fall back into doing what seems more pressing: selling, talking to customers, and running the business.

Deciding you want to improve your site’s conversions starts with a decision that involves you and everyone else in the company, and that’s what we did. We got the design and analytics experts involved. We invested time and money into the project, which made it feel substantial. We even made EDMs to announce the site launch (like the one below) to let everyone know what we’d been up to. In short, we made it feel like an event.

We got to know our users

There are many different types of user: some are ready to buy, some are just doing some window shopping. Knowing what type of person visits your site will help you create something that caters to their needs.

We looked at our analytics data and discovered visitors to our site were a bit of both, but tended to be more ready to buy than not. This meant we needed to focus on getting macro-conversions — in other words, make our site geared towards sales — while not overlooking the visitors doing some initial research. For those users, we implemented a blog as a way to improve our SEO, educate leads, and build up our reputation.

User insight can also help you shape the feel of your site. We discovered that the marketing managers we were targeting at the time were predominantly women, and that certain images and colours resonated better among that specific demographic. We didn’t go for the (obvious pictures of the team or our offices), instead relying on data and the psychology of attraction to delve into the mind of the users.

We improved site speed

Sending visitors to good sites with bad speeds erodes trust and sends them running. Multiple studies show that site speed matters when it comes to conversion rates. It’s one of the top SEO ranking factors, and a big factor when it comes to user experience: pages that load in under a second convert around 2.5 times higher than pages taking five seconds or more.

We built our website for speed. Moz has a great guide on page speed best practices, and from that list, we did the following things:

We optimized images.

We managed our own caching.

We compressed our files.

We improved page load times (Moz has another great article about how to speed up time to first Byte). A good web page load time is considered to be anything under two seconds — which we achieved.

In addition, we also customized our own hosting to make our site faster.

We introduced more tracking

As well as making our site faster, we introduced a lot more tracking. That allowed us to refine our content, our messaging, the structure of the site, and so on, which continually adds to the conversion.

We used Google Optimize to run A/B tests across a variety of things to understand how people interacted with our site. Here are some of the tweaks we made that had a positive impact:

Social proofing can be a really effective tool if used correctly, so we added some stats to our landing page copy.

Google Analytics showed us visitors were reaching certain pages and not knowing quite where to go next, so we added CTAs that used active language. So instead of saying, “If you’d like to find out more, let us know'', we said “Get a quote”, along with two options for getting in touch.

We spent an entire month testing four words on our homepage. We actually failed (the words didn’t have a positive impact), but it allowed us to test our hypothesis. We did small tweaks and tests like this all over the site.

We used heat mapping to see where visitors were clicking, and which words caught their eye. With this data, we knew where to place buttons and key messaging.

We looked into user behavior

Understanding your visitor is always a good place to start, and there are two ways to go about this:

Quantitative research (numbers and data-based research)

Qualitative research (people-based research)

We did a mixture of both.

For the quantitative research, we used Google Analytics, Google Optimize, and Hotjar to get an in-depth, numbers-based look at how people were interacting with our site.

Heat-mapping software shows how people click and scroll through a page. Hot spots indicate places where people naturally gravitate.

We could see where people were coming into our site (which pages they landed on first), what channel brought them there, which features they were engaging with, how long they spent on each page, and where they abandoned the site.

For the qualitative research, we focused primarily on interviews.

We asked customers what they thought about certain CTAs (whether they worked or not, and why).

We made messaging changes and asked customers and suppliers whether they made sense.

We invited a psychologist into the office and asked them what they thought about our design.

What we learned

We found out our design was good, but our CTAs weren’t quite hitting the mark. For example, one CTA only gave the reader the option to call. But, as one of our interviewees pointed out, not everyone likes using the phone — so we added an email address.

We were intentional but ad hoc about our asking process. This worked for us — but you might want to be a bit more formal about your approach (Moz has a great practical guide to conducting qualitative usability testing if you’re after a more in-depth look).

The results

Combined, these minor tweaks had a mighty impact. There’s a big difference in how our site looks and how we rank. The bottom line: after the rebuild, we got more work, and the business did much better. Here are some of the gains we’ve seen over the past two years.

Our site speed increased: we managed to achieve a load time of around 500-600 ms.

Our dwell time increased by 73%, going from 1.5 to 2.5 minutes.

We received four-times more inquiries by email and phone.

Our organic traffic increased despite us not channeling more funds into PPC ads.

We also realized our clients were bigger, paying on average 2.5 times more for jobs: in mid-2018, our average cost-per-job was $8,000. Now, it’s $17,000.

Our client brand names became more recognizable, household names — including two of Australia’s top universities, and a well-known manufacturing/production brand.

Within the first 26 weeks, we got over $770,000 worth of sales opportunities (if we’d accepted every job that came our way).

Our prospects began asking to work with us, rather than us having to persuade them to give us the business.

We started getting higher quality inquiries — warmer leads who had more intent to buy.

Some practical changes you can make to improve your website conversions

When it comes to website changes, it’s important to remember that what works for one person might not work for you.

We’ve used site speed boosters for our clients before and gotten really great results. At other times, we’ve tried it and it just broke the website. This is why it’s so important to measure as you go, use what works for your individual needs, and remember that “failures” are just as helpful as wins.

Below are some tips — some of which we did on our own site, others are things we’ve done for others.

Tip number 1: Get stronger hosting that allows you to consider things like CDNs. Hiring a developer should always be your top choice, but it’s not always possible to have that luxury. In this instance, we recommend considering CDNs, and depending on the build of your site, paying for tools like NitroPack which can help with caching and compression for faster site speeds.

Tip number 2: Focus your time. Identify top landing pages with Moz Pro and channel your efforts in these places as a priority. Use the 80/20 principle and put your attention on the 20% that gets you 80% of your success.

Tip number 3: Run A/B tests using Google Optimize to test various hypotheses and ideas (Moz has a really handy guide for running split tests using Google). Don’t be afraid of the results — failures can help confirm that what you are currently doing right. You can also access some in-depth data about your site’s performance in Google Lighthouse.

Tip number 4: Trial various messages in Google Ads (as a way of testing targeted messaging). Google provides many keyword suggestions on trending words and phrases that are worth considering.

Tip number 5: Combine qualitative and quantitative research to get to know how your users interact with your site — and keep testing on an ongoing basis.

Tip number 6: Don’t get too hung up on charts going up, or figures turning orange: do what works for you. If adding a video to your homepage slows it down a little but has an overall positive effect on your conversion, then it’s worth the tradeoff.

Tip number 7: Prioritize the needs of your target customers and focus every build and design choice around them.

Recommended tools

Nitropack: speed up your site if you’ve not built it for speed from the beginning.

Google Optimize: run A/B tests

HotJar: see how people use your site via heat mapping and behaviour analytics.

Pingdom / GTMetrix: measure site speed (both is better if you want to make sure you meet everyone’s requirements).

Google Analytics: find drop-off points, track conversion, A/B test, set goals.

Qualaroo: poll your visitors while they are on your site with a popup window.

Google Consumer Surveys: create a survey, Google recruits the participants and provides results and analysis.

Moz Pro: Identify top landing pages when you connect this tool to your Google Analytics profile to create custom reports.

How to keep your conversion rates high

Treat your website like your car. Regular little tweaks to keep it purring, occasional deeper inspections to make sure there are no problems lurking just out of sight. Here’s what we do:

We look at Google Analytics monthly. It helps to understand what’s working, and what’s not.

We use goal tracking in GA to keep things moving in the right direction.

We use Pingdom's free service to monitor the availability and response time of our site.

We regularly ask people what they think about the site and its messaging (keeping the qualitative research coming in).

Conclusion

Spending money on marketing is a good thing, but when you don’t have a good conversion rate, that’s when your website’s behaving like a leaky bucket. Your website is one of your strongest sales tools, so it really does pay to make sure it’s working at peak performance.

I’ve shared a few of my favorite tools and techniques, but above all, my one bit of advice is to consider your own requirements. You can improve your site speed if you remove all tags and keep it plain. But that’s not what you want: it’s finding the balance between creativity and performance, and that will always depend on what’s important.

For us as a design agency, we need a site that’s beautiful and creative. Yes, having a moving background on our homepage slows it down a little bit, but it improves our conversions overall.

The bottom line: Consider your unique users, and make sure your website is in line with the goals of whoever you’re speaking with.

We can do all we want to please Google, but when it comes to sales and leads, it means more to have a higher converting and more effective website. We did well in inquiries (actual phone calls and email leads) despite a rapid increase in site performance requirements from Google. This only comes down to one thing: having a site customer conversion framework that’s effective.

[camerasieunhovn]

How Our Website Conversion Strategy Increased Business Inquiries by 37%

Having a website that doesn’t convert is a little like having a bucket with a hole in it. Do you keep filling it up while the water’s pouring out — or do you fix the hole then add water? In other words, do you channel your budget into attracting people who are “pouring” through without taking action, or do you fine-tune your website so it’s appealing enough for them to stick around?

Our recommendation? Optimize the conversion rate of your website, before you spend on increasing your traffic to it.

Here’s a web design statistic to bear in mind: you have 50 milliseconds to make a good first impression. If your site’s too slow, or unattractive, or the wording isn’t clear, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “leaky bucket”. Which is a shame, because you’ve put lots of effort into designing a beautiful product page and About Us, and people just aren’t getting to see it.

As a digital web design and conversion agency in Melbourne, Australia, we’ve been helping our customers optimize their websites for over 10 years, but it wasn’t until mid-2019 that we decided to turn the tables and take a look at our own site.

As it turned out, we had a bit of a leaky bucket situation of our own: while our traffic was good and conversions were okay, there was definitely room for improvement.

In this article, I’m going to talk a little more about conversions: what they are, why they matter, and how they help your business. I’ll then share how I made lots of little tweaks that cumulatively led to my business attracting a higher tier of customers, more inquiries, plus over $780,000 worth of new sales opportunities within the first 26 weeks of making some of those changes. Let’s get into it!

What is conversion?

Your conversion rate is a figure that represents the percentage of visitors who come to your site and take the desired action, e.g. subscribing to your newsletter, booking a demo, purchasing a product, and so on.

Conversions come in all shapes and sizes, depending on what your website does. If you sell a product, making a sale would be your primary goal (aka a macro-conversion). If you run, say, a tour company or media outlet, then subscribing or booking a consultation might be your primary goal.

If your visitor isn’t quite ready to make a purchase or book a consultation, they might take an intermediary step — like signing up to your free newsletter, or following you on social media. This is what’s known as a micro-conversion: a little step that leads towards (hopefully) a bigger one.

A quick recap

A conversion can apply to any number of actions — from making a purchase, to following on social media.

Macro-conversions are those we usually associate with sales: a phone call, an email, or a trip to the checkout. These happen when the customer has done their research and is ready to leap in with a purchase. If you picture the classic conversion funnel, they’re already at the bottom.

Micro-conversions, on the other hand, are small steps that lead toward a sale. They’re not the ultimate win, but they’re a step in the right direction.

Most sites and apps have multiple conversion goals, each with its own conversion rate.

Micro-conversions vs. macro-conversions: which is better?

The short answer? Both. Ideally, you want micro- and macro-conversions to be happening all the time so you have a continual flow of customers working their way through your sales funnel. If you have neither, then your website is behaving like a leaky bucket.

Here are two common issues that seem like good things, but ultimately lead to problems:

High web traffic (good thing) but no micro- or macro-conversions (bad thing — leaky bucket alert)

High web traffic (good thing) plenty of micro-conversions (good thing), but no macro conversions (bad thing)

A lot of businesses spend heaps of money making sure their employees work efficiently, but less of the budget goes into what is actually one of your best marketing tools: your website.

Spending money on marketing will always be a good thing. Getting customers to your site means more eyes on your business — but when your website doesn’t convert visitors into sales, that’s when you’re wasting your marketing dollars. When it comes to conversion rate statistics, one of the biggest eye-openers I read was this: the average user’s attention span has dropped from 12 to a mere 7 seconds. That’s how long you’ve got to impress before they bail — so you’d better make sure your website is fast, clear, and attractive.

Our problem

Our phone wasn’t ringing as much as we’d have liked, despite spending plenty of dollars on SEO and Adwords. We looked into our analytics and realized traffic wasn’t an issue: a decent number of people were visiting our site, but too few were taking action — i.e. inquiring. Here’s where some of our issues lay:

Our site wasn’t as fast as it could have been (anything with a load time of two seconds or over is considered slow. Ours was hovering around 5-6, and that was having a negative impact on conversions).

Our CTA conversions were low (people weren’t clicking — or they were dropping off because the CTA wasn’t where it needed to be).

We were relying on guesswork for some of our design decisions — which meant we had no way of measuring what worked, and what didn’t.

In general, things were good but not great. Or in other words, there was room for improvement.

What we did to fix it

Improving your site’s conversions isn’t a one-size-fits all thing — which means what works for one person might not work for you. It’s a gradual journey of trying different things out and building up successes over time. We knew this having worked on hundreds of client websites over the years, so we went into our own redesign with this in mind. Here are some of the steps we took that had an impact.

We decided to improve our site

First of all, we decided to fix our company website. This sounds like an obvious one, but how many times have you thought “I’ll do this really important thing”, then never gotten round to it. Or rushed ahead in excitement, made a few tweaks yourself, then let your efforts grind to a halt because other things took precedence?

This is an all-too-common problem when you run a business and things are just… okay. Often there’s no real drive to fix things and we fall back into doing what seems more pressing: selling, talking to customers, and running the business.

Deciding you want to improve your site’s conversions starts with a decision that involves you and everyone else in the company, and that’s what we did. We got the design and analytics experts involved. We invested time and money into the project, which made it feel substantial. We even made EDMs to announce the site launch (like the one below) to let everyone know what we’d been up to. In short, we made it feel like an event.

We got to know our users

There are many different types of user: some are ready to buy, some are just doing some window shopping. Knowing what type of person visits your site will help you create something that caters to their needs.

We looked at our analytics data and discovered visitors to our site were a bit of both, but tended to be more ready to buy than not. This meant we needed to focus on getting macro-conversions — in other words, make our site geared towards sales — while not overlooking the visitors doing some initial research. For those users, we implemented a blog as a way to improve our SEO, educate leads, and build up our reputation.

User insight can also help you shape the feel of your site. We discovered that the marketing managers we were targeting at the time were predominantly women, and that certain images and colours resonated better among that specific demographic. We didn’t go for the (obvious pictures of the team or our offices), instead relying on data and the psychology of attraction to delve into the mind of the users.

We improved site speed

Sending visitors to good sites with bad speeds erodes trust and sends them running. Multiple studies show that site speed matters when it comes to conversion rates. It’s one of the top SEO ranking factors, and a big factor when it comes to user experience: pages that load in under a second convert around 2.5 times higher than pages taking five seconds or more.

We built our website for speed. Moz has a great guide on page speed best practices, and from that list, we did the following things:

We optimized images.

We managed our own caching.

We compressed our files.

We improved page load times (Moz has another great article about how to speed up time to first Byte). A good web page load time is considered to be anything under two seconds — which we achieved.

In addition, we also customized our own hosting to make our site faster.

We introduced more tracking

As well as making our site faster, we introduced a lot more tracking. That allowed us to refine our content, our messaging, the structure of the site, and so on, which continually adds to the conversion.

We used Google Optimize to run A/B tests across a variety of things to understand how people interacted with our site. Here are some of the tweaks we made that had a positive impact:

Social proofing can be a really effective tool if used correctly, so we added some stats to our landing page copy.

Google Analytics showed us visitors were reaching certain pages and not knowing quite where to go next, so we added CTAs that used active language. So instead of saying, “If you’d like to find out more, let us know'', we said “Get a quote”, along with two options for getting in touch.

We spent an entire month testing four words on our homepage. We actually failed (the words didn’t have a positive impact), but it allowed us to test our hypothesis. We did small tweaks and tests like this all over the site.

We used heat mapping to see where visitors were clicking, and which words caught their eye. With this data, we knew where to place buttons and key messaging.

We looked into user behavior

Understanding your visitor is always a good place to start, and there are two ways to go about this:

Quantitative research (numbers and data-based research)

Qualitative research (people-based research)

We did a mixture of both.

For the quantitative research, we used Google Analytics, Google Optimize, and Hotjar to get an in-depth, numbers-based look at how people were interacting with our site.

Heat-mapping software shows how people click and scroll through a page. Hot spots indicate places where people naturally gravitate.

We could see where people were coming into our site (which pages they landed on first), what channel brought them there, which features they were engaging with, how long they spent on each page, and where they abandoned the site.

For the qualitative research, we focused primarily on interviews.

We asked customers what they thought about certain CTAs (whether they worked or not, and why).

We made messaging changes and asked customers and suppliers whether they made sense.

We invited a psychologist into the office and asked them what they thought about our design.

What we learned

We found out our design was good, but our CTAs weren’t quite hitting the mark. For example, one CTA only gave the reader the option to call. But, as one of our interviewees pointed out, not everyone likes using the phone — so we added an email address.

We were intentional but ad hoc about our asking process. This worked for us — but you might want to be a bit more formal about your approach (Moz has a great practical guide to conducting qualitative usability testing if you’re after a more in-depth look).

The results

Combined, these minor tweaks had a mighty impact. There’s a big difference in how our site looks and how we rank. The bottom line: after the rebuild, we got more work, and the business did much better. Here are some of the gains we’ve seen over the past two years.

Our site speed increased: we managed to achieve a load time of around 500-600 ms.

Our dwell time increased by 73%, going from 1.5 to 2.5 minutes.

We received four-times more inquiries by email and phone.

Our organic traffic increased despite us not channeling more funds into PPC ads.

We also realized our clients were bigger, paying on average 2.5 times more for jobs: in mid-2018, our average cost-per-job was $8,000. Now, it’s $17,000.

Our client brand names became more recognizable, household names — including two of Australia’s top universities, and a well-known manufacturing/production brand.

Within the first 26 weeks, we got over $770,000 worth of sales opportunities (if we’d accepted every job that came our way).

Our prospects began asking to work with us, rather than us having to persuade them to give us the business.

We started getting higher quality inquiries — warmer leads who had more intent to buy.

Some practical changes you can make to improve your website conversions

When it comes to website changes, it’s important to remember that what works for one person might not work for you.

We’ve used site speed boosters for our clients before and gotten really great results. At other times, we’ve tried it and it just broke the website. This is why it’s so important to measure as you go, use what works for your individual needs, and remember that “failures” are just as helpful as wins.

Below are some tips — some of which we did on our own site, others are things we’ve done for others.

Tip number 1: Get stronger hosting that allows you to consider things like CDNs. Hiring a developer should always be your top choice, but it’s not always possible to have that luxury. In this instance, we recommend considering CDNs, and depending on the build of your site, paying for tools like NitroPack which can help with caching and compression for faster site speeds.

Tip number 2: Focus your time. Identify top landing pages with Moz Pro and channel your efforts in these places as a priority. Use the 80/20 principle and put your attention on the 20% that gets you 80% of your success.

Tip number 3: Run A/B tests using Google Optimize to test various hypotheses and ideas (Moz has a really handy guide for running split tests using Google). Don’t be afraid of the results — failures can help confirm that what you are currently doing right. You can also access some in-depth data about your site’s performance in Google Lighthouse.

Tip number 4: Trial various messages in Google Ads (as a way of testing targeted messaging). Google provides many keyword suggestions on trending words and phrases that are worth considering.

Tip number 5: Combine qualitative and quantitative research to get to know how your users interact with your site — and keep testing on an ongoing basis.

Tip number 6: Don’t get too hung up on charts going up, or figures turning orange: do what works for you. If adding a video to your homepage slows it down a little but has an overall positive effect on your conversion, then it’s worth the tradeoff.

Tip number 7: Prioritize the needs of your target customers and focus every build and design choice around them.

Recommended tools

Nitropack: speed up your site if you’ve not built it for speed from the beginning.

Google Optimize: run A/B tests

HotJar: see how people use your site via heat mapping and behaviour analytics.

Pingdom / GTMetrix: measure site speed (both is better if you want to make sure you meet everyone’s requirements).

Google Analytics: find drop-off points, track conversion, A/B test, set goals.

Qualaroo: poll your visitors while they are on your site with a popup window.

Google Consumer Surveys: create a survey, Google recruits the participants and provides results and analysis.

Moz Pro: Identify top landing pages when you connect this tool to your Google Analytics profile to create custom reports.

How to keep your conversion rates high

Treat your website like your car. Regular little tweaks to keep it purring, occasional deeper inspections to make sure there are no problems lurking just out of sight. Here’s what we do:

We look at Google Analytics monthly. It helps to understand what’s working, and what’s not.

We use goal tracking in GA to keep things moving in the right direction.

We use Pingdom's free service to monitor the availability and response time of our site.

We regularly ask people what they think about the site and its messaging (keeping the qualitative research coming in).

Conclusion

Spending money on marketing is a good thing, but when you don’t have a good conversion rate, that’s when your website’s behaving like a leaky bucket. Your website is one of your strongest sales tools, so it really does pay to make sure it’s working at peak performance.

I’ve shared a few of my favorite tools and techniques, but above all, my one bit of advice is to consider your own requirements. You can improve your site speed if you remove all tags and keep it plain. But that’s not what you want: it’s finding the balance between creativity and performance, and that will always depend on what’s important.

For us as a design agency, we need a site that’s beautiful and creative. Yes, having a moving background on our homepage slows it down a little bit, but it improves our conversions overall.

The bottom line: Consider your unique users, and make sure your website is in line with the goals of whoever you’re speaking with.

We can do all we want to please Google, but when it comes to sales and leads, it means more to have a higher converting and more effective website. We did well in inquiries (actual phone calls and email leads) despite a rapid increase in site performance requirements from Google. This only comes down to one thing: having a site customer conversion framework that’s effective.