From its inception, a search engine’s job was simple:

Return the highest quality websites possible for every inquiry.

Over 15 years later – that job remains unchanged. However, in the time since search engines first became available, the art of “search engine optimization” has become an industry within itself. Overnight “professionals” sprung up around the globe proclaiming that they knew how to get paying customer’s websites to the top of Google. And many did.

“Content is King”

The king phrase was born. SEO professionals understood that there were many ways to help the real value of a website shine through. They developed techniques (called Search Engine Optimization) to make the assessment process conducted by a visiting search engine spider easier and more accurate. The focus was on increasing  the value of the website, making it apparent what purpose the site served and ease of use.

One of the clearest paths to ranking better naturally was by adding more unique, relevant, quality information to the site and clearly labeling it. Google became the premier search engine because of their repeated value of quality. Their business became successful because of it and their model demands that they adhere to it.

However, as well as Google has done, their system has always been flawed. Algorithms are used to determine which site should be placed before another and while they are routinely refined, at the end of the day a machine is making an evaluation of the value a person derives from a website. The logic is inherently flawed.

The proliferation of websites in every conceivable niche and the potential to turn a home business into an international one has forged a tremendously competitive climate from day one. The SEO industry was molded by the ambitious demands of ROI-conscious customers that all wanted to be #1 before the industry even had its legs to stand on. Corners were being cut and tricks were employed in an effort to manipulate the system into giving their sites a more favorable rank than they deserved.

Up until a few days ago, the cat and mouse scenario best described the SEO industry. Search engines would alter their secret algorithms to stay one step ahead of cunning SEO strategists, paid to get their clients to the top. But the answer has always been the same:

Develop a quality website.

A Return to Quality

The problem with my over-simplified solution of “developing a quality website” was that the quality was being measured by a machine and often felt arbitrary and inaccurate. And the design, the aesthetic quality of the presentation of the site has not and cannot be factored into the equation by a machine. A machine cannot decipher beauty. Beauty is not deciphered. A machine can only follow an algorithm developed to guide its decisions and regardless of how complex and refined that algorithm may be, it will never be able to replace a human being.

Google’s ingenious solution was to leave their algorithms and spiders in place to filter out a list of sites they deemed to be valuable, but then let you, the user make the final determination. Just recently they quietly launched some new, groundbreaking features:

1. Promote: Google now gives you a little tool besides each listing to promote  it above the listing before it

2. Remove: Beside each website is also a tool to remove it from your list. Removing it sends it to the very bottom of the page.

3. Add a Result: This feature is at the bottom of every search page and lets you add in your own website.

While this may not seem that significant, it completely changes the SEO game by rooting out deception and returning it to its essence. SEO experts can continue to sell their service of making sure your site is coded cleanly, labeled accurately and thoroughly, quality content is in place and relevant and the site is easy to navigate, but the power is in the hands of the user for the first time.  The only lasting strategy to get your website to the top of the list and keep it there is to develop a useful website.

The secret to ranking well has never been a secret. The time-tested principle of delivering a quality product each and every time is Google’s core business model. These new developments only push that farther by letting actual people decide on the list that is presented to them.

I recommend consulting with your SEO professional about employing the best practices, but concentrate on quality and never substitute a gimmick for it.

We love your feedback. Please do not hesitate to leave comments and questions here or to email us directly.

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It’s All About Quality

SEM, SEO, PPC, CPC – the list of acronyms is seemingly endless. An entire sub-industry has formed to serve businesses who want to use search engines to drive traffic to their websites with the hopes of increasing their profits.

Google is the undisputed king. Google currently commands about 80% of the market share because of one simple fact:

Google returns the highest quality websites back for any search conducted.

Google has a definite cult-like following much like Apple does, but loyalty formed after Google clearly outperformed its competitors for years on end. It is false to assume that people are loyal to a free service for any other reason. Regardless of what any Search Engine Marketing business tells you, Google’s business and the success they have achieved are due to their quality. Preserving the quality of their results is the cornerstone of their business. If your site does not meet their established criteria, you will not rank higher naturally than one that does – despite what any quick-talking salesperson tells you.

Any company that employs tricks to get your website to gain ranking is not looking out for your business’ best interests. By cheating the system, they are damaging Google’s business and it is only a matter of time before Google catches on. Remember, Google has infinitely more resources than you do and will continually refine their algorithm to account for sites using gimmicks to attain a higher ranking. Their business demands that they continually produce the best quality for every inquiry coming their way. Always keep that in mind. That’s what this all comes down to.

Natural Ranking Vs. Sponsored Ranking

There are 2 different ways your site can be ranked in any major search engine:

Naturally and Sponsored.

Natural ranking or Organic ranking is just like it sounds. Google, Yahoo, Dogpile, MSN, whoever, has listed your site based on its determination of your website’s quality. The more valuable your site is the closer to the top it will be. As discussed in Part 1 of this series, this is equivalent to the NY Times writing about your business on their own as opposed to paying to be included through advertisements. The power of ranking naturally is immense. Just as most people will visit a restaurant after reading a two page spread about it in a newspaper, the same is true online.

The investment in time and resources required to rank well naturally fluctuates depending on the competitiveness of your industry and more specifically on the keywords/phrases you want to rank for. The heavier the competition, the harder it is going to be to move above them. But the value derived from ranking in the top 5 for effective key terms is incredible and can continue to pay dividends even as your PPC advertising budget dries up. Imagine if the article written about your business in the NY Times lasted day after day, month after month. Imagine if it appeared every time someone searched for the type of food you served or the type of products you sell. This is what it means to rank well naturally.

I always explain to my clients the value of ranking well naturally because it is something I strongly believe in, however it is not always the most effective way to close sales. From a conversion or ROI standpoint, you want to aim for the most relevance to what a user is looking for. If a prospect searches for “Santa Monica Surf Lessons” and finds your website in the natural rankings, but then discovers that your business is located in Santa Cruz, that prospect is most likely going to start their search over. In other words, you may get substantial traffic, but if there is discrepancy between what a user is looking for and what you actually offer, your conversion rate is going to be low.

Either way, you’ve increased the awareness of your business and made an impression on that visitor, but you might not have sold anything.

The Importance of Sponsored Ads

While Google’s natural rankings are not specifically set-up to help you close a sale, their paid advertising campaigns are. A Pay Per Click or Cost Per Click campaign puts (almost all) of the controls in your hands, so that you can dictate the keyword phrases you want to target, the regions you want to cover, the time of day you want your campaign to run, the verbiage on your ad, the web-page a user will be taken to when they click on your ad, and to some extent, the placement of your ad.

Implementing a CPC campaign enables you to quickly launch yourself to the top of a search engine. This can be critical if you have a time-sensitive product or service. For example, if you have a product or discount you want to offer for the Christmas Holiday, time is of the essence and relevance is key. You can use a CPC campaign to begin ranking for key terms that match what your demographic is searching for (but your site is not ranking for naturally) and then send visitors to the web-page of your choice.

One of the advantages of a PPC campaign is that you can link your ad to the web-page of your choice, meaning you can send a user directly to the order page of the product they searched for rather than the page Google has deemed the best and most relevant. In addition, a PPC campaign offers you the flexibility to design highly relevant, effective pages that relate specifically to the term that brought the user there. These specialized pages are commonly referred to as Landing Pages and their sole purpose is to convert your traffic into paying customers. All of the images, verbiage, functionality, prices, etc. can be tailored to the exact product or service you are offering. You can implement a PPC campaign with corresponding landing pages at strategic times during the year, or you can run multiple campaigns simultaneously that appeal to different demographics. You can run different campaigns consecutively or only use them during down times in the year. The options are obviously numerous, which is why we recommend working with a professional to help you develop the right overall strategy, one that is tailored specifically to your business, budget and goals.

Pay Per Click AND Natural Ranking

More often than not, the answer for most businesses is to use both tactics in conjunction with one another. A PPC campaign can bring you instant, highly targeted traffic and will allow you to refine your ad in real time so you can maximize the results you are getting. Ranking naturally will bring you a constant stream of traffic that you do not need to subsidize by paying monthly for them and is a long term, but less specific solution. The right mix of both SEO and PPC will help generate sales. Each approach has its strengths and weaknesses and subtleties.

We advise you work with an expert in the field of Search Engine Marketing (SEM). In a later article, we’ll outline how to find a good SEM company and what to be careful of, but in the meantime, please feel free to contact us with any questions or sends us the names of companies you have worked with in the past. We would love to make that information known to our readers.

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A common mistake I run into when speaking with business owners is that they do not have an efficient method for managing their leads. Their systems range from using Outlook to Excel to coffee-stained napkins and they quickly run into limitations and are not able to process and contact their leads in an efficient, timely manner – a fatal mistake.

Often the ability to follow up with a prospect’s inquiry and track the correspondence that has already been made and then share that information between departments will determine the success your sales team has. Keeping a thorough record of all pertinent information about the prospect, the product(s) they are interested in and the avenue by which they found and contacted your company are vital to dealing with them effectively. Using the right tool can keep your sales and marketing departments in sync and greatly improve their ability to close sales and generate new ones.

But even when business owners realize the value in having an effective way to manage their leads and the impact “dropping the ball” can have on their success, they usually still have the misconception that a program designed specifically to manage their leads is out of their reach.

Fortunately, that is no longer true. Competition among Client Management Relationship solutions has driven the prices down and technology, specifically the Internet has made them more effective than ever. Salesforce, the industry standard CRM does several key things:

1. All of a lead’s contact information can be stored including their full name, phone number, email address, etc.
2. Demographics about the lead can be stored including the industry they are in, the company they are a part of, the size and annual revenue of their company, the number of offices and their geographic locations.
3. Vital marketing information can be captured; the product of the lead’s interest and the marketing campaign that referred them.
4. Leads can be processed. All correspondence between the sales person assigned to the prospect and the prospect can be sent and recorded within the platform. Template emails can be created to expedite and standardize communication and leads can be given statuses showing whether they are hot, warm or cold and have been contacted.

The power this system gives a Salesperson is profound. They can easily run a report of all open warm leads that are interested in XYZ product and then send them all the same template email that is individually addressed to each prospect in minutes.

Having the entire system online allows the company to share the information internally and modify it in real time. A lead can call, inquire about a specific product, the person answering the call can note that and then place the lead on hold and the note can be seen by another employee who specializes in that product and picks up the call. The Salesperson can pick up knowing whether that lead has ever called in before, who they have spoken with in the past and what products they have expressed interest in before ever speaking to them.

To increase the value further, Google and Salesforce have integrated their products. Google Apps offers a free and low cost version of their services for small businesses including email, a calendar, documents, and a slideshow presentation comparable to Microsoft’s PowerPoint – all of which can be seamlessly integrated with Salesforce.

• Contacts can be imported..
• Calendars can be synced..
• Documents can be stored..
• Emails can be sent..

..And everything can be logged and managed by anyone designated in your company to do so.

Watch a video made by Google explaining how their solution integrates with Salesforce’s by clicking here.

We asked Betsy Moyer, a CRM expert and the owner of Adapt On Demand, a business process consulting and CRM implementation company about the benefits of integrating a CRM solution into a business’ process and she passionately quoted Al Pacino’s film, Glengarry Glen Ross, “A-B-C. Always-Be-Closing. Always be closing. It may not need to get much more complicated than that for a Salesperson. But for a business owner… gaining executive insight into your Sales Cycle is invaluable. A robust CRM like Salesforce.com will allow you to track sales patterns and aid you in making the best decisions for your Return on Investment.”

The bottom line is that there are a ton of tools at your disposal to help. We can help you figure out which are best for your business based on your budget, staff and needs. Please contact us with any questions. We can also help you integrate both Google Apps and Salesforce with your website so that anyone contacting you through a form or a PPC campaign is automatically placed in your lead management system.

We welcome any feedback you may have!

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Marketing consistency.

The rate at which people find your site and take the leap of faith of contacting or buying from you is based highly on the trust they place in your company. Since you are not standing before them, pleading your case, the vibe your site gives off coupled with your marketing consistency is one of your biggest assets in building trust.

By marketing consistency I mean maintaining continuity between what you are advertising and the actual product or service you are selling. While misleading visitors with deceptive verbiage in an ad might cause a spike in traffic, it is ultimately ineffective because you have failed to deliver on the promises that initially piqued your visitor’s interest. Although they have come to your site, they are likely leaving with a negative impression and future sales could be jeopardized.

Choose the words in your ad carefully, being mindful of their context and implications and the impression the imagery your advertising creates. Every aspect of your ad should be in line with what you are actually selling. Apple’s stock fell 5% the other day because of a rumor claiming that their new laptops would be sold at $800, a lower price point than any of their other models thus far. When CEO Steve Jobs corrected the rumor at the unveiling of the laptops and announced that prices would start at almost $500 more, the reaction was less than enthusiastic. Even though Apple did not deceive anyone in any way, the situation reveals the importance consumers place on expectations, regardless of how they are created.

Advertising something remarkable and then being able to deliver it is a proven way to generate sales and increase the effectiveness of your site, build customer loyalty and create consumer-driven buzz.

For more on this subject, I recommend reading The Anonymous Ad Guy’s insightful article that covers this principle and many others in more detail.

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Less is More

There is one constant mistake businesses large and small make that continually reduces the effectiveness of their websites:

Their websites are about too much.

As hard as it may be to swallow, people are only visiting your website for a small number of reasons. At Blue Sky Online, our clients come to us to improve the conversion rates of their websites, not in search of religious advice, marriage counseling or an exercise regimen. And although I’m confident that we can help our clients in a variety of areas, our business and website are only built around one:

Helping our clients make their websites more effective.

So where do you start?

The home page!

• Does the design showcase the primary reason people are visiting the site?
• Does the design highlight the advantages of doing business with you versus a competitor?
• Does the feel of the site promote a sense of professionalism, authority and trustworthiness?
• Does the functionality engage your site’s visitors?
• Does your site identify and promote the core products that propel your business?
• Is it easy to purchase / get in contact with you?
• What is unnecessary? What can be removed / reorganized?

Time and time again, companies dilute their greatest strength by trying to be everything to everyone but overlook the fact that in doing so, they fail to be anything to anyone. It is vital you find your place online as you have likely done in the brick and mortar world.

“Do only what you are best at.” – Raymond Aaron

Guidelines to Streamline Your Website:

1. Limit the different sections your site has, restricting them to just your core business; everything else is a distraction.
2. Make the navigation of your site self-explanatory, straight-forward and clean. Use drop down menus to organize extensive content more effectively. Group the navigation together rather than having multiple sets of buttons / links.
3. Design the site to immediately address the concerns a prospect has about your product / service / company. Any questions you continually receive from your customers add to a Frequently Asked Question page that is easily accessible and read.
4. Use imagery instead of lengthy explanations whenever possible. A picture is worth at least 2,000 words online.
5. At every point where you are providing information, give the user an exit to purchase your product / service or contact you immediately.
6. Keep your site simple. If a chat, blog, RSS feed or MySpace pages does not directly help you sell more, consider eliminating it even if it reduces your popularity among Web 2.0 “gurus”

The underlining concept is a simple one: find the simplest, most direct solution to the problem your customers are attempting to resolve by buying from your company. The onus is on you (and your web designer) to find the most efficient answer to the problem your prospect is facing. Focus solely on the answer to that problem and not other questions that you may know the answer to.

Shoot us an email if you would like Blue Sky Online to assess areas of your website that can be improved and for a vigorous workout routine we recommend CrossFit – even though you didn’t ask.

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Respond quickly!

Websites often feel so cold and impersonal. The sense of trust that a customer needs to feel before buying from a company they are otherwise unfamiliar with can often be hard to convey through a website. Warm photographs of smiling grandparents lovingly pushing their grandchildren on a swing on a sunny day might not be appropriate for your business. But you can create trust by being accessible. In addition to making your contact information prominent, a prompt response to your visitors’ questions will go a long way to reassure them that they are safe spending their money with you.

That being said, I rarely see chats on small business websites that are effective. A chat is like a blog in the sense that it is only valuable if it is regularly being attended to and chats can be a definite draw on resources. One trick I personally use is to set up filters in my email to weed out spam and “non-vital” emails and then have the rest forwarded to my cell phone via SMS. Set up is easy and guarantees that I’m notified when important emails come in, regardless of my proximity to a computer.

I get around having an expensive data plan by having my emails forwarded as text messages. Almost all major carriers have an email address you can set up as a forward from your inbox:

AT&T
[10 digit phone number]@txt.att.net

Boost Mobile
10 digit phone number@myboostmobile.com

Metro
10 digit phone number@mymetropcs.com

T-Mobile
[10 digit phone number]@tmomail.net

Verizon
[10 digit phone number]@vtext.com

Virgin Mobile
[10 digit phone number]@vmobl.com

Source

You can also sync your website to a CRM solution like Salesforce to create a log of every contact a potential customer has made through your website. Having a record of all the incoming and outgoing correspondence will allow you to review the frequency and the details of the contact being made to ensure it is timely and processed in an efficient manner. Pre-drafted emails can be sent automatically and email marketing services like Constant Contact can help you keep in touch with your customers, but nothing beats a friendly voice on the phone that is one toll-free call away.

The shift away from traditional print advertising to the Internet has been decisive, rapid and with good reason. We recently spoke to our friend over at Anonymous Ad Guy, a top executive in the advertising industry regarding the change and he said, “Put yourself in the shoes of the typical Marketing Director who has to justify every dollar spent. With online [advertising], he or she can track the results of each placement, and optimize on the fly. You can’t do that with any other media. And with the economy tanking, it’s more important than ever to show you’re getting your money’s worth.”

Advantages to Advertising Online:

• The reach of an online advertisement is comparable to if not greater than a print ad. Journalism.org estimated that almost 70% of Americans were online in 2005

• Online advertisements can be targeted to users based on their age, gender, interests, political affiliation, geographic location, socioeconomic status, level of education and more.
• The recipients of online ads are often more qualified because they are being exposed to advertisements that are relevant to them. And ad relevance increases an ad’s effectiveness by maximizing conversion rates and advertiser’s ROI.
• Adjustments to online advertisements can usually be made in real-time, allowing advertisers to tweak their ad to further its effectiveness.
• Detailed reports about the type and frequency of interaction with an online ad and the profile of the people who engaged it are delivered to advertisers, often as it happens. This type of data is not typically available in a traditional ad campaign and therefore is often estimated.
• Advertising online is usually far less expensive. There are no raw materials being consumed and the space being used by the ad is virtual, reducing the cost to the advertiser.
• Advertisers can elect to pay for their ad only when it is seen and / or clicked on. They also have more control over the amount they are willing to pay per click and can end their campaign when their budget for that month has been spent.
• Advertisers have control over where consumers are directed after clicking on the ad, reducing the distance between the advertisement and the actual product or service being sold.

An Emerging Community

The abundance of people online and the seemingly impersonal nature of the Internet has created a social dynamic much like we are seeing in the “real world.” People are gravitating away from companies and towards other like-minded people to provide them with their news, entertainment and consumer advice in an effort to seek genuine value. This dynamic has contributed to the success of blogs, YouTube, and all of the social sites that let people network based on similarities and voice their unedited opinions to their network and / or the entire internet.

Social Networks

Yesterday, MySpace.com, the #1 social network with an estimated 180 million registered users launched a new platform that allows small businesses to easily advertise to the users on their site. The platform titled, MyAds, lets business owners create or upload their ads directly to MySpace and specify the age, gender and geographic location of the users their ad will be displayed to. Advertisers do not have to have a MySpace page, can have users directed to any location online after clicking the ad and can start a campaign with a minimum of $25. Like Google’s AdWords model, advertisers are unable to decide on the exact placement of their ad, but can increase their ad’s longevity by increasing the cost-per-click.

Facebook boasts over 100 million registered users of its own and also offers a similar tool to business owners that allows them to target ads based on political affiliation, interests and level of education in addition to the user’s age, location and gender.

Public Opinion Sites

CitySearch.com and Yelp.com command a strong following. Both sites have been embraced for their effectiveness in providing every day people with an outlet to rate and detail their experience with a business. People online are increasingly relying on the opinions of others to help them decide where to spend their money and are shying away from previously established authorities on such matters. The quality-rating of a company has been democratized.

Advertising on a search engine result page has been so successful for advertisers because users are actively seeking information about the same topic being advertised to them. In their search, they are more receptive to relevant ads because it is viewed as a source of information rather than an advertisement. Advertising on a public opinion site takes advantage of the open mindset of the user searching for information and then reinforces the ad with the public’s unbiased opinion (provided they are in agreement).

For an example of this, let’s look at CitySearch’s page for Fronteras Mexican Grill & Cantina in Alhambra, California. The restaurant is receiving 4 1/2 out of 5 stars from 8 users and directly below the rating is a high-quality video ad produced for the restaurant. The video is engaging, provides a quick idea of the feel of the restaurant and most importantly, the claims of quality are confirmed by people unaffiliated with the restaurant but have rated it favorably.

Both Yelp and CitySearch let you list your business for free and Yelp allows registered business owners to feature a review at the top of all the reviews, helping you create a positive impression of your company. Advertising options on Yelp include listing your business at the top of a search for similar businesses and appearing on competitor’s pages. CitySearch offers similar services as well as videos like the one on Fronteras’ page to give your audience a more dynamic idea of what your company is about.

Do you need Google’s AdWords?

Google’s AdWords advertising campaign is a viable solution for most businesses but understanding your demographic and their online tendencies will help you craft an effective, often multi-pronged approach to reach them. AdWords is extremely effective in terms of the immediacy and quality of its results and ROI, but Google’s pricing and targeting model has now been replicated by other companies. It is in your best interest to consult with your marketing expert to determine whether AdWords is the most effective solution for your business or whether it is better replaced or used in conjunction with a comparable one.

We are always interested in hearing what is working for you and welcome any questions you may have. Please reply to this article or contact us directly.

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If you own a business, your website is the single most powerful tool you have at your disposal to make your company more profitable. In this article, we will begin to explore specific ways you can use your site to reduce the amount of money going out and increase the amount coming in.

Regardless of the type of business you are in, our advice to our clients is the same: Make your website the center of your company. Some of our clients initially resist this concept; most do not even want a website, much less a change in the way they do business – until we explain why.

Efficiency Using Lean:

At Blue Sky Online we follow the lean production process pioneered by Toyota between 1948 and 1975. Its central principle is to reduce waste in every way possible. Toyota does not over-produce. According to the Toyota Production System, only one product should be produced for every one order. Mass production can be wasteful – excess products eat profits every moment they have to be manufactured, transported, stored, secured, cleaned and maintained.

Additionally, lean dictates that the product should be delivered to the customer in the most direct path possible. Any departments or bureaucracy that impede the delivery of the product to the end-customer should be eliminated. Toyota’s unprecedented success has led to the application of their philosophies across countless industries, and we are simply taking them online.

The End-User:

First, it is vital to identify your end-customer. In our business, for example, our clients (business owners) pay us to build their websites and manage their online business strategies. But in doing so, we are careful to remember our responsibility to serving our client’s customers. This approach helps us and our clients maintain a focus on what really matters – serving the needs of the end-user in the most direct and efficient way possible. We understand that our client’s success is determined by the experience their customers have with their services and products, and that this experience often begins on the internet.

So for your own business, first identify your end-user.  Second, list the 2-3 most common reasons your end-user may access your website. And third, make sure your online presence addresses these reasons and limits anything that does not.

If a customer is on your website and wants to know how to get to your location, how late you are open or whether you have a product in stock and they have to call you to get this information, you have created waste. In addition to wasting their time, you have an employee answering a question that can be answered on your website instead of helping a customer in the store. That scenario also assumes that the customer seeking the information took the time to contact you instead of just going to another site, which is actually much more probable.

Your products and services should include clear, accurate pricing, availability and a depictions whenever possible. If you own a clothing company, the print of the shirt should be displayed in a large graphic and on a model wearing the shirt. Next to the product description there should be a link explaining how your sizes fit, the materials used and cleaning instructions. Empower your customers to make the best purchasing decision by providing useful information and answering common, often redundant questions directly on your website.

Users should not only be able to see whether the product is in stock, but if it is available at the retail location closest to them. If it is out stock, they should be able to sign up for email and text messages notifying them when their item is back in stock. Instead of making your customers repeatedly call your store to check, imagine if they could sign up for notifications on your website and the day their item was back in stock, you called them. Using your site effectively can allow you to make one phone call to provide excellent customer service rather than fielding 4 from a frustrated customer – or worse, lose that customer to a competitor. The difference is all in how you use your site.

Your Site’s Functionality:

Your site can be configured to keep an accurate tally of your inventory by location, and can even send notifications about specified transactions. It’s all up to you! Keep yourself, your buyer, manufacturer and staff on the floor in sync and informed. Use your site to track a customer’s buying habits, overall sales trends, price points and then coordinate your marketing efforts and manufacturing orders.

Have your developer set up the functionality needed to allow users to recommend products to friends. Configure your site so that if a product is emailed to an email address and then an account is created using that email address, the two accounts, the referring account and the new account will be linked as friends. Reward the referring account and automatically send an email to the new account welcoming them.

In the store, encourage your customers to visit your website by offering exclusive items, information and discounts on your website. Again, your goal is to create a central location for your business online. Use technology to oversee your entire business and interact with your customers in a way you cannot in person.

Communication:

The effectiveness in which you communicate, both with your customers and with your employees will greatly determine how profitable your company is. Communication is the key to great customer service and a cohesive team. Have your programmer build a password-protected section of your site for employees where they can find information about changes in products or services, their schedules, company holidays, incentives and so on. The technology a website can employ lends itself to the management of information, whether it’s consolidating, documenting, sharing, searching or updating it.

Create a system where employees check into the website for up to date information and use it to communicate with one another and log anything of significance. Once they are part of the process and trust that they can rely on one centralized source to provide them with tools to do their jobs better, they will use your system and the benefit it has to the customer will only intensify.

An effective website requires a project manager who understands your business and your goals and can coordinate with a team of designers, developers and Internet marketers on your behalf. But all of their advice is given in vain if you do not understand the potential your site possesses even if it only conceptual.

Our hope is that this publication helps to spur the imagination about the different functions a website can perform. We welcome any questions you may have and now offer a report that identifies technology you can take advantage of to make your business more efficient through your website. Please contact us for more information.

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Blogs remain the current rage in the web industry. Every day businesses are advised to “start a blog” and every day I tend to disagree. Blogs have become the fashionable magic pill prescribed to most businesses as a quick fix, end-all solution to their problems. But blogs are far from a blanket solution or appropriate for every business. While they definitely have their strengths, those strengths do not help every business equally.

My advice always begins by pinpointing the result my client wants to achieve and then working backwards to map out a plan to get there. I advise you to do the same. “Start with the end in mind,” as Stephen Covey says.

It is important to first understand a blog’s strengths and weaknesses before you decide the extent of the role it will play in helping you realize your goals, if it plays one at all.

Assets of a Blog:

1. Blogs are free and can be configured quickly. Both of the top two blog providers, Blogger.com and WordPress.com are free and take seconds to set up.
2. Blogs give you the power to publish content directly to the Internet through a simple, easy-to-use Content Management System (CMS) and can establish you as an authority in the process.
3. Blogs get indexed by search engines quickly, meaning that the articles you wrote will usually be listed in Google and Yahoo within hours instead of days or weeks, but not necessarily in a position of prominence
4. Blogs by themselves receive traffic from people specifically searching blogs. There are groups, networks and search engines devoted solely to blogs.
5. Some blogs allow you to place Google AdSense and other advertisements on them so the potential to make money directly from your blog exists.
6. Having a blog that is separate from your website creates another entry point for people to find your website and be exposed to your business.
7. Blogs allow users to comment on the articles you’ve written, creating interaction that is stimulating to read, participate in and promotes return visits.

Blogs are great. If that list only encompassed all of their attributes I would be in favor of blogs across the board, but blogs also possess some definite drawbacks that have to be taken into consideration prior to incorporating one into your website and marketing strategy.

Drawbacks of a Blog:

1. Blogs are time-consuming and demanding.

Blogs are indexed by search engines faster than a standard website because search engines favor blogs. Google is able to recognize that the content is written on a blog and knows blogs are intended to be updated regularly. Search engines place a lot of weight on the relevance of content. Our world changes and develops rapidly and they reward sites that are current. While it is great that a blog receives priority, it also places a lot of demand on you and your staff to keep up.

For your blog to be its most effective you should be publishing content frequently and regularly. Once you begin to lag, you are creating an opening for another blog or website to take your place. In essence you become the editor of a magazine that is responsible for creating, developing and maintaining fresh content on a regular basis. By doing so, you are limiting your time from your business which is your main source of revenue.

2. Blogs are competitive.

You and I are not the first or the last to realize the power of a blog. Blogs give everyone an instant voice. The problem is now there are millions of people talking. As of right now, WordPress.com has 4.3 million blogs and it’s #2 to Blogger.com which has millions more of its own. How are you going to be heard? What is your company going to say differently? Unless your business deals with an extremely special niche market, you will be competing with all of the other blogs commercial or otherwise that deal with a similar theme.

Again you are at the mercy of search engines that face the daunting task of deciding which website, blog included, will be placed first and last. While blogs are favored, the quality of the content and frequency with it is updated is still a key deciding factor. You likely face stiff competition with all of the other websites and blogs that deal with your subject matter.

The way to separate yourself from your competition without shifting all of your time and attention away from your business is to be very specific in the articles you write. If you own a painting company, writing an article with tips on the best time of year to paint your house will pit you against thousands of others that have already covered that topic. Instead, you may have to write about the best time to paint a house in your city.

The problem with this is threefold:

• Unless your city is dramatically different from others, do you really have anything of value to say or are you writing that article just to fulfill your requirement of writing in your blog?
• Is that topic something of interest? If it’s not no one will be searching for it and it has not done anything for your business other than to take you away from it.
• Your time is best spent creating new customers and managing the existing ones. If you hire someone to write your blog for you, you have just created an additional expense that only makes sense if that money is not spent advertising directly.

3. Blogs are indirect

Traditional advertising, both in print and online is still an effective means to raise awareness about your company. A blog is an indirect, more passive means of doing the same thing, but often times the toll it can take on a business owner to achieve comparable results is greater than the cost of just buying advertising.

While a blog does create an additional entry point to your site, you are still playing the percentage game only now you’re adding another percentage. A fraction of the people that visit your blog will visit your site and a fraction of those people will purchase from you. You might be drawing more people to your site than you would have without a blog, but the new visitors might not be buying anything. Other visitors might be on your site to buy and click on your blog link and then get immersed in your gripping article about finding a painter in Pasadena and never actually call you. It could go either way. The opposite is also true.

The Internet has the power to bring the world to your site, but if your company is like most and has geographical limitations, your resources are better spent trying to attract the customers that you can serve. The scope of a blog might be larger than you need.

Is a blog right for your company?

A blog has definite value, but it is far from a blanket solution. I recommend consulting with a company that bases their advice on your goals and the budget, staff and time frame you are working with and can advise you about the best marketing strategy for your business.

If you have any questions or would like our advice, please feel free to email us.

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When speaking with my clients I notice that they continually make the mistake of viewing their websites as being separate from the rest of their business. Often times they have had a brick and mortar storefront for years and have been successful in attracting and maintaining a customer base, but when directing a web designer they do not carry over many of the same elements that have brought them success in the “real world.”

Your website is an extension of your business. It is your business – online. While the Internet may have its own particularities and the illusion of detachment, it is still entirely a human experience. All of the same factors that motivate and cause fear in people still apply. The greatest difference with the Internet is its profound ability to instantly connect people to what they are seeking. With a few simple keystrokes, people can find and interact with the information, products, entertainment and other people of their desire.

The same recipe that has yielded success for your business in the physical world will likely work online provided that it’s adapted well. A good web design company will be able to adapt the key elements of your business to the Internet, much like a good screenwriter can take the critical aspects of a novel and translate them to the big screen. Changes are needed for the transition to be effective, but the primary recipe remains in tact. The story you are telling is the same.

My point – and the reason I’ve kept you from the first step this long – is that the first 3 steps to creating a successful website begin well before you start to design your site. Your website will not produce the results you want if at the end of the day your business itself is not solid. The first 3 steps of creating a successful website are creating a successful business model. Once you have that, your website can act as a propellant.

Step 1: Develop a product / service that sells

Step 2: Define your market and your approach for reaching them

Step 3: Create an image that speaks to your target market

Start with your company’s name and then nail your logo. Those are the two things that represent your company in every situation and environment. It is important both are accurate and effective.

Step 4: Apply your image across all formats.

Brand consistency is huge. Your logo, your signage, the interior design of your store, print ads, your website, etc. should all be consistent. Everything from the concept and tone down to the exact colors and fonts used should be the same.

Your website is obviously one of the most complex pieces of your image, but it is vital that it carries your brand in the same manner the rest of your business does. The key is to take everything you’ve learned about your customers and apply it to your website. You have learned what products they want and what they most appreciate about your business. Put that at the forefront of your site’s design and consider eliminating anything that detracts from it.

The attention span of a person browsing your website is drastically shorter than someone drifting through your store. In adapting your business to the Internet, take great care in assessing what is needed and what might impede someone from purchasing from you. The most common mistake I see is the amount of choices a user is given. The navigation of your site should be straight forward and easily understood. Your visitors are there for 1-2 reasons at most. Your navigation should address those reasons and little else.

In addition to this site being aesthetically unsettling, it is a prime example of overwhelming your visitor with frivolous options that dilute the primary purpose of your site:

http://www.debjones.com/

90% of visitors to this site are there to find a home and yet there are 32 different buttons to click. The design of your site should be built solely around your users intentions. The home page of your site is like the cover of a book. The cover is designed to spark interest and get the reader to pick the book up and open it. Your home page is the same. You should not be telling your story on the cover. The reader has not yet expressed any interest and is still deciding whether they will give you their time. An enticing design that clearly states what your company does and features your strength is your best bet at getting people to further explore your site and buy from you.

I purposely make the comparison between books and films to websites to reinforce the notion that while websites are a new technology, what drives people is the same. We can learn from the success of other industries and apply the same logic to our format.

Step 5: Market your site, but only to your market

I look at a commercial sites much like a funnel. The people that make it through the funnel are your paying customers. Your site’s effectiveness can be measured by the ratio of people visiting your site to the amount of paying customers you’ve received. Once you are confident that your site is effective, all of your effort should be spent getting people to your funnel.

However, the people you are trying to reach should only be the people you identified in Step 2. Your funnel is designed specifically for them. You would be wasting your time and resources by trying to reach people that likely have no interest in your company and thereby reducing your ROI. Your challenge is to attract all of the people within your market and to remain a consistent presence in their lives.

Depending on the price and sophistication of your product or service it may take a visitor several repeat  visits to your website before they are ready to buy from you even if your “funnel” is performing optimally. You need to allot a monthly advertising budget to insure that your site not only remains prominent within your industry but that you have the resources to contact people that have already purchased from you.

Step 6: Monitor your conversion rate and adjust accordingly

The market is continually evolving and your site will need to keep pace in order to stay effective. Remain flexible and open to change. With most web design companies an easily updated site will cost more due to the more complex technology it requires, but the price of an effective, relevant, dynamic site that produces far out weighs the cost of a less-expensive site that does not perform.

Step 7: Trust yourself

You know what you’re doing. You have succeeded in your field by doing what you do well. Find a web design company that has shared values and understands how to adapt your business to the Internet and employ the same fundamentals that have worked for businesses in all industries throughout time.

We wish you the best! We are here if you need help or have any questions. Feel free to contact us at anytime.

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