Web Success by Design

Admittedly, I burn the candle at both ends... and in the middle. As I get back to focusing on the book edits, I look back at my own marketing efforts and see some things I haven't discussed much in the past. As you know, I have been pushing my own commercial photography business, and am trying to make it grow to the point where I can be extremely selective about which clients I accept.

So... how to do this while growing all my other businesses and still feed the family? In my world, that has become a pretty easy solution. I have been working for the "Inside Tucson Business" weekly. I've done a number of business profiles over the past few months, meeting successful business owners that are in need of my marketing services. It's really a win/win/win situation for me -- I add to my portfolio, market my services in a service environment, and get paid while I'm broadening my market. The smartest part for the paper is that they don't have a predetermined number of photos they run for each article, and they pay per photo. This means that if they like the pictures they run more.... and I get more.... So, I'm willing to spend a bit of time with the business owner that gets to see me work, gets to ask me all the smart questions, and I'm being supplemented for this process! The paper is just glad to have me on board, and encourages this type of relationship. They know the more I get out of it, the more they will. Everyone wins.

Now, how does this relate to your business? I'm not sure -- but you can probably figure something that works well for you. How about an ice cream shop sponsoring the little league championships, giving all the players in the final game a free cone? You look like a hero, sell to the parents, and get your name on some advertising... The point is that you can do this type of multi-benefit marketing if you put your mind to it!

This article was copied from an old googlerankingsdotcom archive. I copied it in case the link changes. Though some of the details have changes slightly, this is excellent advice!
--snip--
While this document will not guarantee top placement for you in any search engines, it will increase your chances to be included in the relevant results. Consider the information below to be subjective advice, and advice only, which have been assembled based on both experience and research. Please note that all search engine technologies are constantly evolving, rendering only month-old tricks to deceive their methods useless. The only way to keep your website at a proper place of search results is - as general it sounds - providing content that people are both interested in and are looking for.

In general, search engines have been designed by people who are skilled at gathering, storing and analyzing data, programmers, mathematicians and other talented people with innovative ideas. However in the age when nearly anyone in the free world can access the internet, the ratio of people used to handling raw information have rapidly decreased. In other words, most people do not think about information the way search engine designers would.

Search engine optimization ( SEO ) is the bridge over the gap, it is to bring people with average computer skills, and the information they look for together. It overlaps the sometimes still too mathematics-based search engine technology, and takes you a step closer to your target audience. SEO should be about examining how people are looking up information on the web, and not how you may trick them into visiting your website.

1.: Choosing your Keywords
A research done by Entireweb 31% of people enter 2 word phrases into search engines, 25% of all users look for 3 word combinations and only about 19% of them try their luck with only a single word.
Do not choose a keyword to optimize your site for that you don't have the slightest chance of ranking good with because of the fierce competition.
Do not choose a keyword that nobody looks for.
Do not choose a keyword that does not relate strongly enough to your content.
Only use generally popular keywords if you do not need targeted traffic.
Do not use words that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines.
Do not use images with filenames or ALT tags ( Alt attributes of IMG tag ) that may get your site filtered or banned from search engines.
Only use dynamic pages when the functionality demands it.
Use lots of relevant content, well laid out into separate pages.
For best results optimize one page for one keyword.
Do not post half-finished sites.
2.: HTML Content
2.1.:
<.META NAME="Keywords" CONTENT="Books, Library, Author, Authors, Title, Titles, Out of print, Old Books, Rare Books, Online Library">
<.META NAME="Description" CONTENT="Online Library is a collection of rare or out of print books. Search by author, title, or content. ">
<.META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">


<.BODY>

<.H1> Welcome to the Online Library <./H1>
<.H6>. Here you will find a collection of rare or out-of-print books in electronic format. We provide you with a comprehensive search, so you can look up any book by author, title, or its content <.H6>

<.P><.H5><.A HREF="main.html">Click here to proceed to the Online Library><./A><./H5><./P>

<./BODY>
<./HTML>



Advanced SEO Advice
For established websites, refer to the Website Diagnostics articles at Googlerankings.com Diagnostics
articles by Googlerankings.com, 11.2006. through 05.2007.
Since SEO may differ for each and every sector, Internet Marketing and Search Engine Marketing trends shift on a near weekly basis, the DOs in search engine optimization are as vague as the ever-developing online supply and demand. Ethics, guidelines , written and unwritten rules of conduct are also vary for different areas, and while a less competitive sector may not require all that much effort in bringing a new website to the attention of the public, over populated areas produce new visions, methods and even spam on a daily basis.

Hence, the faces of SEO range from opportunism to great new marketing innovation, and there is no definite rule in what to do to reach one's goal. On the other hand, and especially because of this, Search Engines have to keep up their proper indexing and categorization efforts in order to provide relevant result, in which process they filter out websites from their results that are ( or are sending false signals to be ) in any way below the quality, accessibility, trust or importance thresholds. Also should a website be, or show signals of guideline breaches or illegal content, Search Engines may penalize and/or ban their presence from the search results, temporarily or permanently.

The DOs in SEO vary a lot, possibilities and combinations are infinite. One may experiment with any campaign freely, but only with a relative knowledge of the DONTs will a website be able to maintain a sustainable development plan.


--/snip--

People often come to me and want to self-administer and manage their SEO process. There are a lot of details to understand, but let's take a case where someone already has a website and has access to their site through a CMS system or direct access to the web code.


Oh, and a recent photo of mine to help the front page stay interesting:



First thing you should do is search your exact domain name (www.websuccessbydesign.com for example) in all the major searches. If it comes up, you are being indexed. If not, we'll address that in a future post.

We are now going to start with updating your site's META tags.

There are three META contents to each page that she should have access to change :
Title: (something like - “Custom cabinetry in Seminole County” would be a quality page title) -- each page should be different, and this will be what’s displayed in bold when you do a search.
Keywords: (list about 20 words separated by comma’s Both locations and products go in this list) – there should be slight variations between pages on the site.
Description: A marketing statement. Limit to 150 characters but try to go over 120. This should be different on each page of the site.

Update every page on the site with relevant content in these three categories.

Also, contact your provider/site host and renew your domain name for at least 5 years. The search companies use expiration date to determine who’s around to stay and who’s fly by night.

Ok, once that's done, relax for a few days and then come back for some more self-help!

The first rule in web based marketing is persistence -- to be successful, you must budget resources (money and time) consistently no matter what is going on -- well, I fell way behind on getting these updates out and my search engine ranking fell significantly as a result. I guess this is a lesson for us all. Consistent updates of quality content are what is going to provide you with success.

I have a list that includes both businesssuccess and personal issues that have kept me from logging in and updating this blog... all excuses. It should have been on my calendar as a priority.

On the plus side of all this, I have built a new photo studio at my home! I had been renting studio space as needed and using my home for quite a bit of the images I create. I needed my own space and in July, made that happen. I have finaly built a studio of my own. Very cool, and I'm getting a lot of use out of it.

That brings me to the current whim -- er, lesson:

The photos on your site must have punch. So many business owners think they can get away with crappy snapshots to sell their product. You can't, "image is everything" -- and bad snapshots ruin the image. You don't need to hire a professional (unless his name is Daron Shade) for most product photos as long as you do a bit of research and spend some time learning a touch of photography. Once again, this stuff is expensive -- in either dollars or time.

so, when is it worth hiring a photographer and when should you do your own? 1st, you need good photos to sell your company... not spectacular, but good... If you are doing a one-time shoot to introduce yourself, it's worth spending a grand or two on a professional presence, but if it's going to be a regular thing with product updates and revolving employee introductions, it is better to learn a few things about creating an image yourself...

I gotta run, becaue my connecting flight is ready to board, but here's a couple of photos I shot this past week, one fun and one product:

Finding the best domain name can be a difficult task, and should not be taken lightly. In years past, the best way to gain search engine recognition was to use a key phrase in your domain name and separate by dashes because the spiders were unable to parse words in urls. This led us to see a lot of domain names like widgets-by-joe.com, which is very hard to say and easy to mistype. keep your domain name as simple as possible while retaining your branding. Some of the most powerful domain names make no sense outside of the internet world - amazon.com, google.com, etc. How much business does carparts.com or books.com or insurance.com get just because they have great, short, descriptive domain names? You aren't likely to find something quite as good, but make sure you take your time and find something you really like, it's going to be just as important as the name of your business - maybe moreso.

A current client, Family Chiropractic Center of West Lake Worth is a great example of a company that can't use it's full or even a reasonable shortened version of it's name. familychiropractic.com is taken, and spelling out west lake worth takes some people 45 minutes. We decided to go with his friendly nickname of doctor d. -- of course, that was taken, so we added in chiro -- so the website is www.drd-chiro.com or www.doctord-chiro.com, we have registered both so we know someone will get to us.

Domain names are cheap - ,make sure grab common misspellings of your chosen domain. You are going to advertise by word of mouth and some people aren't the greates spellers and typists. Visit www.jcpenny.com for an example. How much money do you think JC Penney would have lost if they didn't purchase the most common misspelling of their business name?

Short, easy to spell, easy to type, looks good written, and easy to say.

Oh, in two months, Web Success By Design has climbed to #1 on the msn search: web success. It's also #1 on HotBot's results for Web Success.

Ok, this is a bit of a diversion....

Recently, I had the opportunity to meet with a few potential clients. Since the actual 'sales call' part of running my own business has always been my nemesis, I look at these meetings as a potential for personal and professional growth.

One of the themes that I realized I hadn't been covering in my marketing campaigns was the "Good Busy" vs. "Bad Busy" concept. It's very simple. If you are too busy to do the work you need to advance your business and you aren't happy with where the business is going, you are "Bad Busy" and need to make some changes in order to plan for success. If you are raking it in hand-over-fist and see no signs that it will change in the future, you are "Good Busy" and don't need to be reading this.

I met with a doctor that had just signed a contract and was very receptive to my input on marketing his practice. When we discussed some low-cost options for marketing and some deliverables he had for me, he was a bit hesitant to commit his time. He explained that he is very busy and may have trouble meeting some of those deadlines.

I also met with a small software company that is having some trouble and wants a better marketing engine. This time, the theme was a little more resistant to the self-marketing techniques I was suggesting. A flat "I'm too busy" was the stock response.

We will discuss these cases over the next few months as the sites come together and the marketing engines roll out.

This is just a reminder that you need to analyze your needs and what you are willing to invest in your own success. If you are too busy to make the investment, but aren't as profitable as you would like; you may want to consider making some changes to allow for long-term growth of your business.

The most important aspect of any website is that it encourages people to return. When people use a website as a resource, they start talking about it and your popularity will grow. People will share your site online with their friends, and over time that will build respect for your organization. It's a lot easier than it ever has been, but it's still quite a daunting task. For this to work, you truly need to be an expert, or at least have a great amount of infomration to aggregate and organize for your readership. We'll talk about news syndication soon.

There is also the option of creating an online forum community. That will get users together that share interests common to your industry. You already need a fair amount of respect and notoriety to get this working successfully. Build a forum, stimulate great conversation, and watch it grow. To properly manage a forum, it is a lot of work. I've set many up for clients and at least half aren't successful because the subject matter experts aren't able to stimulate conversation well enough to encourage the return traffic. The communities that become popular are truly internet forces that can make your business a household name in the coming years.

Ok, the easiest way to get teturn traffic -- update your customer-specific content regularly. Have a current schedule, offer coupons on the web only. Actively encourage people to view your website and return to it. That way, they will remember you when they talk to your friends. If you have a great domain name, your customers will drive your traffic.

Maybe next time we will talk about how to choose a great domain name.

What is the most important aspect of my website?

Such a simple question to answer when you are looking at someone else's website, but it can be a daunting task to attempt to understand and quantify this yourself.

For an overwhelming majority of business sites, your goal is to impress the potential customer. To leave a lasting positive impression on your leads, you need to grab their attention quickly and keep it.

To capture someone's attention, many websites in the past resorted to garish color schemes and cartoon-like graphics. As we mature as internet surfers, our tolerance for such presentations plummet. We now expect to visit a web page and have a good understanding of what the site is about within 30 seconds. The 'above-fold' part of a page must be clean, interesting, and contain as much information as appropriate for your business. That means the site must be clean with well-presented headings and concise design cues. Colors must complement eachother and portray the mood of the product or services offered by the company.

Visit this CRM Software retailer site for a great example of what I am describing. The site says "We are high-tech" while maintaining a classic look and feel with fonts and color choice. The information is laid out in a way that tells you this business is the place to go for a niche market of CRM products and expert consulting services.

Once you have the web surfer's attention, you need to keep it. We will discuss a few great ways to keep your customers returning... next time. (Hey, I think I just mentioned the first way to encourage someone to return!)

This might be the biggest misunderstanding in the .com world. Virtually all websites are marketing tools, very few focus on sales. Let's back up and discuss the differences between sales and marketing. These basic differences are often misunderstood.

Marketing is about keeping your product fresh in the minds of consumers. It is about educating a consumer so he can make an educated decision in your favor. It is about branding your company, product, or service. Even if you offer items for sale on your website, only a small percentage of the visitors will consider spending money. Most will browse your site many times without purchasing.

Personal Note:
In the early days of my Professional Photography site, I photographed auto racing and other events. I was totally focused on website sales, which were extremely low compared to the recognition I was gaining at these events. I wasn't hosting my own sites at that time and didn't have access to even basic analysis tools. My ISP called and told me that they were going to need to move my site to another server and raise my fees. They sent a report. My site was attracting over 100,000 visits per month from over 5000 unique visitors, but I was only converting about three sales. Learning that my average visitor came to the site multiple times per week, I used my basic traffic analysis to dertermine how to increase my profits. I decreased the size of the photo previews and increased the watermarking to deter sniping, and I used the data analysis to justify the decision to hire an on-site sales person for the events. My visitor count dropped by 60% and my profit skyrocketed.

Sales is just that - sellling the product. Basically, it starts at that first one-on-one contact that hopefully ends in a financial exchange. Whether it starts with a quote or a cross-counter order, this is the sales process. Once the transaction is complete, all attempts to convert that visitor to a repeat customer fall back under the marketing heading.

When you have your website built , you must keep in mind that this investment is going to be the hub of marketing activities, but like any wheel, it's going to need spokes to transfer the energy. These spokes are going to be your individual marketing efforts, such as advertising partherships with complementary local businesses, print media, event sponsorship, or any other efforts.

Every business is different, but many studies show that it generally takes 8 marketing contacts to convert a prospect. What if you could reduce this number by 50% just by providing most of the information they need to them easily, via your website? Let's learn how to do this intelligently so we know what works and what doesn't -- as well as accurately predict who is ready to make a decision before we ever speak with them.

Every business that wants to see growth and continued success should be seeking some presence on the internet. As technology progresses, people are more inclined to check a website than even call. A perfect example is the “big box store” – often, we want to know if they carry a specific item or brand. Many of us choose to visit the site and browse the selection rather than calling ahead to speak to someone who may be busy or less than knowledgeable about a minute detail of the product line. As consumers become more conditioned to this type of action, you will need to keep up with the trend.

A company that works in specialties – hobbies or crafts for example, should seriously consider an online storefront to expand their client base. This storefront needs to be understood as a potential sales tool that might drive a bit of revenue, but more as a tool for window shoppers to review your products. The curious surfer in July might be a big in-store sale during the holiday rush. Creating a memorable and pleasant surfing experience that illustrates your strengths will generate much in-store profit down the road.

Generally, the size and investment of the website can vary greatly by the type of business. A local shop may only need a smaller site sharing products or services, hours of operation, a brief history of the business with some online coupons. A good site will also include a discount or birthday coupon system that will ask for email information and other ways of getting personal with your clientele. Every one of us would appreciate a nice birthday wish and a discount at our favorite shop. That is something that will keep you in the minds of your friends and customers. As we will discuss later, these are important tools that must be tracked individually to understand. Using your website’s advanced analytics (which we will discuss later) to track your individual website visitors all the way to the cash register can teach you more about your own customer base than you imagine possible.

There is no set rule to the amount you should invest. As we delve deeper into the true purpose of your website and the importance of understanding its role in your business, we will see it as a long-term investment. Remember, websites are a key part of your marketing strategy, which has a very strong, but indirect link to sales.

Chances are you are going to find this blog and stumble across this post far down the road... I'm writing a book entitled "Web Success by Design" and am using this as a bit of a launching and discussion platform. This blog and the book are geared more toward the small business owner than the web professional.

I am going to discuss the importance of a business having its own website, and more importantly the importance of understanding your market and desired market. I will add some categories over time, focusing more on search engine understanding and site optimization, CRM tools, and other things necessary as you dive deeper

We will also share some thoughts on specific site design and what makes a website valuable to your organization -- where to focus your limited budget, and how to grow your business and income through inexpensive methods. Although Guerrilla Marketing is an element we are going to discuss, we will focus more on intelligent use of your conventional marketing budget and other inexpensive techniques that won't be thought of as deceptive the way the guerrilla marketing is often considered.

We will discuss search engine ranking and the myths surrounding the actual value of this as a financial investment.

We will then move on to discuss the importance of understanding who visited your site, why, and when -- in relation to other marketing efforts and sales drives.

Finally, we will analyze our efforts and return to focusing our resources on the most successful campaigns.