Get Them and Keep Them

Offensive or Effective Online Ad Campaign?

Ok, I admit, this ad got my attention. It's a bit rude. And, I feel a bit dissed. But not sure if this is better or worse than the other online ads for this campaign. Here are a few that I saw this morning. Any thoughts?

Tehnorati Tags: online advertising, online marketing, life insurance

Can your web site beat a bad economy?

There's no getting around it - if the economy isn't in recession, times are exceptionally tough. Just yesterday, Ford Motor company posted a 34% decline in September sales, and the other six auto makers are expected to follow suit with comparable declines, according to the New York Times.

Gone are the days when mediocrity can win. Leads aren't going to come easy. And penny-pinching clients/consumers will need a lot of incentive to get off the fence.

Thus, to get and keep customers, your web site can no longer be a simple brochure. It must be highly customer-centric and user-friendly. At the very least, the site should do the following:

• Articulate your products/service value succinctly, and address the question, "Why should visitors buy from your company versus your one zillion competitors?"
  
• Match expectations. If your company contends it provides "good customer service," then the site should also provide good customer service. For example, everything on the site should be easy to use and find. There's minimal downloads, nice-sized fonts, concise, short paragraphs, bullet points (if possible), clear headlines, helpful information to address customer questions, and easy-to-use applications so existing customers don't have to pick up the phone for basic transactions/queries. If the site has a "search site" function, then it should understand the variations of search phrases (i.e. galoshes vs. rain shoes)
• Make help e-mail addresses highly visible and respond promptly to queries.
• Be easily findable through search engines.
• Present well for every type of browser and computer/laptop screen.
• Contain unique and useful content that will 1) make the site more searchable via organic search, and 2) provide context for your visitors. See post, Four Good Reasons For Building a Content Library on Your Site
  
• Address concerns/questions for each phase of the buying cycle.
• Show how your services/product have successfully helped others.

This by no means is an exhaustive list. But it's a good start for making your site customer-centric.

Technorati tags: web, customer centric, recession, Ford, user-friendly, lead generation

Checklists for SEO - Headings

Since I'm a mother of three and consult full time, I always have to create lists. It's the only way I can function on a daily basis and get everything I need done. Thus, I really love SEO checklists. They help when putting together a site, or just tweaking it. Here's a great one for headings (H1-H6) which serve two purposes: highlight the site's keywords and add structure to the page.

Some of the key points:

• Each page should have at least one heading;
• Only one H1 heading per page;
• H1 heading is the first heading on the page;
• Use headings to structure content and CSS for visual effects;
• Don’t skip heading levels (e.g. H1 to H3);
• All other headings (except H1) are subheadings; they are (ideally) thematically connected with the previous-level heading;
• Use headings consistently throughout the site;

I liken the use of headings to the outlines required in grade school. They provide order and structure to the book report (in this case, web site) and keep everything in a logical format.

Technorati tags: SEO, headings, web site design

Check List for Launching or Re-launching a Web Site

When launching a new web site, there are about a zillion things you need to review before it goes live. Here's my broad-brush, check-list. Of course, there are other tasks that may need to be verified and checked-off, depending on the purpose and scope of the site. But this is a good start.

1) Making sure all the links are live and take visitors to the desired location (of course, usability tests are desirable, but not everyone has time or money to execute these).
2) Using contextual anchor text for links, in order to generate higher results in search engine results pages (For example: You should use, "For more long-term weather information, click here." vs. "For more long-term weather information, click here.")
3) Landing pages are concisely written and effectively route visitors to additional pages, purchasing a product/service or whatever action is desired. (Optimization post-launch is desirable and recommended).
4) Photos and graphics are sized properly and look good, regardless of any browser/screen a visitor may use. All copy is proof-read.
5) Forms (for free-trials, white papers, etc.) work for any browser and deposit information to the right internal recipient.
6) Sign ups for membership, newsletters, white papers, etc. work efficiently, and the information is captured appropriately for internal use.
7) Existing members can easily log-in with their passwords and user names, and access information they had in the past.
8) All applications - everything from APIs to widgets, etc. - work as planned.
9)  Forums and other user-generated content can be accessed easily by members, and are thoroughly tested for customer experience.
10) All legal copy, terms of use, as well as privacy protection information is visible and appropriately displayed.
11) The CMS works efficiently and as planned (there's no surprises about what content appears when).
12) Databases integrated into the site capture all the data desired.
13) Google Analytics or other reporting code is appropriately included in the site, so you can track site performance from Day 1.
14) Data feeds are thoroughly tested and display the data as desired, for any browser or size screen.
15) Ads, if served, display appropriately and back-end reporting is in place.
16) Press releases are crawlable (ideally formatted in HTML or something easily crawled by search engines) and contain link-backs to the main site.
17) Basic SEO is in place. (In fact, you may want to refer to this check list, from SearchEngline Land).

Technorati Tags: web site launches, online marketing, customer experience

Search Marketing - Value the Impressions, Too

One of the things that many marketers like about Search Marketing is that it gives quantifiable, immediate results for lead generation. You can easily calculate ROI, conversions, CTR, etc. with the  Pay-Per-Click ads that bring visitors to your company's online store, white paper, free trial, etc.

But I've found that there's a lot of value for brand building to look beyond those metrics, and also count the number of times your ad just appeared. For example, if your ad shows up when prospects are looking for information about your product or service, you are starting an education process that may have dividends in the future.

As Patricia Hursh  puts it in her awesome article, "B2B Search Marketing: Measuring Success Beyond Conversions:

Putting your brand in front of a searcher at the moment they are online conducting research, looking for answers, or comparing solutions is a very powerful thing. Search uniquely gives marketers the ability to reach prospects at this moment of relevance.

Defining success for this type of branding or market positioning campaign is quite different than a lead gen effort and involves different success metrics. Marketers must focus on metrics like: number of ad impressions, share of total market impressions, cost-per-impression (CPM), click-through rate, volume of visitors, and cost-per-visitor.

Thus, while it may sound wishy-washy to some, it's important to take a holistic approach to Search Marketing. Certainly calculate the metrics for lead generation, but don't forget that there's value in just showing up, too.

Technorati Tags: Search Marketing, Brand Building

online store - incremental customer experience changes count!

Over the past two months, I have focused a lot of my energy on my company's e-commerce store. While we have increased sales more than 100% over last year, I believe we can earn far more money, and make the e-store a lot more customer friendly.

Yet, I would be a bit of a scrooge if I didn't acknowledge that we did make a lot of progress by just implementing a few changes that enhanced the customer experience. They include:

1) Holding prospects/customers' hands with easy-to-read, short and compelling copy about why you should buy each product.

2) Backing up our sales promise with very visible return policy information placed next to check out links.

3)  Adding text-based testimonials and reviews for products. (I would like to try audio testimonials in the near future).

4) An aggressive, but respectful e-blast strategy that focused primarily on generating high Click Through Rates (over Open Rates).

5) Streamlining the check-out process (although we can make a lot more improvements in this area).

While these enhancements certainly helped, I have subsequently come up with a list to make the store  more customer friendly, and easier to shop.

Will all these improvements increase sales dramatically? The ROI is still to-be-determined, but I've learned that if you don't focus on customer experience, you absolutely will not increase your sales. Period. Thus, it's worth the effort.

Technorati Tags: e-commerce, customer experience

Good video on Alt Tags

While I spend a lot of my time optimizing web sites for customer experience, linkability and increased traffic, I generally let the technical folks in the organization worry about the back-end code for SEO purposes.

But, I couldn't help resist posting this great video on how to use alt tags to help Google identify photos on your site.  Just a little code can make a big difference, and it's something that a non-coder like myself can implement.

Technorati Tags: SEO, alt tags, images

Creating Fresh Content

After multiple web site redesigns, one of the things I have learned is that not all "fresh content" is created equally.

Yes, a press release can be considered fresh content. And, a new testimonial or customer announcement can be considered "fresh content".

But if you are really trying to drive viewers to your site on a regular basis, you need to come up with the fresh content that truly engages your visitors. It could be compelling articles, or videos, or tips, hints, industry commentary or can't-do-without news. It just has to be information that your visitors want to see regularly.

Of course, that's easier said than done... It takes a lot of effort to create compelling fresh content. But you'll find that it's certainly worth the effort.

Technorati Tags: web, fresh content

Conversion Rates - The Metric that Matters Most

For many subscription-based businesses, the company web site has become a major distribution point for service and information. B2B and B2C customers can often sign-up for mobile phone, SaaS, WiMAX and other services, often without any human intervention. They can also test the service, get more information or even get a phone call from a sales rep.

So finding the web site (via SEO), and customer experience, have become far more critical than in years past.

But among all the metrics measuring SEO and customer experience, there's one metric that matters the most: conversion rates.  Are prospects converting to buyers on the site? Or, are they converting to trial offers? Are they signing up for information, or filling out a contact form, or emailing or calling you on the phone? Are they doing whatever it is you want them to do?  And, are those conversion rates going in the right direction?

Of course, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't pay attention to other metrics, like bounce rates, traffic, rankings, time-on-site, etc. All of these will help you improve customer experience, which in turn, should help you convert more customers. But the bottom line: Conversion is King.

Stoney deGeyter, author of the excellent article, 10 Useless SEO Worries (part two), puts it even more succinctly:

Focusing on the conversions is where the money's at. In fact, the better your conversion rate, the less traffic you have to rely on. And relying on less is always a good thing in an online world when things can change overnight.

 

Technorati Tags: conversion rates, web metrics, SEO, customer experience

What Two Words Will Google Your Site?

When you are thinking about key words, you might want to think in twos.

According to a new study published in ClickZ: "Internet users who type two words for on a search engine query account for 31.9 percent of searches worldwide. Three-word phrases are used for 27 percent of searches. A single word accounts for 15.2 percent of queries, and four words are used for 14.8 percent of searches."

So, when you optimize your site for search engines, you may want to select key words consisting of two words, instead of three or four. That could help you drive traffic to your site.

Here's a real life example. According to Overture, the following searches were conducted in January 2007 for remote access software (which can be delivered as a SaaS product). You'll see that the number of searches decreases as the number of keywords increase):

             

earches done in January 2007
Count	Search Term
1939	access remote software
208	access pc remote software
138	access free remote software
108	access computer remote software
43	access best remote software
28	access remote server software

Of course, if four words specifically describe your product or service, you may want to continuously use those four words throughout your site. The number of searchers who find your site may decrease, but you also may get more qualified visitors.

Technorati Tags: SEO, remote access software, keywords