If You Build It They Will Not Come.

Another common driver of change is current customers’ comments and feedback on the look, feel, and functionality of a website. While this is crucial to the design process, it is too easy to focus solely on your existing customer base and lose sight entirely of growing that base. In most cases, you don’t know what you don’t know;  while you may see an increase in site conversions, you won’t see an increase in traffic by making it look pretty. This initial bump is often caused by excitement and buzz about the “new” site, yet the buzz (and business) quickly fade back to previous levels.

The Seeds of Change

All of a sudden (or seemingly so) we’re noticing more businesses inquiring about optimizing their existing websites themselves or paying a firm like ours to optimize it for them (rather than redesigning it first). Somehow, it seems as if a collective conscious awakening has occurred and businesses are recognizing that driving new site traffic from search will lead to more business. The problem here, again, is, you don’t know what you don’t know. These sites are often years old (many times built by inexperienced “developers” or agencies more focused on looks than results), have no backlinks or PageRank built up over time, have no mechanism for getting fresh content onto the website let alone a CMS. Also, in many instances, a company’s expectation of SEO is way off base – expecting to score well for competitive terms in a very short timeframe. What gets me is how people make the assumption that by merely saying they are engaging in SEO they’ll displace hundreds or even thousands of websites for particular keywords or phrases is possible because they essentially “willed it to be so.”  As with so much in life, you need to have the right tools, the right content, and the right level of ongoing attention (SEO is never past tense) and WORK – remember, SEO revolves around content and building authority both of which require resources. Of course, this all starts with a strategy to get from where you are today to where you want to be, bringing the right resources to bear (time/money/effort), and executing the plan.  Once there is a plan in place, then look at what visitors experience when they arrive at the website (imagery, look, feel) and focus on improvements – not the other way around.

If you’re on the fence about what direction to take your Web presence, ask yourself (or your team) what the difference between H1, H2, H3, etc., tags means to search engine placement – or not. Ask them what Caffeine did for your Google search engine results. You trust an expert to do your broadcast marketing, print work (in many cases your invoices and letterhead), maybe even your on-hold message, so why would you not trust a professional to work in a space that you are inherently not familiar with? Give us a call, and let’s have a frank and open conversation about your Web presence and what it’ll take to achieve your goals. Now, what you do with that information…

So, you’ve gone through the process of getting a website for your business. Hurray! But making it live for the entire world to see isn’t the end of the line. You need to come up with a comprehensive website development strategy in order to make sure that your website continues to grow. If you don’t have some sort of game plan for adding in new content, images, videos or more, you can end up finding yourself wanting to work on everything at once.

One of the best ways to get started is to single out one area of the site that you know will need to be developed further. After all, you’ve gotten your potential customer to the site, you want them to hang around and convert. Take your most popular product or service, break it down into areas that you know still need expanding on, and go from there. Once you know what you are missing, it’s easy to plan out what you need to do. 

For example, Product A currently has a webpage describing the item and why it’s the best solution for your client. However, you’ve noticed that there is a large interest in some of the finer details of the product. Your analysis of the questions and information that is being requested shows that you can put together three PDFs on the specs, two videos covering some of the uses of Product A, a widget that can calculate the amount of savings it provides over other popular alternatives, a handful of questions that you can add to your FAQ page, and a few content pages that go into further detail on its uses in specific industries. Now that you have a checklist on how to provide your users a better experience, you can just start down the list. Rinse and repeat for each area of your site, and you will find that developing your website isn’t as overwhelming as it first appears. 

You don’t want your website to grow stagnant. A good website development strategy, along with a proven web design, will ensure that it doesn’t end up that way.

In this world of ever increasing value of all the different types of Social Networking available to business, it is vitally important that individuals of these Companies realize that CONSTANT discussion of their products and Services will only turn off potential clients and customers. When individuals use their Social Networking forums such as Facebook, My Space, Twitter, etc….to flood the airwaves with information and advertising on their Companies particular Products and Services, it will have the same effect as that irritating Cousin that goes on and on over the same topic,……In other words, you start to “Tune them out”, and  turn a deaf ear and eye to what they are trying to get across. This is Business suicide in the Social Networking arena. Properly mixing in your message from a business standpoint, as well as keeping the Social Networking “Social”, will help keep your audience engaged in you and what you have to say. This in turn will keep your potential clients from “Turning the Channel” when you put out a message about your Company or Products  on one or all of your Social Networking forums.

It is Very important to stay relevant and in front of your Clients and potential clients through all forms of Media. Social Networking forums are a tremendous tool that can, and should be used to accomplish this.  Just keep in mind the Proverbs quote……”Whatever you do, do it in Moderation”!

Just don’t do it!

Does the size of your logo on your site matter?  It matters a little…in that your logo should be there.  But it shouldn’t be the focus on the page.  Do you want me to come to your website and just stare at your logo and not read any content?  No, doubt it…the point of your website is to drive me to an action, to pick up the phone, to learn more about you or to buy something.  Not to be hypnotized by your logo!

I’m only going to say this once…please, listen!  YOUR LOGO IS NOT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING ON YOUR WEBSITE!  If you didn’t catch it the first time, re-read that…and again…and again…and again.

Why am I harping on this enough that I’m writing an entire blog dedicated to it?  Because one of the most common requests we hear as web designers is, “Can you make my logo bigger?”  Yep, we can.  No, you shouldn’t.  It does not “need to stand out,” in fact, it shouldn’t—at least not as the most important thing on the page.   It does not “need to draw extra attention,” again, it shouldn’t.   A giant logo on the page does not need to re-reinforce “who you are,” they already know who you are.  They came to you, remember?

Who is your logo most important to?  You.  That being said—your logo IS important.  A good solid logo goes a long way to good solid branding.  A few tips on logos:

• It should be on your website.  It does not need to be the focus on your website, nor repeated over and over again on your website, other than in places like the header and footer.
• It should be on everything else—your business cards, marketing pieces, company clothing, etc.  (on that note, if you do have a website, your website address should also be on every piece of marketing, emails, business cards and clothing—you name it, as well)
• It should always be the same.  The colors shouldn’t change with the seasons.  You should not re-brand every other quarter because you’re bored with your logo and you just want to spruce it up.  It should always be the same aspect ratio…meaning your logo proportions should be consistent.  You will obviously have different sized logos; that is fine as long as the shape is the same.  You should not size a logo down for something and decide to reshape it to make it fit somewhere better than its normal shape would.  If you saw the Nike logo and it was a really short, fat swoosh, you’d probably wonder if you were buying Nike or a knock-off Niko.
• If you do rebrand, because let’s face it, it does happen: be consistent.  Don’t keep some things with the old logo and some with the new.
• Your logo should be visible. Don’t tuck it into a corner and make it invisible–it SHOULD be seen because it is important.

Moral of the story?  You need to have a logo on your website.  It is not the focus of your site.  Think about even going to Google and doing a search.  You probably barely acknowledge the logo there—you already know who they are—you went to THEIR site…so the logo just kind of blends in as part of the page.  You would probably notice if it wasn’t there, but the size of it would not be a big deal…their logo is not what makes you go back to their site…and a bigger logo is unlikely to convert your site users into “business.”

I’ll stop you on the argument you’re probably posing already, “Yeah, exactly Google does it!  They change their logo with holidays and seasons and days of the week and colors, etc.”  Are you Google?  When you have the brand recognition of Google, go to town.  We won’t stop you.  In fact, do you want us to help design the different logo versions?  Otherwise, until you have the kind of brand power (or budget) Google or Nike has, “just don’t do it.”

If you have six minutes of your life to waste…watch this video on YouTube—at least the beginning!  Make My Logo Bigger Cream.  It’s a spoof sales video, exaggerating a common misconception that the bigger the logo, the better.

Hilton Kramer, an art critic for the The New York Times in the late 1960s once said, “The more minimal the art, the more maximum the explanation” and that quote rings true to the fundamentals of design itself. The more modern we get with our web design approach, the more minimal we want things to become. The more we want our small expressions to be conceived as larger explanations. In short, a clear and concise message throughout web design is ultimately the foreseeable interpretation to what we call “modern” design.

A brief history of web design thought -

If you remember anything about the Internet in the late 1990’s, you will remember personal web pages. The various culprits of this period were Tripod, Angelfire, AOL, and Yahoo. When personal web pages hit the scales of popularity, web design changed for good. Before that, we were used to getting our web sites delivered in white on black page schemes with as little graphical elements as needed.

But after this explosion of personal web pages, Internet users were bombarded with animated gifs, flashy text, and color schemes that would make even the most artistic of users cry out for a “less is more” approach. We became inundated with web design that turned everything “up to eleven,” and for that I guess we owe a little gratitude.

The creative spark of all those personal web page creators, while a bit misguided in terms of delivering a clear message, showed that we Internet users crave a little creativity in what we find on the web. What happened then as a larger movement during the late 1990’s? Businesses gave away to old HTML, to the white and black backgrounds, revamped content and design with streamlined graphical elements and added content that was reflective of an overarching company message—for example, AOL’s revamped message was “AOL Anytime, Anywhere.”

Gone were the days of simple links, text and pages. Now websites were integrating complex frameworks of html, or java menu systems combined with text, and additional graphical elements included in logos, headers, and footers. If you are interested in examples of this change, check out archive.org, search for Microsoft’s website, and look for the changes over time. In addition, look at how AOL redesigned their website in the 2000’s; how those changes are reflective of this larger movement towards a graphical, more concise, and modern approach to web design.

Modern Web Design -

Coming from this movement in the early 2000’s we have once again faced a revamp of the fundamentals of web design. Now with the inclusion of social media, and the draw of industry-related hot topics like embeddable type, web 3.0, xhtml and a slew of other catchy phrases, we are meeting up with our “modern” version of web design more frequently—we find many examples nowadays of what this is.

What many business, personal and blog sites are doing is emphasizing the need for a high-quality message, superior content, and using web design to fit those goals. With the introduction of newer HTML technologies, doors are opened to the designer’s creative powers much more. Designers are becoming less limited in what they can do, graphically or otherwise for a websites design.

We are not only bringing a larger approach and message to the websites of the 2010’s, but we are analyzing and improving everything else. From one-page layouts, typography, artistically merited logos, hand-drawn designs, typefaces, interactive approaches and to intuitive design advances, the model for web design has changed significantly since the inception.

The Minimalistic –

Throwing “old school” methods out the window, many websites feature an emphasizing design message that centers on what the artist would call “negative space,” or the empty space that surrounds a design. Textual elements, conceptual design choices, and an approach of simplicity will highlight this approach and reign supreme in terms of what is featured on so-called “modern” designed websites; for examples of these minimalistic designs check out typographica.org, pixelcraft.ie, or uxmag.com.

In essence, designers are cultivating, and shaping web site design with many more tools than they had in previous times. In the 2010’s and beyond, we are entering a time when web site design is becoming centralized on the “artistic implication,” combined with the visually stunning elements of the design itself—

In essence, the emphasizing of a “less is more” approach mixed with the advent of new technology, which creates all new spheres of web design methods and approaches.

And for what we have done here at Cirrus ABS, check out our portfolio section for a sample of our design approaches and practices that emphasize a modern style of web design.

The “2010 Social Media Matters” study released by BlogHer and iVillage (cosponsored by the Nielsen Co) shows Americans’ daily on- and offline entertainment choices (media) center around TV and Facebook (notice Twitter still maintains a very piece of the overall market).  For entertainment (yes newspapers fall into this category) it’s clear that the people are not only connected to various media source, but are, in many cases, probably multitasking (I’m guilty of Facebooking while watching TV almost every night!) and are probably attention span saturated. 

 Full Article

So, knowing that YOUR customer is veg’ing out to TV and Facebook, where do you invest your marketing efforts?  TV is very dilute and terribly expensive.  Facebook offers extremely targeted pay-per-click options and free Fan Pages to help spread your message.  For impression based advertising I’ll give my vote to Facebook; however, for true one-to-one inbound lead generation (which, of course is the holy grail of marketing) the study show that the intent is still CLEARLY with the search engines for customers researching purchase decisions which means search engine optimization definintely needs to be in your marketing mix.

 Full Article

Take a look at my previous post on B2B lead generation your website is the leading source of inbound leads.  How do you increase the effectiveness of your inbound traffic?  Get better search engine position!  Search engine optimization is so crucial to your overall marketing strategy!  One of the ways to drive search engine traffic is through keyword saturated blogging (which is number 2 on the “Most Frequently Used” list above), another is to drive links back to the site and build buzz through offsite blogs, message boards, social networks (numbers 2, 4, and 5 on the above list). 

For more information about what Cirrus ABS can do to help you understand this “new media” landscape, read more about our NetCentered Business Strategy, our Social Media  and Search Engine Optimization programs. Or contact us for a free needs assessment.

“BUT I DON’T WANT TO!”  Yeah, yeah, I know.  I’ve heard ALL the excuses as to why someone says they can’t do social media…literally, all of them.  I don’t have time.  I don’t have anything to say that anyone cares about.  I don’t care what other people have to say.  Social media is too complicated.  I don’t understand it.  It isn’t relevant to MY industry, but I get why it makes sense for EVERYONE else’s.  My kids understand it better than I do and it’s just so frustrating.  My clientele is too old to be using any type of social media outlet, like Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter.  My dog ate my social media.

Enough with the excuses already!!!  I wish I could use the parental stand-by and say “Do it.  Because I said so.”  But since that won’t work…let’s talk fact.

As of the moment that I’m writing this blog, there are 5,367,117 people on Twitter.  There are over 12 million professional users using LinkedIn.  I just tried to find out how many people are on Facebook, and I’m not sure anyone really knows, other than to say A LOT—I am seeing numbers around 410 million, some higher, some lower.  There are approximately 400 million people in North America…not just in the US—all of North America.

Let’s just say for examples sake, I am extremely busy (okay, is that an “example” for anyone?), and I own a company but I’m a one-man show.  To make it interesting, let’s say it’s a fairly obscure company—I breed and sell horses.  I personally know nothing about horses…so if I say anything ridiculous about this, please forgive my ignorance…

If I told you that you could get your name in front of people who are actively looking for horses…how many people does that need to be for it to be worth your while?  One?  Ten?  One hundred?  5 million?  410 million?

Just to give you an idea, I jumped over to Facebook while I was writing this and searched “Horse Sale” and I found a livestock company with 1300 fans…would you be a fan of a company that gave you poor service, or in this case, a poor horse?  Looking at their fan page, I can see “testimonials” from past clients—from last month, all the way back…months! 

Now, like I said, I know nothing about horses or where to buy them in Fort Wayne.  So if I did want to buy a horse (I do not)—social media is probably where I’d start.  Not necessarily just searching for a company, right off the bat.  But I might go on Twitter and say “Anyone in Fort Wayne area know where I can buy a horse?”  I’m sure people are going to reply with companies I should and shouldn’t go to—along with links to their websites or social media pages.  And, if I have to Google them and find their social media feeds or the website—that’s okay, I’m going to look you up before I spend money on something like that. 

Do you look things up before you make a large purchase or hire a service company?  I do—every time.  You can find anything online, including reviews, and if I need to spend money with you, I want you to prove to me you are legit and others have been happy using your company.  Search engines now return social media results in the normal results.  When I just Googled a local company, I got their website and their last few Facebook and Twitter results in my results listing. 

To all you who say your clientele is too “old” to be using any type of social media, let alone assuming they don’t know what social media even is—you know what they say when you assume…  Just this weekend, I was at a concert in Fort Wayne and the MC came up to the mic and said “Now, for all you young folks on Facebook and Twitter, follow us by going to #bandname.”  My dad was with me, who happens to be on both Facebook AND Twitter—and he looked at me and said, “Young people?”  Dad, don’t kill me, you’re not THAT old…(kidding, he’s really  not)  Many of my friends parents AND grandparents are on several social media outlets simply because their kids and grandkids are…gotta keep tabs on us somehow, right?  All joking aside, they are not online just to stalk our busy daily activities—they are using it too, sometimes more than normal because they’re retired and have time to do it.  It may not be the norm yet, but we’re getting there—social media is growing for a reason.  In fact, the fastest growing market on Facebook is women, aged 55 and older.  According to one poll I saw, over 50% of all social media users are over the age of 35, with most being over 45 (*disclaimer: I do not think 35 OR 45 is old, please don’t hurt me!).  My point is not to say you should market everything to the older crowds, but don’t discount them either.

If spending a few minutes to create a Facebook fan page, LinkedIn profile or a Twitter account—and updating each maybe a few times each week is too time consuming—please weigh the potential benefits with the least amount of effort.  Would it be great if you could push news as frequently as Fox does?  Sure, but that isn’t realistic.  It doesn’t have to be too time consuming…even ten minutes a day—shoot, ten minutes a week if you’re doing nothing currently.  You can find time for that, even if you got one new client in a year, for ten minutes a week?  That’s 8 ½ hours over a year—one work day.  Seems worth it to me.  You could have set up a few social media accounts in the time it’s taken to read this blog.

If you don’t understand social media or don’t care to, call your kids—they’d probably be able to do it pretty quickly.  Call your grandkids, they can probably do it even faster.  Call Cirrus, we can help you with the strategy.  Sorry to step on Nike’s toes, but JUST DO IT.  And keep Rex away from your computer.

Business to Business (B2B) lead generation has confounded many a sales director and CEO for some time.  A recent survey by global business information company OneSource shows that while direct outbound prospecting (the dreaded cold call) still accounts for the most qualified leads, your company’s website provides the next most qualified source (followed by inbound calls, email campaigns, events and tradeshows, social networking sites, direct mail, and finally webinars).  This study shows us that in B2B lead generation creating urgency (or a need) still remains a strong and viable lead generation tool beating out other direct (outbound) outreach methods like email and direct mail by 30% and 43% respectively.

Full eMarketer.com article

For inbound marketing, you website is approximately 10% more likely to generate a qualified lead than an inbound telephone call.  Proper site construction (site paths, navigational elements, calls to action, etc) should help site visitors self qualify and choose to engage.  This high level of intent is key and making sure you get in front of as many searchers as possible will increase your odds of generating highly qualified leads through your site.  Proper site construction will increase your lead conversion and strong search position will allow more searchers to find you. 

For more information about what Cirrus ABS can do to help your B2B Lead Generation, read more about our NetCentered Business Strategy, our Push Marketing programs, and our Web Development. Or contact us for a free needs assessment.

Shakespeare famously wrote, “What’s in a name?  That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”  While that sentiment is admirable in the case of two feuding families in fair Verona, or if you’re hitting on that English Lit major at the bar, the same sadly does not apply to the URL (Uniform Resource Locator, or what people type into their browser) of your website.  Obviously you should avoid cryptic abbreviations and list the name of your brand as closely as possible in order for your target audience to find your site, but you should also consider what your website name says (literally) about you.

Well, that’s enough for the sugar-coating.  Today we’re going to talk about URL’s that are unintentionally…let’s say “inappropriate”.  Depending on the name of your business or brand, it’s possible to snag a naughty site name due to pure circumstance.  Now, is this a subject that only applies to a niche of website owners?  Yes.  Can it be considered immature to blog about the subject?  Perhaps.  Is the subject of unintentionally dirty-sounding websites hilarious?  Oh, you bet your sweet bippy!

Now based on the research I’ve done, there are 3 ways to deal with this issue.  The first is obtaining a new URL or modifying the exiting one slightly, the second is feigning ignorance, and the third is running with it like an Olympic sprinter.  At the risk of raising a few eyebrows of the IT department who will no doubt be VERY interested in my browsing history, let’s look at a few examples!

In the “Oh crap, we better change our URL” category, there’s the official site for Lake Tahoe (formerly gotahoe.com), which is now gotahoenorth.com, and tech resource site Experts Exchange (I’ll let you figure out that one yourself), which was slightly modified to experts-exchange.com.  The “maybe no one will notice” category includes a resource for those seeking a therapist (therapistfinder.com), a site for finding who represents famous celebs (whorepresents.com), and a humble blog for an art gallery in my hometown of Columbia, SC (ifartgallery.blogspot.com).  I could only find one example of embracing an unfortunate URL, but it’s definitely a stellar choice.  The uniquely named Ferreth & Jobs law firm can be found online at ferrethandjobs.com.  Don’t forget to buy a t-shirt.

So there you have it, a few examples illustrating the importance of taking a closer look at your web address.  While they succeed in being memorable, hopefully they’ve taught you the importance of a hyphen.

You picked your current web designer for a couple of reasons. Their portfolio looked flashy – they had some unique looking sites and great designs. Oh, and they were cheap; actually very cheap in comparison to some better known competitors. But do they have a business strategy behind their design? Do they understand web best practices? Do they have multiple departments specializing in areas such as search engine optimization, research and development, and business analysis or did you hire Bob from church, your nephew who is going to college for web design, or a 2 person show working out of a spare bedroom in their mom’s house? Or better yet did you just have your IT guy set up the site because he knows all about that “computer stuff” and he’s already on your payroll?  Now ask yourself these questions – would you let your nephew do the taxes or bookkeeping for your business? Is your IT guy well versed in online marketing or just tech savvy? Why do you let your website, your public face to the internet world, have any less importance to you than other aspects of your business? After all, research has shown we spend more time as a society on the internet than doing anything else, well, besides sleeping.

Here are 5 signs that your penny pinching may be costing you money in the long run in lost business.

Roadblocks

Do you have an “enter” page or a flash introduction to your website? If so, you might be deterring potential customers from ever finding out what it is that you do. As a consumer I want efficiency. I am lazy and when I want information, I want it now. When you put up an obstacle, another hoop for me to jump through, I get frustrated which makes me leave. Although you think that video intro is awesome, I could care less. Oh and that music you have in the background, it’s giving me a headache.

The Yuck Factor

Your site looks like it was designed around the birth of the internet. It very well might be because Bob, in fact, did design it and it looks just as bad as that mustard stain on his button down shirt.  The color scheme, pictures, and technology are outdated and hideous. Plus, unlike that Member’s Only jacket from the 80s that you have hanging in your closet, website design doesn’t come back into style. At least the internet hasn’t been around long enough for that to happen. Chances are if your website looks this way I’m either going to think that you’re no longer in business or that you’re a second-rate company that I don’t really want to deal with anyway. After all, the internet is all about image.

Huh? Your company does what?

I landed on your site because you came up on the search engines for what I was interested in. Plus your home page is sprinkled with some words and phrases that are hot buttons for me. Yet I can’t seem to figure out what it is exactly that you do. That and I don’t know what to do next because you haven’t told me. See as a consumer, I need to be told what to do. That’s why I pay $4 for a cup of burnt-tasting coffee at Starbucks and shop at Wal-Mart even though the grocery store down the street has a much better selection of produce. Proper communication is vital to my understanding and taking action. If you aren’t conveying your message appropriately or in a clear and concise manner then you’re probably doing yourself injustice and confusing me. With a less than powerful marketing message you’re falling short which means your website isn’t converting and I’m not buying.

Too Many Choices

Your homepage has way too many images, pictures, links, buttons, advertisements, banners, text, graphics, rotating flash, widgets, etc. You get the point. If your navigation is overly complex with an endless abundance of choices all you’re doing is confusing me. I don’t know what to pay attention to, what’s important, where to click next. Your site should guide me down an intuitive path of correct choices. Too much thinking causes indecisiveness and causes me, your potential customer, to lose focus; which equals you not getting the sale.

Playing Hide-N-Seek

Atlantis is supposedly the greatest civilization that has ever existed.  The problem is that nobody has ever been able to find it.  Your website could be the ultimate information and sales machine but if I’m not landing on it then it doesn’t really count for much. If you aren’t showing up on the first or second page of the search engines for keywords that I’m typing into Google or Yahoo, then what’s your site really worth?  You might as well be parked at the bottom of the ocean next to Atlantis because your company is just a myth. I have to be able to find your website in order for it to produce results.

If your website is suffering from any of these symptoms give us a call at 260-420-2222 or visit our site online at www.cirrusabs.com.  We can help you develop an effective website and strategy.