This weekend I was primarily an observer, yet a little bit of a participant, in a running email conversation between different parties engaged in creating a new website.  There were people with very specific ideas about what the site should do based upon how they personally surfed the web.  Then there was a designer engaged in the talk with a very pointed approach as to what the layout should look like.  And there was me, who fearlessly stated that I had “no idea” yet about how to design the web site.  I said that because we have yet to have a functionality and target visitor discussion.  It was just too early to rule anything out or make assumptions.  This weekend’s email conversation about this upcoming website made me decide to post a part of the dialogue, my response to the question, “How specifically would you design our website?”  My answer was, “I don’t know.”

Why I don’t know.

I don’t know because we have the cart before the horse or the design before the navigation and functionality.  I don’t know because we haven’t figured out who we want to come to the site and what we want them to do.  I don’t know because, well, we don’t know.   Below is a modified portion of my email (modified to protect the innocent).

“Sometimes a good way to layout the functionality of a landing page (not specifically design) is to define who will be visiting the page and what behavior you will be trying to influence through “calls to action.”  Many people use a website for 411.  It is easier than pulling out a business card, opening their wallet, finding a key fob or certainly pulling out a phonebook.  For those people, having a phone number (posted on the home page) for enrollment, customer service or other services may be very appropriate.

Also important, navigation and use are critical to understand (prior to design).  Here are some points to consider:

1. determining/anticipating who will visit each landing page on the site (public vs. private as well)

2. defining what actions they (targeted visitors)  may be looking to perform on those pages

3. defining what actions or opportunities you would like them to engage in

4. creating specific “calls to action” for each (visitor type) taking into consideration how different personality types (humanistic, impulsive, aggressive…) and users will engage with the site

5. installing web analytics for activity tracking and providing test results

6. review of performance analytics to see what actions are being taken (and inferring which ones may be missing)

7. ongoing testing of new pathways for visitors through calls to action (this is easy with Google Optimizer)

8. refining, over time, how to offer the calls to action by how they take those actions historically (example: search box used for brand, product type or zip code) and testing against other manners (most popular searches become image links on their entry page)

9. dynamic personalization of individual shopping practices by creating individual service and shopping calls to action (”www.MY.website.com” home page with “my preferences” may be an evolution from this)

10. ongoing site enhancement through cooperation with vendors, service partners, visitor feedback and stakeholders

Start with the definition, the methodology of how vendors, partners, institutions and customers will interact with the site.  This will be a key component for success and usage. ”

Making certain that all viable best practice options are being presented to the design team is the goal of this exercise.  Even, perhaps, a series of focus groups or Q and A sessions with prospective site users would help determine the starting point for navigation and design.  Offline and online marketing are very commonly combined in this early “user interaction” development stage of a website.

Design is critical for a website.  But design without purpose can create a pretty expensive gallery.

Related articles:

Planning Your New Website, Smash Media 2005

Planning a Useable Website: A Three Step Guide, Web Credible 2004

Web Marketing; What Do Visitors Want From Your Site?,  EIOBA 2006

Twitter suits my ADHD personality.  I am the guy who cannot stand calmly in a line.  I am the guy who doesn’t use drive-through because it takes too long.  I am the guy who thinks, but does not say, “Are we there yet?” on every road trip.  So, yeah, I love Twitter.  I even get cute with it.  I actually used the phrase “tweet twaffic” the other day.    I’ve tried multiple tools put on the BlackBerry, uploaded them while standing in a line.  Yeah, personally hooked. @TNIMAN has become my new identity.

I’m not only personally hooked, but professionally hooked.  I am very enthused about what Twitter brings to the conversation on the web.  Earlier today, I saw a member named @SEOBeanSpiller who says he, she, it, they will be “spilling the beans” on other sites SEO tricks.  Fun idea, wish I’d thought of it.  I hope they follow through.  Also, finding from those business friends, I follow an unending flow regarding events, activities and updates.  From this far-flung community, I also get some great ideas.  It’s not surprising that you create a bond, but I am surprised how strong the bond becomes between people when you have this community chatter regarding your and their activities.  You find yourself rooting for them as they go into appointments and celebrating with them when they have a victory.  The informal nature of the 140 character dialogue lends itself to cozy, personal, one-to-one phrasing even if it really is a one- to-one hundred followers conversation.  I cheered the other day when someone else’s kid got a hit in a ballgame I wasn’t attending except through Twitter.

Professionally, as well, I find it refreshing how many people retweet “RT” an interesting post or article in order to share their interests and create conversation.  When you find something interesting to share, sharing URLs is made possible by tinyurl.com and the like allowing you to chuck a lot of link info into your updates.  Look at the way as well that media outlets have jumped on this new method of burst distribution of their content.  Is there a major newspaper, magazine or broadcast that isn’t tweeting its heart out?  And how about e-commerce sites?  This is a perfect venue for a firm like Woot.com.  Check out @woot.  As an online retailer, if you are building a new e-commerce website, don’t you have to consider this platform for your customer interactions?

Lastly, got to love the way entrepreneurs gather around a new idea.  IPhone app millionaires and Twitter shops are really bringing excitement for an entire new generation of developers. So, thank you Twitter for the entertainment, interesting dialogue and opportunity to share.  What’s next?

Videos from juvenile associates who can’t tell the difference between a prank on their friends vs a real world crime  are not the issue we are discussing.  This post covers the responsibilities your firm should consider for the safety and benefit of your brand and your people.  Many firms have run helter- skelter into social media with little to no forethought as to what that could  mean.  Yeah, 2.0  can be a good thing to promote the company.  Yeah, it is the USA where everyone has the right to free speech.  Yes, these are adults and you trust them to keep a business from personal separation. Right?

Seinfeld’s “Worlds Collide” theory from The Pool Guy episode  could be the unintentional consequences of having no published policy or at least a dialogue about Twitter, FaceBook, personal blogs and the like.

Let’s say Bob in sales (it’s always the sales guy right?) has a really rough appointment with a big client.  Does Bob know that after a vodka he really should resist pulling out his IPhone and updating his FaceBook about how he is at his favorite waterhole recovering from a meeting with Jane Doe of Your Best Client, Inc.?  What if Sarah from accounts receivable sees and tweets about all of the deadbeats she has to stay late to collect from?  What if Cyd the designer is so excited about a new product line that he scoops your PR team on his own personal blog?  Or, Dean’s wife keys how she is looking forward to going with him on an upcoming business trip to San Francisco, which is supposed to be a secret from your competition.

Does this happen? You bet.   I have witnessed an instance where a developer (not one of ours)  posted code online in his personal blog.  The problem,  the company had developed this code for a client.  He thought the code was “cool” and wanted to share it.  Damage done.  The firm had no 2.0 policy.

I have also seen where schools have “encouraged” their students in leadership to take unacceptable pictures and content off of their personal FaceBook and MySpace site.  Why? The name of the university was thought to be tarnished by the background of a beer sign where the group posed for pictures.

Public companies, like IBM, have a stated Social Computing Guidelines paper that encourages “responsible engagement in innovation and dialogue”.  IBM stresses honesty and integrity.  The use of an online alias or pen-name is discouraged in this policy.   “Be who you are,”  “speak in first person,” and “use a disclaimer,” separating the firm from the “IBMer” are all well thought out principles for an international public company.

Major firms like Dow Jones of course are concerned about how information is given to the public but you don’t have to be a huge company to have an errant post impact your stock, sales or brand.  True, it will be nearly impossible to control every utterance from every person in or involved with your company.  So where to start?  Begin to create a set of social marketing guidelines that assist your associates in engaging in the world, informs them of some unforeseen issues that could innocently arise  and direct them to information regarding your own code of conduct that will guide their journey through this unsettled and evolving world of citizen journalists.

Top Items for a Social Media Policy:

• Let your people  know your level of support for 2.0.  The CEO of Zappos has his own regular Twitter login with over 700,000 followers.   What do you support and what are you concerned about?
• Tell your team “why” this policy needs to exist.  Explain investor relations, legal issues and the business reasons behind your guidelines.
• Give them a go-to person for any questions.  In a non-invasive and private manner, they can get their questions answered.  It’s OK if they have made an error in judgement or make a mistake.  Just don’t hide it.
• Establish honesty and integrity up front.  If an associate has a gamer base where their Warcraft  ID is important and Jim.Gamer@yourcompany.com won’t work, then an alias might be good (even preferred).  But let the staff know that when they are  online, even at 2 AM on a Sunday, they are still a part of the firm as far as the never sleeping WWW is concerned.  Encourage them to be honest about who they are.  The separation between work and play will continue to get more blurred.  If they doubt that, show them Google Wave.
• For the item above, publish a disclaimer that can be used by your associates and either strongly encourage its use or make it a requirement for their personal sites.  Likewise, your brand, logo and IP are off limits.  The reasons are obvious.
• If you have specific rules regarding the safe use of handhelds or proper use of desktops, then make sure that these guidelines are understood.  If texting on a company Blackberry while driving a company car is forbidden, then so is tweeting.  Let everyone know you are serious about this for their own safety.
• Help everyone understand that there are better and more effective ways than a public forum to complain about lousy working conditions like dirty restrooms or no vegetarian items on the cafeteria menu.  If negative postings by associates is happening or could happen, give them a release point internally and privately.
• Have a code of ethics guideline link available for all associates to use as a sounding board for their social activities online.  You hired smart people.  Let them use their brain.
• Lastly, have a review team look at the policy periodically to see what needs to change.  All we know is that the next social phenom is on its way.

Need advice?  Talk to your friendly neighborhood SEO firm.  With a little common sense, a spirit of cooperation and some solid groundwork policies you can develop a great mutually beneficial 2.0 approach with your people, the web and whatever the next MySpace/FaceBook/Twitter coolness turns out to be.  Do you doubt there will be one?

Over the past two years we have had numerous clients join our team after having a bad experience with another SEO or web marketing firm.  Sometimes their site has really been abused.  We have been engaged just this week by a start-up that literally got nothing but “here is what 4 landing pages should have on them” for $10,000!

We also have people afraid to make a change because they have been frightened by their ex-SEO firm.  Fear, uncertainty and doubt right?  The ex warns them that their rank will fall immediately just because they change firms.  Huh?  Some firms like to own the client’s Google account and when they leave, they lose that Google data.  Truth is this arrangement is good for no one as the quality score will be disadvantageous to the combined clients while the PPC firm makes money and stretches cash flow on the ad expense float.  Google has told us, by the way, that they do not like this approach.

We have had one competing agency literally wreck the code on a client’s site and take out their Omniture script without permission (we had already backed up the site thank God).  When we confronted them they responded, “We don’t like to make it easy for a client to leave us.” Wow.   Or, I like the one where the ex has a top secret proprietary approach that no one else possess and that if they just sign up for another year then magic will happen.  We’ve heard it all.  From “You don’t spend enough money to be a priority.” to “Our people don’t find your site exciting to work on.”   It can be very disheartening.  Pressure tactics, bad information, owning a client’s data and making this some mystical science is all BS.

The truth is that search engine marketing firms like The Net Impact do not perform magic.  We do heavy research.  We create specific approaches for each client.  We test.  We brainstorm.  We publish, change, create and code.  We monitor.  We engage.  We work our butts off.  In the end, the data is all there.  Open access to Google analytics as an example will absolutely show your performance.    Is your traffic up or not?  Are your conversions up or not?  Are you climbing the SERPs for the right terms or not?  And, I guess most importantly, do you understand what is going on for your website, or not?

You, the site owner, need to be 100% aware of what is going on with your website’s performance.  You deserve to know exactly what efforts are being performed on your behalf.  You have to know how well those efforts are performing.  The bottom line is, if you do better, then your SEO firm will too.  If not, fire them.

I’ve written before about the spammy, insincere, “sign up today” tactics of a lot of other firms.  The more client horror stories I hear about these firms the more I realize that they don’t just utilize poor selling tactics; they really abuse their customers as well.

So, to those “Wait wait there’s more!” SEO hucksters that abound in every city, please note.  This is not a get rich quick industry nor is it an easy way to make a buck.  If you can’t honestly represent the best interests of your clients FIRST, then please do us all a favor.  Get out.

Over the past few weeks, we have had the opportunity to meet with several municipalities regarding new websites or improvements to their current site.   Do you think of your municipality as living a pretty boring online existence?  Do you think the city really wants increased traffic counts and conversion?  If you are one of the many citizens in your community yet to check out the old local.gov site, you might be surprised.  City sites are getting hip!   

In our meetings with the teams dedicated to redesigning a municipality website, we have taken the usual approach of creating a list of goals and online features that are the core of the project. Can you guess at the top features on the request list? Sure you would expect safety and evacuation information.  School information, check.  How about online traffic ticket payments, building codes, elected official bios, park and recreation hours, trash pick-up schedules and RFP bid management? Sure, those are all the basics.  What’s surprising is that the list grows from there to include some pretty hip social marketing features.  Here are the top 2.0 requests.

• FaceBook link and supportive muni site on FB
• Twitter setup and link from home page
• Streaming video for online broadcast of meetings and city events
• YouTube and Flickr setup for community sharing
• Online photo galleries showing recent events 
• Emailed newsletters
• Ability for citizens to request alerts when new information comes online
• Online news center and press release archive
• Online activity calendar for city events
• Polls and survey tools

In addition to the desire to stay in touch with citizens using 2.0, there is an awareness that the .gov site needs to be maintained and freshened on a consistent basis.  Our myimpactCMS system is great for enabling that kind of easy online content development and updating by non-IT staff members.  The city sees the need to be current and up-to-date online in a way that benefits the visitors. 

So, the next time you see your city mayor at the local festival, look carefully.  He or she may be tweating about the pie eating contest going on in tent three and you could be missing out!

SEO 101, check your university course catalog, will teach you that creating a page for a visitor means making it specific and exact to a topic.  In other words, if they are looking for ice cream, don’t also make the page content heavy on hot dogs just because you offer those too. 

This is the simple fundamental behind our trademarked Traffic Based Design theory.  The goal is to build great pages that attract and inform visitors in a way that focuses on the topic, uses only related keywords and delivers good traffic to the page.  This is THE cornerstone for a good SEO effort.

Remember from previous posts that a well designed web architecture will bring more organic and link driven traffic to your site from deep searches to interior pages.  Search is just not for the home page.  You may also recall from our writings that the home page of your site is really designed for visitors who already know you or at least know your name.  Well thought out and “funnel to goal” designed interior pages represent your best opportunities for landing traffic from raw searches for terms describing your goods or services.  So, what does a good Traffic Based Design site look like?   Try this:

Seven Step Traffic Based Design Exercise

1. Determine “who” (visitors) you want to find your site.
2. Determine “what” information, goods or services they may be looking for from you.
3. Research what search terms they are using today from your site analytics.
4. Determine through keyword research if those are the right, best and most popular terms to attract and inform your visitors.
5. Create a landing page strategy for delivering those visitors with those specific terms (remember ice cream vs. hot dogs) to a single page. 
6. Don’t crowd up the page to “squeeze” other or repetitive keywords in where they don’t belong.  Don’t forget tags, titles, headers, etc… are critical.
7. Test, publish, review and change as indicated.

Remember this is very basic and really only the first step in the journey.  The goal with a Traffic Based Design is to get people TO your site.  Your landing page strategy should also determine ways to get visitors THROUGH the site to your conversion goal page.  The right calls to action, a good testing strategy and great content are all required to even get to first base.  And, no, first base is not the same as page one.

Not too long ago, on the roadways of America, you saw predominantly US made cars.  That’s not my point.  The point is people didn’t just buy them and drive them.  They LOVED them!  They LOVED them to the point that arguments would break out at barbecues, racetracks and parking lots all over the country. I remember to this day my step-father and his friends bragging and bashing about the car brands they loved.  You know, “I’m a Ford guy!” vs. “I’m a Chevy guy!” kind of stuff.

Those arguments for the most part have vanished now.  American made cars went through an era of being slammed for quality, price and fuel efficiency.  The comeback is hopefully on its way, but still this intense loyalty, to the point of argument, is mostly gone.  You just don’t see that same wide spread passion.   It’s not like this loyalty has moved; it’s virtually disappeared.   I have yet to see a “Toyota Rules” rear window sticker on a pickup.

What does this have to do with your website and your visitors?  Maybe a lot. Do you ever think about what role your website is intended to play in supporting your brand, in driving loyalty?  Does it?  Do you think about what brings visitors back to your site?  Do you measure online loyalty?

If so, do you look at:

• Returning eyeballs?
• Shares with friends?
• Digg, Stumbleupon and Technorati mentions?
• Comments?
• Facebook, Flickr and the like mentions?
• RSS feeds enrollment?
• Site analytics and traffic flow?
• Returning customer sales and leads?

As importantly if you can measure online loyalty, can you influence it?  Maybe so.  What do you know your visitors demand?  It assuredly goes beyond just having good products or services.

Here are some basics:

• A site that works: images, links, help programs, tools and all
• Information that is readily accessible and easily understood
• Fresh and informative content that relates to their needs or sense of value
• Easy to find contact information relating to their interaction
• Specific pages about specific products or topics
• Answers to most often asked questions so as to not waste their time

Some advanced:

• User forums or other feedback vehicles
• Testimonials that discuss the good and bad
• Solid truthful narratives about who your product or service best serves
• Ways to easily share information with other friends and family
• Expanded content or links to content for those who want to know more
• If product driven, great graphics and schematics where needed
• Information on the site where it best benefits the visitor not the webmaster
• Related sites or additional pages to support multiple ways to interact
• Social monitoring of your brand to see the good and the bad
• Interactive relationship with visitor comments and observations
• Timely and personal follow-up for all questions and concerns

If you want an online brand that drives loyalty, you have to earn it!  In other words, building something great is one thing; keeping customers loyal is another.  Both are important for the long run.  Is it important to prove to your visitors that you care as much as they do?  I think so.   Otherwise, loyalty can just disappear.

Have you defined the elements of a really great online (or offline) marketing campaign? Are they something like knowing objectives, defining the message properly, knowing the methods and distribution paths for the message, understanding the target audience, knowing how to measure response, identifying resources required…and determining ROI? You have to know ROI, right? How can any marketing professional not be able to answer the question, “What did this effort get us?” And as a marketing professional you understand that if you answer that question with a statement like “brand exposure” or “good will,” well you run the risk of  watching in slow motion while your budget cut rises from the dialogue and you  fidget to come up with something more concrete.  Admittedly concrete metrics can be especially tough for social marketing.  But, do you believe social marketing is worthwhile? If our answer is “Yes” then we need a way to measure results.

How is ROI measurement different for 2.0?

You have to love the simple number flow of PPC.  How much did we spend?  What was CTR?  What was conversion? What then is my CPC (Cost per Click) and its cousin, RPC (Revenue per Click)?  All of this can be measured and, as importantly, understood down to the last penny.  For PPC you can (and should) even create an overhead allocation that takes into account any third party fees and internal time spent on ad management, creation and review.

Not all web marketing efforts have such easy and exact formulas for comprehension.  In order to create a measurement methodology for 2.0 activities like blogging, Twitter, press releases, social site involvement (LinkedIn, FaceBook and MySpace as examples) and other demand capture approaches, think in blended qualitative and quantitative terms.  Here are some ideas:

• Traffic through 2.0:  What new traffic do you bring to your site or to your goal page from each post, tweet or social site?  In the end, each new action can be measured and compared for traffic generation same as you probably do now for SEO.  Try planning out which pages should be targeted and what links are needed prior to sitting down in front of the keyboard.
• Traffic by term: Your post, tweet or other social activity can bring significant traffic for keywords and thus landing pages that you would not otherwise capture.  Especially true if you consider speed to the search engines.  You can almost instantly create a keyword targeted 2.0 entry that will get picked up very quickly.  See the next point. Rewriting a web page will not give you that same immediate impact and probably will require more time and skills.  Key to success is to actually write the post with those key words in mind.
• SERP: In many cases we see blog posts and social sites hit page one for targeted keywords very quickly.  They may also fade very quickly but with the help of comments from visitors and fame from Technorati, Digg, and like intermediaries they can last a long time.
• Inbound links: If you have a competitive niche, somewhere someone on the other side is trying to figure out how to knock you down a notch and move their site up.  D0 we even need to explain the value of  linking?  The simplest formula is that good content brings followers who create links.  Also, don’t also forget that inbound links are not something to avoid.
• Number of followers and comments: Want to justify your time spent on Twitter? Measure responses and followers the same as you do for your blog.  This can be very important for those firms or individuals desiring to be an authority in their industry.   Put in links to your site or target pages using a tool like tinyurl.
• Quality of comments and followers:  OK, this gets mushy I know, but if you have clients and people you (or your boss) respect paying attention to your information regularly then your reputation is obviously enhanced. Repeat after me, “Look Mr. Dithers @mattcutts is following my tweets!”
• Revenue: Of course some social marketing actually drives leads, sales and reservations. Those I assume you are seeing with your analytics.  This is an obviously important but not the solely important way to measure ROI for 2.0 efforts.

The discipline and effort involved in creating content for social media and keeping up with the responses can be daunting.  Just a little planning and measurement can help those on your team slaving away to a deadline know that they are doing something worthwhile.  It’s more than a hobby.

It was very kind of one of our clients to introduce us to a new prospect.  We had worked with this client for over a year in service areas ranging from design to technical mixed with a heavy dose of strategic meetings and social marketing campaigns.  The relationship has been great, one of those win-win pairings where we seem to always be on the same track.  Equally there is a healthy respect between “them and us” as there are no turf wars between IT and marketing teams.  (Which can sometimes happen when marketing talks to IT.)

Most of our new business these days comes from referrals or expanded business in satisfying additional needs from current clients.  So the request to “explain what you do” is a pretty normal one.  Our reply, “No problem, I’ll send you our information as it relates to your firm.”  Before doing so, out of curiosity, I pulled out an old “What We Do” document and compared it to more recent ones.  Wow.  It’s kind of like being away from a niece or a nephew for a few years and seeing them as they hit their teenage years.  Wow.

The “maturing” of your services can sneak up on you over time just like the growth and aging of the people around you.  You don’t recognize the difference in them (or in you) until you do a compare and contrast to old memories or old photos.  Especially true with drivers license or passport photos! This recognition changes your perspective.

In our case, this contrast and review made me think about the “What We Do” propaganda we currently send out.  In a typical interaction with a modern day web marketing client, what do we do?

Where we impact clients starts with their Internet strategy

• What is the purpose of their site(s)?
• Who (visitors) are they wanting to attract?  Multiple whos?
• What do they want to tell them?
• What do they want these visitors to do to support the firm?
• How do they know if that is working?

We move on then to research and study:

• Review of any and all analytics data
• Study their competitive environment
• Look at what makes that firm “unique”
• Determine how that helps them on the web in a competitive manner
• With that knowledge then we tackle tactical planning:

SEO

• Create a plan to harness any existing social energy
• Come up with ideas to create online awareness
• Support their efforts, tech, design, content dev and analytics
• Ideas to improve conversion

Finally we dive into communication and support:

• Here’s what we know
• Here’s what it leads us to
• Here’s what needs to be done
• Here’s how we can help if, when and where you need us

And, oh yeah, you need to keep it up. So, for many clients we perform:

• Content development
• Email marketing
• Social marketing
• Creative and design
• Technical support, application development and hosting
• Analytics review
• Keep their team updated on trends and opportunities
• And more…

So, in a quick synopsis, I guess what The Net Impact does today is help clients understand their current presence on the web, assist in developing strategy, confirm their plan, create actionable tactics and throw our support their way wherever, however and whenever required.

I wonder changes next year’s snapshot will bring?