Your website is going to be the front door to your business online – what do you need to think about before taking action?

How do you choose a name of your business and the domain name of your website?

Choosing the name of your business is a branding project that’s based on: your values, your promise to the market, your target market segment, and your value proposition.  Getting a domain name that matches the name is very important.  In fact, for many businesses today which depend on website visibility to be successful, the naming process involves naming that starts with the branding process, but the final name is contingent on the availability of a .com domain name.  That means spending the time up front, and then using some domain name research sites to find what’s available.

When you’ve narrowed it down to 5-10 possible names, the last task is doing a search for trademarks and business names to make sure no one else has captured one of those choices.  This isn’t so important for a business that will remain local, but very important for any that will scale.

Some additional key factors in your domain name choice that need to be rolled into the process: how clearly does the name say what you do?  Are your keywords in the domain name?  Does it make human sense?  Is it short enough?

How to think of your website? An asset to leverage, not an expense to check off the list

A website is the centerpiece of being findable online – the asset you own.  You don’t own any of your visibility on social media platforms – those are just your presence on another company’s website.  Used effectively, your website is the hub of where you drive traffic and convert visitors into buyers when you bring them in from all the other spokes you have created: Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, etc.

Thinking about your website as one of the few assets you actually own on the web may change how much time, effort, and money you invest in it.  Your website will frequently be where the final action happens – something is purchased, an appointment is created, a phone call happens, and a decision is made.  On other sites in the network of visibility you create, activity happens such as likes and posts, follows and retweets, connections, pins, etc.  Those actions create and reinforce interest, visibility, connection, referral, and recommendation – all of which is often followed up by investigating more deeply about your business on your website.  And then people are ready to take action.  Leveraging that asset for a return may be a smarter move that focusing all your energy on someone else’s platform – use their platform to drive conversions on your website.

How do you get a website that’s easy to use and let’s you be in the driver’s seat in responding to your market?

Website development has changed radically in the last 5 years.  Used to be that you needed a webmaster for everything: creating, updates, modifications, problem-solving, additions, expansions, and refreshing.  While you still may need a developer for some activities, WordPress makes it easy to have a sophisticated website with a word processor-like interface so that you can quickly and easily respond to your market, the seasons, and unforeseen opportunities without paying through the teeth or being on someone else’s time schedule.

Think of this as your retail storefront: you wouldn’t want to have to call up a general contractor when you want to change your displays to go with the seasons?  Or when you have new merchandise arrive?  Or if you have a new promotion you want to offer?  Why would you want to hire or have a web developer on retainer for all the weekly or monthly activities that are an integral part of your business?  You want them for the exceptions, not the rule.

This is not to say that you have to be the one doing everything in your business.  But you also don’t hire a general contractor to move a display case – you hire a slightly skilled laborer to do the work and you direct it.  That makes you nimble, cost-effective, and smart.

If your website is going to be large store (ecommerce) or a platform for sharing, reviewing, or with forums, depending on the size, capability and traffic you may be better off with a more full-functioned platform instead of WordPress: something like drupal or joomla.  Then you really need a website developer.

NOTE: When I refer to WordPress I mean WordPress as a content management system that’s open source, free, and easily available from your website hosting provider – see below.  I’m not referring to the free blog you can get on WordPress.com – that would be an example of using another company’s website to do your business – you don’t want to do that.

How do you get a domain name and start your website?

The process of getting a website is actually 2 separate parts, although some websites would have you believe its all one because they make more money that way.

1. Buy a domain name – this can be done at Verio.com, GKG.net, TuCowsInc.com  Worldwide there were the first group of 34 registrars for names.  You buy the name here and park it – don’t necessarily go on to the next step at the domain registrar to choose them as your host as well.

Domain names cost about $8-$12 per year.  The more years you buy, the lower the annual price.  Buying more years gives everyone, including Google, the impression you’re a stable business – so buy at least 3 years of registration if you can.

1. Choose someone to host your domain: a website hosting provider.  This will be a service that provides a computer on the internet for the code that makes up your website.  You don’t want your website on your own computer – then everyone in the world can come and visit your computer!  Instead, companies exist that have lots of computers (servers) specifically set up to store and run the code that is your website.  You want one that is designed to host the kind of website you’ll have with the service you want.  If you have a WordPress site then I recommend Bluehost.com because they keep their system code up to date and optimized for WordPress, they have very good service by phone, and they’re inexpensive.  Hostgator.com is another good option for WordPress.

I don’t recommend GoDaddy – their service is ok, but their code is often not up to date for WordPress, and their performance isn’t great (meaning your website will be slow – kiss of death).

Another option is to have your web developer resell hosting to you.  That’s when they have an agreement with a hosting provider to resell the hosting services, usually at a slight premium so they can make some money.  Make sure you know whether this is what you’re getting if you’re going through a web developer.  There’s nothing wrong with this, but transparency is a good foundation for a partnership.

Hosting costs about $3 to $12 per month depending on who and for how long you purchase it.  You don’t need to buy hosting ahead of time like the registration – it’s all about what your cash flow is and what the provider you’ve chosen offers.  I usually buy 2 years worth for a stable business.  NOTE: You don’t want to accidentally let your hosting run out when you have a fully operating website – you could lose everything.

Are you going to build your own website or hire someone?

This may seem like an obvious choice – if your business is creating some product or service, then the best use of your time is to hire someone.  The question is really how to keep costs low.

If you’re bootstrapping a startup, then you might just benefit from building your own site – wordpress has a learning curve, but it’s not coding; it’s about learning the parameters for saying where you want what and then having some simple graphics for a header image (that’s an image across the top of your website).  If you use the default free WordPress setup then you pretty much will have a good looking, functional site.  WordPress uses something called ‘themes’ that are the set of parameters and layout that form the background for the text on your site.  The default setup is called the Twenty-Eleven Theme.

If you have anywhere from $750 to $5,000 you can hire someone for a website.  At the low end you get a basic setup, maybe a very simple graphic header, and an orientation.  At the high end you get some custom graphics, a blog, a custom layout, a nice font and good design.

Generally, creating the content (text and photos) is additional and needs your work or a professional writer.  You are the subject matter expert and your website needs to very clearly communicate what your business is about and why it’s compelling.

You can also get, at the high end, some additional functionality inside your wordpress to measure traffic, offer intake forms, sell things, have membership capability, and all kinds of effects – these are added through code called plugins and most are free, but it takes some time, skill, and energy to set them up properly.

You can also spend a lot more than $5,000 to get custom code, databases, and all kinds of functionality.

I highly recommend NOT using a service that just takes your text and adds it to an instant site – although these seem like a low cost alternative, you are almost always giving up your ability to improve your search results.  I have seen many clients waste a huge amount of money and time on these seemingly ‘affordable’ services that make their sites completely invisible to their potential customers.

NOTE: WordPress is for both blog posts and website pages.  Every website MUST have a blog now – for search purposes and because people expect fresh content.  The prices I’ve quoted should include blogging capability built in.  Your blog is what’s going to help raise your search rank – don’t create a website and then have a free blog somewhere else.

Summary

Choosing your business name, securing the domain, picking a hosting provider, developing the website, and creating the content to put on the site all takes time.  I’d estimate this is a 1-3 month process that needs your vision, focus, and contribution to have it fully reflect what’s special about your business.

See Key Elements for a Successful Home Page for information about how to make your content work for you.

Some thought-provoking ideas about how LinkedIn figures out who to suggest to you

This question came up recently in my circle of colleagues about how LinkedIn chooses who to recommend to you for connecting.  The question was prompted when LinkedIn suggested connecting with someone the person had only had email connection with and about an Airbnb opportunity.  So how did LinkedIn know to make that recommendation?  No one had connections in common, no looking at each other’s profiles, no other apparent interaction…

Check out this account by someone familiar with algorithms for preferences (not someone from LinkedIn, but some very good guesses).

Roughly, LinkedIn connections algorithm may work something like this.

Anything you do on LinkedIn’s site is tracked.

You look at Joe Smith’s profile (regardless of whether you try to connect to him), you get a “10 points” in the score box for “Jane knows Joe Smith” you also get “1 point” in the score box for “Jane knows someone with the name Joe Smith”

You upload your contact list to LinkedIn, you get 100 points for each person in the list.

These are first order estimates – they depend on your actions on the site.

Ok, now 2nd order LinkedIn suggestion effects:

When you looked at Joe Smith’s profile, you got points.  Joe – through no action of his own – also got points – let’s say 5 points for “Joe Smith knows Jane Doe”  and 0.5 points for “Joe Smith knows someone named Jane Doe”.

Oh, both Joe and Jane live in Los Gatos CA — give them each a point in their buckets.

Hey, they both link to Toastmasters, or mention Toastmasters on their profile, another point.

Wow – they both worked at XYZ in 2001, and 2002 – give them a point for each year.

At some point, the “guess” that “Jane Doe knows Joe Smith” has enough points – so they float it by you in the “People you might know” column.

If you click it – more points.  You don’t click it – remove a point — you continue not click it, points go down, and it disappears from the list.

Now things start to get interesting – now we can throw some “Machine Learning” into it.

You can image some processor thinking – hey, when we show Jane a Toastmaster, she clicks on it 30% of the time, vs only 12% of the time for non-Toastmasters.  She must be really active in this Toastmaster thing – so instead of giving her a point for “toastmasters” in common with someone, let’s use two points.

Oh, and she never clicks on “XYZ people” – lets only use 1/2 point there.

Humm, and she never seems to click on “guesses” with less than 30 points, so instead of 25 points (which is good for lots of people) we’ll use 30 for Jane.

Now let’s add 3rd order effects for LinkedIn suggestions.

Dave is now a member of Linked In.

Dave knows Joe Smith.  Dave knows Jane.   That’s support for the idea of “Jane knows Joe Smith” – let’s give that idea a point.

Oh!  Jackpot!  Dave uploaded his contact list!  Joe Smith is there, Jane is there – they gotta know each other !!

Let’s improve the algorithm with some clustering effects:

Jane knows Dave, Louis, Alan, and Helen.

Joe Smith knows Dave, Alan, and Helen.

Alan knows Jane, Louis, Helen, and Dave

That’s a pretty good cluster — 1 point for the idea that Jane knows Joe.

And, hey, while I’m at it, 1 point for Louis knows Joe.

Making your head spin yet?  No?  Ok, 4th order effects:

Jane knows Helen.  Helen knows Mark.  Mark went to the same high school as Joe.

Another point for Jane knows Joe.

Hey, Mark just edited his profile, he went to both high school and college with Joe !

That’s another point for Jane knows Joe.

More history effects for LinkedIn suggestions:

Remember I uploaded my contact list, 10 paragraphs ago?

Well, Luddite Louis SC was in that list — but wasn’t a member of LinkedIn.  But he just joined!   Yummy!  Since Dave knows Louis, let’s ask Louis if he knows Dave (this is how they can make good guesses immediately after you join the site).  Oh, and next time Dave shows up at the site, remember to tell him that Louis is now a member!

Ok, 5th order effects – take 4th order, and add another person to the chain.

Decrease the point scores, ‘cus it’s getting to be real fuzzy around here.

Humm, Jane let us know her Twitter handle.   We buy the data feed from Twitter, let’s see who she mentions in her tweets – those are good clues about who she knows.

(While some people might consider this spying — it’s all disclosed as part of the terms in conditions in the click-through license that she agreed to when signing up for LinkedIn and Twitter – so it must be OK, right ?  Geez, it’s right there on page 23 of 543, that’s practically on the cover sheet!)

Oh, WOW, you mean I can just fetch a page from Facebook and get names of people Jane knows?

Hey, Jane just sent a contact request to Peter (via the LinkedIn mail interface) – and she mentioned the name Joe Smith!   Wow, she’s practically MARRIED to Joe!  I gotta ask her if she knows him!

Let’s take the person in question, who wondered “How did LinkedIn know that I exchanged emails with the Airbnb

person?”   Ok, so I offer my place on AirBnB – and Random Jane contacts me about it?  What’s the first thing I do?  Check Random Jane’s reputation – likely on LinkedIn.  LinkedIn will remember “Dave was interested in Random Jane” and conclude “Maybe Random Jane knows Dave”.

I doubt LinkedIn is spying on your email — except for email you send USING LinkedIn’s site.

However, if you give LinkedIn permission to access your contact list on Google, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc, they likely keep a copy of your password – and may actually fetch it again a month later.  (And, almost certainly, this would be spelled out in the Terms of Service that noone reads).

And even if you told Facebook “don’t share my info with LinkedIn” — bugs show up all the time, particularly with Facebook privacy controls – and once the info is copied, it’s “in the wild” and will be preserved by someone.

So that’s rough account of how LinkedIn finds people to recommend to you for connecting… What did you learn from this?  I, for one, am wondering how all the rest of my social media worlds are connected – raises a lot of interesting questions…

I just discovered a brand new Facebook marketing education program called FBInfluence.  I’ve reviewed the whole program and it looks really good.

The delivery is done by Amy Porterfield (she has participated in Social Media Examiner’s Success Summits) and she does an excellent job of being methodical, patient, and easy to listen to.  No hard sell, no fast-talking obscure tips — she sticks to what you really need to know to be successful.

If you want a thorough Facebook marketing overview PLUS detailed tips and references, this is the program for you.  It’s also a great price.

Facebook has become a critical piece of having an integrated online strategy.  So, knowing how to leverage it into more traffic to your business and sales revenue is pretty important.  There’s no better time than now to get started so you can hit the ground running in 2012!

Click here to check it out and sign up!

The home page of a website is the most critical page of the whole site: it is the landing page for your entire business.

The home page must offer a compelling experience of your businesses key value both in feel and in the copy.  And the impact must be immediate—you have on average only 3-5 seconds to get someone’s attention.

In priority order, here are the questions that need to be answered with a minimal amount of copy embedded in a clean and clear design:

1. Is this interesting, entertaining, or critical to me?

You’re competing will all kinds of other personal demands on your viewer’s time: fun activities, tasks that need to be completed, general entertainment, and an endless list.  In a nutshell, what is different about your website?  Convey that in imagery and headlines that reflect your message and your personality.  Be creative, clear, and compelling.

2. What are you offering?

Once you have someone’s attention because your website looks intriguing or compelling, you need to make it obvious what you are offering.  That’s so people know if this is something relevant to them.  If figuring this out is too hard for them, then out the door they go.  So make sure you’ve got something in a headline about what service or product you sell.   Secondarily, have some information in there about why you’re better than anyone else in your unique way of delivering, creating, or servicing.

3. Who are you?

Trust is an important factor in people’s buying decision process.  For you to have people pay for your product, service, or digital offering they need to have a sense of who you are, how credible and responsible you are, whether you’ll deliver, and if you’re reliable.  This is why referrals are so important and the contribution social media makes to your website—all of that visible interaction conveys trust.

You can begin to create credibility with testimonials—one right on the home page—and with a brief description of your business and its credentials.

4. What difference can you make for me?

Making a difference in people’s lives is a key foundation for purchasing.  We don’t buy just because we need it in places like the United States and Europe.  We have so many choices that now we buy because a product or service promises to improve our life experience in some way: we’ll get the girl or guy we want, we’ll have the prosperity we desire, we’ll have fun, or we’ll feel better—and more.  So what difference are you going to create for people who do business with you?

5. What do you want me to do on this page?

Every page of your website needs to have a call to action—and also a flow of action: two different things that relate to one another.

The flow of action is the path you want someone’s eye to follow when they arrive at your website home page (or any landing page for that matter).  Heatmaps for interactions on websites show that the hottest spot on the page is the top left then the flow is to the right diagonally downward.  That’s your critical real estate and you actually want to lead your viewer’s eye on that path so that your messages are reinforced by their natural inclinations.  So the first thing you want them to do is follow that flow.

The second action you want them to take is to either buy what you’re offering on the page (with money, with an email address, or with a click) or go to another page on your website.  You want to make it absolutely clear what they should do next.  If they want to look at something else on your site, browse around, explore the nooks and crannies, then great!   But if they’re short on time make sure you’ve given them the most direct A to B path possible.

6. What do you want me to do then?

If you’re lucky (and good) then you get to answer the last question about what they should do after they’ve taken all the obvious paths and they’re still hanging out.  How can they stay connected to you if they like what they see?  What else can you offer them and how will you do that?  How will you show your appreciation for their time spent on your website?

Invite them to continue to have the latest information about whatever it is you do by signing up for your newsletter, or tips and insights, or action alerts or whatever you want to call it.  Email is still the best way to nurture and encourage sales once they have left your website.

Have something for people to download — with or without an email.  I encourage asking for an email address — if they’re interested enough to download, they’ll probably be interested in more.  At that point, you are expanding an existing relationship instead of creating it from scratch.

Ask them to participate in your social media activities— “Like my page” “Follow me on Twitter” “Follow my business on LinkedIn”— so they can get the latest info delivered where they like to hangout.

Interesting quotes, words of wisdom, jokes, cartoons, suggestions, and encouraging thoughts of the day—these are all ways to appreciate the person who stopped by your website by making just a little difference in their day.

Finally, above all else give your visitors a great experience of you and the personality of your business.

Show them what it’s like to be a valued customer, someone you care about.  This is your opportunity to let them see how you treat the people that matter to your business.

Resonate: Present Visual Stories that Transform Audiences by Nancy Duarte

Presentations are the lifeblood of marketing. Because of that, I make sure that all the presentations I create and/or give have key messages and a path to conveying that message that will empower my audience to take an action. And not just any action, but one that will make a positive difference in their lives.

The absolute best book on how to craft a story line for any presentation that you want to have actually make a difference in the lives of your audience is this one by Nancy Duarte.

This book completely changed how I approach developing presentations — even for very short talks, for information-filled classes, for statistical updates — for anything! I now start with figuring out what action I want to help my audience see is possible. Then I work from there, building the cadence of the talk as Nancy Duarte lays out in this book.

Get it, read it, use it — and it will change both how you speak as well as how you listen. You will know more about the speakers you watch and why they’re effective or not than you ever knew before.

As you can see, I love this book. The reason I love it is because it aligns perfectly with my own commitment to connect from the heart when you’re communicating with people — via marketing collateral, social media, or advertising. The heart is where the action is.



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