http://www.cio.com/article/496330/How_to_Determine_the_True_Cost_of_Microsoft_SharePoint?page=5

Creative Decisions:

Analytics packages can tell you a lot about the technology your audience uses. Some stats worth looking at include:

• Resolution;
• Browser;
• Flash Version;
• Java.

Are 75% of your users at 1024×768? Then maybe it’s time to break out of that limiting 800×600 design. Do 30% of your users still in IE6? Avoid transparent images. 5% of your users don’t have Flash or Java? Make sure you offer alternatives to that nifty Slideshow on the homepage (which you should do anyway, but that is another post for another day).

IA Decisions

What do you think is your most popular page (after the homepage)? Are you sure? Looking at your analytics may surprise you. If they do, then take a closer look at your popular pages.  Use your analytics to figure out how it got so high, and learn about how you can bring up your most important pages. Something as simple as the order of navigation can make significant changes in your top content reports.

Usability Decisions

What brings people to your site? What keeps them there? You can get a lot of this information by looking at the following:

• The keywords that bring people to your site;
• The keywords that keep people there;
• The keywords that drive people away;
• The words users enter when they conduct a site search;
• The page a user is on when they conduct a search.

Do you have a high bounce rates among users who search for “scholarships” on your site? Maybe your scholarships page is difficult to maneuver. Do a lot of visitors use the “search” function when they are on your Get Involved page? Then maybe your Get Involved Page doesn’t have the content most users would expect. This kind of data gives you insights of dozens of user interviews. Use it to transform your site’s design and information architecture in a way that your users are able to find exactly what they need.

While many things vary from project to project — the client’s needs, budgets, technology preferences, interest in Open Source, the decision making team — our role is to lead clients to the point where they can make a decisions (yes this is the leading the horse to water part of the metaphor). However, there are some things happen on each project that amaze me including that sometimes you just can’t get the horse to drink from the right pond (have I extended the metaphor too far?). Read about the things that amaze me again and again, after the jump.

Ease of Use - Just when I think that we can share that one tool is easier to use (either based on our experience or feedback from of other clients), the client completely disagrees… Perhaps like the old saying goes, “Ease of use is in the eye of the beholder”.

Price Doesn’t Matter - Most clients subscribe to some variation of this statement at least in the beginning. But in many cases, price is a factor. We typically go into an evaluation with an idea of what the client would like to spend, but don’t use this as a criteria to eliminate products until we know more about the likely options or once it is clear that there are simply better options with lower costs. But just as when shopping for a car or house, clients often want to see what they may not be able to afford so they can understand what they might be missing.

In a recent project, the client was very clear that they only had $X for the software license and thus we restricted the search to those tools that cost less $X or less and Open Source tools. We knew that based on their requirements, there were few tools that would fit their needs within the budgetary and technology preferences. After initial demos received a cool response, we suggested a demo of a tool that we’d indicated from the start would be a great fit, save for its cost. Turns out, they thought it was a great fit too and then made a case internally to spend more than they planned to get the capabilities they wanted/needed. Conclusion: Price is always a factor but just one of many. Don’t over-weigh this factor til you have considered your full set of options.

Establish and follow criteria for making a decision, but expect factors to change. In all projects, one of the first steps is to highlight must have features, internal business factors like staff skills, existing technologies, impact of change on the organization, implementation timeline, and budgets. From this list we arrive at the critical criteria that all agree Beaconfire will use to make a recommendation and that the client team will use to make a decision. Well, it turns out that no matter how good we get at eliciting these priorities, nor how well informed the client team is, in the end, the decision will almost always involve factors that emerge in importance during the project. I think this is largely a good thing since often new factors result from a natural evolution in thinking and education on the client side.

When selecting a CMS, the reality is that there are no perfect fits, just choices with a tradeoffs. Our job is to advise clients on how to balance the tradeoffs and successfully overcome deficiencies, to mitigate risks and ensure success. And success often hinges on business factors and impacts rather than technology ones.

The difficulty for us is when the ‘new factors’ result from a smooth/slight of hand sales demo or the focus on the latest shiny feature that doesn’t address the core business need. See the section on biases below for how we deal with this. Conclusion: Expect different factors to emerge but be clear that these result from evolving needs/priorities rather than less substantive causes.

Quality of the Demos really does matter - In every project, there is one factor that can’t be completely mitigated… The products that are demo’d well, regardless of the tools capabilities, gain an advantage. This is human nature and demonstrates the value of a good sales engineer. We try to even the playing field by having vendors review the same functionality in the same order by using a demo script. This can allow clients to see how two features compare more directly and expose the holes in some tools.

Demos also invariably reinforce any biases that exist and are rarely convincing to those who’ve made up their mind. However, every now and then a bad demo will sink a solid tool even for those predisposed to like it. The demo is also the first time a client will experience the tool, thus the strength of the demo is the single biggest factor affecting the perceived ease of use. A bad demo is a huge problem for those looking for an easy to use tool.

Impressions/Perceptions/Bias - Each client has some bias, or perception or other source of information that they bring to the evaluation in addition to what Beaconfire presents them with. Sometimes this is feedback from peers who the client respects. Sometimes it is good/bad press or buzz from the market that gives folks preconceptions about some tools. Sometimes there are just differences in outlook between internal departments/players centers (IT vs Marketing for example). One challenge for us is to both understand these issues so we can either work to overcome a bias that isn’t factual or to ensure that there is a balanced view from all sides of an issue. These perceptions/biases etc usually play out in a few ways:

• Beaconfire validates the bias/perception and the process moves smoothly toward a recommendation.
• Beaconfire refutes a bias and the process moves more slowly, thoroughly towards a conclusion:
• One outcome is where the client ultimately finds another reason way to reach a decision that validates their perception.
• The other outcome is when the client makes a decision contrary to their initial point of view.

Can we make them drink? I mean the ‘lead a horse to water’ metaphor not the ‘we drive our clients to drink’ metaphor :) Ultimately, Beaconfire’s role as honest broker is to ensure the client has all of the information they need to make an informed decision. In three of the last four projects, we led the clients through a process that revealed what we thought was a clear choice in the tools.  (When we say the choice is clear to us, that doesn’t typically mean the other choice is bad or wouldn’t work for them. Rather, most of the time the client has two solid options to choose from and we lay out ways that each tool would work for them, leaving the final choice to them.) As we neared the end of the project, it became clear that the clients were unsure of which tool to select or were holding back due to something they couldn’t quite articulate. It turns out that in each one, a factor mentioned above was at play.

Conclusion: Our job ends at leading the client ‘to water’ but that ‘drinking’ is up to them. They ultimately have to weigh the factors, the comparison information, and the recommendations we provide and own the selection of one tool or the other. Basically, we can lead the horse to water, but can’t make them drink from the pond we recommend.

Hope to see you there!

You also have an  account-wide quality score.  This score is not shared with you, but it affects your ad placements and your keyword quality scores.  It is primarily based on historical clickthrough rate and keyword performance, along with a slew of other factors.  The exact calculations behind quality scores are a guarded Google secret - Google has formally shared the major factors that affect your score, but not the details.  (What would be the fun in that?)

In real life, when your reputation is damaged, it can take a lot of hard work to restore it.  The same goes for your AdWords quality score - but it can be done!  Our client, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA) learned this when they discovered a big problem with their own quality score.  They had applied for a Google Grant about 6 months prior, and were waiting for their account to be activated. Due to a communications error, NPCA never learned when their grant was approved - Google set up their account, and their ads started running unattended.  By the time they discovered what had happened (6 months later), the damage was done.  As you’d expect for an account with no monitoring, their initial campaign performed badly, and their quality score plummeted.

After the jump, learn how NPCA boosted their quality score and saved their AdWords campaign.

Beaconfire worked with NPCA to overcome this challenge.  We quickly learned first-hand just how important the quality score is: almost everything we tried seemed to perform badly, and every new keyword we added had “poor” ratings.  Normally, maintaining an AdWords campaign involves removing poorly performing keywords, but since everything was under-performing, we had no reliable standard for measuring keyword quality.  Starting the campaign back on the right track meant setting metrics aside and relying on common sense.  We developed an expanded campaign making aggressive use of best practices.  To boost our clickthrough rate, we included a number of ad groups around the most popular (rather than the most profitable) content on NPCA’s site, including informational pages and freebies like their beautiful ecards.  Our hope was that the popularity of these categories would improve the quality score - and we could redistribute our spending later.  We watched for close connections between keywords, ads, and landing pages - the factors that contribute to keyword quality.

Then, we waited.

When we launched in mid December, and for several weeks thereafter, NPCA was only spending about $10 of their grant money per day.  At this time, even brand-new, highly relevant keywords had a “poor” rating - brought down by the account-wide quality score.  We did regular maintenance, but most of our work involved tweaking the ads and adding keywords, rather than removing keywords that we guessed to be under-performing.  As their clickthrough rate slowly grew, so did their daily spend and their keyword ratings.  Within a couple months, they started hitting triple-digit daily spends, and their performance kept growing.  At that point, there was finally enough differentiation in keyword ratings and performance for us to judge which were really “best” and “worst”, and manage the campaign forward like any other.

The big lesson to be learned about improving your account-wide quality score is that it takes time.   Because both recent and all-time results are taken into account, it can take a little while before your results begin to outgrow their historical baggage, even if you’ve worked hard to improve your campaign.  So, if your campaign is suffering from a low quality score, take heart: with a little patience, and a lot of attention to best practices, you can turn it around into a thriving effort.

Go to the main dashboard of Google Analytics for example and drill down within the visitors tab to the map overlay report. Here you can see which regions people who visit your site are coming from which can help guide your decision on which regions to focus your campaign on.

Under the traffic sources section go to keywords and then non-paid, to find the keywords people are entering in organic search to find your site. Look at the ones that seem valuable and corporate them into your Adwords campaign to gain even more visitors.

To find information about your existing campaigns, again go to traffic sources and click on the Adwords link. Under site usage you can drill down and examine each campaign, ad group and keyword to see how many pages per visitor, time on your site, visits, and bounce rate (site abandonment) each one leads to.
It’s easy to identify poor performers by comparing each campaign’s bounce rate to the site average and then making necessary adjustments at the ad group or keyword level.

Using the dimension pull down menu under site usage you can segment on other criteria as well. Which campaign for example is performing the best for a particular region you are targeting? Armed with this information you may decide to devote more advertising dollars to this campaign if that region is important to you.

Under the goals tab you can also drill down to the ad group and keyword level to determine which aspects of your campaign are leading to conversions such as a newsletter sign-up or a donation and which ones may need to be tweaked or eliminated.

Part three of this four part series continues this Friday with Optimizing Your Google Grants Ads and Keywords.

Well, visiting the Zoo for real was quite impressive! I’m still wowed by how great it was and I had pretty good expectations having learned about the great work they do. Have you been? If not, the next time you find yourself in New York make it a priority (and be sure to plan your trip on the Web site, which we implemented last year).

If you can’t make it to New York, consider telling your friends and family who do live in New York to make sure they support efforts to keep funds from being cut for the Zoo as New York state deals with its budget shortfalls.

It’s nice to be able to see all the great work our clients do close. This client’s work is just a bit more cuddly than others. Keep up the good work.

Facebook users can lay claim to their ideal user name starting at 12:01 AM this Saturday, which is tonight! There is likely to be a bit of a rush around midnight, as many of the John Smiths on Facebook clamor for user names that resemble the one their parents gave them. Facebook is not requiring that users choose a handle that matches their actual name, so those with a sense of humor, political bent or perhaps just had too much to drink can choose to be recognized in any way they see fit (iheartthejonasbrothers, anyone?). The sticking point here is that Facebook won’t let you change your user name later, so it’s probably advisable to choose one that you won’t mind having for quite some time.

So how does this affect nonprofits? First, nonprofits with fan pages that don’t have friendly urls will want to snatch one up so it can be displayed all over home pages, emails, and marketing materials.

In addition, organizations will want to take steps to ensure that their brands haven’t been hijacked by outside individuals come tomorrow morning. Facebook has taken some steps to prevent squatting and misuse, such as prohibiting new account holders from reserving user names, but they won’t be able to prevent every abuse. To help, Facebook has created a form that organizations and companies can use to prevent registration of trademark names.

For more information about vanity urls and fan pages, check out Jim Tobin’s post.

If you’re looking for something to do tonight when you’re waiting to snag your user name, you might want to check out this video that’s been circulating around the Beaconfire offices today - all about our “hood”:

Interactive Campaigns

These campaigns encourage visitors to get involved by recording and contributing their own videos or photos:

• 24 Hours for Darfur has collected over 900 personal video appeals from celebrities, politicians, Darfurians, and citizens around the world. The campaign aims to strengthen Darfur advocacy and enable individuals to send their appeals to political leaders.
• Witness.org – The Hub is an interactive community for human rights, where you can upload your own content or watch, comment on and share content from others. They also provide a great Video Advocacy Toolkit.
• Stand Up 2 Cancer asked visitors to “Submit your own picture or video and tell the world what you stand for! Cancer affects all of us, what are you standing for?” and used the submissions to create this video.
• The Prince’s Rainforests Project allows you to Create Your Own Frog Message, a personalized campaign video featuring you alongside the project’s well-known supporters. Your custom video can then be shared with friends.
• MomsRising.org’s Mother’s Day campaign prompts visitors to “Enter the name of your favorite mom,” then generates a customized video that’s extremely easy to distribute.
• The Humane Society’s Knock Out Animal Fighting video contest generated thousands of votes and landed two videos on YouTube’s homepage.
• DoSomething.org holds an annual video contest for teenagers and young adults that grants $100,000 to the winner’s cause.

Stand-alone, viral campaigns

Rather than belonging to a collection or gallery, these videos stand on their own. They’re often longer in length and housed on a page that provides opportunities for visitors to share and learn more. These types of videos make the biggest impact when they go “viral,” spreading from person to person through word of mouth and social networks.

• Charity:Water raised over $10,000 in one day, using YouTube’s new overlay ad feature.
• The Girl Effect uses a minimalist design and clear calls to action: Learn, Share, Change.
• Save the Bay supplements the embedded video with statistics and a variety of ways to get involved: Share, donate, sign up for updates, etc.

Video Galleries

Unlike the stand-alone videos above, these pages allow visitors to browse a collection of videos that give an in-depth feel for a cause or provide education on topics:

If you’ve made it through this list and want to see even more examples, check out DoGooder.tv’s Non Profit Video Awards and YouTube’s Non-Profit channel.