Flash may be one of the prettier things on a website but are becoming more important and popular on the Internet. Flash websites are not exactly SEO-friendly.

Using Flash is fine but you need to remember some golden rules to make a search engine ‘see’ it and index it properly. Google are slowly coming to terms with the importance of indexing Flash, but I think keeping it simple is still the way to go!

Search engines find new content by following hyperlinks. Use HTML-based hyperlinks pointing to all of the other content on your website (even if it uses Flash), and you will automatically get an improved user experience! Also make your title tag have meaningful description is key to having a user get an idea about your site before they continue to surf.

My first site was with Geocities and at the start it didnt have any Flash until later on. I was just having flash as the main site at one point and it proved a real sucess to my Flash abilities and I learned lots.

My Flash design didnt last that long but I wanted to experiment with other layouts but the positive points I found with using Flash are:

- You can keep things in one ‘window’ and it wont whiz off to another page and have to reload everything again.

- You can make beautiful preloaders and entertain guests whilst it loads with a funky graphic!

- You can impliment Flash movie clips within the design and showcase things when the user may be reading about something else. A good idea is to maybe make a screen ticker that you can have across the top of the screen.

Flash is all about moving forward with design and whilst having a site with no Flash is boring I think a site with some flash may be better now as I am thinking more about the way that my users see the site and not for it to be ‘all singing all dancing’. This is since I researched about the indexing.

A disappointing thing about 100% Flash websites is that the positioning on screens can be a nightmare. That is a negative reason why I started coming away from website designing in Flash only. I feel that using this technology has given me steady knowledge into further projects I may take on or if I want to have a single element from my flash site I can do so!

Article Written by: GoldChoiceUK is a young web designer based on the south coast of the UK. You can see some of her work at GoldChoiceUK or follow her on twitter (@goldchoiceuk). GCUK also runs the DSHeaven Blog, lots of Nintendo reviews.

OK 500,000,000 users but can it really drive traffic to your website?

You have built your Facebook Fan Page in the vain hope that someone somewhere will say “wow” and share it with all their friends, and their friends and so on and so forth. It would be great if that was all you needed to do, there would be no need for this post to start off with!

You may check your analytics daily to see if anyone has visited your website from your Facebook page, or post links to your latest blog post hoping for visitors to crash your website server that the traffic is so huge! Sadly you need to do a little more than that to a) gain more fans b) find the fans that will promote it for you and c) integrate your Fan Page into your long term SEO strategy.

Build Links back to your site

The majority of links from Facebook are no follow. The one place you will get a link back from is your Facebook Fan Page Wall, so make sure you put your URL in the “write something about…” box under your profile picture (no need to add http:// anymore!)
I say “majority” as I am still testing this, however I have discovered that use of anchor text in your blog post that has been imported to the Notes tab of your Fan Page, will result in these links have a do-follow (although redirected). So importing your blog posts to the Notes tab not only increases your visibility on Facebook and gets fans to interact there and then with the post without having to visit your website, but you are building more back links using relevant keywords, everyday to your site.

Install a Facebook “like” button on your website

Every time a user of Facebook clicks a like button this zooms into their friends Newsfeed and is posted to their Profile page. Wallah a whole host of potential new visitors to your site now have a link to click through to. To put this into perspective lets say the average Facebook user has around 200 fans. Your site has just been put into their newsfeed, 5 people click through and 2 of those “like” your site as well. Now your site is in front of 600 potential new visitors…and so it goes on. As an example, I recently wrote a Facebook News story that gained 14 likes and 98 visitors within a couple of hours from Facebook alone. Now that is the power of Facebook viral marketing!

Interact with your Facebook Fans

You’ve gained your new fans, now what on earth do you do with them? Interact, ask questions, and most importantly praise those fans that DO interact with you. Return the favour, do they have a Fan Page too that they are trying to promote? Pop over to their page and interact with them there.

Be helpful, don’t be too self promotional. Share other businesses posts on your page (do any of your fans run a business? Have they posted any recent blog posts lately?)

Put your Facebook Page in your signature

How many forums do you visit everyday? I bet you only have a link to your Website and Twitter account at best. Add your Fan Page now! Remember the more fans n your page, the more interaction, the more traffic is driven to your website. Don’t just stop at forums either! If you write a guest blog or two, and articles that are distributed across the web, place a link in your author bio too.

If you need more inspiration on how to improve your Facebook Fan Page and in turn increase the traffic to your website then download a copy of The Essential Facebook Fan Page Marketing Guide packed with useful tips to help you do just that! Thanks to SEOAndy you are one step closer to finding out how Facebook can work for your business. Why not pop over and tell me about your experience on my Facebook Page?

Article & Guide Written By: Emma Ewers is an Internet Marketing VA specialising in Facebook Marketing, SEO and general Internet Marketing services for businesses. She offers a 4 week Internet Marketing Program for any business looking to improve their return in how they use online resources to promote themselves and connect with customers. You will often find her lurking on Twitter (@emmaewers) and Facebook or Blogging about her next big Facebook find on the IMVA website.

Download your FREE ultimate guide to facebook marketing here.

We all know its a little bit of a task to understand how search engines work, never mind try to explain it to someone else. So I’ve decided on 2 roots to explain how search works, today is the first – a simplified over view of how search works, the second will come in a few weeks in the form of a somewhat detailed guide to how search works and how you can improve your site to make the most of the known search mechanisms.

So without further ramblings…

Search Engines and more accurately their algorithms have always been something of a mystery. As the saying says; there are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns. Basically this means there are certain things we know, certain things we know change and things we’ve no idea exist as SEO’s because algorithms can change any seconds (and generally do) making for many more variables than you may think. Confused yet? If not, just wait a few moments as you continue to read this article.

This overview takes you from your content creation to search queries to the results page.

From Generation to Consumption

1. You create a new blog post / web page / add some content to some website

2. Search Bot crawling the web finds this content

• Search Bots (SB’s like google bot) will follow links on website and so if you have no or few links you are unlikely to be crawled.
• SB’s won’t index pages and directories if told not to by a robots.txt file.
• If a link has a rel=”nofollow” attribute SB’s wont index the linked page.
• SB’s may also find pages on your site using a sitemap (a specialised XML file).
• The more links a page has from higher ranking websites you have the better your quality score will be in the index. (as long as these linked aren’t nofollows)

3. Once crawled, shortly after another bot will come along and index the content.

• Meta tags (title, description etc) are considered to be stored in one index, used for broad match searching.
• “on page” content is believed to live in another index, used for more obscure long tail searches.
• It is important to remember, when you are searching you are not searching the active web, but rather a cache (store) of the web that the search engine holds internally – this is to stop SEO’s manipulating the index easily.

4. The search engine will then estimate your ranking, generally based on links to the content (though not always).

5. The search engine will cross check the content with the policies of engine.

• Web spam teams double check for real content, test the search algorithms and refines it.
• Google uses over 10K testers (normally in India I believe) to test the quality of results.
• Search Engines then check for spam reports.

6. User send a search query (searches the index)

• In reality you aren’t just searching one index of the engine but multiple indexes and factors of the search engine.
• During this process Google suggests relevant keywords.

7. Initial search results are shown.

• Google may show billions in the index of relevance, but only the top 10K are generally shown.
• Localised Search Results – google and bing will use your IP location to show localised results higher in the results.

8. Results are shown in accordance to search ranking, authority and duplicates are removed.

• The big search engines use the keywords of the search to find adverts and include these in the relevant hotspots of the results page.
• Many search engines also offer refinement tools alongside the results, such as “blogs”, “news” & “social” offering the user ease of access to data they want.
• Multiple pages from same domain are likely to be grouped together (“clustered results”)
• Trending sites (locally/nationally) move up the index temporarily.
• User personalisation – google will add your previous results searches and click through (clicks to website) into the results page, putting your most viewed and searched pages at the top.

9. The final results pages (serp’s) are shown to the user.

• From submission of a query to the results page showing take less than 100 milliseconds (generally).
• This crawl, index, rank & search route is the same for most types of content.

10. Search is a huge industry so what is said above is always changing to some extent, most of it stays the same but there are extra variables outside of the 9 steps above … such as how fast your content is indexed, how you achieve getting links, who you link to (apparently), whether you are known through social media … also websites/blogs etc are linked via the algorithms to your social media profiles … for example try searching your name your site and your twitter page may show up!

Do you have any questions about how search engines work? or how to get to the top of Google? simply tweet me @andykinsey or leave a comment below

MBS Electrical, an electrical installation, repair and maintenance company based in Manchester have a new website, designed by Andy Kinsey Designs. (They also have a bunch of new stationary designed by us too!)

The New MBS Electrical Website - Design by Andy Kinsey Designs

The site is designed to meet the needs of the client as always, adding more functionality than the previous website designed by Yell.com / the Yellow Pages – the site can be found at http://www.mbselectrical.co.uk

Let us know what you think by leaving a comment below.

WordPress is one of the most powerful blogging platforms in the world, and of course WP is also the most commonly used open source blogging tool in the world. Considering this it will be no surprise that I know many people who use the system (I help bug fix and build templates for some of them), and also it is no surprise that I get bombarded with questions about the system. The most common of which is, What plugins can I use to help SEO on my wordpress blog?

Well, given there are a huge number of so called SEO plugins for wordpress this isn’t the easiest question to answer. Having played around with wordpress for several years now and become something of a WP geek I have of course played with many SEO plugins. However, As the title of this post suggests I do have a number of favourite plugins to use, and they are listed below

All In One SEO
This plugin is by far and away my favourite, not only is it simple to use and install but it is also customisable in the key areas that matters. Along with several other plugins by the great
Micheal Torbert All in One is an utterly superb tool that I advise all wordpress users to implement. – Get the Plugin

Google XML Sitemap Generator
This plugin creates (and updates) a Google XML sitemap, pings various services (including Bing, Ask & Yahoo), allowing for your blog/website to be better indexed by search engines. This tool is created by another great wordpress plugin developer Arne Brachold. – Get the Plugin.

Similar Posts
This plugin compares your posts, and creates a list of what it considers to be the most related or relevant similar posts – this can then be outputted with your posts and in your feed. This is a valuable internal linking mechanism, developed by Mr Rob Marsh. – Get the Plugin

WordTwit
This plugin generates a tweet output direct from wordpress, and also includes bit.ly and Google (analytics) Urchin integration.  This is a light weight tool and works amazingly well – so much better than many of the bulkier plugins I’ve seen and played with. WordTwit was developed by BraveNewCode. – Get the Plugin

Well earlier this week (13th July 2010) ComScore released it’s June 2010 search engine statistics. ComScore release these figures once a month, they use an ever changing formula to create more and more accurate results. The statistics are in essence related to the number of searches conducted by each search engine. So what did the results say?

Well as expected, Google top the chart – with 62.6% of the current market share, a loss of 1.1% from May 2010. Google was then followed by Yahoo! (18.9% up 0.6% from May). In third place was Bing (formerly MSN) with a growth of 0.6% taking Bing to an ever growing market share of 12.7%. In fourth remains ASK search network, at 3.6% and with no change from the previous month. Finally, in fifth is AOL who suffered a loss of 0.1% taking them to just 2.2% of the search market.

So what does this all mean?

Well clearly it means that the search market is changing, no longer is MSN (now bing) the stick in the mud that wouldn’t change. But the important thing of note here is that Bing continues to grow, and with Bing taking over the search functionality of Yahoo! later this year, Bing (using todays figures) would have a market share of 31.6% – a truly staggering thought and something that I believe means now is the time to take note of Bing (and not to wait several months) for SEO’s. So with this in mind, it is now time to Love the Bing.

But it isn’t just SEO’s that need to take note it is other search engines, and this is something Google are already doing (almost in fear it feels). With lasts months role out of background images, Google made a move to be “more like” Bing – but after much uproar in the first few seconds of being live, Google decided unlike Bing having a default image wasn’t a good idea and it is now optional.

The one thing the results do not show is that the world is showing an exponential growth of mobile search. With the advent and influence of the iPhone, Blackberry and Android’s of the world this isn’t going to slow down any time soon and is a huge target market. However, without specific results we can only presume that search is in the same proportions – though I know at least in the UK blackberry (and anyone on the Three mobile network) searches are defaulted to Yahoo!, android in 90% of cases I believe are pointed at Google (the creators) … as for apple I also see these guys using Google … So sorry bing but you need to get up and make some deals – message here is if your mobile focused target Google mobile and Yahoo mobile.

See the official ComScore standings here.

Now before we begin, you must read the warnings below.

This page is NOT advice.
These tactics are NOT legitimate, you will be banned if caught using them.
Do NOT use these tactics or let your SEO use them on your site.

Black Hat SEO refers to the tactics used by some nasty SEO companies in order to “trick” search engines into ranking part of or a whole site illegitimately. There are many black hat SEO techniques, now I will only be mentioning the major few below – but there are many many others, so if your not sure ask me (@andykinsey on twitter). One little thing of note, sometimes these tactics will see you rise in the rankings for a matter of minutes, hours or days, but if you get caught you will be penalised or banned (your other sites may also suffer the same fate due to their relation).

My reasoning for this post is not to enable you to “trick” the search engines, it is simply to warn you of these tactics and to tell you that if any SEO ever recommends these actions (or maybe claims a “special relationship” with a search engine) … tell them to “go away” otherwise you may pay a very high price.

Note: Many of the tactics below have been simplified by many SEO/webmasters for implementation, many have also been made more complex to avoid easy capture of the tactics by search engines – I’ve decided to explain the principles and not how to implement them.

Black Hat SEO is No GO!

Keyword Stuffing
This I would say is the most commonly found form of spamming search engines. Generally you will find 3 forms of this: hundreds of meta keywords, highly stuffed content (keyword density 50%+) & footer spam (hundreds of keywords and links in footer). As you can tell Keyword Stuffing is essentially the use of a large number of keywords in any given area, primarily in the hope search engines will believe this is relevant content. However, I can tell you most search engines (especially the big ones) use 2 forms of checking for real content 1) human content reviewers 2) algorithms to check for similar words and anything that maybe considered “odd” language – generally point 2 will flag a link to a reviewer (1). Of course, Keyword Stuffing also goes hand in hand with “hidden text”.

Hidden Text
Hidden Text refers primarily to the hiding of text by changing it’s colour to match the background, however this is not the only way to achieve the effect of text not being visible (for instance hiding the text millions of pixels off a page or hiding text with CSS display notes). Most webmasters and SEO’s will know that if you hide something with the tactics above are easily detectable by search engines, this is good, what isn’t so good is that they still think some tricks around hiding text with images won’t be caught. It will it is blatant spam! and the search engines will catch you. Also if you are in a highly competitive industry and your site is under any real scrutiny you will find you will be reported for both hiding text and stuffing your keywords by competitors (usually within days).

Cloaking Content
In essence cloaking refers to the dark art of showing one piece of content to the user, and another piece of content to search engines. Generally this tends not to be whole pages as this is extremely easy to detect but rather in general the replacement of elements such as adverts or images on any given page, so where a user see’s an advert Google may see extra textual content. There are of course many many other methods of cloaking but this is the most common form.

Doorway Pages
Doorway pages are simple pages added to a website to target a specific keyword or keyphrase, generally they offer little or zero value to the user – they are simply a link-through page. As said above they target a specific phrase or term which is targeted in the hope that users will land on the pages from search engines, they will then proceed to the homepage or some content which may or may not be relevant to the user (indeed this is how a lot of malware gets onto peoples computers). This can be a very dangerous practice. Not only are many of the methods of injecting doorway pages banned by the search engines but a quick report to the search engine of this practice and your website will simply disappear along with all the legitimate ranks you have attained with your genuine content pages.

Redirection from a Doorway
Now generally redirection in itself can be dangerous for SEO, do it incorrectly and you cannot only appear spammy to search engines but you can also see any valid rankings you’ve gained lost through lack of using the right type of redirection. However, this is not the redirection I wish to talk about, no this is the redirection of users from doorways pages to various bits of content (usually you may find this is random, but not always). In essence you are again cloaking, allowing search engines to see your keyword rich doorway page but redirecting users to some content. For as many ways of finding redirections search engines you will find even more ways are being invented to avoid this detection – it’s like a dog chasing it’s tail.

Conclusion

So with these 5 major black hat techniques highlighted, I hope that you will steer clear of them and those who offer such techniques. Do you know any more common-place or not so common black-hat techniques you would like to share? leave a comment below or tweet me (@andykinsey)

Our hosting partners UKHOST4U have today announced a huge summer sale.

UKHost4u.com is offering a 25% discount on all web hosting products including Shared Hosting, VPS Server and Dedicated Servers. You can also use the 25% additional discount to the already discounted products including products with Free Domain names or 3 Years for the Price of 2.

Paul Hughes Managing Director – “With this new 25% discount code you can now have a Budget Hosting account with a domain for as little as £14.99 per year!”

To take advantage of this offer simply enter the code ‘SUM25‘ at checkout.

Also once again this month UKHOST4U have been ranked in the UK’s top 25 hosting companies.

Now there are so so many resources out there, but I want to share my top 5 online resources for web designers, developers and website owners.

Articles & Blog Resources

1 – Smashing Magazine
These guys are simply superb, renowned for the “top ten” lists they role out on a regular basis and of course the experts whom right for the blog, Smashing Mag is always worth a read. Add to this recently they added the Smashing Network of blogs, so now it’s not just Smashing Mag updates you get but also those from other related blogs in the network (only the best blogs). – @smashingmag

2 – Boagworld
Although based around a world famous podcast, the Boagworld website also offers some amazing articles from designers, developer and marketers (including myself) – On top of that you get to see paul boag (the father of web design) rant a little about what is often a nothing subject, but it brings a new non-techie angle which is good. Also the site offers a fairly active forum where all sorts of discussion go on from design discussion to how something works in php. Boagworld is for website owners & recently Paul released “the website owners manual” – a superb reference guide if you have anything to do with a website. – @boagworld

3 – Think Vitamin
From the guys and gals at Carsonified, Think Vitamin is a superb resource for all kinds of things. With topics including business, marketing, design, development, mobile and web apps there is something for everyone here. Also with Think Vitamin radio you can consume materials on the go.  The guys at Carsonified also arrange a number of great conferences each year including various future of events. – @carsonified

4 – 37signals
This is a resource I’ve only just began reading on a regular basis, but it’s well worth spending a few minutes taking a look here each week to see if there is anything of relevance to you. 37signals are all about productivity and making things work properly, they are the makers of the now infamous BaseCamp software and amazing web designers working with clients like threadless. – @37signals

5 – A List Apart
This is primarily a designer and developer blog, it isn’t in any way formed for a website owner (it’s far too techie). However, if you are a website designer or developer I seriously advise you subscribe to the RSS and twitter feed, some big names post here and it’s superb. – @alistapart

Top Web Related Tweeters

Here are all the webby type people i suggest you follow if you have anything to do with the internet. Not all will be relevant to everyone but they all have something great to offer!

@ImpressiveWebs @danoliver  @kirstyburgoine @the_gman @JamieKnight @aral @myinkblog @RellyAB @design365 @skrug @sambrown @benmcfc

It’s all about you!

This list has been formed and outed for you, because I was asked by a fellow designer for my list (and here it is), but now I want to go a step further and want your ideas! so tweet me @andykinsey the resource you favour using, from blogs to css galleries to books, let me know. – Or leave a comment.

Now there are many many SEO and general Internet Marketing myths that are floating around, and have been since the dawn of time. (Ok, dawn of the internet). Today I want to take a look at 15 of the most annoying myths, these are all a complete pile of poop.

Generally you will be told these via huge adverts on a website or over the phone when someone is cold-calling you to try and sell you a service – beware of these commission monkies.

So the 15 Myths which are a load of <insert naughty word> are:

1. We’re endorsed (or work with) Google / Bing / Yahoo.
2. Google Analytics spies on you, don’t use it.
3. Your PageRank (PR) is your search rank (or is highly related too).
4. You should have as many meta tags as possible.
5. Having country specific site’s (in different languages) creates duplicate content.
6. URL’s rank higher if you end them in .html
7. Trading (buying/selling) links increases search rank.
8. Linking to google.com will help your search rankings (or PR).
9. SEO is a one-time activity (or once per year).
10. SiteMaps aren’t for users.
11. There is no need to link all pages, spiders will find them via your XML sitemap.
12. Placing links in tiny (almost invisible) text at the bottom of  a page is effective for ranking.
13. Using an submission site to X thousand “search engines” is good for site ranking.
14. Hyphenated domain names are amazing for SEO.
15. Keyword Density = High Rankings

_{This post is sponsored by UKHost4U the UK’s premier hosting solution.}

So you’ve designed a website, or had one designed for you … you’ve tested it and it functions correctly … but something is missing – your website isn’t CRAP!

That’s right, your website should be as CRAP as possible!

What is CRAP?

All design, no matter whether it is print or online really should be CRAP. The word CRAP refers to the 4 major principles of design; Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Position (or proximity).

Each of these principles has an effect on your design, at least to some extent (and never the same extent on two projects). CRAP is an easy to remember word and if you can remember the main points of each principle then CRAP will help guide you into a more attractive design (than if you don’t make it CRAP). Now, as with most things on the web CRAP-ness began as offline design principles – however, I believe they are just as valuable online as offline.

Creating Contrast in Design

In design you should always avoid 2 or more things being “similar” – this is to say that (for example) if you have headings and text you should always make the difference clear. This means not making them a similar font size, and as with in the case on this website the same colour. The main point here is that If it isn’t the same make it look different a fairly simple idea

So how do you create differences?

• Different Font Styles & Font Sizes
• Different Font or Background Colours
• Underline or Border an Object
• Re-Align an Object
• Space Your Objects

So you’ve got some ideas on how to create contrast on your website, but that isn’t enough because I bet your thinking of some real world examples on your own website(s) and need some help with this. So let’s take a look at some real world examples of contrast on the web.

Emphasis of Interaction

Now there are many ways to signify emphasis of user primary interaction, or “calls to action” as they are more widely known. However, I want to look at the worlds number 1 online user interaction (at least in my view) …. Google

As always Google have kept design to a minimum and user interaction to a maximum. It is clear here what the call to action is… to search! so the buttons stand out clearly and show the user where to click. When you look at a wider view you can see navigation at the top of the screen on both the left and right but this isn’t the main interaction and so is all but ignored by most users.

Highlight Your Notices

Contrasting and highlighting can be very important when things go wrong. We’ve all seen the windows pop-up errors that appear all over the place (even on the high street) but online error messages are vital. If you are filling in a form online, it gets rejected and you can’t find out why easily then you will probably stop filling in the form, for website owners this mean’s you’ve lost a conversion!

Below is an example of a simple error message standing out from it’s form.

Notice how the red border of the box makes the error stand out, this is emphasised even more so by a light red background differentiated from the page background this also makes the text and therefore error stand out.

Repetition of Elements

Repetition of design elements throughout your website(s) creates not just continuity but also an air of professionalism – chopping and changing makes for a second rate interface. Put simply by repetition in this case I am simply talking about “being consistent” in how a site looks, feels and how elements function.

Now generally you will have noticed repetition subconsciously relating to brands, with brands the repetition is dictated in style by brand guidelines. Online this can be a little harder to control for any business, however it is not impossible. The best way to ensure consistency is simply to employ someone as the “controller” or “manager” of your website (or group of) – this will ensure a continued style of user interface.

One of the most consistent of online brands is … once again … Google. Can you see how the below or consistent in design?

Aligning your Content

This is one of the more simply explained CRAP attributes of any design. We all know of the 3 major alignments (mainly because we’ve all used them on Microsoft Office); Left, Centre & Right. The rule of thumb is simple; Always think about alignment, never randomly align. This is to say as with the above continuity you should always follow your own rules for alignment of elements (and this includes text obviously).

Correctly aligned elements can be used to guide the user through a document or web page, just as incorrectly aligned elements can harm the user experience (and make people turn away in many cases). Users naturally will follow a hard line of an element, so if you are left aligned this is where the user will focus (on the left), and the same with the right. The next natural occurrence is that humans will also follow pages from top to bottom in the search for what they are after (generally skimming content), a more natural flow is from top left to bottom right (as with print on an A4 Page).

Now, do a Google Search … you will see all text is left-aligned, very little content (if any) is otherwise aligned.

Positioning is Key

Proximity of elements, sounds a little like rocket science… but it isn’t. Quite simply I am talking about placing related elements close to each other (primarily navigation/controls). Mentally, things that are positioned closer to each other are subconsciously seen as having a stronger relationship that those far apart.  However, being close doesn’t always mean related, this can difference is easily shown by a breakdown header or some other break point.

A clear example of this (once again) can be seen on the latest Google SERP update.

As you can see Google have added a secondary navigation tool bar to the left of the results (primary tool being the search bar). The proximity of this navigation to the results shows these are related items. Also you can see a clear horizontal rule between the top links and bottom, this shows a split in relation. The lower links are secondary tools for a user to use (my guess is they may look nice but aren’t often used).

Following the rules of being CRAP will make for a better website & better user experience all around.

So is your website CRAP? Let SEOAndy know via twitter (@andykinsey)

Your navigation looks just like the one on your competitors website… only yours is more “user friendly”?

Well I’m sorry but the chances are you are speaking from your bum… for a few reasons

I want to make clear that some navigation’s are simply amazing I highlight some examples during this post.

1 – Going Over The Top

Now as all designers will know, especially if you’ve worked in an agency format… clients will always ask for you to “photocopy” something from a competitors websites. Now right away this has always sent me running for the hills, if only because each website has a unique audience and so called “photocopying” of in this case a navigation can lead to scary results. In this case I also suspect the client stakeholders have said “make it user friendly for our OLDER audience” … the designer has gone over the top with this idea and it is now not user friendly. So let’s take a look at 2 examples, one has a superb navigation and the other … well that is just scary.

Waitrose vs Wiltshire Farm Foods

Now, both of these two websites are aimed (in my view) at similar audiences, the elderly. Now with this in mind I guess Waitrose  have decided to go all out and make it so user-friendly… but wait wait, the over size text looks hideous, the almost zero contrast of grey and black is just stupid (what if someone has blurred vision?) – oh and lets not forget the scruffy coding! Now compare Waitrose to Wiltshire, WFF has the large text, the text contrasts well with the green background … oh and lets add to this the navigation is so much clearer WFF doesn’t use a drop down system … that is how intuitive the WFF navigation is. Oh and although I know I didn’t have too look at the code, it is nice on WWF – well done Headscape (as always – follow @boagworld )

Visit The Websites: Waitrose (www.waitrose.com) and
Wiltshire Farm Foods (www.wiltshirefarmfoods.com)

2 – Death to Flash

Ok my heading sounds a little like I’m itching for a fight from the “flash camp” … truth is I’m not. I have nothing against flash, unless you count I hate it, Search Engines hate it …oh and did I mention it isn’t user friendly. Ok, *deep breath* I don’t hate it as much as some people… I just hate it’s use as a navigation means, as a whole website or to hold anything but multimedia content … using it for special features such as video (see YouTube) is ok though.

I don’t think I need to say much more on flash navigation and how it really doesn’t work … but you will want an alternative… We call this CSS with a lovely mix of JavaScript tools (like JQuery & MooTools). If you want to see some great examples of lovely javascript css navigation scroll to point 2 on this (top) 50 beautiful navigations from Smashing Magazine.

You get the message don’t you? Don’t use FLASH for your navigation!

3 – That is a SITEMAP not a navigation

This point is something an annoyance and can cause all sorts of issues. In the world of design we know that simple navigation is king, so we say have 5 main navigation links – brilliant. We then add another layer to one or 2 links … still good stuff. But arghhh someone has gone over the top and bulked it all out to confuse everyone! … In essence you have made your main navigation into a sitemap – big no no and so anti-user it scares me.

Simple Navigation or Complex Sitemap

Argos, some people will think this is a nice “user friendly website” well ok, it is in some respects. But take a look at this navigation… talk about over the top. Almost 50 sublinks of the primary navigation! Who ever thought this was a “user friendly” idea needs a shot in the head – bit extreme I know.

Let me twist my point to illustrate what I really mean here. From the above you can see it’s over filled, utterly useless on the surface and surely there is a better way of doing this. So let’s take a look at a site where the multi-level navigation works very well and has a real purpose unlike this Argos website. Porsche have taken a multi-level navigation and made it work. Primary (car type) Secondary (model) final layer (car info) … it works, it’s interactive and it is simple.

Porsche Navigation is User-Friendly

Visit The Websites: Argos (www.argos.co.uk) and
Porsche (www.porsche.com)

Now I know there are many more reasons a navigation may not be user-friendly, such as not being intuitive to use. However, I’d like to know why you think site navigation’s don’t work, let SEOAndy (@andykinsey) know your navigation nightmares & also let us see some amazing examples of useful navigation’s.

A strong brand is what can differentiate your business from any other, it helps you to stand out from the crowd and allow your customers to identify with your company in an engaging manner. Brands create loyalty, trust, a base on which to build your business and most importantly a connection with your customers.

When you think brands (like I asked you to with our previous series of brand management posts) you will think of the likes of Apple, Nike or maybe Asda, it is this train of thought which disenfranchises most small businesses from thinking that they too can create and develop their own brand.

As you may have guessed from the title of this post, this is not the case. Indeed, a strong brand for a SME (small-to-medium sized business) can be built with relatively little expense, this is because branding is all about perception. Perception of which is created in the minds of your staff, your stakeholders (funders/partners) and most importantly that of your clients, is based on what they see, hear, feel and experience with your company and/or products/services you offer.

The emotions (of the brand perception) are based on the messages your brand gives off. This is to say everything from if your showroom is warm and comfortable to how nice your staff are to the quality of services you offer, so you see it is not exclusively your company image or logo. (The logo of a company is NOT it’s brand)

Basically – A brand is much more about the promises you make your customers and how you fulfil these promises.

At this point it is therefore a good idea to know exactly what kind of clientèle you wish to attract, what your core message is, and this should be done before you even begin to create your brand – these should be in your business plan*

Top things to consider:

• Who do you wish to attract? (male/female, age range, type of person etc etc)
• Where does your business fit into the market (as a whole and locally)?
• Is your company based around cost or quality?
• Who are your competitors (locally, nationally and internationally)?
• How do your competitors look & behave? Describe the brand of your competitor.

Does your business (SME) need a brand?

Whether you like it or not, even now your business has a brand. That’s right even if you think your business has no brand it does, it has a personality.

Customers and Suppliers will already have formed an opinion of what kind of business you are. This will have been formed from simple things like phone calls, emails, letters, how quickly you pay your bills, how clean your office (or store) is and how receptive your staff are. All of the above perceptions of your brand are based on a deep level of thinking, they are subconscious perceptions, which may be working with you (or against you).

Once you realise that you do have a brand and simple actions can form opinions of the brand, you can really start to take control of the brand. This means controlling brand strength through producing/creating a more cohesive and positive message. So without further thought let’s get you started with the basic building blocks of your brand.

The good news is that all you need for this exercise is a pen and paper

Starting Point > Building Blocks of Brand Creation

Over the years more and more companies are awakening to realise just how powerful their brand could be for them. Take for example the word “cola” … have a think about it, my bet is you will be thinking CocaCola or Pepsi Cola … and so is everyone else, so now the question is what could you do with your brand to make it as strong as these in your market.

The Cola Effect

Firstly, you must take you must take a good hard look at yourself, your business and just what you have to work with, the longer you take on this section the more it will pay off later.  You may find little to work with (to progress with) in which case you will find what you need to change and adapt – these are valid findings … as always in the process make notes. This is known in the branding/marketing trade as a basic “brand audit” or “brand review” – though we would probe areas maybe you are too close to and take for granted.

Now you’ve got some notes, put them to one side. With any luck you already have a business, you have clients and suppliers, so ask them for their opinions – maybe do this via an online survey (people are much more likely to be honest and brutal if you are not stood in front of them). The views of these people are vitally important as they are the ones perceiving your brand, they are the ones to whom the brand really matters. They provide an “outsiders view” of your brand, adding depth to your review.

Repeat the above step with your staff, see if they agree with you and/or your external assets. Ascertaining the facts is very important, and the chances are your view, the staffs view and external views will be different - but hopefully not significantly. If they are the same brilliant, if not (as in 99% of cases) it simply means you need to redefine your message and find a new way to convey it clearly.

Tip: By including staff and stakeholders in your brand review and giving them a voice of opinion which you take seriously (you have to give them an open field to criticise without fear of rebuff) increases the likelyhood they will be willing to help make the changes you need, and it will also add loyalty and install confidence in your team.

During your brand review there are several key questions you need to be asking all parties:

• What are the core abilities of your company? and the staff?
• What are you and your staff good and bad at? (remember be brutally honest)
• How do your customers and suppliers view your business?
  (ask them! – reliable, cheap, expensive, nice, warm, quality, exciting, customer focused etc)
• What words are associated with your business? (ask other business owners locally)
• Is there a pattern in your client-base? (demographic)
• Why are your client-base who they are?
  (you maybe targeting 18-24 year olds but your client base are all 40-odd… why?)
• Who would you like to work with in the short-term, and long-term? (audience wise)
• Finally, are there any black holes in your business, things people say are missing?

Constructing A Brand Review

When you’ve got the answers to the questions you’ve posed it’s time to take your notes again and compare to find the differences. With more answers you get more clarity for the review, now on a single page go through the answers you have, take key points, take recurring views and importantly write down the extremes of the opinions.

Now you’ve identified these differences in perception of your brand it is time to generate a plan, remain realistic and don’t be tempted to idealise your plan based on other brands or similar shops – you are your own business and stand alone in the market. Remember however that you need to be appealing to your market in some manner, whether its simply amazing products or astounding customer service.

Development of Brand Values

You’ve done the leg work, you’ve researched and analysed opinions of your brand, both internally and externally. Now it’s time to turn our attention to your “brand values” and the “brand commitments”.

Ideally you should have around three standing core values, two of which are based on difference brokers and the third is an overall value. There is zero benefit in having pages of unworkable brand values, you’ll never remember them and nor will your staff or external assets – forget long lists be concise and to the point.

Core Overall Brand Values – these are the values which your business must have to operate within a given market, generally unless you are in a tiny niche these maybe somewhat common to you and your competition.

As an example lets look at café’s – core brand values maybe a simple as being clean (both staff and equipment), quality food and good end user cost – most café’s will have similar values.

Difference Broker Brand Values – these are the values on the other side of the coin. They are what makes your business different from your competition, this is the important set of values which makes the big difference to your customers, it is something they will associate with you over any competition.

There should always be a link between who your brand really is and where you want your brand to go – i.e how you wish to be perceived by customers and suppliers. The most important thing in this process is often your staff, getting staff to understand your vision of the brand values can help define your brand significantly. And remember earlier you got them involved in the consultation, this is where they will thank you by helping you out.

Having staff understand your brand empowers them to behave in a certain manner which will reinforce your brand. So if you’re a casual company maybe they will wear everyday clothes to work (make sure you logo them up), but if you are working in a salon you want to show professionalism so your staff should be wearing a recognisable uniform. The staff you have are one of the most important tools in your arsenal for brand development, they are in a vital position to make or break your brand.

As I say they could break your brand, this happens if they don’t understand your brand values, don’t agree with them or sometimes simply aren’t at your meeting where you take questions – they’ve only seen them in writing and don’t understand it so interpret the values in a different way to you and other staff. Damage can easily be made into a company with one bad event, but it can take many years for this to be recovered – take BP at this current time with the events in america, this huge oil leak will not only cause staffing changes but will cost billions of pounds in clear up costs, but also billions in lost sales due to damage of the brand. So I repeat by empowering your staff from the start of your consultation you get them on board and understanding where you are going and why.

Your “brand promises” and “brand values” are the foundations on which you will base your brand, they are most vital aspects of your brand – but they can be helped along with a few little ideas … which conveniently i’ve put just below this section (how nice of me )

Brand Identity

This is the bit many of you will have visited for this is where your brand meets a logo … this is called brand identity (sometimes referred to as corporate identity). This of course refers to the visual identifier of a brand, the logo, this is one of the things which allows your audience to recognise your brand.

As with everything in your brand which carries a message, once you have a logo to make the most of the logo’s impact for your brand you should apply it everywhere you can. This being a visual identifier (unlike brand tone – see below) this means putting it on all of your products, your website, your business cards, letter heads, company vehicles, newsletters (both internal and external) and of course emails (there are many more but I won’t bore you).

When you completed your brand review, one of the things commonly found is that the logo needs “updating” or bringing up to date, in order to meet your business values – which may be significantly different since your last logo design. The logo is your opportunity to engage with your audience, things like style, colour and design are all elements which contribute to the effectiveness of your logo in engaging with your potential customers.

In brand growth it is, of course, important to meet the needs of today’s ever changing markets (both locally and globally). Many big brands do this each year, every year (for example the multiple different apple logo’s over the decades). They also evolve the brand by examining the smaller details, for example Texas Instruments (a microprocessor manufacturer) examined whether sending paper datasheets with their products was effective and whether people used them … the answer was no (and its the same when people send newsletters in the post for many years without renewing the list – do people still read them after 5 years… probably not) … so TI made a move and put the datasheets online. This worked well for 2 several reasons; they could update brand image more easily as they weren’t reliant on old customer who would recognise a new logo, also it saved a lot of money – it cut packaging down and it also as a whole reduced cost of marketing ( part of which is now profit, part they reinvest).

If your business is in a market subject to changes then you should consider building into your “identity” a proportion of flexibility to allow your image to change over the years.

Brand Tone

Messages which your brand give off, be this for internal or external usage, memo email or bill board poster, the tone of a brand is important to the communication. The tone of voice is everything from the words you use, to the style used and the personality your message gives off.

The brand values and your identity should help you decide the right tone of voice for your company. The big companies have provided us with some fantastic examples, just one of which is the Virgin brand.

Virgin are known to be cheeky, friendly, outgoing and young – they aim for the youthful market of teenagers.
A great example is one of the latest adverts for virgin (bingo) - embedded below.

Ok maybe this doesn’t have the viral factor that virgin were seeking, but it does show that they aren’t taking themselves too seriously – and its the same with almost every other brand to come from virgin – find out more by reading some of the Richard Branson Books (here).

So with this in mind as yourself, does your brand have an existing tone and what is the tone? Also does your brand speak on a one-to-one basis or in third person?  Are you approaching your audience in an attractive and friendly manner or are you simply competing as someone else in the market … do you (again) stand out from the crowd?

Remember – your tone should always be consistent regardless of communication method or end point. This means from every member of staff the message should be both the same and as passionate.

Brand Management

Before reading this section it is very important to remember one little thing. Brand Management is not a short-term fix to the success of a business, rather brand management is about the long-term strategy that requires commitment.

When such a strategy is implemented effectively, your brand will grow and prosper. As your brand grows, your strategy must also develop – and this is when your long-term game playing becomes important.

Driving your brand forward is important, not just on day one but over the years and decades your business exists. The good thing is that you will have help along the way, in 2 ways. One you will have your staff and stakeholders, it is these people who have a vested interest in your brand and making it a success that will help push your brand forward in the best direction possible. The second is of course your customer, if you do a great job or offer something really amazing or different then your customers will be your best brand builder, best advertising media and better yet experience is Free … they will sell your product or services by word of mouth – this is where a lot of new sales can come from. You may also find that over the time your brand grows your employee base will evolve and you will begin to attract certain types of employee – think of the differences between employees in say Top Shop, a retail bank like Barclays and say technology leaders Google (all attract different types of people and employee based on brand values, tone and how you manage your brand).

As I’ve mentioned above customer interaction with you brand is a tool for your brand to evolve. You should be using this all important feedback, it is these people and this feedback that will show you how to grow and evolve and what your market wants from month to month and year to year.

To help your brand evolve you should be doing the following:

• Reviewing your competitors techniques,  see where they are going wrong and more importantly what they are doing correctly.
• If you see an unhappy customer or a confused customer talk to them find out what is wrong and correct it there and then.
• Review everything on a regular basis from staff progress, to brand identity, to overall customer happiness – reviewing everything means you see the bigger picture sooner.

Of course one thing you must remember is there will be victims of your progress along the way, you may loose staff who don’t like what you become, you may loose customers who may not like the way you are moving or you may loose faith in general of your brand external. The important thing is to review review review, know why your staff leave and try to make things better before they do, know where your custom is going and why (is it just brand values or something more?) and the most important thing is to keep going through it all – if you can’t keep faith in your brand then no body else will. Maybe you will take a “wider” view of your brand than others and in doing so you keep the values going but can change the methods by which you get to your end goal.

For my next point in brand management 101 I would like you to consider McDonald’s the fast food global franchise chain, and how they have perfected their menu on a global level. Brand continuity is important and it is only through planning and good strategic management you can get this. Your brand should be consistent both ascetically (from logo to shop layout) and in price (and not forgetting quality and message, but i’ve rambled on this above). So back to McDonald’s, you walk into a shop your greeted by the same checkout system in each restaurant, the same price (effectively) and lets not forget the small detail that is the staffing uniform. McDonald’s have perfected all of the above on not just a local level but also a global level – something other brands such as SubWay and KFC seem to struggle to do very well.

Finally in this short brand management 101 section I want to consider ‘resources’ and the reality that your resources can only reach so far. If you over reach you will look a little silly and will also look completely stupid and untrustworthy when it comes to your brand being bankrupt. However, one key point I must emphasise is that not all old adages are true, they say “pay peanuts, get monkey’s” this is all well and good I guess, unless you want monkeys

Finally, Your Brand is Living

From all the above you should have come to realise that a brand is at the centre of any company. If your body is akin to the business, then your brand and everything about it is your heart and soul. Now think of the big brands and how they deliver on all the above areas. Sure they have huge amounts of money and people now, but go back to the start of their stories – not many had any money at day one (at least not on the level they do now) – so if they can do it, so can you.

My final bits of advice are quite simple;

• With the worlds markets ever more competitive, you must find your place in the market and essentially you and your team must decide on the direction of your brand (using the techniques above).
• By using these techniques you wont just develop a brand – that is nice I know – but you will also create an advantage over your other SME competitors, this in a world where people like to support local small businesses can be very important.
• If you can create a distinctive brand for your business you can then go onto develop a business to go with it. There is a train of thought which says if you create a brilliant brand that you can use that brand for any business(es) you want, i believe this is very true – a great example is Virgin … so…..

Today is the day you start to grow your brand for tomorrow.

If you need any help with your brand then feel free to contact me.

Now this post title may evoke certain emotions within those involved in the web industry on a day-to-day basis, and of course the content creators of any business website (though of course creating good content isn’t just for the web). The one reaction I am sure many will have thought is “not this again” or “another post about writing good copy” (followed by pressing the back button of the browser).

Well if those people are still reading let me reassure you this isn’t going to be the usual dribble you get from many SEO Blogs, today I want to focus on “good content” in terms of the feelings you can evoke within the reader of your site, or even from the graphics you use.

Looking over various emails from current and previous clients, and correspondence between myself and those who are interested in SEO Services or just wanted to know more about SEO – I am given the feeling overall that they (in their mind) are saying “I could do that” and they all generally show the perception of developing good content is easy.

Now without being too blunt (and as any good copywriter will tell you) it is NOT easy. Indeed given the overpowering noise of the internet (you know the stuff you don’t want to know or where someone is rambling on before getting to a point, or maybe not getting there at all) and the need to be more than distinctively average, creating great content is not easy. Given that the noise to good content ratio is pretty poor (for most sites), I’ve formulated 4 key points to help you to create good content – and no, this doesn’t mean I’m saying that anyone can create good content.

Be Passionate

Even if you are selling what is the most boring thing on the earth (for example a toe nail) it is your job as the content creator to be passionate, if you’re not no body else is going to be (ever!). Boring content means bad bad results, ok you may get the odd sale but you will not sell more than if your passion for your work were evident for all to see. Now if you invented your product or service I am sure you will have no issue showing your sheer passion and belief in the product – and the user will feel your passion. If you are struggling to show passion for a product/service (you’re not alone) why not join the many who hire someone to inject that extra bit of passion.
Passion is a key selling tool to evoke emotion within a user.

Be Intentional

Think about this term before you read on, like those who read this article before I published it you may struggle to understand exactly what I mean. Plus even if you do, you may still struggle to do this with your own site(s) – like me (yes within these four walls I am sometimes guilty of this). Planning your content and the delivery method(s) you will use for each bit of content, if you use a trial and error method in posting analyse your statistics and you will produce more predictable results. In other words, this means you can start to create posts, pages and other content which will bring people back time and time again, or will create more links to your site – it also means you don’t waste time posting links (or other content) where you don’t need to, time you can spend more productively. Further more plan each article or page, do not dance around the main points in your content, make them stand out. At the heart of this point is one key point
Do NOT leave content and delivery to a “spur of the moment”.

Be Creative

Ok this in some ways speaks for itself, I’m saying be unique in what your content says both literally and emotionally. If you are writing the same kind of thing again and again then not only will your passion move away, but so will your users. We are all guilty of this from time to time. For example I was guilty of this for sometime with this site in the beginning, until I realised that wasn’t what people wanted, they wanted variety and to get something different from what any other site can offer. If you are not unique then why would anyone come to you? it’s simple they wouldn’t. Now although they say a picture speaks a thousand words, this is ok for humans so do include graphics to aid your points, but it is the word which feeds the search engine spider. My point is this
Unique content means happier users and search engines

Be Consistent

If you are the owners of a blog or a website which produces a fair amount of content then this is simple, create a schedule and keep to it, humans like things on a regular basis (think of your 3 meals a day, equate this to the number of posts per week or month and set days these are delivered). If you content is static – an information only site – then this is a little harder but here is where both you guys (and women) and the regular release content readers must take note. Content is the key to the gold passing your palm, keeping the tone, manner, style (and timing as mentioned above) is very important, especially for information pages. No body likes to get used to the tone of a page (which users do subconsciously) only to be unsettled on the next page because the tone has changed making it near impossible to read, it also means that they will miss much of your content as they can’t grasp what you are saying. My point is as follows
Chopping and changing style, tone & timing is not good for you or your user.

So despite the title of this article, creating good content is NOT so easy. It just happens to look easy. So if you create content here is my challenge to you. Think of content you have created, being brutally honest, did you put all of the above points into your content? If you’re as honest as you can be then you will be likely to say “yes there was effort, but no passion” or “maybe it could have been delivered in a better format or via different channels”. If you’re not so serious then i’m not sure what will happen other than you will continue on the path you have been on, I just hope that this some how subconscious makes your content better somehow.

Did you know that you can earn some cash from SEOAndy by referring one of our services to a friend? Click if, You want to know about our referral scheme.

Well we’ve finally reached the end of our “building your brand” series of articles, this is the sixth and final instalment (7 if your technical about this). In this article I will look at the 10 things which will make your brand/company not just stand out from the crowd and competitors but also develop your unique selling point (usp).

It may seem like a lame way to do these in a “top 10″ fashion but that isn’t how I’m treating these, these points are in no particular order and are all important to any brand, regardless of size (generally).

Increased Selection

Increasing your selection of products and/or service is one simple way to stand out from the crowd. Another reason for a larger selection is that you are seen to be covering all areas of your market, the more you offer under one roof the less work clients need to do running around from business to business, plus maybe you can give them a discount for taking multiple services with you (remember how to improve customer loyalty)
Consider: if you sell something (product or service) don’t just offer them on your site, go to free advertising like gumtree and freeindex. If its a product try ebay or amazon.

Innovative Product / Service

If you have a new product with a patent covering it or a service that others don’t offer, you will have something that no one else can offer. Another reason for doing this kind of thing is that you show you are upto date and working towards the future in your market, you are a market leader.
Consider:  Patents can take sometime to occur, especially world rights, so apply in good time - remember you can go to manufacture with patent pending. Also make sure you tell potential clients you are the only brand selling the product and what makes this product/service so special.

Multi Use Products / Services

Once you have a service or product, think of how you can twist them to become useful for something else. Multi purpose products mean that the end user doesn’t need to buy another product, they save money and are likely to come back to you.
Consider: Aspirin has multiple uses including treating pain and preventing heart attacks – very useful. Mobile phones are now digital cameras too… what in your selection of products & services can you twist to help your end user.

Extreme Customer Service

Customer service can make or break a brand, ensuring your customers know you are eager to deliver the best service both through products and customer service implores the customer to trust you and your company & possibly recommend you. Going the extra mile can often make the difference between a sale or no sale, or between the customer return for repeat custom or not.
Consider: If someone contacts you that you ensure you say thank you, ask them for feedback on your product or service (and say thank you for this), ensure you go the extra mile (sometimes literally like Dr’s doing house visits). Maybe like myself you can send an automatic thank you to anyone enquiring using a form on our websites. – This point helps with customer loyalty too.

Convenience of Sale

Make your product or service be convenient to buy or use, it can make that last step to use a little easier. A great example of making a service convenient is Banking ATM’s in supermarkets or shopping centres. If you offer a local service make the service more accessible by getting leaflets into local shops, show your support for these shops in return for a little help for your local shop.
Consider: If you offer a service or product ensure you reach a wider audience by using the internet as a revenue stream

Confidence in Expertise

If you have expertise in a given field you should be using this to sell, and training others to sell for you. Sounds simple when I say it like that and it can be but the important thing is that you use the knowledge to a useful end with your customer. A great example is your best friend, the IT guy, you call him up and he can help you with many things from “why doesn’t my printer work?” to “how do I install this?” to connectivity issues … he shares his knowledge, but equally if he worked for an IT company he could use and exploit this knowledge as a selling tool to make a sale or to upsell – both valuable sales you wouldn’t have otherwise.
Consider: If you are the line manager or overall manager of a company, do your staff have ALL the knowledge they could in your field of speciality – if you work in clothing shop for “hip” teenagers, do your staff know about the latest trends and how people want to look?if not why not? Get them Trained. – Equally this can be said for any part of any business.

Pricing Strategy

Consider Apple and Microsoft – Apple are highly priced, “executive toy”-like, amazing quality products (apparently ) – whilst Microsoft are a lower priced common place machine for everyman and his dog, plus they are always in the new for viruses and stuff (it seems). Not getting the picture ? Ok well …
Consider: If you price high you convey quality for the higher end of the market, lower pricing will bring the thrifty peoples attention. This isn’t always true though, if the whole market charges high prices for something – either they are all great quality or something is going on – great example of this is the Virgin Atlantic & British Airways price fixing scandal.

Longevity of a Product or Service

As I’ve mentioned before your primary selling tool should be based on time and emotion (see price advertising means fail here). But I feel the need to clear this up with a few examples from adverts those in the UK (maybe else where) will recognise. Using time to tug on the strings of emotion can mean selling at a high price easier because you are offering the little bit extra (seemingly for free!).
Consider: Tyres – Michelin (amongst others) are always always going on in TV adverts about how much further the tyres they sell can go compared to “ordinary tyres” … this is like Fairy Liquid saying 50% extra free on bottles in store and in adverts going further telling you in every advert for the past 5 years that “fairy liquid lasts longer” … an interesting outcome to note is that on TV adverts saying xx% free doesn’t appear to work for the UK market, however when instore or looking at posters in the street or banners on the internet xx% free does very well.

Offer a Guarantee

Offering some kind of promise is a fantastic way to either clinch a sale or implore trust in your company. Asda (Walmart UK for you americans ) offer a money back guarantee “if you are not 100% satisfied” with their home-brand products, everything is covered from shampoo to cutlery to food goods – a great way to show you are quality in what you do. This week Asda have gone one step further (in some way) and have jumped on what is a common bandwagon in other industries (insurance mainly) and say if you can finx X cheaper in asda than another shop get the difference off your next shop.
Consider:  99.99% of those who see your offer will never take it up, there may be one or two people who do but because you have grown trust and belief in your brand, products and services the sales generated from this will be far far more than the sales you would have recieved without – but be careful not to offer something you can’t keep to. Broken promises can spread the world in seconds in this digital ages – as can bad news … ask Gordon Brown.

Packaging for Market

Offer packaging options which make you stand above the rest. Supermarkets do this by offering a variety of long-life bags, plastic 5p ones, fabric 34p ones and more. The shape and designs change, size, brightness, environmental concerns and more all make a difference. The thing with packaging for supermakets like Asda, Tesco and Morrisons is that this is another way to raise revenue, but for the foremost they don’t they claim they do it for the environment and so make no profit … but this isn’t the same for small businesses or sending out parcels. If this is you…
Consider: Can you package using less material – saving money and space, Can you make the package childproof – this means if its a present or damageable good it won’t get hurt, Can you make the packaging intuitive – Ribena  juice cartons with a straw in the side, where as cheaper drinks have no attached straw (not user friendly), Can you offer free gift wrapping at a certain price, Can you brand your packaging so that even whilst in transit your brand is being seen.

Welcome to the penultimate article in the “building your brand” series, today I want to talk about the usage of social media to help promote your company, a product/service or yourself (personal brand).

To help illustrate the various characters that can be found in social media and to see which best suits you I am going to work with examples of a teenage party (18th birthday or leaving school type thing, where all are invited). The reason for this is that in my view social media is just a like a party, and the hosts are the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Ning, Digg and many others. You or Your Brand are the guests and just like partying teenagers its about “standing out” and “being the best” … not being the little ignored guy in the corner.

@ The Social Media Party

The guy/girl in the corner
Ok so this sounds like I’m being a little mean, but we’ve all seen the little shy guy/girl or person with few friends who is very quiet attending a party but not really doing much. Sometimes they sit alone sometimes with others but none the less they are quiet and unheard. This to me is like creating a facebook fan page for your brand and not shouting about it. Just because you attend the party doesn’t mean you will make any friends, you have to advertise and network to develop the relationships where by people will come and talk to you, or in this case join the fan page or follow your twitter account.

Consider:  If you answer “yes” to the following questions then you should start a conversation, otherwise next time you hear “everyone is doing the social media thingy, so should we” have the guts to say “no” because its not right for you. Do you have content worth sharing? Do you release content worth sharing on a regular basis (including blog posts)? Is your target audience under 35?

The Loudmouth Blabber
The loudmouth is the one that overcompensates for the lack of value they carry by blabbering on … basically decrease in quality in crease in quantity. The person is constantly demanding attention and never listens. This is exactly the same with social media (or blogging) companies whom are constantly “pimping” themselves and the products/services they offer, by not listening to feedback from the crowd you are in essence shutting the door in their face – they are unlikely to want to come back and talk to you (in our case less likely to deal with your business or brand).

Consider: Social media should speak for itself because your content should also, if your content doesn’t talk quality then you stand little chance in social media. In general the higher the quality of product/service the more people will talk about it on the social networks. The theory is that you should only need to post 1 link per post you write, it is then for the community you have to spread the word (from one to another and so on, the viral effect if you’re lucky).

The Sparkling Showoff
We all know who I’m talking about, the people who get out their smart phone or little gadget that does something special, or shows off something expensive or that he/she know one else in the room has (maybe an iPhone or the new iPad). People gather round (follow your group on facebook, follow you on twitter etc) to be closer to the centre of the party. Soon after they gathered begin to dissipate and back off because they realise that the gadget maybe inaccessible (they won’t get a go on it), the person/brand is intimidating or maybe they realise that the person/brand/product is bland and nothing special. This is like launching a new site online, there is a social media buzz and viral effect almost but after a few days the honeymoon effect ends because you haven’t maintained the connection with the others, you’ve decided that instead of you working you will let your product do the talking… not always the best route it is generally the connection and relationship you have with your clients that brings them back time and time again.

Consider: Beauty is skin deep, products and services have a limited ability to talk for you and sell themselves – it is for you to connect and show the real value and resource of your product… it is you whom the connection is with and you whom the community trust – not your service.

The Buzzword Adict
These are the people who namedrop constantly or are constantly talking about themselves and what they have done that is so amazing recently, even though for most people what they do is for them an everyday event! These people are those who go online mention famous names left, right and centre just to get attention – or perhaps they fill social content such as twitter with keywords and links … not only do people pick up on this but they will begin to ignore you and further to this search engines will take little to no notice of these events. The best bet and best practice is to talk naturally and not to act as you think you should be seen, social media is about conversation not campaigning for your product or services.

Consider: Remember what I said earlier it’s a converstation, it’s two way and it should be totally natural. If you decide to use social media it requires commitment to engagement, not commitment to a campaign.

Be a R.A.T.

Sounds like a peculiar thing to tell someone but being the RAT can make your social media branding exercise extra special and give it that x-factor that your competitors don’t have, after all if you are going to be the same as them what is the point – you need to be the best.

Responding Now
British Telecom are well known for having one of the worst customer service records in the UK. Unlike some companies (eg ComCast – telecoms company in the USA) BT are yet to find social media as a route to better service. ComCast offers a twitter conversation (via @ComCastCares) to its customers to help report and fix problems but the minor and major, they are not alone in doing this, one of the AKD partners UKHost4u also offer a similar service to repost hosting issues or outages. Responding quickly to current and potential customers is of the upmost importance, gaining trust isn’t easy but this is one great big leap you can take towards being trusted. As well as this it also protects your brand because you are acting in a very proactive manner to reduce larger complaints.

Adventure Beyond Competitors
Don’t be afraid to think outside the box and do something new or different, something from another industry or that has never been done before. A good way to do this is to offer a competition with a huge prize to draw attention, this is how big brands do it so try it with a smaller brand too, if they do it so can you.

Target Correctly
Targeting your audience is very important, you must target and speak to your audience in the correct tone and manner. Each type of person and audience requires a different approach – for example KFC or McDonalds would target the younger generations trying to take a tone which is “young and urban” maybe even using texting acronyms like Vodafone have done on billboards with the advert “unltd txts” … if you are selling meals on wheels to elderly people online then you may not use social media to begin with but if you do you will need a softer less abrasive tone which speaks on a friendly level with the client.

3 Steps to a Strong Social Brand

1 – planning
Planning your social events can be a crucial point for any business or brand (not so much if your selling yourself as a brand because that is you as a person and should be you talking naturally off the cuff not pre prescribed). You need to determine what you want to show your brand as being (consider brand position), plan what resources you want to show-off and consider why you want to show it off – don’t just do it for the sake of it because you can. Remember quality over quantity. Also plan which social media outlets you will use, facebook and twitter are the norms but if your technical you may want to take a look at Digg or Delicious.
Hint: Writing down your plan means if you go away on holiday the conversation continues.

2 – Implement
This is where the hard work really begins, you need to put your strategy into action – generally unless you’re your own brand this isn’t a one man job (though you can hire an seo like Andy Kinsey) to really help you out. If you get stuck and need help posting tweets on a regular basis you may want to consider auto-tweeting using socialtoo.com

3 – Analysis
Tracking and monitoring your implementation and time on social media can be very important, otherwise you won’t really know the impact it has had on your sales or visitors. There are many tools for doing this, one of the simplest is simply using analytics tools (such as google analytics) but generally this isn’t enough, there are a number of ways to check the number of times a link you post is clicked, several are paid but the one i favour bitly is completely free and they are constantly improving the analytics they provide (also bitly is a link shortening service).

Do you have any tips for using social media for branding? Is your brand currently in need of followers on twitter or facebook? Do you own a successful social brand? If you’ve said “yes” to any of the above then leave a comment below.

Over the past few weeks you will have read a lot about branding, and over the next few weeks this will continue. But this week I want to introduce some new services that we can offer at exclusive rates through our mother company, Andy Kinsey Designs.

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Our packages can be customised to meet you needs more closely, but we think we’ve got most companies covered, if not buy an add-on, if you still can’t find what you want then make an enquiry and leave the extra bit as a message/comment for us – we’re always looking to expand and something you want may also be something someone else wants!

And here’s the exciting bit!

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For the third (ok, fourth if your being clever) article in this series of “building your brand” I want to focus on your customers and how you can change certain aspects within a brand (and actions it makes) to make the consumer more receptive to the brand, including products or services you offer.

In the recent recession (and I say that knowing the UK has shown economic growth for the last quarter of 2009 and first of 2010) I watched carefully as brand after brand crumbled in the UK and around the globe, including many financial brands which most people were here to stay. Other than the banking fiasco causing the recession around the world, another thing which helped fuel the economic depression (and causes issues for many companies) is that prices are being driven lower. The reasons for this are many and varied, a number of companies believe that the customers have “been empowered with information” and therefore know where to go to compare prices or get it cheaper. In my view this is not so much the case, the drop in prices is down to a lack of strong brands, in the 90′s and early 00′s big brands such as Nike, Adidas, Microsoft and Apple dominated the global markets in many ways, looking at the same brands now adidas is slowly dieing, as are nike and microsoft, apple remains strong due to its market position as being “elite” and not so much for the ordinary punter… they price themselves in the upper market. As I said in my previous post about brand position:

The more obvious the connection is between the brand and the prospect’s daily activities, the greater the chances are that the chances of selling the product or service you are offering.

I recently did some research for these posts (as I do with all posts I make) and subsequently did an analysis of what I found and any data figures I could compare – and it is the 3 significant findings about customer loyalty I want to now concentrate on. The interesting part of this is that these cover all markets and industries not one specifically, the mindset of the consumer the world over doesn’t change very much in respect to these ideas.

Price Advertising = FAIL!

Time is the sales driver, not the price. (ok over generalising here but I will go into this in depth in a post in the future). Lets take the following common examples, when your reading these think carefully about if the product mentioned is changed to something you use on a regular basis what you would do.

Example 1

Slimming Pills – Buy 150 Capsules and Get 28 Free – £29.95

Example 2

1 Months Supply of Slimming Pills, Clinically Proven to Show Results in Less Than 3 Weeks of Continual Usage – More than 20% FREE – £29.95

Example 3

Slimming Pills – Proven to Work in Under 3 Weeks – 20% extra FREE – £29.95

These examples are taken from a discussion with a client selling diet pills Kaloss Trimmers

I admit these aren’t the best examples but lets unpack them. Example one is too the point and shows the sale clearly and effectively, but its lacking a real pull. Example two is very much wordy and as such is wasting the users time from the start, a claim of more than 20% free … so how much is free? also from a good point of view there are 2 time focuses, they do not align (1 month and 3 weeks, so whats the extra week for?) this is a messy advert and another bad example. The third example is clean and concise, it says what the product is, has a time attached and is proven (something easily overlooked in example 2) and declare 20% extra free – it is the combination of a short time period (shorter than most slimming pills) and getting something “extra” for free that pulls the consumer in, and it is this small wording change that can make a difference between them buying from you at £29.95 and from someone else with a similar product at £19.99 …. its about evoking the emotion of feeling that it will work, and you trust the product. Which neatly brings my to my next point …

Emotional Advertising Reduces Price Sensitivity

This may sound a little strange to even those who are market hardened and think they know their customers. But this is a trend that is becoming much bigger and more important on the web and tv, and it is only in the last year that it has really began to boom on the web (& tv) and also pick up in other media such as newspapers and adverts in supermarkets.

Evoking emotion in campaigns makes the advertising campaign around twice as likely to generate much larger sales figures than the “rational” (and boring) advertising of old.

If you can evoke certain emotions or memories, such as making an older person remember a good time in their childhood with an image or an old saying, my research shows that these campaigns does something quite amazing and powerful. The emotional campaign reduces price sensitivity, and means that a brand can take up the “premium” space in any market place.

A great example of this as I’ve already mentioned is Apple. In theory the products that they provide are based on the same hardware that E-machines, HP & Dell provide however they prices are much higher, this in part is due to the operating system being “great” (though i don’t think its that good) and the stylish nature of the products. The products and brand evoke a feeling of being executive and stylish – it makes you feel its high quality and therefore they can ask a premium price for the products they offer.

Loyalty Programs – Bringing Outside Inside

Again I apologise for skipping some detail here but there will be another post in detail about this specific topic, so I will cover the basics here.

One aspect that many brands use to inspire loyalty and promote a brand is to give a loyalty scheme, for example Tesco ClubCard and Nectar your build up points by shopping at various outlets and then you spend the points in store or online. Ok you’ve giving away 1 to 5% (on average) of your sale however you can be sure they will come back and spend that and it will encourage them to build up points because they want something free, we all do, its human nature. So you will get those sales, and if you make it one hundred points = £1 as with tesco the person has to spend £100 on a 1% basis so to get £10 back you spend £1000 (some nice sales begin to build up) and because the scheme only gives you so much and the person wants something nice for free they may be willing to pay any difference upto the amount of points again … so you get approx 50% of a sale … it all builds up.

Other schemes like affiliate schemes mean again you give away the same amount in sales to a person as commission for bringing you a sale, or you give them a  fixed amount say £5 per sale of a TV or Laptop. They do the leg work for you promoting your brand and website, and research shows if you let these people use the affiliation themselves they will also shop with you simply because again they are getting “something for nothing”.

So overall the three points above are things you need to consider in order to create a real base of customer loyalty. If you have any more ideas let us know by leaving a comments or tweeting @andykinsey

Finally – This article as with all of our articles is bought to you by and in association with Andy Kinsey Designs of Manchester whom have today (14/4/10) relaunched their home website andykinsey.co.uk – Again tweet your opinion of the site to @andykinsey

The idea of “brand positioning” may seem a little out of the box, but a brand is about the bigger picture not just an end result. Brand Positioning is the art form of creating or transforming a brand into something that can persuade and realistically demonstrate its relevance to a customer’s daily life to become his or her regular choice.

To position a brand you need to remember that the position of your brand is not created by a marketer or the individual brand itself, it is how others perceive your brand collectively with other similar brands. (For example when I think of Nike I think sports reliable and well made products … this leads me to think of Adidas too … they have a similar brand position so this is not unusual, another example would be Microsoft and Apple). Whilst reading this article I therefore ask you take the view of your target audience (the consumer), put yourself in their shoes repeatedly and each time you do change the person you empathise with … so maybe your targeting 18 to 14 years olds, think of it from a male and female point of view, think are they at uni or working, where they may work, try to consider all possible variables. Now having said a marketer doesn’t create the position they can have an overwhelming affect on the position of a brand in the consumers mind, and this is their job. A marketer should create the strategic and tactical suggestions to encourage the customer to accept a particular positioning in his or her mind.

To start the process of positioning your product, service or business as a whole you need to consider the following of your brand (get a pen and paper ready and write these down): key attributes or benefits that represent good value, whether it has a unique selling point (USP), how you can offer trust to your customer and also how your brand “appears” (eg if you are IBM you are wanting corporates to take you seriously so you ensure all of your products and services don’t look like a rough painting by a 2 year old … you ensure they are clean and professional with no fuss). It is these points you have written down that you now need to chop down to a maximum of 5 (ideally 3) great selling points and these will form the basis of your brand positioning (so keep these selling points in mind for everything to do with your business not just marketing in its literal form, but also indirect marketing via letter heads and business cards).

Now you’ve got the basics of what you want your brand to represent, it’s time for you to expand them into real selling points … not just a few words as some brands have like “clean” and “clear” … if you do have these words this is your chance to think about what they mean and how you convey them … again its a good idea to write these down – think of it as a little brainstorm in your notepad. Here are several characteristics of your brand you should consider whilst conveying your message and brand.

Relevance of Your Brand

The more obvious the connection is between the brand and the prospect’s daily activities, the greater the chances are that the chances of selling the product or service you are offering. Relevance, or the connection that the prospect has to the brand identity, is how customers ultimately decide which brands to buy and which they will discard.
Consider: Is the identity of the brand too young or old for my target market? Are you targeting the right Audience? (by this I mean if your target audience is female and you are using lots of blue which is perceived as mail then your not targeting properly)

The Genuine Article

Many companies begin ensuing trust with a prospective customer by letting them know that what they offer is a genuine product or service (eg Coca-Cola on every bottle label from the company and the cans of course it tells you “it’s the real thing” and has the brand tagline “Always Coca-Cola” on coke or diet coke also microsoft sticker every machine with “windows genuine”).
Remember it is this little bit of detail (eg 100% genuine ruby) that gives you not only a little more trust from a prospective consumer but also adds a level of clarity and reassurance from your brand to the customer and may be the single point of differentiation between your offering and another businesses.
Consider: Is your service or product somehow “more” genuine than anyone else? Do you manufacture the product or service? Now consider how you can emphasise this element.

Article Sponsored by Crystals Merchant Services

Your Message / Tag Line

Whether you have the worlds best strategy for marketing your brand or not, it is worthless if you don’t have a clear, concise and focused message / slogan / mantra. It has to be appropriate, possibly be left of field (to make people think and ensure you stick in their mind) and finally it must sell your service. (one of the worlds best examples is “Gillette – The Best a Man Can Get” … clear and simple, also easy to remember.)
Consider: Is your message relevant to your product or service? Can your message be misunderstood or twisted to look bad? Could it evoke a feeling of “warmth” towards your brand? Could the message be made more accurate to reflect your product or service? Does your message convey the company in a good light? (and if not does it do you more harm than good?)

Trust Based on a Promise

This is a dual aspect to your brand and is the Most Important factor in brand positioning. Firstly you give them a promise they can trust and believe in a promise of “100% FREE Delivery” or “100% satisfaction or your money back” or something similar. In doing this you give them something for nothing in essence, even though you make these promises if one person takes it up its more than likely the sales made from the promise will out weigh one persons want to get their money back, most people see it as a sign of trust and not take it up even if they don’t like it. (take Asda own brand goods, they all says satisfaction or your money back, how many people have taken them up on this … my guess is one person being funny, how many people have thought ooh money back …. i’ll have some of that … and bought it – i bet millions). The other edge to making a promise is to be promise your USP … or show it more… take sure for women … why does it sell to women (other than its perfumed fragrance of flowers?) because its message is “it’s pH balanced for a woman, and not a man.” what about L’Oreal …. people buy it because the slogan makes you believe your worth it … can you think what the slogan might be … “Because I’m worth it” – now think of how your message should be conveyed for your USP.
Consider: What promises you could make about your product, service or company? Don’t make them if you can’t follow through on them. Does your promise add value? Can your product or service promise more than anyone else in your market? if so tell them, or even better show them.

So as you can see there is a great bit of work needs doing to position your brand correctly and several factors to consider, a good marketer will help you with this aspect of brand building. But as I always say any marketing is about the skills of the marketer and the passion of the client/business in question … not a single one alone.

So… Is your brand positioned correctly, would you like to move your market position to a place where you are much more reputable and increase your sales as a result? if so then contact us today and we can help you.

This article takes a break again from the normal SEO set of blogs to take a look at building your brand using business cards. Last week I published an article about why corporate branding is important, and this article is one of a series of follow-on series about building your brand.

Whilst reading this please consider I am speaking from the stand point of which I would take if you was to be an “online only” business client of Andy Kinsey Designs and not from a full overview – though my finally summary is just this.

Just because you are an online business does not mean business cards are useless to you or your company. Business Cards do not become obsolete just because your an Internet based business, they are as much an important brand building tool as those business who operate in a “brick and mortar” world.

Recognition – having brand and business recognition is of vital importance to any company, generally as my (corporate branding) post says this is the job of a good/great logo. Business cards help you go a step further, you can tell more about a company through its business cards than you often can from speaking to a person over the phone. A business card allows you to add colour, your logo (obviously), your contact details, a selective style of font – plus you can even show some information some people may not expect like twitter username or a facebook public url (eg facebook.com/search.andy is mine)

How the New AKD business cards look

As I’ve eluded to above a business card is an extension of your company and more so a show of what ideally you would like your company to be.  Lets take my new business card as an example – if you visit my main site (andykinsey.co.uk) you will find that the site is very much based on blue and white, also you will see the big AK Designs logo on the bottom right of the first page of the site (as it is on each page under the menu on this site) , next you will notice the use of a specialised font (this is to make the brand unique and memorable and will appear on any new products from AKD) and finally above in the logo you will notice a little animation … this is to represent a foil overlay I am using to make the card that little extra memorable and there in making the brand more memorable.

As I have said it is an extension of the company brand, a business card is not alone a brand – far from it (even though you are just an internet only business) – your business card as with my own should pull in factors from the work you do, your stationary (letter heads, compliment slips, invoices & receipts etc), your catalogue and of course your website. A business card is simply the final bit of “spit and polish” to any brand.

Something You May Not Know – By producing a set of business cards that are sleek and professional you are fostering the idea that your business card is the first point of contact (as you should consider for everything your business produces in my view) and therefore you are inadvertently increasing the footfall of traffic to your site, increasing the chances of being contacted by the person whom receives the business card but also you are opening the doors to new contacts, as its pretty much a given if you have a unique card and style your business will get mentioned from one person to another (and from business to business). This form of referral where one person shows another your business card is quite rare – and even more rare is when you find out that the person who had your card had a fight with the other person involved to keep the card. This is why at trade shows or conferences you should go with at least 100 business cards to hand, you never know when you will asked for one nor where your next lead may come from (I recall one client I still work with, we met in the gents of a night club, I had a business card handy in my wallet!). Referral by business card also removes a vital step for most websites … your user doesn’t go through a search engine – ok if your very highly ranked you may think of this as an issue (so do what channel 4 sometimes do for new programmes and tell them to search your name … eg “Search: Andy Kinsey Designs”) but for most companies this can be a positive step as they get little and insignificant traffic because they find them selves on pages 6 or 7 (or worse!) in the search engines.

Business cards have long been an essential marketing tool for anyone serious about their business. They still are today, the one tiny little difference about today is today it is about making your brand (and therefore business card) stand out from the crowd.

The other great thing about producing a fantastic business card today is that a number of smaller businesses see them as either a) useless or b) too costly … when in-fact they are neither. a) as highlighted above business cards can be extremely useful in building your brand and therefore useful in increasing your business revenue in the long run. b) other than my previous statement business card and stationary design and printing is not expensive … for example Business Cards from Andy Kinsey Designs cost just £45 to design (plus you get a free letter head design too) – the printing added on top can be anywhere from £30 for 200 high grade cards to £80 for 1000 high grade cards, letter head design print is FREE! (so as you can see its not expensive, and if you just need the text changing for another person in the company add £5 per person ) and if you want something a little less glossy for your company then take a look at Vista Print whom offer some nice brand based services.

In Conclusion – If you think business cards are dead and buried you are very much wrong, indeed they could be used to much more effective use today than at any other point in history. Business Cards are an extension and show of what you want your brand to be (eg. fun, vibrant, corporate, sleek or professional)  they alone are not your brand and should not be. And finally business cards can actually increase brand recognition and traffic to your site a huge amount.

So ….

Can YOU afford not to
have a professional business card designed?