So what exactly is a CMS and how does it benefit my company? Without getting too techy in terminology, it is software that allows you to make changes to your website without actually having to know any web programming languages. This means big wins for your organization, including:

You’re in control

You have the ability to add new pages, update product listings, reorganize the structure of the site, upload images, revise content, add product literature and so many other changes. You can make the changes you want, when you want, and with your own internal team.

It’s easier (and cheaper) to update

Before CMS-based sites were developed, a business would need either an internal web development team to make updates or an ongoing retainer with a web design agency. The multiple steps required to make even minor changes were time consuming and costly. When a site is integrated into a CMS changes can me made and published to the Internet in a matter of minutes, through an interface as familiar as Microsoft Word.

Collaboration

A CMS allows you to easily collaborate with your team. You can make changes to the site and save them as a draft rather than publishing them to your live site. Your team can see what the changes will look like, can revise as necessary, suggest changes, and publish when everyone is happy with the update.

Freedom to Delegate

Don’t be misled to think that if you have a CMS you have to do it on your own. The benefit of having a CMS and continuing work with your design agency is that they are also able to easily make revisions in a cost-effective manner.

Keep in mind, however, that all content management systems are not created equal. I develop sites on a variety of CMS platforms including the popular WordPress and Joomla.

All this means is that there are lots of options for you to make your website easy to update and manage. If you are ready to take (or increase) control of your site, contact me today.

As you’ll remember from the first post in this series, your web presence consists primarily of:

• Website
• Social Media
• Places Profiles
• Advertising
• Everything Else

Your web strategy should apply to each of these elements, and we’re going to describe how to make that possible. By this point, you have a specific goal in mind, and a plan to implement it a number of ways. To make things easier, we’re going to use the sample goal: Product Launch. In this scenario, you are launching a new product and want as many people to know as possible, so you are coordinating all parts of your web presence to that launch.

WEBSITE

Whenever possible, your website should be the home for the web strategy. The product launch should appear on the home page, as close to the front and center as possible. A link should take the visitor to a page dedicated to the product launch. Where possible, add mentions of the product launch on each other page. Also remember to update your site description to match your latest goal, so people can see the product launch from the search engine page.

SOCIAL MEDIA

Your company should have, at minimum, a Twitter feed, Facebook Page, and YouTube Channel. All of these should contain information about the product launch. Send all “news” to the twitter feed. Send all “detailed information” to the Facebook page, and send any related videos to the YouTube Channel. This coordination will give your goal of launching your product a huge burst in any search rankings. Also, Social Media is the perfect platform to drum up interest.

PLACES PROFILES

If your product has already launched you need to know what people are saying about it. Check daily for new reviews and address any of them that come up. If people have positively reviewed your product, then try to find a way to thank them if possible. If someone is vocally critical about your product try to engage them apologetically and see if there is any way their impression can be improved. When customers see these exchanges, it reflects very well on the business making them. In the test-case of product launch, you may also want to check out major shopping networks like Amazon to see how your product is being reviewed. If people are noting positive aspects that you don’t mention in your advertising campaigns, update them to reflect it.

ADVERTISING

The advertising campaign is usually the most up-to-date of any online activity, but if you haven’t yet, update your advertising to reflect the new product launch. If you have multiple campaigns running, remember to update all of them. Also, if your goals have recently changed, you may want to consider aiming your advertising toward a new audience.

EVERYTHING ELSE

Everything else means: Be on top of anything and everything that is said about your product launch. Bloggers in your industry may be interested in your type of product. Try and convince them to review your product. If you get any positive reviews, link them to your site immediately. The more independent reviews you have for your product the more credible you’ll be.

Be on the look-out for mentions of your product in traditional news and in forums. If your product is being disparaged unfairly, respond as courteously as possible.

OTHER WEB STRATEGIES

Your web strategy may not be relatable to a product launch, but the principles remain the same. You want every part of your web presence working together toward a single goal. You’ll find that this kind of coordination will produce amazing results no matter what type of goal your web strategy is designed to achieve.

WHAT DO I WANT MOST FROM MY WEB STRATEGY?

There are many different ways to build a web strategy, and they don’t always get along. There are plenty of strategies, many of which can make other strategies difficult or impossible to implement. The table below depicts the concept of opposing forces in the development of your web strategy. This chart should help you to decide what kind of strategy you want to pursue.

Naturally, there are many more situations than these to consider, and certainly exceptions to the concept of opposing forces. Just remember that choosing one strategy can nullify or mitigate the effect of others, so be sure of what you want from your web strategy.

Of course, not every strategy is useful to every company, particularly where budgets are involved. Now that you’ve taken a minute to dream big, scale your strategy to match a realistic set of goals & objectives, making clear which elements of your strategy are of greatest importance.

WHAT CAN I GET OUT OF MY STRATEGY?

If you are new to web strategy, it may not be easy to answer this question. There are many benefits of a strong web strategy that are not immediately apparent to beginners. There are a few related questions you can ask yourself, which will help you get closer to the answer you are looking for.

• What do I already have in place?
• How can my customers be served by my new web strategy?
• Do my competitors already have one? What do I see when I look at their websites and profiles?
• Have my goals been frustrated by a lack of web exposure in the past?

An analysis of what you have so far (and what you’re missing) will help you to accurately estimate what you can get out of implementing or changing your web strategy.

BEGIN PLANNING YOUR WEB STRATEGY

Now that you’ve have taken a moment to answer some important questions about developing your web strategy, you’re ready to start planning one out. You’ll need to consider the needs of both your business and your customers very closely. When you’ve finished, come on back and read our next article: how to apply your web strategy to your own website, and effectively control your brand identity both on and off the web.

There aren’t many companies left that don’t understand the importance of the Internet, but there are still plenty of people who don’t have a firm grasp on how to make the best of it. For many otherwise wildly successful people, the Internet remains an enigma. If you have been looking for an introduction on how to develop a well-rounded web strategy for your local business, then you may enjoy our topic today. We’re going to discuss the necessity of building a web strategy, and explain the best way to go about it.

WEB STRATEGY: WHY IT MATTERS

There are many companies who could confidently claim that the Internet was not necessary to their success as late as five years ago. Now, many opportunities and customers will be missed for lack of an online presence. In another five years, failure to take advantage of the web will likely be considered marketing suicide. There are several reasons the web has become so ingrained into business, and must now be taken advantage of:

WHY YOU MUST TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE INTERNET

• Collapse of Traditional Marketing: As the world developed to take advantage of the Internet, many traditional marketing services disappeared. Print media is dying out, services like TiVo made television commercials optional, and Radio itself has migrated online.
• Mobile Culture: Almost all communication, entertainment, and organization tools have been replaced with a single cell phone. That phone is the gateway to the rest of the world, and it operates almost exclusively on the Internet.
• Your Competitors Already Have: Millions of businesses have migrated online, and millions more have followed. The release of Google Places resulted in a boom of local marketing, and if your company hasn’t capitalized on it, you’re giving your competitors a huge head start.

Now that you understand that you can’t afford to overlook the web, you may be asking yourself how you can actually take advantage of this modern resource. We’d like to help you understand some of the basics behind Web Strategy, so you won’t be missing out for another minute.

WHAT IS WEB STRATEGY?

Web Strategy combines each part of your company’s online presence, and directs it toward a goal. It’s possible that your business has had an online presence for years and never actually developed a strategy around them. It’s also possible that certain parts of your business have a strong strategy, but others are left to develop independently. An effective web strategy will manage all parts of a company’s online presence, and allow each of those different parts to adjust to changes in the others. Below, you’ll find a list of some of the many parts that make up a business’s online identity. After that we’ll discuss how to apply strategies to each of them.

FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN BUILDING A WEB STRATEGY

• Website: This one is a no-brainer. Your website is the basis for your web strategy, and needs to reflect your online business goals as clearly as possible.
• Social Media: Perhaps your business has created a Twitter account or Facebook page? It may also have profiles on a variety of other social networking sites. These profiles need to be consistent with your web strategy as well, and they’ll be most effective when they are coordinated with your website.
• Places Profiles: Does your business have a profile on business searching networks such as Yelp, Angie’s List, Manta, or Google Places? These profiles should be a part of your web strategy, and can even be dangerous when left alone.
• Advertising: If your business posts any kind of advertising anywhere else, then it should be coordinated with your overall web strategy.
• Everything Else: You should be searching your business name weekly in order to take advantage of any mention of your company on the web. Bloggers, independent reviewers and forum posters may be using your business name.

Web strategy is important. Now that you have a general idea of what it is, you’re ready to start building your own strategy. In the coming days, we’ll be discussing how to create a web strategy and apply it to every part of your online presence.

WHAT STOCK PHOTOS CAN DO FOR YOU

There are millions of stock photos in existence for you to choose from. You don’t want just any photo though; you want one that reflects well on your subject matter or product. A bad stock photo can damage the credibility of your website, while the right one can offer some great benefits:

Advantages of Well-Chosen Stock Photography

• Attractive Design: A quality stock photo can bring an entire page together, and create a memorable look.
• Easier Navigation: Appropriate stock photos can be used to help guide an audience through a page and help them find the information they are looking for much more easily.
• Credibility: The use of good photos will earn the trust of an audience more easily than other types of graphics. It immediately establishes a human perspective.

With advantages like these, stock photos represent a real opportunity to improve the look and feel of the site…as long as you choose the right ones.

Choosing the Right Stock Photos

It’s obvious how useful stock photos are but choosing the right one can be a lot more complicated. There are many factors that go into choosing the best stock photo for a website, and some of them need to be considered before you even begin looking at pictures. Here are some useful strategies for choosing the most appropriate stock photos.

Analyze Your Content

You want your stock photo to be as relevant to your website as possible. Gratuitous unrelated stock photos will not have any positive effect on your audience. Instead, choose one that has as much to do with the text around it as possible.

Keep Colors Consistent

Make sure the colors on the photo match the theme you are using on your site. Or, use black and white photos that won’t clash with the colors you are already using

Avoid Photo Clichés

Some photos depictions are simply overdone. Try to choose something that won’t be used by every website like you. Be inventive in the way that you correlate your photo to your site and content.

If you’ve followed these tips you’ll have a good basis for the kind of photo that you need. You may also be interested in some of the great places to find photos around the internet. Our next section will introduce you to some of the largest stock photo repositories on the internet, and give you some insights into their advantages and drawbacks.

Where To Find Great Stock Photography & Vector Illustrations

Creative Commons: Creative Commons is a not actually one website but a massive network of photos and other media that have been legally approved by their owners for different uses. There are many great photos under CC licenses that you can use for free. These photos may be hosted on Wikipedia, Flikr, and other major photo uploading services. The downside is that it may be harder to search for the images you need, and they may not meet the quality of paid services.

Stock.xchng: Stock Exchange is one of the largest stock photo sites online, and offers thousands of different stock photos for almost any keyword. Many of the stock photos are royalty free, but you must pay close attention to the license restrictions on each photo. Some images may only be used in certain ways.

IStockphoto: IStockphoto is a massive website, and one of the most preferred by professionals. IStockphoto offers very high quality photos, but charges for their use. If you want the perfect photo for your needs and you don’t mind paying a potentially steep price for it, this may be exactly the service you are looking for.

123RF: Royalty free image library, similar to what is found at iStockPhoto.com. The primary difference here is price, which is much more reasonable (on average, about 10% the cost of a photo from iStockPhoto.com). The trade-off is that the library is not quite as large. Nine times out of ten you’ll find what you’re looking for on this website, and pay a few measly bucks as opposed to $15-1,500 per license.

ShutterStock: Very similar to 123RF, but offers a wider ranging and higher quality selection (at approximately 3x the cost). With over 17 million images in their online database, ShutterStock is without a doubt the largest subscription-based source of royalty-free photos, illustrations, and vectors on the Internet.

Getty Images: The premier source for up-to-the-minute imagery and video for news, sports, entertainment, as well as rare and contemporary archival imagery. Very pricey, but without a doubt, the industry leader in professional imagery for usage in both web and print.

CONTENT AND NAVIGATION

General Strategies

With a simple website, you may only need a few pages to communicate your message. For those working with more complex subjects, dozens or even hundreds of pages may be necessary. How you arrange this content into your navigational system will have a major impact on how your website is perceived. Here are some strategies for helping your content get along with your navigation.

• Plan everything beforehand: With complex subjects, the trees that lead to each individual page can get very confusing very quickly. It will be helpful to plan the trees (using a flowcharting tool, or just flashcards) out before you build the website. That way you can visualize which pages lead to one another eliminate any confusion
• Arrange Information from Most to Least Important: Anytime you have too much information to appear one page, arrange the most vital information first, and allow the user to drift downward to whichever detail they need. This will be discussed in more detail in the section titled Content Pages
• Develop a Content Priority Strategy: How will new content and topics appear? Some websites arrange them by date; others arrange them by popularity, others still by sequence. Choose priority now, and make that priority consistent across the entire site (when possible). Keeping this consistent will allow your visitors to navigate your website much more easily.

Now that you understand how to arrange content, we’re going to discuss how to create it. This section will be divided by home pages and content pages.

Home Pages

When users visit a website, they are usually looking for a specific type of information. Until you have established a well-known brand, users will find your site by looking for the keywords you are affiliated with. Since most visitors will see your homepage first, the purpose of your website should be completely clear as soon as they arrive. The following is an example of a homepage we designed for an architectural trading company very recently. Notice the clarity and intuitive nature of the overall design elements.

Developing Home Page Content

• Keep it short: In-depth content is for your sub-pages. Home page content should be limited to brief explanations of the purpose of the website, focusing on what is most likely to draw visitors further inward.
• Keep it Relevant: Home page content should address as wide an audience as possible. Once again, there will be opportunities to address more subjects only if the audience leaves the first page.
• Provide Internal Navigation: The home page content should include links to anything the visitor may want to move to while they are reading. Each main category of your website should appear in the home content.
• Keep Language Consistent: The words that are used to describe your services or products in the home content should be exactly the same as their counterparts in your navigation buttons. Don’t use synonyms.

Content Pages

Content pages are those which have the meat of your content on them. This may include specific information on services, pricing, or other information. Content written for these pages will need to follow different strategies than those written for homes pages, as it must usually be longer. It’s important to understand the new ways that users prefer to digest complex information.

With the advent of the web came new standards on how to communicate information. Many internet users suffer from a constant barrage of information, and as a result have adapted to ignore it whenever possible. The best way to combat this is to focus on giving them exactly the information that they want as fast as you can. When working with chunky content (such as content pages) you’ll want to employ the following strategies:

Developing Content Pages

• Give Each Concept its Own Page: Don’t bundle two sorts of information together unless you are positive that is how the user will want them. Be as focused as possible.
• Arrange Information in a Hierarchy: Don’t put all the information for a complicated subject on the same page. Start with the most basic information, and allow the user paths to reach more comprehensive explanations.
• Break Information into Digestible Chunks: Take advantage of headings, bolding, and bullet lists to summarize long paragraphs into the most important information, or to highlight the information the user wants the most.

Thanks for reading!

This concludes our series on designing an effective navigational structure for your website. We’ll be publishing new posts daily, so stay tuned for more.

Always remember that you are not entitled to the attention of an online audience. Today’s online user will accept nothing less than instant gratification, and you may have mere seconds to deliver the desired content before it is searched for elsewhere.

With that in mind there are two major considerations when designing navigation structures for human audiences: Visual Appeal and Information Architecture. Let’s discuss those concepts in more detail. In this installment, we’ll be discussing visual appeal, and how to make it work for your audience.

NAVIGATION AND VISUALIZATION

You may be asking yourself “What does the look of my site have to do with navigation?”

The answer is: Everything. Users rely heavily on visual cues in order to find what they’re looking for, and the better-designed a website is, the easier it will be for them to find their way around naturally. This applies to the entire website, but most particularly to the look and arrangement of menus and other navigational structures. Here are three principles for visually designing a website.

Don’t Fix What Isn’t Broken

If you open your bookmarks and open several sites you’ll notice many websites have a lot in common where navigation is concerned. The primary navigation tool is almost always at the top. They may appear on the left side as well, but that formation is less common than it used to be. Secondary Navigation tools may appear directly below the primary, or (when organized by date) down the right side.

Internet users are used to this type of navigation. They like it, and it helps them browse almost subconsciously to the information they want. There is very little to be gained by altering this successful formula. You will have ample opportunity to add your personality to the rest of your website in other ways.

This principle applies to many other parts of the website as well. You may actually be a creative genius, but your visitors are not art critics. They don’t want to be challenged, and they’ll leave if it takes them more than a few seconds to find exactly what they’re looking for.

Keep it Clean and Simple

We all remember the old Geocities sites of the last decade. You might recall Twinkling star backgrounds superimposed by hot pink borders and sparkling letters forming the headings. Perhaps there was a dancing animal somewhere. There is a reason this type of website disappeared: It was awful. Numerous companies such as Apple, Google, and Facebook proved that what users wanted more than anything else was simplicity in design.

Your navigation structure should be clean and free of noise. Avoid overly bright colors, moving graphics and anything else that would distract your users from what they came to do. Remember though: Clean and boring are not the same thing. You can implement strong design without alienating anyone. Just be careful, and consider every adjustment by how it affects your audience.

Keep Graphics Relevant and Infrequent

Graphics are an important tool to keep a website interesting and they can also be very useful as a navigational tool. Users looking for certain information may be drawn to corresponding graphics. That is exactly why it is important to keep graphics infrequent and to ensure they are as relevant as possible. Graphics should be used to highlight or accompany certain information, and they should be as consistent with that information as possible—such as a product paired with its description. The more graphics that appear on one page, the more difficult it will be for the customer to use them to his/her advantage.

Following these principles will make your site much easier for an audience to digest, but so far we’ve only discussed visual appeal. How you arrange and develop your content is equally important, and can have just as much of an effect on how your website is perceived. In the next post, we’ll be discussing how to arrange content effectively within your navigational structure.

Unfortunately, simple navigation is quite difficult to implement. A good organization structure requires strong planning, an understanding of the principles of information architecture, and an eye for how customers will interpret your website. We’d like to help you with that.

A better understanding of navigation means a better online experience for everyone, so we’re happy to share our tips for implementing effective navigation. In this post we’ll discuss how to plan your organization structure, and we’ll offer you some helpful tips on how to make that structure meet the needs of your audience.

PART I: CATERING TO CRAWLERS

While you can apply or improve an organization structure at any time, it’s best to plan out your strategy before you even begin building your website. Following these instructions will give you a strong early foundation to develop into effective organization.

The most important thing to remember when designing a navigation structure is that you have two audiences. The first audience is not your visitors; it is the search engine they will be using to find your site. Search engines use “crawlers” to scan websites and decide how to rank them. It is unlikely that your visitors will ever find your website without the help of a search engine, so before you consider how to build user-centric features like menus, think about what you’ll need to get noticed by a search engine.

Positive Strategies

Build Laterally

It’s helpful to visualize your website as a flowchart. The home page will be in the center with all pages branching off of it. In order to maximize search engine compliance, all of those pages should have as few branches of their own as possible. A well-designed website will appear like the one on the left, not the one on the right. The more clicks it takes to get to one page, the more likely it is the crawler will skip it.

When building laterally, remember that some content is only effective when it is properly introduced. Don’t be afraid to add sub-pages to other sub-pages when it’s necessary. When it is necessary, some of the risks can be mitigated by allowing multiple paths, which is our next tip.

Offer as Many Paths as Possible

This will please humans in addition to crawlers. Whenever possible, allow access to any page within two clicks. This can be achieved in a number of ways.

• Comprehensive menus make navigation much easier on a crawler.
• Site maps added to the sidebar or the bottom of the page
• Links should be included wherever a visitor might search for them. A crawler can take advantage of them as well.

To test the strength of your paths, choose a page that you want to reach and try to get there in at least three different ways. If this only takes you a few seconds, then you’ll know your organization is developing well.

Allow Free Movement

Forms, videos, and flash content may be helpful to entertain human audiences, but any time it’s required to view content, the crawler will skip over it. Crawlers have no way of entering input and even the simplest gateway, such as a radio button, may stop them in their tracks.

Pay careful attention to what content is requires log-ins and other types of forms. Any content you rely on to rank will need to be freely available.
Following the strategies above will make your organization structure highly effective, but we have much more to tell you about designing a well-organized site. Come back tomorrow, when we’ll be discussing how to make your organization work for the human beings who will be clicking your ads and buying your products.