Archive for January, 2010

Form Follows Function

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

I’m spurred to write this post for one reason; I’m tired of seeing really crappy websites.  You see them everywhere, and if you are willing to put up a poorly made site, you can’t be surprised if it doesn’t monetize.  It doesn’t take much to put something up that will not make your bounce rate hover at the 100% mark.  Form follows function.  If you have a business, large or small, you need to convey that you are somewhat professional, and care about what your customers think about you and your business.

Here are things you should NEVER do if you are a small business and somewhat new to making websites.

  • Try to be fancy.  Too often, people think that adding bells and whistle to their sites will make the site look better.  When was the last time adding bells or whistles to anything was a good idea?  Flash intro page?  No good.  Crazy, over-active navigation?  No good.  Making your site look like a Myspace page?  2 minutes in the penalty box!  I’m not suggesting that you don’t need to make a site aesthetically pleasing.  But don’t over do it!  Here’s what you need:  A top logo/banner, simple navigation, some content and a footer.  Add some understated color, and you’re good to go.  Look at this blog!  Granted the colors are kind of odd, but the site has NOTHING fancy at all about it.  And I could do a bunch of things to it and it STILL wouldn’t be fancy.  But, it gets the job done.
  • Green-light it before you check your site for errors!  Don’t put up a site that appears to “wallpaper” across the browser.  Can’t spell?  Use Spell Check for crying out loud!  Sure, errors will come up, but when they do, fix them!
  • Leave up old info!  (Thanks to Jayme for that one!)  If you had an event that ended 7 months ago, take down the announcement!  It serves nothing more than to make you look like you have no idea what you’re doing.  Keep your info current!!
  • KNOW WHEN YOU DON’T KNOW!!  If you don’t know what is wrong, and/or don’t know how to fix it, find someone who can.  Don’t ignore the problem, or go on wild goose chases trying to find a solution unless you’re comfortable with the information you’re getting.

All of this should be common sense to someone making a website.  When you are making a website, plan it out ahead of time.  Don’t wing it.  Find a design you like somewhere else and customize it to your needs.  And when it’s ready to go, ask yourself “would I come back to this site?”  If you said “no” or you aren’t sure, then get help.  That help could be another book, checking out blogs and bulletin boards (remember what I said about the information you get!) or hiring someone to do it for you.  Sure, it’s not cheap.  But, sometimes spending money will help you make a lot more money than if you decided to keep a tight grip on the check book.

All sites need upgraded from time to time.  But, if you flip the switch on your new site, and you immediately need to redo it, then you didn’t take the time to do it right the first time, and that is just wasted time, and potentially wasted traffic.  If you’re going to make a website, make sure it’s worth putting your name on it.

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Facebook – what can you do with it?

Friday, January 22nd, 2010

Facebook has become probably the most respected of the social networks.   It has a wider age range, in both males and females, than the other big social network, Myspace.  And, in the space of a year, Facebook has caught the total user count of Myspace as well.  While no one would say it’s bad to advertise in Myspace, you could certainly argue that you’re more likely to find your target market on Facebook.  If you need to advertise to a bunch of 18 to 24 year olds, mostly female, mostly fans of vampires or werewolves,  then Myspace may be your deal.  But, if you want to advertise to a larger group of 25 to 35 year olds, with a greater chance that said user would have more spending dollars, then Facebook is probably the way to go.

You can go a few different ways with Facebook.  You can try and go “viral” and put up a fan page and see if you can generate a bunch of traffic for free.  You have to have some compelling content to put on the page.  You want people to tell two friends in this case.  This is not always the easiest thing to do.  If your business sells a product of service to your customers, you may want to offer discounts from time to time.  It gets people talking about your site, and if you throw discounts out there once in a while, people have a good reason to come back.  You could also try doing give-aways.  It’s the same thing; people will see that there is a reason to come back.

The other way to go, is to advertise in much the same way you do in Google.  Facebook has paid ads just like Google, but gives you a little bit more control of who you want to show your ad to.  You can choose gender, age, location, and other factors that you cannot choose with Google.  You are offered the choice of basing your spend on clicks or impressions.  You can choose based on the interests of the users you want to advertise to.  And, you can put up a logo.  These factors really allow you to zero in on the people you want to advertise to.

And, if you do it right, you can use both on tandem to really get your name running through the Facebook ranks.  With upwards of 300,000,000 users running through the system, it’s a powerful tool to use to bring users to your site.

Posted in Pay-Per-Click, Social Media | 1 Comment »

PPC – The Bridge Between Obscurity And SEO Success

Sunday, January 10th, 2010

Many people with websites get into the game thinking that they can be a player right away, just by using simple, or even advanced SEO techniques.  JoesDiscountCars.com certainly carries the same weight with the almighty Google as AutoTrader.com does, right?  Get some good meta tags in place, whether Google looks at them or not (depends on who you ask), get a few hundred words of meaningful content on your home page, get some depth on your site, and you, too, can compete with the big boys in your space, even though it’s crowded with big boys, your site is new and no one has heard of you, right?  Riiiiigggghhht…..  And monkeys will fly out of my butt.  And for the recored, I know that there is a lot more to SEO than what I just mentioned above.  So, no comments.

But, there are ways to play with the big boys, and do it quickly, if you have a little bit of an advertising budget.  In all the major search engines, you can purchase a search result and get right on the front page with the biggest players in the game.  And you can do it 20 minutes after you flip the switch.  Pay-per-click advertising is the easiest way to get seen by a large audience who is looking to find what you’re selling.  And you can very easily narrow your market to the exact group you’re looking to target, in many cases out-positioning the big boys in doing so.  AutoTrader.com sells all over the United States, and maybe in international markets, whereas JoesDiscoutnCars.com sells in good old Scranton, PA.  While AutoTrader.com can reap the benefits of people clicking in from California, Alaska and Florida, JoesDiscountCars.com would really benefit from clicks coming in from Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, and maybe even as far away as Allentown.  And with just a few enhancements to his PPC campaign, Joe is playing first base on the National Used Car Sellers softball team.

While you will never really be able to eliminate the competition in PPC, you can out-maneuver them by targeting a specific geographic location and by bidding on geographically-specific keywords.  Want to sell used cars in Scranton?  Joe can certainly bid on “used cars”, but it’s gonna cost him about $20 per click, or maybe even more, to be seen in the top 5 positions, let alone #1.  And really, the potential to get clicks from all over the world is far too great, even if Joe puts his location in the ad.  And Joe doesn’t want that.  Joe just wants to get the word out to the local yokels who are looking to purchase his fine, previously-owned merchandise.  By bidding on “scranton used cars” and keywords like it, now Joe has the opportunity to rub elbows with AutoTrader.com.  They are still likely to be around, as it’s very possible they have lists upon lists of possible geographic locations to bid on,  and use dynamic keyword insertion to throw up a specific ad for each of those keywords.  But, you’re there.  And User X may see the AutoTrader ad right next to yours, but with some clever ad copy, you have just as good of a chance of getting that click as they do.  And for FAR less than if you just bid on “used cars.”  And over time, as SEO starts to really take off, you can lower that PPC spend so you don’t compete against yourself, and pay for clicks you might have gotten organically.

Now, how does this bridge the gap between obscurity and SEO success?  When a new website jumps into the mix, it has lots of things stacked against it.  First off it needs to be indexed.  While this can happen quickly, you’re at the mercy of the search engines as to when it will happen.  You can’t just call in and order up and indexing.  Once that’s done, you have prove your worth to the search engines.  If you don’t, you’ll remain in obscurity forever.  Once you start gaining some relevancy mojo, you need to show the search engines that not only are you relevant, but you are MORE relevant than every other site.  Besides obtaining links into your site, this is the most difficult task you have on your plate.  In the case of search engines, sites are irrelevant until proven otherwise.  Through hard work and determination, any site has a chance to rank very high, even in some very competitive markets.  But, it can take years for that kind of success, and while you’re waiting for that success, however you measure it, to come, you can fill in the gaps, get  seen and even help out your SEO efforts by potentially getting people to link to your site.

And if you have the budget to spend, why not start that walk across the bridge?

Posted in Pay-Per-Click | 1 Comment »