Web Design: Deceptively Easy
Web design is deceptively simple. You’d think that all you have to do is design something pretty and people will flock to it and click the buy now button. But it isn’t really that simple. There is a lot to think about when designing a website for any business.
No. 1, design issues are just one concern. Not the only concern. Web designers and business owners also need to think about the following concerns:
- Search engine optimization
- Social media marketing
- Paid advertising models
- Driving traffic
- Navigability
- Metrics
- User perception
- Cost of development
Web design is a whole marketing plan, not just a one-time event. You can’t just throw up a web page and forget about it, hoping the world will come to see it. Just as important as design attractiveness are visitor ease of use, search engine optimization, and page-to-page navigation. Just for starters.
When it comes to web design, you can’t afford to leave it to amateurs. Let a professional handle your design work and increase your odds of profitability.
Should You Respond To Negative Comments About Your Business?
Should you respond to negative comments about your business on other websites? Ideally, you’d want to have those conversations on your own blog. A good strategy to use to get people over to your blog for a conversation about your products and services is to write a blog post that addresses a concern made publicly elsewhere. Then, visit the site on which the comment was made and make a short statement about the comment with a link to your site for the fuller explanation. Your comment might look something like this:
Thanks for addressing that issue. You might be interested in this explanation (and include the link here).
This tells people that you take their concerns seriously. It also tells them that you are willing to talk about it. But it also gets them to your blog to talk about it. By getting the conversation going on your website, you can control the flow of the conversation while giving people a chance to voice their concerns and deal with the issue directly where it makes the most sense to do so.
Call it reputation management. But we call it common sense.
SMO Is More Than A Social Connection
Social media optimization, or SMO, is about more than connecting with others on a social level. Sure, that’s important, but it isn’t the whole story. What SMO is really all about is getting the attention of people you would like to do business with. Strategy is very important.
At the heart of every effective social media campaign is an honest portrayal of who you are and what you have to offer potential prospects. Remember, you are engaged in “pull” marketing, not “push” marketing. That is, you are are drawing people toward you, not pushing your product on them. Television is push, social media is pull.
Pull marketing is much more subtle that push marketing. Therefore, social media optimization is about subtlety. The idea is to capture people’s attention. How do you do that? Here are a few tips that might help you:
- Speak their language – If you’re talking to teenagers, use colloquial lingo that they’ll understand. If speaking to professionals then try using their business talk. Be sure to speak the language of your prospects.
- Find out what they want – Don’t just jump out and start selling people stuff. Find out what your target audience is interested in. Offer them that.
- Show up at the right place – Nothing is as ineffective as marketing through the wrong channel. If your prospective client is more likely to be at LinkedIn then you should be there; if they are more likely to be at Facebook then you should be there.
- Yes, SEO still works – Just because it’s social media doesn’t mean that SEO won’t work. Social sites are websites. All the same SEO rules apply. They may require a little different implementation, but SMO and SEO do go together.
- Get your prospect’s attention – In social media you have to lay it on the table. You can’t just hint at something and expect every reader to get it. Make a big splash, but do it appropriately. You are vying against a lot of competition so make sure you attract the attention you deserve.
Social media optimization is about connecting. Do it appropriately, but connect with the right audience at the right place at the right time. That’s true SMO.
Competitive Intelligence In An Online World
Last week we talked about competitive intelligence in a corporate world. It’s an important part of any business whether online or offline. Competitive intelligence is also important when it comes to marketing. In an online world that competitive intelligence extends to search engine placement as well as online marketing.
How does competitive intelligence relate to search engine placement? SEO or search engine optimization is the process of gaining the best possible place on the search results pages for any search involving your keywords.
The key part of competitive intelligence is the gathering of facts that relate to your competitors. Some of the information gathered includes:
- Keywords and keyphrases
- Inbound links
- Associated websites
- Partnerships
- Social marketing tactics
The gathering of facts is, however, only one part of competitive intelligence. The most important part is knowing how to filter that data, what to do with the filtered data and finally how to compare it against your own site(s).
Just because a competitor uses a set of keywords doesn’t mean you should as well. In fact, your competitive advantage may be the fact you do use a different set of keywords.
In that situation, your concern should be how to protect your advantage since competitive intelligence is a two way street – yes, they could well be researching you. Whilst worrying how to get ahead of the rest, don’t forget to stay in front of those behind you.
What Is Competitive Intelligence?
It is easy to misunderstand the concept of competitive intelligence if you are not accustomed to working within a strategic organization. It is not merely guessing at what the competition will do. It is not simply monitoring the competition so that you know what they are doing while they are doing it. A successful competitive intelligence program is more proactive and more engaged with the competition on a comprehensive level, without the competition necessarily knowing they are being watched.
The game of business is played in competition. Companies with similar products and services compete for business or market share. In order to win a piece of the pie you often have to take a piece from another company. But to do that you need to know several things about yourself, your competition, and the market, such as:
- What do customers like about the competition and its products?
- What do customers like about your products?
- What would customers like to see in a product that isn’t currently being offered by anyone?
- What weaknesses, or perceived weaknesses, do your products have?
- What weaknesses, or perceived weaknesses, does your competition and its products have?
These are just some of the questions you should be asking. Some of these questions can be answered by having a member of your staff or a friend purchase your competition’s products and evaluate them against yours. Surveys and polls are other ways to get feedback – especially if conducted with anonymity so respondents don’t know who’s asking.
When it comes to competitive intelligence, it makes sense to asking the tough questions of your own company as well as the competition. The idea is to know what’s happening in the minds of consumers as it relates to your business and the competitive playing field. It’s not easy, but necessary.
Internet Marketing Is Like The Universe ….
The world of Internet marketing acts very much like the known universe. It expands. In fact, it is expanding now at a very alarming rate.
In the old days, Internet marketing consisted largely of building a website – very primitive website – ensuring that website was indexed by the search engines and doing some e-mail and article marketing to drive traffic to that website. But things have changed drastically since those days.
Website design and development has become much more sophisticated. Tracking tools have allowed for Internet marketers to measure events that could not be measure 10, or even 5, years ago. E-mail marketing has changed. And there are some new Internet marketing kids on the block:
- Blogging
- Pay Per Click Advertising
- Social Media
- Podcasting
- Video Marketing
Just to name a few.
Article marketing, too, has changed. The advent of Twitter has become a game changer for many marketers. And it’s useful for driving traffic – even more useful than some traditional marketing methods.
The bottom line is that Internet marketing is rapidly changing. For the better. There are a lot more opportunities for success today, and many more being introduced every day. If you get lost in the milieu, look for a qualified guide. Find someone who offers Internet marketing consulting and who can walk you through the steps as you learn on your own. You’ll be glad you did.
Viral Marketing And The ReTweet Phenomena
ReTweeting has become an important component of the Twitter experience and could perhaps create a Digg like experience for users. One gets the feeling that reTweets are now more important than the original Tweet and if the original Tweet has a marketing angle, the viral marketing angle can be tremendous.
As proof of the popularity of reTweets, Twitter is looking to add a re-Tweet function to the site. There are already plenty of third party re-Tweet options around already, each providing Digg like re-Tweet buttons.
WebProNews provides a list of the benefits of re-Tweets:
- Retweets are viral
- Retweets show up as top-level items in FriendFeed
- As opposed to a Facebook “like,” a retweet is shared with everyone
- Retweets typically give credit to sources
- While giving credit to sources, retweets can lead to relationships
- Susbstantial amounts of retweets can say a lot about the quality of content
- Retweets can inspire further conversation
- Retweets can be good for branding
- Retweets can easily be shared across multiple networks, like Twitter, Friend, Facebook, etc.
- Retweets can provide followers with additional value in quality content
The practice of re-Tweeting is growing and as businesses start to see the value in Twitter as a marketing tool – viral marketing will bloom.
What Is Actionable Intelligence?
Is there a difference between competitive intelligence and actionable intelligence? Actually, there is.
Competitive intelligence is any intelligence undergone that leads to a better understanding of the competitive landscape within your niche. Actionable intelligence is any intelligence you can use to improve your marketing position within the marketplace. Sometimes these two kinds of intelligence intersect, but sometimes they don’t. You hope you gather actionable intelligence about your competition and that you are able to act on it in time to be profitable.
But you have to be careful. There are some things that are illegal when spying on the competition.
In general, competitive intelligence simply means surveying what the competition has to offer its customers from the perspective of a customer and then turning that into data that you can use to beat them in the market. But some competitive intelligence doesn’t really mean anything that you can act upon for marketing purposes. For instance, you might find out that employees of Company A within your niche all drive Porsches. It’s nice to know, but does that help you be a better marketer for your company?
On the other hand, if you find out that employee morale is higher at Company A because they have a dress down Friday and catered lunch then you might be able to use that to improve your company’s relationship with your employees. That could in turn lead to better relations with your customers. That’s actionable intelligence.
Other forms of actionable intelligence about the competition includes:
- The price of competitive products
- Benefits of a product that are enjoyed by the company’s customers
- The size of a company’s marketing budget
- Which keywords they use in their AdWords campaigns
- The size of the company’s website
- Which calls to action are effective
- What subdomains the company owns
There are countless other items of competitive intelligence that can be considered actionable as well. And if you take the time to find out what the competition is up to, you’ll likely learn that you can act upon a lot of it.