Archives : Internet Marketing
Flow in Web Design
Theory of Flow – Losing the Feeling of Self Consciousness
According to psychology researcher Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi, flow is a positive, highly enjoyable state of consciousness that occurs when our perceived skills match the perceived challenges we are undertaking. We lose our sense of self and time distorts. People who have experienced flow consistently report the same nine dimensions:
- Clear goals
- Unambiguous and immediate feedback
- Skills that just match challenges
- Merging of action and awareness
- Centering of attention on a limited stimulus field
- A sense of potential control
- A loss of self-consciousness
- An altered sense of time
- An autotelic experience
Flow Online
Marketers Hoffman and Novak extended Csíkszentmihályi’s Theory of Flow by relating it to users’ activities on the Internet. The prerequisites for flow online relates to Csíkszentmihályi’s Theory of Flow. Flow online is determined by:
- High levels of skill and control
- High levels of challenge and engagement
- Focused attention
- Is enhanced by interactivity and telepresence—users feel like part of the action
One such example of flow online is Facebook. Facebook is user-friendly and gives you the amount of control you need. It offers challenge and engagement through its game apps. You are focused and there is interactivity on there with your friends. You feel like you are living their world through their pictures and updates.
Flow in Web Design
It is important to take into account flow in web design to ensure that users are getting what they want out of the online experience—be it targeted experiential or goal-directed. Users wanting experiential flow are usually surfing for fun, while users wanting goal-directed flow are usually shopping, looking for information, etc.
Depending on the purpose of your website, you create components, look and feel to allow users to achieve what they want from it. Here are some factors that we think affects to ability for your users to experience flow online:
- Follow basic rules: It is important to follow basic rules of websites. Users understand that websites work a certain way and use their past experience to aide them in navigating future sites. For example, a basic rule is that colored or underlined words are usually a link. Most people will know to click on it to open another web page. An example of not following basic rules is having a navigation bar at the bottom of the page. This will definitely confuse users and disrupt flow online.
- Level of skills: It is important to match the interface to the user skills. You need to understand your target audience and ensure that the website matches their skills set. If your target audience is users with basic internet skills, you want to create a website that is as simple as possible with easy navigation and clear instructions for them to experience flow online.
- Speed: Your pages need to load quickly to prevent users from getting impatient—thus leaving the site. Ensure that your images are optimized for web view and website is free from codes that will slow down the loading speed. A good SEO friendly CMS is able to optimize your website for speed.
- Good navigation: Good navigation gives the users control, allowing them to know where to look for the information that they need, thus experiencing flow online. Top and side navigations are standards that majority of websites use. Extras that would help include bread crumbs and site maps. These allow users to visualize the structure of your website.
The challenge is for web marketers to offer websites that allow users to experience flow online. Our web development team understands the flow in web design concepts and can create websites that allow your users to experience flow online.
Please contact our web development team to find out how they can help create a website that helps you achieve your goals.
SEO Maintenance is Ongoing
SEO is not a one-time service, but an ongoing process that businesses should monitor to maintain their organic ranks on the search engine results page (SERP). Your website is an important component of your business and is crucial for you to be found on search engines. A monthly SEO maintenance plan will ensure your business is not ignored. Here’s why:
- Search engines are constantly changing their search algorithms. A recent example is the Google Panda update. Because of the update, many popular websites that used to rank high on the SERP have dropped in ranks—some have fallen from first page of SERP to second. If you rank well for keywords now, do not be complacent. Without SEO maintenance, you might drop in ranks three months from now because of changes in search algorithms.
- Search engines tweak the SERP. When Google announced in May 2007 that they will blend search results with Universal Search, this resulted in news, images, videos and Google Local results showing on the SERP. How does this affect you? If you were previously ranked at position 3 for a certain keyword, related images and videos showing up on the SERP might result in you showing up in position 7 without SEO maintenance.
- Competitors try to and WILL outrank you. You cannot ignore your competitors, because they will not ignore you. If you rank higher than them on the SERP, you can be sure they will be working to outrank you. Ranking factors that come into play include quality of content and backlinks.
Many businesses do not have SEO maintenance because it is time consuming—keeping up with search engine trends, need to make constant SEO tweaks to website, and the importance of keeping content fresh.
Let our SEO analysts do the work for you. Contact us now to find out how we can help you with your SEO maintenance.
Resurgence of Print with QR Codes
Just when we thought print advertising was dying, it’s taking off again thanks to QR Codes. Embedding Quick Response (QR) Codes in a variety of printed materials and advertising vehicles is helping businesses engage with their customers in fresh ways. A simple scan of the barcode by a smart phone—or other like device—directs customers to a promotional mobile web page where they can receive tickets to an upcoming concert, get 20% discount from their favorite retailer, or share trailer of a great movie they just saw with friends on Facebook.
The customer benefits are obvious—access to great deals and information with a simple scan of a barcode. What about the benefits to a business? They are even better.
The cost of rolling out a marketing campaign and not knowing whether it reached your audience is one reason print has suffered in recent years. It’s costly to print ten thousand brochures and when details change more expense is needed for reprinting. Now businesses can use one QR Code for multiple marketing activities and incur only a one-time expense. Because all that needs changing is the mobile web page that the link leads to—not the campaign material. Another huge advantage of QR Codes is businesses receive response instantly whether their campaign is working.
Where to Get QR Code
Multiple websites exist that offer free QR Codes, but most redirect connection through their website. Here’s a list of QR code generators to start with to determine who is best for your business. Good luck.
- http://www.qurify.com/en/
- http://quikqr.com/
- http://qrcode.kaywa.com/
- http://www.snapmaze.com/
- http://www.qreasy.com/
- http://onlineqrlab.com/
Free Marketing For Businesses Through Foursquare
Social Media has advanced a lot during the past ten years, but never so much as when location-based reviews entered the scene—Yelp in 2004, and Foursquare more recently in 2009. In this blog post, we highlight Foursquare’s new platform that is revolutionizing the way businesses use location-based advertising.
On Foursquare, users suggest tips. Instead of offering a review of time spent at a location, something that Yelp provides, customers can offer 200 character tips about what new patrons should try out. It’s all about community on Foursquare, and that’s the draw of the website.
Because Foursquare is a location-based mobile platform, the most important thing that a business owner can do is get their clientele to “check-in” when they walk into the shop. This is free advertising for businesses, because “checking-in” often automatically posts to the consumers’ Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare pages.
Since the “check-in” is the ultimate goal for businesses, you need to offer your customers incentives: as a business owner, you know that patrons won’t stop by unless they have a reason. The new Foursquare platform gives them a reason. To better understand how it can, we offer this step-by-step guide for your business.
1. Sign Up
If you aren’t on Foursquare yet, you will need an account in order to continue.
2. Claim Your Venue
We’ll assume you already have a presence on Foursquare, because most businesses do without knowing it. Find your business on the site, and click “Claim Here” in the upper right hand corner. You will have to verify your business through a phone call.
3. Choose a “Special”
This is how you will get your check-ins. On the Foursquare homepage, in the bottom right hand corner, you’ll see a button that says “merchants.” The second tab is where you can select a “special” to pull in your customers. Passersby will notice the “special” that you’re offering, and stop in to see.
Next, think about your marketing strategy. If you’re going for new customers, you’ll definitely want to use the Newbie Special. Want to keep them coming back? The Check-in Special would be a good choice. The Mayor Special is a fun one, because it not only rewards your most loyal customers, but it creates competition for your other customers to try to gain Mayor status! Be sure to read through all the specials available to pick the perfect one.
4. Tell Your Employees
Make sure that your employees know about the new specials as you add them. You have the option of placing a code into the special, which will let your employees track it correctly.
5. Promote!
Let people know about your new Foursquare specials! Customers will see them if they’re near your shop, but what if they’re at home, browsing Facebook? Let your loyal patrons know that you’ve got something special for Foursquare users through your Facebook, Twitter and any other online marketing vehicle you use.
Another suggestion is to market your Foursquare presence inside your shop. Foursquare sends business owners stickers to put on doors or cash registers, but you can also hang up a sign in your window or even reserve a special seat for the Mayor, as well! The possibilities on how to promote your business within the Foursquare community are endless.
Don’t miss this new opportunity for free online marketing and increased sales—claim your business on Foursquare today!
Choosing the Right Business Name – from an Internet Marketing Perspective
What’s in a name? Frankly, a LOT. Any marketing and branding agency can go through the important details of naming a new business or one that is renaming from a brand perspective. It’s fascinating how business naming research is performed, tested and consumer analysis is created – in fact I totally respect it. However (and this is important), it is essential that this research is embodied from an Internet Marketing perspective.
Here’s how to protect yourself from online blindness when naming your business:
#1 – Make sure the domain name is available or easy to acquire ahead of time. Domain names, i.e. www.yourbusiness.com are the life force of branding online. Your domain availability should include these principles:
- You can “see it, spell it.” In other words, it’s simple
enough to resonate without a lot of possibility for misspellings. - Determine that most or all extensions are available. Everyone thinks of the ‘.com’ but it’s important to grab the important extensions (.net, .org, .us, etc.). If you’re a larger organization – grab as many as you can. Brand hijacking – by your competition buying those domains is not a pleasant situation to find yourself in.
- Misspellings are available. If there is a possibility of misspelling your domain name, grab all the necessary misspellings too. A random example would be: www.smithswarehouse.com – be sure to grab www.smithwarehouse.com and www.smithswearhouse.com
- Moderate length. We get the question, “Is my domain too long?” quite a bit actually. With domain names at a premium these days, it’s more important to “see it, spell it” than it is to keep it short. Moderate length of the domain is okay as long as it’s not overwhelming.
- Domain names (i.e. business names) with search specific keywords have a double advantage. Although sometimes this is not practical, it is helpful.
#2 – Evaluate the competitive landscape of your business name online. If it’s competitive, be prepared to have the resources necessary (time and money) to effectively launch an SEO campaign early. Here are some basic things to check when evaluating the competitiveness of your keyword phrases:
- Review the total number of Google results for your prospective business name. (As a very general rule of thumb – If it’s less than a total 250,000 results, and incorporate SEO from the beginning, you’ll be golden). Any words results over 1 Million – plan ahead for potentially robust ongoing SEO resources.
- Review PPC bids for your phrase, amount of PPC ads. You can use Google’s AdWords tool to evaluate the average bid amount for your business name. Anywhere over $1.00 per click mark may get expensive and is an indicator for the need of a moderately or severely competitive SEO marketplace.
- Evaluate the number of links/number of pages indexed of top results for your keyword phrases using tools such as the: Bruce Clay Toolbar, SEO Book , Yahoo Site Explorer. Plan on acquiring the same amount of links and pages of content indexed as the other top 10 listings. If this will take significant effort, that may be an indicator for a competitive marketplace.
- Evaluate whether you business name of choice has associations outside of your category. For example, a recent organization named their business the same name as a popular TV show – their rankings were buried at onset outside of local specific searches.
#3 – Check to see if your Social Media profiles are available. Social media is essential for business marketing in most all cases, so double check to see if your profiles/usernames are available. The big three would be Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn – but that’s just a start. Social media profiles, such as: www.facebook.com/smartsolutions or www.twitter.com/smartsolutions are just as powerful, and just as limited, as domain names. Check profiles using www.knowem.com.
As you can see, there are many factors to determining a valid, compelling business name at the onset. Along with your branding, marketing research efforts – don’t shoot yourself in the foot before you get out of the gate by not reviewing the online marketplace of your potential business name F-I-R-S-T.
We welcome comments on example stories – please post!
By: Wendy Roe
Is Your Site Design Getting in the Way of Your SEO?
If so, it’s time for a redesign! Don’t whine about the cost of a redesign, the lost opportunities without effective SEO will cost you far more in the long run. In today’s highly competitive Internet realm, it’s absolutely critical that your site is based on a search engine friendly structure; but what does this mean?
Your site should be HTML based, with limited use of Flash. Your code should be simple, W3C compliant, and should be kept as light and error free as possible. For instance, I’ve seen a site improve its design and include added functionality, yet cut its actual code length by over 70%. This was accomplished mostly by employing CSS in the design, ridding the site of Viewstate code, and moving all possible elements to external include files.
In addition to having concise HTML, the following should be adhered to:
- Absolutely avoid any type of frame, unless you’re trying to hide its content from the engines
- Your navigation should be text based, with meaningful words that are simple yet targeted to the subject of each page
- Images should be optimized (condensed) for the web and include ALT tags
- URL, Title tags, H1 headers, breadcrumbs, and hyperlinks should all be optimized around the particular subject of each page
- The content of each page should be targeted to the precise topic of that page alone
- Address, phone number, and other contact information should be in text – not image form
- Your SEO Friendly Content Management System should allow full control of all of the above elements
The typical lifespan of a website is 3-5 years before your customers will expect a fresh look and feel, with newly added technology and interactivity. As you’re looking at the investment itself, think about the amortization of a new site. Even a fairly expensive site, amortized over 5 years, is an incredibly inexpensive business tool likely to drive substantial ROI.
Keep in mind, the best design in a search friendly architecture still requires ongoing marketing. Just like your offline business needs branding, marketing, and exposure to gain customers, so does your website. Internet Marketing Services are offered in a myriad of formats, timeframes, and cost structures. Shop carefully to find the right marketing partner for your business.
When will CMS catch up with SEO?
Interesting that the entire first page of Google results for SEO Friendly CMS returns blogs and forums, filled with folks trying to figure out what solution they should use for their business or their clients. See the SERP here.
The consensus seems to be that there isn’t really a CMS out there which was actually built with SEO in mind. It appears that some can handle certain aspects like titles and Meta tags, but the overall vote is that you need to build your own CMS to be fully SEO friendly.
Similar to what is found on David Naylor’s blog, a majority of forum and blog contributors seem to agree that WordPress is the best SEO CMS option available. One problem… WordPress is not a CMS! Don’t get me wrong, WordPress is a great tool… for blogging! I may smack in a loose nail with the butt of a flashlight, or screwdriver, if a hammer isn’t readily available – But if I were building a house, I’m pretty sure I’d invest the $20 for a hammer. You need the right tool for the job. For businesses, WordPress is not the right tool for managing a website.
Unfortunately, too many SEO’s are just SEO’s – and that’s it. They didn’t come from a marketing or business background. Many didn’t even come from a technical background. They simply found themselves doing SEO and created a career out of it. That’s perfectly fine – But without a cursory understanding of business, they still hold to the ‘do whatever it takes’ method of band-aiding tasks and processes and using tools and methods that were not created for sustained efficacy.
But really, what were these SEO’s to do? Nothing existed that would do what they need it to do. No commercially available CMS, free or paid, gave them the flexibility required to effectively optimize a website for organic search, while still giving a business the ability to work in a non-rigid web environment. No CMS gave full HTML access, complete design control, total URL creativity, and complete flexibility over:
• Unique page titles
• Meta tags
• Sitemaps
• Internal links
• 301 redirects
• Image and Alt tag control
I admit I am completely biased about this because I use this tool and work closely with them, but I implore you to check out Pixelsilk. This is not just an SEO friendly CMS – it’s a full on SEO-enabled CMS; the first of its kind, I believe.
It’s everything a CMS should be, and any feedback that they’ve already received from top SEO’s is already being implemented. To be fair, feel free to read up on other CMS’ at either www.cmsreview.com or www.cmsmatrix.org. You may find Pixelsilk on these very soon as well.
The Dance of Finding an Internet Marketing Partner
For most companies, small and large, Internet Marketing (typically referred to as Search Engine Marketing or SEM) has become the most important aspect of their marketing plan and of their business livelihood in general.
So how do you ensure you’ve got the right agency on your side? Besides the most obvious; check references, here are a few guidelines that will help you find the right dance…uh…Internet Marketing partner:
1) Check out their moves. The partner you choose should have all the moves, and be able to dance to a variety of music. They should have a working knowledge of all components of Search Engine Marketing, including organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay-per-Click (PPC), link building, Social Media Marketing (SMM), and conversion (sale or lead) enhancement experience.
There is so much interplay between the various disciplines of SEM that if you choose an agency that is not well-rounded and well-versed in all the components, you run the risk of being inefficient with your dollars and missing out on many cross-functional opportunities. For example, if your agency is only focusing on your PPC campaign, then you miss out on all the long-term effects of Search Engine Optimization and ranking organically in the top search engine results.
The latest trends in user behavior suggest that most people searching online do their research through organic search listings, but then make an actual purchase through PPC. If you are only engaged in one of these channels, you may be losing out on a great deal of sales.
2) Daily practice ensures a great performance. Dedication turns a social hip hopper into a competitive pro. Look for an agency that is dedicated to Search Engine Marketing. Dedication means that the agency has committed expert resources to this service offering and that the people working on your project will be focused on your overall business, marketing, and sales goals.
Internet Marketing is a constantly changing field, with new research and market modifications monthly, if not weekly. Ask if they have a dedicated Internet Marketing team. What do they do to stay on top of the industry changes? Why do they think Internet Marketing is important?
3) They can optimize, but can they tango? They may have some decent moves, but when it comes down to it, do they know the dance? How much do they know outside of SEM? Do they have experience effectively tying Internet Marketing strategies and methods into a web site that meets your business goals?
Learn about the agency’s experience working with web designers and developers. Do they understand how to interact with your developer or internal IT team, or your marketing department? Are their recommendations in step with web development best practices and usability trends? Best case scenario – your agency will have all of these disciplines in house; offering you the best in single source marketing methods.
4) An intimate dance builds the fire. You want a trust worthy partner that will dance close and build the heat. Meet with the agency in person, or at the very least converse on the phone. Do they explain things in a way that makes sense to you and helps you truly understand what their services offer? Are they excited to help you learn about Internet marketing? Do they make an effort to get to know your company and your industry? Will they be there when you need it?
5) Back that thang up – the bottom line. They may know how to get down and “drop it like it’s hot”; but will they really deliver in the end? As you are getting to know the agency, make sure they’re focused on your business goals. Are they interested in learning about other aspects of your business? Be wary of any agency that talks only about “getting you a #1 ranking”. While it’s great to rank well on the search engines, no one can guarantee a position, and there is much more to succeeding online than a top search ranking.
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