April 2006

Five Big Online Marketing Mistakes – Part 1

by Andy Brudtkuhl on April 24, 2006

Online marketing appears to be easy: build a website, purchase some keywords on Google or Yahoo, and then sit back and watch people flock to your website to buy your products or services. In reality, it rarely works that easily.
Just about every mistake made on the web derives from the belief that designing a website, marketing your website, and measuring the results are separate activities.

In fact, the opposite holds true: you must attack internet marketing with an approach that recognizes the interrelatedness of, for example, the structure of a website and its ability to rank
highly in search engine results.

Ideally, your search engine optimization consultants, graphic designers, technology architects and coders, and media buyers should work together as a single unit, even if they are not from the same company. Failing to take such an approach can result one or more of the following Big Mistakes…

Big Mistake #1: Believing That Keyword Advertising Is Everything
Everyday thousands of people are pouring money into pay-per-click search engine advertising. These advertisers only care about being number one in ad words, when they should be more concerned with end results. The Google bidding model, in which advertisers compete against each other, ensures the highest cost per click for Google, but it doesn’t ensure advertisers will earn a healthy ROI.

People forget that a Top-Ten organic search result is just as powerful as an ad that costs $5.50. Plus, there’s actually a lot of people who are more inclined to click an organic search result because they think it has more credibility than a paid advertisement.
Instead of focusing all your efforts on keyword advertising, you have to strike a balance with organic search, eNewsletters, email, blogs, and all the other marketing vehicles available on the internet. In the long run you don’t want to be at the hands of Google Policy.

Big Mistake #2: Thinking Cool Design Equals Good Marketing
You want visitors to understand your message, buy your products and/or services, support your cause, etc. and the best way to achieve that is to build a website that appeals to them. That means using the right design. Not the “cool” one.

Most websites are clearly built to appeal to the tastes of the CEO, the marketer, or the VP of sales. These sites don’t address the needs of the customer. A 50-second Flash animation may tickle someone’s ego, but it makes your site invisible to search engines and may completely turn-off potential customers who just want to buy a product and get out as quickly as possible.
Your customers want have a conversation with you, where you exchange information, discover their needs, and offer solutions. If a Flash animation helps accomplish that goal, fine. Otherwise, focus on solving your customer’s problem, and leave out the nifty graphics.

Check back next week for Part 2 of “The Five Big Online Marketing Mistakes”

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Real Life Software, Part 1

by Andy Brudtkuhl on April 24, 2006

I am a big fan of real life software — web services and desktop software that make something in my life easier. These are things that help in real life situations. For example, 37Signal’s Ta-Da List does one thing simply that helps me everyday. Real life software generally does one thing well and solves a real problem or makes you more efficient in a way.

The first product I would like to reveal on my real life software list is an excellent product from Zillow.

What is Zillow.com?

Zillow.com is an online real estate service dedicated to helping you get an edge in real estate by providing you with valuable tools and information.

As a very recent house hunter I know the tools for such a big investment and tedious process are few and far between. Real estate web sites are lackluster at best providing hideous forms and unreliable search mechanisms. There is little in the way of comparative analysis and shopping utilities. And there’s the fun task of trying to find out just how much that property is worth. For me, it meant going the Iowa Polk County Assessor web site, a grotesque web site circa 1995. Unfortunately I did not find Zillow until the very end of my search.

Zillow helps to solve a lot problems with purchasing a house and their initial focus is providing an easy way to see very valuable and critical information. By enhancing the design they are able to create a much more efficient and valuable user experience. So, maybe I am write when I say form wins over function. As you will see, these sites provide the same exact information, yet one is far more helpful.

Searching

Assessor site

Zillow

Results 1

Assessor site

Zillow

Results 2

Assessor site

Zillow

Nothing needs to be said about the difference in the experience between these two designs.

From Zillow:

Zillow.com today and in the future…

Today we are answering what we believe is the first question most home buyers, sellers, and the curious ask: “How much is this home really worth?” Zillow.com calculates a valuation (the Zestimate™) that anyone can see — for free — for most homes in the U.S., including yours. Or the one you want to be yours. Or the one you are curious about. Or ours, for that matter. You can refine the value of any home with My Zestimator™, an interactive tool that allows you to enter things you know about a home but we don’t. This is just the beginning for Zillow.com. We’ll continue adding information and tools for homes, local markets and real estate to make the home buying and selling processes easy and accessible.

If you are house hunting or want to know more information about your house, check out Zillow. Obviously it helps.

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Social Niche

by Andy Brudtkuhl on April 22, 2006

Unless you’ve been hiding out you are fully aware of the impact online social networks have had across the board. These networks have gained validity as big media adopts the models in order to cash in on high dollar ad networking. Obviously the biggest of these networks are places such as MySpace, Facebook, and MSN Spaces. Web services such as Flickr and Delicious create the same networks. The niche these services create is catching on and being spread among demographic segments.

The obvious demographic for these services has been 14-24 year olds, which happens to be one of the most profitable demographic markets. These services were not created because of the market potential, but because of the adoption potential. The 14-24 year old market segment was more likely to adopt online services such as these.

But as these networks do grow their potential to reach across demographc segments is very large. At the heart of these social systems is the sharing of ideas and information. Not only do these networks invoke collaborative interaction, they create economic markets for advertisers. It makes advertising easy because you know exactly what demograph is using your service, unlike television where you push ads to a broad market with no idea of your market reach. Social networks allows advertisers to recognize these niches and thus create effective ads and knowingly reach their target markets.

There are two distinct demographic segments that have high profitability potential. And these two demographic segments have hundreds of niche possibilities contained within them. One market is seniors, the 55+ demographic. At a recent conference, Senior Neilsen Analyst Leslie Marable said the 55+ segment should no longer be ignored by web services and internet companies. This segments use of broadband has increased a lot in the last few years. Why can’t they have social networks? There are hundreds of niches in this baby boomer segment that could use an online service to collaborate thoughts and ideas.

Another example of an untapped segment with a lot of potential is young parents with young children. Tara Hunt recently wrote an intriguing post on her blog called the ‘The Long Tail is Chunky‘. She uses the long tail theory to prove the potential of segmented markets, such as the ‘stay at home young mom’. She writes,

So, let’s hone that down even moreso. Okay, now you are trying to attract an entirely different person. Forget MySpace. Whatever you can come up with, Tom will probably add to the feature list anyway, so why not come up with a tool for someone slightly under-represented online? Let’s say, “Stay at home moms with a high speed internet connection that want to connect to other adults.” This is actually quite a large market:

There are hundreds of possibilities in this market. Why not build a web service for parents in a community to collaborate on the transportation of children to their various activities? Why not build a network to allow collaboration on parenting techniques?

This are but two demographic segments that each contain hundreds of possible niches. Tara goes on to say,

So, as you go down the long tail, you may lose sheer numbers of potential customers, but you will have an easier time actually reaching those customers. The long tail is actually very ‘chunky’ in that, there may be oodles of more niche markets out there, but in each of these segments, you will find a dedicated, under-represented, overlooked and easier to reach community.

The options for the creation of scale free networks using demographic segments as you travel down the long tail is exponential. Now that these web service networks have proved their legitimacy among the major demographic markets the opportunity for entrepreneurs to cash in on niche markets has high potential.

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Photoshop mockups vs. Client Expectations

by tjmapes on April 21, 2006

What is the best way to present a site design to a client? I have no idea. The way (at least in my mind) that most design shops do this is by presenting the client with a photoshop mockup of how their site’s design will layout on screen.

Is this a good thing? I think, absolutley not. However, how else can you portray your design for a client and have them understand the visual aspects for each design element properly?

You really can’t. Photoshop mockups (being necessary or not) have their pros and cons.

The Pros:

1. PS mockups visually show exactly how the client’s site will appear on screen.

2. Gives the designer a better understanding of how he will lay the page out when it comes time to code it.

3. Give the client a chance for revisions and comments on certain likes and dislikes.

The Cons: (Not under ALL circumstances)

1. Unless you are building the site using tables (probably with spacer images for separation etc.) most of the time, when you show a client a design from an image file created from photoshop, it will usually never look 100% the same when it comes time to lay that out in html. (Thats why I stress using xhtml/css for layouts but what do I know.)

1a. Once a client see’s their new site all mocked up from an image created from photoshop, they expect it to look, exactly like that. Which is obviously what I would think too if I were the client in this particular situation.

I believe Photoshop mockups are the biggest catch 22s that designers have to deal with when trying to present something to the client for these reasons (especially if thats how they are expected to do things at their place of work).

But, is there another way to show someone who, lets say doesn’t know squat about html and laying out a page? Or doesn’t know anything about design? Or has never used photoshop or any wysiwyg html editors before? Once again, I’d like to know.

If I were to put myself in the novice client’s shoes, no. I’d want to see a ‘picture’ of how my site that I’m paying someone else to build me, is going to look. So I can make revisions, comments etc. This I totally understand especially because that’s where the first impression really seems to come from anyways, the design, the look and feel of the site, and that is very important.

Once again, for MOST clients, this usually isn’t a problem, EVEN if the mockup and coded layout differ a bit from one to the other. Some clients however, expect it to look EXACTLY the same.
I see the need for Photoshop mockups, but I think they are a waste of time honestly.

If a client came to DESIGN SHOP A and said, ‘I want a site that has these particular elements, and this functionality, and this is where I want both to be placed on the page,’ wouldn’t it be nice to just go with all the client’s requests and visions, and design their site and lay it all out at the same time? Skipping that extra step of revisions and comments etc, at least before you even had the chance to lay it out. (which adds on another x amount of hours and another x amount of dollar $$$ from the client’s pocket)

Another argument I have against this process is the fact that, somedays, I just flat out don’t have it. Meaning, I get assigned a new project and I do the design yadda yadda, great right? Also while designing, I TRY to think how this will all layout on the screen when certain areas have more content, or the font size is increased etc etc. But like I said, somedays I just don’t ‘have it’.

So that is why, in a perfect world, I like to design AS I lay out/build the site. Then you would know instantly what pitfalls you’d come across and be able to change them on the fly between the design and the layout.
Maybe I’m no longer making any sense, and if so I appoligize.

I guess what I’m really trying to get from this post is some understanding of how others deal with this process. The proecss of getting a project, learning about the client’s needs and wants, designing their site, taking revisions and suggestions, and laying it all out (and then content integration on top of that).

What is the magical (best) experience from conception to completion? Can someone comment on thier experiences and their processes when it comes to situations like these? All I wanted is to share a little, and get some valuable information back from readers, so if you have any insights, please feel free to share!

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