Marketing Logic

Changes in the Industry like no other
It can be argued that no other profession has been so affected by the internet as Real Estate. I count myself lucky to have been in the industry right when it “crossed over” into the Internet age. When I got into Real Estate the agents were the true gatekeepers of information. Every two weeks, a book of listings within your county was published, and every Realtor received one. Buyers were primarily reliant upon their agent to communicate new listings to them in a timely and efficient manner. The only other source of Real Estate information was the circular in the local newspaper, published once a week.

Enter the internet, which enabled forward-thinking brokers to start placing listings online. As early as 1996, buyers were using the internet to find homes, especially if they were relocating to new areas. The advent of the internet was amazing, as it transformed the industry in a few short years. I saw amazing results from advertising properties online, and it didn’t take much for me to make the decision to pursue a career in online marketing rather than Real Estate.

Stagnation?
Unfortunately, while the accessibility of property listings has increased, the level of knowledge and online marketing has not grown with the times. In fact, from shopping for homes the past few months, I am convinced that the learning curve for online marketing among many Realtors has stagnated. When Realtor.com came on the scene in 1997, they sold to Realtors, using ploys such as: “the average listing on Realtor.com receives “x” views.” I felt like the lone ranger trying to explain to my fellow Realtors that a lot of the sales lines were bad data improperly applied. It showed me a lot about the lack of understanding of technology in that industry. Some have only recently accepted that the Internet is here to stay.

Here is my recent experience from the past few months of searching for a home. They say that doctors are the worst patients. It may also be true that former Realtors who are now online marketing veterans may be the worst sellers or buyers.

Bad Photos – are you kidding me?
In this day and age of inexpensive, high quality digital cameras, you post low resolution photos that are pixilated and hard to see? Worse yet, you show laziness buy simply uploading everything you took a picture of?

If I had my house on the market, I would be going ballistic on my Realtor, as there are no excuses for :

• Low res, pixilated photos
• Blurry pictures
• Pictures of toilets and mirrors
• Less than 3 pictures uploaded for any listing
• Cameras held at an angle, making everything look like it’s on a slope
• pictures of beds, which I am not buying
• No pictures of the items listed in the description. If there is a workshop – take a picture!



• no labeling of photos that have been uploaded
• No interior pictures!?!?
• Snow on the ground – and it’s late May
• The same three photos – repeated 2-3 times.
• Misspelled adjectives – “Emaculate Condition!” (really?)

Each one of these things is something that can easily turn off a buyer. Not taking the extra time to take a good picture, not considering presentation, and not labeling photos will negatively affect the buyer’s decision as they shop online. Not enough information is one of the worst problems an online listing can have.

Realtors and Responsibility
Pictures are meant to present the sellers home in the best light. Can a little thought be made about the selection and the quality of pictures that are used? The responsibility of the listing Realtor is to represent the seller. This includes the responsibility of the online listing. EVERY part of that online listing should be attractive, explanatory, and sensible. Anything less is a disservice to the seller, who pays your commission. I am very surprised that more sellers do not get online to check their listings. I think more Realtors would be fired if sellers checked their listings.

Expectations
If the listing description highlights certain areas of the home, such as an in-law suite, over-sized garage, pond or other feature that can be a potential selling point – please, add a picture. There are so many homes that had excellent descriptions, but then no photos of any if the items described in the listing. The description is the first area we read, and it sets up the expectations, but then the lack of pictures is more than disappointing, it lessens the property.

When there are an almost unlimited number of pictures that can be uploaded, only loading two to three outdoor shots is inexcusable. If there is an in-ground pool, please add the picture. Someone may want to see it. If you have green or lavender bathroom toilets, you may want to go ahead and add it as well, just to keep expectations in line.

Anything less than 10 photos is a crime against the seller. For newer homes with more than 2000 square feet, 20 photos. Three or less is negligence. Negligence not only towards your seller, but to any buyer who is comparing properties.

Real Estate 2.0? When?
I am waiting for more social aspects of marketing to be implemented. While real estate was one of the earliest adopters of the internet (not without resistance) it has not grown out of a 90’s mentality of online marketing. The only things I can do are email the realtor, email the listing to a friend, or make a printable brochure. Some sites allow me to create lists of the properties I like with registration, which I liked, but I was still disappointed with the lack of flexibility in ranking, saving, excluding, and comparing properties.

I for one am waiting for the ability to add comments to listings. I would love nothing more than adding what I liked or didn’t like about homes, and I am sure that it would help to make some homes more attractive. I am also sure that the comments would also shock some sellers into reality when buyers can be directly honest about the home and the outrageous prices that some are asking for what they are offering.

Some comments I would have left:

The house photo is at a weird angle because of the mobile homes and cars on blocks in the neighbor’s yard.
This home advertises 2 full baths. The second bath is in the basement and has no walls.
The separate 3 car garage and workshop makes this house well worth the asking price.
The pool and the outdoor chimney are amazing, but the yard was too small for us.

URL Addresses
At my previous company, we went to extraordinary lengths to create search friendly URL’s in order to have the database of homes spidered by the search engines. Ultimately, each property had its own short, unique URL, based on the MLS number. We celebrated. Simply searching by using the MLS code in Google would result in the property page showing up in the rankings. Unfortunately, the client had no idea how great an accomplishment this was, nor the implications. Now, the average URL that I cut and past from real estate websites are well over 50 characters . . . Check this out (if you can):

http://www.realtor.com/search/listingdetail.aspx?cmid=1004584%2c1004586%2c1004591%2c1004601
%2c1004613%2c1004616%2c1004622%2c1004707%2c1004708&typ=1&sid=7d172c178d3044dda9d976
e2757d111a&sdir=0&sby=2&pg=6&lid=1087789449&lsn=57&srcnt=1721#Detail

These tend to break. I send these URLs by email, Instant Messaging, and SMS. My wife and I share URL’s incessantly, as it seems we change criteria every week. Sometimes, our friends help out, but rarely does anyone use the “Send to a Friend” option. Could it be that they are not visible or too cumbersome? My opinion is that people do not use these forms because the policy is not clear about using email addresses gleaned from the website. Every send to a friend form that I viewed had no clear policy or explanation of how the emails would be kept, used, or maintained.

Final Thoughts
Having been in the real estate industry and cutting my teeth on real estate websites in the 90’, it frustrated me beyond belief to see the lackluster attempts at online marketing. I would dare say that the majority of buyers are looking online before they ever contact a Realtor. How a Realtor sells a property, the pictures they use, and the description they provide, are all keys to how well they will do their job. It’s a business card. It’s an opportunity for the Realtor and their seller to shine, yet most do not seem to take the time to learn the tools or create effective presentations.

Sellers Need to Demand More
Maybe it’s the area where I live, that many Realtors seem to uncomfortable with a digital camera and creating well-crafted, marketable property descriptions. I am sure that there are Realtors out there who take the time to build an amazing online profile of the houses they list. As a seller, I would demand nothing less than a professional listing with clear, hi-res pictures that present my home in the best possible light. Anything less would be unacceptable.

A friend pointed me to a Realtor’s blog where he has created the Bad MLS Photo of the Day. I like his style, and I am sure that he will have a never-ending source of content.

Related Articles:
Are You Creating a Customer Experience?
Make your Website Content Explode
What’s the Customer’s ROI?

Anyone who has worked for or run a small business knows how hard it can be to get good marketing advice. Everyone from the high priced consultant to the guy you buy your laptop from has advice on how to get ahead online. Most of them are wrong. It can leave a small business owner so desperate for advice, they’ll take it from anyone. Even the guy sitting next to them on the plane…

This week, I happened to be “that guy.”

On a late night flight to Cleveland, I found myself sitting next to a woman and her young daughter. We were having a nice conversation when she mentioned she had started her own business but was frustrated with her website. Of course my ears perked up and my attention was captured. I’ve heard my fair share of stories of bad advice, but this woman’s story was right up there.

She spun a long tale of woe, recounting bits of advice she’d endured during her short career with this website. I sat amazed as she shared with me the advice she’d been given and the thing she’d been told to do.

I realized that many people offering advice about website marketing read an article or two and feel as though they have it all together. Others seem to be coming from plain ignorance. And the person who pays for the bad advice? The business owner, who is usually on a shoestring budget and just wants to run her business.She doesn’t have time for unfounded, groundless advice that could potentially destroy her business.

Unfortunately, I cannot educate those who feel that they know everything already. People who are well don’t need a doctor. But I can do everything in my power to be sure that small business owners have the information they need to correctly build and market their website. All they want are straight answers in a language they can understand.

Moving to GoDaddy
One consultant told her she needed to move her website to GoDaddy’s platform. She transferred the domain registration, her email accounts…everything. Unfortunately it took a few weeks of frustration before GoDaddy support realized she was Mac-based. GoDaddy’s sitebuilder program is incompatible with Mac OS. GoDaddy’s advice? Buy a PC. Needless to say, it took just as long to get everything off Godaddy and back to her original registrar as it did to transfer things over in the first place. The result? Countless hours and dollars wasted from really bad advice.

Search Engine Submission
The next thing she was told was to pay for a submission service to search engines. This is where I had to bite my lip to keep from exploding. No one has had to submit a site to the search engines since the year 2000. Search engines have programs called “spiders” that will find your website and download a copy of your site to their servers. Submitting your site to search engines is a thing of the past. It’s not necessary and usually a rip-off offer. $29.95 to submit your website to 100 search engines? Name six of them.

Search engines will naturally find your website. Read the Google guidelines. In fact, anyone who has anything to do with creating, programming, developing, and marketing a website should be made to read those guidelines. Search engines want your website, and they work hard to get it. Just by picking up a few links to your website, you can ensure that the search engines will find your pages.

Domain Registration
Amazingly, all of the advice to this point was enough to make me scream out in frustration, but that wasn’t the best part. Her Mac guy, who helps her computer run smoothly, tells her that the “trick” to getting into Google . . . . wait for it . . . . is to register her domain for 10 years.

[blink]

Seriously.

No wonder the internet is such a mystery, and business owners make what they think are good decisions based on advice, only to have zero results. With this kind of advice, zero result would be preferable to the lost hours and ill-spent money.

Registering your domain for a few years; whatever you think will make sense is the best advice I can give. There is an element of the algorithm that is debated about the length of time that it is registered. Anecdotal evidence suggests that domains registered for a year are not as reliable as domains registered for 10 years – based on the ideas that the owner has made a commitment to the domain.

I can understand that – it makes sense. However, this item alone is not the primary part of the algorithm! It is a very minor part, and there are so many other intricacies that are much more important than the years of domain registration that you purchase. Logically, if everyone went out and re-registered their domain for 10 years, what then? Who is most relevant?

Straight talk.
The basis of website visibility in the search engines is your architecture, content, and incoming links. Those are the fundamental principles of building a website marketing strategy. Everything else supports these principles. The rest is details. For a small business owner, here are the basics:

1. Build a site that is focused on your goal.
2. Provide a clear goal for the visitor; contact form, phone number, clear directions.
3. Write keyword-focused summaries about each page in the Page Title and Meta Description.
4. Get website links from business associates, directories, local memberships.

. . . and then read the Google Webmaster Guidelines. I am surprised how many people have not seen this document. It is a true road map for any business owner who has questions about how your website should be built.

Related Articles:
Are you Creating a Customer Experience?
The Three C’s of Marketing: Content, Context, Community
10 Ways that SEO is Like Sales

The importance of words
Mao Tse-Tung understood the power of words when he wrote that “words are like little dynamite sticks in people’s minds . . . .” He was talking about communism, but the same holds true for marketing. Words are much more than labels, they are potential explosions that will connect and create an emotional response. Don’t let your website languish with wimpy, neutered copy. Create explosions with the power of words.

I Love Tractors!
I’ve been watching a few websites over the past few years. Watching the evolution of design and content on certain websites has always been a game, and a nice way to keep the pulse on the evolution of marketing on the internet.

The interest in the first was one spawned by Nick Usborne, after listening to his presentation on Writing for the Web in 2004. He showed the John Deere website that had promotional copy for the 4000 series tractor that was some of the softest, spineless, non-committal and vague content one could ever find. Don’t take my word for it, Nick’s caption for this example was “What has the reader learned?

The content reads:

Underneath their familiar green and yellow exterior isn’t just a redesign of the compact tractor, but a transformation. Where power is no longer measured by horsepower. Where implements practically attach themselves. And comfort is no longer at odds with productivity. One hundred and twenty improvements. Zero gimmicks. And countless firsts. These tractors are ready. 120 Improvements. Countless Firsts. Zero Gimmicks.

Neutered content
This content has no flavor, no meat. It’s boring and borderline ridiculous. They aren’t selling luxury cars here; they are selling tractors to people who have very specific needs. The funny thing is that I was in the market for a tractor, and this hit home. I was looking for something that I can get dirty tilling, mowing, digging and landscaping. Not something that looks nice on a glossy brochure. Plus the fact that NO attachments attach themselves – that’s just an out and out dirty lie. Power is no longer measured by horsepower? Please – that’s just insulting. Can it drag fallen Oak trees? Because that’s what I NEED.

Get More Done
Fortunately, things change and most times they get better. The new page for the 4000 series tractor makes so much more sense – as if they realized that people have needs, and this page speaks to it!

Content:

GET MORE DONE
With 133 attachments available you can:
Mow up to 20 acres
Till up to 5.5 acres
Lift up to 2728 lbs
Dig with a 36-inch bucket up to 8.5 feet deep.

Now that’s action – those factors speak to my needs for a tractor! This makes me excited, this allows me to envision the possibilities of what I can do, and creates the need for me to own this tractor.
On the down side, this amazingly explosive content is tied up inside of an image, rather than allowed to live on and propagate in an HTML format. Placing this content inside of a graphic keeps it contained to those who see the graphic. Allowing it to be HTML text allows it to be searchable and published in search results, copied, sent, and highlighted by those people who, like me, love this tractor stuff.

Words
The other site that I found a while ago was petsafe.net.
The homepage just struck me as soon as I found it, as it was very generic and totally image-focused. The main problem is that it was focused entirely on one image. Unfortunately, the navigation did not help this site, as the first navigational choice was “product information”. Now think about this for a second. The word product does not carry any power at all, it’s a generic word. The second problem is that the word is singular. There is no visual or contextual indication that there is an entire catalog of pet supplies. The large image dedicated to one product and the non-contextual navigation stop any user that does not have a need for that particular product. Nothing draws the viewer into the website.

Fast-forward a few years, and the new PetSmart website is miles beyond the prior installment. This homepage provides a clear explanation of the website:

Safe Pets. Happy Owners.
Awesome tagline! You know what they sell and what they are about in only a split second of looking at the page. The links and groupings allow people to instantly get into the deep content of the website, either through the pet product finder (relational links) or specific product links (utility links).

Thankfully, the navigation was changed to “Products” which is still generic, but plural, implying many more products are available through that link. The new page has much more emphasis on content, the customer testimonial is a nice bonus, and the content directs people to the importance of loving your pet. This connects on a different level, as you will buy products to protect and benefit your pet because you love them, not so much because you need to be sold into it.

I am assuming that the change in this site to this new homepage has made a significant impact of increased traffic and search engine rankings. By implementing more html-based content, it gives the search engines a little more ammunition for contextually classifying your website. But the best result of creating content that connects with readers is that it works. It provides benefits, ideas, answers. And that’s what people are looking for.

Creating Explosions

I love seeing companies get the content right on their websites. I don’t mean explode from the bulk of content, but exploding in relevance and power. Too many companies rely on spineless, filler content in the place of real words that have actual meaning. Customers aren’t looking for filler, they are looking for explosions that will motivate and inspire them to action.

Related Posts:
Search Engine Optimization Basics
Marketers Need to Learn Romance
Content v Creative: Where does the Customer Count?

Creating a Customer Experience

I attended the Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference at the beginning of this week fully expecting to learn a whole lot of good internet marketing information from a great group of speakers. And I did. However, I wasn’t expecting to become part of a warm, welcoming, and helpful community that extends beyond the two-day conference. But I did.

The Unleashed conference was all about community both in the sessions and the networking.

1. I was able to network with almost all of the other attendees and build lasting relationships with many of them.
2. The speakers emphasized building and marketing websites focused on the visitor, rather than the search engines.

Real-live handshakes, face-to-face conversations, and more than a few tweets
One of the pros of the internet is that we can easily connect with people all over the world. On the flip side, the con is that we spend more and more time online with virtual friends—and less time face to face. Working in the internet marketing industry naturally allows for a widely distributed client and colleague base, many of whom we never see. So I loved Unleashed because I finally got to meet many virtual friends and colleagues in person.

The crew behind Small Business Marketing Unleashed—Jennifer Laycock, Robert Clough, Rachel Phillips, and Vickie Evans of Search Engine Guide and Small Business Brief—were brilliant in starting off the conference with a speed networking and charity event. (Think speed dating with three minutes and business cards and no evaluations.) By “forcing” all of us to talk to each other, any speaker/attendee cliques that could have potentially formed were broken up from the start. Pushing us out of our comfort zones to meet new people on that first night made it a whole lot easier to do so throughout the rest of the conference.

• Internet marketers shared knowledge with business owners.
• Speakers befriended attendees.
• Neighbors asked and answered each other’s questions during sessions.
• Previously total strangers hung out talking about the industry and life in general until the wee hours of the morning.
• My Twitter tweet rate quadrupled at least as we are continuing the conversations now that we’ve returned to our homes all over the country.

As a result, I came away from the conference with a head full of knowledge and a contact list full of friends and resources willing to share ideas and input. And a whole lot of new friends.

Information-packed sessions with a focus on people
I was looking forward to Unleashed because it was a smaller conference (purposely) yet offered some of the best professionals in the industry as speakers. I knew the sessions would go into each topic in-depth and send me home armed with practical applications. And I wasn’t disappointed.

Sessions that stood out included:

Intro: SEO Success Pyramid by Matt McGee
During the overview session, Jennifer Laycock, Wendy Piersall, Matt Bailey, and Matt McGee set the tone for the rest of the conference. Jennifer made the excellent point that “search engines are like Pinocchio. They just want to be a real boy.” She meant that search engines continually try to think more and more like real people. Build and market websites geared focused on your visitors, and you will be successful in the search engines. This theme was carried on throughout the conference.

Matt McGee shared his SEO Success Pyramid, a great concept he recently developed to guide the SEO process. The pyramid has five levels:

1. The foundation: has nothing do with your website. The foundation is about preparing yourself for success by ensuring that you have a unique product, good customer service, etc.
2. The first steps: preparing your website for success. This includes design, usability, analytics, etc.
3. Nuts and Bolts: improving on your website with content, crawlability, and contextual links.
4. Reaching out: getting involved on other sites.
5. What its all about: gaining trust.

I loved this concept because it’s the same thing we preach at SiteLogic: SEO is about so much more than putting keywords in appropriate places. It’s about selling something people want, building a website that is easy to use, focusing your visitor on your goal, and building a good reputation that will have longevity. Download Matt McGee’s SEO Success Pyramid for free.

Website Architecture with Stoney deGeyter
Stoney broke his presentation into three main topics:

1. Domain and URL structure
2. Page and document structure
3. Link structure.

Stoney emphasized that the most important thing to keep in mind when building or maintaining a website is “Don’t make them think.” Make navigating and using your site as obvious and as easy as possible. If visitors can’t figure it out, they’ll just leave.

The session was filled with good technical information without being confusing to those who come from a marketing background. This laundry list of items of which to be aware is essential for any marketer or business owner who wants their website to be effective for visitors and search engines.

Building a Community with Wendy Piersall
Wendy shared methods for successfully building a community around your website. She said the most important thing to remember is WIIFM, or “What’s In It For Me?” This is the question visitors will ask themselves when they come to your website. If you answer that question well, they’ll stick around. Always remember to focus first on your visitor, and last on your own ideas.

Blogging For Business with Mack Collier
Mack, a regular contributor to Search Engine Guide and blogging expert, provided some great information in his speaking debut. As did many of the other speakers, he emphasized the importance of focusing on your visitors above all else. Mack’s elements of a great blog include:

1. content
2. posting schedule
3. comments
4. sidebar elements

Mack strongly recommends including a picture of you and a brief bio of you on your blog. Allowing visitors to really know who you are adds to your credibility and personality and encourages them to stick around.

He also noted that blogs are great for targeting long-tail keywords.

Keywords and Content with Heather Lloyd-Martin
Seeing as Heather practically invented the concept and has a witty, energetic speaking style, she was a no-brainer to lead this session and workshop. I appreciated her focus on writing copy that focuses on the visitor and helps them to understand and navigate your site. Heather strongly emphasized that people’s decision to purchase stems from an emotional connection. She also explained that shoppers are willing to pay more if they relate to your company. Building that relationship and trust is where small businesses can really shine. Thus, it’s essential to create that emotion through your website’s copy.

Heather’s power placements for primary keywords are:

• Headlines
• Subheads
• Benefits statement based on keyphrases
• Links and anchor text

Link Building with Debra Mastaler
Debra is the queen of link building, and I was really looking forward to the opportunity to learn the secrets of the trade from her. Between the day one session and day two workshop, she blew through a ton of great information. While my brain felt a little fried at the end, I walked away with a solid understanding of how to run a link building campaign and knew exactly how to get started. At the workshop, Debra provided a “blueprint” for link building with the best methods for getting started. They include:

• searching for authority sites
• directory submissions
• article directories and content sites
• press and media links
• utility linking
• social buzz

Viral Marketing with Jennifer Laycock
I attended the viral marketing and link building workshops back to back, and came away completely inundated with great information. If you needed to know what viral marketing is, how to plan and run a campaign, and how to choose the tactics that are best for your organization, you would have been completely prepared after Jennifer’s workshop. She talked about:

• the benefits and pitfalls of viral marketing
• creating the idea
• tips for creating and running a campaign
• types of campaigns with pros, cons, and examples
• identifying influencers
• and pitching bloggers

She so well prepared us in her presentation, no one even had to ask questions!

Off and running across the internet
We are all now back home and off and running with new and improved internet marketing campaigns and tactics. Needless to say, if you weren’t at Small Business Marketing Unleashed this week, you will not want to miss out on it next year! You can expect to come away with a plan for how to best market your website online and greatly improve your organization.

• Small Business Marketing Unleashed conference website
• SBMUnleashed photos on Flickr
• Live blogging recaps of conference sessions and workshops on Search Engine Guide

There has been a proliferation of articles about using social media and how marketers see this as a vast new land of opportunity. Unfortunately, the majority of stories also feature how marketers fail miserably at establishing trust in these social media spaces, and most of that has to do with the attitude of the advertisers.

Too many times, marketer’s feel as through social media has been created for their benefit, when in reality it is a group of people with similar interests who joined into a community. A community where marketers are free to participate, but not free to overtly sell, that isn’t part of the social contract.

Users in these communities are looking for participation and contribution. And no – advertising your product and dropping links are not considered participation. Contribution is in the form of thoughts, opinions, and discussion.

Bottom line, social media networks are looking to hold hands, and not jump into bed on the first date. Marketers need to cool their jets and learn a little foreplay, otherwise, rejection is painful. To be viewed as a consumer is a little disconcerting for these contributors, and many feel just as violated, as if they were a ‘piece of meat.’

Facebook’s slap in the face
Facebook’s Beacon advertising program was the latest singles bar casualty. In promising free love for advertisers, Mark Zuckerburg forgot that romance is important. People were not using Facebook in order to give him a $15 Billion dollar valuation, they were using it to connect with friends and define themselves to the world. They didn’t want to be treated as whores for advertisers, and they spoke up vehemently. Beacon will now be a shadow of its intended purpose. All because marketers believed that consumers were there for their pleasure.

Thus, the tragic problem with marketers comes to the surface when they try social media. So many of them believe they only have to make a quick stop into the singles bar and then on to bed. However, consumers only want to hold hands.

Can We Hold Hands First?
Social Media was not created for marketing. Social Media existed before the modern internet and even preceded websites. Social Media is a creation of users for themselves to meet and connect, to think otherwise is foolish. No social media network was created for the express purpose of marketing (except for Webkinz, but that’s another story).

The image is reinforced of an overbearing bad date that cares about nothing more than getting into bed, when the consumer wants to talk and be heard. Many advertisers feign listening, some stomp off in disappointment, others are willing to become involved, maybe even commit to a long-term relationship.

But that is how marketers show themselves in many social media settings – concerned only with getting their message across. Rarely do they listening to any of the discussions or familiarize themselves with the intricacies of the social scene.

• Listen more than talk
• Be complimentary
• Don’t expect to score on the first date
• Don’t brag about your conquests
• Be willing to commit for the long-term

Related Posts:
Social Media and Reputation
The Rules of the Conversation
Social Traffic: Useless Gossip or Powerful Word of Mouth

From years of troubleshooting websites for companies, I have consistently run up against the same problems. The size of the company, or the website for that matter, has very little to do with these problems, however I usually find that larger companies have these problems at unusually higher rates than smaller companies.

Each of these problems can kill your internet marketing campaign in the search engines. They have critical importance in allowing the search engines to properly download your website to their servers and then analyze all of the information in your webpage’s code. Having your website downloaded correctly to the search engines is the first step in organic search marketing, and these issues are at the foundation of the organic strategy.

Web Programming for Marketers
A better title for this might be IT for Marketers, as both groups need to work together for a successful strategy. As much as IT needs to understand the goals of the marketing campaign, marketing needs to understand the many details and constraints of the IT group.

1. Robots.txt File
This is the first place that I look for problems in a website. This is such a simple file, and usually webmasters are the primary people that deal with this file. In larger organizations, it can be years before anyone checks this file for accuracy, or even to verify that it exists.

The purpose of the robots.txt file is explained in a past article, and it is a critical file for the search engines, as they request this file before downloading the pages of your website. If they request it, there should be a file there. But be careful. One misplaced forward slash can make your site invisible in the search engines.

2. Homepage Redirects
Redirects are many times the product of a content management system. You can spot this if you’ve ever typed in the domain of a website, www.domain.com, and the page that you end up on is www.domain.com/base/index.com (or something similar), a few levels deep.

Here is what happened:
The root level page is what you requested: www.domain.com. However, a redirect forwards the user to the actual content page, which is no longer on the root level, but in a subfolder (/base/).

A redirect is like a forwarding address. When you move to a new house, you fill out a mail forwarding slip to notify the post office that you’ve moved. A redirect is the same thing. The redirect notifies the person (or search engine) who requested the page that the page is in a new location, and send them there.

There are two types of redirects, 301 and 302. A 301 redirect means that the page has moved permanently. A 302 redirect means that the move is only temporary. 301’s are the preferred method of redirecting.

A slight tangent
Sometimes, a hosting company will tell you that they cannot do a redirect on the server. They will tell you to do an on-the-page redirect. This is not a recommended method of redirecting, as the search engines do not like this type of redirect. It was once used as the primary means of fooling people into visiting adult sites in the late 90’s. I never recommend using this method, as the 301 redirect on the server is the best method to use. Anything else can bring additional problems, and are not as “clean” as the 301.
back on track . . .

If your hosting company tells you that they cannot perform a 301 redirect on the server, get another hosting company – it’s that simple.

Here’s why the homepage redirect causes problems. Most people link to the root level domain (www.domain.com.) However, if your page is not there, because it has moved to a new location, the links are all pointing to the wrong place. The search engines will see the 301 redirect and will usually assign the link value to the new page. However, the impact is not as great. The page with the content is not the page where people are linking. That lessens the value of both the content and the links.

3. Javascript Navagation
I don’t see this much, but when I do, it’s usually done by a big company with a kludgy interface. Take www.coca-cola.com for example (which uses a horrible redirect sequence as well).

The primary navigation is built with JavaScript. The Corporate Links have an actual HTML link in the script. However, none of the primary country links have an actual URL that can be followed by the search engines. If JavaScript is all script and no links, then there are no page links for the search engine to find. You can spot this by looking for the href= prefix in the script. The link to the page should follow in quotes.

If the link simply has a “#” following the URL, then that’s a sure sign of JavaScript. It’s not a page request, its script. You think you can’t understand HTML code, try looking at JavaScript. No wonder the search engines avoid it.

4. Canonical Domains
This problem leads us back to the forwarding address illustration. Let’s say you have a home, but you decide to put three, or four or maybe ten mailboxes out in front of your house. Which one will the post office deliver to? Will it be the same one every time? Or will they just pick one, use it, and ignore the rest? If so, will it be the mailbox you wanted them to use?

This is what happens when a page on a website can be seen with more than one address (URL). A classic example is Brookstone.com. The homepage is accessed at multiple URL’s:

• http://www.brookstone.com
• http://brookstone.com
• http://www.brookstone.com/world.asp?cmid=hdr_hmpg&cm_re=A_Hdr*Home*BKST

Here is a case of three mailboxes for one home (homepage). Which one is the *real* homepage?
. . . and because the navigation builds dynamically, each page can have potentially hundreds of URL combinations. But that gets really tricky to explain. Suffice it to say that it’s a BIG problem for Brookstone in the search engines.

5. Legacy Spam
This issue is not limited to big companies, but I am always surprised to see it. I’ve found too much of it on Fortune 500 company websites to dismiss it as an accident. Usually it was done by a third-party SEO company (and I use the term ‘SEO Company’ loosely). Because the website was not being spidered by Google, usually because of the four problems outlined above, a company decided to create new pages on the website in a structure that the search engines could find.

This is usually done with what we call invisible text. It’s usually white text on a white background, or other similar combinations. The link text is the same color as the background as to hide it from users, but it is followed by search engines. The links go to “doorway pages” via a simple link structure and content is provided to the search engines, which then gets published in the search results. Users either end up on that doorway page, or through detection, end up somewhere in the main site.

The rule of thumb is that if the page is intended for search engines, and not for humans, you are crossing the line, according to the search engines. I’ve had to help many companies recover from the penalty imposed on them from both Google and Yahoo when they used these types of tactics.

The best means of avoiding this is to remove the “invisible” links and fix the architecture of the website. Having the search engines find your website and spider the content naturally is the best means of getting in and staying in the search engines database. Creating doorway pages and new links is only a band-aid for a larger problem, and never a good substitute.

Hopefully, you can use this article to evaluate your own website. Here are some helpful tools to evaluate these issues:

Robots.txt
SearchStatus FireFox plug-in
Google Webmaster tools

Redirect & Header Check
Webbug
One important little detail on WebBug: Make sure you select HTTP/1.1 instead of HTTP/1.0 - most servers are set to 1.1, but WebBug defaults to the 1.0 setting.

Javascript Navigation
Browser Status Bar
Developer Toolbar for FireFox (disables JavaScript)

Invisible links
Read the code
Highlight all of the text on the page (Ctl+A)

Related Articles:
Robots.txt for the Rest of Us
The Basics of Search Engine Optimization
Search and Sushi

I am a strong advocate for customer reviews on websites, Studies have shown that they are used by many consumers and have a direct impact on people making a decision, whether it is for a book, music, restaurant, or hotel.

However, I usually come up against a typical objection: what about bad reviews?

We’ve all heard it. Business owners are horrified at the prospects of someone leaving a horrible review of their business. The helpful and positive reviews aren’t even considered because of the potential of a bad review.

Now, if your food is bad and the service is horrible, then a negative review may be justified and the problem is definitely yours as a business owner. What better way to get a pulse on the attitudes of your clientèle than by seeing their unbiased reviews?

If your service stinks, Bad reviews will be in your future.

On the other hand, we tend to think our strengths are in one area, but when listening to clients, they see our strengths very differently. For example, I worked with one business where they thought that their customer service was the reason they were successful and the main reason why people chose them. However, after surveys and customer interviews, it was because of the breadth of products and the knowledge and expertise of the salespeople. That was a shocking revelation to the company, but it helped them to know how they were actually viewed by customers rather than how they thought they were viewed.

There is no avoiding an occasional bad review, but it can also be a selling point. For example, when I go to New York City, I often read the reviews of the hotels. It is funny to see some of the reviewers complain about the size of the rooms and how small they are. This is funny, because it shows that the review was most likely written by a tourist who had never stayed in NYC. Of course the rooms are small. Any seasoned traveler will know this. If you want a large hotel room in NYC, be prepared to pay.

I was looking at staying in a historical Bed and Breakfast during one trip, one of the oldest in the city at 125 years old. One of the reviews was negative, complaining that the building and much of the furnishings were very old. Well of course!?! It’s a historic inn, with period furnishings – what else would you expect? This was a selling point to me, as I was looking for a break from the typical hotel experience.

What I am advocating is that negative reviews may also be helping to qualify your audience. The negatives can be used as selling points. Someone reviewing a movie may call it bad because of all of the violence; someone may see that review and want to see the movie all the more because of the action and violence.

The main point is that customers can miss the mark. They aren’t infallible. It’s about expectations. If someone’s expectations are misplaced, then a bad review may support the main goal of a business, and help them target someone who has the right expectations.

Related Posts:
Airline Delays and Word-of-Mouth
What’s the Customer’s ROI?
Are You Creating a Customer Experience?

I had a very interesting conversation with Charles Prescott, the VP of Global Education for the Direct Marketing Association. Charles comes from a direct mail background, whereas I am a child of the internet. We like to joke with each other about which is the better medium, but ultimately we know that there is a lot that we can learn from each other.

Direct Marketing Success
One of the things that he told me was that the most critical part of a direct mail/marketing campaign was the selection and refinement of a list. While most research is anecdotal, most accounts put the importance of list selection up to 70% of the success of a direct mail campaign (don’t quote me on this exact number, but it’s high).

However, the creative, which accounts for a smaller percentage of the success of a campaign, gets much more attention. Most of the attention comes from the owners or principles of a company, the art directors, the staff, the creatives, etc. Everyone wants to be involved in developing the right mood, the right message, and an attractive message.

Basically, getting the list together is not as glorifying as coming up with killer creative. But it is the most critical part of campaign success.

What about the web?
This applies so wonderfully to the web. I have been a part of so many projects where the design is the focal point of creating the website. Everyone is involved in color selection, graphics, fonts, and all of the “pretty stuff.” Everyone is so concerned with the design of the homepage and the impression that it makes, that they forget two very important factors:

1. Most visitors do not enter at the homepage.
2. Content is what engages the visitor and persuades them to take action.

It is a shame that so much effort is put into the design of a website, yet the content tends to be the last thing that most businesses consider when creating that new website. Content tends to get shuffled to the bottom of the pile until someone is tasked with the overwhelming job of gathering, organizing, and writing content at the last minute so that the website can go live.

In reality, it is the content that persuades people to take action. While a good presentation can help establish the credibility of a website, the content is what creates the connection and ultimately makes your case. It is the content that positions your company, creates confidence, sells your business, and persuades the visitor to take action.

Here again is the dilemma. In a study by the Stanford Persuasive Technology lab, they found that design helps to create credibility for a website, however, the particular elements of design were not the pretty pictures or the flashy graphics. It was the elements of the content, presented in context of the design: fonts, colors, typography, layout, organization. These are all elements of readability and layout! When content was designed in a consistent pattern that allowed people to easily find the information they needed - it was perceived as being more credible.

What’s Popular
Interestingly, looking at most visited sites online; Google, Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, MySpace, AOl, and Mapquest, none of these sites are known for their stellar designs. Instead they are known for their content, which is a powerful draw. These sites have valuable content, and they are used because of that. Looking at each of these sites, the content is primary and the design follows the content.

Back to the main point.
Until web managers focus on the content and the navigation of the website as the primary means of communicating their message, the design of the website will not matter. Everything has to work together, but the content is the ultimate reason for people to be on the website. The design gets the glory, but the content is the engine that drives the results.

Seth Godin recently commented in his blog that “Many websites say, “look at me.” Your goal ought to be to say, “here’s what you were looking for.”

You can only do that when the plan for the site is well-thought out. Not only the presentation of the content, but the soul of the content.

• How will you persuade visitors to take action?
• What actions are you persuading them to take?
• Is your call to action a focus of the content and the design?
• Does your design reflect these goals?

In reality, the design has to follow the message and the purpose of the site. Otherwise, the design will conflict with the primary message and distract the visitor from the stated goal. Put the time and attention where it counts, in developing a persuasive message for your site.

Mike Moran from IBM made a very insightful post a few weeks back. Unfortunately, I don’t think it received the attention that it should have. It really is the frustration of many consultants and marketers like myself who go through all of the pains to help clients market themselves effectively, but they just don’t get the fact that analytics has EVERYTHING to do with marketing.

Like Mike, my approach in my teaching is focused on the development of business goals and measurement of results. Unfortunately, many clients are miles ahead and wanting to start their marketing campaign. Mike’s comments focus on search and rankings, but it even goes beyond that. Many marketers are in love with the campaign, but despise the measurement, or even taking the time to define success.

It was one of the most fulfilling moments a few weeks ago when a client complemented our approach. She was grateful that I didn’t cave in to their desire to start marketing right away. Rather, she was thankful that they followed my advice to take a step back, evaluate everything, build measurement goals, and then refocus the campaign. That thankfulness made my day. When clients understand the value of metrics, they then start to measure everything in terms of value, and web marketing takes on a whole new aspect. (and becomes fun!)

The value of metrics is clear.
Information is readily available to evaluate and compare new campaigns. New niche markets are exposed. Entire regions are discovered from old campaigns and analytics, providing unearthed resources for new campaigns. New ideas can be gleaned from old data, and once repeated campaigns can now be refocused on specific targets.

For me, I can’t understand the thinking of changing a website based on a guess that it might improve. Too many companies focus attention on campaigns or the latest social media buzz without first exploring the metrics and methods for success. There are too many companies that simply purchase Google AdWords without doing the slightest bit of research into keywords and reporting.

Ideally, once campaigns begin, measurements are in place to provide immediate measurement and metrics for success. It is no longer a guessing game. Improvements have specific results that are focused on the bottom line. Each change can be tied to a reason and a measurable result.

Goals
The web has made everything faster, and analytics tends to get left behind. Granted, much of today’s tools and depth of insight was absent early on, but that shouldn’t be an excuse. For some organizations the first question I ask seems to be the hardest: “What is the purpose of your website?”

Eric Peterson mentioned this same concept when he said “analytics works best when measurement expectations are clearly defined in advance, not after the fact or in an ad-hoc basis.” Amazingly, this same concept works in almost every area of life and business. For some reason, it’s been forgotten in online marketing.

Analytics is not just about numbers, it’s about improvements, processes, experience, and planning. You don’t have to be doomed to repeat the same failed campaigns. History teaches powerful lessons, and analytics are a primary tool for learning those lessons.

Mike provides one of the best closing statements I’ve heard about online marketing. “If you say to yourself that you are working on search optimization because you believe it will make you money, that’s not a business, that’s a religion. Instead, put search on the same footing as every other business decision and optimize your business instead of your search campaign.”

Amen, brother.

Many times businesses are so focused on their own sales and return, that they neglect the very people that provide those sales. I find this on many sites, where there is no information available to make even to slightest decision about the product or about the company.

Contentment for a Dollar
This became very real to me the other day, from the simplest of situations. I went to the store to pick up a few things and saw some Play Dough in the impulse section (where the kids can see and beg for things). It was only a dollar, and they hadn’t played with some for a while, so I picked it up.

No sooner that I got it home than my daughter took it to her playroom, I didn’t see her for the rest of the day. For the next week, she spent hours playing with that Play Dough. Here’s what struck me: That one dollar investment was worth hours of playtime for her and hours of production for me. It kept her busy and allowed us to get many things done around the house. The investment of one dollar provided a massive return on investment for our family.

In a similar situation, Jennifer Laycock told me about a drop-in daycare that she has been using. She drops off her kids and goes to a nearby coffee shop with wi-fi and she can get hours of work done. After she picks up her kids, they eat lunch and are so tired from playing that they nap for 2 hours afterwards, so she gets even more time to herself. Again, the small investment pays off for the entire family.

Do companies realize the return on investment for the consumer?
Information on some sites is so company focused; I have no idea what it can do for me. On other sites, the information is simply presented in a “here it is, now buy it” format, with no persuasive content or helps to convince me to purchase. The winners are those companies that realize that if they sell to the benefit of the customer, they will create a lasting impression.

FisherPrice.com sells parenting advice more than toys. They provide age-appropriate toy selection advice and how you can educate using toys - they help you be a better parent.

Woot.com makes it fun to buy impulse items that you really don’t need. The goal is to buy it first and before they run out. The loftier goal is to buy the elusive Bag O’ Crap.

Wine.com doesn’t just sell wine, they help you become a little more intelligent about wines - you may be able to even hold your own in a discussion about a Pinot Gris.

Can you Learn from a Shower Curtain?
ThinkGeek.com sells fun in the office and products for distraction or enjoyment. Their product benefits often include stress relief or even (gasp) self-improvement. Check out how they sell a shower curtain decorated with the periodic table of the elements.

How many times has this happened to you? You’re showering, lathering up your hair, and as you read the ingredients, you notice Sodium Laureth Sulfate. Of course, you know it’s a straight-chain alkyl benzene sulfonate (I mean, who doesn’t?), but you forgot what Laureth is! The horror!
If only you had paid more attention to your Chemistry professor!
This might not remind you what Laureth is (it’s a contraction for lauryl-ether, made from the sulfation of lauryl alcohol, but you knew that), but it’s hard to deny the Periodic Table Shower Curtain’s usefulness. All the time you spend in the bathroom, you might as well brush up on your transition metals, and your lanthanide and actinide series. Jog those brain cells with some steaming hot water, and a giant six-foot tall periodic table.
The Periodic Table Shower Curtain is 71 inches square, and made from 100% EVA Vinyl (Ethylene vinyl acetate, but you knew that), and is semi-transparent with the Periodic Table of Elements printed in large friendly letters and colors.

What’s the Bigger Picture?

• A family vacation is bonding, memories for a lifetime, and seeing your children marvel at the world, which is invaluable.
• Toys are more than toys, they are educational opportunities.
• Software is a time-saver; relieving hours of stress, work, and increasing productivity
• A hotel is a relaxing and rejuvenating experience - not just someplace to sleep

Obviously, my willingness to purchase more products, buy from a company repeatedly, and recommend to my friends increases as I realize the benefit. Sometimes that realization takes days or weeks, maybe months. I also find that the longer it takes for me to realize the savings or the benefit I received, the greater my personal ROI and the increased perception of the company that provided the product or service. Interestingly, the reverse holds true as well. The worse a product is or is found to be, if it ends up costing me time and money, then my brand loyalty will diminish.

It is obvious that companies make money from selling products, everyone knows that. But how often to you sell value to your customers? How can you help them realize an ROI from their actions?