Who cares what the glass looks like...is the beer any good?

Who cares how a website looks if it doesn’t work?

Well, the owner of the site, usually. Many of the websites I’ve built over the years have been for clients who care very much how their websites look, and often make decisions to enhance that aesthetic quality at the expense of usability (the ease with which a person uses the website).

Of course the “look” of a site is important. A website needs to draw and engage the eye quickly, or at the very least, not make the visitor puke on their keyboard (here, this might help you with that).

But drawing the eye is only part of the equation. Readers familiar with this subject might here expect me to talk about “function”, and how it needs to take precedence over “form.” In other words, don’t sacrifice usability for flashy eye-candy. But we all understand that, don’t we? I don’t need to beat this dead horse, because look, here’s a perfectly good, live horse that’s ripe for a beating:

Form follows Function follows Content

What’s usually left out of the puzzle is content. Yet content is the most important piece. It’s what the internet is about; it’s what you visit websites for. It’s what you came here for. You’re reading content right now.

Would it make a difference to you if this site was ugly (go ahead, call the site ugly–Google knows where you live), so long as you were still interested in this article?

Further (let’s assume you came via direct link), would it have mattered to you if, when you came here to read this article, the navigation was broken, the images didn’t show up, or the styles or scripts didn’t operate quite right? Would you still have read the article? I think so, provided you were interested enough. And interest in content is only effected by lack of good function or form to the degree that lacking hinders your ability to view the content.

Form follows function follows content. Content comes first; it’s what we build the website around. As a designer, it’s always better for me to know the content before beginning design work. It allows me to design a better website, something that fits the content in look, layout, and function, and to do it much more efficiently.

The benefit to you, the business owner, is a better website all around.

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Photo courtesy of stevendepolo

Is The Look Of A Website Most Important? is a post from: RSA Blog

Blogging is a waste of time?

Seriously, why bother? Isn’t this kind of a waste of time? It’s not like blogs really matter – it’s just throwaway content, after all. What really matters is the website.

False.

Look, the web is about two things: content and search. Content because that’s what you’ve come for, and search because that’s how you find the content. Nothing else matters.

In light of this, a blog can be the most important tool you employ for two reasons:

1. A blog is all about content. But you have to make that content matter. It needs to be quality content; relevant content. Guess who loves quality content? That’s right: your customers and the search engine they used to find you. This content is useful to them; it helps them make decisions, helps solve their problem. It gives them a reason and a method to engage you.

2. Blogs are inherently search-engine optimized. They make you much more findable, which can drive a lot of traffic to your website. But SEO needs to be strategic. You have to pay attention to your audience and the keywords they use to make this work well (no, using random keywords based on intuition is not optimization – that’s called blind guesswork; fumbling in the dark).

Your website is important, to be sure. It is the hub around which all your online activity orbits (and often the blog *is* the website). But a blog can be an “orbital” with one hell of a gravity well, attracting searchers to your content and your website,  so don’t write it off too quickly.

Alright, you’ve got my opinion on it. What do you think? Are blogs just a place to toss extra content that doesn’t matter? Why bother?

Why Blog? is a post from: RSA Blog

She's right...

What is “good” web design? Many people don’t understand what makes websites good or bad, and some are even surprised to learn that effective web design takes time, and isn’t cheap. Let me explain…

When you look at a website, you’re looking at an end product. Like a car, there’s really no indication of what went into the creation of the product. We can break it down into its individual parts – wheels, pistons, frame, gears – but we don’t know *why* they, specifically, were used in its construction, or how to acquire and assemble the right types of parts for another car.

Who decides what’s good?

Most of us probably don’t understand how cars are designed, and have only a basic understanding of how they work. But we do know how to use them. We call them “sweet” or “clunker,” seeing distinctions in quality based on various attributes, such as age, safety, power, or utility.

Let’s dwell on that for a second. The designers and engineers who build these complex machines understand them a gazillion times better than you or I, and yet *we* are the arbiters of automotive quality? How does that work?

It’s simple, really. Cars are designed to solve our traveling problems. Need to pull cargo in hilly terrain? Alright, here’s a truck with more power…how’d we do?

“I need cargo space, but also passenger room.” Here’s your gas-guzzler.

“I need a place to put my drink while on long trips.” Okay: this model has 200 cup holders.

“I need an economical car.” Here’s a chair on wheels.

And we get to be the judge as to how well they’ve accomplished those goals. SUV? Wildly popular. Chair on wheels? Not so much.

So these researchers, designers, engineers and others all get together and attempt to solve our problems. They each have a role in the design and construction of our cars, and, together with all the complex parts and mechanisms in the machine, make for a price that can be pretty shocking.

After all, it’s just this little car. Like…a frame on wheels, right? With lights. And gears. Computers. An engine. Hoses and fluids and wires. Fabric and safety belts and airbags and safety glass and…yeah, that sounds expensive now.

You know what? I bet many of us could walk into a big automotive company office and tell those designers a thing or two about building cars. They’re made for *us*, after all. “Here’s what I want…”

But we’re not really telling them how to design cars, are we. We’re just telling them what problem we want them to solve. In the end we trust them to solve these problems in the most effective way, all variables taken into account, because we just don’t know how to design or build cars.

So now that we’ve completely forgotten the point of this article, let’s get back to web design.

Web design is…

The process of solving a business problem, communicating a message, and facilitating user action on the web. That’s my working definition. By all means, critique it in the comments – I’d love to get it nailed down.

1. Solving a business problem.
Website design – even print graphic design – is not art. As a designer, I’m not creating a work of art. The graphical and architectural decisions I make throughout the process are not primarily based on my own preferences – I have reasons for each choice I’ve made.

This is because I am creating a solution to a business problem. However one might want to articulate that problem, it usually can be constructed as an objective end, “Generate more foot traffic,” or, “Increase non-local sales,” or, “Take over the world.” Whatever the objective, all of my efforts as a designer revolve around it and attempt to fulfill it. This takes research and planning, information organization, writing, discussion, graphics work and programming.

The point here is that web design isn’t like creating art. Designers do have to think about the aesthetic form of the design, but within the context of business goals and the rules that go along with a communicated message.

2. Communicating a message.
With every website, something specific needs to be communicated, both visually and through the copy. Call it the brand or the marketing message – either way for this message to be communicated successfully, graphic and structural decisions must be subordinate to it. Does this color help convey the message? Does it fit the brand? Is it simply a preference? In web design, preferences must die.

3. Facilitating user action.
If there’s a clear goal for a website, the website user or “visitor” is involved on some level. You want them to read something, click something, subscribe, purchase, or interact in some other way. The design of the website must facilitate and not hinder whatever action you want the user to take.

All design decisions must be subordinate to usability. If a website looks great but is slow and clunky, or isn’t easy to figure out, it is not an effective solution to your business problem. Yet if it’s incredibly usable but has no visual appeal, you might also say it’s less effective than it could be. So there is a balance to be found, but when it comes down to either aesthetics or usability, usability must win. If your visitors don’t take the action you want them to take, you’ve failed.

Clear as mud?

I know there is confusion out there, and I hope this helps somehow. Creating a website is not just painting a pretty picture or moving some colored boxes around on the screen. It is an attempt to construct the most effective solution to meet a business goal, and sometimes this can be a lofty endeavor. There are so many things to consider beyond just the “look” of the site: the user experience, structure of information, findability, search engines, and more. It’s no wonder this stuff takes time.

But we’re not talking about a piece of wall art, here. This is a business investment, the core of your company’s web presence – a web used by over 1.5 billion people worldwide.

Don’t you think that’s something to take seriously?

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Photo credit: lmnop88a

Understanding Website Design is a post from: RSA Blog

As a business owner or marketer, you’re always taking steps to stay ahead of the competition in a marketplace that’s always changing. The web is no different; it’s always changing as well.

Businesses online must keep up with the constant changes in web technology, trends, and techniques, or be left far behind very quickly.

As for your website, you need to take dozens of constantly-changing elements into account that will, at some point, affect the value of your web presence and the viability of your business online. Here are nine.

1. A “brochure-style” website is good enough.

This hasn’t been true for almost a decade. Competition on the web is stiff, and you’ll have a hard time maintaining a successful website if it’s a purely static, online “brochure.”

Instead, you should be constantly updating your content to reflect changes in your business or organization, your market, technology, and the needs or desires of your customers and website users.

Further, your content should be configured or “optimized” to cater to your specific market. We call this search engine optimization (SEO).

2. Websites should contain as much information as possible.

While placing every bit of content you have on your website may seem logical, it can actually hinder the user experience and reduce conversions. If you have a very well-designed website, you may not have a problem offering a lot of content. But this sort of design takes not only good visual communication skills (read: graphic design, information architecture), but also a well-thought-out content strategy.

Anything less and you run the risk of publishing a website that’s bloated, slow, overwhelming to the user, or ineffective for search.

3. The “home” page is the entry page.

This may have been true at some point, but it isn’t anymore. Most website traffic comes from search engines, and any given search can bring up any page of your website – not just the homepage. So a visitor can come to your website through almost any page.

But realize this is a good thing! It helps you better understand your website traffic; who is entering your website, where did they enter, and why. Then you can better structure your website and content to better serve these visitors.

4. “Intro” animations or “splash” pages are awesome.

With sincerest apologies to anyone I ever built a splash screen for: no, they are not awesome. They are clumsy and superfluous, and as a visitor to your website I can assure you they do not add anything positive to my experience of your content, but simply get in the way.

5. The focus of my website is me and my stuff.

Wrong. The focus of your website is the visitor, and how they experience it. Does that seem backwards to you? It shouldn’t.

This shift in focus has been a long time coming. It’s changed the way we do almost everything on the web, whether content structure, navigation layout, page layout, graphic design – it’s even changed the way we analyze web statistics.

So keep this in mind when thinking about your website: it’s all about the user.

6. “Click here to see more!”

Again, we’re more than a decade into this era – do we really need to tell people to click? I mean, assuming you’ve provided some form of differentiation for links (i.e. underlined, blue, bold), there isn’t really a reason to tell people they have to click it.

There are, however, several reasons not to, the most important being its affect on accessibility and SEO.

7. Welcome to our website!

When the web was young, each new person or organization to join up and publish content was overflowing with excitement. With all the ecstatic jubilation of a 4-year-old who’s just received a new playhouse, they proclaimed: “Welcome to our homepage!”

Alright, well…it’s a little played out, and a lot unnecessary. A better tactic would be to analyze what your current visitors find most important on your website, and highlight that in place of a welcome message.

8. “The Fold”

I remember 640 by 480 pixels. You know, the maximum screen resolution on those tiny computer displays we all had at the dawn of the Internet. Boy, those are long gone now aren’t they?

Well “The Fold” isn’t quite extinct, but it certainly isn’t as important a consideration as it was.

“The Fold,” by the way, is a metaphor drawn from newsprint where content of supreme importance was placed on the top half of the front page, “above the fold,” so as to be immediately visible to readers or passers-by. Likewise content of great importance should be placed “above the fold” on the website – that is, above the bottom of the browser window.

The problem is we have so many different screen sizes now, it’s difficult to identify exactly where the “fold” is. Further, we’re over a decade into the “web” era – I think most of us are accustomed to a bit of scrolling.

9. Because I can!

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Yes, you can add a hit counter to your site. Yes you can make text blink, or add scrolling marquee, or animated GIFs and clipart. But think for a second: are you adding it just because you like it or think it’s “cool”?

What about your target audience (see number 5)? Is their experience improved or made worse by the addition of these things?

Look, would you base a marketing campaign decision involving TV/radio/print (read: $$$$) on something as shallow as “because I like it”? No? Then why would you do it online? This is all part of your marketing effort, so your decisions should be based on strategic goals and research.

You do have strategic goals for your website, don’t you?

So there’s only nine out of dozens; clearly there are a lot more. But if you think I missed any big ones, let me know in the comments. I’d love to hear what others think about this topic.

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Photo credit: gothopotam

Keeping Up With a Changing Web is a post from: RSA Blog

In the audio below, I cover some basic questions that you need to consider before making a decision about web video, and talk about the age-old question of costs.  While the discussion will continue in-depth in the weeks to come, this first clip should help you begin the decision-making process with some easy-to-understand fundamentals and historical perspective.

Give it a listen:

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Should You Put Video On Your Website? is a post from: RSA Blog

This is your website (credit: machity)

An old, rickety car slowly pulled into the car dealership lot and parked. It belched black smoke as the clunky engine finally backfired and gave up. A man got out of the car and strolled into the office. The salesman met him there, asking if he could be of any assistance.

The conversation went something like this:

Salesman: “Hi, how are you doing? What can I help you with?”

Customer: “I need a new car.”

S: “Ah, I see! Well you’ve come to the right place. We have plenty of cars on the lot, and can order anything you might want that we don’t already have. Any idea what you’re looking for?”

C: “Yes, you see I am a salesman myself, and I spend a lot of time driving to see customers and prospects. But my car is rather old, and the engine barely works. In fact, I can only drive in first gear!”

S: “Wow! I bet that makes it hard to visit many customers in a day. Can I interest you in this brand new Complete Car? It’s well-rounded with a great engine, good looks, comfortable interior, and will certainly connect you with your customers.”

C: “Well, I wonder if you can just repaint my old car, maybe get rid of some of the dents. It could probably use new upholstery, too.”

S: “…”

If that seems to you like a strange turn of events in this completely made-up story, you’re not alone. I see this all the time, except instead of cars, we’re talking websites.

Out with the Old

Online competition is much too stiff for the old, static, “brochure-style” website to be very successful anymore. That kind of website is the old clunker with a weak engine; it doesn’t get around very well.

The pitfall I see people running into – especially in this region of South Dakota – is the notion that an “updated look” will take their website into the modern age. To be fair, a snazzy-looking website doesn’t necessarily hurt – provided it’s on target. But there are other important considerations in today’s online market.

This is your website on SEO (credit: SFB579)

For example, how are people going to find your website in the first place, and what are you doing to facilitate this? Will they find your competitors instead? How do you know if customers are finding you online versus other media? How much traffic hits your website? How do visitors use the website? What are people telling each other about your products or services?

In with the New

You can’t answer these questions with a paint job. You need a better engine, better tires, power steering – you get the idea. Your website needs analytics, search engine optimization, and social media engagement is also something to consider. These elements combine to give you a well-rounded (and much more effective) web presence; a Complete Car.

The point: SEO is not just something to add to your website. If you want to be at all successful in your online market, SEO is a must, at least to some degree.

You may be on a tight budget, and so tempted to cut these elements out of your online marketing plan. Resist the urge! Cut back on something else – perhaps the redesign of the site graphics can wait. If no one can find your website, they won’t be able to see the cool new paint job anyway.

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[Photo credit | Top: machity | Bottom: SFB579]

SEO is not an Add-on is a post from: RSA Blog

Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine Marketing on the Internet is a logical piece of the 21st century business puzzle.

Though people have been finding ways to market on the Internet for years, its broad marketing potential is still pretty new.

In my experience, most small business owners aren’t yet familiar with what internet marketing is and how it differs from/relates to traditional marketing media. I hope to answer some fundamental questions, or at least paint a clearer picture with this post.

Since we are talking about the world wide web, there are many advertising and marketing possibilities.  But what’s best for your business?  Well, that depends on your desired outcome (and budget). I’ll highlight three of the most common ways to market on the internet.

In addition to a company’s website, search engine marketing, social media marketing, and banner ads have proven to be highly effective in generating both web and foot traffic.  All of these are useful marketing elements that enhance a company’s internet presence to promote offline business and online sales.

1.) Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
This is largely organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization). A comprehensive SEO plan is an essential component of any online marketing strategy.

SEO is all about relevant links and content – making both people and search engines happy. When a site’s content is laid out in a way that is easy to navigate, provides valuable/relevant  information and stays up-to-date, people are happy when they land there, stay there, come back, link to it, etc.   Search engines know what makes the people happy within a site and are programmed to promote sites that people will find valuable when they search.

Every website has a ton of SEO content potential, but few small businesses take advantage of how the internet works and how people can ultimately end up on their website.  Without SEO in mind, small business websites are close to useless (as no one will find them).

SEM also encompasses PPC (pay per click) sponsored search results.

Tracey’s written previously on the value and process of SEM/SEO.  If you’re thirsty for juicier SEO details, take a look at Tracey’s Google and the Basics of Search or How to Get to the Top of Google?.

2.) Social Media Marketing (SMM)
A very hot topic, this one is kind of tricky to nail down and can be broken into multiple levels and methods.  Marketing in social spaces is not cut-and-dry; you can’t just get on and broadcast your message.

Social media is fundamentally about social people, but it can function as a marketing tool for relationship and reputation building/management – and there are many ways to go about it.

But why should you bother?

• TOMA (top of mind awareness)
• Customer service
• Brand management
• SEO
• …the list goes on.
  

The stronger a company’s online interactive presence, the stronger its relationships will be with the customer, and the more loyal the customer will be to that brand.

3.) Banner Ads

Of all internet marketing platforms, banner ads are the most similar to traditional marketing and advertising.  The concept is actually fairly simple, initially.  You pay a relevant web site owner to post your ad and hope that people will click through to the advertised website or simply show up at the store to buy the advertised product.  Banner ads can also be placed as PPC (pay per click) and incorporate geo-targeting, etc.

4.) ***Bonus: Email Marketing

I don’t really consider email as a type of internet marketing, but many marketers do and it is certainly worth mentioning.  For the most part, it seems that people are more familiar/comfortable with email marketing (because it’s not new) than with the things that I mentioned above.

Email is a great opportunity to precisely target/personalize/adjust your messages, track results, stay in touch, etc.  From newsletters and tips to promotions and coupons, email is a consistent marketing player and has a strong ROI potential.

Most of the online marketing strategies that we’ve seen to be effective include one or more of these elements.  Plus, when used in conjunction (and right) each piece will complement the efforts of the others.  And if approached properly, internet marketing can be a win-win situation for both companies and customers.

Please comment with any questions that are still unanswered!  I’d love to hear what you have to say, even if you don’t have questions (i.e. you love this post, hate it, disagree; we’re 100% on the same page; I missed something, etc).  Say hello.

Elements of Internet Marketing is a post from: RSA Blog

Our focus was to demonstrate the use of various social tools and spaces – Google Reader, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and iGoogle – as well as show our audience how to integrate these social spaces and streamline their online efforts for both business and personal use. Though most of the presentation was “hands-on,” here are a few takeaways:

1. Don’t jump right to the technology; form an objective, and a strategy to achieve that objective.

2. Social web endeavors should not be message-centered, as traditional marketing is. Rather, the focus should be on the people you are talking to, and what they need.

3. There’s no right or wrong way to “use” social media, but there are consequences for certain things you might do; potentially negative consequences.

4. The future will bring an even larger, growing, more tech-savvy online audience than ever before. New technologies will launch, replacing current tech and services. Getting into it now; getting familiar with not only the tools, but the relationships and interactivity behind the tools, will aid you in moving forward and keeping on top of these changes as they happen.

Below is our accompanying deck.

Hands-on Social Media is a post from: RSA Blog

Well, to be honest, SEO is a strategy, not a “quick fix” or a “one-time deal”. It will take time and it will be an investment. Generally, for low to moderately competitive areas, it may take 3 – 6 months to begin seeing results.  If the area of focus is highly competitive, results can take 6 months to a year.

Here are a few basic factors we consider when forming an effective SEO strategy:

How will people find you? (aside from the name of your company)
Researching relevant, competitive keyword terms people use when searching for what-ever-it-is-they-are-looking-for and cross matching these terms with your products and services is the most important part of the optimization process. This is the foundation from which we will build, and much like a building, laying a strong foundation takes time if you want it to last.

Is your website SEO-friendly?
Making a website “SEO-friendly” is crucial to improving your SERP rankings, as well as the site’s ability to effectively communicate with your site visitors. On-page content is essential…is the copy written for the web or was it once used on a printed brochure? Is it written for everyday-people? Does every element of the site use keywords effectively?

How user-friendly is your site?
Just like making the site “SEO-friendly”, how user-friendly a site is also contributes to both your ranking on SERPs and your website’s ability to maintain your audience once they have arrived. The number of images, use of video, and interactivity, as well as navigation structure and overall organization are also important. If people do find your site, but immediately “bounce back” because they can’t find what they’re looking for, you just lost potential sales. People will rarely revisit a site after a bad experience or considering it “unhelpful”.

Do other industry-related sites link to yours?
Backlinks (links inbound to your site) are important – Google and the other search engines rank sites higher if they appear to have the most relevant content. This means they give weight to the number of links pointing to YOUR site. Which site do you think could potentially be more useful, the site that has 5 people pointing to it or 500?

What is your opposition doing to increase their rankings?
As you work to improve your site’s ranking, your competition is likely to be doing the same to maintain their position.

How did the latest Google algorithm change affect your site? What about the next one?
Search engines rank sites according to proprietary algorithms, and these continually change (Google just did a change last month to the description characters, the month before that it was duplicate content).

So, is it possible to achieve the elusive “first page ranking on Google”?  Of course, but it won’t happen overnight! There are many variables involved in achieving a front-page ranking (not to mention maintaining it), the length of time it takes to get to page 1 and how much it will cost will differ from one client to the next depending on competition, market focus, and aggressiveness of strategy.

Just remember…the dollars this can potentially add to your company’s bottom line will directly reflect the dollars you invest into the strategy to not only get you there, but also keep your position; and to remain effective, the SEO strategy will last the lifetime of the site.

How to get to the Top of Google? is a post from: RSA Blog

We're not supposed to talk about how great we are. (photo by JSolomon)

Time to take a step back.

Time to take a good look at what we’re doing here at RSA. The economy is down – way down, and people are cutting advertising and marketing budgets, big time. Looks like 2009 is shaping up to be a “building year,” right?

Maybe not. The problem is, we’re still as busy as ever, and I guess that’s less of a problem and more a relief. Some might call it good luck; I call it hard work and a passion for what we do. And a passion for having food to eat, there’s also that.

And yet we have been building as well. Since late last year we’ve added new departments, new staff, and new teams. We’ve got a new website on deck, and are partnering with new clients weekly.

A little horn-tooting…

Our CEO just came back from the “Alliance of Bigshot MarComm Pros Conference” (or something like that), where they basically sit around, drink beer and watch baseball (and apparently the game wasn’t the only exhibition in the stadium that night – you’ll have to ask him about that).

Oh, and I guess they talk shop a little bit, too. It’s a group of 8 or so agencies from around the country, and they’ve been getting together biannually for nearly a decade to talk about the industry, new developments, trends, technology, and the meaning of life.

So Robert comes back and basically he tells us we’re kicking ass. That’s a good feeling, especially for a small agency in Rapid City, South Dakota. I mean, who really takes anyone seriously out here in “fly over” country? Well maybe we’re a little big for our breeches, but held up against a national standard – and this group is national – we look pretty good. As Robert put it:

“Our discussions with other agencies validates what we’re doing; we’re encouraged that the skill sets and strategies we’re developing are equal to or ahead of the national curve; and by leaps and bounds compared with the competition in our marketplace.”

All horn-tooting and back-patting aside, however, I have to say it’s been a tough few months – tough in the sense of having to work HARD for what we’ve gained. And that’s the key to getting ahead in this economy: hard work. It pays off in the end – we’ve seen it with our own business, and our clients as well.
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Photo credit | JSolomon

A Building Year is a post from: RSA Blog