How To Cater Your Website To Young People

[ 2010-01-27 ]

Recently we began working on a website for a client that targeted a teen audience. For adults, this can be a daunting task. After all, there is nothing to compare it to. If you are in the 30+ set, when you were a teen, the internet didn’t really exist. When marketing to young people, adults will sometimes close their eyes and dive in, and hope that it works.

Luckily, a great deal of research has gone into unlocking the mystery of what is rattling around in the young person’s mind. Unfortunately, there is no magic bullet that guarantees success when marketing to teens, tweens, or kids. As with all demographics, there is no " best way" to design a web site. When you sit down to design your site, consider the abilities and preferences of your target audience. Select colors, navigation systems, and other page elements that will appeal to them.

Jakob Nielsen conducted a series of usability studies to determine how website designs can better cater to teenagers and kids, here are some of the findings.

Teens today have been exposed to some pretty sophisticated video games. This generation is used to high quality graphics and special effects, so you have to work to catch their attention. Indeed, you have to throw out some of the more conventional design "rules" to appeal to them.

The Colour
Is it painful to look at a bright pink and neon green web site? Apparently not if you're a teenager. Bright colours, patterns, and bold pictures all attract teen consumers. You still need to coordinate your colours, but broaden your colour choices.

The Tech
Teen-oriented sites can generally contain more cutting-edge features than general interest sites because teens want the latest and greatest plug-ins. Unlike adults, they don’t feel queasy by installing new software to view particular effects.

The Friends
Chat features and message boards will make your site sticky to teen visitors. Work to create a cool community that will keep them coming back for more.

Maybe this sounds like you're going to a lot of trouble just to create an ugly Web site, but remember that you're designing for a particular audience. It's a big audience with disposable income.

If you are aiming even younger, the research gives us different results. Kids 8-12 are called "tweens" by marketers. As many parents can tell you, tweens want to emulate the hot teen fashions, music, and language. Younger children are attracted by animation, cartoon figures, sounds, and other special effects on a page. For both groups, use bright colors and eye-catching graphics.

The Directions
It seems counterintuitive, but children are much more likely than adults to stop and read the directions on a web site. Each page should contain a prominent "Help" or "How to use this site" type link and a good frequently asked questions page.

The Fold
Most younger kids don't understand about page scrolling, so be sure that your most important site information is visible without scrolling. This is area is known as ‘above the fold’. If kids can't see an element or link without scrolling the page, then they may never see it at all.

The Speed
Like teens, kids love the cutting-edge graphics and animations, but they aren't as likely to have the technology to support those effects. Young children often have hand-me-down computers, whether at home or at school. Kids also typically have slow connections and outdated software. So when planning your website, try to avoid using large files or programs.

Children are a legitimate market for you - after all, they are the teen buyers of tomorrow. But remember that you are still dealing with children and be careful about the content and links you include on your site.

If you target a different demographic, there may be other important tips to keep in mind before you get started. To learn more about how Canadians use the Internet Statistics Canada has a font of information that you can access at www.statcan.gc.ca.

4 New Year's Resolutions for your Website

[ 2010-01-15 ]

Welcome to a brand spanking new year! 2010, it still has that “New Year Smell”. It’s usually around this time of the month where if you listen intently, you can hear the new years resolutions breaking in the moonlight. Have you been able to stick to yours? I made one resolution, learn to cook. Here we are, January 15th, and so far the only ‘cooking’ I’ve been able to muster was microwaving some lasagna. I know that is a far cry from cooking, but I must admit, it was zapped to perfection.

Many of us make resolutions to make our bodies healthier by deciding to quit smoking, hit the gym, or cut out the Oreo Ice Cream. But this is a great opportunity to decide to make your business healthier as well, and getting your web presence in shape is a great place to start. Here are four resolutions to make to ensure 2010 is your best year yet.

I resolve to keep my website up to date
In 2010, you should promise to update your blog and have an ever-changing section on your homepage that will keep visitors coming back for more. It's not as hard as you think if you set an hour aside on a certain day to do it each week. Once you’ve been changing an area of your website on a weekly basis or so, visitors will learn to come back frequently, keeping your business ‘top of mind’. This also ensures you don’t display content that’s out of date, which can have some web visitors ask “Why is this out of date?”, “Are they still in business?”, “What else do they use that is out of date?”

I resolve to get involved in social media, no matter how absurd I think it is
Whether you think it’s neat, or the biggest waste of time you could possibly image, social media is taking over and becoming a household name. If you think Facebook and Twitter are not for you, branch out. There are too many social media outlets to count right now. Sites like Yelp, LinkedIN, GetSatisfaction and YouTube are great alternatives. Find the one that works with you and get active in the New Year.

I resolve to consider an email marketing campaign
Email marketing is not for everyone, but it sure can keep a friendly dialogue going with your clients. Email marketing does not need to be stuffy or twice a week. You can do a monthly update email that is filled with fun copy and useful information. So take a moment and consider email marketing for the New Year.

I resolve to look at my analytics more than once a year
Google Analytics is a super powerful tool that should be monitored and taken into account when updating and organizing your site. Look at the pages that are getting the most views. Is there a page no one cares about? Maybe you should spice it up a little or put a link to it from the homepage. This new year, take the initiative and check it out once a month. If you send out an email blast to your subscribers, you can check how many people who received your email visited your website, how long they stayed, and which page they were looking at when they decided to leave your website.

Diving head-first into four business resolutions is going to be tough. Ease into them like a warm bath. The more of these resolutions that you are able to implement, the greater the effect on your business. But just like personal resolutions, the effects take time. Growing your business is a marathon, as opposed to a sprint. Give it some time and be patient, and you’ll see the results.

How To Check Your Website's SEO

[ 2009-12-17 ]

Ever lose your keys? If you’ve ever owned a key, I’ll bet you have. It’s incredibly frustrating, frantically tearing apart the house, picturing the keys everywhere you look. There are ways to make those keys easier to find. If they are on a giant jingley keychain, they are unlikely to evade detection in your back pocket. If they have one of those beeper thingys, they can be easily found if within earshot. Most business web sites are like lost keys. They are amazingly useful at opening your business to new customers, but quite often, if people can’t find the keys, they’re pretty much useless.

Many website owners don't take advantage of the different ways to increase a potential customers ability to find them on search engines like Google or Yahoo. Although there are many ways to get visitors to your website, there are precious few ways as beneficial as a high ranking on a search engine. And this is not just for people who sell their products across around the world. Someone in Dominion may find plumber in New Waterford with an internet search. A young couple from Sydney Mines, could find the type of lawyer they’re looking for in Glace Bay.

For the technically inclined and computer nerds like me, there is a buffet table of places on the web to get detailed, comprehensive information on how to boost your ranking on a search engine. But most people don't want to rummage around in the technical aspects of search engine optimization- they just want to know what is wrong with their site, and remedy the problem. Here are the quickest ‘basic’ ways that you can use to increase your search engine ranking, and put them into place today. It is in no way intended to be all-encompassing, but it should help the average site owner determine whether their site is optimized, and if not, how to make some simple changes to give each individual page of their site a better chance for a high ranking on a search engine. Any easy way to test how your website does in the search engines, is to search for the product or service you provide, in the area you provide it. For example, typing in “Financial Planning” and “Louisbourg”, or “Veterinarians” and “Bras D’or”. If you are a Financial Planner in Louisbourg, or a Veterinarian in Bras D’or, and you don’t appear on the first page of search results…you have some work to do.

The Title Bar

What does the title bar of your website say? Most browsers Internet Explorer, will show this in the blue bar at the very top of the window that displays your page (it may include the words "Microsoft Internet Explorer" at the end). Does your company name appear here by itself? Could there be better keywords to emphasize what you do? Or the worst case scenario, does it say "untitled"? If you want to increase the search engine ranking for that page, this area should contain the most important keywords you see on your homepage. To check the rest of your site, click on any link from your homepage and see if the words in this title bar change for each page in your site. They should - and each title bar should contain the most important keywords from its corresponding page. But be careful: Very long keyword strings in the title bar should be avoided - six words or less is optimal. Also, words in the title bar should not repeat more than once, and identical words should not appear next to one another. The search engines are wise to this trick, and will actually punish you in the results page.

Content

Search engines all try to list sites that contain good content. This means you need words on your pages to achieve a high ranking on a search engine, not bold graphics or flash animation. This text should contain the most important keywords that your potential customers would use to find you on a search engine. If you have very few or no words on a page where you wish to increase the search engine ranking, add some, ideally around 250 per page. If you are going for a certain look for your website, this is not always practical, but even 100 well-written words will give you a better opportunity for a high ranking on a search engine than none. It is also important that you make certain that the words are written in a language the search engines can read. This is easy to test. Using your mouse, bring your cursor down to the text on one of your web pages. Clicking and holding down the left mouse button (make sure you aren't near a link) see if you can highlight just one or two words of the text. If you can, everything is most likely fine. If nothing happens, or you can only highlight a large block, it is most likely in graphic form, therefore search engines have no idea what it is saying. To increase search engine ranking in such cases, the graphic text needs to be replaced by standard HTML text to allow the search engines to read it. Your web expert should have no problem understanding what you require, and the transition should be fairly simple and affordable.

Meta Tags

Some people believe that meta tags are the bright shiny beacon on the Internet high seas. Although they can’t hurt, their effectiveness is limited. In fact many search engines ignore them completely. It is also easy to check to see if you have meta tags. Go to your home page. Click the "view" command at the top of the browser window. From the pull-down menu, select "source". This should open up another window that shows your code. Much of this may seem like gobbledygook, but there should be two commands usually near the top of the code. One of these says meta name="description" content= and will go on to describe your company and products, and one says meta name="keywords" content= and goes on to list applicable keywords for your site. If these tags are missing, have your web expert insert them. Again, this may not do much to increase search engine ranking, but it’s much better than nothing.

Although following the above guidelines will by no means promise you a high ranking on a search engine, fixing one or more of these oversights should help increase your search engine ranking. For the volumes of potential customers that a search engine can send to your site, it's certainly worth the effort. Because just like keys, if visitors can’t find you, they go for the spare, which is your competitor across the street.

Rules for Business to Business Websites

[ 2009-12-09 ]

Customers come in all shapes and sizes depending on your product or service. Some businesses sell small pieces of soap to individuals for 5 dollars each from a downtown Sydney storefront, some sell their industrial services to contractors all over the world that are worth millions of dollars. All businesses need an online presence to reach these groups, but do the same rules apply to both Business to Consumer (B2C) companies, and Business to Business (B2B) companies? Not exactly. This is because the two behave differently, and have different concerns. For Business-to-business websites, it’s not good enough to look good.

Most website designers are trained to look at a project from the standpoint of the visual design and not from a business buying process. Here, we will look at what should be kept in mind when designing a website that attracts, engages and even persuades businesses to contact you, and buy from you.

Keep it down

You don’t need bold or splashy designs to get their attention, you already have it. That is the reason they are visiting your site. Many fantastic designers cut their teeth in the offline world, magazine and newspaper ads, posters, etc, where continuous competition for the prospect’s attention creates the need to do something bold. This is called interruption marketing. The design principles that exist in interruption marketing have carried over into web design even though most times they will hinder rather than help your case. Instead of wasting space trying to get something you already have (the prospect’s attention). Use design to make it easy for them to figure out what to do next.

Keep it simple

At work, we are all expected to do more with less. Business owners and decision makers are under the gun. They come to your site looking for information and they won’t spend much time trying to figure out how to find it. Independent studies show that business buyers prefer simple text pages with no more than three columns. They also respond positively when the next actions are clearly indicated.

Keep a lid on the pictures

Unless graphics or video clips serve a specific purpose, for example, showing how to use a piece of equipment or a portfolio of past projects, they should be used sparingly. MarketingSherpa does all kinds of research into internet marketing strategies, and they have found that there are only two types of graphics business website visitors consistently pay attention to:

Recognizable logos from companies other than your own. The logos could include a list of happy clients, or accreditations and awards.

Bullet points. Being presented with pages and pages of text can be pretty intimidating. Make it easier for your prospects to find the information they are looking for.

Keep it easy to read

A website that is easy to read may seem like a no-brainer, but we’ve all seen websites out there that have legibility obstacles ranging from tiny fonts to text-background combinations that make you squint. Black type on a white background is the most easily read text, by far. Text on a color background – especially white text against a dark background – requires great determination on the part of your visitor to read it. Small text and tightly spaced text is also hard to read. If your audience is older, forget using anything smaller than 12 point type. Make it easy to read and more people will read it.

The important thing to keep in mind here is the purpose of your site. It is to engage your visitors and give them the information they are seeking. It’s far more important to convert visitors to prospects or customers than it is to have the coolest site in town.

The Small Business Website Checklist

[ 2009-12-02 ]

The C@P Society of Cape Breton County has been a big proponent of small business taking advantage of an online presence as an effective and affordable marketing tool. Recently, they embarked on putting together a checklist for components that small businesses should have included on their website and asked for my input. At first, I thought that this was going to be very difficult to come up with a checklist that would be common to all small businesses. After all, every business is like a delicate snowflake right? Completely unique and full of subtle nuances that make no two alike? Although each operation is different, there are some core aspects that every website should strongly consider making a part of their online storefront. If your website is missing any of the following, think about how this is effecting your website’s performance:

Clear Contact Information

Every small-business site should have a Contact Us page. It should offer visitors a buffet of ways to contact you – from e-mail addresses to toll-free numbers to a physical address. When it comes to contacting you, they want options—or they just might take their business elsewhere. Some people who click on the contact page may just be curious as to where you business is located. They want to see that you have a physical address, as opposed to a company that exists entirely online. Although most business website has a contact page, not are all easily accessible. Is the page easy to find, and labelled properly?

Testimonials

Testimonials are like chicken. Very good when done well, but when not done properly can be poisonous. Many businesses poo-poo the testimonials page because they don’t want to blow their own horn. Some people would argue that this is not necessary, that the internet is rife with bogus testimonials. But again, it’s a natural human instinct for people to wonder what others had to say. Having a page like that may seem self-promotional, but people will look for it. And when they don’t find it, they might begin to make assumptions.

Content Management System

If you don’t have a dedicated programmer available to make updates, this is essential. This way you can benefit from having many non-technical people able to add or change information on the site. These days making changes to your company’s website is as easy as sending an email. I’ve heard business owners who don’t have a content management system and rely on a web designer to make changes compare the feeling to being ‘held hostage’.

FAQ

FAQ pages, or ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ pages, can be very useful to explain what exactly you do, explain some jargon associated with the product, and take away any apprehension potential clients may have before contacting you. With some products or services, there can be a lot of questions customers will want the answers to before they commit to buying (or even picking up the phone). If a lot of the same questions come up again and again, then it's better to have the answers there ready and waiting. That way, they won't need to head off to another website offering the same service.

About Us

People want to know about who they are doing business with. If you are providing a professional service or products for an expensive project people might want to check out your credentials. So, if you are a teacher, or driving instructor, they might want to read about your qualifications, how many years you have been in business etc. I would also recommend saying "if you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me" and put a link to your contact details, or simply repeat them.

Statistics

As business owners, we all want to get lots of traffic. But, just getting a lot of traffic will not necessarily spell success. What are those visitors doing when they access your website? Check to see how long visitors are at your site once they access your pages. Which pages do they leave quickly? If they leave your site quickly, or leave a particular page quickly you should try to analyze why. To leave a page quickly because it is simply access to where you want them to go is one thing. If the page they are leaving abruptly is a page you want them to linger on, then maybe you should try to analyze what you could do to make that page better and more adequately meet their needs. That is just a shred of the valuable information that can be derived from web traffic analysis.

To Flash, Or Not To Flash

[ 2009-11-25 ]

How to Increase Email Marketing Response

[ 2009-11-12 ]

Every so often, you will find an email in your inbox from a business, asking you for a few seconds of your time and attention. They could be offering tips, telling you some of their recent news, or trying to sell you something. It’s called email marketing, and it’s spectrum of quality ranges from genuinely helpful to impossibly annoying.

Last week, one of our clients in Sydney sent out one such email “blast” to his list of about 250 subscribers. The email contained a link to his website and asked recipients to visit and browse the specials that he is currently running. Since he is able to check his website statistics, he determined that about two thirds of people responded by clicking the link, which are some pretty impressive numbers.

So what is it about an email that creates a flood of website traffic, as opposed to one that sits ignored in an inbox? There are several things to keep in mind before sending out an email blast to potential customers.

Steer Clear Of Spam Blockers

First of all, if people sign up to receive your emails, you are not a spammer. Once you cross the Rubicon to sending unsolicited emails, then guess what, you’re a spammer. Large Internet service providers use meticulous anti-spam protection devices to stop unsolicited email before it makes it to your inbox. Spam filters generally classify the ‘spamminess’ of each email using a number of different criteria, and, if that email reaches a certain level, it is flagged as spam and deleted.

To ensure your emails don’t get flagged and vaporized before they get to your subscribers, try to avoid using words like ‘Free’, ‘$$$’, ‘Save’, ‘Discount’, and so on, in both the subject line and the content of your email.

Make It Easy To Click

Emails can sometimes make you dizzy with all of the text and graphics, leaving your subscribers not knowing what to do or where to click. Because of the awesome potential of email marketing, a ton of research has gone into what makes an email effective. Most studies say that readers respond best to a plain, bold, blue text link, even more than a banner or button. So make sure your links are bold, blue and underlined.

Timing Is Everything

In the same body of research, studies have shown that the best days to perform a mail-out to your list are Tuesdays and Wednesdays. One reason being that this when people are most receptive to communication. This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, equating to more sales. Apparently on Mondays most are still recovering from a hectic weekend. By Thursday and Friday, people are already too busy looking forward to the weekend. Upon further experimentation with this, the best results are found to be around 2-3pm on a Wednesday.

Keep the Subject Short

You have about 0.5 seconds to catch a reader’s attention with the subject line of your email. In this short time you have to use your subject line to grab them and shake them by the shoulders. After a half second, consider your email either deleted or ignored. Use your subject line to point out a specific benefit that the subscriber can expect by reading your email.

The Preview Pane

The best email clients/providers show a preview of an email when it’s selected in your inbox. For this reason, try to have some pretty compelling stuff at the very top of your email because this is what readers will see first. If it’s gripping enough, then your subscriber will open your email and continue reading.

Test! Test! Test!

When putting together your marketing emails, switch things up a bit. Try using different text for content and links. Try re-positioning logos and buttons. After sending about three or four different emails, compare the statistics for your site and see which one performed best. This is very valuable information! Now when you need to send marketing, you will know that you are sending the right content that will attract the most clicks.

Make Your Mark

Always include a signature at the bottom of your emails. An email signature is one of the most effortless ways to attract more traffic to your website. It should include your personal details, your company details, and a link back to your website.

How To Promote Your Website Locally

[ 2009-11-06 ]

Let’s take a look into the future. Six months into the future. After all of your research, determining who your clients are and what they want, you launch your business website. It’s a fantastic creation, a paragon of effective design, a gleaming lighthouse on the shores of economic uncertainty guiding weary customers into your welcoming harbour.

Now that you've built your new website you can have a snooze in the hammock, occasionally getting up to wheelbarrow your money to the bank, right? Well no. Just because you build it … doesn’t mean they will come, regardless of what you may have heard in Kevin Costner movies. That's where web site promotion comes in. Web site promotion provides that vital link between the great site you've built (or had built) and those that you want to come see it.

Often new site owners either don't know that they need to promote their site or they follow the trend of only promoting their site on search engines like Google and MSN. While it is always important to get your site listed with all the major search engines (and most of the smaller ones), you might be overlooking a vital part of promoting your site – promoting your web site locally.

As a small business owner, you can use your website to provide a "Showroom" for details about your products, information about your services, and directions to help potential customers find your business. Depending on the type of business, of course, one of your main goals is likely to be to attracting customers locally or from nearby towns and cities, so some additional strategy will be useful in promoting your site.

Local website promotion checklist

Newspaper

There are daily and weekly newspapers in Cape Breton that have sections where it is possible to introduce your business to the area. Write a small article about your business and submit it to the newspaper.

Press Releases

This is a formal news or information release about your business. There are many places on the Internet that will publish press releases for free. This can be a good way to be sure your business can be found on the Internet. Often local papers will also run these releases.

Niche Marketing

For businesses targeting people in Cape Breton or the CBRM, be sure your keywords (words in your website content) include the names ‘Cape Breton’ ‘Sydney’, ‘Glace Bay’, and so on, depending on which town or area you are targeting. You may also want to include the name ‘Nova Scotia’ at least once. I can’t tell you how many times I have searched for a local business with the word ‘Sydney’, and was given a long list of search results for businesses in Sydney, Australia. The same thing goes for businesses that will be competing for listings with those in New Waterford, Ohio. When someone needs a plumber and types "Plumbers" in the search box, it will return thousands of results from all over the world. When they narrow it down to "Plumber Glace Bay'", you want your web site to be high in the listings. In this case, the number one search result on the list is Stone Brother’s Plumbing and Heating. (Of the 10 or so businesses listed, Stone Brother’s was the only one with a website which tells you the services they provide, products they use, map to their location, about their free estimates, even a company history. The rest of listings are made up of only names and telephone numbers)

Email Signature

Most email programs allow you to add a signature to the bottom of your outgoing e-mails – be sure to include your web site address in this signature. This allows you to offer a little about your business and even announce a special your company is having. Keep these short and to the point.

Business Cards

Be sure your web site URL is on all paper correspondence and on your business cards.

Phone book

When you put your listing in the phone book for a little extra you can add your website URL, which can also be added to the yellow pages phone directory. Google keeps a yellow pages directory based on phone number listings, in time your business and URL will be listed there.

Be Creative

The more often someone sees your web site URL the more likely they will remember it when they need your product. Find ways to display your web site URL in your store and any other place the public may see it. Ever see a posting on a bulletin board where a phone number is written on pre-cut strips at the bottom? Why not put a website there as well?

There have never been more ways to affordably market your business, and a website is one of the best, if properly promoted. So to alter the famous Field of Dreams line, ‘ If you build it … and tell people about it … they will come.

How Much Is A Website?

[ 2009-05-17 ]

I get this question a lot. The answer is… it depends. It depends on what you want it to do. Websites, like a lot of other things, have a wide range of prices based on the features they offer. How much is a car? I can tell you a 1986 Nissan Micra is nowhere near the cost of an F1 McLaren race car. Some businesses need a website that performs like a McLaren, luckily, for most businesses, the Micra will do just fine. There are three different aspects that go into determining the price of a website.

Getting the Website Built

This is where a web developer / designer / your cousin Darren / the neighbour’s kid will actually build your site. A website is nothing more than a bunch of files, both graphic and text that are woven together around a common theme. The cost for developing the site can be anywhere from $299 to $5000 and up, depending on size and functions. This cost is a one-time investment for a tool you own and can continue to use for communication and marketing. For the most part, you’ll be better off if you have the ability to update the website yourself. This will allow you to make changes to content. If you will need to pay the designer every time you want to update some copy on the site, it will not only be more expensive for you, but you will most likely not be able to update your website in a timely manner. Even if updates are free, it can still be a real headache getting your web designer to make the updates when you ask.

Hosting

Once the site is built, it must be hosted on a server so the people can find it on the internet. Hosting costs vary. They can run anywhere from $4 to $50 per month, based on the website functionality and the hosting provider. Service varies widely as well. The ideal host will offer several services bundled together for one affordable price. The space provided for your site on the server should have ample room for high traffic. When a site doesn’t have enough space, the web visitor finds the site slow loading and difficult to access. The hosting package should have at least one email address that can be accessed through the web. Also, the hosting package should have a reliable track record of maintaining high dependability. When your server goes down, your web site and associated email is unavailable, and your competitor gets the sale.

Domain Name

A domain name is the web address where users find your web site (www.yourcompany.com). Domain names are unique and cannot be duplicated. The cost for registering a unique domain name is about $35 per year.

After shopping around for prices in the CBRM, I’ve found that you can get your business online for about $500 and up, for websites of widely varying degrees of quality and function. When considering the cost of a website here’s something to consider. More and more, busy households are turning to the internet when they are searching for a product or service. This number increases every year and has NEVER gone down. It is expected to continue climbing for the next 10 years. When you need to take a trip to the grocery store, you don’t need to buy a race car, if you want to win the Indy 500, a Micra won’t cut the mustard. Once you do the research and determine what you need your website to do, you’ll be in the position to get a website that makes money for your business, no matter what the initial investment.