Holistic Technology Enabled Internet Marketing Solutions

Hopefully, when you designed and developed your website you gave some thought about how your users would interact with the site. The type of experience your visitors have is extremely important – it can be the deciding factor on whether or not they will do business with you. However, when a user has a good experience on your website it leads to trust and loyalty and even an increase in sales.

Whether you are designing a brand new website, redesigning, or just have some web maintenance that needs to be completed, you should always keep in mind who your users are and how they will be using your site. You can balance the goals you’ve set out for your website with the goals your users have when they are using your website.

There are so many ways to enhance user experience on the web. Here a few things to keep in mind when thinking about creating the ultimate experience for your web users:

1. Easy to Find Resources
Make the key areas of your website easy to find and access. Always make sure the information on your site is organized in a manner that is logical to the user. Try not to bury content using sub-sub-sub pages – you don’t want your users to feel like they need a treasure map to navigate your site.

2. Customize & Personalize
Some websites allow the user to change preferences and customize the page with information specific to them. When I set up my Verizon wireless account online I was able to select my phone and my plan. Whenever I log in, the options given to me on my home screen always align with the products and services I have available to me depending on my current service plan. Now I don’t have to go searching around to find car charges and phone covers that are adaptable to my phone – Verizon has done it for me. Also, we have seen websites, such as Netflix, have much success personalizing their site by tailoring the movie options for the customer based on previous rentals.

3. Segment Your Users
If you are able to define specific web users that frequent your site, build pages on your website specific to them. Then, once they arrive on your site, filter them to those areas. This allows them to find the resources they are seeking easier and more efficiently.

4. Relatable
This can refer to the design and the language that you use on your website. You need to know who your users are and design your site in a way that makes them feel comfortable. Layout, color scheme, font, and imagery can help create an environment that relates to the demographic that uses your site. If there is data available to understanding how your users consume content, keep that in mind as well for help creating the layout. For example, there are very distinct differences on ESPN’s website and Martha Stewart’s website, based on the fact that there are two very different demographics using the sites.

5. Good Navigation and Site Search
Poor navigation can crush a user’s experience on your site. A user should always know where they are, where they have been and where they want to go when they are on your site. We all know how frustrating it is to get lost when driving in unfamiliar territory, so make sure you use signals and give clear direction. If you have a particularly large website with many pages, a good site search function could come in handy. Think about it, if you have an e-commerce site and someone can’t find the product they are looking for (in a timely manner) they will not purchase it and you’ve lost a sale to your competitors.

User experience goes hand in hand with good customer service and in one way or another. In all human business, there is a level of customer service that is expected and desired. Any time we interact with a person representing a business it alters the perception we have of that business. The same is true for your website. When people come to your website you want to ensure they feel at ease and can easily reach their goals; whether they are researching or purchasing. You want them to leave your site knowing that they can conveniently find what they are looking for using your site and a good perception of who you are as a business.

As I’ve said in the past, I think that every website can benefit from search engine optimization.  Employing keywords in the important on-page SEO elements, making sure that the site’s code is clean and lean so search engines can better crawl it, rewriting URLs so they are static and include keywords – the list goes on.  It’s all about giving your website the best possible chance to be seen in a search related to your business, as well as making it as hospitable as possible to those cute ‘lil search engine bots.

Once you’ve optimized your site, you’re done, right?  Shouldn’t you start getting a deluge of emails and calls?  In a perfect world, SEO would be all that you need to have customers banging down your door.  The reality is that a website needs to be approached holistically.  In addition to SEO, your site needs to function properly (solid website development), be appealing to visitors (pleasing website design), be updated frequently with information (content building), and make it clear to visitors what you want them to do (user conversion).  Don’t forget about social media networking and maybe even PPC.

I know this is a lot to digest, so let’s explore a few of these elements a little further.

Solid Website Development

This may sound obvious, but your website needs to work.  First and foremost, it should load quickly.  People are impatient and if your web pages are slow, visitors are very likely to leave – quickly. Google also just started using this as a minor ranking signal which means that slower pages may not rank as high as they could in search engine results.  Speed is key.

Don’t forget that search engines check out sites “under the hood” so to speak.  They crawl through the code of websites to read the text and link to other pages.  Things like nested tables (instead of using CSS), javascript navigation, flash splash pages, or only using images on the pages makes it very difficult for the search engine bots to get through your site and figure out what it’s all about.  Make sure you site’s code is as lean as it possibly can be without a lot of superfluous “stuff”.

Build That Content

People are searching the web for information.  How much does your website have?  Are you offering case studies, whitepapers, demos, videos, a blog, testimonials, etc?  Why not?  Your website is a living and breathing entity and it needs to be constantly nurtured.  The best way to show your website visitors that you are invested in your web presence is by keeping it updated and building content.   I don’t know about you, but I don’t stick around on sites too long that look like they haven’t been updated in awhile.  I imagine that you get a variety of questions from your customers about your products and services; this is a great starting point to building content.  If someone is asking a question, there are bound to be others who have the same questions.  Start adding the answers to your website.

A blog is a great (and easy!) way to add content to your site on a consistent basis.  It also gives you the opportunity to position yourself as an expert in your industry.   Blogs can be very powerful.

User Conversion

The bottom line of every website is to get your visitors to engage.  This could be through submitting a contact form, downloading a PDF, signing up for an email newsletter, reserving a spot in a training workshop, or simply buying a product.  What do you want people to do once they are on your website?  If you’re not sure, it’s imperative for you to come up with a strategy for any of the aforementioned engagement techniques (and there are many others that I didn’t mention).  Then you have to make it easy for your visitors and spell it out for them.  One way of doing this is to have “call to action” elements marked very clearly throughout your site.  Graphics that say “Contact Us” or “Download our Free eBook” made to stand out and be seen above the fold are strategies to let people know that these are the desired actions.

SEO is not a Magic Bullet

SEO is an imperative part of Internet Marketing, but it cannot exist alone in a vacuum.  There are many different pieces of the puzzle that need to be considered when using your website to drive your business’ bottom line.  The effort of optimization is largely in vain if people get to your site and then leave because they didn’t get what they wanted from it and you were not able to engage them.  It’s time to look at your website as a whole and pinpoint opportunities for improvement to finally get those leads you’ve been looking for.

If you’re anything like me, you’re always looking for new ways to brainstorm potential keywords. I come up with my own list of terms that I think might be suitable; I ask my friends, coworkers and husband for what they might use to search for different products and services; I pinpoint longtail keywords by using the auto suggest feature in Google’s search box; I use various keyword tools for their related keywords function, and so on and so forth – but I always want more.

Being the self-proclaimed Queen of Keywords that I am, I was surprised when I stumbled across a Google tool that I hadn’t seen before: Google Sets.  Apparently Google Sets is one of the first applications created in the Google Labs and it was made to help identify “groups of related items on the web and uses that information to predict relationships between items.”  Well that sounds cool, let’s give it a whirl!

Since I wanted to know what the “kids” are into these days, I typed in two popular tweens, Justin Bieber and Miley Cyrus, and giddily clicked “Large Set” to get all the related words on the interwebs:

As you can see, many other teen-worshiped celebs pop up such as Hilary Duff and Zac Efron. Given all we know about Lindsay Lohan, I don’t know that she’s the best role model for today’s youth, but I digress.

For pure brainstorming purposes, this is a great tool to add into the rotation to really expand your list before you start the process of validating those keywords.

A Note About Content

Even if you discovered a lot of great keywords using Google Sets or any other keyword tool and are ready to use them, take a moment to assess the content on your current site.  Does the text on your website contain these new keyword discoveries?  That’s great if it does, but highly unlikely.  If you’re going to target some new keywords for your site, please, please, please don’t forget to expand and tweak your content to include those keywords.  Search engines need to see the keywords reflected in both the on-page SEO elements AND the content on your site.

So have I just been living under a rock these past years?  Are you guys already using Google Sets?  Let’s discuss!

If you have not met Steve Garfield yet, you really should. Steve is so smart, generous with his time and a patient teacher. Steve can help you with all things video and his new book, Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business, is getting rave reviews all over the internet. Steve was kind enough to take some time away from his heavy book promotion schedule and be the next interview for our Spring Inspirations Series.

Steve, your book Get Seen is a bit of a playbook on all things web video related. You discuss everything from types of cameras to get to content to shoot. What was your favorite part about putting all your thoughts together in a book?

My favorite part of putting the book together was just sitting down to keyboard and telling stories…well really typing in stories. These are great stories and examples that people can learn from and be inspired by to create their own videos

What was one thing you surprised you when putting the book together?

What most surprised me about writing the book was not the writing of the book, that I totally enjoyed, it was when I was finished. David Meerman Scott, editor of the series, told me now the hard work starts, all the work that has to go into marketing and promoting and getting the word out on the book.

We here at Hall work with a lot of small to medium sized B2B business. Is there a place for B2B companies to produce online video? What kind of content can they put together?

When I hear the question, “should a business put video on the web to talk to other businesses?” I can’t believe it’s a question. When you come down to what businesses are, it’s people, and people do businesses with other people. Video is the best method that businesses can use to show the people who work in your business, show how you’re authentic, and really gives examples of product demonstrations. Video lets people who visit your website learn what the people who work there are like. There’s so many ways and creative ways you can use video in your business.

I think a lot of businesses are scared to try video content because it seems very expensive (camera, editing software, microphones et el) . Does video content have to be expensive?

Have you read my book? The whole thing it says is that video does not have to be expensive and you can just get started with a WebCam that’s on your computer like the MacBook Pro or a flip camera or a Kodak Zi8. Video does not have to be expensive. There is a great example at http://Chevrolet.posterous.com of how they use what I’ve been calling casual video to share people’s thoughts and impressions of their new cars. It’s an amazing example of using casual video, something that’s not expensive, by a major company.

Since this is a Spring Inspiration blog series…who is inspiring you these days? Who’s blog do you have to read every day or who’s videos do you think are ‘doing it right’?

Like I said in the answer above. Chevrolet is doing it right. They are doing casual video and putting it on a blog that isn’t their main site. That’s so site visitors have the right expectations when viewing the video. They know what they are getting won’t look like corporate car commercials, but it’ll be authentic and real. Timely too!

Other than pick up your new book, is there something we should keep an eye out on from you in the future? Any fun projects coming up?

I love teaching and I’ve got a super secret project coming out that I can’t talk about. Stay tuned for that.

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Super secret project! Sounds exciting! Thanks again to Steve for taking time out of his schedule to talk with us.

Want to know more about Steve Garfield and Video?

Read: Get Seen: Online Video Secrets to Building Your Business
Check out: SteveGarfield.com
Watch our archived webinar:

Show, Don’t Tell! Using Video to Tell Your Story If a picture’s worth a thousand words, how good is video? Video is more accessible than ever and no form of marketing has a more dramatic effect on the user. Learn about the types of typical videos and how to market them effectively to capture the interest of leads and drive sales.