maine web development, web design, internet marketing

There are many elements that affect the reputation of your website. Most of the topics listed below (in no particular order) are intermingled and depend greatly on one another. Just like in life, it takes time and support to build a good reputation online. Be aware of all the ways people are gauging your website and implement a strategy to build up a good reputation for it.

1. Blog Often – Blogging allows you to demonstrate your knowledge on a specific subject. By providing your expertise, you will be considered a resource that many people will look to for advice.
2. Easy to Understand – The content on your site needs to be easy to understand. Use language that a majority of internet users can comprehend and steer away from using industry jargon.
3. Provide useful information – Your website depends on the usefulness of its content. Be a resource to people, direct them to industry specific white papers; have an events calendar; or offer training workshops or webinars. People that find your site useful are more likely to share it with others, thus enforcing your good reputation.
4. Be Consistent – When updating elements on your site, like news, events, and blog posts, try to be more consistent rather than sporadic. Your users will appreciate knowing that they can go to your site and find what they are looking for.
5. Search Engines & SEO Are Your Pals – If someone is doing a search online and your site comes up on the first page or even in the top five, chances are that search engines consider it to be relevant. Most users trust their search engine to show them the best options for what they typed in the search bar. You need to execute a strategy to keep your website optimized for search engines.
6. Get “Real” – Yes, your website’s reputation also depends on your personal online reputation. Connect with people online using social networks like Twitter and LinkedIn and build a community around you and your business. Discuss topics and share ideas that lead them back to your website for additional resources.



7. Usability and Navigation – Your site needs to be easy to use and to navigate through. Users should understand how to get to the information they are seeking without difficulty.
8. Privacy Policy – Reputation and trust go hand-in-hand and you must include an easy-to-read privacy policy on your website. Your users should know what information you collect on your site and how you intend to use it.
9. Clean design – A clean design is beneficial for your site’s usability, navigation, and readability. Your website’s design must clearly display its calls to action so users can immediately understand what is required of them through the process.
10. Easily Accessible – No one has time for a site that takes a long time to download and please don’t make anyone download anything just to view your site. Make sure you make your site accessible to a wide range of internet users.

These topics work together as a team, not independently, so it is important to think of all the pieces of your website as a whole. For example, if you have a blog on your site that is not consistently updated, your website will be regarded as unreliable. Additionally, if you are not offering useful information to communities on social networks, they will be less likely to use your website as a resource. Building a good reputation for your website takes time, but once it has a solid foundation, it becomes invaluable.

Are you thinking about designing a new website or revamping your current site? Think about your overall web strategy and what tactics you will use to accomplish that strategy. I like to use the analogy of your website being your virtual office.

Web design & development

• Remove clutter from your office and make it comfortable for your guests. Use design elements like color and images that relay a welcoming feeling, so people want to visit your site, and hopefully stay a while.
• Do people have a hard time finding where they want to go? Display signs clearly so visitors can navigate their way seamlessly throughout your office. Ensure the traffic to your website can find information easily – if they can’t, they will leave your site to look elsewhere and you lose a lead.

Content

• When guests come into your office do you bore them with the history of your company or do you give them the information they want? If you have an idea of what guests want before they come, you can tailor the information to them – like using landing pages.
• When guests come back multiple times, don’t tell them the same thing each time they visit, give them new information and insight. For example, write a blog that is updated regularly.

Organic Search Marketing

• When people are looking for services or products you provide – make sure they find you! Putting signs up in front of your business, having a good reputation and word of mouth, and being able to be found in business listings are just like ensuring you have a good organic search plan in place.
• Respect expectations. If you sell oranges but you put up a sign that says you sell bananas just to get people to come to your fruit stand, people will be turned off and turn away. In terms of SEO, use keywords that pertain to what you offer and who you are offering to.

Paid Search Marketing

• This is just like paying to put an ad in the newspaper or a commercial on television. You want to make sure the content you put on the ad relates to what you are offering. The ads should direct people where you want them to go to receive the service – call a phone number, visit your office, go to a website, etc.
• Geographical targeting is important to think about too – if you sell snowmobiles, you are not going to put your ads on Hawaiian television. It’s better to have a smaller target to attract more quality leads than to have a large target and attract mediocre leads.

Connecting with people

• As a businessperson, you attend events and communicate with your clients on a regular basis. You can do the same thing online by becoming involved in social networking. Connect with others in your line of business to stay on top of industry news and be available to your customers to get their feedback and ensure their satisfaction.
• When you connect with people online, use your website as a resource for them to go to learn more about you. Similar to how you want your website to be your virtual office, you want your online personality to resemble your professional persona.

Evaluate and Assess (adjust if necessary)

• Can you tell how people feel when they come into your office? Are they buying your products? Are they telling their friends? Do they come back? These are all questions you want to ask about your website too. Check your analytics, set up goals and track them. Pay attention to make sure your calls to action are being completed and forms are being filled out.
• Don’t wait for negative feedback; be proactive about acquiring positive feedback. Try to be one step ahead by monitoring your traffic and trends occurring on your website. If something isn’t working, adjust and then reevaluate.

It can be helpful, when planning your web strategy, to think about your website as your virtual office. As much preparation and detail should go into your website as does choosing and designing your office space, deciding how to market yourself and who to conduct business with. Overall, you want to guarantee you give your visitors a good experience that makes them want to come back and do business with you.

Photo credit: The talented Mr. Natty Graham

Google Wave was announced back in May of 2009 (eons ago) and then we all waited for our invites with anticipation. Then we waited some more and we heard about other people that got them. Fits of jealousy came over us like the kid who got the lame doll while their neighbor got the whole He-Man Castle Grey Skull and you had to sit and listen to how cool it was, but I digress…

Then FINALLY you get your invitation! You login and… what the heck are you supposed to do with this thing?

The nice people at Google have described Google Wave as an ‘online collaboration tool’. Ok? Cool. So… now what am I supposed to do? The interface is confusing, there is no step by step ‘get me started button’ so what do I do?

My Google Wave experience started with a dozen or so of my geek friends (I mean that in the nicest way possible) starting waves that were titled:

‘You figure this thing out yet?’
‘You doing much with Wave yet?’
‘How does this work?’
and then just silence for a few months.

As time passed, my Google Wave collected dust until I found a project that fit with what Google Wave was created for: collaboration

Collaboration Waves

Here is a thought: We didn’t know we NEEDED the iPhone until after it came out. Now I am concerned I would not be able to live without mine. I didn’t know I needed the functionality of Google Wave until months later. We are in a world with less business meetings and more GoToMeetings, less phone calls and more emails, less internal emails and more Instant Messaging et al.,  perhaps we (some of us) needed an online tool that was 100% a joint effort and in real time.

Do you use Google Docs? It is a little like that but in real time.

What does it do?

• Real time conversation – As you type (no really, like AS you type) the people in your wave can see your text. You can edit and add notes to parts of the conversation. I only know my experience, but I have heard that this interaction is one step ahead of email in prioritization but the response does not need to be immediate if you don’t want it to be.

  One Example: – Imagine taking notes in a meeting but everyone can add to them. Add comments or links for more information and then everyone has access to the meeting notes after the meeting is over.

  Another Example: – Ever have a group email going to multiple decision makers? Some people on the email are right on top of replying back quickly and you continue a big back and forth. Then someone else replies to an email from hours ago answering a question you resolved this morning. With Google Wave it is all documented in order and you can go back and answer a question from hours ago or get right back in on where the conversation last left off.

• Images and Documents – As you build your content you can easily add documents, photos, even video and maps to your wave. As necessary, you can send these files and resources to your team in less time than it would take to email it to them.

  One Example: – When planning an event, the organizers can share all their resources like maps to the event, photos of the location or attendees and so much more.

• Document the process: – When collaborating on a document sometimes we loose how we got to the final product in the first place. With Google Wave you can have a record of how you got to the end result.

  One example: – Putting together an eBook or a real book? Perhaps some of your good content was left on the cutting room floor? Now you have it documented in a place you can refer to at anytime to make a sequel or Part II.

  Another idea: some of my favorite parts of movies are the outtakes. Maybe your content outtakes could be fun and useful as well.

• Organize by Content – Not only can you organize your collaboration by time of posts but you can make offshoots of your waves by topic and keep organized that way. Example: – Working on a book or eBook again? You can organize your thoughts and resources by chapter and not just in one stream.

I still don’t get it

Good news! You don’t have to! Just because a new form of technology comes out does not mean you have to be an expert in it. Perhaps if this makes no sense to you, that is because you aren’t in the target market for Google Wave. Nothing wrong with that.

If you think you can work just fine with email, the phone, IM, Google docs etc. then go for it. Nothing wrong with that either.

I do think it is important for you to get an understanding of what you CAN do with Google Wave and if down the road you see a collaboration opportunity that could use these features, you know where to go.

Now that you perhaps have a little bit more of an understanding, I hope that takes some pressure off if you weren’t amazed with Google Wave.

Need more information to form an opinion?

Here are some more resources and opinions on Google Wave if you want to know more:

• About Google Wave from Google including demo video
• Posts by Chris Brogan tagged with ‘googlewave’ including tips and uses
• My Take on Riding The Google Wave from @adjustafresh
• Google Wave: A Complete Guide from Mashable
• Google Wave Versus the Rest, Feature by Feature by Lifehacker

Welcome to our new weekly Facebook Fanpage Blog Series! Every Friday, we will discuss strategies, technical development and layout of your company Facebook Fanpage.

It is 2010 and by now, surely you have a website for your business! If not, you should definitely consider it. Your online marketing strategy doesn’t begin and end with just a website. Generating inbound links to your site using social media and networking sites can be a beneficial way to increase traffic, generate sales leads, build your network etc.

Facebook, in its recent popularity, has developed a platform for companies to produce a Fan Page. A Fan page is a business oriented profile, much like a user profile, but with some specific features. It utilizes a special language called FBML, similar to HTML to interact with modules and applications.

There’s a vast amount of interactivity between other social networking sites (YouTube, LinkedIn, Twitter) to connect your networking profiles. There are also some cool visual capabilities such as; adding graphics to your profile, navigation structure, landing pages and video implementation (most of these we will talk about later on in the series).

Let’s get to the good stuff, you must have a personal profile on Facebook to have a company profile, you will be the administrator (you can also designate others as an admin, more on that later).

First, sign up to Facebook and said hello to your family and friends

Next, you can goto Facebook’s Pages section and begin your journey to a new fan page (click “Click Here!”).

Create New Facebook Page Category section :

1. Select from 3 different types of business categories. Whether you are a local company or a small to large brand/product/organization there are a wide variety of industries to choose from.
2. Name your company page – This is a little more important than you think. In terms of SEO, these pages are index-able (meaning they are able to be found through search) Definitely have your company title!
3. You have the option to make the page publicly visible, whether or not you want people or fans to see this work in progress before we turn it into a masterpiece is up to you.
4. Click the Create Page button

Now you’ll be taken to something that resembles an empty profile. Congratulations, this is your company’s new Fan Page!

Filling out Company information

1. Click on the Info Tab
2. Enter text for “Founded” under the Basic Information section
3. Next, Fill out information under the Detailed Information section
   • Website Address
   • Your Company Overview (What do you do?!)
   • A Mission Statement (Why do you do what you do?!)
   • Whatever Products you may sell

When you’ve completed your basic and detailed information, save your changes and click “Done Editing”

Changing Your Profile Picture

1. Hover your mouse over the default profile picture
2. Click Change picture… it comes with options
   • you now have the option to upload a picture
   • take a picture
   • choose from album (even though you don’t have one yet!)

If you already have a photo on your hard drive, you can browse for it and it will upload

You now have an identity on your Facebook page! Tune in next week as we talk about adding content to your Facebook Profile with Boxes and Photos!