maine web development, web design, internet marketing

I am a movie buff; to me there is nothing better than watching a movie that just pulls you in along for the ride. While watching the Oscars last night I got to thinking about all the pieces that come together to make a fantastic movie. Content for your website should be viewed in the same way; it is not something you throw on your website and hope people like it. For your website to win over an audience your content needs to be top in multiple categories.

Writing (Original Screenplay)

The award winning screenplay writer of “The Hurt Locker” was a reporter in Iraq who came back with the idea of writing about the men on the frontline of the war. He was able to tell a compelling, timely story using just a couple of hours of film time. When you are writing original content for your website keep in mind that not all content is king. To win in this category you need to go past the mediocre content and write something that is compelling and interests your audience. You have an even shorter time to engage your web audience than a screenplay writer has, so remember to always put quality above quantity.

Directing

Without a director to take control of a film, the full vision can never be realized. Someone needs to take charge to pull everything together. A director, like Kathryn Bigelow with “The Hurt Locker,” is involved with all aspects of a film. Having someone who is in the loop with all of your web content is important as well. You need to have a person who is always checking what goes on the site to make sure content is relevant, valuable, and consistent with the overall vision of the company.

Film Editing

“The Hurt Locker” swept at the Oscars not just because of the excellent screenplay and direction but also because of the quality film editing. Each scene in a film gets scrutinized in the post-production stage as editors pull everything together by deciding what to cut, where to put music, etc. With your website you should always be reviewing your content. If something is no longer relevant then cut it out. Any spelling mistakes or areas where you have incorrect information needs to be edited or it will bring down the professionalism of your company.

Visual Effects

One of the main reasons I went to see the award winning “Avatar” was because I heard the 3-D effects were absolutely stunning. While you should not be enticing viewers to visit your website just to look at pretty graphics and flash, you should include relevant photos, charts, and illustrations that benefit what you are saying in your content. If it is appropriate, video can also help you connect with your audience and keep them engaged with your website.

Actor/Actress in a Supporting Role

Supporting roles are as equally important to a film as the leading roles. The stellar performances of Christoph Waltz and Mo’Nique helped bring their movies to life. Optimizing your content over different supporting channels, such as email and social networks, gives your website the final push it needs to come out on top.

Actor/Actress in a Leading Role

The stars of a movie are what really make it shine. Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock brought their roles to life and made a unique connection with the story they were telling. On your website, connect to your audience by using content that shows your personality and authentic voice. This will create more long term relationships and dependable consumers.

And the Winner for Best Picture Is… Your Content Driven Website!

“The Hurt Locker” came away with the grand prize last night and your website can be a winner too as long as it provides great, compelling content that wins over your audience. Visitors to your site want to be helped, and if they find value in your content they will be more likely to come back when they have money to spend or a decision to make. You won’t have a shiny Oscar to show for all your hard work, but you can have a strong web presence along with a loyal audience!

Facebook keeps getting bigger and if your target audience is using it, now’s a good time to get involved in the discussions about your company and industry! We’ve learned how to setup a profile, now we need something to look at – something to allure users. Let’s add some boxes to your Fan page, shall we?

Wait, what’s a box?

A box is an user developed application where you can display image galleries, twitter feeds, blog feeds, videos and many other useful marketing materials to better engage your fans or potential fans. These boxes require the use of FBML. FBML is a coding language that lets you custom build these Facebook Platform apps. An evolved version of HTML, Facebook Developers community has listed allowed FBML and HTML tags to use. So if you know HTML, FBML is not too far off.

1. Access your edit dashboard by clicking “Edit Page” below your profile photo.
2. Scroll all the way down and click on “Browse More” under “More applications”
3. This will take you to the Applications landing page, in the top left corner in the search bar type “Static FBML”
4. Click on the logo on the right and when you get to the “Static FBML” Fan page click “add to my page” below the logo
5. There will be a dialog box of all of your fan pages (maybe you have only one!) Click “Add To Page” for whatever page you would like to display

Here it is visually:

Editing your new Static FBML box

Now we actually have the “Boxes” tab added to your Fan page profile, we can see it in the tab navigation if you go back to it. Now we want to put actual content within the box! Go back to your Fan page dashboard under “Edit Page” and notice that there is a new box that says “FBML – FBML” This is your first Box.

There are 4 options for this box;

• Edit (This is where you can change the name of your box and develop inside of it using HTML and FBML)
• Application settings (You can remove the box, add a new tab to your navigation or create additional permissions to publish all of your recent activity to your wall feed)
• Link To This Tab (Clicking this will display the direct URL to your tab *Remember this for later in the blog series!*)
• Remove Application (not much to say here)

If you click the Edit link, It will take you to a page with inputs where you can implement application development. Displayed is a Box Title, the title that will be displayed on that particular box on the boxes page, as well as the input for “FBML” or the code of what will display in that particular box.

We are going to display a video within a box. Within your FBML input text box, input the following


<strong>"Fancy Title Goes Here" </strong><br><br><center><fb:swf swfbgcolor="ffffff" imgstyle="border-width:3px; border-color:white;" imgsrc="url of your image to display" swfsrc='url of your video' width='numeric value of what your width is' height='numeric value of what your height is' /><br />click image to start video</center>

This is going to display one video of your choice…notice the similarities between FBML and HTML!

When you are finished, you can click “Save Changes” at the bottom and return back to your fan page and go to the “Boxes” tab to view your new page application.

Congratulations! This is now something you can promote on your wall or other social media outlets/blog!

Have you checked your traffic sources on your website’s analytics lately? What do you see? It’s good to see that search has a big piece of the pie, but you also want to make sure that you have a healthy balance of direct and referral site traffic as well. A couple of days ago, Rand Fishkin of SEOmoz, posted some advice on SEO for Startups. In the post he stressed the importance of not letting search dominate your traffic sources.

Why is web traffic diversity important?

If search engines provide an extremely high percent of traffic to your site and you are not getting traffic from other sources, it tells you that people are not finding value out of your website. A valued website will have a variety of referring site traffic from sharing links, blog posts, upcoming events, news, etc. Analytics would also show a sliver of direct traffic pie from people who have bookmarked the website or typed the URL into the address bar. Referring site and direct traffic sources show that people are connecting to a site because it offers useful content.

What can you do to diversify your web traffic?

• Provide valuable content on your website, like a blog, and keep your site up-to-date with news and events.
• Use social media like Facebook and Twitter to share links to the content on your site.
• Include links to your website on your press releases and traditional marketing pieces like direct mailers and posters.
• Use links to your web content within your email marketing newsletter that your subscribers will find useful.

Value is the key to successfully diversifying your web traffic. The content on your site needs to be of value to people or else they simply will not read it nor will they share it. Plus, search engines like to see that a site receives varied types of traffic; it lets them know that the website offers relevant content that people find useful. What does your web traffic source pie look like?

If you use a Content Management System (CMS) to control your website you are in a great position! Instead of having a basic static site you have the power over a fully dynamic system that allows you to update all your web content, which is important. If you currently have a static site the 7 perks below may have you reconsidering how you manage your web content.

1. Update and Add Content as Often as You Want
If you come out with a new product or service, you can add a new page about it on your website just by logging into your administration and creating a new article or post. With the ability to add and edit all the content on your site you are able to keep it fresh, giving visitors a reason to return. Why would visitors have a reason to come back to your site if the content never changes?

2. Instantly Update Content
It’s Saturday morning, you’re just about to go out for your morning run and you suddenly realize that you never removed the service you discontinued on Friday. Not a problem if you are near a device that is connected to the internet! A CMS is an internet application that allows you to make instant updates to your site through any computer.

3. Reduce Maintenance Costs
With the ability to update all your content through your CMS administration login there is no need to call your web maintenance provider to make costly updates. Spelling errors, address changes, and staff updates can all be done on your own through the CMS.

4. SEO is Easy to Add for Each Page
When you add a new page or make updates to an existing one it is easy to add the proper SEO elements. Most CMSs have areas to add the title, description, and keyword meta tags in addition to search engine friendly URLs and header tags. This gives you full control over how search engines find your content.

5. You Don’t Need to Know Code
The administration area of a CMS has an interface that allows you to update content through a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) editor. Edit and add content just like you would through a word processor. The system will then save the information in a database and you can publish it to your site, never having to see a bit of programming code, phew!

6. You Can Have Multiple Authors
A CMS often gives you the ability to add multiple administrator user accounts. These accounts can be assigned to have different permissions and access levels so that administrators can have different roles. Also, when someone is editing a page other users can not open it, so they can be in editing other content at the same time without worrying about overwriting each other.

7. Maintain Consistency Throughout All Channels
With a CMS you can place automatic feeds throughout your site that pull in your most recent news articles, Tweets, or blog posts. You are also able to maintain consistency from something mentioned through another channel by updating related content on your pages. For example if you mention a sale through Twitter you can link to the product page that you have edited to include the sale information. You can also link to these channels in your content giving website visitors a new perspective and branching them out.

Using a CMS to run your website allows you to keep your content fresh and consistent with your brand and all channels. This will help you maintain a professional appearance and also give visitors a reason to return to your site. Make sure that you use your CMS to its full potential by adding SEO elements and using feeds. Ensure a good balance of new content; adding too much or too many pages can overwhelm visitors and they may have a hard time finding what they are looking for. Keeping everything consistent and creating quality content is key!