The Content Crunch: Setting Your Project Up For Success

We focus on content management systems here at Trinity Applied Internet, but we are constantly reminded that for our clients, the system is not the difficult part when putting together a website redesign. (Probably, that’s because they are relying on us to work the magic.) The system, the code, custom plug-ins and even (to an extent) the design and user interface are usually relatively easy compared to… that’s right… generating the content itself.

In fact, we have worked with some outstanding organizations and businesses that, despite having an awesome story to tell, have no writers, no time, or no inspiration to get the story down on the page.  I understand their plight, having agonized for days over exactly what to write this blog post about, and how to write it.

The key to the success of your new website, depending on its goals and purposes, is probably writing some solid copy that will engage your audience and leave them wanting more. (More product. More information. More of your smiling face or your stellar services. ) This takes time, technique, and at best some experience. And while it is tempting to say it takes talent, the truth is it takes very little talent and can be learned over time.

The Content Crunch Part A, Step 1: Make the Time

So, you are designing a new website for your company. You have a list of features and functionality you need, you have completed your branding, you have plans for both online and offline campaigns to drive traffic and be supported by the website, synergistically. Now, you need to take some time out and plan for, collect and craft your content. We urge the companies we work with to do this during the few weeks or months when we are heads-down coding. We, or your developer of choice, will be busy working on things that won’t be ready for review for a while; you can be busy sharpening your pencil and crafting that content!

The Content Crunch Part A, Step 2: Assign The Right Resource(s)

Your company may have a marketing department, you might be lucky enough to have an agency, or it might all be up to you, as the owner, executive director, or team member who drew the short straw. We have a content team that can be contracted to write your copy, if that’s helpful. But in any case, someone is going to sit down and begin writing and it will be easier, faster and smoother for everyone (your audience included) if your staff or contract resource is the right resource. If you love to write, are excited about the prospect, and can spend a little time reading up on web copywriting –then go for it, you’ll do great! If (and we see this every few months or so) you break into a cold sweat at the prospect and suddenly it feels like you are back in the eighth grade with a big report due, then you are probably not the right resource for this task. Trust me. It will be agony for you, and probably not turn out very well.

Make sure you know who is going to write this (preferably before you start a single thing), and take care that that person or team is the best person or team available to you. Setting your project up for success by attending to these two (easy! simple!) tasks will jumpstart the process and have you just that much closer to some outstanding web content.

Thanks for reading. Next month…The Content Crunch Part B: Getting Past the Blank Page.

What will derail your website strategy?

I just read Scott Glatstein’s article in the American Chronicle about Business Strategy Execution: 4 Reasons Why Your Company’s Strategy Isn’t Working. (A nod to Erica Olsen who posted about this on her blog, Strategically Speaking, and got me thinking.)

Scott Glatsteins’ four points of a failing strategy were:

1. The strategy fails to recognize the limitations of the existing organization.
2. Employees don’t know how the strategy applies to their daily work.
3. The organization’s business systems or processes can’t support the strategy.
4. Performance metrics and rewards are not aligned with the strategy.

The same four things that can cause a business strategy to fail can cause your website’s performance to derail or be greatly diminished. I always tell clients that small changes to their website can demand large changes to their business. I think of it as the mind|body disconnect of the web. The client often thinks that the mind (the business) is disconnected from the body (in this case the website.) Mr. Glatsteins’ four points outline where this disconnect can be. Let’s look at an example:

ABC widget wants an email contact form for their website as an alternate method for customers to contact them. The form will store the customer’s information and message in a database and send a notification email to info@abcwidget.com. They hire a web development firm and get the form built. Right before launch (or worse yet – after launch) someone within the company asks a simple question: “Who is info@abcwidget.com?”

There is stunned slience as no one has considered before where the email notification goes. This question then gives birth to more questions (hopefully):

• What is the schedule for checking the email address? (business process)
• Does the person who checks the email need to reply? Is there a generic script? (business process)
• Where do requests get routed to? (business process)
• How are requests tracked? (metrics)
• What is the expected turnaround time for a customer request? (metrics)

All this for a simple form! Every interactive piece of a website (where you are requesting a customer to communicate with you) requires a business process and responsiblity chart. It seems overkill, but when Janice in accounts recievable leaves the company and stops checking the generic email account – will anyone know what to do? Will they even realize what Janice had been doing for years?
If these questions haven’t been addressed beforehand, a customer may email a request and either never get an answer, or fail to get a timely answer, or possibly not get the answer the company’s strategy really calls for — as someone in the IT department ends up getting the email and doing the best they can to route it.

This example illustrates how a customer relationship can suffer if the details behind a simple contact form aren’t planned for and outlined. I would rephrase Mr. Glatsteins’ four points for the web:

1. The website processes fail to recognize the limitations of the existing organization. Often website applications require a human component that you don’t plan on. You have a great new publishing platform (a blog) but who writes for the blog?
2. Employees don’t know how the website can apply to their daily work. Websites can make the lives of employees easier with sales automation, information for customers, etc. but if there isn’t an internal campaign to educate your employees about your new website, then the right hand will truly not know what the left hand is doing.
3. The organization’s business systems or processes can’t support the strategy. Can your website work with your customer relationship management system? Can your sales team go electronic?
4. Website metrics are not aligned with your strategy. If you have a blog that is separate from your website, is it being tracked? Are you still pouring over raw server logs for information? How do you even measure website performance, and who is responsible for that?

These may seem simple questions for you to answer and simple problems for you to solve, and they are — if you’ve taken the time to do your homework. When you think about your website, think about it as an extension of your business and your business strategy.  Like with any business effort, good planning and a little bit of forethought can make (or break) the enterprise.

A tale of two restaurants

I went and got take out this weekend at a brand new restaurant. We have a lot of new restaurants opening up near where I live. I love the expanding selection, and am eager to support local businesses, too. I also have two small children, so take out is often the best option for my family. My decision about which new restaurant to patronize first was based on one thing: a website.

There were two restaurants to choose between. Restaurant A had a website. Retaurant B didn’t have a website at all. Both had opened at roughly the same time. The type of cuisine Restaurant B offers sounded really good to me. But, since I needed to order ahead and pick up the food (I was going to be running multiple errands with a 4 year old in tow!) I had to go with Restaurant A, who had their information available to me.

Restaurant A’s website was no great shakes. It was clean and professional. Built by a national company that grinds out templated websites. But regardless of the site design, architecture or individuality, it was highly effective. Even I have never actually chosen a restaurant based on the quality of their website – but I have made the call based on the information given by their website.

Restaurant B will be losing out on my family’s business until I get their information. If I ever have time to swing in and pick up a menu, I’ll call them – but chances are that won’t be for a while. Restaurant A will continue getting my business. How many more people in my situation (busy, technologically savvy, caring for kids too young to sit for table service) are living in this market? How much business is Restaurant B missing out on?

If you have a selection of services or goods people can order over the phone – get yourself a website. It doesn’t have to be slick or pretty – just easy to use and up to date. Then you can have my business — and that of many more customers with little time and a decent internet connection.

Is your web site accessible?

Last Tuesday October 2nd, a federal judge ordered Target to stand trial on charges that its website is not sufficiently accessible to visually-impaired shoppers. For more details on the ruling read this article in e-week.

What does this mean?

It means that marketeers and online retailers need to pay as much attention to the form and structure of thier code as they do to the look of their website.

I am not a fan of ugly websites. I understand designers who want to push the limits of website design – but websites can be unique, beautiful, functional — and ADA compliant.

The web was created to help people share information. At its most basic, the web is a series of interconnected documents. The basis of all good information is logical organization (to arrange the data), good roadmaps (to efficiently find the data), clear labels (quickly understand the data) and clear text or writing (data easily divided into parts for digestion). ADA compliancy is no different.

I am not an alarmist. Do I think that the precedent of Target being sued for ADA compliancy means that every mom and pop website needs to be worried about a lawsuit? No. Do I think a lot of other large businesses and government websites could be sued? Maybe. I do think that this ruling highlights the need for business to be aware of all audiences.

I think that ADA compliancy on the web comes almost naturally by being courteous toward your users. Why not make your information easy for everyone to use?  You’re not talking about added physical infastructure (ramps to your door, for instance), you’re talking about being smart when you architect your site and choose your solutions for images and text — the basics.

I recently got a brief glimspe of how frustrating it is navigate a visual medium with only aural narration ( not unlike blind users with a browser that reads to them). A non-technical friend of mine needed guidance through the steps of burning some digital pictures to a CD. I couldn’t see what they were seeing, I and could only rely on what he told me over the phone. This lead to some significant frustration. But my little experience would probably seem the tip of the iceberg for someone who only has that method available to buy something or look information up on the web.

There are lots of good guides for ADA compliancy on the web. A couple resources I like:

ADA Best Practices Tool Kit for State and Local Governments

Section 508

WebAIM Checklist

Is your website going to be perfect? No. Information labeling and organization is a process – so is website development. Keep the standards in mind when considering changes and remember to be as polite as you can to all your audiences.

Classes offered by the Nevada Small Business Development Center

I’ve been asked by the Nevada Small Business Development Center to teach a couple evening seminars focusing on online solutions for small businesses.

It is an honor to be asked and I’m excited to have a chance to talk about websites, search engine optimization, and email marketing with small business owners. The classes are inexpensive and I promise to answer as many questions as possible in the time allotted as well as getting through my entire curriculum.

You can register for the class on the NSBDC’s website. Register now. Space is limited.

Class Information (I’ll post detailed descriptions later this week):

Utilizing the Internet for Small Business
Date: October 30, 2007
Time: 5:30pm – 8:30pm
Location: REDFIELD Campus, 18600 Wedge Parkway, Nell J Redfield Bldg A, Room 213
City: Reno
Fee: $25
Registration: Online or (775) 784-1717

Search Engine Optimization
Date: November 6, 2007
Time: 5:30pm – 8:30pm
Location: REDFIELD Campus, 18600 Wedge Parkway, Nell J Redfield Bldg A, Room 213
City: Reno
Fee: $25
Registration: Online or (775) 784-1717

Email Marketing
Date: November 13, 2007 – November 13, 2007
Time: 5:30pm – 8:30pm
Location: REDFIELD Campus, 18600 Wedge Parkway, Nell J Redfield Bldg A, Room 213
City: Reno
Fee: $25
Registration: Online or (775) 784-1717

What do web metrics mean to your website?

Last week Nielsen//Netratings accounced that they were changing the metrics they use in their NetView (website analytics/metrics) service (View Press Release – PDF). They are going to look at the time users spend on a website, versus the number of pages viewed to measure a website’s audience/traffic. They cite AJAX interfaces (which don’t create a traditional request to deliver new content) and streaming applications like Flash based video players (think YouTube) as the reasons for the switch.

This change in metrics highlights a great point about website metrics in general – a metric that is helpful in trending user experience on one website may be useless for tracking user experience on another. There is a great article on this in eWeek (The More We’re Told, the Less We Know ).

This point that Evan Schuman makes in his article is that before you can sort out what metrics have meaning for your website, you need to understand your audience. Once you know what your audience is looking for in your website, then you can start tracking the corresponding metrics to that kind of user experience.

I also think that an intimate knowledge of how your website works is also essential for understanding what website metrics are telling you.

The most important thing to remember about website metrics is that they aren’t hard and clear truths about what is happening on your website. It is best to think in terms of trends and fluidity – otherwise your view of what you are doing on the web can easily become myopic. It is always best to talk to a group of live customers and clients (if you can) instead of relying solely on website statistics.

Any good strategic plan for your website must have a way to measure changes. You will get the best results from your website strategy and marketing efforts if you get as specific with your metrics as you do with your goals and objectives.

What kind of Technology User are you?

The Pew Internet & American Life Project recently published their latest study on Internet usage (view report) – this one focuses on internet users, how they connect to information, and how they feel about that connectivity. It is great resource for businesses that are on the web (or thinking about a web presence).

What makes this survey really useful is that they do away with just considering North American internet usage data and focus on the broader concept of electronic information and the devices we use to share and disseminate that information. In the report they talk about the idea of new technoloy (example: cell phones) and new information (example: blogs) as ‘Information and Communication Technology’ (ICT). Another thing that I really like is that the Pew survey asked how people feel about having access to all that information all the time.

Almost half (49%) of the people surveyed fit into the ‘Few Technology Assests’ category – new technology and information is at the periphery of their daily lives. I think this statisic is telling for two reasons: 1) A lot of potential exists out there for connectivity providers to expand (providing they find the most comfortable way to connect to this audience) and 2) We need to consider our information in more than one dimension.

What do I mean? Publishing your information on the web is publishing in one dimension and it’s easy to forget about print, tv, radio, mail, etc. If your business provides goods and services to that 49% it would behoove you to think in multiple dimensions, and to think about all your channels sending the same message, and about how your electronic channels (web, email, IM) can be automated to feed some of your more traditional media channels and vice versa.

The next report I want the Pew Internet & American Life Project to do would be a survey that tries to tract indirect usage of new technology. What percentage of the ‘Few Technology Assets’ group are actually using new information technology indirectly through their children or family or co-workers who fall into the ‘Elite Technology Users’ (31%) and the ‘Middle-of-the-Road Techonolgy Users’ (20%)?

For example my 84 year old grandmother-in-law is firmly in the ‘Off the Network’ (15%) category – but my wife and I advertised her recent garage sale on Craigslist and connected with some of her neighbors via email to co-ordinate sales. I think this indirect usage is probably a lot bigger than people think. Thinking about this information food chain might possibly be very beneficial to business.

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has a cool quiz on their website that will tell you what kind of technology user you are. I’m an Omnivore (8%). What are you? What is your family or social group? Most importantly – what category are your customers or potential customers?

I’d like to give a huge thank you to the Pew Charitable Trusts for doing this type of research and providing it free to the public.

Set Priorities for Your Online Presence – Part 2

The everything-in-one-bucket approach to website or internet marketing.

In this approach, everything you do with your website is driven by Internet Marketing. Ideally, everything you do on your website (blog, email, MySpace, etc.) does hopefully build your overall Internet Marketing strategy –but thinking about each step as as equally important limits your ability to build your content and strategy in an effective manner. If everything is equal, then what comes first?

The heirarchical approach to website or internet marketing.

Category 1 – The website strategy.

This category is the most important – it should be defined before your first web design meeting, before your web developer creates his first template, before you send your first email. It is the roadmap that tells you how all the other categories work together. This portion has goals and objectives or milestones. Don’t worry if you don’t have this part and you are six months into your website/email/blog – you can still create one and change what you are doing over time, incrementally – every day is a new day. Your keyword research and optimized content also falls into this category.

Category 2 – The well-built website.

The well-built website has:

1. Defined goals and objectives.
2. Metrics for analyzing website traffic.
3. A system or process for modifying the website that is clear and easy to follow. (Note that I don’t say a content managment system – because you might not need a CMS, you may just need a scripted process of making updates. Besides, you need this process whether you do the updates yourself via a CMS or through Dreamweaver, or by communicating with your web developer.)
4. A clear navigation. Keep it simple – remember that a clear navigation does not always conform to your sitemap on a one-to-one basis. All the sections of your website don’t need to show up in the first level of your navigation. I like to think of the first level of navigation as the ‘call-to-action’ level.
5. A well-formed document model, as ADA compliant as possible.
6. A sitemap to help visitors and search engines penetrate all the layers of your website.

These items are in order of importance for me. They are all really good ideas, but if you only do a couple, then do them in order.

Category 3 – Subscription Publishing.

Every good website should have one item from this category. Subscription publishing is the medium in which you publish regularly scheduled, targeted content to a base of subscribers. Items in this category are email newsletters, blogs, press releases, forums, podcasts, product listings etc. Can you have more than one? Absolutely. Businesses with really advanced online presences combine two or three — the same content with the same message extending your brand and keeping you in front of your customers. I am NOT saying ‘go get a blog’ or ‘you gotta spam your client base’. Any publishing tool on your website that is updated on a schedule or has a clear plan for gradual expansion with a focused message qualifies under this category.

Category 4 – Public and other Relations (PR).

This is a hard one. Public relations, or “buzz” is not easy to create, and the effectiveness often depends on the medium you choose. Nothing beats old-fashioned real-world word of mouth, or events, or a profile in the local paper. But if you achieve these things, be sure to link them up to your website in a focused manner. Make a landing page specific to the event.

Other online PR tactics are contests, press rooms, MySpace pages, FaceBook, Squidoo, or Linkedin. Each has different gotchas and needs. Having a MySpace page that is negelected and without focus is worse than have nothing at all. Again, this is influenced heavily by category #1.

Understanding the four categories will help you build a more balanced strategy, budget more effectively, and set priorities in sync with your goals, growth and resources – plus, you might just get your agency to slow down and help you plan instead of panic.

Set Priorities for Your Online Presence – Part 1

I’ve been doing a lot of reading lately on website strategies. I’m being combing sites that I consider ‘leaders’ in the field (like Marketing Sherpa and Sally Falkow’s blog) to help me refine my process and I ran accross a link to a website for an Internet Marketing and PR company. The company seems to get it but I dislike their approach.

A little priortizing goes a long way.

I find that people talking about online publishing, PR, online marketing and website strategy often like to take the “shotgun approach” (closely related to, and often executed by the “panic button approach”.) They mix up all their ideas into a bucket of must-do action items – and if you don’t do or have all of these things, well, your website and business is just missing the boat.

I couldn’t disagree more. If you think of all the current online tools (blogs, social networking, website metrics, ADA access, etc.) as being pretty much equivalent when it come to PR and Marketing, you:

1) Don’t understand these components as well as you should.

2) Can’t utilize them as effectively as you should.

3) Will have an unbalanced overall presence.

The only way to consistently excel at everything online all the time is to have a comprehesive strategy, lots of time, and lots of cash. So what are the non-supermen and superwomen of the web to do when they want to make their web presence more effective? Easy – they understand the categories of a heirarchical website and they implement a few tactics at a time from each category.

Next Post: The categories of a heirarchical website…

What is web 2.0?

I’ve done several posts on this website that mention or reference the idea of web 2.0. I have realized that I need to define what I mean by web 2.0.

Web 2.0 was first coined by Tim O’Reilly as a way to talk about emerging web technologies (post dot-bomb bust). You can read his synopsis of evolution of the term here. Warning: there are a lot of buzzwords on this page that really are part of the larger picture but off the point – i.e. radical trust, radical decentralization, etc. Read the whole thing, and then think about each of the pieces – or read the rest of this post where I boil it down.

Web 2.0 is an idea in flux. Many have dismissed it as a Marketing Buzzword (which it is when it’s used by Marketers who don’t understand what it means – and there are a lot of them out there). Others simply feel that it is an oversimplification – a pointless pigeon-holing of trends in web development and use.

I think Tim has something (and a lot of other people agree). To me, web 2.0 is an idea about how the web is enabling the sharing of ideas and the creation of dialogues.

The important characteristics of web 2.0 technologies are:

1. Service – Websites that act like applications or services – think Writely (now Google docs and spreadsheets, CogMap, or SalesForce.com
2. Simplification – User processes that are easy to sign up for, simple to implement, and easy to invite others – think MySpace, Feedburner, or Campfire.
3. Open Data – Data that is entered once and used in a variety of forms and formats. Data easily shared – think RSS, Google maps API, and Flickr.
4. Sharing – Individual experience and data populates communities that influence individual experience. A cycle of information – think Digg, the Wikipedia, and del.icio.us.

So that’s the 20,000 foot overview. What does it mean to you?

It means that there are more and more tools out in the great web beyond that will allow you to leverage those four ideas on your own website, with your ideas, using your data. Blogs, wikis, RSS, and social bookmarking are all easy to setup – but how do you integrate them with your current business process? with your website? with your in-house web team? That’s the crux of the web design and web development processes. Now that you understand the high level overview, you can talk to your web development team about taking things to the next level.