Investing Time and Experience Before We’ve Even Started

Working with Trinity Applied Internet Part B: Investing Time and Experience Before We’ve Even Started

You know the staff. Now, what is the process? How do we approach your project?

The term “applied” in the name of the company is no accident. A cumulative thirty years experience in software and web development speaks volumes on behalf of the partners, and is directly applied to every project we produce, problem we approach, and product we deliver. The process behind your website or web application development is not piecemeal or made up as we go along.

Consult, research, facilitate, plan (and plan and plan some more), design, develop, test, adjust. Rinse and repeat. Every time, for every project. It doesn’t matter the size or the complexity of the project at hand, we spend the time at the beginning on analysis of your company, research, and planning. In fact, if you have already been through an estimating and proposal process with us, you know we spend a considerable amount of time getting to know you before we’ve ever even won you as a client.

Think every shop that advertises their easy and cheap WordPress package, or their hosted solution you dial right into, does that on your behalf? They don’t. Believe us, because we hear time and again from clients who tried out the competition first because of a really attractive price point, and since have realized they didn’t need a cookie-cutter approach. Or they went with a big media and advertising agency and were shoehorned into marketing decisions based on what the agency was “really good at,” and how it wanted to promote themselves as a full interactive shop.

Well, that strayed from the topic a bit, but the point is, at Trinity Applied Internet you get specialized, considerate, and tailored service that addresses your needs specifically. If you are a marketing department working with some IT constraints, we plan for that. If you are a small organization with one paid staff member and no time for teaching yourself website administration, we plan for that when we design your project, rather than discovering it at the end (or not at all.)

The adage about “prior planning prevents…” at best catastrophe and at worse any number of irritating little hassles. We take it to heart, to the extent that we are researching, discussing, and planning your project before you have even officially engaged us.

9 Tips for Your LinkedIn Company Page

Maybe you have heard about the relatively new LinkedIn Company Updates?

These updates are a huge step toward engagement of your company brand on LinkedIn, something that has been missing from the platform for quite a while.

Enabling your company updates allows you to specify who can post for your company (as long as they have stated your company as their present position within their own LinkedIn profile.) This means you don’t have to be the one making the updates, or, even better, you no longer need to give out your personal login information so someone else can do this for you.

Other benefits may not be obvious, or to savvy social media types, maybe they are obvious and have been a long time coming.

This Hubspot post, 11 Reasons your LinkedIn Company Page Sucks, actually taught me a few things and gave me some ideas for updating TAI’s own LinkedIn company page as well.

Some of the things I found most useful and interesting:

Ask For Followers.

It is important for you to have followers; otherwise, your company updates will be like a tree falling in a forest. No one will hear it, know it fell, or care.

Fill Out Your Products Tab.

Although this sounds obvious, Hubspot points out that you can be creative here and use things like webinars, free eBooks, and other services rather than just products one would traditionally assume can be used here.

Ask For Product Recommendations.

This is a crucial step in Linked In. The more recommendations, the better chance someone will try your services, or buy your products.

Customize Your Products Tab.

Another interesting tidbit I didn’t already know, is that you can customize your Products tab to be specific to an audience. The Hubspot guide has more on how to set this up, but it sounds like a great way to set yourself apart from, and above the competition.

Set Up a Products & Service Spotlight.

You can set up a Products & Services Spotlight by using a YouTube video (if you have those in your marketing handbag) or up to three images that will scroll across the page and can be linked to URL’s you specify. This is something we will be looking into setting up on our TAI company page, as well.

In the News?

Another thought is that if you are a company that has been (or expects/ hopes to be) in the media, make sure you check the “Share News about My Company” box. You see the option for this on the company overview page when you are in “edit” mode.

Put Your Company Blog in Its Place.

Make sure you are feeding your company blog into your company page. This can be set up in the “overview” of your company. This is kind of nice, since you have previously been forced to put your company blog on your personal page, which wasn’t necessarily the best plan for your customers to see it or find any value in it. Also, it means you have the option of using a personal blog again on your personal profile.

Use the Connections.

Due to the fact that LinkedIn is specifically structured for job recommendations and promotion of work networks, it is extremely valuable to utilize your “career” tab (assuming you have open positions) in order to bring the most talented and technology savvy applicants to your company.

Mind the Metrics.

Last but definitely NOT least, are analytics. LinkedIn provides several analytics that can help you to shape your LinkedIn campaigns to best utilize your target audience and promote company engagement.

Your Thoughts?

How do you use your LinkedIn Company page? If you have other ideas that you would like to share, please let us know in the comments!

Facebook Fan Page

You have been hearing about how your business needs to get ‘social’. You already have a personal Facebook page, but you’re wondering how to set up a Facebook Page for your business?  Believe me, you aren’t the only one asking!

Before we begin discussing the steps to creating a fully functional Facebook Page for your business, it’s important that you keep one thing in mind: You will make mistakes.  Not you might – you will.  Every business has a different ‘feel’ to it that makes it unique.  Maybe you will jump into the social business sphere and everything will go smoothly and easily – you will still make a mistake – but that’s okay.  Don’t be afraid; yes, the internet has a long memory, but showing you are willing to try new things (this Facebook Page thing for instance) and making mistakes is part of the key to showing that your brand and your business is run by humans. Only humans can connect to other humans – a brand by itself, cannot.  So – human good, mistakes okay, now we’re ready to go!

Facebook is Personal

You must have a personal Facebook account in order to create a Facebook Fan Page. (More evidence that you have to be human to connect.) If you don’t have one, get one; it’s free and easy to start (click here for a video that takes you through step by step.) You don’t have to have a million friends (or even two) before you can set up a Fan Page for your business, but you do have to be willing to have your name as an administrator on the business page.  Why wouldn’t you want to promote your own business or brand? Don’t be afraid to stand behind (or in front) of your business and proudly declare, “I made this!”

Why the “Fan” Page

I know it says “fan” as if you are some eighties big-hair band with a bunch of groupies running around fainting when you look at them, but this is serious business. Who doesn’t want customers who are (fanatically) happy about your product or service? Especially one who wants everyone they know to see that they “like” your brand?  This is the ultimate boost for any company, word of mouth, but with a viral spread attached! Think, if your brand or business could touch as many people as the flu, and help them out as much as the flu makes them sick?! It would be amazing – an epidemic of Fans of you! Think that might generate some brand awareness?  We do, too.

Set It Up

If you are still reading, you are definitely on board for getting your Facebook FanPage set up!  Let’s go:

1. Login to your Facebook (personal) account.
2. Scroll to the bottom of your News Feed page.
3. In the footer, click on ‘Create A Page’
4. Pick your type of business and fill in the information.
5. Make sure to read the Facebook Pages Terms, then click Get Started.

Facebook will walk you through all your options for how you want to set up your Page from here.

Post Something

Post something, anything; it doesn’t matter what. Get yourself used to regularly posting as your brand. You can switch between your personal page and your fan page by going to your account (toward the top right) and either clicking “Use Facebook As Page” or “Switch back to “your name.”  Find all your friends, and other businesses you like or frequent and “Like” their Facebook page (while you are using Facebook as your brand.) You won’t be walking into hundreds of fans right off the bat, but the more you post — and the better you become at communicating with the customers you have — the more fans you will acquire.  It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.

Social Media Profiles and SEO Ranking Revealed

SEO experts everywhere, including SearchEngineWatch.com and Technorati are recommending the use of social media profiles as ways to increase traffic, dominate SERPs with mad Google juice and expand your brand reach. But is a ‘go forth and multiply’ approach alone successful with these myriad of social profiles, or is a strategy also important? While most businesses are jumping on board the “Big 3″ social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin), there are many smaller platforms (Ning, FriendFeed, Flavors.me) that are growing in popularity and therefore, importance. Which ones should you be on? Which can you skip?

In any business venture it is ALWAYS best to have a plan. We all know that things don’t always go according to plan, but no plan is a sure bet for disaster. When approaching social media, it should be a part of your overall marketing strategy and while it has its own way of contributing, it should still move the business forward in the direction of achieving your vision. So, what does that mean? It means – don’t do anything without a purpose and without being tied to a tangible, clearly defined goal.

What is your goal with each social media platform? (Yes, goals can and should be slightly different for each.)

Facebook is a great place to get connected to your target audiences, to engage them on a daily basis and build trust and respect, as well as periodically informing and educating them about your product or service. So maybe you would link to a product page on your website for the product you are promoting that month (in your profile) – or set up a promotional page on Facebook (maybe using my favorite custom tab creator, ShortStack) that links back to your featured product page on your website, rather than just the home page.

Twitter is a succinct message (I think of it as a message in a bottle flying through the rapids with a bunch of other bottles) so it needs to be eye-catching. People generally see your profile when they click on the button from your website or search for you on Twitter. Your profile here will be more useful if you keep it interesting and shareable – according to Technorati.

Linkedin is about professionals. Make your profile reflect your professionalism – but don’t strip it of personality all together. It is always important to be authentically you, even SeoMoz (Whiteboard Fridays) agrees. People search for your company on Linkedin in order to establish your legitimacy, but give them something to comment on or inspire them in your profile and you will make many more connections than a boring resume that is just like everyone else’s.

YouTube is different than the other platforms for several reasons:  its potential to go viral is much higher, it is a more preferred medium, gets shared more often, and personality is REQUIRED. One big way to make an SEO impact on YouTube is to think about the keywords you are targeting in your SEO for your website and use them in the file names of your videos – a fantastic idea (meant for Facebook, but it still applies to any video content) from GetBusy Media - since videos are not text, only the titles and file names are crawled by search engines! Also, make sure you have your accounts set to Public – or Google won’t even see the great stuff you have to share.

Overall, social media profiles that are created correctly CAN increase your search results, direct links, spread brand awareness and funnel potential customers to your website, but they are NOT a cure-all. As awebguy.com explains in their blog post on the subject – setting up your social media profile is a beginning – not an ending. You must be active in the community that you are creating by setting up your profile, to truly reap the benefits they have to offer.

This isn’t as difficult as it seems – you can post responses in the Q&A section of Linkedin, as Technorati suggests, you can solely share your opinions on topics that are trending in Twitter (by using the “Top Tweets” sidebar on Twitter), you can share to your own site when you see a company or individual video on YouTube that inspires you, and you can interact with the things your fans are saying on facebook about your brand – or your competitors.

Content is and will always be King – so pay your dues in the Social Media kingdom, but don’t forget to make yourself stand out with targeted, specifically awesome, profiles about how wonderful and unique you and your company are. Make something worth sharing!

How To Improve Your Local Search Results

Once you have a basic understanding of what local search is and why it is important, there are a lot of ways to improve your business’ local search results. Lets start with the basics:

Website Content and Structure

You can do a lot to improve your website’s local search performance just by changing the content on your site. One of the most important and most basic tactics is to add your phyiscal address to the footer of each page. Other tactics can include placing location names in URLs, Geotagging the website pages via page Meta Tags (ICBM method or Geo Tag Microformat), adding your phone number with area code to the site, Geo-tagging photos and videos, or even providing a KML file of your business locations.

Location Based Indexes

The next thing to do is to created listing for your business on location based indexes:

• Google Places
• Bing Business Portal
• Yahoo! Local Listings

Here is a detailed walk-through of setting up your business listing on all three indexes (Google, Bing and Yahoo!)

Location Based Social Media

• Foursquare – A location based social network focused on mobile devices. People are now using Foursquare as a location based search engine and this is a trend likely to grow.
• Gowalla – A location based social network a lot like Foursquare. Here is a brief article contrasting the two services.
• Yelp – User based reviews of local businesses.

If you want to go further in depth and learn how your online media impacts local search, this info-graphic on Web Equity and Online Presence is a great place to start figuring out how it all work’s together. I also love this local search ranking factors guide (warning: it is a lot to take in if you are just getting started.)

What is Local Search?

Local Search is the idea of associating your businesses online content with a particular geographical location or area. A quick example would be to search for food carts in a major city. When I search for “Portland Food Carts” links to food cart/truck websites come up in the search results. Google and Bing both place local (geo-based) results at the top of the first search results page. Those search results look something like this:

Local Search is somewhat related to (and can often be confused with) Localization (translating content to be relevant for a foreign languages/culture), Geo-targeting (providing content based on a user’s browser location settings), and Geo-location (the act of determining where a browser or mobile device is geographically located).

So why should a business care about this listing? Note the locations of the addresses and phone numbers in the above search results – it is an instant mapped based “yellow pages” type listing. On mobile devices being on this listing is even more important – the mobile devices can provide one click to a phone call or to a GPS based directions program.  In the early days of search the idea was to get your business content indexed as the most relevant content on the web. Several years ago, Google and other search engines begin trying to relate most relevant content to a specific real world locations. They figured out that users searching for tires in Seattle, WA did not want to find tire shops in San Francisco, CA.

Most businesses never even realize they can be proactive with targeting their content to a specific location. Businesses must be proactive with the indexing of their content, either take the lead as the authority for information on your business or Google’s Search Engine will try to do it for you.

So where do you start? See my post on improving your local search results.

The Content Crunch: Getting Past the Blank Page

In years past (well, way past, but if you’re my age it really seems like yesterday) building a website was akin to creating a really nice print piece. You planned, you drafted, you paid attention to design and detail, you built it – and then you left it.  Your website gave users great information, such as what you offered, where to find you, how you differentiated your business from all those others. It will have allowed customers or clients to contact you, and might even have gone so far as to sell your product or capture sales leads for you. But, chances are you weren’t even thinking about rewriting it until you started to feel a little pain, or that it lacked something.

By 2011, with the adoption of content management systems, blogging for business, and social media, some websites are re-written almost daily.  A company may have a core group of followers that are listening in for wisdom, tips, and the next good deal, or they may constantly be testing and re-purposing content in order to continue attracting a stream of new customers — or both.  Now, especially in certain industries, if you are not continually adding new information you will be at a real disadvantage in both naturalized search and keeping your audience engaged.

Let’s say you have assigned your resources and planned accordingly. Your new website, with a couple solid pages, has launched to rave reviews. You have a blog ready to be filled up, and social media set up to push your blog content to. What now? How, exactly, do you come up with valuable content that will support all the work you have already invested in this marketing effort?

The Content Crunch Part B, Step 1:  Start Simple

First, just … start. My completely non-studied or academically supported opinion is that writing great content is about 60% getting past the point of procrastination. Take twenty minutes, write a few words down about what you know (your product is a great place to start.) Keep in mind that depending on your site design, three paragraphs and 400 words are usually more than enough for a page. Leave it for a day, then go back and edit it, and – do not be afraid to post it! Hit publish on that blog! Update that page!

You can (and will) always get better, later.

The flip side of this is, if you are a prolific and careful writer, you will need to pare down what you’ve got. Pretend you are summarizing your 15 page article into a three paragraph abstract. That’s all you need (for now, and possibly forever.)

The Content Crunch Part B, Step 2: Work Ahead

Web content management systems offer a really neat feature: the ability to use the system not only to put the content up on the site, but to draft and review it. You can create a page or a post with not so much as a whim of an idea, leave it in your queue until you are inspired to expand and finish it, send it out to your team for review, and edit it comprehensively before it ever gets published to your website or blog.  Take advantage of this to leave yourself starters for later, when you don’t feel so full of ideas. Start a page on a new product or service and keep adding to it as you get more information, so that by the time you know what you’ve got, you are mere moments away from publishing it.

This is especially essential when a team of people is responsible for updating your content. Case in point: here at TAI we have four blog contributors, who are all busy people. By working ahead and having a number of fully finished or even partially drafted posts in the system, when one writer is delayed, another post can pop in and take its spot. It took us a long time to figure this out, but it works pretty well.

Next time: Step 3 and Step 4, and more ideas as to how to generate valuable content for your readers.

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.