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.

Applying the Web

I’ve been meaning to change the name of my blog for a while – not a big change but substantial enough that I’m sure any Google goodness I had will be gone. The reason for the change? I wanted our company blog name to be similar to our company name. Basic branding 101. Same content – slightly different name. Welcome to: Applying the Web!

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.

Google Analytics is upgrading

Today Google announced that it will be rolling out a new version of its analytics package to all current analytics accounts over the next couple weeks. I couldn’t be more excited. Google Analytics is an awesome (free) package that allows you to easily gather serious data about your website traffic. If you haven’t tried it – you should – and what do you have to lose? It’s free.

Two new features have been included that I have been wanting since I started using Google analytics.

1) Email and export reports: Schedule or send ad-hoc personalized report emails and export reports in PDF format. Exporting data from Google Analytics in a presentable format has always been an issue. Being able to schedule emails of PDF format reports? Now that is extra exciting.

and

2) Custom Dashboard: No more digging through reports. Put all the information you need on a custom dashboard that you can email to others. Finally. Now you can tailor the report view to the items that you, your company, or you clients need the most. Awesome.

Check out the full post – they even have a tour.

Thank you Google. Can I have my upgrade tomorrow?

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.

Raven Electronics Corporation

This week we launched a new site for Raven Electronics Corporation! I am exceptionally proud of this website. It features a clean design built on our powerful website content management system, plus a couple of interlaced website applications for organizing Raven’s diverse products and customer solutions, making this website one of my favorites.

Another great thing about this project were the people invloved. The people at Raven are experts in their field and love what they do – and the new website really will help them document those aspects of their business. It is a great feeling when we create a really exceptional website, then give it into the hands of people who will really use it and stretch its capabilities a little. Working with Trinity Applied Internet on this project were Kristy Crabtree (designer) and RBG Creative (home page Flash programmer). A huge thank you to both of them – their hard work, and awesome teamwork, shows in the final product.

Check out Raven Electronics’ new website, and if you ever need a custom piece of electronics or someone to develop a creative solution for your electronic engineering problem give them a call – you won’t be disappointed.

Under the blogdar

If Technorati is the blogdar of the blogosphere, and posting keeps your blog’s blip on the horizon, then I have either crashed or gone into stealth mode. I disappeared again. Yet again, I’ll blame workload as I’ve been finishing up five simulatenous large projects.

Hopefully May will be a more balanced month for me – some projects, some blogging.

There isn’t any better way to get back in to the swing of blogging like a streched metaphor and a heavy dose of jargon.

In the next couple weeks I’ll be posting about my latest projects, getting a couple of post ideas out of my system. I’ll also have a Google Apps for your Domain tutorial|editorial.