Slideshow: Web Design Techniques To Enhance Online Marketing
For those who haven’t seen it, I presented a webcast for the American Marketing Association last June. Here is the free slideshow of the presentation. Aquent/AMA Webcast: How User Centered Web Design Techniques Enhance Online Marketing View more presentations from Aquent Webmaster When a search engine giant such as Google has a large usability department, you can be assured that user experience is vital to online and offline marketing. This webcast session will debunk the myth that...
Read MoreBalancing Search Marketing & User Experience: Why Bother?
Yesterday a colleague asked me to find information on software application response times. I responded with some qualifying questions to refine my assistance but what it boiled down was this: the corporate powers wanted to know how much they could fudge things so that an ecommerce software application could roll out into “production” even though it wasn’t ready to effectively respond to customers. Could this be a problem and if yes, who says so? Selling Customer Experience Most online...
Read MoreBlended Usability and SEO Practices a Hit
Just when I was seriously considering not writing articles for other publications for awhile, something happened. I wrote an article that poured out in one take for Search Engine Land’s newly renamed “Search and Usability” column and delivered it way past my deadline. Turns out, it was a hit. I’d been pondering lately how hard it can be to describe what online marketers and web site designers and developers do for a living. Ask 10 of us what we do and you’ll get...
Read MoreFive Easy Ways to Improve Your Homepage
It’s easy to overlook important information that your website visitors may need when they first arrive to your homepage. While landing pages are helpful in guiding searchers to your site, eventually even these folks will find themselves on your homepage. Everyone has the same basic questions. These questions revolve around Who, Where, What, When, Why and How. Answering them is fun, and not as obvious as you might believe. Using them as guides for credibility, trust, persuasiveness and...
Read MoreWebcast: How User Centered Web Design Techniques Enhance Online Marketing
The recorded version of How User Centered Web Design Techniques Enhance Online Marketing is live and available to listen to anytime for free. Presenter: Kim Krause Berg, UX Manager, LiBeck Integrated Marketing Slideshare version or Listen to original recorded...
Read MoreWeb Site Design Goals Starter Checklist
Before you began a new web site design, did you pause for a moment and think about your goals? When you first sat down to consider your plans, did you think about your business requirements? Why do you want a web site? What do you hope to accomplish? How will you do this? Web Site Requirements Some example business requirements may be: 1. Increase the amount of qualified Search Engine traffic. 2. Increase the number of new visitors (and perhaps pre-qualify new customers). 3....
Read MoreUX and SEO Blog and Web Finds
I’m an information junkie with a gigantic range of topics I follow – some of which might surprise you, so I don’t share THAT. Here are some of my recommended reads because they impressed me and taught me something new. By the way, did you know that if you press on a BlueJay’s blue wing, the color disappears? That’s because they have no pigment in their feathers and the blue is the play of light on their wings. In no particular order: LOVED this! It’s a 25...
Read MoreGiving Searchers Control of Search Engine Indexing
Have you ever wondered if search results would change if you were behind the control of the wheel of a search engine? Would keywords matter to you? Would your index of sites look and perform differently? Believe it or not, this is the subject of various research. I wrote about it for Search Engine Land, in today’s column, called How Human Factors May Affect Information Indexing And Retrieval. Here are some parts of the article: If you were to ask a search engine marketer what their...
Read MoreMs. Dewey Search Lives On
Every once in awhile I long for the days when my sassy female search idol, Ms. Dewey, would tap on my monitor asking where where I was. Today was one of those days. If you remember, Ms. Dewey as a viral marketing campaign started by Microsoft 3 years ago this month. The site was an experimental interface for Live Search. It didn’t take searchers long to discover you could prompt her to say and do naughty, silly things with certain keyword searches. Looking to see if there are any...
Read MoreLet’s Talk About [Insert Your Brand Here]
In this week’s Search Engine Land “Just Behave” column, you’ll find an article I wrote called Of Conversations And Conversions. Using real life examples, I hope to illustrate the power of conversation as it relates to conversions. Funnily enough, at least several times a week, someone will ask me to “prove” usability counts. They only want to pay for search engine marketing and put up Facebook. They don’t want to hear about ease of use,...
Read MoreI Am Not A Search Engine Marketer
I’m sometimes referred to as being a “marketer”. When this happens, I immediately know the person hasn’t done their homework on my work. For sure, they’ve never met me. Because if they had, they’d know I have no sales gene in my DNA whatsoever. What I was, in the years 1996 – 2002, was an SEO and User Interface Engineer. This unique combination of skills and work experience enabled me to understand how to make web pages indexed by invisible...
Read MoreWho Wants to Hire Top Twitter Users?
Yesterday, during a live WebmasterRadioFM show where I was chatting with host, Jim Hedger, the topic of fame and personal safety came up. He asked if I’d ever feared for my life or safety due to my long-time presence on the Web. I said “yes”. Jim noted that people sometimes suddenly “turn on you”. We discussed how easy it is to be a “Troll” and drop vicious, ill-tempered comments throughout social networking sites and blogs. Having been online and...
Read MoreUnconditional Marketing and The Social Media Experiment
When Google introduced page rank scores, the days of promoting anything because you simply liked it officially ended. Overnight, marketing became a case of "You rub my back and I'll rub yours." Is this working? I don't believe it is and I've never supported it because it immediately sets up conditions. Conditions segregate people. Conditions cause misunderstandings. Conditions may come with a price and then it becomes competitive, which may raise the price. By that time, marketing isn't about what is worth promoting and talking about. It's about who has the most money to spend on promotion. Every year, without fail, newcomers to search engine marketing believe they need a heavy arsenal of tools to do their job. They buy into every myth about PR scores and search engine algorithms they come across. This is followed up with endless questions about what works "best" for ranking, be it owning a blog, submitting to directories or writing articles. Rather than implementing any of these ideas for pleasure or to provide authenticity and proof of expertise in your field, the point seems to be to get in front of as many eyes as possible in the hope the Google Gods will find your site and send rains for the next year's harvest. The other day I saw someone ask for just links in a certain niche to reciprocate with. While there is credibility to this request and people do this all the time, those links you get were solicited. They didn't come by naturally. Search engines have no way of knowing if a link was bartered for or offered because a site believes the site they chose to link out to is any good. When I put a site into my blog roll, this means I made that choice from my heart. Which brings me to other gripe, which is blog rolls? If I linked to everyone I know and like, I'd have pages of links. For me, the value I can offer is to interview someone, or highlight a post or article they've written and link to it, refer work to them, and offer other various ways of support. The emphasis on "friends" and "followers", for me, is a sign of terrible self esteem. I could care less how many friends and followers I have. I do my work because it makes me happy and I like what I do. That's it. Social networking has brought out the worst in people and did it quickly. There is nothing social about competing for friends, being angry at not being in certain classes, and destroying friendships because someone didn't want to be a friend with someone they don't know. Everyone has their own personal set of standards for what friendship is, or for whom they want to support or join forces with. The moment social networking became competitive and removed choice; it became just another experiment in human behavior. The Next Big Thrill Advertising agencies look for clever ways to promote products. They're paid to this with skill and expertise, and follow a flimsy set of ethics and moral codes that shift as time goes by. It's easier to create a campaign for TV and radio and buy up commercial time than it is to come up with some link bait type of story that has to be submitted to Digg, for example. Only a certain demographic of people use Digg or any other social media outlet. I've noticed that some people who claim to dislike marketing do exactly what they claim to hate the most about marketers. It always comes down who can cause the most commotion because the ruckus brings traffic and the traffic may bring links and those links may bring fame and that fame strokes the ego. It bothers me that an entire industry, called Reputation Management, was formed to deal with the slush left over by poor Internet Marketing tactics. In the early days of SEO, the fun and challenge was getting sites and pages indexed and ranked. Competition for rank spawned "blackhat" techniques, necessary in some industries and understandable, but still, when it comes down to it, rank is no longer of value. It's an extra hole in your ear or new piece of "bling" to show off. The head rush lasts a few minutes and then it's time to dream up another quick thrill. Sadly, that next big thrill sometimes comes at a price; when the entire point of performing any search marketing tactic, from blogging to linking, to video presentations and article writing , to submitting to social media sites, is to ruin reputations or to publicly humiliate companies and people. I don't consider that behavior to be marketing and I don't give any weight to persons who thrive on this practice. Challenge for 2009 For me, as a web site usability consultant to the search engine marketing industry, I'm finding less and less to feel good about with the SEO/M industry. For my peers who have been around since the mid 1990's, most of them are so busy they have little time for Facebook and Twitter. Their company reputations were built before social media became the Fad of the Moment. For those entering the field, it must be terribly confusing to know what's right and how best to do your job. So let's start with some simple things. 1. Don't place conditions on anyone. Link to pages and sites you truly value, not because you have any beef to settle, condition to meet, or arrangement that feels uncomfortable (and you'll feel this and know when it does.) 2. Promote positive. Avoid marketing and promoting with the intent of causing pain, suffering, humiliation, or to purposely destroy businesses. This makes you appear to be vindictive and you'll attract what you deserve. 3. Don't put a price on your good will. When you believe in someone's work, talk about them freely and without any desire for reward. Unconditional marketing is powerful and memorable. It stands the test of time. Someday, maybe even search engines will figure this out. But it has to start with good pe
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