How to Plan and Setup a Web Site Part 2

In the first part of this article How to Plan and Setup a Web Site I discussed the first stages in setting up a web site:

Research

Requirements – Features

Site Concept – Graphics design

In this article I will expand on the Site Concept – Graphics design stage and explain:

• Site Concept
• Site Design Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Contract – features, pricing, schedule

Site Concept

Based on your research and requirements the web designers will create several concepts for you to consider. The first and critically important point to understand is your site is not a piece of art, loving the design is not the issue. The reason you are setting up the site is to expand your business online. The site needs to be well designed visually, but will it catch the interest of someone browsing the web? The idea is to create a site where customers can easily find products and purchase goods? Simultaneously, the site must be optimized,(SEO) to allow Google to read, index and direct quality traffic. Receiving quality traffic is very important, you aim is to attract potential visits who can be converted to customers and who will be happy with the experience to return and purchase another time.

Consider the following:

• Does the site make an immediate impression? (Remember you have no more than 2-3 seconds to make an impression)
• Is it Obvious what the site is selling?
• Are Products clearly listed? (Enough space for photo, description, and price)
• Easy to navigate and add items to the shopping cart?
• Free Information (Articles about health food, recipes, fitness …..)
• Is the buying process fast and efficient?
• Will customers return to the site or avoid it?
• Is the site optimized for search engines? (Google) (Flash and photos cannot be read by Google)

Do not be frightened to reject designs and ask for modifications. Make sure you see designs for all the inner pages not just the home page, including “About” pages with background information about your company history and team members. Even in today’s internet world customers are interested in dealing with a company run by real people not computers. Do not be afraid to have a section listing your team members with photos and a short description. Any interesting stories about you or your employees is very good and will help create interest in your site and produce more customers. I will deal in more details with Content in a separate article.

Site Design Marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The time to start thinking how to market and implement SEO techniques is while you are still at the design stage. Most web designers are not are not marketing experts, their job is to design nice looking sites.

Web Designers do not understand Web Marketing!

Very important to understand web designers design and build web sites, most know very little about SEO. I cannot over emphasize the need to consult with an SEO expert to verify the site is good for Google.

I just had a conversation with Danny from Tens Webmarketing who manage web marketing for Excalibur’s MIL-STD-1553 and MIL-STD-1553 Accessories sites. Tens visited a potential customer with Branko Rihtman their SEO expert, the company had asked “Tens” to give an opinion on their newly designed web site. Branko quickly noted a number of mistakes in the design where Google could not read the site, (like using Flash and images). However, the web designers refused to accept any criticism of their design! This scenario is repeated many times where sites are designed with little consideration for SEO.

I recommend having an independent web marking consultant look at the site concept before approving the design. Making changes at this stage is better than spending a lot of time and money later.

Remember the two groups who will visit you site.

• Customers
• Search Engines (Google)

The two groups are very different. Customers are the guys you really want to come to your site and buy, yet if Google does not send you traffic there will be no customers? However, there are many ways to draw traffic apart from Google by getting customers go directly to the site without the need to use search engines.

I will deal with attracting traffic from other sources in a separate article, but here are few ideas. Josh already has an established a business with many customers who return to purchase more products. Josh can start by marketing his site to these customers. They already buy in the store, so there is a high probability they will buy online. Try to encourage them to bring their relatives and friends to visit the site. Here are a few thoughts on how to magnetize customers:

• Start a mailing list, (add birthdays, anniversaries, anything that can relate to the customer)
• Give discounts to customers who buy over the web
• Bonus to customers who introduce new customers
• Magazines, newspapers and local advertising
• PPC – Price Per Click, (PPC will be discussed in a separate set of articles)

Content and SEO

The site content needs lots keyword rich content

• Information about products
• Articles of interest health food, diet, weight loss, recipes.
  

• For example you might want to write about peanut butter:

  • Ingredients
  • How to make
  • Types smooth, crunchy, sweet
  • Recipes
  • History of peanut butter
  • url of other sites discussing peanut butter sites (a little dangerous you want to keep the customer focused on your site not going elsewhere).

Contract – features, pricing, schedule

A common mistake in many businesses is to make agreement without a clear written contract. The contact must list all the features discussed in the specification stage with timetable of when each part will be completed. I suggest payment be linked to completion of each stage with 20-30% on starting. The site population and testing are also part of the development stage and even after airing the site the will be many bugs which will only show up after real customers interact and use the site. Therefore the last 10% should only be paid 30 or 60 days after launch.

Do not forget who is responsible for the photos? Will you provide them and/or hire a professional photographer. True everyone has a digital camera taking good pictures, but it is unlikely you will achieve the same results without good lighting.

My next article in this series will continue with:

• Development – stages of development with schedule
• Content
• Population
• Testing
• Launch

I had a very interesting conversation with Josh, a friend who owns a couple health food stores. Josh has decided to go online and found some friend to setup his web site. (Josh did not consider asking a consultant and was not aware of my involvement with the internet and web marketing). Similar to many business owners and executives Josh knows very little about business planning and even less about running an online business. They think all you need to do is put up a site, and customers will start buying. No thought is given to where the customers are coming from or the kind of products to sell online.

They understand having a store in a prime location in a busy mall will generate many potential customers who will pass by the shop window. Having an eye-catching window display will entice customers to enter the store and convert into paying customers. However, In the online world most customers will never know you exist and it is very unlikely the site will show in the top 2 pages of search results. Research shows must searchers only look at the first two pages of search results. As David Viney reports in his new book Get to the Top on Google

“84% of searchers never make it past the bottom of page two of search engine results”.

Getting to the top two pages requires a lot of time, patience and hard work. Josh has heard of Google, but has no understanding of search results, ranking, PPC(Pay Per Click) or SEO (search engine optimization). The whole process of site development, optimization and web marketing are completely unknown to him.

Josh’s approach is typical of many business owners and managers and is unlikely to lead to success. Most likely they will come running to consultants in 6-12 months when the site is not working out as “planned”.

Here are a few questions I asked him.

Shia: Does the “friend” who is setting up your site have experience? Have you seen sites he has created?

Josh: Yes, they are quite “good”.

Shia: How do know they are good? Have you seen sites they have created?

Josh: The sites looked nice!

Shia: Have you compared his prices and experience with other companies?

Josh: No

Shia: Has he setup similar sites with shopping carts and online payment gateways use PayPal?

Josh: No the sites shown were quite simple, just a catalog with no online purchasing.

Shia: Will the site have CMS – Content Management System?

Josh:???? (no idea what a CMS is)

Shia: A CMS – Content Management System is a database where you can add and update details about your products. Items like photos, information, prices. A CMS system allows you the site owner to update without the need of a programmer.

Josh: I will have to ask the guy who is setting up the site!

Shia: How many items are you planning to offer online?

Josh: 2-3000 to start, after which I will increase to 10,000 items.

Shia: Do you have backend setup, ordering, stock control, and shipping?

Josh: I have a few students to help.

Clearly, Josh has no idea about how to start an online business and has done little or no thinking about optimizing his new site or taken the time to investigate how the completion is playing the game. The story reminds me of Webvan an online grocery business that went bankrupt in 2001, read eBoys: The First Inside Account of Venture Capitalists at Work. Webvan had a lot of financing with some highly rated consultants giving advice. However, they decided to expand too fast and offer a huge range of products. If they were a little more conservative and adopted a more modest plan they may have succeeded.

Josh runs a couple health stores, he has no idea how online customers will buy, and is not even aware of the cost of a conversion. (Conversion Rate). Josh should plan to start selling only a few items on line to test his system No more than 50 items to start. Sounds bad advice? Especially when he already has 2000 items in stock in his stores? Josh needs to understand buying online is not the same as selling to walk in customers. They will behave differently and their expectations are not the same as selling to customers in a store. Josh needed to consider whether he wants to sell to the local market, or aim for the national or even international market.

There are many online health stores, why should a customer buy from Josh? Josh should find reasons why customers will want to buy from his site. Here are a few possibilities:-

• Convenience
• Price
• Quality
• Fast Reliable Delivery
• Expert Knowledge about Health Food
• Recipes

This is the first of a study of methods to obtain good rankings in Google, Yahoo and Microsoft search engines.

There are really only four ways of getting good rankings, five if you include the most important ingredient of all patience. Staying at the top is an ongoing process, like top athletes if you stop your ratings will start to fall.

Here’s the list:

1. Good Product
2. Content
3. Linking
4. SEO
5. Patience

Content and First Impressions
First you have to get the traffic to pass your window. Once upon a time the way to do this was position, the location of your shop in the high street and how good your display window looked. The idea was to attract attention and draw the potential customer into your shop. There same principle applies to stores particularly in shopping malls. A good position will bring in a lot of traffic without any advertising, which is why the price of prime locations can be very high.

In today’s internet marketing world a home page or landing is your shop window. You have between 1 to 3 seconds to pull in the visitor before she moves on. You have to get the sales message across very quickly and be very clear and decisive.

1. What are you selling?
2. The benefit over your competition.
3. Why should the visitor buy from you?

The landing page does not have to be the most eloquent design, remember Google’s site is very plain.

Google
Google stock has taken a plunge in recent months with $70 billion dollars wiped off the stock as reported by Seekingalpha. Although Google Apps are continuing their advance of Google Sites, Web Design For The Masses, I expect to see major advances in the features offered during the coming year.

iPhone
Timesonline and Informationweek report Apple are gearing up to release a 3G version of the iPhone in June. Mr. Jobs has been doing extensive travel lately with expectations of new markets opening for the iPhone in Europe and Asia.

Microsoft bid for Yahoo
A report in Timesonline says Microsoft is planning a hostile takeover of Yahoo’s boardroom.

SEO, Link Building, PPC, Social Media, Affiliate Marketing and Blogging
A useful summary or articles about Beginner and Comprehensive Guides to SEO, Link Building, PPC, Social Media, Affiliate Marketing and Blogging

The single most important factor is a good product. No matter how good your site content, SEO or linking if you do not have a good product your business will fail. It does not matter if you are selling a product, service, information or just plain you. Is it sellable?

The Youtube videos from Blendtec where they blend Golf Balls and Coke Cans was very good advertising. Blendtec made very good use of Web 2.0 with no advertising budget. The videos have been watched by millions of viewers and sales of blenders have increased dramatically.

However, Blendtec have a very good blender.

If like the majority of products yours is no different from many others, you will have to show the potential customers the advantage of buying from you. If not the potential customer will within seconds be looking for an alternative vendor. It could be quality, price or service. Spend time thinking why a customer will want to buy a product from

So, before you start working on getting those high search engine rankings in Google and Yahoo, make sure you have a good product to sell.

It’s been a very busy week with snow just two days ago and today bright sunshine, amazing how the weather changes so quickly here in Jerusalem. Today I had back to back meetings designing and planning Excalibur Systems new look for their web site and SEO strategy for the next 6 months. We had a very intensive brain storming session with President Mark Bisko, VP Marketing and Sales George M. Sponsler and Catom’s Yair Schaffer. Much of the discussion focused on how to utilize Web 2.0, the outcome you will see as Excalibur Systems make uses of New Marketing and SEO techniques.

More and more companies are adapting the New Marketing way as explained in Seth Godins new book Meatball Sundae - Is Your Marketing out of Sync. Godin introduces a lot of novel ideas with lots of examples of how companies have made had a lot of success with New Marketing. I intend to post a full review of of the book next week.

Microsoft v Yahoo 

Plenty of action surrounding Microsoft and Yahoo.China View and SearchEngineWatch report Bill Gates is about to start a proxy battle to gain control of Yahoo’s board. A proxy fight is expected to cost Microsoft up to $30 million , which is cheaper than raising the bid price.

However, a report by CNNMoney.com explains Microsoft want to acquire Yahoo very badly and the proxy fight is just part of the game to convince Yahoo to accept the bid. Clearly Microsoft would like to get Yahoo for the best price while Yahoo on the other hand are posturing to get a higher price.

If you are about to buy an iPhone. Engadget “reports we’ve been hearing that Apple may lower prices on the iPhone and iPod in the next few months”, so maybe wait a little. Many counties still have no official access to the iPhone even Canadians as reported by Mobile Magazine. Here in Israel we have the same problem, however I must admit I am thinking of taking the plunge and going through the jailbreaking process to unlock the phone.

An interesting article from the Financial Times reports Google said it had seen 50 times more searches on Apple’s iPhone than any other mobile handset. Search Engine advertisers take note of the enormous potential market opening up for mobile advertising, SEO consulting and PPC campagns.

Yesterday was a very exciting day for the SEO/PPC community in Israel. The event the first sphinncon held Jerusalem to packed audience, moderated by Barry Schwartz Executive Editor of Search Engine Roundtable & News Editor of Search Engine Land. Barry is also President of RustyBrick, Inc.

There were 3 SEO panels:-

• SEO Panel - Paid Links & Penalties

• PPC Panel - Will the PPC Model Hold Up as Click Prices Rise?

• Social Panel - Should You Social?

Each panel led to a very lively discussion the only problem was not having enough time for all the questions.

I found the SEO Panel - Paid Links & Penalties particularly interesting with an explanation of how Google do their best to discourage paid links. One can argue that Google are only looking out for their own interests, but a person searching the web wants to find good accurate information. Is SEO about “fooling” the search engines just to get a good rating and a lot of visitors to your site? Or is SEO about building long term business and establishing a relationships with buying customers. Most business’s are looking for repeat business and referrals. However, good SEO is a long term time intensive process needed a lot of patience and endurance.

For more details look at Barry’s article on Search Engine Land and Ophir Cohen, for more information and nice links.

I just set up the Web marketing department for a hi-tech company which sells to a specific customer base. The company has been online for ten years and active with Google Cost Per Click for the last 5 years. The CEO was not happy with the company’s ranking in search engines with competing companies coming up higher in both the PPC and in the actual search results.

My Analysis of the Situation:

• Advertising on Google’s Content Network was consuming 85% of the company’s on-line advertising budget. The Content Network is an option when advertising with Google that is enabled by default. If you do not want this option, you have to turn it off.

• One keyword was attracting a lot of clicks for a product that the company did not sell.

• Keywords were poorly selected.

• The names of competitors’ products and companies were not included in the keyword list.

• The PPC ads were not showing up on European Google sites like France, Germany and Russia.

• The same ad was used for about 20 products.

• The ads had URLs pointing to the home page and not to the appropriate landing page.

• Web site was not optimized.

Action Taken:

Set Clear Goals

What is the desired result of the campaign?

• Buy Something?

• Sign up for a subscription

• Ask for a quotation

• On line order?

Establish a tracking procedure.

Google Campaigns

• Turned off Google Content Network. Removed the keyword attracting worthless clicks.

• Added names of competitors companies and products to the Campaign settings.

• Added European languages to the Languages setting which was set to only to English. If you are targeting France you may want to create an ad in French.

• Comprehensive Keywords analysis
  • Searched for keywords using Google’s Keyword Tool and Wordtracker.
  • Studied competitor’s sites and keywords.
  • Brainstormed with team members for keyword ideas.
  • Built new list of keywords.
  • Daily tracking of impressions, CTR and rankings.

• Setup different ads targeting specific products.

• Directed URLs to the appropriate landing pages for each ad.

• Suggested Search Engine Optimizations to improve the ranking of the site.
  • Added more keywords to content.
  • Refreshed current content.
  • Designed new landing pages for each product.
  • Enhanced the site with new content, pictures and regular updates to” News and Events section”.

Watch the Numbers

Making changes a campaign is only the first stage; you must watch the numbers and keep track of the results. This requires a lot of time and effort:

• Watch which keywords are getting the most clicks.

• Exclude poor performing keywords.

• If your campaign is international keep track of which countries are generating the most interest.

• Are some days better than others?

• Which adds are the most effective?

• Track clicks, impressions, CTR and Average CPC.

• Start with a low daily budget and gradually increase as you learn which keywords are effective.

• Watch the Conversion Rate and ROI.

• Use Google Analytics.

Summary

This company is not alone in using a marketing team who have very little experience with PPC advertising and do not have the technical skills needed to perform a good job. However, just knowing the techniques needed to run a PPC campaign is not sufficient, the PPC consultant must also have an in depth understanding of the client’s business and industry.

Therefore, conducting good PPC campaigns requires a combination of PPC skills, industry knowledge and marketing skills.