Web Marketing by SEENinSITE

Redesign vs Evolution

Redesigns are for the most part, a thing of the past.  In the 90s, when I was just starting out as an Internet developer, contracted out by one company to an Atlanta tech darling, complete site redesignes were recommended every 18 months!  I ended up as lead developer at that 85 person company and pushed for sites to evolve for success.  Boy, that wasn't a good idea!  The owners thought it as blasphamous to the bottom line since redesigns made a lot more money than revisioning phases.  That was the year 2000.  The company tanked a year or two later with many others.  If they had done right by the customer, showed real results rather than the next slighly more visually pleasing template, would they have survived?  YOU BET!

Businesses wants quality.  Now that I run the Internet strategies and intiatives for the largest company headquarted in Denver Colorado, I see the bottom line and know what it takes to keep the client, me, happy!  I need results, and a complete redesign does not get there these days as the project is just too big and risky. 

That is why I recommend to my internal clients, positive incremental changes based on solid intelligence.  We have great visiblity into site usage with statistics, especially for those of us with a decade or more experience looking at web stats before and after little and big changes.  With this intelligence, we often know exactly what to do, HERE and THERE!  Not what to do ALL OVER.  That picture evolves and needs a greater strategic plan, especially for proper evolution, but it does not mean a complete redo is inorder!

I left that company for a brief stint as an Oracle database designer/developer eventually ending up back as a lead Internet developer at my current company before moving to the business side of everything "Internet".  Thank god I was once worked for a dot bomb, as that experience is invauable now that I run my own "show".

If you do have to redesign a site, check out "Understanding Web Hosting" by Dirk Knemeyer at http://trackmedia.blogspot.com/2005/11/web-design-for-all-senses-innovating.html

Terms matter!

The Ad manager I work with at one of my clients just went on vacation.  Time to prove a point!

For months, since looking at this one product line, I've asked, no begged, for the company to change, just for the web, their spelling of "*-***" to "* ****".  Basically replacing the hyphen with a space within their product's name.  This is how 2/3rds of search users search for this product, and how this company should present it on their site for search engines to pick it up, or so you'd think.

It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.  This company invented this famous product 80 years ago and has spelled it with a "-" in the name from the beginning.  Of course, their competitors don't, and the average searcher of this term does not even know where the "-" is on their keyboard, not to mention see the 20+ competitors spelling it without the "-".  My client needs to face facts, and start taking their market share back, starting with this term and getting found on-line.

So while the cat is away, this eMarketer has 2 weeks or more to get better search result to the site based on the change.  Not wanting to undo too much, I am starting with one page, the latest product being pushed.  Can one page do it.  You bet it can!

The site was redesigned last year and designed with search engines in mind.  It is VERY search engine friendly.  In fact, anything posted is normally in the top 4 results in Google within the week.  Having faith in the site is the 1st step, optimizing the page helps, and having a Google site map also seems to be working well, although I have not gotten any clear picture into how much this helps yet.

All in all, I should be able to get more traffic to the site based on a simple change in a term.  If you use the terms people use, you have a better chance to be found in their searches.  It is that simple!  Just do your research on what people are typing in. 

Stats are key!  Not your server stats necessarily.  If you are not optimized for a term, and therefore not found by it, how are you going to see people entering you site from a search for it?  That is not possible, yet, I keep reading how you should look at the terms bring in traffic to determine what to optimize for.  HUH?   

Try your site search stats, from users actually searching on your site.  This is the target audience you care most about right!  This will show you what spelling or terms are being used.  For this site, we cut down sight searches with the site redesign I mentioned (From 13% of visits involving a site search, to just 2%), so we had look at the search results over a 6 month period to get decent results.  It turns out, the spelling without the "-" got 2/3 of all searches on the product line.  This is your true test! 

Find out what terms your site users use, and use them too.  You are not fooling anyone, even the 100 year old guy who remembers when the product 1st came out! 

PS(I'll let you know how the results for this spelling change turn out.  It is an ultra competitive space with over 7 million results and over 100 organizations competing for #1, so stay tuned).

Handling Bad Press - Part 3

After looking at Press Releases and creating new Satellite sites, the 3rd and most effective way to handle bad press is with your version of the truth.  The Internet is a funny thing.  People have always had the ability to decide for themselves, and now have access to all the information they need.  For that reason, an "open book" to your business practices and principals (as long as they are ethical) should put you out on top right? 

Blogs are a great way to get the truth out there.  There you can talk about your expertise, how you fulfill your client's business needs, cite recent success stories that prospects may identify with. 

Just open up that Blog and allow comments from readers;

• Allow comments
• handle negative feedback with
• censorship - careful here!  If you have obvious issues, hiding them does not fool anyone, especially prospects who know their concerns are obvious and should be handled.  They'll know your are censoring certain topics from being brought up, sometimes because they'll bring them up themselves.  That's censoring your own business now.
• rebuttals - best choice as long as you can be mature.  Take the high road, but address every objection.  People reading will take your side if you are right.

• Allow "back tracks" which allows other bloggers to link their Blog back to yours. 

The bottom line here is if you are running and honest & ethical business, it will show.  A blog will also establish you as being an open business with nothing to hide. It will also speak to your expertise!

Handling Bad Press - Part 2

My Client was very impressed with Press Releases, as they and the client's Satellite site had taken over most of the 1st page of Google, however, the #2 search result was also new to Google's 1st page. A scathing review in City search had hit the prime #2 spot, this 2nd only to the company's own website.  Of course, if someone were to check out a company beyond that company's own marketing, they are going to the #2 listing, on Google especially.

So after getting the press release, Google, the king of Search Engines still has bad press in perhaps the most prime location possible.  That's a problem.  So what do you do?  More Satellite sites of course!  I'm not really serious, but it is one way to fill up the #1 page.  Of course, you really care about the 1st 4 organic results, but off the 1st page is even better. 

So, create some sub domains, new domains, fill the sites up with distinct and hopefully valuable content with your company's name listed the right # of times (7 is good).  Submit to search engines and watch the small and uncompetitive (but extremely valuable) search space fill up. 

While you are at creating Micro-Sites, why not use them for Sales Leads generation as well.  Sure optimize for your company name, but go further and hit the niche space your site is geared towards. 

Of course, creating all these sites are way more time consuming and expensive than a press release, but the payoff is longer too, plus your site leads people to your door, especially more than bad press does. 

Hmmm, what about the 3rd Key way?  We'll talk about "Interception" in part 3.

Handling Bad Press - Part 1

One of my clients recently had some bad press associated with their company name.  As a Corporate Career Transition company, and one of the largest in the U.S., this was quite damaging, as any sensible prospect would check out the reputation of such a company before forking over $6K for career marketing services.

In cases where a business holds extreme value in having clean Search Engine results on its name, there are only so many things that can be done.  This is the 1st part of 3 ways to mitigate bad press on search engines.

#1 Press Release - The 1st way to handle bad press is to issue your own good press.  This is fairly easy to do.  Here are some steps to follow.

1. Keep it Real - Your press release needs to give a real message that people are interested in.  Ideally it should in someway address the bad press the same audience may see.  Content is King, even in a press release.
2. Drive ‘em in the Right Direction - Make sure your press release links back to your own site or a special landing site.  This will increase the chances of leads, especially important for those who might go back to the search engines and find the bad press.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Since this is going on the web and is to be found on search engines, preferably higher than the bad press, the release must be optimized for search engines.  For this, call your SEO expert and make sure they have press release experience.
4. Release to the Best - Release your press to press release companies.  You can look at the prices and determine what it worth to you, although some are free. If a lot of money is a stake, you will want to consider a specialist agency that can handle the release for you. At the time of righting this entry, these services would get a well SEO press release up high on engines.

• www.free-news-release.com
• http://www.pr9.net
• http://www.send2press.com     
• http://www.theopenpress.com
• http://www.findarticles.com

You need to know that Press Releases are only a short term solution.  They will fill up the results on page one of a search engines' results page for a while (and there is no guarantee that the bad press will be crowded off the 1st page, or even off the top 4 results), but not for very long.  You should use this time to come up with a longer term strategy.  2 more ways (and perhaps more) will be discussed later in parts 2 & 3 of "Handling Bad Press".