"Time To Move Forward Ahead Of The Pack"

When you want to get your product to the public your website is the way to make this happen, your biggest challenge is to get your product in front of more people than your competition. The competition is stiff in any industry the websites are great and have good eye appeal, they have similar products and priced the same, but yours is better and you need to have your product stand out. This is the marketing dilemma that faces you and your competitors every day. You cant keep doing the same things and expect different results, I see this play out time after time, people scrambling for the answer by picking apart small things and reassemble them only to find they are doing the same things over and over and getting the same results.

Its time to look forward and determine where you want to go. Don't look back, don't look down, look forward. The pack is standing still sniffing the ground for crumbs in an area that they have gone over several times and it has been picked clean. You need to get out and find a new area to hunt. But before you go out you better be sure you prepare yourself for the adventure, you need to have a plan, you need to have a map and most of all you need to have a vision.

Ok great you say, I am ready but how does this relate to my website? Well lets take this one step at a time and start with the vision.

You vision is basically who you are and what you want to be. If we met at a party for the first time and I asked you "Who are you?" how would you answer? The same is true about your about your business when customers ask "Who are you?" you should have the answer on you lips and on you website. Try it see how you fair, can you answer without hesitation or pause. Now, after you master that add the thought and articulate where you are going with your business. If you can put these two ideas together tell a stranger about your business you will have a powerful message.

The plan is simple however some assembly is required, first you need to know yourself, know your competition and know your customer. Since you know yourself list all your attributes on a piece of paper, then list all your direct competitors attributes and compare these one to one. Have your friends or associates do the same and compare the list. Do some research on the web and find out what you can about your completion don't just rely on what you think you know. You will be surprised some times what you find out when doing new research. After you have all the facts it will become obvious the strengths and weakness of each company. Customers are past as well as present, go through your records and gleam as much information about your customers as possible. You should have record to indicate who is you best customer as well as customer preferences. You work on your plan based on all these facts.

The map is a basic layout of how you will implement your plan showing definitive markers along the way that show your progress. A good example is your for your website would be increased customer visits and increased sales. Remember increased visits do not mean sales will increase. A good site leads customers to the sale and will not drive customers to the sale. When you lead customers to your site they will have confidence and trust and see the benefits of your product and that will lead to sales. Make sure you find all the relevant places on the internet that your company can be displayed there are hundreds of opportunities that you may not have explored. Your map should contain ways to get there. A good map will show where your competition is and this will give you a good idea where they are going. Try putting yourself in the mind of your competition and see if you can predict what they are doing, this will give you a different perspective.

You now have the basic components of a good SEO strategy for your website. When you apply this information to your marketing and website programming you will see an increase in sales as well as increase customer satisfaction because you now lead. Believe me this is the time be shrewd, the ground you are going over will no longer sustain the pack you need to break away and create new opportunities. Time to lead your customers and your industry.

Joe Zusin, SEO Analyst

Joe Zusin is currently involved with several Internet ventures including web design consulting. Joe also contributes articles on business, and other topics. His current website shows SEO analysis techniques.

04/30/2010

"The Goose that laid the Golden Egg"

When it comes to social media marketing professionals are afraid of killing the goose that laid the golden egg but businesses are getting weary of social media and want see some results for their efforts. eMarketer reported that 65% of companies who use Social Media do not think their company has increased revenues or profited from social media. Even Social Media sites are struggling to create a model that ensure their success, Statcounter.com reported Facebook outperforms Twitter when it comes to generating hits to websites and Stumbleupon may be the key when it comes to a marketing opportunity since they have consistently driven traffic to websites.

The Social Media bubble will continue to transform itself into the medium that will benefit both the customer and the company who serves them but, watch out for the fast changes in the direction of any venue you select for a platform, look what happened to Myspace they are still a player but not in the industry leader position they once enjoyed . If you have been paying attention to how you are serving your social media customers instead of just collecting them you will win customers and sales in this medium. Communicating with these customers will not be enough, you need to entertain them and engage them. Even with these tactics most companies will either tire of doing this or will not see the RIO to justify these efforts. The key to making these customers buy is a call to action or the buzz of your product. Think about it some of these social media contacts may already be your customers and you may be preaching to the choir. This is fine but you need new customers and sales.

We find marketing professionals still insist Social Media is the way to go and it is the first option presented and pushed. The answer, social media marketing is not for everyone however if your company decides to commit to social media efforts doing it well is important and expecting immediate results and RIO may not be realistic. Social Media is a full time effort it is not something you can do half way. Evaluate your commitment and your objectives, is your company in a position to continue? You may get better results by optimizing your website I know the RIO is better and when your traffic increases sales will follow.

Joe Zusin, SEO Analyst

Joe Zusin is currently involved with several Internet ventures including web design consulting. Joe also contributes articles on business, and other topics. His current website shows SEO analysis techniques.

04/23/2010

"Wine Fulfillment Partners and your website"

With today's business environment wine producers need to get their products in front of the consumer by restaurant sales, in store sales, online wine shop sales, or their own website store. Wine Fulfillment Partners have given some a one stop shop for meeting theses needs. But hold on a minute lets think about this, if your Fulfillment group is handling your website what marketing efforts have come out to increase your online sales? Who's fault is this? It all comes back to you the winery..... You need to market your wine as well as your website, you need to have events, create and promote your mailing list, create content on your website, become more customer friendly. Some of the winery websites I visit are so cloaked with secrecy of who they really are and they just ooze the thought "private area do not enter", these wineries are probably already on the auction block and will not survive. You need to make your customers feel at home with today's facebook and twitter people they are looking for a friendlier and informative companies to deal with.

Get yourself out of the box you have built and show people you exist and have a product that is something worth sharing. The most successful winery websites have events listed that are in some instances pet projects of the proprietor like dog adoption, some feed the homeless, others promote causes that cure cancer. Whatever cause you support will not only do good it will stimulate support by like minded people and put a face with your winery. Events can include a Music on the Green, hire some musicians (local groups or someone special) and promote a picnic or art show. Open up your grounds to party's and Weddings if you can.

Promotions should be on your website, in your newsletter and posters promoting the event should be distributed. Open yourself and your winery so people know who you are, so they want to connect with you.

Fulfillment Partners have a place in your business but it is not the whole marketing solution once you sign up with a partner that should not be the end of your marketing efforts. Today you need to be more proactive in your future your website needs to be personable and represent the character of your products and be part of the community. The public needs to be part of the solution and not treated like the problem.

Joe Zusin, SEO Analyst

Joe Zusin is currently involved with several Internet ventures including web design consulting. Joe also contributes articles on business, and other topics. His current website shows SEO analysis techniques.

04/16/2010

"A Click Makes A Difference"

We did a survey of websites to determine how many clicks it takes to reach the product that the company sells. Our criteria specified the product be a specific item displayed with a link to a shopping cart on their home page and if not how many clicks to subsequent pages would it take. Looking at 300 websites here is what we found:

Well the campaign was a success they narrowed it down to a very good representative for their winery Hardy Wallace. However, after a stream of articles from Hardy the numbers continued to decline. I am sure the people at Murphy-Goode are still happy about the Buzz created by their Social Media campaign as well they should. But they ended up back where they started as far as site traffic and there lies the problem. Other web sites in the wine industry we have monitored over the same period have gained in relevance and have sustained their traffic how come? Their marketing should have remained true to their product and not just creating a icon. We have seen social media work with product promotion and the process is slow and steady, yes the buzz happens but your product needs to be the center of attention.

60% of the websites had their item on the first page.

20% of the websites required 1 click to get to their product.

The rest required 2 or more clicks to order products.

Here is the problem you will lose 20% of your customers per click, when they can't identify products and you don't hold their attention, customers will not dig through your website to find products. Put your most popular items on the first page if your design permits it should be at most 10 items. Your second page should contain the next ten most popular items and so on, this will keep you customers interest and will stimulate sales while your customers browse.

If your site has a designated area for your online store, display an item on the first page with the link to the store. The next page should display several popular items with their shopping cart link and list other categories if needed.

Try setting up your website using these guidelines to lower the clicks to get to your products and watch your sales increase, your customers will appreciate it and you will be glad you did.

Joe Zusin, SEO Analyst

Joe Zusin is currently involved with several Internet ventures including web design consulting. Joe also contributes articles on business, and other topics. His current website shows SEO analysis techniques.

04/02/2010

"Social Media can we sustain the buzz?"

Over the past few months I have watched the use of social media in particular the buzz created by the Murphy-Goode Winery that started about 1 year ago. It was a brilliant campaign “Murphy-Goode Wine Country Lifestyle Correspondent” the Buzz was everywhere on CNN, FOX, CBS and MSN, Murphy-Goode winery website’s traffic went through the roof .

Well the campaign was a success they narrowed it down to a very good representative for their winery Hardy Wallace. However, after a stream of articles from Hardy the numbers continued to decline. I am sure the people at Murphy-Goode are still happy about the Buzz created by their Social Media campaign as well they should. But they ended up back where they started as far as site traffic and there lies the problem. Other web sites in the wine industry we have monitored over the same period have gained in relevance and have sustained their traffic how come? Their marketing should have remained true to their product and not just creating a icon. We have seen social media work with product promotion and the process is slow and steady, yes the buzz happens but your product needs to be the center of attention.

It is said any PR is good PR and this is probably true, however it looks like slow and steady wins the race even in social media.

We will continue to watch Murphy-Goode and Hardy to see if they can turn this around, stay tuned we will post an update in six months.

Joe Zusin, SEO Analyst

Joe Zusin is currently involved with several Internet ventures including web design consulting. Joe also contributes articles on business, and other topics. His current website shows SEO analysis techniques.

03/15/2010

"Good SEO is a Strategy"

When you seek an SEO company you should try to find one that knows your industry. Whatever your business your SEO should be able to identify the leaders in your industry, industry trends and who your competitors are. If you have not identified these basic tenants how will you know where your going?

You should have identified the industry leader, even if its your own company. Set a benchmark where you are today, track at least three of your closest competitors. Watch for changes in traffic as well as where important changes occur in web design or new offerings. This information will help you identify trends and gauge if your industry as a whole is changing or the lead horse is moving further ahead. It is important that once you baseline this information to continually update these numbers monthly to keep a clear picture where things are going and verify your strategy is working.

We have been tracking the wine industry for over a year and have compiled some interesting data that shows trends such as seasonal as well as vendor induced trends. Analyzing these statistics have shown some of the most sophisticated wineries have missed several opportunities to take control of their websites potential. Their marketing plan did not dovetail with their SEO strategy. This is a critical miss that happens in most organizations.

SEO is a strategy you need to cultivate and grow its not just a program, review your marketing and website SEO today and see if they are working together. If not you might loosing customers and money.

Joe Zusin, SEO Analyst

Joe Zusin is currently involved with several Internet ventures including web design consulting. Joe also contributes articles on business, and other topics. His current website shows SEO analysis techniques.

03/05/2010

"Why my new website may loose customers"

Companies have historically built wonderful websites and use designers that build beautiful websites for a cadre of customers that exist in the web designers portfolio. But these companies miss some of the most important pieces of information that needs to go into the decision for picking the their designers. Look how the designers customers rank in their SEO statistics. I understand a new (name ) website will have low stats to start, however how did the redesign work for their customers?

There are several things to consider when redesigning a website, page names is the one that stands out. When I say page names I don't mean index.html, but close. I am referring to the names of subsequent pages in the line, like www.yoursite.com/myproducts.html. When you redesign your site your new developer will most likely use their own method of naming and sorting pages. Your existing page ranking will suffer because the old page names will no longer exist. Ask your web developer to incorporate some of your old page names in there redesign efforts this will lessen the loss in your SEO standings and people will find your site. Remember to keep the content subject the same, you can still change the format and design. You will especially want to keep page names that bring the most traffic to your existing site.

Using these simple strategies you lessen the traffic loss encountered when you have a website redesign.

Joe Zusin, SEO Analyst

Joe Zusin is currently involved with several Internet ventures including web design consulting. Joe also contributes articles on business, and other topics. His current website shows SEO analysis techniques.

02/26/2010

"SEO a plus"

I keep seeing the same advertisement on places like Craigslist:

"Wanted web page designer who is proficient at HTML/CSS/Javascript and Photoshop. Knowledge of website optimization or SEO a plus."

How do I say it?….. If your web page is not Search Engine Optimized, the CSS/Javascript and Photoshop items will not be seen by many people.

SEO is not taken seriously by some. The smart companies take it very seriously. All of the fortune 500 companies have teams of SEO people working with their marketing and sales staff.

Any company who takes SEO lightly will be crushed by their competition who initiates a serious SEO campaign.

Lets look at this with a little common sense, there are millions of websites, and in your industry there are thousands of websites. What makes your website stand out? It's not your Flash presentation or your pretty photoshop pictures. It is because of where your web page lists when someone does a search for your product. Now don't confuse this with a search for your company name. I sure hope your company comes up on the first page when someone searches for your name, if not you have a serious problem.

SEO is about the many ways someone searches for the products you sell. An example if you go to search for a German Cookbook by Josef Heinz. If someone searches cookbooks their going to get a long list and not to specific. Remember you do not need to be listed at the top of such a generic name because you don't carry all cookbooks. But you do want to be listed in the top of German Cookbooks, as well as the listing for German Cookbook by Josef Heinz.

SEO rules change often. They are changed when companies like Google want to freshen things up on their listings so the same old pages do not keep coming up. So you as a business need to freshen your web pages to keep things interesting. This is just like a store on main street freshens up their front window to get attention. I don't mean a total redesign but small changes make a big difference. As one of the programmers at Google said "Content is king".

Obviously, it's your choice. You can have beautiful pages that are never seen except by people who already know you. Or you can have beautiful pages seen by new customers every day.

Joe Zusin, SEO Analyst

Joe Zusin is currently involved with several Internet ventures including web design consulting. Joe also contributes articles on business, and other topics. His current website shows SEO analysis techniques.

7/15/2009

Six Places Where Online Companies Fail

1. Relevant content: You need to project who you are and what you want the public to see you as. Many times web pages are built with a lot of flash and eye catching glam. People who search the web want to find out who you are and what you sell. They need to see what's new and it needs to be relevant to what they are looking for.
2. One Page does it all: Your main page should not be the only thing you expect people to see first. You should design your site for many landing pages that people see first. If possible each page should be designed like it's the first page people see. Using the example of a magazine with an open page laying on the table, that page catches your eye when you pass by comes to mind. When someone searches on the internet and finds your site for the first time they may have found you with an obscure word that you did not think about.
3. Build it and forget it: Many people build their web pages and let them get stale only changing them when there is a price increase or new product. You should write something about your product monthly adding new content becomes easier the more you do it, even a paragraph about new equipment or process is worth the effort. You will be surprised the amount of interest you can generate with a little effort
4. Ignoring your customers: When people come to your site they are your customers, if you don't monitor your web site and at least see if people are coming and where they are stopping to see your products you are ignoring them. There are very good reporting software that will tell you all the important information you need and its FREE. I like that word! So don't ignore your customers any longer there is no excuse.
5. Ignoring your competition: Get to know who your online competition is and what they are doing. Go on line monthly and check out what your immediate competitor is doing and if anything has changed. You may not want to do anything right away but it will give you some ideas that you can at least be thinking about.
6. Know how customers find you: This can be as simple as asking them. Have you employees ask customers they talk to on the phone as well as in person. Keep a log or just take notes, this information comes in handy when you do a promotion in the future be it on the web or otherwise.

You improve your position in all the six reasons listed your sales will improve and following these improvements will generate more ideas on how to improve your bottom line.

Joe Zusin, SEO Analyst

5/18/2009