Have You Looked For Yourself?

I know that a SME that I am acquainted with is doing a redesign of their web site.

Just on a whim, I hit a couple of search engines and tried to find them by a web search. (they are still on the old site)

I deliberately did not use the company name in my searches. As I wrote in this Web Site As Business Card post,  I was trying to search as if I had heard of the company, but could not remember the details.

The search I tried was the location, plus any industry related keywords and terms that I could think of.

In not one of my searches could I find this company. (at least in the first three or four pages of results, which is all the patience I have for scrolling through)

I challenge you to do the same.

If you search for your own company, no cheating by putting the name there! can you find yourself?

By industry?

By location?

By product or service?

Or are you invisible to the search engines?

In the small business space, we don’t put enough effort into search optimization. We should.

Photo Credit

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Blog as Website Revisited

Hoo boy!

Thanks to Julien’s comments on the first post of using blogging software as a web site, And e-mail from HB

Check out these website generated by blogging software;

I Can Localize Translation Services

And All Things Digital

Both are quite intricate web sites, and both on blogging software

My last feeble comment;

It can’t be that easy to do (can it?)

A Web Site Transition Plan

If you are one of the many small business / medium businesses that don’t watch their web site analytics as detailed in my previous post, maybe you won’t need to worry about this one!

In the SMB space, as our businesses grow and evolve, it is not uncommon to perform extensive “renovations” of our corporate web sites. (we just did a complete 100% rewrite of our own).

But if you have spent time working to optimize your site, or if in the past you have had third parties linked to case studies or white papers on your site; these renovations can be deadly. (figuratively speaking!)

Those Pesky Links and URL’s

As stated by Jennifer Osborne at Search Engine People;

After all, it’s still the same site.

or is it?

Google doesn’t think so.

When initiating any project to rewrite your website, evaluate what data you have, your keywords, and where they are located. If it is at all possible, keep your new directory structures identical to the old ones.

Because as Jennifer Osborne states in the above article, if links that formerly worked, cease working, the mathematical algorithm used by search engines start automatically lowering their level of “trust” in that website.

Not to mention, that if there is a third party reference to some material on your web site, the absolute slightest change in the full URL will cause that link to fail.

If you absolutely must change your full website structure, ensure that you correctly re-direct old URL’s to the new ones. You don’t want a user coming to your website getting a plain “404″ Page Not Found error.

If you are currently planning a website overhaul, the above article has some tips on how to minimize the risk of that transition.

If you are in the SMB space – how many times have you “renovated” your site over the years?

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SMB’s and SEO/SEM – We Suck!

As small business / medium business owners amd managers most of us really suck at both utilizing and understanding search engine optimization and marketing. (SEO / SEM)

Frank Reed of bnr marketing writes;

…. The adoption rate of search marketing as a real marketing tool is still quite low for small to medium businesses (SMB’s).

It is true – Even in the businesses that I have been associated with – only one even did web site usage analysis, and they did not perform search engine analysis.

What is your website homepage?

And this is a problem – quite simply;

Those little lines of links on Google or Yahoo! are part of your homepage. Unless it is your Aunt and Uncle who already know you exist, anyone finding your business has to look for it.

And today that means Search.

The question for those in the SEO field has to be communicating the value, communicating the necessity and demonstrating the efectiveness of this process.

And for us as SMB managers, it is truly understanding that www.google.com is going to come before www.your_company.com – Just about every time.

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How is your web storefront?

A March 2008 Ottawa Business Journal article located here, puts it simply;

..Forrester Research report from January says the value of online retail in the U.S. alone reached $175 billion in 2007 and is expected to grow to $335 billion by 2012, partly because retailers are moving away from the bricks-and-mortar format to the higher-margin web-based storefronts

Secondly, in Canada, a Canadian Business article points out that of roughly 2.3 Million businesses in Canada, an infinitesimal 0.3% have 500 or more employees. The remainder is all in the small business / medium business space.

As I have written on this site , and others have written elsewhere, the internet is the ultimate leveler. But it won’t do it by itself.

As the above Ottawa Business Journal article states, if your customers have to click through more than 5 levels, you will most likely lose them. So as SMB owners or managers, it is incumbent on ourselves to ensure that the web storefront is optimized to get some of that traffic and dollars. Our web sites must be optimized, they must be quick, clean, and accurate.

Even if you are not set up for true “e-Commerce”, and rely on a local market, you must ensure that your site is found, you must ensure that it presents you as effectively as possible, and that your service, your product, and your value can be seen effectively and quickly. And ensure that finding your location or contact information is dead easy.

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K.I.S.S. (as Much as Possible)

A corporate web site has long passed the days of a few static “brochure” pages that point out the street address and the name of your organization. The amount of interactivity on web sites is growing, leading to richer interactions with customers, vendors and partners.

A well designed web site can allow virtual tours of products or services, they can allow research on those same products and services, and can even get site visitors tuned in to a product or service they did not know anything about.

While all of these richer media ideas are great, it is to easy to get carried away with all of this glitz. (especially if you hire someone outside to do the website) Having flashing arrows, blinking lights, dancing dots and other rich media gizmos plastered all over your website will make your site (and organization) look like a carnival fun house.

There is nothing wrong with having areas (or micro-sites) containing these glitzy pieces doing a 360 degree walk around of your products. But don’t “pollute” your default home page and entire website with it.

If you are retail, there are still older PC’s & web browsers out there. (an elderly family member of mine still uses Windows 95 with Netscape 3) None of that flash and glitz will work on that PC. So keep the basics simple – clearly stating that clicking the next link leads to more advance multi-media.

Second, the tools used to create these dancing dots and flashing arrows require their own software upgrades that update browser based software such as Macromedia Flash, Java, or Active-X controls. Many larger organizations implement security and desktop policies that do not allow the installation, or running of these executables.

And third, well – at least for some of us, the desire for the product is not greater than the effort having to filter out the carnival lights.

So keep it as simple as you possibly can – use the dancing dots sparingly, and ensure that at least your basic message gets across if the latest and greatest dancing dots don’t work.

Because you won’t know who you actually turned away.

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