When developing your site, what do you need?

Here are some questions to answer when approaching the site development & design process… and while your developer / designer can certainly guide you, it’s crucial you – the business person – think this through!

What Do You Do Different: What Makes You Unique In Ways That Would Attract Clients? Not to be confusing here, but it’s all about the audience. Sure you’ll profile yourself, including your special talents, but the question helps to determine what / who your target audience is.

What Does Your Target Audience Want? Remember, it’s not about you. And be assured,  they make rapid decisions when searching. It’s about them and what they’d like to see and to have access too! What are they truly researching or looking for? Determine this and make sure it’s available – font and center!

Design is Important: Engagement, Branding & Lead Capture are More Important! – What Will Generate Lead Capture? Your future customers are searching and researching. They don’t want the pitch until they’re convinced you’ve got something to offer. They have that power nowadays. So, what are you giving them that’s worth a closer look AND what will get you a sign up or registration?

What is Your Goal? Look, we all know it’s “sales”, but you’re smarter than that. In this day and age, sales is about getting to the next step! What will get you closer to more sales? It is likely the means to follow through with a qualified [ = most likely to buy at some point ] audience, which is the voluntary capture of contact information. So, are the resources you’ve chosen to provide going to motivate lead capture … and are they going to get you to the next step?

Content Is The Key!

There is no meaningful development or design without content. Not if you have goals, so develop & design around the belief you must offer content in order to engage, brand, capture and sell to your target audience! Why build any site if it’s not a platform to support more content creation; more search spidering & key phrase indexing; more voluntary subscription; better connectivity to social network accounts & other sites; more back links & bookmarks; less bounce; deeper brand engagement and more voluntary lead capture?

Related Information:

Building Great Business Sites That Focus On Client Goals!

Underestimating Service

I read something this morning about how, on the web, a lot of business people manipulate the marketplace with discounts or anything it takes to get into business… and to get your money. Consider that when you under-pay for services, the savings are likely only ‘in the immediate’. WHAT IS YOUR EXPECTED OUTCOME when you knowingly under-pay for service?

With sites, and the software used to build them, there are inevitably going to be bugs or problems. With third party application [i.e. plugins, widgets, etc.] integrations it makes it likely. Without reliable service to hedge that outcome, what is the cost to have one incident fix? Is it $100? $150? More?! What of the next one… and on and on it goes. Is your designer and/ or your host really providing support? The web is a fluid environment: the search engines & social networks your site cooperates, or even integrates, with are changing rapidly.

Do you have the software management & updating to keep up? Will anyone answer the phone in a pinch? Is there any Security? Is there any SEO? What happened to reliable & accountable service?

What Should Service Look Like? What Should Service Do?

Service should work to protect your time. Service should work to protect your money. Service should be a proactive advantage. How about this as a set of services?:

• Hosting & Storage
- DNS management
- Dedicated server , not shared hosting and not a VPS
- Servers configured for WordPress hosting.
- Server level PHP caching, as well as Apache and MySQL tuning specifically for a WordPress environment
- caching of (html) pages including compression, following Google best practice recommendations
- incremental off site backups, in case of hardware failure
- monthly, weekly and daily backups of all data including databases

• Tech’ Management & Advancement
- Constant monitoring of WordPress development
- Security releases deployed in a matter of hours, not days
- Regular plugin feature additions
- Full performance and security vetting for plugins and themes
- Major release planning for seamless upgrades

• Security
- unprotected sites get attacked, and they get hacked

• Instructional Marketing/ Advertising Education
- email, newsletters, videos and the benefit of our experience

• Important back linking
- white hat promotional efforts

• Customer Service, Accountable & Human
- we answer the phones and email every day!

Lots of companies build sites, but do they service them? Do they service you? Kinetic Knowledge handles it and you… on an ongoing basis. Affordable! We’d argue there isn’t a more reliable or crucial value than our ongoing support services in the marketplace! If you’re tired of bad to no service, get in touch!

For building sites we swear by WordPress, but let’s provide steps & standard process for building good business sites… in this case ‘The Kinetic Knowledge Ultimate’.

• Initial Interview: gather strategies, differentiators, target market, goals and a general idea for the site’s framework.
• Set up project in project management program.
• Post Initial interview results.
• Develop framework mockup [wireframe] with ideas for element placement.
• Onboard Interview: get clients’ approval on the framework, gather client logo files, colors, navigation, elements AND any other design requirements.
• Post onboard interview results.
• Set up standard to- dos, milestones and timeline goals for completion.
• Gather desired URL, Registrar and DNS information.
• Create Development site on appropriate install.
• Install chosen framework.
• Begin to customize framework for client branding.
• Configure for no [search spider] crawl.
• Add design specifications, coloration, fades, etc.
• Configure Meta Title and description.
• Activate appropriate plugins, configure each.
• Custom modify footer content.
• Configure posts signature.
• Create necessary pages.
• Create either a static, blog posts or static with blog summary driven home page. 
• Configure upper navigation, including any drop down menu options.
• Add/configure necessary widgets.
• Confirm/ configure add-on packages.
• Gather Google account.
• Set up Feedburner account and configure feed Standard. 
• Gather/configure social media accounts.
• Create user account(s).
• Configure site settings (comments, permalinks, open it to spider crawling, etc.)
• Configure DNS.
• Set up Google Analytics tracking code, webmasters, feedburner ‘Subscribe via email’ and custom search.
• Review for de-bugging or fixes.
• Assign user name and password.    
• Check site in browser [IE8, Firefox, Chrome and Safari] on a PC and Mac
• Set up client training on all site features & a crash course in ‘best blogging practices’.
• Notify accounting for monthly services.
• Launch the site.

There are always moving parts in this process; however, each of the above must be acknowledged and checked off as the project ensues. If so, for in the event someone is unavailable, others on the team can step in and answer client questions,  continue the project and/ or trouble shoot. There’s often a great deal of additional feature & design customization. For instance, real estate professionals often need MLS Search enclosures. For Staffing & Executive Recruiters Kinetic brings job application database setup, configurations & automated job board feeds. If it’s a business network, there are member template site builds, member on boarding … for retailers there are shopping carts and on it goes. The bottom line is, the process has to be documented and accountable or the site will lack all the important incremental advantages. We’ve learned a lot over the years, but more  recently we’ve even added better accountabilities & documentation systems because there’s never enough.

So, there you have some detail for standard process in building good business sites… focused on a client goals! Add optimal hosting and comprehensive ongoing services and you’re really adding value for a client!

Related:

What Do Agents And Brokers Need From Their Site?

Granted she’s aware I’m poking fun and that I have a certain bias toward sites that support broad advertising visibility, but I responded  as follows:

For the last couple years we’ve been working with a number of Executive Recruiters as well as the entire New Jersey Staffing Association. To support, we’ve done a quick video interview discussing the features, benefits and value proposition of this new product.

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pcbNzZw5Ww]

Ultimately the feedback we’re getting from Executive Recruiters is they’re having difficulty managing their physical and virtual worlds in an ever more complicated business environment. Managing  physical relationships, 1) an independent online brand, 2) a presence on the job boards and 3) in the social networks is a tall order. There’s just too much duplication of effort, too much additional advertising expenditure and there a lot of outdated website platforms lacking network support for their brand.

The Executive Recruiter Blogsite Platform
 
Never just a site or blog, but a network leveraging web presence! The Executive Recruiter Blogsite is a powerful brand advertising tool capable of maximizing visibility for your jobs and general blog content in the search engines, job boards [that accept feeds], social networks and all over the web. The Executive Recruiter Blogsite is also Jobs Database Management site offering unlimited Job Data Entry, Job Category Pages, Job Search and Lead Capture.

Consider unlimited key word & phrase indexing in the search engines, direct feed connections to job sites & social networks, unlimited back links, bookmarks, RSS, email subscriptions AND jobs database management in one site!

Standard Features:

• Custom Build
• Customized Static Homepage
• Unlimited Static Web Pages
• Search Engine Optimized Blogsite Platform
• Social Media/ Job boards [that accept feeds] Inclusion & Icon Installation
• Both Job Pages & Blog Post RSS feeds
• Lead Capture Functionality/ Apply for Job Form
  - allows resume attachment
  - emails job creator and blind cc’s job administrator
• Database Functionality/ Enter Unlimited Jobs
• Database Functionality/ Homepage Job Search
• Database Functionality/ Job Search by Category
• Database Functionality/ Job Presentation by Category
• Ongoing Online Marketing Education
• Customer Service
• Live Example

Related Posts:
We’re Rolling Out Our New Real Estate Blogsite Platform!

Something we’ve been focused on doing here lately is the roll out of new products and services the marketplace is asking for. We can custom build a Kinetic Blogsite to do most anything a business might want and we’ll continue to meet the needs of all comers, but it’s also important to offer products that aggregate the feature needs of an industry. In the coming weeks, we’re going to roll out a few.

We’ve supported the real estate industry from the very beginning and, in fact, we’re proud to be an approved vendor to the Council of Residential Specialists [CRS]. CRS just happens to be the educational arm of the National Association of Realtors [NAR]. So, more an upgrade than anything, it’s only appropriate that our first industry specific product be our new Real Estate Blogsite platform! To support, we did a quick interview discussing the features, benefits and value this product brings to agents or brokerage firms alike below. And by the way, I’m aware I could probably improve my interview skills. Bear with me

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kJ0WalTfBE]

Ultimately, the feedback we’re getting from the real estate marketplace is that they’re tired of having to fragment their web presence. There’s too much duplication of effort, too much additional advertising expenditure and often, on sites that only serve certain needs, poor brand engagement. They’re looking for an advertising/ marketing platform, rather than having to buy advertising to get traffic; they want to present a comprehensive brand with lots of organized content, including information about their unique services & the area they’re in. They want to be current! They also want to offer local MLS Search, a Featured Listings Database, Lead Capture and they want their site to automatically push new content out to the social networks too.

If the goal is search optimization and new traffic support of an existing website, we can certainly build great platforms to do that all day long; however, if you are in the real estate business and optimal web visibility, search engine optimization, MLS Search integration, a Featured Listings Database, unlimited content creation & organization, Lead Capture, Mortgage Calculators and an automated content push into the your favorite social networks WITH ONE SITE sounds good, we’ve got all that here.

Give us a call to discuss our new Real Estate Blogsite platform!

Pay Per Click

Ultimately, there is only one visibility guarantee in the search engines and that’s pay per click [PPC] advertising. You pay to advertise, but only when target key words or phrases you have chosen are searched. The upside is you’re only seen by qualified eyeballs. You also don’t pay unless someone actually clicks and you’re guaranteed to be visible! The downside is it has become an incredibly competitive & expensive form of advertising and it only generates [approximately] 10% of the click choices that occur on a search engine results page [SERP]. 90% go to the organic search results!

There are also a series of PPC services out there that manage aggregated PPC campaigns. They set up PPC ads, collect leads and re- distribute those to paying customers. In this scenario you may benefit from some economies such a service can harness, but you may also suffer being a step removed from the message and the leads themselves. It may or may not discourage those leads by the time they get to you.

And then, visibility can be guaranteed, but clicks cannot!: like any advertising, clicks depend on your advertising message! So, let’s focus on the 90% PPC is missing.

Sites And Organic Visibility

Ultimately, search engines are trying to index every word and phrase on every page from every site [websites or blogsites] on the web. Once they’ve identified and crawled your site’s page content it is all compared to similar pages and ranked for future organic searches. They also want to be as timely for searches as is possible, which says a lot for why you want to be so current with your web presence. The search engines work hard to satisfy all searchers because they know loyalty is limited and they need it badly in order to generate more and more of the search [10% click] revenue described above.

There are over two hundred signals used by the Google algorithm [i.e. date stamp, domain name, keyword usage, tags, site architecture, relevant back links, bookmarks, choice from search result pages, time on site, time on page, etc., etc. etc.] to compare you to your competitors, so it’s all very complicated. And that’s by design – so no one can manipulate their results! New signals are constantly added and existing signals are constantly changed and/ or re- weighted. And it’s not only the search algorithms that are fluid: your competition is always looking into better ways to compete! Those who weren’t there yesterday, may be finding ways to be there today.

Let’s be clear, blogs are websites! They offer pages just like websites, but they also offer features uniquely advantageous to your visibility that we’ll discuss. Ultimately, you need a site that is easily crawled by search spiders. You should be looking to have sites agile enough to evolve with an evolving web. You need a mastery of new content techniques and there needs to be a measurable reaction to your content [i.e. back links, subscriptions, bookmarks feed connections, chosen from SERPS, time on site, etc.] And above all things for organic search visibility, you need to be current!!

Visibility: Websites Versus Blogsites

Generally speaking websites are terrific; however, unless continuously search optimized, not necessarily terrific for visibility! Unless you’re prepared to constantly code new content, websites were never really designed to make you completely current online. Not unless you have a lot of time and/ or money! To make matters worse, most websites aren’t ideal for syndication of content either, which by the way is a signal search engines can easily use to identify active & current sites.

Blogsites are designed to allow laypeople to publish at will and for syndication of that content to wherever it is needed or wanted. It makes the creation & distribution of content, ‘being current’ and appealing to search engines relatively simple and cost-effective. Short some design capabilities, blogsites can offer most all features websites can, so blog platforms are becoming more and more important to business people.

Many website owners began to realize that advertising wasn’t being served in a search engine world so they looked for solutions. PPC services are a guarantee, but as discussed up top they have became more and more expensive. What’s more, organic search results get approximately 90% of the search clicks so naturally it has become a strategy to improve content visibility. SEO services mostly offer new content creation & coding and also various back link strategies; however and very much like PPC, they can get expensive quick compared to the proper use of blogsites. It’s kind of like fighting a battle with a less than battle-friendly tool.

As a result, many website providers have moved to throw in free blog solutions. To some degree, the argument that a blog should be a part of [or a file of] a website has surfaced. An argument that may or may not be true depending on how much you feel you need to rely on a website now and also in the future – see Your Blog’s Domain: Independent, Folder or Subdomain? 

Sustainability & Growth Strategy Online

If accumulating more and more key phrase indexing, links, RSS subscriptions, email subscriptions, bookmarks, feed connections to other sites, SERP choice and overall activity is the evolving currency of the web and a crucial pipeline for future leads and sales, then one might argue blogsites are the important tool! WordPress, for instance, is designed to be agile – it scales!! It enables virtually any feature plugin and it evolves so that one is never working with a site that will eventually be obsolete. So it leaves one to wonder, ‘is it possible that by folding a blog into a website is limiting in the long run?’ Is it possible that the blog and any currency it has generated could be compromised? Hard to say, but [thinking strategically] it certainly makes the weapon you choose and how you deploy it now and in the future an important long term consideration.

Considering that it was PPC Services, then SEO Services and now blogs as a folder of the website, we’d suggest considering that all and we’d recommend keeping them separate.

Blog Vs. Website? – Trish Jones Marketing Mix
Question Of The Day: Why Do I Need To Be Current?
Question Of The Day: Can [Real Estate] Blogsites Replace Websites?

We’ve been thinking a lot about our sites, how to better engage our visitors and how to reduce our ‘bounce rate.’

Effective November 2008 we made changes to our blog site that brought some phenomenal results, including a dramatically decreased ‘bounce rate’ AND an impressive increase in total page views. In fact, ever since those changes we’ve seen a reduction in bounce rate of approximately 60+% and a simultaneous increase in page views of over 500%. And those results have remained consistent for 4 months running!

Wikipedia says, “A bounce occurs when a web site visitor leaves a page or a site without visiting any other pages.” Bounce rate is obviously good when the percentage is very low, bad when it is high. It can be an effective measure of traffic quality OR it can be a dose of reality for how poorly you engage visitor traffic. These metrics are available with most any website analytics software and are important as you look to improve your advertorial business blog. And remember, when people search or follow back links to you they may arrive on any page. So far as Google is concerned, all content is important to their search index… not just that on your home page!

Reducing Bounce Rate

Because our bounce rates were so high we felt, inevitably, that it was translating to lost lead opportunities. After all, can ‘one and done’ visits equate to much in the way of leads? Clearly we had to improve, so we started to look at our sites, the presentation of various content and, generally, at raising the ‘status quo.’ Admittedly it was basic analytic data that gave us the heads’ up, but with regards to decisions we made about change… we mostly fell back on logic & experience.

With our home page we pursued a less traditional blog ‘look & feel’, going part website and part dynamic blog.

OLD HOME PAGE

NEW HOME PAGE

And then we also wanted to have lead capture forms where ever possible, offering education & instruction for basic contact information.

Less Bounce Rate = More Page Views, Leads and New Business

One influential blogger recently referred to bounce rate and his blog saying “With blogs people come mostly only to read your latest post, they’ll read it and then they’ll leave.”

While we used to agree, based upon a more democratic presentation of content and information we’re feeling pretty much the opposite these days. We’ve got a lot to learn here and we’ll report back while we do, but as bounce rates decrease and visitors find reasons to go deeper into our content… we’re definitely driving more page views, qualified leads and new business.

We wanted different categories of content, our ‘Business Bloggers Bible’ ebook offer and other free educational tips positioned where they were much more visible.

Schmidt’s 1st post demonstrated her powerful leadership skill when she coined the acronym S.L.A.C.K., calling her Team and Realtors alike to the table. The message, “there’s no excuse NOT to be prepared for the unexpected at work!” Her latest move is online, where she has decided to forgo websites for an all encompassing advertorial business blog. We asked if we could interview and share her thoughts on the move. She agreed.

Kinetic: “So Kathy, I understand you’ve decided to overhaul your online presence in 2009. Mind if I ask why?”

Schmidt: “Not at all. I read recently that the words CREATOR and REACTOR each use exactly the same letters… it takes no more energy to be a creator than it does to be a reactor. Yes, the market has been more challenging in the past few months, however this provided an opportunity for us to choose between creating and reacting. We have chosen to create something to boost our business by serving our existing clients even better and giving new clients more reasons to make SCHMIDT REALTY GROUP their brokerage of choice. Our previous website did well for us for a number of years, in fact we regularly had clients, the public and even other REALTORS voluntarily tell us that it was one of the best in the city! While we loved hearing that, we also realized that this was no time to rest on our past success. We are aiming to use the current market as an opportunity to increase our market share in 2009 and see our new Edmonton AB Real Estate Blogsite as an integral part of that process.”

Kinetic: “What convinced you that your target audience is online?”

Schmidt: “A real estate blog feed I receive recently reported that the average age of sellers is 57 while the average buyer is 32… We are now in a buyer’s market, so there is a strong need to ensure that our marketing appeals to a younger demographic. NAR stats support the decision to focus on the web, with the majority of buyers beginning their search online.” 

Kinetic: “As a small business marketer, what do you feel you need online?”

Schmidt: “I have been frustrated at my ability to “speak” to prospective clients about a variety of topics ranging from real estate in the news, market trends, and of course also how our team is addressing the changing market. While we have produced a monthly newsletter for years and will continue to do so in print form, the time delay in compiling the information, printing it and getting it out in the mail means that the information, while still relevant, is at least a week old. So, a web publishing platform is very important. Branding is also hugely important and the web definitely plays an important role. As for IDX, we place all our properties on our blog first as a New Listing post, and also on a “page” of Featured Properties. In both places there is a link to an external and unique URL for each of our listings. These websites provide opportunities for interested parties to contact us for more information or to book a showing, plus we are customizing the format to include invitations to subscribe to our blog. We’ve also integrated our IDX content, which provides information on all MLS listings in our area, offering custom home searches and online market evaluations. The blog has become central to our entire web presence.”
 
Kinetic: “You went away from traditional websites. Why?”

Schmidt: “Two months ago I knew almost nothing about blogging. I certainly had never heard of a blogsite! When the opportunity came up to write a regular post to the Star Power blog, my husband suggested I grab the chance to learn about blogging and to rekindle my interest in writing. As a result of stepping through that open door, I connected with Kinetic Knowledge the blog technology services provider to Star Power. Chris, you and I chatted about the basics I needed to know before submitting the posts for Star Power. You also asked if we had a blog on our website. We didn’t of course, but I knew it was a good idea, so the conversation continued about how we could have you help. One day I asked you if there was any reason I couldn’t use a blog for my whole site. It was apparent that we could more easily manage new team member information, photos, bios and the addition of new services. Easy to update the information and without having to go through a webmaster. I loved the idea of the blog being something that could be updated instantly, and being completely ignorant of the process I didn’t have a clue. I just knew I wanted to have a site that was absolutely current, and a forum where I could communicate with clients and the public about local real estate. I was thrilled to hear that what I was wondering possible was absolutely possible and that Kinetic had a comprehensive platform [branded design, self publishing, lead capture, SEO, IDX Integration] to provide exactly what I needed! Goodbye status quo website, hello dynamic blogsite!”

Kinetic: “Is the actual blogging going to become integral and if so, why?”

Schmidt: “Blogging has become integral to our business overnight! Now that we have the ability to stream information about new listings, market information and more to subscribers and web visitors, I continue to see more and more ways to develop this incredible marketing tool. Our site has been live for less than one week and we are getting lots of positive comments and see a definite increase in email leads. I don’t see any way that blog platforms won’t become the standard. I am definitely not a techie by any stretch of the imagination, and yet I was able to have real input into the design of the site and within three weeks loaded up static pages as well as created an archive of blog posts with internal and external links. The training and support I received from Kinetic was absolutely incredible! And if I can do this, anyone can!! Yes it does take a little time, but it is time very well spent when you consider the ease with which I can now get information out to people I want our business to reach. To me, a static website is like a photograph. It captures a single point in time, and is suitable for framing and looking at more than once. A blogsite is more like a video, or perhaps a reality TV show! Every time we list a home, it’s posted on the blog. When we find a newspaper article about local or national real estate issues, we post it and I can comment on it.  And what’s even better is that the web visitors can comment back and we can create a dialogue. Now we are doing more than sending out information, we are communicating! And isn’t that what today’s intelligent consumer is looking for?”