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Internet Marketing New Year's Resolutions
Clay Schossow
Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.
We all have resolutions for the new year, whether it's to save money or shed some extra pounds, the goal of a resolution is to always better ourselves in some way. Companies also tend to make resolutions and goals for a new year with the same end result in sight of improving upon the previous year.
At NMC, we sat down a couple of weeks ago to etch out our resolutions and goals for the new year and many of them focused on how we market ourselves online. I figured that I would share our Internet Marketing resolutions with everyone, thinking that they may also serve as a good model for your organization in the coming year as you move your marketing dollars move online in the tough economy.
- Blog, Blog, Blog - We really began posting with frequency around September of 2008. In that time, we've been averaging around 4 posts per week. That's a great starting number, as it makes sure we have fresh content nearly every day of the business week. However, we'd really like to crank up the content generation in the coming year and multiply that by threefold to bring our total to 12 a week. We plan on accomplishing this by having more of our team contribute and branching our blog into different mini-blogs relevant to specific audiences such as developers, political clients, small businesses, etc. This is a bold goal, but we think we can accomplish it by working together and the benefits will be great for our SEO, content resources, and Blog subscriber count.
- Search Engine Optimization - In the past year, we've improved in many SEO rankings and our page rank has increased from a 4 to a 6 in just four months. However, we want to continue optimizing for the terms for which we don't yet rank as high as we'd like. One of our main focuses will be ranking highly for Raleigh web design and other geographic qualifiers that will help local businesses find us. We plan on accomplishing this goal by continuing to build links within our blog posts, creating great content, winning mentions from outside sites, and submitting directories. The fact that resolution #1 contributes directly to #2 is no accident and demonstrates the importance of a business blog.
- Rework Homepage Design - We're very keen on our website design, but would like to make some changes to the homepage to make it more functional. Currently, we're dedicating a lot of valuable real estate to the image rotation and not saying so much about our firm, services, and philosophy. We'd like to add some function to the homepage by adding more copy about who we are and what we do and also giving visitors the opportunity to quickly jump to the content that's most relevant to them. Whether it's our Content Management System for designers or our political website portfolio, we want targeted niches to have quick access to the content that they want to see.
These are our top 3 Internet Marketing resolutions for the New Year. They're all quite achievable and will greatly benefit our business. As you can see, these are all very cost-efficient methods to grow our business and require nothing else but some good elbow grease from our team.
Did you set online marketing resolutions for your organization? How are you going to achieve them? Good luck to everyone with their resolutions and I encourage you to check back here frequently to hold us to ours!
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New Page Rank for a New Year
Clay Schossow
Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.
Page Rank is the cornerstone of Google's search engine algorithm. Every website that Google indexes is assigned a Page Rank, which is what Google believes the "importance" of that site is on a 0-10 scale. The way that Google discerns the importance of a page is based on the legitimacy of other websites linking to your site.
The more legitimate the sites and the more in number that link to you, the higher your page rank will be. The algorithm believes that if you're worthy of earning links from other trustworthy sites, then you too are a reliable site worthy of a good page rank.
Google does not divulge the specific details of the algorithm or how frequently it is updated. From searching the blogosphere it looks like the last Page Rank update was September 2008...until today. From what I can tell, it looks like Page Rank was updated today as our site and personal blogs pretty much all had a new rank. New Media Campaigns is now a Page Rank 6, which we're very excited about.
A 6 is a pretty powerful PR and will give us more authority when linking to pages within our own site with targeted keyword phrases and will also let us pass along more PR juice to other sites that we link to. Page Rank takes awhile to build up, and I attribute our recent jump to our increased blogging frequency, press related to votethesite.com (now a 4), and subscription to some new directories such as Yahoo!.
Kudos to Katy Barrilleaux for tweeting that she noticed a Page Rank change this morning, which led me to investigate it on my own.
Happy New Year to everyone!
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Top 5 Improvements of ESPN.com Redesign
Clay Schossow
Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.
Today, ESPN launched a beta version of their redesigned website. The New York Times wrote about the site and the main goals behind it.
The new site is aimed at simplifying a visitor's experience by reducing the amount of clutter on the homepage. The goal is to encourage visitors to delve deeper into the site and view more pages. ESPN was concerned that the overflow of information on the old homepage led people to bounce off and not necessarily delve into the site.
The new beta site feels like a definite improvement over the previous version. Here are the 5 best things that ESPN did differently.
- Removed Automatic Playing Video - On the old site, a video of highlights in the top right would start automatically playing upon your arrival to the site - this was counter-internet. We use the internet to seek information, not have information pushed on us like television does. The video that played was not one that a visitor was likely to be looking for. Instead it stole attention from looking for the information actually desired. Also, even though it was a minor graphical element of the design in the top right corner, by playing media, it stole attention from the most important news highlighted in the middle of the page.
- Personalization of Information - Immediately available on the new site is an option for "My Headlines." This feature allows visitors to personalize the information they see, making it much easier to get the news they find important. By making this a prominent feature of the homepage, it entices visitors to click through to more interior pages and spend more time on the site.
- Simpler Navigation - The new site has streamlined the main navigation by hiding the inactive sports. The previous site had 36 links on the top block of the homepage; that number has now been reduced to 19, and the links have been cleaned up to better fit the design. It makes it easier to find and click on the news that a visitor cares the most about.
- Larger Feature Video - The new video is 16x9 and displayed as a central part of the homepage; this is key. It allows ESPN to editorialize on what is important (which is their purpose) and takes advantage of their audience's faster computers. They have traditionally been a leader in web technology and also led the way in the migration to compliant browsers.
- Cleaner Homepage Layout - Underneath the main video player and headlines, the new site has 3 more main columns and rows of information/ads. The sections are all lined up nicely and each content area in a given row is the same size. This makes it much easier to scan the homepage and find information than it was on the old site. Previously, the homepage was full of content boxes that varied in size and didn't line up to adjacent boxes, making it very hard for the eye to read over the page.
Overall, ESPN did a really great job with the redesign. Currently, the site is a traffic hub that captures nearly 50 percent of total minutes spent by Internet users watching sports video and the seventh most total video streams, according to Nielsen Video Census. So, you can be sure that other media companies will be taking close notes of the design and eagerly awaiting ESPN to report the new traffic data from the redesign.
In addition to improving the user experience on the site, there is also a more corporate goal - the new design gives advertisers eight options to purchase ads on the most popular pages rather than the three that the old site had. This increase in ads was one of the motivating factors for the redesign, as the NY Times points out that Disney, ESPN's parent company, was disappointed in soft ad sales by the channel in the most recent quarter. However, it seems that ESPN did not sacrifice tact for revenue, as the new ad placements are not distracting, and they even eliminated the distracting banner ad up top.
What are your thoughts on the design? Where does this design put the ESPN site relative to other media company sites such as the NYT or WSJ?
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Consumers Trust Search Engines More Than Traditional Media
Clay Schossow
Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.
A recent Forrester Research study shows the breakdown of how much consumers trust different information sources. Search engines come in third place only behind email from friends and consumer reviews.
This data is somewhat surprising since search engine results can be manipulated through Search Engine Optimization efforts, which sometimes go as far as Google Bombs. However, this research is also a great validation to the importance of internet marketing efforts and well designed websites. With people placing so much trust in search engines, it reaffirms the importance of Search Engine Optimization and being in front of potential clients. Knowing the importance of search engine results also demonstrates the importance of making sure your site looks like a trustworthy source. People looking for reliable information or vendors on a search engine will quickly discredit you if your web presence is lackluster and untrustworthy. It's important that the quality of your website compliments the quality of your online marketing strategy.
Another interesting tidbit from the report is that corporate blogs are the least trustworthy information source to consumers. This is a disappointing trend as blogs should be the most honest outlet for corporations to disseminate information and voice opinions. However,very public errors, such as the Wal-Mart blog fiasco, have caused consumers to be more hesitant when using company blogs as an information source. The report is very clear that this should not serve as evidence against blogging, but rather as encouragement to do it in an honest and engaging fashion.
Another interesting aspect of the report is that consumers are more likely to trust email from a company rather than direct mail, supporting the value of email marketing vs. direct mail.
Overall, new media fared very well in the report often times beating out its traditional media counterpart. It will be interesting to see how this trend adjusts over the next year as people become more savvy online and the space also becomes more crowded.
By making sure to project yourself in a trustworthy manner online, through well designed sites and honest content, you have the opportunity to continue effectively influencing consumers in a cost effective manner through SEO and online marketing.
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Growing (Staches) With Our Clients
Clay Schossow
Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.
For the second year in a row, we built the website for the Charlotte Chapter of Mustaches for Kids. The group was started by Joe Romanelli, president of Romanelli Communications, one of our ad agency partners that uses our content management system for designers. While we worked on the site last year, we did not participate in the event.
However, Joe used his superior salesmanship this year to get Joel and myself involved in the organization as growers. So, for the past 4 weeks, we've subjected ourselves to public shame as we grew mustaches. Joel's could best be characterized as a "trash stache" while mine would more aptly be described as non-existent.
It was a lot of fun to be involved and the organization was extremely successful. This year the growers raised over $50,000!! That's not even including matching funds from institutions around Charlotte. By being the most successful chapter in the nation, M4K Charlotte also won an additional $75,000 from the Knight Foundation to distribute to schoolroom charities around Charlotte.
Not only did we grow staches for the organization, but we also built out some custom features to help engage and excite the growers. Each grower had the ability to create their own profile on the website. With the profile, they could easily edit their information and post pictures of their stache's progress.
By integrating with DonorsChoose, a non-profit aimed crowdsourcing funding for projects posted by teachers around the country, visitors were able to visit the M4k website, view growers' profiles, and easily donate to their favorite participant.
The website was a great hit and allowed growers to have full control of their web personas, leading to some very funny profiles.
Congrats again to Mustaches for Kids Charlotte and to all of the "talented" growers and wonderful donors!
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What If We All Treated Our Customers Like the Airline Industry Does?
Clay Schossow
Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.
Our company is fairly focused on service and doing everything possible to make customer support an affordable and friendly process for our clients. We try not to bill for small changes and genuinely enjoy speaking with our customers about new ideas and problem solving. We think that's the right way to approach service and our clients tend to agree.
However, it's hard to realize that our friendly process is unique until you deal with the total opposite, which is what I just had to go through today with US Airways.
In an effort to move my flight from Dec. 28th to Dec. 26th, I was presented with the following process:- Three levels of an automated operator system
- Passed off to a monotone customer support rep (50% chance this was also automated/robotic, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt)
- $150 change fee to move my ticket
- $220 new ticket fee to purchase a new seat on the Dec. 26th flight
That's right - they wanted me to pay $370 simply to move my flight up 36 hours. By moving from the 28th to the 26th - I was probably doing them a favor, as the 28th is definitely the more desirable date. There was no real cost to them.
However, they still expected me to pay more for a simple flight change than I did for my entire flight in the first place. How do they think they can get away with this?!? Especially when a quick perusal of Kayak shows that I can buy a one-way flight on Delta for a total of $131 - $19 less than US Airways' "change fee".
This policy is like us telling one of our web design clients that a new feature, which we already have built and just need to implement on their site, will cost them more than the actual site itself. I know I couldn't sleep at night billing our clients like that, but apparently the brass at USAirways have no problem operating their business in this manner.
US Airways could have easily resolved this situation by taking the following steps:
- Having the phone answered by a friendly customer service rep eager to help me.
- Explain to me the reason for the change fee while they're looking up other flight options.
- Give me the option of paying just the change fee or the competitive rate for a one-way flight.
Not only would this have left me quite satisfied - it also would have made me an advocate for their brand and more likely to fly US Airways in the future. However, they settled for attempting to make a quick buck and alienating a frequent flier.
In the end, Delta gained my business for this flight and USAirways lost my business forever.
Why is it that some corporations think it's good business to put themselves first and unnecessarily charge the consumer? I'm happy that we're a small, agile web design firm that is focused on delivering results rather than squeezing every possible penny from our clients.
Anyone else have horror stories about how the airlines or big companies are terribly out of touch with their consumers and approach to customer support?
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5 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Web Design Firm
Clay Schossow
Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.
When people are deciding whether or not to work with us on a web project, we get asked a ton of questions. We really don't mind answering them, because we respect that the client is doing their due diligence and usually the questions are great and a lot of fun to answer.
However, some questions are certainly better than others. In fact, we often get asked about things that don't matter when selecting a web firm. There are some really great questions though that should be asked during every pitch in order for a client to make sure they're working with a vendor that they can trust.
How will I update the content on my site?
Too often organizations get their sites hijacked by web firms or ad agencies that charge them for every small change to the site. You paid for the thing, you should be able to update your content and build on it without paying your vendor for every tiny change. We solve this issue by putting all of our sites on NMC's content management software - be sure to ask your vendor if they have a CMS or how content will be updated.
What do you think of our current site and what would you change?
This question is a great way to get an idea of how the agency thinks and their plans for your site. Also, it's quick and easy way to make sure they've done their research on your organization and checked out your site. Listen closely to their strategy for your site and the explanations the agency gives for what they would change and why.
What is the process and turnaround time if we select you?
I've heard many horror stories where an organization will select an agency that blew them away during the due diligence process, but then the relationship quickly hits a rough patch as the agency is slow to respond and deliver. Set the expectations up front and even get them in writing.
Know things like when you will see the first draft of the design, their typical launch timeframe, etc. We promise clients that they'll see a first draft within seven days of completing our Creative Brief. This is a quick timeframe, but we pride ourselves on our speed and ability to deliver - make sure your agency can do the same.How and for what will we be charged for in the future?
This one aligns closely with #1, in making sure that your site doesn't get hijacked by the developer and you have to pay out money for every change or phone conversation. Make sure you know up front what you will be charged for in the future - some agencies will charge for simple phone calls about strategy while others don't charge unless there's a substantial new addition to the site.
We've previously wrote about our no-charge approach to web design customer service, but we still do have to charge for large new aspects of a project. Our clients know upfront that we'll give them an hour estimate for a new project and then bill by the hour. Be sure to know whether your vendor will charge per project, hourly, etc. By asking this question, you'll ensure that everyone is entering a happy relationship where you aren't hit with unexpected costs and the agency is confident that you know their billing policy.
Who will be my primary support contact?
This question is important to know who you'll be dealing with on a day to day business at the agency. You may love a firm's CEO, but if you can't stand your project manager/account exec, it probably doesn't make sense for you to be working with that firm.
Hopefully, you can speak with your contact before you actually begin working with the firm, in order to ensure that you get along well and they're a person you're excited to work with. You're investing a lot of money in your web design firm, it should be a pleasurable process, and that all starts with your project manager.
By asking these questions, you'll be setting expectations for the future of the relationship as well as getting some very important details about the firm that you're about to make a significant investment in. Don't be shy about asking web firms questions - they should easily know all of the answers to your questions and should have done enough background research.
Any other questions that you think should be asked before a project begins? Ever not ask the right questions and then pay the price through a poor working relationship with your web design firm?
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SEO vs. PPC - Which Provides You the Better Value?
Clay Schossow
Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.
Organizations of all sizes are realizing the importance of online marketing, especially through search engines. Nowadays, people are more likely to end up on your website via a search engine than going directly to it. In fact, according to Jupiter Research, a Forrester Research company, 81% of users find their desired destination thr
ough a search engine.This research makes it clear that it's very important for your brand to have a strong presence in the search engines, ensuring that you're in front of your target audience. However, there's still a big decision to make - whether to use SEO (Search Engine Optimization, or naturally ranking high in the organic results) or PPC (Pay-Per-Click ads, the Sponsored Links and purchased ads on a Google search) to get in front of your target?
Done correctly, both can get you on the front page of the search engines for targeted terms and in front of your desired audience. However, each has its respective benefits and costs. SEOmoz, a great SEO resource, recently published an article by the team at Enquisite quantifying the effectiveness of SEO vs. PPC.
The article details that organic results are 8.5x more likely to be clicked on than paid search results! That's a large disparity and is likely attributed to searchers gradually learning the difference between organic and sponsored results, and recognizing that organic results are typically the more respected resource. Also, researchers have used heat maps to show that searchers' eyes focus on the top organic results, with people barely noticing the ads to the right.
However, PPC holds a slight edge in conversion rates, as paid search results are 1.5x more likely to convert click thrus from the search engine. The SEOmoz article attributes, to the fact that the paid search result's "text and landing page is custom optimized by the advertiser."
So, looking at both of these numbers, it can be concluded that "the opportunity from organic search is 5.66x that of paid search."
So, given the flat out choice of ranking high organically or having great PPC ads - the overwhelmingly logical choice is organic. However, we all know it's not that easy or else those "Rank #1 in Google TOMORROW" robo calls would be much more effective. True SEO takes time, not get rich quick schemes.
PPC's true strengths are its speed and expansiveness. With a PPC campaign, you can be on the first page for a multitude of targeted terms within a day. However, the terms can cost anywhere from pennies to many dollars per click; also, for a PPC campaign to be done correctly, it's usually best to hire a firm that can manage it full time. This can mean that PPC campaigns can get very expensive, very quickly - especially when done correctly.
SEMPO, the Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization, estimates that 87% of search engine dollars are spent on PPC vs. 11% spent on SEO efforts. That's more than $10 billion spent on PPC vs. just $1 billion spent on SEO. That means the strategy that's over 5x more effective, SEO, is only receiving 1/8 the media spend in the market! It's hard to justify the expense of a PPC campaign, knowing that SEO is more successful and the overall better longterm value.
Don't get me wrong, there are certainly times to use PPC - when you're first launching your company, it's a great way to get your name out there and build brand awareness. For a limited time offer or special event, PPC is an effective way to get exposure that SEO wouldn't have time to contribute to.
Also, PPC is more effective for products than it is for service companies; for example, we focus SEO efforts on terms such as Raleigh web design and Content Management Software; however, we do not engage in PPC advertising for these terms, because they're usually a waste of money for a services firm like ours. Yet we have an electronic payments client that runs a PPC campaign focused around its specific product offerings, and this strategy makes sense for their market.
However, when it comes to the long term lifeline of your internet marketing, the result is clear - SEO offers the better value in search marketing. You won't rank #1 overnight, but SEO is more affordable and the longterm benefits have been proven. All of these facts demonstrate that your company should spend more of its time and resources focusing on SEO vs. PPC.
What are other people's experiences in this realm? Anyone think that PPC is the more value-driven choice than SEO? Let us know your thoughts!
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Tales of an Intern: A Few Misconceptions/Surprises about Working with NMC's Content Management Software
Alex Pomer
Alex Pomer is a project manager and online media buyer at New Media Campaigns. He received a degree in Advertising from The School of Journalism and Mass Communication at UNC Chapel Hill. He has successfully launched sites for statewide political campaigns, national organizations and non-profits. Follow him on Twitter.
As this is my first blog entry for New Media Campaigns, I think I should probably clarify who's talking. I'm the new guy.
No one likes being the new guy at work. There's lingo you don't know, jokes you don't get (because they use that lingo), and that one guy whose name you just can't remember.
Luckily, NMC is a small web design firm and there were only six names to memorize, so with the help of some flashcards, Facebook and two hours a day in the library, I got that down within the first week. Since then, I've been working on the lingo part.When I first got here, I felt like that study abroad student who goes to Spain with three years of high school Spanish and thinks he won't sound like an American tourist. Apparently, reading Seth Godin's blog every morning won't teach you everything.
As I looked over their shoulders and saw Josh writing CSS and Joel navigating through Photoshop with keyboard shortcuts longer and more complicated than a Vista commercial, I thought I might be in over my head.
When I started on my first assignment though, I found that updating and writing content for NMC was surprisingly simple.
Before NMC, I'd never created or written for a website outside of blogspot so naturally, I was a little hesitant about jumping in and writing something that actually matters.
I had all kinds of preconceived notions involving complicated code and navigational nightmares.
Then, I logged into NMC's Content Management Software and was blown away by its intuitivity (I don't think that's a word but it sounds good, doesn't it?).
Allow me to digress:
I went home last weekend for Thanksgiving. This year the whole family came to our house.
Now, everyone's got that one relative who's just a little bit off...
For me, it's my uncle.
He's a bit of a hermit (He just discovered 'Google' two months ago and since then, he's been going to the public library weekly to explore the Internet).
So it's always interesting talking to him during the holidays and hearing about his new 'discoveries'. His latest was YouTube. He couldn't wait to tell me about all the cool/funny things he's seen.
After describing a few sightings, he informed me, "The only annoying thing was sometimes, these other websites kept popping up. Is that what 'pop-ups' are?"
I had to suppress a laugh and inform him that, "Yes Uncle, those are pop-ups."
End digression.
Back at work though, while working with NMC's Content Management Software, I found myself asking the other guys questions that would rival my uncle's in common sense.
"How do you add a new page?" I'd ask.
Then Joel would calmly point to the very obvious Create a Page link on the left margin of the page.
After two or three of those, I learned to just trust the software and try whatever seems most logical. Who would have guessed, it hasn't failed me yet.
I was excited to learn that the clients use the same software that I was using to edit the NMC page. I'd read all over NMC's website about how easy-to-use their stuff was but it wasn't until I gave it a shot myself that I really believed it.
Anybody else out there who was also pleasantly surprised to realize that their company's products are actually as simple/cool/good as they say it is?
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Welcoming the newest addition to our team and blog
Clay Schossow
Clay Schossow leads New Media Campaigns' project management and business development efforts. A graduate of UNC Chapel Hill, he has guided more than 200 websites from concept to launch. He is a frequent writer on Internet marketing and online campaigning. You should follow him on Twitter.
We just wanted to take the opportunity to welcome the newest member to our team and blog, Alex Pomer. Alex is a new intern at New Media Campaigns, and he will be focusing on creating content and managing online marketing campaigns. Alex is a senior at UNC-CH on track to graduate with a degree in advertising.
We had our eye on Alex for a little while after meeting him at some UNC events. Alex did a great job of taking a new media approach to getting hired - before being interviewed, he followed each of us on Twitter, commented on our blog, blogged about our company, and would frequently shoot emails with relevant stories and links.
Alex has a sincere love for new media, social media, and the Triangle area - so, it only made sense for him to come on board with the rest of our Raleigh web design team.
Rohit Bhargava has written on the importance of hiring employees that have a strong personal brand, as they can be a catalyst to generating excitement and new business around the company. Alex certainly is building a personal brand through his blog, read the thoughts of Alex Pomer at your own risk. We think his style, sense of humor, and personal brand will definitely stoke excitement arount the office.
Keep an eye out for his posts on this blog. I'll set the bar high to make him nervous - the posts promise to be the most humorous and beautiful prose that you've ever read. Get hyped!
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