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    • Archive for the ‘Web Usability’ Category

    Taking Your Small Business Beyond Stats

    Sunday, February 21st, 2010
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    Marketing and measurement.

    Logically speaking, the two are joined at the hip. Realistically speaking, the two are (more often than they should be) as disjointed as a divorced couple in a custody battle. I am always a bit surprised by the companies that have nary a clue how their digital marketing is doing.

    No analytics in place, no tracking mechanisms, no idea. Going even a bit further, there is a big difference between analytics and the age-old “stats” package. If you are still looking for data on “hits”, then do a little bit of homework to learn more about the metrics, which metrics are important to you, and what they mean.

    No matter if you are building out a new website or wanting to learn more about an existing one, insist it include an analytics package. With Google Analytics being a free, and very useful, tool, there is really no excuse. Simply create an account, place a snippet of code, and you have data. With some understanding of that data you will be able to make more informed decisions and gain a better understanding of what parts of your marketing are working and more importantly, which ones are not.

    Some Web Analytics Packages and Tools
    Two analytics tools you can put in play quickly and easily to replace your old “stats” program.

    Google Analytics – It is free, provides loads and loads of data and hacks and has become ubiquitous for SMB’s and measurement.

    Woopra – If you love graphs, real-time data and dashboards, look no further. Recently out of Beta and available to everyone, Woopra provides a dashboard that will make you feel like you are launching the space shuttle. Loads of information, real-time and even live chat feature. This is a paid, but very reasonably priced service worth checking out.

    Heat Maps
    Heat maps help visualize the items on a page that are drawing attention from your visitors. Identify misplaced calls to action and much more, along with standard analytics data.

    Crazy Egg – Data and heatmaps at a reasonable price. We have used this service to help with Landing Page optimization, ecommerce optimization and web form optimization. Heatmaps can offer some incredibly useful data that is outside the traditional “numbers” mindset.

    Click Density – Anther tool utilizing heatmaps, worth taking a look at.

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    Posted in Digital Marketing, Marketing, Web Usability | No Comments »

    Who Do You Think You’re Talking To?

    Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009
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    There sure is a lot to know about social media.

    Actually, let me correct that- there’s a lot to know about social media tools.  The rules-of-thumb for social media are pretty simple:  Be authentic, don’t spam, provide value, and participate.

    Easier said than done.  It takes a big commitment to do those things consistently.  And even if you do, will it be effective?

    That answer depends a lot on where you spend your marketing effort.  With as many different social channels as exist today, it’s hard to pinpoint (or even get a ballpark estimate on) where you should be.

    Thinking about these questions should help…

    • Where are your conversations taking place?

    If you don’t study where people might be talking about your subject of interest, it’s probably a waste of time to use social media tools.  The means are available to look for and find everything on the internet that might be of interest to you, and to people looking for you.

    • How will you participate?

    You’ve got some pretty serious communication tools at your disposal.  You can blog, for one, to keep fresh content coming where people know they can find it.  Comments on other blogs can be hugely effective, too.  Have you thought about SMS text messaging (kind of like voting for American Idol, but for your business)?  Video is looking pretty effective for some. Twitter and Facebook, yes, but also all of the message boards that might be talking about something you could add your voice to.

    • What value do you offer?

    The best way to make your effort pay off is to be valuable to others.  That’s the proposition that’s at the core of businesses and organizations, but unfortunately, not at the core of most marketing.  In social media, it’s not your services or your sales that are valuable; it’s your insight.  What can you offer?

    So maybe the best way to participate is to think of yourself as a consultant.  An informal one.  Just giving advice here and there.  Offering some help.  Being consistant.  Being valuable.

    You can’t do that if you don’t know your audience.  There’s nothing more important for social media participation than a strategy that includes finding them.

    Posted in Uncategorized, Web Usability | No Comments »

    What The Heck’s Next?- How We Use Basecamp

    Friday, May 29th, 2009
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    Like thousands of other folks, we use 37signals Basecamp (aff link) for online collaboration and project management. It’s a great system, if you’ve not seen it.  Easy to use, intuitive, and covers all the bases for us.

    We’ve had pretty good success getting the people we work with involved in Basecamp, which we’ve internally named “Projectpath”.

    It’s pretty simple to use.  But we wanted to write up a personal introduction from us to our clients, many of whom have not worked within a project management system.

    And if they need start-up help, the Basecamp FAQs are pretty much focused on admin support, which is not really what we’re looking for.  They do have a very good video how-to section, but that’s not quite what we need either.

    What we need is…

    • A document that would help our clients buy-in to using the system.
    • Something that would assure them that this was easy to use.
    • A personal introduction that could be used as a reference, if needed.

    So here it is.  Feel free to use it if you think something like this would be helpful for you…

    -What The Heck’s Next?-
    Getting Around In Matterhorn Projectpath

    A Quick Guide To How We’ll Manage Things Together

    There are a million ways to communicate.  We call.  We email. We send DMs to an @ on Twitter.  It can get a bit… overwhelming.  With more people contributing more information about more ideas everyday, it’s very easy for communication to get buried, sidetracked, or lost.

    Projectpath is a website that’s designed to keep everything -everything- in one place.  Using this system will…

    •    Keep all of our communication together over the length of the project
    •    Organize each step of our process by topic
    •    Archive all of our progress by date
    •    Make our project accessible all the time, from any computer

    Think of Projectpath as our project’s office.  We use a system called Basecamp to run things, and it’s easy to use.  Go ahead and be intimidated if you want, but the simple fact is this:  If you know how to go to a website, send email, or use a mouse, you can use Projectpath.

    Projectpath has 6 different sections…

    •    Overview
    •    Messages
    •    To-Do
    •    Milestones
    •    Writeboards
    •    Files

    You can move between sections easily by using the tabs near the top of the page. Each section has a different function, and together they cover all of the things we’ll have to communicate during our project.

    Here’s a quick rundown of each section…

    Overview-  The Overview shows everything that’s happening in our project.  Here’s what you can see:

    •    The name of the project
    •    Shortcuts to the other 5 sections
    •    A timeline for the project, if one applies
    •    All recent activity in every section, arranged with the most recent at the top
    •    An RSS feed for the project, so you’ll know each time something is added
    •    The names of everyone involved in our project

    Messages-  This is email for our project.  It works because everyone can share communication in one place (that way, we don’t have to go digging around in your personal inbox ?).  To post a message…

    •    Click “Post a new message”
    •    Write something
    •    Click “Post this message”
    •    That was easy, wasn’t it?

    To Do-  The to-do list might be the easiest way to keep track of our project’s progress.  Projectpath lets you add, cross off, and move around items in a way that, frankly, makes you want to get more done just to use the to-do features.  It’s easy to make lists in Projectpath.

    Milestones-  This section is for keeping track of things that need to be done by a certain date.  It’s divided into 3 parts:  Past due, Upcoming, and Completed.  There’s a calendar in the margin of the Milestones section that’s color coded to reflect each list.

    Writeboards    -  If there’s ever a need to create a document collaboratively, we’ll use a writeboard.  It’s an easy way to keep track of all the versions of a document that we might need.  Because we create content using different software, we don’t use writeboards for most projects.

    Files-  Here’s where we keep any and all files pertinent to our project.  Again, the big draw is that they can be accessed and updated by anyone in the project.  We keep all content for projects in the files section.

    That’s all.  The way we’ll use Projectpath is very intuitive.  It won’t take long for you to see how collaboration is simplified with this one tool.

    We’re looking forward to getting started- thanks for going through this doc.

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    Posted in Marketing, Partnership, Web Usability | No Comments »

    3 Mistakes That Small Business Blogs Make

    Monday, March 2nd, 2009
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    A blog for business, first and foremost, must be useful.  Either as content or as narrative (the best do both), people need to find something on your blog that they can’t find anywhere else.

    That’s right- be special.  And not the Stuart Smalley, special-on-the-inside, hey-I’m-o.k. special.  I’m thinking more about the Pretenders Brass-In-Pocket kind.  (Chrissy Hynde is almost 60 in the video, BTW).

    Easier said than done?  Not really.  If you’re selling something people want, they’ll definitely be interested in what you have to say about it.  After all, you’re the expert.

    That last bit is key: what you have to say about it.  Not your sales copy.  You.

    Here are three common mistakes that small businesses can make when they blog:

    • Using A Blog To Pitch

    I’m not a huge fan of sales pitches.  In fact, I hate them.  In this way, I’m like almost every other person that will ever read your blog.  The sales pitch is a tired way of communicating.  All shout, no substance.

    If you use your blog to make sales pitches, how is it different from the rest of your marketing?  It’s not.  And so, what you have created is not a blog.  It’s a sales-pitch-update center.  Yeah, we all need more of those.

    • Pleasing Everyone

    A blog is to share your thoughts and your perspectives.  It’s not meant to be all things to all people.  When you have no take on things, how are you being useful?

    Besides, do you know how many people everyone is?  Are you really going to get them all to see what you’re doing?  There’s only one way you can get everyone to follow you, and I don’t know how helpful that’s going to be.

    • Write Canned Posts

    Canned language is easy to recognize and hard to avoid.  People that use it don’t want to call it canned, but that’s what it is.  It’s safe.  It’s what most marketing sounds like.

    Canned language often hides in well worn phrases that sound important.  the thinking is, if this message sounds official, it is.   People visiting a blog don’t want canned anything.  There are too many fresh voices to choose from to listen to a canned one.

    I struggle a lot with making my writing authentic.  I forced myself for a long time to do exactly the things I’m warning against here, though not in a blog. I just took it as a given to try to inflate my writing as much as I could.

    Have you wrestled with it, too?  I’d like to hear about it, if so.  It takes some work to say just what you mean, to stop selling and start communicating.

    Ah, freedom.  Authenticity feels good.  Your blog is the perfect place for it.

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    Posted in Content Creation, Web Usability | No Comments »

    How To Write Instructions

    Monday, February 16th, 2009
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    Most marketing contains a call to action.  Lucky for us, we get to define what that call to action is.

    Also lucky for us, it’s not always a sale.  Our call to action might be to call the company, use a coupon code, leave a comment, or to login.

    A call to action + a process is a task.  And it’s worth writing instructions effectively for tasks.

    When you clearly define a task, two things happen: a.) You make it easier for someone to do what you’re asking them to do, and b.) It allows you to better measure the results.

    I’ve put together an ordered list of some ways to make instructive communication work.  You can use it as a checklist for making a step-by-step call to action.

    Warning: If you’re only providing tips, you don’t need to follow these steps.  These steps are for instructions.

    1. Use numbered lists.
    2. Make your list items short.
    3. Put space between each step.
    4. Start each step with an imperative verb.
    5. Place warnings above the list.
    6. Use the steps as headings for more details.

    Use Numbered Lists-  If you need instructions, it indicates that there’s a sequence to your process.  Put things in order using numbers.

    Make Your List Items Short- For information to be useful, it has to be read.  You can go along way toward having your instructions read by making them short and simple.

    Put Space Between Each Step- Space makes it easier for people to process information, which makes them more likely to follow your instructions.

    Start Each Step With An Imperative Verb-   If you want action, let people know by using action verbs.  For example, imperative verbs for the task of tree climbing might include the words grasp, pull, or one of my personal favorites, shimmy.

    Place Warnings Above The List- Any pre-requirements for the task should be positioned above the list, not as asterisks below the list.  People should see those before being asked to follow your sequence.

    Use The Steps As Headings For More Details- On a web page, for example, you can place your list at the top of the page, and below it, give a little background with your steps defining those sections.  Like the ones here.

    *Tip: trust your readers with well written instructions.  If you’ve written things correctly, and you’re not converting, re-examine the task that you’re planning.  (Also, tips are’t steps.  They don’t go in your sequenced task.)

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    Posted in Content Creation, Marketing, Web Usability | No Comments »