First, does your website have a blog?  Blogs are a perfect way to constantly increase the content of your site.  Not only do you have the content that you write and post, but then you get the benefit of user participation in the form or questions, comments, or discussions.  This user generated content will constantly grow your website and all you had to do was post an article or discussion.  Blogs are also a great way to establish yourself as an authority on your subject or industry.  You have the opportunity to demonstrate your knowledge, answer questions, and lead discussions, all in a very visible forum.  And while updating your content on a regular basis doesn’t directly improve your search engine rankings, it does get the search engines to index your site more often.  So if you are practicing good SEO, and your blog is constantly growing, the search engine spiders are going to visit your site more often and your rankings will improve based on the SEO you’ve worked so hard on.

In addition to having your own blog, it is also important to participate in discussions on other people or companies’ websites.  This gives you an ever important backlink to your site.  Just make sure you are focusing on blogs and discussions that are relevant to your website or business.  Relevant backlinks are one of the best ways to improve rankings.

Another tool to utilize in your Web 2.0 efforts is article submission sites.  Submitting well written articles in relevant areas both helps to further establish that you are an authority on your subject, as well as gives you another relevant backlink.

The last area of Web 2.0 I will talk about here is the still growing popularity of social networking sites.  Setting up a MySpace and Facebook page at the least, is a great way to get exposure for your company.  You get the benefit of user generated content, another relevant backlink, and your website or company is exposed to thousands, potentially millions, of people that normally may not ever find you.

Let us know what you think, or if you’re having trouble getting started.

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The webmaster would write all the content - in many cases, write each page meticulously by hand as its own individual page, and be in charge of all updating of all pages all the time. For large sites, this would involve teams of developers, all working together to get this information put out there. The bigger the site, the more work was required to put it together. This is not to say that websites today do not require any work, or that they’re easy to put together and update, but rather that the process is different with websites today that follow the Web 2.0 strategy.

It used to be that Websites contained very little in the way of interaction other than writing an e-mail to the webmaster. Quickly, public forums became very popular. People could get together and ask questions and receive answers from many people across the world with different experiences, ideas and information. As search and search engines became more sophisticated, people’s search terms went from 1.1 words on average to 2.8, which clearly shows that people are looking for more and more specific information on the web.

What does this mean for Web 2.0?

Because people are becoming more and more used to and reliant on the web as a source of valuable information, it makes sense that people are wanting to share their experiences and knowledge on the web - especially since people like showcasing their knowledge and skills to others! Previously, you might have to create a website for this purpose, but now you have websites such as Wikipedia.org, Google Maps, Flikr and more that allow for user input to fill in gaps in content. This is an exciting opportunity for people to fill in information. Now, when you check out a restaurant or a pet store, you find user reviews on that store to help you decide if you want to go there or not. These things are user generated content, and there is a LOT of it on the web right now, and growing. Take a site like Wikipedia - this whole site is created, expanded and edited by users. Users are doing all the work on this site, the people in charge of it are mostly taking care of maintenance. Yet it is one of the most popular information websites today - the site that a lot of copy-cat sites try to imitate.

Why is it so popular?

We all know that Content is King. And more people creating content for a website is going to generate a whole ton of extra content. This means that you only need to create content that compels the user to add to it, that compels comments. This could be as simple as allowing users to add their reviews of the products you sell on your site. Petco and Petsmart both do this exact feature, as well as other big name brands like Target. The additional content helps them gain relevance on the search engines for their particular products they are trying to promote. Products that are more popular will naturally receive more comments, which will build up the content on those products, which will cause them to be more popular.

We cannot all have information only websites like Flikr and Wikipedia, but we can use those websites to help promote our site. This is something that must be done very carefully, as otherwise your posts will get banned and ignored by users. No one wants to look at spam all day long when they’re looking for real answers. However, if you are patient, you can find information that is relevant to your site, or you can discover that your site is relevant to a question being asked. If your site does NOT answer the question, and you think it should, perhaps you should work on answering the question on your site first and THEN posting.

These are thoughts on how to break in to the powerful tool that is the internet in 2008 - tell us how you are doing it

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There is a tendancy to think that just because email is quick and easy, that it is fine to be much less formal as well.  While that works for your friends and family, in the business world it just isn’t ok.  Would you send a business letter to a client, or someone you are hoping to do business with in all caps with no greeting or signiture? As an online shopper, does it make you feel more or less comfortable with a company when you get an email from them that has no formal greeting and looks like someone fired it out of their hotmail account during their lunch break?

Trust is a huge part of online shopping, and if you want to have a shot at return customers, formal communication can go a long way.  Think about some of the larger companies you may have shopped at, like Amazon.com or even eBay.  The formality in their communication instills a level of confidence that confirms the customers initial decision to trust the site.  Of course not all companies want to be as big as the Amazons or eBays, but you still need to instill that confidence in your customers. Letting them know that you are professional and worth doing business with.

Let us know what you think, or if you’ve had any rough email experiences!

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Never Stop Improving!

When people write poorly, it becomes prevalent throughout the culture, to the point where poor writing no longer means the individual isn’t intelligent. Poor writing now points to the writing being very informal.

A new website intended to be the face of your business should really not be an informal affair. A site written in 1337 sp34|< (leet speak) will give people the wrong impression about you and your business. They will assume that you are a spam site and that you are intending to upload a virus onto their computer, or at least some malware.

Now, to be fair, not many people can write beautiful prose effortlessly when writing about their products and services on the internet. This is where independent proofreaders can come in handy. If you know someone who knows how to write, it’s more than worth it to ask them to look over your work and offer suggestions. If this is your personal website where you maybe sell some home made crafts, then just having a friend look over your text will be living up to your users’ expectations. However, if this is a larger business, and you’re selling something that’s been manufactured, you will want your text to be as professional as you are.

If you do not have a copy writer on your staff already, you will want to hire someone to do this for you. You need your text to not have blatant spelling errors and grammatical errors. It is also good to make sure that when someone is reading your information, that it is easy to read and understand what’s going on. The reason you don’t want to do this yourself is because you already know what you’re talking about and what you mean. Getting someone from outside the company to look at it can help make your information more friendly to people who aren’t already familiar with your product.

Really big companies will also hire professional copywriters. Provided enough information, these people can write about your company and your product and it will sound very good.

In an ever shrinking world where the words “ur a noob” and “lol” prevail, there is still a time and a place for professional prose.

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Any sites out there that are not section 508 compliant are vulnerable to this type of lawsuit.  Section 508 is the handicap accessibility standard on the web.  And it is something that we are going to see more and more of as a standard practice moving forward.  The foundation of accessibility is having your site programmed in tableless CSS, which separates your content from the presentation of your site in the code.  There is more to it than just that, but if you don’t start there, you are only going to run into problems.  Using only HTML just isn’t going to cut it anymore, for accessibility or the search engines. 

If you’re looking to start a new website, or revamp your current one, make sure Section 508 compliance is a service offering of whatever company you go with.  Keep in mind that the software that blind people use to search your site for content has the same goal as the search engines:  To easily find your content for the end user.  While there has been a lot of grumbling around the web about what this settlement means for eCommerce as a whole, the fact that accessibility compliance will also help with your natural search engine rankings should, at the very least, soften the blow. 

Let us know what you think about Target’s settlement!

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 Never Stop Improving!

The holiday season is fast approaching, and now is the time to make sure your website is ready for the rush of holiday shoppers. With gas prices on the rise and many consumers having tightened budgets this year, you need to make sure your website stands out from the competition if you want the shoppers to buy from your site. To help make sure your site doesn’t end up on the naughty list, here is a brief e-commerce website Holiday Preparedness Checklist:

     • No broken images or links (The only place broken links lead 
     customers is away from your website.) 
     • Site is easy to navigate (Ask a friend or family member to place a 
     test order and give you their honest feedback.) 
     • Discontinued items removed (Few things are more frustrating 
     than finding the perfect holiday gift, only to learn it’s no longer 
     available.) 
     • Seasonal items uploaded and easy to get to (A direct link or 
     featured holiday item on the home page is a good idea.) 
     • Content updated with seasonal keyword focus (Outdated 
     content - spring specials in October? - doesn’t create a lot of 
     confidence that orders will be handled in a timely manner.)
     • Sales and promotions are prominently displayed (Online 
     shoppers love a good bargain, so make sure they can find yours.)

Now that your website has had it’s winter check-up, how’s your marketing campaign looking?

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Your web presence is your company’s face on the internet. In many cases, it is your company’s only face.  Why would you leave your company in the hands of the lowest bidder?  The web development and online marketing industry is VERY competitive.  The sites that rise to the top consistently get there because of the quality of work done on them, be it programming or SEO.  When evaluating a company for your web project, you should be looking at the quality of work the company does and the knowledge they have about the industry.  As with virtually any facet of your company, it is vital to do it right.  In an industry where the saying, “You get what you pay for” couldn’t be more relevant, you can’t afford to bet on the lowest bidder criteria.

Let us know if you have experienced anything that relates to this, whether you were the customer or the web firm.

Never Stop Improving!

Never stop improving!