Category — Blog
Learning to develop your online strategy to make your web site successful
I’ll start by saying that I’m not an expert in this area (yet), so everything you read hear is a combination of my broad range of experience and knowledge, combined with my enthusiasm for online success. I’m currently filtering these ideas into my work, and evolving my skills to help better myself, my company and most importantly, my customers.
There’s more to driving your site to succeed online than just adding a blog and content syndication to your site. You need to market it, and in turn your brand (often yourself). With the birth of the Web 2.0 phenomenon, it has become common practice to think that a site will succeed purely by bolting on a blog, and sticking up some photos and regularly updating the content.
At to that the social phenomenon, people started adding send to a friend links and social network tags, such as Digg and Facebook. Those are great tools, as long as your users click on them and share your message. You could do it yourself, or ask your friends to do it, but it starts to look a little bit obvious and also reduces your rating on those sites if you continually push your own content in. You need to come up with ways to connect with them and make them want to do it. If you’re really good, and connect well, you don’t even need these tools - look at how well Apple does if you need proof.
This is where the advertising industry has one up on web development companies, and where they should learn from each other. Part of their mission is to connect with the customer - in this case, your site’s user - and make them feel you know them and that they’re special. Rather than relying on you to try and work out what to do and write, they aim to deliver elements that appeal to a broad audience, and bring them in by going a few steps further.
1. Know the brand’s customers. OK, for a new brand, this is where the brand and marketing guys come in, and it’s a little more tricky to get right first time, but what I’m going to say in this blog covers that (think competitors). But what does knowing the customer mean? It means start by looking at who your loyal customers are. The ones that have been with you a while, and will stay with you. I’ll say for example to be generic, that might be the 30-50 age group who grew up with your brand and stayed with it. Then look at the ones around that. How can you market to them without alienating the ones you already do so well with? Read what they read. Watch what they watch. It’s tricky, and something that takes a lot to get just right - I’m about to start doing this for one of my clients and I’m can’t wait to start!
2. Get to know the brand’s rivals. This is a bit of a no-brainer if you think about it. We all know it makes perfect sense, but we also know it’s an easy thing to forget or skim over. What are they doing? When are they doing? And most importantly, what do we do better than them that could boost our market share? Then ask if there’s anything they do better that we need to steer clear of - that’s not to that if they really do do it better, you can’t use it, but make sure it won’t come back to have a detrimental effect on what you’re trying to achieve.
3. Know the brand’s products. Does this sound like an extension of the last points in a way? It shouldn’t! If you don’t know everything about the products you’re trying to sell, how can you do a better job of selling them to people who know nothing about it? Know the strengths. Know the weaknesses (but don’t tell the client). Live and breath their products if you can - or find someone that does.
4. Stay in touch with your users. In the day and age of database this, and database that, it’s easy to slap a ‘Stay in touch’ box on a website. But ask yourself what that actually means? Does it mean a monthly, or bi-annual newsletter perhaps? Perhaps it never gets used. I don’t know. All I know is that when I see that box, and I see it not used to it’s best effect, I get upset. That box means that someone has looked at your site, and thinks that you have something that others don’t, and they want to make sure you tell them what you’re doing. If you don’t talk to them, you’re missing a real opportunity and at the same time letting them down! But then, why not go one step further if the product permits. Why not encourage your users to turn that email address into a user account on your site? One that lets them enter competitions periodically? One that actively encourages them to come back, and also gives you the chance to make their experience that little bit more personal? Make them realise that you really connect with them, and want to ensure they get even more from you than they already have.
5. Get to know them better. When users register for a site, you general collect the basic information. Collecting more than that is difficult, but why not ask them anyway? If you can find out that a large chunk of your sites users actually fall into a category that you want to target in point 1, then you know you’re on the right track or have succeeded. Why not ask them how old they are, what they do, how they found you, would they recommend you, and what they think of you. That’s all information you can potentially use later on to do an email or other promotion to them to help make them feel special and that the brand connects with them. OK, so some of those questions are a little sensitive, and they don’t need to be mandatory, but you could give them an incentive to tell you - and that might encourage them to tell their friends too… Suddenly for that one person, you might have 10-20 more customers just for asking more questions to sell to them.
6. Now work out how to deliver. This is a huge topic, and something that I couldn’t possibly cover here. What sites to advertise on. What sites to contribute to. What will appeal to the online community? Should you be thinking about a viral campaign or a competition? Would a Facebook application or Facebook group work well for you? Perhaps a blog would be enough… Ultimately, it boils down to your client’s budget, but you also need to make them aware of what can be done to give them the best return on their investment.
So that’s 6 points. There’s a lot more than that I could write, but that’s a brief take on what I see as a basic strategy to beginning to succeed online. There’s more to come that feeds off that, like viral marketing, banners, offline to online. The list goes on, but you can see where my head is. I’m in the position of moving from being the Technical Director in charge of delivering sites, to being someone more strategic who comes up with the ideas.
I see the web as a world of opportunity. And damn I’m excited by the direction I’m moving in! Please let me know if I’ve said anything you disagree or perhaps really like. And if you want to give me some words of encouragement that I’m going in exactly the right direction, I always welcome and encourage any feedback.
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June 15, 2008 1 Comment
8 little things about Gregory Brine
I was tagged by Cheb 2.0 to write 8 little things about me.
The meme is basically defined with the following rules:
- Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
- People who are tagged need to write a post on their own blog (about their eight things) and post these rules.
- At the end of your blog, you need to choose people to get tagged and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
Let me begin…
8 Little things about Gregory Brine
1. I’ll get this out in the open for those that haven’t yet read all of my site… I’m an Essex Boy. For those that know, please don’t navigate away. For those that don’t, I’ll leave you to search Google for Essex Boy. Actually, I’m quite proud of where I’m from. So it has some quite entertaining stereotypes, but it’s a beautiful, diverse place - it’s not many places where there’s a car at every set of lights with a deafening sound system and a desire to race down the street whilst earings and fake Ralph Lauren tops dazzle you in your mirror (a lot of them drive slow cars).
2. I’m a Mac Addict too - this isn’t off to a good start is it? 2 confessions in such a short period of time. This is a good one though. I have my dad to thank for this addiction. At the age of 11 he bought me my first Apple Mac LC and I’ve never looked back - thanks dad! From that age, I was working in his advertising agency, getting full marks for presentation at school (content very slightly less). I now own a mac laptop and am the proud owner of an iPhone (and a few other Apple gadgets). And I watch all the mac rumour sites.
3. Golf comes into that love it and hate it part of my life. Some days, it’s the best thing - like this weekend when I beat Chris. Other weekends, the game drags on and on… But it’s like life. It’s a challenge to overcome and when you do, man it feels good! Moment of reflection…. that was deep! But it is a great way to spend an afternoon. Good company, outdoors, you get a tan in summer, and for some people in Australia, it’s yet another excuse to spend a few hours drinking (incidentally, being a golfer from the age of 7, and a club member, that breaks just about every tradition of the game!).
4. Walking… Walking… Walking… I walk everywhere! Really. Some of my friends find it a little annoying at times, but thank me after. I just won’t get cabs unless I’m feeling really lazy! Walking’s great! I’m sorry, but it is. I even walk to and from work some days (that takes about an hour each way!). And when you’re somewhere new, the best way to see it is often on foot. Next time you’re away, try it. You might like, and I know you’ll be surprised how much more of a place you’ll suddenly see!
5. You can nearly always find a camera on me. I love taking pictures (slipped a bit lately, I’ll admit, but that’s more due to time than anything). On my travels I will often come back with so many photos it takes me weeks to sort them all out - and a little longer to re-touch my favourites (when I get time). I’m hoping to do a photography course at the Australian Centre for Photography soon, just need to decide which course now - any suggestions, please let me know.
6. OK… Another confession for those that don’t know me… I’m a geek! Those that do, already know that and are now wondering why I’ve said that. For those that don’t most people don’t guess straight away. But, alas, I do play games, I do like gadgets, certain jokes do amuse me, and I do own some stupid t-shirts (never understand why that’s such a geek thing, but it is). Part of that is that I do love technology, and in particular the web (and Apple stuff). I read about what’s new on the web everyday. I’m always looking for new ideas and approaches. Working out new ways to market and sell sites. I do love the web, and I’m lucky enough to work in that space too.
7. Entertaining my friends and family and how important they are to me. For those that know me, they know how much my friends mean to me and what I will do for them! Among my circle of friends, I’m know as one of the most loyal people, and often become that big brother person that everyone comes to as I usually have a very level head, and will always listen and help if I can. But… I love having friends round for drinks or dinner so I can show off my culinary skills in the kitchen.
8. I love cats! I really love cats! I know some people think they’re evil - I’ll admit they can sometimes be a little self centred - but they’re the best companions! They always make you feel good, want to play and love your attention. We have 3 at my parent’s house and I miss them dearly. I occasionally look after a friend’s over here (landlady won’t let me have one sadly), and it’s so good having her around. A sign that will always stay in my mind and I think is so true is “A house without a cat is not a home”. Never a truer word said.
And there you have it. A little incite into me. There’s a lot more to say, but the challenge was 8. I’ll do another one in a while.
Next, I need to tag aome of my friends to take up the challenge:
- Nomad Pete
- Jatin Valabjee
- Thomas Ritter
- Sushiv Mathur
- Benjamin Christie
- Laura Tjitrafjaja
- James Cox
- Robert Beerworth
June 3, 2008 3 Comments
When building a successful website, think beyond the presentation and back-end code
Following on from my recent post, My concerns about Web Developer’s skill sets since asp.NET came to be, I thought I would justify why I think developers need to know more than just how to code a part of a website.
Lets start with coding itself. A lot of back end (ASP.NET for example) developers don’t care about front-end (presentation layer) code because they believe it is below them for some reason. Unfortunately, what they fail to understand is that knowing the basic principals of how to code the presentation layer can actually be influenced how you do certain things on the back end. It’s OK to rely on the built in controls, they work, that’s why Microsoft put them in, but they also put a lot in to give you that choice and flexibility!
Think about that for a second. Is there a chance that they are too generic and slightly bulky? Is there a chance that one may be quicker to implement, but another will actually give you far more control over the aesthetics of the site (the presentation layer). If you can control that, it will allow the designer to express themselves better, and the client to be more impressed.
The same goes for front-end code. Would making an element a user control or list speed things up, or frustrate the developer that’s got to plug-in the code that will integrate the presentation code with the CMS back end?
But, why stop there? Why not think about how those objects will then affect the performance of the site in terms of speed, longevity and marketing (SEO, SEM, analytics, campaigns, viral, RSS, etc.). If you construct a page in a certain way, you can maximise how Bots for example, index the site. If you build forms and databases in a certain way, you can collect data in a way that makes utilising it for profiling and targeting emails.
OK, so the data collection bit comes under a different area of the process, but it’s a very useful skill to know! If you look at a site, and see a missed opportunity, how good will that make you look? That idea to collect an additional piece of data, or make the user profiling module that bit more flexible suddenly opens the site up to a whole new world of selling back into the client, and in turn, maximising their return, and future spend! You’ve made you company money with an idea, that will hopefully ultimately see you rewarded!
Then there’s SEO and analytics. 2 very broad topics that I will only touch on, but 2 very important ones! If you have some down time, go and have a look at the stats, and see if you can spot anything unusual or useful. Perhaps a page isn’t appearing that you’re sure should be there. Has something happened that could be making that page less favourable to the search engines? Is there a page or particular area of a page that’s performing better than expected? Is there an opportunity to leverage that to drive more people to key information?
And one that amazes me, is how many people in the web industry still don’t know what a blog is, and how an RSS feed should actually work including ‘pinging’. For anyone that wants to work for me, there’s a very good hint as to one of my favourite interview questions!
You can see that there’s more to just coding a website for it to work. It is an area the web is still learning, and it’s only those web site developers that go to the effort of learning above and beyond one area of code, that will ever be a true legend on the web and let them make a name for themselves.
May 24, 2008 No Comments
Spring-cleaning your RSS feeds to keep yourself sane
I love reading about what’s happening and as a result, have subscribed to a lot of RSS Feeds. Be it about Web Development, or around the World News. Some are focused on SEO, some on marketing. There’s ones that are fun such as Dilbert. Several about one of my passions, cars and photography.
But, I have far too many. I’ve recently swapped over to NewsGator’s tools for both mac and PC, and one of them has a curious feature, and one I’ve found myself using far too much. A “Panic Button“. What does it do? Well, when you have too many unread articles, it offers to go through and mark anything that is more than 48hrs old, and unread as read.
It sounds like a trivial thing, but it made me realise that I’d accumulated so many feeds over the years that I rally needed to do some house cleaning. I think in doing that, I’ve probably removed about half the sites I was sub