I will be the guest speaker on Saturday 6/12/10, in Las Vegas, for The Odd Couple® Marketing & Strategy Seminar for Speakers, Consultants & Coaches, conducted by Dr. Alan Weiss and Patricia Fripp as I will share the stage with them. I will be discussing and presenting one of my favorite topics: Million Dollar Web Sites. Hope to see you there.

Below are three videos testimonials from Patrica Fripp taped (a couple of years ago) after one of my presentation.

Why Web Strategy?

Your site As Your 24×7 Extension

Chad Barr Guest Speaker for The Odd Couple

http://www.chadbarr.com/testimonial-from-patricia-fripp/

A great question was recently asked on an online forum my company implemented, which I often participate and help moderate:

“Lately I have been hearing people talk about having their websites done on a WordPress platform so they can make quick changes on their own. Is anyone doing this? If so, is it as easy as others are making it sound? Are there any other benefits to switching over? ”

WordPress (WP), which is the tool or technical engine we use for this blog and many others we develop, is a great option to consider not just for the development of blogs but also for the creation of robust web sites as well. We have developed quite a few sites already using this tool and including the amazing and upcoming site of: Alan & The Gang.
Here are some of the pros and cons whether to use WordPress to create robust web sites:

Pros:

1. Allow the site owner to publish their own content updates and create new pages. Most such content changes may then be accomplished by a non-technical person.
2. Easier ways of integrating video and audio podcasting.
3. Give complete flexibility to your technical team to design the site to have a unique and outstanding look and feel that does not resemble a blog structure at all.
4. Enable easier interface with RSS so visitors may subscribe to automatically receive your site updates.
5. Take advantage of WordPress improvements to advance your site functionality.
6. Gain access to a WP community to learn new ideas and implement new software functionality via plugins.
7. Empower yourself with the ability at your leisure to quickly publish revised and new content on your site.

Cons:

1. Security is the biggest issue from my perspective. WP sites are possibly easier to hack into than other sites. I therefore recommend you do update your site and install security patches often.
2. When you update to the latest version of WP, some of your installed software functionality programs (plugins) may not work anymore.
3. The need to update the software and plugins often.
4. You must become familiar with the plugins concept to avoid the possibility of installing harmful code on your site. If you are not sure, read this horror story.
5. May become time consuming to stay on top of the necessary knowledge.
6. Updating the content does require some technical knowledge which not all people are apt to do.
7. Although it may seem that a non-technical user may be able to use this tool, don’t fool yourself. There are many issues that require the knowledge of an expert and when one is used this point should be place in the pros section above.
8. Backing up a worpress site is a bit more complicated than a static site since it contains databases. As basic as this sounds, do not underestimate the importance of backing up your site on a daily basis.

Upon review of probably thousands of web sites over the years, I have come to the conclusion that in order for your organization to be successful on the Internet, 3 key elements must be accomplished to generate such success:

Design: Your site ought to be professionally designed, attractive and engaging and be easy to navigate in order to quickly gain the visitors’ attention and interest. Good use of images is important as well as the use of action shots of you with your clients.

Content: Your site must focus on your visitors’ interest and addresses the question of what’s in it for them and how to improved their businesses and lives. To accomplish this, strong content must be developed in the form of products, services, and intellectual property while constantly evolving.

Strategy & Tactics: What should the business look like and how should it position itself online. What Internet components are critical to make the business a success. How should you reach and communicate with your current and future customers? Should they be able to purchase products, read articles, subscribe to newsletters, communicate through blogs and online communities?

With that in mind, please review the chart below and notice the obvious at the points of interaction of the circles:

1. The Missing Map – This organization has a site that is well designed with great content yet no defined strategy and tactics to create an Internet success. It’s like driving a great car without a GPS system or an effective map to follow. You’ll be wondering why you are not reaching your destination.
2. The Ugly Book Cover – This organization has a site that has great content and powerful and effective strategies and tactics yet the site is poorly designed and navigated. Most visitors would either close their browsers or press the back button to go to their previous site.
3. The Boring Show – This organization has a site that reminds me of going to see a theater show that was well advertised and promoted with great and colorful posters. Yet when you get to finally watch it, there is nothing there. Just a terrible and boring show. Some site unfortunately suffer from the same syndrome.
4. Success - This organization is reaping the most benefits of effective web strategies. Any missing element and success is either delayed or non-existent. Yet when all three circles and elements intersect that ultimate success is achieve.

Where are you?

© Chad Barr 2009. All rights reserved.

In an article I wrote some time ago, To infinity & beyond – Nine practical techniques to take your web site to the next level, I emphasized the importance of effectively testing your web site. This means that you need to test your site not only when you are ready to launch it for the first time but also when you make frequent changes to it. Let me show an example:

You may already know that when typing a web address in your browser you may save the amount of keystrokes and elect to take a shortcut. This means that you do not need to include the “http://www.” or the “www.” before the domain name. So for example, if I wish to enter this blog name in my browser I may type “chadbarr.com” instead of “www.chadbarr.com” or instead of the entire “htttp://www.chadbarr” which is often used by many.

Some time ago, a colleague recommended I check the blog by David Meerman Scott who also wrote the book The New Rule of Marketing & PR which I highly recommend. I launched by browser and typed “webinknow.com” and got this error screen suggesting the domain name I type was not found:

Upon further search on Google I found the blog I was looking for:

I then realized that the person who set up the blog did not take into consideration setting it up in such a way that enables visitors to type the shortcut into your browser. No big deal you may say, and although I may slightly agree, why not make it easy for your visitors to find your sites and reduce the chance of annoyance or creating the wrong assumption that your site is down or does not exist?

I then decided to visit David’s main site. When I got to his home page (as displayed below) I  was unable to click on the top right two links which are the Blog and Bio options although they both worked on the interior pages.

This error is quite common in my experience and I am not suggesting that I am immune of it in our own work. But I do suggest however is that if it happens to the best of us it may happen to you as well. Why not take the extra few seconds and test your sites thoroughly and on an ongoing basis?

© Chad Barr 2009. All rights reserved.

The blah factor is my fancy technical term to describe web sites (not blogs) that have way too much text on their home page. I came across the site below and am depicting it as an illustration of the ubiquitous nature of this problem on the web. During my speaking engagements I often compare and show effective home pages to highway billboards and/or the front cover of most effective books. You only have a few seconds to grab your audience attention and establish credibility. This is not going to happen with vast amount of text and words to convey your message. Remember in this case: “Less is more.” I recommend you significantly reduce the amount of text on your home page, replace it with engaging and professional images or sections, with powerful sound bytes to grab attention that entice the visitor to click, learn more and explore.

The three screen shots below represent the scrolling through the home page of this site that its main focus is to help you become more productive with your time management issues. I suggest they help us become more productive by eliminating most of the text and getting a grip of their home page.

1. It provides another serious and viable option to traditional marketing, which is already and successfully being utilized by the vast majority of organizations.

2. It enables individuals (Customers, suppliers, your staff) to interact with each other, share their experiences of using the products and services, create additional exposure and buzz.

3. It is often quick and rapid to implement.

4. It is often quite economical.

5. It reaches beyond borders and with global exposure.

6. It creates a virtual 24×7 salesman.

7. It allows your customers to interact with you at their convenience.

8. It enables your customers to get instant answers to their questions.

9. Dramatically improve your time to market, which means, leverage the Internet to rapidly introduce and launch new products and services.

10. Stay better connected with your customers, suppliers and your own organization.

11. When the first car was introduced, there were probably quite a few people rejecting the new technology and insisting they keep using their horse. As Henry Ford said, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have asked for a better horse.” Are you the one to embrace technology or reject it?

12. One of our clients that sells large and expensive machinery used to have to take pictures of their inventory, print them and FedEx them to interested buyers. The buying decision took days or weeks to be made. Then came digital cameras and email, and we expedited the process significantly. And then came a fully integrated web site that enabled the customer to make an instant buying decision.

13. We have just scratched the surface with what is available to be done with the Internet and how to strategically use it to grow our business. Don’t find yourself left behind.

I just spent a couple of terrific days in Rhode Island where I delivered my speech on “Successfully leveraging the Internet to Drive Value to Your Customers” to the current class of Dr. Alan Weiss’s Million Dollar Consulting College. One of the items I covered during my speech was how to create instant credibility with your web site. More on that in a future article I will be writing. In the mean time, the key components as I see to create such credibility are: your intellectual property, case studies, your clients’ testimonials, description of the positive results your client receive from working with you and your clients’ list. See chart below:

After my speech and before dinner, we all assembled in Alan’s suite and got to brainstorm and discuss some great topics, while hearing some great stories over red wine. I pulled out my flip video, shot some great ones and uploaded them to YouTube and Alan’s blog. Here is a great sample about asking for referrals:

To see the rest, check out the following links. You are sure to enjoy them, I promise:Click here for the boom box story.

Click here for seven more videos.

Click here for the frog story.

I don’t get the thinking with web sites that incorporate the concept of “Under Construction” or “Coming Soon” pages. Some sites I visit incorporate these pages to attempt and let us know that these pages are going to be released soon. Some do that on their home page thus suggesting that the entire site will be launched soon. When I see such pages here is what crosses my mind:

1. You are wasting my time navigating your site, thus aggravating me.
2. You are telling me that you are unable to meet your own deadlines and finish your commitments.
3. Marketing your own company is not a priority for you.
4. The methods you and your Webmaster are using are amateurish.
5. There is a good chance these pages will never change.

Here are my recommendations:

1. Finish developing all the content necessary for all pages on your site and only then should you launch your site.
2. Eliminate all pages from your site that content is not ready yet.
3. If you can commit and guarantee that the pages or your entire site will be available on a certain date, it is ok to announce the following: “Thank you for visiting this page, please check back on xx/xx/xx when this page will be launched.”

The examples below not only illustrate my points above, but they also demonstrate business negligence. These pages have been there for over a year. I suggest they either take the page or site down or complete writing the content.

(click on images to enlarge):

Do you still use the phone book to find a company’s phone number? I personally forgot what one looks like and prefer to save the drawer space for other use. Instead, I rely on the Internet to get phone numbers when I need to contact a given organization. I find it irritating and surprising when companies make it a real challenge to be able to contact them. When I tried reaching AT&T the other day, there was no easy way for me to contact them from their home page. I had to spend the time navigating the site and aggravating myself before finding their phone number. Verizon makes it easier as they enabled the “Contact Us” link at the bottom left of the screen. Apple truly got it! They display the phone# as well as easy links to contact them.

How easy is it to contact you by phone or email or even get your address?

Take a look at the examples below or visit our web site for an effective example.

(click on images to enlarge):

When visiting web sites, how often do you click on a link which takes you to another site? Probably quite often you would answer since this is the basic foundation to how the world of the Internet works. But when clicking on that link, does the next page open in the same browser window or a new one?

Make sure your web master does the following: When developing the navigation for your site, all available links within your own site should open in the same browser window. Opening your own site in multiple browser windows is not only a poor design error but also irritating to the visitor. However, if you decide that you must link to other sites from your own web site, make sure you open up the link in a separate browser window while keeping your site open in the current window. This logic will enable the user to visit the new site, and when closing that window or tab they will be returned to your site which is still open. Otherwise, they are gone and probably will not be back.

Click here for an example of a hyperlink to another browser session and click here for an example of a hyperlink in the same browser window. (You will have to press the go back arrow to return to this page.)

WYSIWYG – This popular acronym (pronounced “wiz-ee-wig”) has become popular when screen graphic presentations become virtually identical to those when printing or displaying them on the web. For example, the way you design your screen graphic presentation in a word document will be identical if printed or published to the web. I would however like to caution you that a serious issue might exist distorting your web site and creating what I call the WYSINAWYG syndrome. “What you see is NOT ALWAYS what you get.”

When was the last time you or your web development partner decided to test your site to make sure it properly displays and works through the major web browsers and even some older browsers? If you think this may not be a big issue, you should read the rest of this post.

We always attempt to take advantage of the latest in programming languages that is available to us when developing web sites for our clients. We also focus on the latest and greatest in browser technology. I come to realize that this might create serious challenges with individuals using older technologies who are not quick to upgrade their software and Internet browsers.

Below are three screen-capture examples from David Newman’s blog. Notice the books on the right hand side displaying properly in Microsoft Internet Explorer browser (click on images to enlarge):

In the next display using the Mac Safari browser, notice that only four books are showing on the right hand side and several are actually missing:

Below is the example using the Firefox browser, which happens to be my default and favorite browser. Notice that the books are displaying diagonally from right to left and are actually distorting the text of the post:

Here is an interesting chart showing that the most popular browsers are Microsoft IE7, IE6 and Firefox (which is constantly gaining popularity.)

Which brings me to my final point and recommendation that you test your web site(s) using these top browsers as well as Safari. Or you too may be surprised that what you intended to be shown is not correctly shown.

What You Say Online May Damage Your Credibility

As I write on this quite often, blogs are a powerful tool to enable you to rapidly publish content about you and your company. If done well, they can add tremendous credibility for your organization and create an online dialog between you and your customers. However, I would also like to caution you that if in the wrong hands, blogs might become a competitive advantage for your competitors.

We use Constant Contact as our email distribution engine when electronically delivering our clients’ newsletters and ours. We find it easy to use, extremely stable and it generates good successful results. While reviewing newsletter services available from other companies, I came across an interesting company by the name of iContact. When visiting their blog, I was surprised to read their own post from 1/22/08 and 1/28/08 reporting serious issues with their products and how they fixed it. As an Internet and software development company, I do believe in taking action, communicating with customers and being responsible when software defects are discovered. However, I do not find this public open admission to be a good business practice. It’s one thing to contact and notify the customers affected, let them know of the issues and how you have taken care of it now and for the future. It’s another to openly broadcast this message on your blog, scare away potential new customers or even existing ones and give your competitors great research ammunition to use against you.

(Screens capture from iContact blog. click on images to enlarge):

The second most successful outcome of a newsletter strategy is to increase your email distribution list. The first of course is to increase your business with new orders and new projects. I’ve written on this topic extensively in my articles section on my web site as well as here on this blog. Checkout my previous article: How to grow your email distribution list for a good place to start. The best and most ethical practice is when visitors add themselves to your distribution list. Another option is to send a personal email to someone you’ve met and invite them to join your newsletter or ask them verbally for their permission to do so when you are with them. I would even suggest that it is somewhat acceptable to take the liberty and add someone to your list if you had a strong contact with them. However, you must allow them to easily reject your invitation (opt-out) by either allowing them to reply to your invitation or easily opt-out when they receive your newsletter.

My strong position remains that it is intrusive, poor business practice and unethical to add “strangers” to your list without their permission. When I get such obnoxious emails I view these individuals as desperate spammers, poor business people whom I would never do business with.

Checkout the following irritating example. Without my permission, I was placed on this email newsletter from someone (monica@monicawofford.com) whom I’ve never met before. Below is the newsletter that opened up in my email (click on images to enlarge):

I immediately realized that this has no value for me, so I paged down to the bottom of the email to look for the unsubscribe option. There, all the way at the bottom of the page I noticed the “Update e-mail preferences” option:

When I clicked on it I realized a serious problem with this person’s logic. The email address embedded into the preferences option was not my own but their generic newsletter1@contagiousconferences.com address which would not allow me to unsubscribe. Here is what this screen looked like:

Now I started to get irritated. But quickly thinking on my feet, I realized I could simply reply to her original newsletter email and tell her to unsubscribe me. So I did, and within seconds of sending my email I got an email reply from her server (see below):

Apparently and in order to reduce the spam she receives, she decided to use this SpamArrest software (intrusive and I would NEVER
recommend it) which forces a first time user (such as me) to click on the link and request her permission to accept the email. Now I was livid. First, this confirmed that we were complete strangers who never exchanged emails before. Second, this demonstrated the hypocrisy of her trying to protect herself from the spamming techniques she was using on others.

I did click on the link to make sure she hopefully gets my email. The screen bellow did confirm that my email was hopefully sent.

Smirking, I looked at the screen pondering how better this world would be if these amateurs were arrested by the spam police.

Here is an example of web site from Poole Resources that unfortunately was not a project my company worked on. Part of the strategy of this web site was an attempt to incorporate and build an online community attracting the company’s customers to interact with each other and the owner of the company. The attempt was not only a failure but it is actually a continuing disaster. Let me explain:

Below is the screen capture of the home page. Notice the “Fast Forum Access” option on the right hand side to enable you to click on in order to access the online community forum. So far so good. (Click on images to enlarge):

When entering the first forum page (screen capture below) notice the very few number of posts at the top right of the screen. Not only are there meager 13 posts, they are all from three years ago and showing no activity since. This alone should have been a strong enough reason to realize this strategy is not working and to either research it further or take the forum down and remove any reference to it on the web site.

When paging down (next screen below) I was amazed to see 5826 registered users. Something did not add up for me. How could you have thousands of users with so few posts?

I scrolled back to the top (screen capture below) and clicked on “Memberlist” and then sort by “Joined Date” in “Descending” order. When I clicked on the “Sort” button, the amazing devastating answer became clear to me. This forum registration page is being spammed by despicable porn sites and similar other web sites. Just reviewing the “Username” is enough to tell the story, but when clicking on the “Website” option … oh my!

I have tried contacting the owner of this site a couple of times in the past 2 years. I emailed her to contact me immediately and stated that I have some critical information about her sites that is potentially harming her reputation. No reply from her yet.

What are you thinking of?

My colleague, Dan Janal, runs a great operation with his company PRLEADS. His company focuses on helping individuals get quoted in top-notch publications. I know many people that use Dan’s company and get great results and are quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Business Week to just name a few. I met Dan and he does run a great operation that provides terrific value.

Some time ago, Dan started a new blog by the name of: Cool Book of the Day, which actually is a great idea, allowing authors to feature their books. However, I have two key issues with this blog:

The first is Dan’s decision to use Google ads in an attempt to possibly make money. Please look at the first two screen shots (click on the images to enlarge) and tell me how are ads about losing belly fat, quitting your job, and pushing hard the love button, help in establish strong business credibility about the book, the author or Dan’s blog. I believe it ruins everyone’s credibility. Realize that the two screen are capturing the same identical blog page but demonstrate how Google controls changing these ads at different times.

(First google ad)

(Same screen a couple of seconds later with a different google ad)

I read blogs using a blog reader, which allows me to review multiple blogs instantaneously to quickly pick and choose the entry I may be interested in reading. It also saves me the time it would otherwise take to visit each blog in order to check if any of them has anything new to read. The concept has been there for a while and it uses RSS technology, but that is for another article. The reader I happen to use is the popular Google reader. Take a look at the screen shot below, which shows the same identical blog above through my Google Reader. Notice that it does NOT show the Google Ads. This is a huge consideration if you are thinking of utilizing Google Ads in your blog.

(Same screen of above blog page displayed in Google Reader

The second issue I have is more about the content. It seems to me that the author of each book had to simply answer several questions about their book rather than Dan interviewing them and writing his own review. But that would probably take some work.

Finally, his blog uses the Amazon affiliate program. This means that you are able to click on a book, which will then take you directly to the proper Amazon page. If you are then interested in ordering it online, the blog owner (most likely Dan) will earn some dollars. I do not have a key issue with this concept since I do the same on my own blog. The difference is that I believe you need to have a disclaimer about this in order to create credibility. Mine is at the bottom of the “About Chad Barr” page, which states that I will donate 100% of the affiliate program income to my favorite charities.

This article is intended to demonstrate how some decisions have the potential to ruin your credibility utilizing the wrong Internet tools and concepts.

Improving your web site effectiveness.

In my quest to constantly improve our clients’ web sites and develop better and new successful Internet strategies for their business, I come across and review many web sites on a daily basis.

To illustrate and discuss the “good, bad and ugly” techniques used by others, and us, I am starting a new blog category today. “How to improve your web site effectiveness” will be devoted exactly for that purpose, discussions and illustrations of such practices, both good and bad. Please realize this category will reflect my personal bias and opinion, which you are welcome to disagree with. I would really like to hear your opinion and your sharing of other sites and concepts you think are bad practice or helpful.

This following site: www.singletongroup.com used to be a consultant web site and had all the basic elements of such a site. Recently it was changed to the following page:

(click image to enlarge)

Please realize that this page is the entire site now. There are no other sub pages to navigate. My assessment:

1. If this person is on vacation and it is their way of communicating such message, I see it as a poor sense of humor that would turn off customers.
2. If this person’s server was hacked (high jacked by someone else) I hope for their sake they recognize this soon.
3. If they decided to retire, I believe there are better ways of announcing it. But then again, they may not care.

I love a good sense of humor and I believe you can easily leverage it in your writing and professional web site development. However, this is definitely not such an example. Watch out what message your site conveys.