Are You Too Hip?

Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
When you are coming up with a design for your company’s website, there can be a temptation to put together something flashy and trendy. After all, websites like that can be amusing to play around with.

But before you bust out all the bells and whistles, take a minute to think about exactly what you want your clients to see when they open up your page.

Your Site Should Look Like You…

There are some people in your life who just wouldn’t look quite right if they rolled up to a meeting sporting 28 piercings, a tattoo-covered torso, and a pink mohawk. Your surgeon, for one. Your accountant. Since you need to trust these individuals with very specific and important life situations, a biker jacket might not be their best wardrobe choice.

The same is true for your website. If you want your company to seem legit, you might want to skip the crazy animations and other funky extras and focus on making sure that your website sends a clear message about your products and services. You’ve worked hard to become an expert in your particular field, and you want your site to appropriately showcase the awesome business you’ve developed.

There might be brilliant attorneys out there who enjoy wearing their hair in multicolored mullets, but a lawyer who looks the part is more likely to earn the confidence of his clients.

…And It Should Look Like Your Clients

As always, you have to consider your audience. You might be able to get away with a lot of wild sights and sounds on your website if your clients are, say, eleven-year olds on a sugar high. If your client base is mostly regular, everyday adults, then a conservatively designed website is probably best for you. If there’s even a chance that your clients might get annoyed or turned off by a fancy schmancy website, you should stick to something simple and user-friendly.

The moral - Whether you like it or not, people judge books by their covers, professionals by their attire, and companies by their websites. Make sure yours is getting the right information across and making your business look good. Let YouTube handle the entertainment.

Have You Assembled your A-Team?

Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
Lost in The Web Jungle

There are bo-jillions of great e-marketing tools out there. Company web sites, social networking sites, forums, blogs, youtube, email, etc.

All are powerful by themselves. But they’re most powerful when integrated into a complete marketing strategy.

Assemble Your A-Team

Would the A-Team have worked so well without the individual personalities of each member? No way. and I pity the foo’ who thinks his marketing can survive with a website alone (sorry - I couldn't resist).

Your goals will require a few different tools, each with it’s own role to play. Before jumping into the world of e-marketing, you need to know your Howlin’ Mad Murdock from your B.A. Baracus.

Your e-marketing tools are like employees. Your salespeople make sales, your project managers get things done, your customer service people make your customers happy. The cooks cook, the servers serve, the bartender makes drinks, and the busboys clean up. Switch things up and you’ll have cold food, weak drinks, and pretty soon no customers.

Who’s Driving This Thing?

The moral: know the strengths of your media. Your blog positions you, rallies community and helps with SEO. Don’t ask it to make sales calls - It won’t succeed, and you’ll lose a lot of your community. Your email campaigns are good for direct marketing and communicating messages. Don’t use them as chat forums. Too many email blasts will decimate your mailing list as people get annoyed and unsubscribe.

And don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal. Without something to strive for, your marketing efforts will quickly dilute.

Update Your Site, Increase Your Sales

Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
Your website needs to be regularly updated. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again now, and I’ll say it as often as I darn-well need to get you to believe me.

A common reason for an update is a new offer from your business. If you’re doing some kind of crazy midnight sale for the first 100 people that show up with their pants on backwards, it should obviously go on your website.

To make the most out of your update, put together a few different techniques:

1. A Landing Page A landing page is a page on your website where you might send someone first. When you’ve got a great offer to talk about, you should have a landing page about it. It contains all the relevant details and some copy that compels people to take action.

2. A Home Page Button Right on your homepage there should be a button that leads to your offer’s landing page. This way the casual visitor to your site immediately discovers your offer, and only has to click once to learn about it.

3. An Email Campaign A couple weeks before your event, run an email campaign that builds interest in your event. Work with our eMarketing team to create an attractive frame and engaging copy, and include links directly to your landing page.

Update like this, and see your web site go from online billboard to interactive marketing mega-tool.

5 Ways to Avoid Getting Duped on Review Sites

Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
Last week we told you about a company that forced it’s employees to write glowing reviews of it’s services on independent rating sites. The company was eventually sued, but not before some unsuspecting people got duped.

When you read reviews on rating sites, take each one with a grain of salt. Here are five grains to help you evaluate the independence of a reviewer:

Is it all positive? Good reviewers know that their opinion is valuable only if it’s honest. Reviews that don’t touch on negatives or downsides to a service may not be in touch with the same reality that we normal people live in. Be skeptical of the all positive review.

Is it hyperbole? Does the review use a lot of extreme phrases like “Amazing” or “will change your life”? Chances are good that you won’t have the same experience. Call me a cynic, but I think we’re pretty well-educated consumers, and it’s rare that a product or service can truly amaze us.

Does the reviewer have a profile? If a review smacks of insincerity, read the writer’s profile. If possible, read other reviews they’ve written and compare the writing style. Do they always write the same way? Have they written reviews that bash competitors? Both are indicators of where a writer is coming from.

Does the reviewer rate other things? A good way to measure the value of a review is to see what else a reviewer has rated. If they’ve only written reviews of this one service, there’s probably a reason (e.g. maybe the place is owned by a friend). If they’ve written many reviews and come to different, realistic conclusions, you’re probably getting more honest answers.

Does the review apply to you? When I lived in Brooklyn, I used to get my hair cut at a barber shop that served alcohol. Actually, more like a barber shop that let you serve yourself some of their alcohol. They had this little bar in the back, and you could just grab a glass of whatever you wanted. It was the craziest thing.

It was a pretty cool little spot, but let me tell you something - it was not kid friendly. It was raw, smoky, and ... well let’s just say “Not P.C.”

I would have written a good review of the place, but I bet any mom who brought her kid in for a haircut would have given it a horrible review. Fair enough. It’s up to the reader to determine which of our reviews applies to him or her.



Hope this helps.

-Dave