Not Just Pretty | Building An Effective Small Business Brand

Why You Won't Get Instant Gratification From the Search Engines and What to Do About It

Today, people expect instant gratification. There's IM, instead of slow postal service. Instant video downloads, for those spur-of the moment entertainment needs. There are "instant noodles" when taking a few minutes to cook something just won't do. And, of course, instant coffee for people who aren't willing to brew a real cup.

So, when it's time to get your website listed on the search engines, it's only natural for you to want to be up on Google right away. I can't tell you how many emails I've gotten from clients right after I've let them know that their site is launched, saying "But, I Googled myself, and I'm not there! Why not?"

There is no instant gratification when it comes to the search engines.

Even though it would be ideal for your site to be picked up by the search engines the instant that it's launched, that's just not how it works in the real world. There are two major roadblocks to your site showing up on the search engines:

1. There are a lot of stops on the search engines' itinerary. The search engines don't just find out about your site through some sort of Internet magic. They have a list of sites that their robots have to stop by and "index." Which means the robots have to read the content on these sites, figure out what it all means, and then decide how to rank them.

It doesn't take that long to index an average site, but there are a lot of sites out there to visit. The sheer numbers mean that it will take a while for them to get around to visiting your new site.

2. Google has a built-in waiting period. Recently, we talked about Google's trust issues, (see the article here: http://www.elf-design.com/article-SEO-Trust-Issues.html) which come from unethical website developers trying to cheat and get better rankings where they didn't deserve them. The waiting period is another consequence of that lack of trust.

Some website developers were trying to take advantage of the search engines by constantly starting up new sites and artificially improving their ranking through links and other strategies. Google figured this out and created a waiting area it calls the "Sandbox." Think of it as a place for the baby websites to play while they grow up.

This is bad news for anyone just launching a website—Google won't let you into its results for the duration of the waiting period, which seems to last anywhere from 6 months to a full year at this point. For a small business, waiting that long to get noticed can really hurt!

You don't just have to kick back and wait, though.

Yes, while being patient will certainly get you listed on the search engines eventually, there are a few things you can do in the mean time to get things started.

To get the robots to come and visit faster:

• Tell the search engines that you're there. I've said it a million times, but here it goes again: just telling the search engines that your site is out there can go a long way toward getting you listed quicker.

• Get links coming in to your site from other quality sites. Perhaps you have business associates who will do you a favor by linking their site to yours. Or, you may be able to find blogs that you can contribute an article to. Even submitting your link to organizations that you belong to—like the Chamber of Commerce or a professional organization—can help you get noticed.
  To avoid getting stuck in the sandbox trap:

• Don't get a new domain name if you don't have to. The sandbox seems to only apply to websites with new domain names. So, if you're launching a new site for a service or product, consider launching it within an existing site.

• Launch a temporary site ASAP instead of waiting for perfection. If you have a new domain name, or if this is your first website, get something up right away. Having anything available at your URL is better than nothing. Find a template that's not too terrible, or have your designer create a simple one-page site to post at your domain while your real site is under development. This gives Google something to stick in the sandbox while you're creating your grown-up site.
  Even if your website design goes quickly, you'll still have at least a few weeks of sandbox time behind you before you launch. Better yet, get a domain name and put up a temporary site as soon as you know that you're going to eventually want a website. That way, while you're searching for the right designer, writing your web copy, and designing your site, you'll also be reducing the time that you'll have to wait to show up in the search results.

• Pair your website with a blog. There's some evidence that blogs are picked up by Google much faster than a website alone and that they don't have to sit in the sand. Even if a blog doesn't help your "real" site get noticed more quickly, it will give you a presence in the search engine results and will increase your chances of getting found.
  

While you still won't get instant gratification from the search engines, these tips will help you get your site listed on the search engines more quickly.

Should you put your icon inside your business name on your logo?

QUESTION:
What do you think about putting a logo icon inside the business name? For example, a circular icon in place of an "O"?

ANSWER:
I don't recommend placing the icon in the name. It reduces both the legibility of the name and the scalability of the logo.

Sure, it looks cool, but for a small business, the legibility/scalability are more important to the success of your brand. You don't want to make reading your company name any harder on your viewer.

The people looking at your logo are already in a hurry, and probably not paying a whole lot of attention. If you challenge them further by trying to be clever, you could confuse them, frustrate them, or even make them think that your name is something else - if they mis-read the icon as a different letter, then that's no good.

Placing the icon beside, above, or in some other orientation separate from your business name, then you'll get more impact for your logo.

Why Starting A Relationship With The Search Engines Can Be Hard

In a singles bar, patrons typically have the same sorts of insecurities running through their heads:

"I've been hurt before."
"Should I trust her?"
"Can I let my walls down and let him in?"

These insecurities really get in the way of finding a happy, lasting relationship.

Search Engines have a lot in common with singles. They've been hurt, and they aren't so quick to trust any more.

What You Need To Know About The Search Engines' Pasts

Search engines have had a difficult relationship history. They've tried to be open-hearted and trusting. But unethical website owners, spammers, and other cheaters have used their trusting ways against them and worked their way into the top of the rankings with lies.

And search engines get hurt by that. Their job, above all else, is to help the people using them to search for information. When spammers rather than valid websites get to the top, the search engines can't do their jobs well. That frustrates searchers, and the search engines don't help them find what they need.

So how can you get the search engines to trust your website enough to list it? The answer is to know what they are looking for when you start a relationship with them.

Don't just give them another line (of code)

The search engines no longer use the META Keyword tag when ranking your site. This tag is hidden at the top of your website's HTML. It used to be one of the major areas the search engines looked at when determining what your site was all about.

The intent of this tag was for site owners to list words and phrases explaining what their sites were about. But it was rarely used in ethical ways. People would list terms they thought would help their sites come up in popular searches—"free," "money," and "sex" were all popular back in the early days of the Internet.

After a while, this practice was so widespread that the search engines decided to do something about it. They stopped looking at this tag at all.

These days, the most common use of the META Keyword tag is your competitors researching your optimization strategy. If you already use a META Keyword tag, consider having it removed. If you're coding or optimizing your website, leave it off and concentrate on putting your keywords in the body text of your website instead—where they belong.

They want you to put all your cards on the table.

A while ago, some website owners decided they wanted to have very little copy on their sites. They still wanted to come up strong on the search engines. The search engines were no longer really looking at the META tags. The problem was how to have a site that looked as though it had very little text but still had enough information for the search engines to give it a good ranking.

Some of these website owners came up with what they thought was a brilliant solution. They'd add more text to the site at the bottom of the page below the copyright. And they'd make this text the same color as the background—which basically meant that it was invisible to human website visitors. But the search engines would still see it in the code, read it, and count it toward their ranking.

The search engines caught on to this little trick pretty quickly. If they catch you at it, they'll blacklist your site, which means that they'll kick it out of their results listing. And it will be really difficult to get back in! So make sure our site isn't using any invisible text—and that all the text on the site is visible to humans and the search engines.

They hate doors and mirrors.

Have you ever searched for something online and clicked on what you thought was the perfect match, only to come to what was little more than a full-page advertisement or a bunch of links? Disappointing, isn't it? And then there's a link at the bottom of the page pointing to the site you originally thought you were originally going to? By this point, you already have a sour taste in your mouth.

Or you're looking for a piece of information and you click a couple of links that look like exactly the same site with slightly different words. You get a sense of déjà vu and start to feel a bit like you're losing your mind, right?

This tactic is called doorway and mirror sites. The search engines feel exactly the same way that you do about them—because, again, the search engines want searchers to be happy with the results they get from their queries, not disgruntled or confused.

When you start your relationship with the search engines, make sure that your site optimization strategy focuses on ethical ways of getting their attention—like being content-rich, having links with other high-quality sites (not link farms!), and updating your site on a regular basis. Those tactics will ensure that you start a love affair with the search engines instead of just heading for a bad breakup.

Brochure Card

Another brochure card project for an interior redesigner. This card gives the client a chance to show what her work can do for her clients.

More information on brochure cards is available at:
http://www.elf-design.com/services-stand-out-brochure-card.html

Where to put your contact info on a trifold brochure

When you're designing a trifold brochure, you have to put your contact information someplace on the brochure. The only question is, where?

There are a few options:
On the front
Whether you put the contact info on the front depends on your customers' level of familiarity with you.

If your brochure is meant for customers who are already familiar with you, and just need ordering information (like a take-out menu or spa menu), then the front is the best place for the contact info - that way, they can get what they're looking for quickly.

If you're creating the brochure for new customers, then putting all your contact info on the front is probably a bit early in the "relationship" to be asking clients to contact you. If that's the case, then reserve the front for making your product or service look extra-attractive.

Inside
The inside of your brochure may have many opportunities for calls to action - bits of text where you ask your customers to contact you. If this is the case, then plan to include at least some contact info - your phone number, email or website - next to the call to action. You may want to include multiple contact methods near the call to action.

On The Back
This is my favorite place to put the contact info on a product or high-end service brochure. This is typically a panel that people look at after looking at the cover - at minimum - so it doesn't look like you're asking for the sale right off the bat. The customer will be warmed up by looking at the rest of the brochure before you tell them to get in touch with you.

Also, the back is easy enough to get to if people do want to contact you immediately. People can just flip the brochure over instead of wading through all the text and unfolding the pages if they just want to call you or find your website.

I typically recommend putting the contact information in the bottom third of this back panel. I also recommend including some sort of call to action above all the contact information - it can help to spur the reader into actually using the contact information to get in touch with you instead of setting the brochure aside or putting it in the recycling bin.

Sizing Your Thank You Notes

How do you choose the size for your thank-you note or note card?

The standard thank-you card sizes are:
3.5" x 5"
4.25" x 6"
5" x 7"

Not only will going with a standard size reduce your printing costs, but you'll also have no problem finding envelopes for these. (Think about whether you want your mailing envelopes to be designed and printed or if you need mailing labels. Handwriting your address is a more personalized option, but can get tedious.

The choice of card size depends on how much you tend to write on the inside - you want to have enough space for the length of message that you tend to write, but not to have it look like it's swimming on a blank page. If you leave too much blank space in a card, the recipient can feel short-changed or like you didn't take the average time, care and attention when writing their note.

Q&A: Selling products online, part 2

QUESTION:

Once I have an online store, how do I get people to it?

ANSWER:

There are several ways. I'll list them here:

1. Search Engine Optimization.
2. Search Engine Advertising.
3. Telling your clients about it - and promoting your site "live" through speaking events.
4. Email newsletter.
5. Putting ads or articles in other peoples' newsletters.
6. Website ads on other sites.
7. Start a blog and point to your site.
8. Public relations - books, magazines, etc.
9. Writing articles and placing them on other sites.
10. Get your product written about on other blogs.

Also, make sure that your product is:
1. Reasonably priced.
2. Well explined on your site.
3. Useful.
4. Built for a specific target audience.

And, that your site is:
1. Well built.
2. Well designed.
3. Easy to use.
4. Easy for people to check out on.
5. Using a trustworthy cart/ card processor so that people don't get spooked.

All of these considerations can help you to make more sales.

Large-format Trifold Brochure

Here's a trifold brochure that I created for Women In Consulting. I head their design committee.

This is a larger-than-normal trifold brochure; instead of folding out to 8.5" x 11", it folds out to 14 inches wide, which gives more real estate for copy.

Q&A: Selling products online

QUESTION:

What infrastructure do I need to seriously sell products and services on the web?

ANSWER:

You need to have a few backbone elements hooked up in order to get your stuff "out there" online.

In order to get a basic website out there, you need:

1. A domain name - the www.yourbusinessname.com part that serves as your web address. There's a yearly fee for this, but it's usually around $9.

2. A website host - this is like renting a place for your website files to live, where they'll be accessible 24/7. This enables visitors to see your website. There are monthly or yearly fees for this - usually around $150/year.

Then, you'll need a website. You'll probably need pages:
1. Describing your product/service
2. Detailing your customer service and delivery policies
3. About your background and history
4. With your contact information

There may be other pages that will be helpful, but these are the basics. There's usually a one-time design fee, and then a maintenance fee when you need to make changes to your site. The fees depend on the complexity of your site and the extent of your changes.

Next, you'll need the shopping infrastructure:

1. Shopping cart software. Unless you're developing a big store, with lots of products, and you have lots of up-front capital, I recommend using an off-the-shelf cart software program to get things started. They've done all the complicated programming, and will handle keeping the whole thing up and running for you. There are usually monthly service fees, but they're well worth it. I recommend One Shopping Cart - it's pretty easy to set up (comparatively) and it works well for both products and services.

2. A credit card processing solution. This sort of provider allows you to take online payments - it lets people put their credit card numbers in an online form, and deposits the money directly to your bank account. There are transaction and monthly fees associated with this service.

You could also use Paypal, but the per-transaction fees are pretty high, comparatively.

These are the basics of getting a website online and selling online.

Next, you have to get clients to your website - but we'll talk about how to do that next time.

I'm having a SEO teleclass

I just realized that I don't think I've mentioned that I'm having a teleclass on Search Engine Optimization on March 19th - and it's super-cheap because it's the first time I've done this particular class.

Details here:
http://www.elf-design.com/teleclass-SEO.html