This subject has a rich heritage dating back to the old newspaper days where big stories were placed on the top half of the page above where the paper gets folded. The school of thought was, people would read this first.  Once they started reading, they would maybe advance in to the newspaper to read the full story.  If they didn’t go past the first page, it didn’t matter because all the important stuff was above the fold. This school of thought carried over to Websites for some bizarre reason and in to the 21st century (even more bizarre).

Most people know that Website users scroll.  You, yourself, indeed scroll.  You had to scroll this page to read what you’re reading now. So, why is it that client’s continually ask to stuff content above the fold (or the first 600 – 800 pixels)? And why do “marketing gurus” (huge expensive companies) continue to advise their clients to make sure everything is  “above the fold”?

Where content flows is different from one device to another.  What you see on a iPad, is totally different from what you see on a PC running IE8 or an Android phone.  Where the content flows is arbitrary these days.  There is no standard or fold.

Some elements for functionality need to be in plain sight and easily accessible on a Web page. For instance the navigation; your audience needs to find this easily.  In this way, you’re helping them find the information they need.  It’s helpful to them.  And certainly your company name and logo need to be in the forefront.

Another key element that should be seen, initially, is what your company does. People need to know instantly what your company or organization can do for them. Not how long you’ve been in business, not your mission, not a picture of your building, but what you can do for them.  That’s the only reason they’re at your Website…because you’re offering something for them.  Tell them what it is, simply and easily and we recommend visually. Don’t make them look. You only have a fraction of a second to do this.  Stuffing things in front of their face, like ads, text content, and messages to go here and go there, will confuse them.  if you’ve done your job of showing them what you can do for them, they will scroll and click, they will want to know more and they will buy your product or use your services.

Tell your story. Let your Website designer show you the best way and let’s not be overly concerned with what’s “above the fold”.

Didn’t make my case? What to know more?

The myth of the page fold: evidence from user testing (cxpartners)

Myth #3: People don’t scroll (UX Myths)

Life Below 600px (Paddy Donnelly)

Blasting the Myth of the Fold (boxes and arrows)

Scrolling and Attention (Jakob Nielsen)

These days, your Website is your most important marketing tool. It should work to achieve your specific marketing objectives. Here are the three things a Website does the best:

• Establish a Relationship
• Supply Information
• Close a Sale

Maybe you’re a community and you mainly need to establish a relationship with your guest and connect them with like-minded individuals.  So a site with strong social media interaction may be just the thing you need. Maybe you also need to supply information to the community.  So adding a blog may be a great way to communicate with your community. Maybe your Website needs to do all of the above, in that order.  So a blogsite may be just what you need. Whatever your goals, your Website needs to be designed and developed from the ground up with your objectives in mind.

Not all Websites are the same in how they look or function.  A community Website would need to be designed differently than let’s say an ecommerce Website. How your Website is designed and developed has an impact on your guests and search engines. Certainly not all your guests will read every word on your site.  We’d like to think they will, but truly, they look at bullets points and headlines and focus on your imagery. In seconds a guest will determine if they stay or if they go.

Having a professionally designed Website gives you the best possible advantage over your competition. Professional Website designers know how to move your guest to a sale or supply information in the best possible way. Moreover, a professional Website designer will establish a relationship with your guest making it easy for you to sell or motivate them. They will also make sure that the search engines can read and rank your new Website giving it the best possible advantage in the search engines.

Make your objectives clear in the beginning.  Your professional Website designer will then move the Website project in the direction of your goals.

Is it enough to just make a small business Website and put it on the Internet?  Will you get the results you want from a Website made by a novice or inexperienced person who knows the very basics? Why would you trust one of your most important marketing tools, to a novice? The money you think you’re saving will end up costing you long term.

Successful Websites are developed from the ground up.  How a site is designed and coded can determine your search engine ranking, moving your guest to a call to action, or developing a relationship. All of these components need to be designed and developed to move your guest through your Website and ultimately to your goal. Novices usually don’t take this in to consideration because they’re focusing on the design and coding (basics) of a site.

A successful Website is more than just pretty pictures placed on a screen. You may say you want your site developed by your assistant or employee so you have more control over how it looks and functions but mostly so it will save you money.  But truly will it save you money if it doesn’t accomplish your goals? Will it save you money if the search engines don’t rank it high enough? Will it save you money if it isn’t cross browser friendly or mobile friendly? The answer is, no.

A successful Website can make or break your business. It’s an investment just like the equipment you may purchase or the building you rent or the employees you hire.  It’s necessary and important, not optional and not something to be dabbled with. Your competition knows this.  They’re investing.  Are you?

Search Engines
Blogsites can drive new traffic to you like nothing else.  Search engines love content that changes.  It attracts them to your site.  Blogsites make it easy to update content and keep the search engine spiders coming back over and over again.

You the Expert
If your Website guests see you as an expert in your field, they will return over and over again to read what you say. Sharing your knowledge and opinions with them solidifies the relationship making it easier to motivate them to a sale.

Marketing Tool
Writing about your products or services is a great way to market. A blog can offer you the opportunity to talk about your business offerings on a personal level and allow your guests to comment. Marketing has changed from a “shouting to the masses” paradigm to a “whispering to a friend” concept. If a friend tells you what to buy and what has worked for them, you listen much closer than if it’s being shouted to you on a global scale.

Social Media
Taking that one step further, social media can create the “whispering to a friend” concept like nothing else.  And blogsites and social media go hand in hand. They were made for each other. With the many plugins available for blogsites, social media can be incorporated in to your Website easily and affectively making your new blogsite a marketing machine.

While there are many reasons your business should have a blogsite, these are the most compelling reasons. If you haven’t thought about a blogsite for your business yet, you definitely should – it’s a cost effective, easy way to interact with your existing customer base, gain new customers and establish you as the expert.

How do you compete?

In order to fully understand this, it’s important to know how the Internet is laid out.

The Internet consists of billions of pages. Each of these pages have a unique URL, content and linking system that connects them with other pages. One page will connect with another, which will connect to another and so on and so on. This creates a “web” of interconnected pages.

Crawling
The crawling of pages is done by search engine spiders (automated robots). The spiders “read” one page and then follow links from that page to another page. Through links, the spiders can reach billions of interconnected documents.

Indexing
Indexing is the process by which search engines select pieces of relevant content (including keywords and surrounding text) from the page and catalog them. Then, the code is stored and categorized with related information in massive data centers all around the world.

Retrieving
Retrieving happens when a user types in a keyword or a keyword phrase. The search engine then retrieves all of the urls it has stored which are relevant to the keyword or keyword phrase and returns this information to the user.

Ranking
There are hundreds of rules are weighted and considered by the search engine. This is what constitutes the search engine’s algorithm. Search engines rank each web page that they find according to things like trust factors, page rank and even go as far as considering the user’s search history and their location.

The search engines job is to understand what your pages are all about from the code it crawls so it can return results relevant to a particular search string. Helping the search engines read and rank your site should be your goal.  Ignoring this can have devastating results for your Website’s ranking and ultimately your business.

When writing content for your Website or designing your Website be aware of these factors.  Make sure your Web development team adheres to coding standards and keeps your keyword phrases in mind when your website is being developed.
For a great video representation of how Google works (from Google):

To see how “your Website” is seen by a search engine spider, go here
http://www.webconfs.com/search-engine-spider-simulator.php

They finally realize that their Website needs a redevelopment from the ground up and a clear online marketing strategy in order to gain higher rankings.
SEO and online marketing companies are springing up all over.  The reason why they’ve become so popular and successful isn’t because they have a bevy of happy customers.  It’s because their customers don’t realize exactly what the SEO company actually does. They don’t track the results from the SEO company and if they do try, it’s hard for them to understand exactly what the SEO company is doing.  They initially get sucked in to the fold by believing the too-good-to-be-true promises made by the SEO company.  Sucked in to a contract that they can’t get out of. Sucked in to believing the sales hype.  These online marketers aggressively pursue Website owners by telling them their search engine rankings are suffering and that if they hire them, they can guarantee them number one search engine rankings. Their mass emails go on to say that they’ve reviewed the person’s website and that they can get them higher rankings….guaranteed.  These emails come to people via mass email marketing.  The SEO company probably hasn’t even looked at the Website in question.  How do I know this?  Because high ranking Website owners get these emails all the time. Moreover, I’ve redesigned Websites that have previously used this type of SEO company with minimal results. Redesigning from the ground up helped them gain the search engine ranking they were seeking.
Once the online marketers lock you in to a contract, they keep you there by telling you if you stop paying them, your rankings will go down and that if you stay with them for another year, 6 months, 3 months…whatever, you will realize the high search engine rankings as promised. But it never happens. The goal is to keep you under contract, paying your monthly fee. These companies aren’t in it for the long haul. They know that eventually, you will jump ship, unhappy with their service. But it doesn’t matter to them, because there is another victim waiting to take your place. To them, it’s quantity of customers, not quality of service.
Most small business owners don’t bother learning about search engine optimization or online marketing. They leave it to the pros.  Which is good and bad. If you don’t know what the pros should be doing, you don’t know if they’re doing their job.
For instance, small business owner xyz company wanted better search engine results. They hired an SEO company to increase their search engine rankings.  They did basic social media setup, directory inclusions and posted a few articles. This was supposed to increase their Google ranking. After 6 months and tens of thousands of dollars later, it did not. Just setting up social media (Facebook and Twitter) accounts does not create traffic to your site.   Working social media does.  Just getting in to hundreds of online directories (link farms) does not get you higher rankings.  Getting in to popular directories and getting inbound links from popular Websites will increase your rankings. Posting one or two articles online doesn’t increase your search engine rankings.  Posting hundreds of articles and press releases on popular sites with links back to your Website does. But the SEO company failed at increasing the clients rankings and traffic.  After tens of thousands of dollars…failed. Most business owners think that if they throw enough money at a problem it should fix it.  So if a company is charging me tens of thousands of dollars, they should actually be doing their job.  That’s not necessarily true. A lot of these SEO businesses aren’t US based.  They sell in the US from US based offices with US personnel, but are owned and operated out-of-country where US laws don’t apply. This protects them from litigation because it’s more trouble than it’s worth to pursue a non-US company for monetary relief. The customer just goes away thinking they’ve been stupid for hiring the SEO company in the first place.
So buyer beware. Know what it takes to optimize your Website to gain valuable search engine ranking.  If you do hire an SEO firm, know what they’re supposed to be doing.  Don’t waste your money on fly-by-night companies in it for the short term quick cash. Do research on the company.  Get recommendations.  See how well their business does in the search engines before you hire them to help you. Do a Google search for “SEO firm” or “hire an SEO consultant” and see where they rank.  This usually stops most people.  If they’re selling search engine ranking, shouldn’t they be number one?  If they’re guaranteeing you number one results, shouldn’t their company be listed first? Read reviews on them or contact their clients for references. Do your research before you hire anyone.
As always, inspect what you expect.

If your business or organization has news or press to share, then you could benefit from a blog Website. WordPress blogsites offer you the ability to have a content management system (CMS)  built in to your Website on the WordPress platform. Why is that good? Because WordPress offers easy editing tools that are intuitive making editing your site a snap.

Why have “just a Website” when you can have a blogsite that integrates easily with social media, has incredible editing and upload tools and most importantly, search engines love them. Search engines are attracted to Websites that change and update content often.  Blogs and blog Websites tend to do this keeping the search engines coming back over and over and allowing your site to rank higher.

And, so popular is WordPress that there are a multitude of plugins and themes that can be attached to give your site a unique look and feel for minimal cost.

1. Define the purpose of your Website.

What is the goal of your Website? The answer to this question will set the direction of your project.  It’s important to determine this in the beginning because every decision is influenced by the answer.

2. Determine who is your primary market.

This information is important to your Web developer because who we’re marketing to will decide the flavor of your Website. The look and feel can influence your audience on an emotional level.  It’s subtle but extremely important.

3. Develop your logo or brand.

If you haven’t already, hire a pro logo artist to help define your brand. Having a logo in place goes a long way in determining the look and feel of a Website. SDG has logo artists on hand.  So if you haven’t done this already let us know and we’ll take care of  this process for you.

4. Search the Web for Websites that appeal to you.

Sending your developer some examples of Websites you find attractive, will help them determine the overall feel you’re looking to accomplish. Tell them what you like about the sites and what you don’t like.

5. Decide the features and functions you want your site to have.

There are a myriad of features and functions your site can have. Do you want a home page slideshow?  Do you want a content management system that allows you to edit the site yourself?  Do you want e-commerce? What type of menu system would you like? Defining these things beforehand will help your web developer determine the scope of your project in order to bid it properly and stay within your budget.

6. Determine your timeline.

If you’re on a tight schedule and want your site completed quickly, this may cost more.  Generally Websites take about 4-6 weeks to complete, depending upon the size. So budget enough time for your developer to give you a quality product.

7. Plan your navigation.

Decide what pages you want to include.  In outline format you can submit the hierarchy of your Website. For instance, what pages will go under “About Us” or “Services”.  Having a plan in mind will help you organize your content.

8. Research your competition.

See what your competition is up to. Search out sites that fall in to your industry.  This way you’ll know what everyone else is doing right or wrong. See where they rank in the search engines.  Make sure you let your developer know who your direct competition is.

9. Organize your text copy and photographs.

A lot of clients choose to be their own copy writer to save money.  This is fine.  But if you’re really looking for copy that sells and gets you in to the search engines, hire a pro.

Photography also can motivate a customer like nothing else.  Choose to hire a pro photography if you can.  They will make your Website and business stand out and look professional so you can garner quality leads.

10. Decide on a budget.

One of the most important pieces of the puzzle is your budget.  This will determine how serious you are, and the quality of site you’re looking to build.  If you don’t give your Web developer a budget, they will probably bid you a high end site.  If your budget is too low, you won’t give your developer enough hours to build you a quality site. Or worse, you won’t attract an experienced developer.

Remember there’s good, fast and cheap.  And you can only pick two.

Mother’s aren’t always right

My mother used to tell me that looks aren’t everything and you can’t judge a book by it’s cover. And in certain instances, that is true. But not when it comes to Websites. I know there are code monkey’s out there and marketing gurus that will tell you it doesn’t matter how your Website looks but it’s more important how it functions.  And absolutely it’s important how your Website functions in a search engine and how your user experiences your site, but it’s the look that will grab their attention and motivate them to contact you or buy your products. How a Website looks can hit a customer on an emotional level that’s subtle but effective.

Decisions are made in an instant

On a Website homepage you have only seconds to grab your guests attention.  If your homepage fails to do this, your guests won’t go further in to your Website. Enticing someone to stay on your site long enough for a sale or contact is the goal of any Website. Does your site motivate? Or is it out of date? Objectively look at your Website and answer these questions:
[note]

• Do I trust this company? The overall feel of your site should give people a feeling of trust.
• Does this company look like they care about me, or do they just want to make money? Are they transparent? Hiding pricing or fine print can make you appear like you have something to hide. Having enough content to tell people what you’re all about can help put them at ease.
• Do they look like they’re modern, or has it been years since they last updated their site? This can tell people that you don’t care enough to invest in your most important marketing tool. Or that your company doesn’t have the funds to invest.  Either way, it’s a bad impression.
• Do they look professional or is this business a hobby? Is this site constructed with pro photos and graphics?  If you appear to be a hobby site, it won’t motivate your guests to work with you.
• What do they sell? Your home page should answer this immediately.
• How do I buy or contact? This should be in an obvious place and easy to get to.

[/note]

You’re hired!

How you look to others can motivate people to hire you.  After all, if you had to choose between a disheveled applicant and a equally qualified applicant who dressed well and smiled, who would you choose? How your Website looks to others can also motivate people to hire you or buy your products.

I’m constantly asked by clients to place their business at the top of a search engine. That’s such an arbitrary thing to ask because there are so many variables that should be applied to that question.  For instance, what search engine? What search phrase? There are a multitude of possibilities.  The question should be “What will it take for first page placement in Google for the term ‘children’s socks’ or ‘children’s footwear’”?  That’s a more reasonable question.

A lot of people think there is a magic way to gain first placement in a search engine under a certain phrase.  When in reality, it takes work and time and money. Certainly, you could do it yourself and save the money part but it will most likely take time and work. And if you don’t have money, then some expertise as well. This stops most people because they don’t want to hear that it will take work on their part or time. And while they are willing to throw money at the project, they’re not really willing to throw the amount of money it will take.  Most online marketers charge thousands per month to work your Website in to the search engines. And truly I have seen clients gain minimal placement or none at all after spending ten thousand or more.  So it’s really a gamble when you’re dealing with Internet marketers.

There are some honest online marketing gurus out there