Are you a LinkedIn user? Maybe one of those people who signed up for the site, created a profile, then forgot about it? Well it may come back to haunt you. In fact you may come back to haunt you. Following in the nefarious footsteps of Facebook, LinkedIn has just decided that you work for their marketing department.

That’s right, they now claim the right to use your personal information—including your photo—in their social advertising schemes. So if, say, you have any connection to a person, service, or company—no matter how tenuous the connection—LinkedIn will let everyone on your list know! The information they provide on this new “feature” is deliberately vague.  If you “recommend people or services, follow companies, or take other action “[our emphasis], “your name/photo may show up in related ads to LinkedIn members.”  One wonders how far “take other actions” might extend.

If you look at a page, if you research physicians or medications for an illness, if you give money to a political group or person, LinkedIn reserves the right to shout out the details to everyone on your list, unless you explicitly forbid them to do so. You have to go into your account and change your default settings if you want your personal preferences/interests/needs to remain private.  This is surely a new low in the rapid erosion of privacy spearheaded by Facebook.  Not to be outdone, LinkedIn has decided that your profile is their property.  Would you prefer your colleagues not find out how you vote, or what medicines you take, or where your kids go to summer camp? Follow these instructions to opt out:

1. Click on your name on your LinkedIn homepage (upper right corner).
2. Under “Settings,” select “Account.”
3. In the column next to “Account,” click “Manage Social Advertising.”
4. De-select the box next to “LinkedIn may use my name, photo in social advertising.”

After you finish reclaiming your identity from LinkedIn, take a look at the new default settings under “E-mail Preferences,” and “Groups, Companies, and Applications.” You’ll doubtless be as outraged as we are. When you’re done, you might want to drop LinkedIn a note informing them that you think their “new features” stink.  If enough of us draw a line in the sand, maybe companies like Facebook and LinkedIn will start to realize that web users are private citizens with rights, not a limitless source of cheap advertising.

O’Reilly’s Programming C# 4.0 is an excellent text for programmers seeking first contact with the C# language and family of associated technologies. Now in its 6^th edition, the authors Ian Griffiths, Matthew Adams, and Jesse Liberty provide a clear and thorough introduction to basic C# semantics and foundational programming principals such as abstraction, polymorphism, interfaces, delegates and lambdas. The book also skillfully elucidates many of the newer, and more advanced features of the language and its framework, including an expanded discussion of LINQ in its various dialects, the Entity Framework, and the modern presentational technologies of WPF and Silverlight; more advanced programmers will find these sections useful.  Several recent enhancements, however, do not find their way into the text; there is no mention of MVC or Windows Workflow or mobile solutions. Yet these are quibbles given that the text already boasts an impressive size of over 800 pages and covering the complete scope of any modern programming language exceeds the parameters of any single book. All in all, I can warmly recommend Programming C# 4.0.  I have a special fondness for this text ever since the second edition of the book was my trusted companion early in my own study of C#. I continue to use it today as a trusted resource on the C# language.

In our previous post, we discussed what good web content can do for your business.  One of the things it can do, we said, was “enhance your brand.”  Now if you’re a small- to mid-sized business, you may not have thought a lot about branding–probably because “branding” seems to be the province of “big brands” like Nike, Coca-Cola, Apple, and the like.  “My toy store (or carpet warehouse, or cleaning service) isn’t going to go national,” you’re thinking, “so probably I don’t need to worry too much about branding.”

Not so.  For one thing, a brand is much more than just a logo or a slogan. It’s a marketing message that creates a community around your business.  A good branding strategy isn’t just about getting your target prospects to choose you over the competition. It’s about making them see that your company is the only one that can provide a solution to their problem.  A good brand answers a need, but it also creates that need in the minds of consumers. Harley-Davidson, for example, doesn’t just sell motorcycles.  They sell a lifestyle.  People who embrace the Harley-Davidson brand tend to self-identify as adventurous risk-takers.  Harley sells motorcycles, in other words, but they also sell freedom and rugged individualism.  Sure, you’re thinking, but what about my toy store?  I’m not selling a myth about toys.

Sure you are.  Your toy store is a little fantasy world–a place where adults and children alike can enter the Neverland of childhood.  And your carpet warehouse?  You’re selling an affordable way to make a house a home.  A serene, suburban refuge.  A warm, safe surface for babies learning to walk.  Energy-saving insulation from the cold. Your cleaning service sells good health, by removing allergens and hazardous bacteria. Or maybe it sells time–a priceless commodity for hard-working families. A brand is, in short, the heart and soul of your business. It’s a point of emotional connection for your customers and prospects, and a guarantee of quality.  Think of it this way–if your business were a neighborhood, what would it look like? Who would live there? What would they eat, wear, do for fun?  If you can answer these questions, you’ve just done some essential branding research.

Once you decide on your neighborhood, you’ll get to the details.  What’s it going to be called? Naming is an important part of branding. Names can have forgotten mythic associations (Nike), a musical rhythm (Coca-Cola), or be boldly mundane (Apple).  Many high-tech businesses tend to like evocative, abstract names (Oracle, Google).  Some names are simply the last name of the owner or founder–if this is the case, it’s good to turn that name into a memorable logo, as Hewlitt-Packard and Dell have done.

After you’ve got a catchy name or logo, you’ll need a tagline that captures your brand image. Just do it.   Don’t Leave Home Without It.  The Ultimate Driving Machine. Powerful Web Solutions at a Fair Price. The first two are commands. The third is a mythologized description or “feature” (BMW isn’t just a driving machine; it’s the “ultimate” one) our own tagline offers both a feature (powerful solutions) and a benefit (fair price).  In another familiar example, Apple exhorts people to “Think Different,” which is strikingly ungrammatical–the slogan violates rules, the Apple customer isn’t bound by them.  Commands are bold and in-your-face, but they’re not right for every business, obviously.

But again, a brand is more than a name or a tagline. That’s where web design comes in.  Because a well-designed site does exactly what a good brand does. It

• Delivers a clear, persuasive message
• Differentiates a company from its competitors
• Connects target prospects emotionally
• Affirms credibility
• Motivates buyers
• Cements customer loyalty

Branding and web design are, in fact, inextricable.  A design that doesn’t create or enhance your brand is a failure.  A brand that doesn’t have a web presence is like a story that’s waiting to be told.  A club with no members.  Your website pulls it all together–name, slogan, story–and creates a place where your customers/target prospects can come to share the love. A good site will not only showcase your brand. It will give customers a reason to come back, again and again.  To shop, to see what’s new, and just to get that good feeling.

We’ll have more to say about branding in future posts. For now, start thinking about your brand neighborhood. When you’ve got a good idea of what it looks like,  who lives there, and what they do for fun, give KW Works a call. We’ll help turn that vision into a reality.

If you’ve done any research into web design, you’ve probably heard the phrase “Content is King.”  Everyone bandies it around these days.  We’ve used it ourselves.  But what does it mean, exactly?  At the most basic level, it means no one wants an empty box, no matter how pretty the box is.  Your site can look like a million bucks, but if you don’t have effective content, no one will care. Not customers, and certainly not search engines.  But what is effective content?  And is it really “king,” i.e., does content rule over everything else?

No, it doesn’t.  It’s a vital part of a successful website, but if your site has scintillating, eye-catching content wrapped in a dysfunctional design, it will fail.  A top-notch site needs both. So why is the phrase “content is king” so popular? We think it’s a case of persuasion by exaggeration. Most web-savvy people know  that design matters. Fewer people know that content does–witness the myriad sites all across the web that have poorly-written text, annoying flash animation, or weirdly irrelevant links.  So even if content isn’t an absolute monarch, it’s still a crucial component of a successful web strategy.

But getting back to our first question–what is effective content? There isn’t one answer to this, obviously. It’s not just good grammar or nice pictures.  Effective content should

• Engage the reader
• Enhance your brand
• Increase search engine rankings and traffic
• Attract links from other relevant sites
• Lead to conversions

Now, we could write a lengthy article on each one of these goals.  And at some point, we’ll address them in more detail here on the blog.  For now, however, consider this post an introduction to the whole complicated business of content strategy.  For starters, let’s unpack those five points.

You engage your readers by giving them what they want. Simple, yes?  Ah, but what do they want?  They’ve found you, so they must want what you’re selling.  You just have to remind them of that fact in a compelling way.  Tell a brief story.  Set up an interesting scenario. Tell them something they didn’t know. Use a catchy headline. Don’t bore them with long, run-on sentences or peripheral facts on your home or landing page.  Don’t talk about you.  This is about them.

You enhance your brand by creating content that reflects your values, your mission, and (most of all) the needs of your target audience. Your site should remind your customers what you stand for, what you’ve done in the past, and what you promise to deliver in the future.  But how do you do this without talking about you?  By using interactive, ongoing features such as blogs and forums, and finding the right tone.  If you’re running a small, family-owned business, for example, you don’t want to use a lot of slangy expressions that would appeal to urban hipsters.  You want to create a community around your brand.  Ideally, customers will come to your site to buy your products, but also to see what’s new and to reconnect with your company.

You increase search engine rankings by writing relevant content with appropriate keywords and metatags. It sounds easy, but it’s not.  You want to find a nice balance between awkward, keyword-stuffed prose and SEO-oblivious text.  This is where it’s useful to hire a professional.  But if you do want to generate your own content, you’ll want to start with a list of keywords, then use them as “seeds” from which you’ll grow your site’s narrative.

You attract links by linking to sites relevant to and influential in your industry, by commenting on industry blogs and taking part in forums, and by building relationships with professionals in and around your business. But mostly, you attract links by having good content–if your site is informative and influential, it will naturally garner links and citations across the web.

And those conversions?  If you combine a disciplined content strategy with functional, appealing design, conversions will naturally follow. The key term here is “disciplined”–that’s why we don’t like to think of content as a capricious monarch, doing whatever he/it wants.  Content should serve, not rule your site. David Campbell, the founder of Saks Fifth Avenue, once said that “discipline is remembering what you want.”  That’s a good thing to keep in mind when generating content.  Remember what your content is for.  Remember what your website wants.  It wants repeat customers. Every word, every picture, every video clip should serve this end.  If it doesn’t, get rid of it and find something better.

That’s the question every visitor to your website is asking.  Should I take a look around, see what this company can offer me, or look elsewhere?  The thing is, you have only a few seconds to convince them to stick around and get to know you better.  A few seconds before they click the dreaded back button and start looking at your competitors.  How do you convince them to stay, to sign up for your newsletter, buy your products, or fill out a contact form?  In online marketing terms, how do you lower your “bounce rate?”

If you’ve been doing business on the web for awhile, you’re probably familiar with the term “bounce rate.”  Your bounce rate measures the percentage of visitors to your site who check out one of your pages–usually your home page–and then leave without looking any further.  In real estate, this would be like having a potential buyer drive by your house and decide not to go inside.  Maybe they don’t like the neighborhood, or maybe the lawn’s too small. For whatever reason, they’ve crossed you off their list.  Fortunately, a website isn’t like a house.  There’s a lot you can do to improve your site’s structure, look, and content, and thereby improve–i.e, lower–your bounce rate.  We’ll get to that in a minute.  Before you even begin to think about the problem, however, you need to get the facts.  You can easily find out your site’s bounce rate by using  a stats tool like Google Analytics.  Once you enable an analytics program, you can trace not only how many people come to your site, but how long they stay, where they came from, what they seem to be most interested in, and lots more.  Google Analytics will give you a clear indication of your website’s effectiveness.

So now you’ve got your stats. But what do those numbers mean? Well, if you have a bounce rate of 100%, you need to completely overhaul your site.  A 100% bounce rate means every single person who visits has decided not to look beyond the first page. Eek!  In fact, anything over 40% is a cause for concern.  If your bounce rate is higher, you should take a long, hard look at your site’s design and content.

But don’t panic–there’s plenty you can do to get your website back on track. For a start, follow these Seven Simple Rules for a Lower Bounce Rate:

• Simplify. Your site should be organized hierarchically, with the most significant information on top.  Don’t try to put everything on page one.  Studies have shown that the average consumer can’t process more than 5-7 options at a time.  If your home page offers too many places to go, too much disorganized information, visitors will feel overwhelmed.  They won’t bother trying to figure out what to do next. They’ll just leave.
• Answer Questions. When visitors come to your site for the first time, they don’t want to read about your company’s history, or see pictures of last year’s Christmas party. They come because they have a question:  “where can I get kids’ hockey skates?”  “how can I sell my house?”  Let them know they’ve come to the right place by answering their questions up front.
• Write a Catchy Headline. Not “Footwear Solutions for Dedicated Athletes,” but “Higher. Faster. Stronger,” “Get Moving,” or “Feet Slowing You Down?”  Headlines should offer a benefit, suggest an action, or make the reader sit up and take notice.
• Improve Pageload Time. This would seem to be a no-brainer, but a surprising number of sites have really slow load times.  Remember, in the fifteen to thirty seconds it takes to load the essential parts of your page, you’re shedding visitors in droves.  Your page should load in under eight seconds.
• Move The Important Stuff Up. Visitors shouldn’t have to scroll down to see what your site is about.  Crucial, eye-catching information should be “above the fold,” just as in a newspaper.
• Optimize Your Colors For Readers. Do you have gray print on a white background?  Brown on green?  Is a dark background appropriate for your products/company image?  Your site should be easy on the eye, and should reflect your company’s outlook and values. In general, black backgrounds make people wary.  In addition to being hard on the eyes, black pages seem naughty and subversive.  If that’s the image you want to create, fine. But most people find light-colored backgrounds less threatening and easier to read.
• Avoid Spelling Errors and Typos. Again, this should be obvious.  Misspelled content looks amateurish, and typos reflect poorly on your company.  If you didn’t take the time to proofread your content, visitors will assume that everything else you do will be slipshod.  It’s an easy thing to fix.

Obviously there’s more you can do to make your site more engaging and thus improve your bounce rate.  We’ll have more to say on this topic in the weeks to come. In the meantime, take a look at your current site, and see if you’re violating any of these fundamental rules of thumb. If so, it may be time to rethink your design.  Not sure where to start? Give KW Works a call at (800) 918-5230, and we’ll help you turn those first-time visitors into repeat customers.

We’ve all had this experience. You’re looking for a service or product, so you do a Google search. You’re a little nervous about doing business with a new company, but you really need a dog groomer/realtor/bridal boutique/yoga studio, so you have to take a chance.  You get a list of companies, and proceed to click through them.  How do you decide which one is trustworthy, when all you have to go on is a website? You quickly dismiss one because it looks like it was designed by a high school kid. There aren’t any links, the text is poorly-written with more than a few typos and misspellings, and it’s only about three pages deep.  Worse still, it’s got a weirdly-colored background that makes your eyes hurt.  The next one has some nice pictures,  but very little text.  It was last updated about a year ago.  The next contender has a lot of text, and a lot of pictures, but it’s impossible to find the information you need.  There isn’t even a site map.  Finally you find a site that’s easy on the eye, a cinch to navigate, and full of useful information that’s laid out hierarchically. Links are clearly marked, and there’s even a search function. There are glowing testimonials, and a blog with lots of useful tips and funny stories about the dog grooming/yoga/real estate business.  You breathe a sigh of relief.  Your search is over.

Our point is simple: design matters. What’s more, it matters more now than it did a year ago, and it’ll matter more next year than it does right now.  According to a Stanford University Study on Web Credibility, people are increasingly skeptical of the claims they encounter online.  They are looking to do business with companies that evince a high level of both trustworthiness and expertise.   Successful websites are those that succeed in getting people to

• register personal information
• purchase things online
• fill out surveys or contact forms
• click on ads
• contribute content to a community
• download software
• bookmark the site and return often

All these activities assume a level of trust.  Sites that are poorly designed–that is, those with with weak functionality,  unappealing aesthetics, and difficult navigation–do not inspire the kind of trust necessary for successful conversions.  Participants in the study showed a clear preference for sites that looked professional, had been recently updated, and offered useful information that was easily accessible.  The Stanford study concluded that design and credibility were tightly linked in the minds of web users. The data showed that the average consumer paid far more attention to the asethetic aspects of a site, such as visual cues, than to its content. For example, nearly half of all consumers (or 46.1%) in the study assessed the credibility of sites based in part on the appeal of the overall visual design, including layout, typography, font size and color schemes. Like a shoddy storefront, a poorly-designed website signals a poorly-run business, one that consumers were less likely to trust.

Think of it this way. If you owned a brick-and-mortar store, you’d make sure your products were showcased in a visually appealing way. They’d be easy to find, with clear directional signs placed at strategic points throughout the store.  The floors would be spotless, and the lighting would be bright but not harsh.  You’d make sure your customers had a pleasurable experience in your store.  A website is no different.  You want people to come back. You want them to tell others about your business. You want them to enjoy visiting your site. Most of all, you want them to trust you.  In many cases, your website is the first point of contact between you and a potential client or customer.  You’re not looking for a brief encounter–you want a lasting commitment.  A good design will help you put your best foot forward, and lay the groundwork for an ongoing relationship.   Think about it.   Then give KW Works a call at (800) 918-5230. We’ll help you choose a design that will showcase your expertise, enhance your credibility, and build a thriving community around your business.

If you’ve been in business for awhile, you’re familiar with the limitations of traditional offline advertising. Ads in newspapers and magazines are relatively very, very expensive. They only run for a limited time and in a limited area.  And there’s no guarantee that the people who see them will have any interest in your products or services.  Cold calling, everyone’s least favorite marketing tactic, offers negligible returns for a significant time–and, let’s face it–emotional investment.  The only thing traditional “push” methods of marketing really excel at is creating brand recognition, which may offer returns over time.  A lot of time.

These days, “push” has given way to “pull”:  online marketing is both more expansive in its reach and more targeted in its message. You no longer have to convince people they need what you’re selling–you only have to convince them that your particular product or service is superior to all the the others out there. Because they already want what you’re selling.  Your job is to reel them in.

Let’s look at some of the most important differences between offline and online marketing:

• Reach-online markets are potentially global. You can sell to people in Australia, or right down the road.  What’s more, social networking sites allow you to reach thousands of people in an instant. People who can then become both customers and salespeople!
• Targeting and Segmentation–online marketing is targeted to the people who are already looking for your products.  Innovations like Pay-Per-Click allow you to manage your campaigns at a granular level.  Ads can be aimed at particular demographic and geographic segments of the market, targeted to weekend browsers, or set up to run only when people are awake in Asia!  Preferences and conversions can be easily tracked, allowing you to further tweak your message to ensure maximum effectiveness.
• 24/7/365 Business Hours–when you do business online, you’re open for business all day, every day.
• Excellent ROI–print, radio and TV advertising can be prohibitively expensive. On the Internet, you can offer text content, audio, or video clips for a tiny fraction of what a similar campaign would cost via the mainstream media.  What’s more, you can run them for much longer, while spending much less.
• Instant Conversions–online sales are completed in a few clicks that take minutes.  Selling the old-fashioned way can take weeks or even months from lead generation to closing.
• Less Labor–A successful online business can be profitably run by a few people who understand both your business and the business of web marketing.  In traditional marketing venues the whole process can be incredibly labor-intensive.
• Increased Customer Satisfaction–online marketing makes all aspects of customer contact easier and quicker.  Customers can ask questions, voice concerns, or make requests online; you can respond to them quickly and efficiently. Databases and e-mailing lists  can be created and augmented every time someone visits your site!  Businesses used to pay thousands for mailing lists–now they’re generated automatically, and every name on the list is someone who’s potentially interested in what you’re offering. You and your customers can be in regular contact with just a few clicks.  What’s more, an alluring website with a chatty, interactive  blog can make them feel like part of the family.

In order to take advantage of all this marketing goodness, you do have to know what you’re doing, so it pays to hire professionals to manage your PPC and social network campaigns, to set up your SEO, and to make sure you’re getting the most out of your website.  But even with professional help, you’re paying just a tiny fraction of what a similar campaign would have cost you in the old days.  Want to hear more?  Give us a call (800) 918-5230, and we’ll explain how online marketing can help maximize your ROI, and take your business to the next level.

You’ve decided to have a Big Sale, but you need to get the information up on your website immediately. You’ve got some fantastic photos of your last Event.  You know your customers will get a kick out of them, and you can’t wait to post them.  You’ve got an exciting new product, and you want to showcase it on your front page.  You better call your webmaster/designer immediately, and hope he or she can get to it soon!

Oh, wait. That was five years ago. Now you can make those changes yourself!  Yes, thanks to WordPress, it’s a brave new world. Businesses can now have unprecedented control over their web content.  WordPress started as blog publishing platform, but has since evolved into a sophisticated, super-user-friendly content management system (CMS).   Now, there are lots of CMS’s out there, and some of them are terrific. But many of them are expensive. Some of the top-of-the-line systems can cost thousands of dollars a year in licensing fees. For big companies with lots of data-management needs, these more expensive options may be just the ticket. But for smaller businesses, you often can’t beat the WordPress price.

It’s totally free! Not only that, it’s fast and easy to use. It’s easily extendable, so your website can grow with your business. It’s easy to design and develop plug-ins for.  It’s great with text, and good with images.  Best of all, once you’ve got your system in place, you can do all kinds of cool stuff. Change your images. Add pages. Add users. Create forums. Generate tons of text, then decide to change it all the next day.  It’s called a Content Management System, but as one of our clients quipped, “with WordPress, CMS really stands for Change it MySelf.”

If you’re interested in having a real hands-on website, a site that’s as flexible as you want and as stable as you need, you’ll want to consider  WordPress.   Contact us, and we’ll help you explore what a WordPress  CMS can do for you and your business.

The KW Works web design and online marketing blog is now open for business!  In the weeks and months to come,  we’ll be offering you our observations about the most exciting developments in web technology, and tips on how to get the most out of your online marketing presence.  When we started thinking about the blog, we decided the best analogy was a small-town diner. No fancy sauces and seasonings, just simple fare written for real-world business folks, not just big city technophiles.

We hope you’ll come here to get helpful tips and lucid explanations. We also want the blog to be a comfortable place where you can sit down and chat with people who speak your language.  We encourage you to ask questions, share concerns, or suggest new ways to approach some of the topics we’ll be discussing.  We’ll be giving you the lowdown on the latest content management systems, best design practices, exciting new advertising venues. We’ll initiate you into the mysteries of Search Engine Optimization, the potential goldmine of Pay-Per-Click ads, and even the importance of blogging as a marketing tool.

There’s a lot of information out there, and a lot of ways to use the web to your advantage.  Some are obviously better than others–we’ll help you separate the wheat from the chaff, so that you can use your new insights to make your website the most effective business tool imaginable!  You’ll want to drop by regularly, so be sure to bookmark this page, or better yet, subscribe via RSS.  We’ll be posting several times a week, because there’s a lot of exciting stuff happening out there in the online marketing world and we don’t want you to miss out on any of it. So stop by whenever you can, and see what’s cooking.