Web art?

In a recent article in the high profile technology trends magazine, Wired, written by Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff, with the aid of some dubious figures and pretty graphics, argued that the World Wide Web is dying, and it is being replaced by applications, particularly for mobile devices.  That is, although the internet as a communications network would still grow exponentionally, searching with a browser would shrink. 

The net result they believed was that the ‘open’ model of the world wide web would gradually die out and be replaced by a series of ‘closed’ applications only available to subscribers.  Apples iTunes, Facebook, Twitter, Skype, Xbox Live and video streaming applications such as Netflix were all given as examples. 

A number of people have poured doubt and even scorn on the premise, conclusions and even the motives behind this article - see Boing Bong, ReelSEO, and The Observer.  But even if the article is suspect, does it have any important points that are not already obvious but worth looking at? 

For instance, some of the unarguable points are that video growth is huge, and that Facebook and iTunes are very popular.   But where they go further is saying that because some of these technologies are inherently more secure, controllable and convenient than the web as a whole, both consumers and businesses will be drawn towards the comfort of these closed ‘gated communities’ at the expense of the wild lawlessness of the world wide web.

 Well, the answer to this is that they are partly right in an obvious way that certainly the use of apps and closed communities will grow.  Where they are probably wrong is that this will mean the death of the web as they call it, as this growth will not necessarily be at the expense of the web, but along side it.  After all, most people still watch videos and use Facebook with a browser. 

But even if where they are partly right is in a pretty obvious kind of way, it is worth looking again at what this means for businesses using the web. 

• The first is that to get business from these closed communities and to people using these apps is becoming more and more important, and that this overall will produce more complex requirements for both marketing an technology.  
• The second is that when it comes to garnering potential customers, there is a bit more than Google’s search algorithm’s to consider. If more people are spending more time in ‘closed communities’, often outside of the reach of the search engines, then businesses need to be there engaging in the conversation. 

With the increasing complexity of the web, businesses have to develop much more than a pretty website in order to generate business online.  The websites increasingly have to do more and more work, to:

• create communities themselves for people interested in the business area, with blogs, membership sites and forums, in order to get visitors to return;
• build mailing lists by integrating with client management systems and auto responders;
• integrate with social media platforms to provide a seamless experience for visitors and maximize reach;
• provide support for people accessing via mobile devices;
• provide back end support in order to deal more effectively with queries, leads and client servicing.

On the second point of our points, we move from global megatrends to an individual business marketing on the web.  In monitoring client accounts, we have noticed that on average the number of visitors arriving from search engines has steadily fallen over the last year, while the number of visitors arriving directly to the site or referred from other sites has grown.

 We looked at a typical website with a Google Page Rank of 5, where they have been dipping their toes into building a social media presence in the last year, without yet embarking on any major campaign.  We looked at the figures for 4 weeks over July and August this year and compared them with the same period for the previous year.  The number of visitors overall was roughly the same (3,000) over the two periods, but the number of visitors through search engines had shrunk by 1,000 from 75% to 47%.  Meanwhile the referral figures more than doubled from 14% to 34%.  

 What are these referral figures?  The answer is they come from a wide variety of sites, but what was striking was that the ’social media sites’ such as Linked In, Twitter and Facebook had increased thirteen fold to account for almost half these referrals.  In monetary terms, generating a similar level of traffic from Adwords would have cost between £700 and £1,000, equating to £8,500 to £12,000 per annum. 

So on a purely financial basis, the effort in setting up social media has produced a worthwhile return, and would appear to indicate that a more coordinated campaign, shifting resources from SEO and advertising could prove beneficial.

More questions than answers

If you are getting a new website what are the main things you need to consider?

 Is it that you should have the best and most exciting website design? Or is it whether the site is built on an open source platform? While both these may be important factors in your decision they clearly should not be the primary considerations.

 How about the site to rank as highly as possible on Google? That your site should appear on the first page when someone types in one of the keywords or phrases that you have identified as being important? Again this may and often will be an important consideration, but should not be the way in which the success of your site can be determined.

 Similarly if we start to look at the number of visitors to your site, how effective the site is in keeping those visitors engaged with what you are offering, and how high the “bounce rate” is. These are all potentially important to having a successful website.

 Looking at what your competitors are doing and seeing how you can offer something different or better than them is another way of determining the kind of website you would like.

 And as always financial considerations will always be important. Your budget is going to determine what options are available and what are not. And the overall return on investment  together with the risks of a project will form part of your calculations.

 So there are a large number of considerations when commissioning a new website. But we have still not looked at the first and foremost question you need to answer before embarking on what can be a time-consuming, costly yet very important development for your business.

 The first thing which needs to be looked at is how the new website can help further your overall business goals and objectives.  This will clearly depend on the type of business you have.

 If you are already an established business in the off-line world and are wanting to establish or improve your online presence, primarily benefit your existing clients, then the requirements to market the site will be less important than if you are a new business hoping to sell exclusively online. If your business is in the creative industries then the design and image that the site projects will probably be of much greater importance than if you are an e-commerce retailer where functionality and ease of use will take precedence over the look of the site.

 So it is important that you establish the business case for the website, the goals, marketing strategy and budgets before you go to a web designer or developer.  In this way you can direct the designer or developer into producing a proposal which is most relevant to your needs. By committing these initial conclusions in writing by producing a request for proposal, you can also get comparative quotations from different vendors. This can help ensure that you get the best people to develop your site based on objective criteria, as well as whether you feel comfortable with them.

The broader message here is that in having a website developed you need to remain in control of the project, be clear what you want to achieve, and what steps are needed for you to get there.  

It can be bewildering to encounter all the new concepts and terminology, the rival claims of website designers and developers, the different tasks required and skills needed to accomplish them.  

So before committing yourself, you should try and get an understanding of not only of your own business goals, but what the stages will be in the project, the people that need to be involved and their roles and responsibilities, and the important issues that need to be addressed at each stage.   

This will help you to see if there is substance behind a good sales pitch, business benefits to be gained from a flashy design or latest web application, and ensure that your website can deliver the benefits you anticipate.

Local Business Search and Adwords

It is also becoming tightly integrated with other Google applications, such as Adwords, so that by linking up with Adwords to Local Business Search, you can have the business address shown with the ad, and in the top 3 positions it also allows you to expand to see a map with the name and address of the business highlighted.  Again this is a valuable way of gaining both column inches and local credibility with searchers.

Google Local Search results for Islington solicitors

But there are some definite quirks and even potentially serious issues with it too.  Under the quirky and distinctly annoying category is that the “Local” is not necessarily that local.  For instance, for a Google search for “Islington solicitors” shows a list of solicitors, only 2 of which are actually in Islington (and these on the border of the borough, indicated by the red line on the map below), the other 8 being in the City of London.  The reason for this is presumably firstly because these 8 solicitors are mainly large London or even International law firms which have high rankings in Google, and secondly because the City of London is only a few miles from Islington.  

But this highlights two problems, one being that proximity is not necessarily a matter of mileage, being two miles apart in London is much more significant in crowded cities than it would be in the wilds of Scotland.  The other is that if someone had typed in “Islington solicitors” then presumably they are indicating that they want a firm in that locality, and would not be interested in the large London and International firms being shown by Google.  For a start most people wouldn’t be able to afford their fees!  It is also worrying that Google are promoting larger even multinational firms at the expense of smaller local businesses in their Local Business Search, presumably unwittingly going against the whole point of the product.

Another potentially more serious issue is their recent introduction of reviews.  Although reviews can be manually entered into Local Business Centre, Google appears to be searching other sources, and in particular sites where users review companies, products and services.  And it also seems that Google is doing this not just by examining links, but by text search and matching.  So if it finds the name and/or address of a business in a review it will associate this review with the business and show it on Local Search results. 

Having had a look at the reviews Google picks up in this way this has again shown up quirks and more potentially serious issues.  A quirk we have noticed is that in the reviews of one law firm, many of the articles being picked up were actually about a rival firm.  We could not actually find a reason why this was so, as their offices were not close and the business names had no similarities.  We are still investigating why Google should have connected these reviews to the wrong firm. 

Lovely sushi with your divorce proceedings

But other more serious and even damaging issues can arise.  In one case there is a law firm called Pennington Solicitors.  For some reason Google has deemed to attach reviews to this firm from a Japanese restaurant called Matsuri.  Initially we thought this must be because they shared the same address, but this is not the case, so we find it a mystery as to why this should be.  It certainly has its funny side.  On Google maps the first thing you see is a quote “The food here is simply divine” - from squaremeal.co.uk, which is not what you usually expect from a law firm.  (No wonder the fees are so high!).

But other quotes are not so amusing and potentially damaging.  For instance another quote which is highlighted under Value is “Value for money: None whatsoever.” - allinlondon.co.uk.  Here there is nothing to indicate that this might relate to the price of a meal at a totally unconnected restaurant, and therefore could be highly damaging to the business.  One wonders whether Google may at some point receive a stern letter threatening legal action about this matter!

....but is it good value for money?

Business objectives

We have now established the need for our website, and produced an overall plan incorporating the budget and resources requirements.  Therefore the next stop is we should sort out the design………………….

Or rather its not the next stop.   Many do rush in at this stage (or even earlier) and ask a web designer to come up with a flashyBusiness model (or Flash-y!) look and start worrying about colour schemes.  But first you need to look at what you are promoting and why, what is the target audience, how you are going to get them to come, and how you are going to get them stay (and return) and convert into willing prospects, customers, fans or whatever else fulfils your objectives.

The business objectives should always be the prime consideration for your website investement.  How is it going to make your business more successful, and how can you maximise the return.  This needs you to consider your business model, and how much you are going to rely on the website to lead your business generation.  In the case of an ecommerce site, it may be the only source of business, whereas at the other end where a business in primarily going to market off-line, the site could be little more than an on-line brochure.

Having a strong consistent message and brand to your site is another prerequisite.  People have to be able to determine at a glance what your site is about, and whether it is of interest to them, because otherwise with all the myriad of alternatives available on the web they will be off.   And it is not only people that will feel this way - all those robots and spiders launched by the search engines will also need to determine what your site is about, so that they can index it correctly to deliver relebvant content to searchers.

And then once you have the brand, you need to work out how you will attract the right sort of visitors, whether through online advertising, search engine optimisation, or increasingly, using social media to engage and interest people in the content on your site.  Even for firms marketing primarily offline, it is important for your site to be found by your customers,  prospects and suppliers, as well as potential employees and other interested parties.

The required marketing model for your site will determine much of what you will need for your site.  If it is to be found by search engines, then it must have the hooks and regularly updated content which is going to be recognised by search engines and attract repeat visitors.  A content management system will be essential.

Ecommerce sites which are to be primarily marketed through online advertising will require the ability to continually test and improve landing pages to ensure the greatest return on investment from those potentially expensive clicks. Efficiency of the overall process from  searching the catalogue, providing product and price information through to the checkout procedure will be paramount, as well as the ability for cross sales, promotions etc.

Social media sites may require special landing pages for visitors from from different platforms, as well as the ability to inform those social media outlets of new and interesting content on your site.

So now we have the business requirements, brand guidelines and desired marketing mix for our site, NOW we can finally get round to design……or can we?  All is to be revealed in the next instalment!

Man with a plan

It may seem a little late to start planning for the website, after already establishing the business case and requirements for the site, and also deciding the name, and registering these as domains and optimally as trademarks.  And there certainly is a case for having a plan for these preliminary activities, particularly if it is for a big budget, large company launch where these steps could involve marketing, finance, legal, operational and IT departments input, prior to a senior management group making the decision to go ahead or otherwise.

However on the whole we are addressing these articles to small to medium businesses where the decision making is not so complex, and secondly the aforementioned would be part of a separate feasibility stage, and once this has confirmed the need and requirements, we can look at producing the plan for the delivery of the site.

The most important decisions will be what the budget is to be for the new site.  This is both financial for external costs such as copywriters, designers, developers, software and hosting, and the time you can afford to spend on the project within your business.  If there are any fixed timescales, such as to coincide with a business launch or major trade event, will also be a factor.  One tip we have if time and money are limited is to divide the delivery into stages.  This has the benefit of earlier initial delivery, helping cash flow by spreading the spend over a longer period, and the ability to adjust and improve later deliverables based on feedback from the earlier phases.

After budgets, identifying and selecting resources to help in each area is the next most important step.  Here the choice is to manage the project and resources yourselves, or outsource this to a single provider who will manage the project on your behalf either using their own staff, or sub contracting work to others, or commonly, a mixture of both.  Managing the project yourself can be a daunting proposition unless you have previous experience of such projects or can rely on a trusted advisor.  If you are using a third party manager, then you should be careful to pick someone who can manage all stages of delivery, and in particular the less glamorous yet more demanding stages of development, testing and implementation.  Too often we feel the decision is based on who is doing the design of the site, and although there are designers who have the resources to manage all stages, others do not have the necessary skills in these areas, and we have often been called in when this is the case.  This can lead to increases in cost as some reworking may be necessary to overcome the limitations of the initial approach.

Once the budget and resources are decided, a schedule of tasks can be drawn up and times, dates and responsibilities assigned to these.  You will need a method of documenting this schedule and tracking progress against this.  If you have appointed a project manager then it is they who will be providing the schedule and tracking, but you should understand and agree this with them.  If you are doing this yourselves, then you can create plans using a spreadsheet or one of the project planning tools available.  You should have review meetings, perhaps by conference call, at least once a week with the parties involved, at which progress against the key dates and deliverables can be discussed, along with any issues arising.  Beware of the ‘90% finished’ syndrome - in our experience tasks so called will often no more than half way to being ready.  Only rely on complete and tested deliverables, and set your project milestones based on these.

What are the main deliverables you can expect in the project?  This is what we will cover in more detail in the blogs over the next weeks, but for us, the most important are: an agreed site structure and navigation, design and layout, content delivery, build completion, and testing.  And when you finally go live, this is for us only the end of the beginning.  For a website should be a living thing, which needs to be nurtured with fresh content to keep it current and interesting to encourage repeat visits, and continually marketed, monitored and analysed, to understand what works and what needs improvement, in order to get the best return on your investment.

Naming the new arrival

Coming up with the name for a new website is traumatic.  Naming a new baby is easy in comparison - at least you don’t have to worry if someone has already registered it first!  And that if someone has then they would want to charge you several thousand dollars for the privilege of using it.

Come to think of it, that is precisely the problem with domain names - their exclusivity.  Of course if you take the extension into account then the name is not exactly exclusive as you can have many different country and other variants.  The problem is that here in the UK for instance, most people at least want the .com or .co.uk version, or both.  Although I am actually pretty pleased with our .net extension as I think it is quite cool.  And I think the .info is much underrated, and the .eu is quite acceptable, although I’m not totally convinced by it.

Although not an issue we find with naming children, the problem with names is not totally new to the web of course.  There is a similar problem with companies and trade marks.  Trade Marks are easier in that they cover specific industries and therefore the same mark can be used by two different businesses as long as they are not competing in the same field and, like domains, they are territorial.  Trade marks are also very relevant when it comes to deciding on a name for your site.  If you choose a name which conflicts with a trade mark, then you may be forced to give up the name.  This can be extremely inconvenient and expensive if you have spent a lot of time and money basing your website branding on the name.  It is therefore important to check out whether the name you are about to use does infringe a trade mark.  This can be complex as unlike domains, the name doesn’t have to be spelt in the same way to infringe on a trade mark.  You are best engaging a solicitor or trademark attorney to help you with this.  It may also be a good idea to  register the name as a trade mark yourself so that you can prevent others potentially confusing your customers by capitalising on your good name.

Another issue with names is whether to use a domain name describes what your business does, or what the benefits are of your service, or whether to use a non descriptive name.  Descriptive names are often liked because the search engines will more easily find your site if someone types in the terms used in your domain name.  This is certainly a benefit, but there are also issues with this approach.  The first is that it will be difficult for web users to differentiate between your site and that of another site with a very similar name - perhaps even the same name with an ’s’ on the end.  And trade marks will not help you here as they generally will not be given for descriptive names.  It is therefore difficult to sustain your brand and image.  Another issue is that the name may be restrictive if you want to start offering different services.  A final issue is that these names are favoured by search engines because they are not that smart yet.  One day, perhaps soon, they will stop giving this advantage to sites just because of the terms used in the domain name.

So on the whole it may well be better to go for a non descriptive name.  If you still wanted to use the descriptive name to generate traffic, there is a solution quite commonly used which is to create a separate micro site with the name which can be used to capture visitors and provide details of your service and links to your main site.

So here we are with the new site, all sorts of questions to be anaswered and decisions to be made - and we have only got as far as the name!  See our next blog for the next exciting step in our quest for a new online presence.

Website creation

The decision to have a new website can arise from a number of causes, not all as valid as others.  In fact unless the reasons for the new website and the requirements are clearly defined, and the implementation planned carefully then the website could be a waste of time and money, and may even damage your existing internet presence and business.

Probably the most common reasons for a new website are where a new businesses is starting up and wanting to obtain a presence on the web, or where an existing business has what is thought to be an old website and want to bring it up to date.  Both reasons can be valid, but need to be undertaken after some serious consideration.

In the case of the new business, a web presence will generally be beneficial, but this does not mean that they need to commission a website.  Certainly for a micro business, a shared web space on one of the big corporate providers such as BT or Yell or may suffice and be easier on cash flow.  For others the choice may be an off the shelf e-store backed by an effective online advertising  if commodity sales is the primary aim.  And some freelance professionals may be best served by a blog in which they can demonstrate their expertise for very little financial outlay.

Where an existing business considers a new website, the first thing to consider should be what is the requirement and the business benefits that it will bring, not what design they should have.  The project should be based on estimates of the return on investment, and not on the basis that the existing site looks ‘tired’.   If the latter, a facelift may suffice and could cost considerably less. 

What are the reasons a new website may be needed by an established business?  A new product launch or rebranding may often be a good reason if this can be justified in terms of building  the brand and ultimately drive new business generation. 

This is ultimately the reason for our launching this site, as we felt we need to differentiate our internet solutions from our more corporate work. It was not an easy decision, and not just because of the time and effort involved.  There were arguments that combining our product offerings on a single site would emphasise our capabilities in meeting the internal processing of organisation, a necessary adjunct to the running of a successful internet business.  Whether we took the right approach will be tested in due course based on the ability to generate the anticipated levels of business.

The other very good reason for a business to move to a new site is where the existing site is limiting the business in establishing and growing their internet presence, and therefore their business.   The most common cause is where the initial site is a static HTML site, or based on an inflexible and difficult to use content manager.  This can present difficulties in producing the compelling content that can attract visitors and have them enter into a lasting relationship.  It can also prevent effective tailoring and monitoring the effectiveness of landing pages to cater for selected types of visitors, which will lead to loss of business and potentially higher advertising costs.

Anyway we now move on to the case where a web presence of some kind has been determined based on sound business grounds - what happens next?  See our next article on ensuring your site is built on  solid legal and technical foundations.

Welcome to Ferreter

In this blog we will comment and bring updates on new developments in the internet which will be relevant to businesses using the web to do business. The web grows get more complex every week, so it is more and more difficult to keep abreast of changes. So we will try and distill the more important and interesting developments.

Having just finished developing this web site for ourselves, a good place to start is to look at the stages we went through to arrive here, and the issues we addressed on the way, as typical of the normal cycle of web development. Even with our experience in the field, it is still a challenge, especially the call on time and resources and the decisions needing to be taken. So we can appreciate what the difficulties are for those whose main interest is getting their business off the ground or targeting growth in their target market, and for whom much of the workings of the web is still a mystery.

We do understand that what you are most interested is a web presence which is going to meet your business needs, which is not going to be a millstone in terms of the effort required to maintain it, and not eat up all your business budget!

We understand that you are probably not interested in the pros and cons of open source, or whether you should Flash or Quicktime for your videos. Although we do think you will be interested in how easy it is to maintain, and whether visitors might experience difficulties viewing your latest video, so these are the areas where we can take the strain and suggest solutions which are optimal for your requirements.

We can also advise and help set up the necessary marketing strategy for the website, starting from the structure design and content of the web, through to the choice of marketing methods and how to optimize these so you can get the best return from your investment.

Over the course of the few weeks we will be going through the stages, from looking first at do we really need a new site and why, through the branding, procurement, design, build and testing stages, content creation, through to the final implementation. And of course, it doesn’t stop there as the site should be a living things, constantly changing and adapting to your business needs of attracting and engaging visitors, with the aim of converting them to future clients.

So come back soon, or subscribe to our feed on the right, as we tell the story, starting with the first chapter, which considers whether and why one might need a web site.