Do over 90% of all Websites Fail?

Doug Williams @ 4:42 am

This blog entry was posted on September 30, 2009.

I frequently read statements that over 90% of all websites fail. What do they mean by that? Are there any studies to support this or are these just opinions? I set out searching the web to find data to support or disprove these statements.

70% of websites don’t last 3 years without optimization. This is a 2007 study of 420 websites, some with SEO and some without. In this study group, after 3 years, 70% of the non-optimized sites were no longer live on the Internet while only 31% of the optimized websites had disappeared.
97% of websites still inaccessible. In 2006 the United Nations commissioned a study of 100 popular websites from 20 countries. Only 3% of the sites analyzed met Single-A accessibility for Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 1.0 (WCAG 1.0). This was deemed important because it showed there is a global failure to provide the most basic level of web accessibility for people with disabilities.
Only 4.1% of websites have valid code. A study of 3.5 million web pages showed the vast majority have error filled code. This affects website usability and cross browser compatibility for websites.
80% of websites vulnerable to hacker attacks. A Cenzic trend report checking for website security vulnerabilities is showing an increase in the percent of websites being vulnerable to hacker attacks.
2%-3% of ecommerce visitors are converted from visitors into buyers. This is from a 2007 study from the e-tailing group. This means 97-98% of ecommerce visitors do not buy. Is this considered a failure?
“Around 80 percent of websites are terribly flawed,” says Finley… This is an opinion from someone who helps businesses plan and develop website strategies. This is probably a pretty accurate educated opinion.

I found hundreds of articles about website failure, but very few had any statistics to back them up. In other words people were expressing opinions. What they really seem to be saying is that very few websites seem to get good results (sales, leads or phone calls). There just are not measurements or studies to back up these observations.

I know that as we talk to new prospects, most have had bad website experiences where their previous websites had poor results for their business. Usually this is caused by a lack of up front planning and strategy. I believe this 90% website failure statement is pretty accurate… but difficult to prove.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing,Myth Busters

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YouTube Channels: Your Own Custom YouTube Landing Page

Doug Williams @ 5:00 am

This blog entry was posted on September 28, 2009.

Have you been producing a number of videos and posting them on YouTube? If so, then you will want to create your own custom branded YouTube channel. This is a custom profile page or landing page. It is your home page on YouTube where others can see your public videos and comments, read your profile and subscribe to your channel.

Over the past few months, YouTube has been rolling out their new channel design. The new channel system became live in July and old channels must be updated and converted to the new system by September 30 (that’s in a few days). The new system is easier to use and allows more possible customization for you to be able to create your own custom channel.

As you build up a library of videos on YouTube, you will develop a following of avid fans who want to see anything new that you produce. With a channel page you can create consistent branding for all your social media marketing. Imprint your logo and visual branding as you promote yourself as the authority in your market.

Channel Setup: How do you set-up your own YouTube Channel? It’s easy.

Log into your YouTube account and select “Edit Channel”
You will be guided thru the set-up where you can put in the basic information, customize colors and select which sections (modules) that you want to include in your channel.
You will be able to edit each area directly from the channel page to customize your information.
You can add backgound images and further customize the look of your channel under advanced options.

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Filed under: Social Media Marketing

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Building a Successful Facebook Fan Page

Doug Williams @ 5:41 am

This blog entry was posted on September 26, 2009.

Facebook now has more than 300 million active users, half of which log in on any given day. 30% of these are in the US. More than 100 million hours are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide). Facebook is now larger than MySpace. If Facebook were a country, it would be tied with the United States as the third most populous nation in the world.

In short, Facebook is where it’s at. It is the social networking site that is powerful for businesses to be on. Not to sell on, but to interact with visitors and potential customers.

On Facebook, businesses can’t have a profile, instead they have pages. A page is a place to gather your fans, put up information about your company, share what’s new and interact with your guests. Your Facebook fan page is where people come to experience your company in an informal and fun social setting.

Tips for making your fan page interactive and graphically appealing.

Audience: Know who you are trying to reach and design the graphics and content to appeal to that group. Provide real value to the people you most want to reach. Many businesses try sharing information to “everyone” and receive no benefit from their efforts.
Separate pages: Create separate landing pages for fans and those that are not yet fans. This gives you the ability to focus on encouraging new people to become fans and enjoy the fun. Customize the experience to make it unique to your business and style.
Interactive: Customize your fan experience and supply more than static information. Give visitors something to do or new to read. Add links to your Twitter page and feeds from your blog. Use Facebook’s Application Directory to add interactive elements in just a few clicks.
Fresh content: Keep your content fresh and with consistent updates to increase traffic to your page. Add coupons and specials for your fans. Adding feeds from your blog and Twitter are ways to do this. Make regular exclusive Facebook updates to your page. Integrate your past presentations from slideshare.net.
Personality: This is social media, write with personality, style and warmth. This is not the place to be formal, cold and corporate. When you get new fans, welcome them as your new guests.

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Filed under: Social Media Marketing

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How to Create Your Twitter Landing Page.

Doug Williams @ 8:15 am

This blog entry was posted on September 24, 2009.

Having an amazing Twitter profile page will allow you to attract more followers. It is effectively your home page on Twitter. It is the first impression many people will have of you. Your branding goal should be consistency across all your social networking pages.

Over the next few posts I will talk about customizing Twitter pages, Facebook fan pages and YouTube channels to create your branding impression and consistency.

The focus of Twitter is to say a lot with very little. The same is true with your Twitter landing page. You will want to include an intriguing bio in just a few words. Customize your profile page so potential followers will be convinced they don’t want to miss your next Tweet.

Twitter landing page tips:

What can you control? On your profile page, Twitter controls the header area, the bio area and the tweet area. You can control the background image and the profile image. You can also control your user name, your bio content and of course your tweet content.

Name: Twitter allows up to 15 characters for your user name. Use your company name, brand name or domain name. Avoid using hyphens or underscores if you can.
Profile image: Use a consistent profile picture across all social media. This is part of your branding strategy to be recognizable and remembered. You can combine the logo and photo by wearing the logo on a shirt or hat.
Bio: Provide a short descriptive one line bio that quickly summarizes who you are. You have 160 characters and this is visible when you hover over the user name. Tell followers what benefits do your followers get from following you
Background: Design your background image to give the maximum visual impact. Branding should match your colors. Design for a seamless repeat.

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Filed under: Social Media Marketing

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Are Paid Links Good or Bad?

Doug Williams @ 5:25 am

This blog entry was posted on September 22, 2009.

In 2005, purchasing paid text links was considered the ideal link popularity strategy to replace reciprocal linking. Today paid links are considered a risky SEO strategy and Google advises placing “no-follow” on all paid links to avoid possible penalties. But many people have great misconceptions about paid links and how to effectively use them.

In the 2005 time frame, people found that using paid text links with keywords in the anchor text could boost your site really fast in the organic search rankings.

When many webmasters began using paid links to improve their SEO results, Google began a campaign to discourage this by talking about penalizing websites who use paid links. This created a lot of fear among website owners.

But how does Google penalize websites for using paid links? Google will discount these paid links so they do not carry any weight. By removing the link popularity value, Google has made the investment in these paid links worthless for SEO purposes.

Paid links are essentially paid advertising in the same way as Google Adwords and paid banner ads are. They are effective in driving traffic to your website. The key is to not use them to artificially improve your website’s link popularity.

Effective advertising means appealing to the right audience with the right message. Advertising on closely related websites with the right message can drive targeted traffic to your website or improve your brand perception. After all, that is what you are after.

Using paid text links to build link popularity still works, but if detected by Google, the value of these links will be quickly nullified. But when used to promote product branding and as advertising to drive traffic, it is a good marketing tool. Use paid text links as a form of advertising, not for SEO reasons and you will be fine. Use them as you would PPC and banner advertising.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing

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5 Examples of Social Media Marketing Campaigns

Doug Williams @ 7:08 am

This blog entry was posted on September 20, 2009.

Social media for marketing is the hot new area for business marketing. Options run from blogging to video podcasts to social networking portals to Twitter, and participation in forums. There is a vast range of low-cost online marketing tools to reach your ideal audiences, interact with them for branding and to drive sales.

When crafting your company’s social media marketing campaign, your next step after identifying whom you are trying to reach should be to look at how other companies are doing it. What types of social media are they employing. Below are links to actual social media marketing campaigns being run by these 5 companies.

Adobe has a series of product blogs, social bookmarking on Delicious, social networking pages on Facebook and MySpace.
Dell uses a variety of social media platforms in addition to their corporate blogs. This includes asking for ideas (crowd sourcing), multiple Twitter handles, an island in the virtual world of Second Life, Facebook and MySpace.
H&R Block uses a Facebook fan page to aggregate their social media marketing. They use (or used) MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, SecondLife, podcasts, slide sharing and blogging to interact and offer tax advice.
IBM was the first large corporation to embrace employee blogging. They now boast hundreds of blogs related to every facet of their business. IBM makes use of forums, Twitter, wikis, virtual worlds, presentation sharing, podcasting and online videos.
Zappos has set up 13 company blogs and they do lots of video blogging. They use Twitter for employees to communicate their love of footware. CEO Tony Hsieh and all400+ Zappos employees have their own Twitter account to communicate and engage customers.

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Filed under: Social Media Marketing

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How to Generate Web Traffic with Banner Ads

Doug Williams @ 5:22 am

This blog entry was posted on September 18, 2009.

Banner advertising is one of the oldest traffic generation methods that is still highly effective for many website businesses. Banner advertising is similar to online classified advertising or paid text link advertising.

Place these colorful ads onto relevant high traffic websites to increase brand recognition and bring more traffic to your website. Interested visitors will click on your banner and be taken to your website.

You can purchase banner advertising in three ways:

Flat monthly rate: Pay a fixed monthly rate for based on size and location on a particular page.
Pay per impression: Pay a rate per thousand impressions that the page your ad is on is presented to visitors. This is different than pay per click.
Exchange banners: You can negotiate an exchange where you place their banner on your website and they will place your banner on theirs.

Banner advertising tips

High traffic: Select popular, high traffic websites to advertise on. These sites do cost more, but they will yield much better results. Get them to show you their traffic statistics and how long their visitors are staying on their site.
Targeting: Place your banner ads on relevant websites in your niche. A banner for children’s clothing won’t get many clicks if it is featured on a retirement planning website.
Simple: Keep your design simple and focused. One big mistake that people make is to put too much information in a small banner ad. Define a clear call to action.
Attention: The colors and fonts need to stand out and quickly grab the attention of the visitor. You don’t want your banner to blend in with your competition.
Avoid auto-play: Banner ads that involve sounds or video that play automatically are a bad idea. They are annoying and cause visitors to click away from a website.

Will banner advertising work for your business? There are many different traffic generation techniques being used today. You will want to test various traffic strategies and measure the results before you commit a large portion of your marketing budget to any one strategy.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing

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Share Your Ideas as a Slideshow Presentation

Doug Williams @ 4:11 am

This blog entry was posted on September 16, 2009.

Much like you would share photos on Flickr.com or videos on YouTube, you can share PowerPoint presentations on SlideShare.net and other similar slide hosting services. These sites convert the very large PPT format over to a web friendly Flash movie that is compact and fast loading.

Slideshow presentations are better than text alone and different than a video. Use these online presentations to increase brand loyalty, training materials, keeping your clients informed, to improve customer satisfaction or even for providing “how to” instructions.

According to Microsoft, more than 30 million presentations are made around the world with PowerPoint every day. You can now recycle that great presentation you created and post your PowerPoint online. Just like videos, these slide shows can be embedded in blogs and on websites. Many have audio options that allow your slideshow to be turned into a webinar.

You can choose to provide as a public viewable file that others can use as a resource. In this case, always provide your website URL to help drive traffic to your website. Visitors who are interested in what you have said will follow the link to your website.

You can also protect the document for private viewing. You can direct clients to these presentations and then talk them through your presentation.

Many of these services offer embed codes so you can host the presentation on their service and then embed the presentation in your blog or website.

Turn your presentation into a self playing webinar. You can add audio narration in your PowerPoint and in some services; this will convert along with graphics into the Flash movie. Some will use a separate audio file that you can synchronize to your slide presentation.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing

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Start with your Content Strategy

Doug Williams @ 5:12 am

This blog entry was posted on September 14, 2009.

Developing your content strategy is the foundation for any web marketing campaign. Content will connect you with your readers enabling you to interact and ultimately convert them into a follower or a customer. Content is what connects you with the search engines as they index and classify your messages.

All forms of media require a content strategy to reach your audience and communicate your message. The more diversified your campaign, the more important it is to develop a unified content strategy. Your marketing campaign should look at websites, blogging, social media, press releases, video postings, article marketing, email and traditional media. They all reach different audience niches and communicate in different ways.

Content should be developed for two audiences; search engines and visitors. The search engines help attract readers and are your best source of website traffic. Once the visitor arrives you need to keep them, engage them, provide value and guide them toward your goals.

What should your content strategy include?

Messaging and Purpose: This not just what you are trying to communicate, it is your values, voice, tone and legal or regulatory concerns. What are your business requirements, branding, communication and conversion goals?
Target Demographics: Break your target market into specific groups with specific needs. This will help you visualize how best to communicate and reach each niche separately. What topics and answers are being searched for by each group?
Channel Distribution: Select the mix of content channels that will reach your audience(s). Each content channel will have a different purpose and will reach a different demographic. Websites are expected to sell and promote. Blogs and social media are meant to be informational and branding.
Search Engines (SEO): Plan your keywords and linking strategies to promote your website or blog. Integrate video and images into your plan. Links from social media are especially powerful in driving organic rankings. Your organic SEO effort will be much more effective if you apply SEO across all media channels.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing

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Do Traffic Exchanges Really Work?

Doug Williams @ 5:21 am

This blog entry was posted on September 12, 2009.

What are traffic exchanges?

Site owners or webmasters join a traffic exchange network to bring more traffic to their website. Members must browse through other member websites to earn credits. These credits allow their sites to be viewed by other members. Most traffic exchanges require the viewer to stay on a website for a minimum time, typically 10 seconds to 60 seconds. Some require the use of a CAPTCHA to ensure member interaction.

What are some popular traffic exchanges?

Who uses these exchanges?

We want to understand this audience to see if they are your targeted audience. Most traffic exchanges are free to use. They are mostly used by Internet marketers who need to function on a low advertising budget. They trade their time surfing other sites in exchange for other site owners viewing their website.

We used data from quantcast.com to get more specifics. The typical user of traffic exchange websites are less affluent with a household income of $0-30K. They are used most often by middle aged or older age groups. Slightly more males use these sites than females.

This target group is highly motivated to promote and grow their online business using free or low cost methods. They will be open to sign-up for newsletters, e-books and even new business opportunities that will help them reach their financial goals. They are motivated to earn credits so their websites can receive traffic.

Do traffic exchanges work?

The biggest downfall of traffic exchange programs is the quality of traffic. Most visitors are just trying to build up their own credits and could care less about your site. Bounce rates are very high and visitors rarely stay more than the minimum required time.

These can be effective for email list building, but are not usually effective for direct sales of most products. If your targeted customer matches the demographics of the users of traffic exchanges, then it could be an effective traffic strategy.

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Filed under: Internet Marketing