Recently, I started work on an online marketing campaign for one of my clients and the first thing we did was keyword consultation.  I asked my clients to randomly sample some of his potential website visitors or perhaps his ideal website visitors and ask them, “What words would you Google if you were trying to find me but did not know about me?”

About a week later, my client wrote back saying that he had checked his server logs and he listed his top 5 keyword phrases.

“That’s not what I had asked for,” I told him.  All that tells me is how existing clients are finding them.  This tells me nothing.  What I want to know is how can we reach clients who don’t know who you are?  You can’t get that information from your traffic logs.  You have to reach out to your prospective clients and ask them directly, with open ended questions.  Otherwise, you are going to produce biased results.

Certainly, it would have been easy for me to take his original list and exploit it.  I could have easily focused on these keywords and demonstrated through third party analytics that I was making progress.  But, if I were him, I would be more interested in the bottom line.  Who cares how many people come for a keyword that you are already indexed for?  What you should care about is conversion rate, specifically increasing that conversion rate.  You should focus on bringing new website visitors.

Common SEO trap

Another very common and tempting thing to do is to guess, using your own words and inside knowledge as to what website visitors might use to find you.  Don’t do it.  I don’t care what words you use to describe yourself or your industry.  You are an expert.  Experts use different words than novices.  The only words I care about are the words that your prospective website visitors might use to Google you.

So, pick up the phone and call people. Or, next time the phone rings, ask them, “What words would you Google if you were trying to find me but did not know about me?“

When the economy slows and unemployment rises, employers often receive resumes from over-qualified prospects.  Be careful, over-qualified employees often come with the following baggage:

1. They are used to having a staff of people to direct
2. They are often several levels removed from specialized work
3. They expect more respect, power, and privileges
4. They expect higher compensation and benefits
5. They may quickly become frustrated and disatisfied
6. Their ego and morale may quickly deteriorate
7. They may be less flexible, open-minded, and willing to learn

It may be better to select job candidates with slightly less skills, knowledge, experience, and expectations and then groom them to the right employee.

All aspiring entrepreneurs should learn lessons from their daily lives.  In particular, we should pay careful attention to how other businesses operate. 

Recently, I wrote about the declining customer service and ultimate doom of Circuit City.  There is a reason why Circuit City stock is trading at about 10% of what it has been earlier in the year … their customer service stinks and the entire experience of shopping is less than satisfying.

However, Target is a refreshing alternative and great Business 101 lesson in how to do things right. 

Today I visited the Target located in Reston, Virginia (between Dulles International Airport and Washington DC).  The shopping experience was great.  The store layout was natural and intuitive.  If you start to lose a little energy while shopping, don’t worry, Target has a Starbuck‘s cafe and a Pizza Hut to hold you over.

I went to Target specifically to find a wine cooler for some of my favorite wines (2003 Havens Merlot Napa Valley, 2003 Merryvale Merlot Napa Valley, and a 2003 Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon Lytton Springs).  You don’t want to allow your $30/bottle wine cook in the Washington DC 80-90 degree summer temperatures.

When I found my cute little 8 bottle wine cooler, I was shocked to see the $19.99 price tag on the shelf underneath the box.  When I went to the counter, the cashier rang it up and brought to my attention that it was $79.  Had she never said anything to me, I wouldn’t have even noticed … I would have just went on my merry way.  But, when she did bring it up, I told that actually, it was $19, not $79.  A manager was monitoring the lines and immediately came up with his radio to ask for a price verification.  Meanwhile, the cashier continued to check out my purchases.  As she was getting to my last item, the manager told her to go ahead and just charge me $19 because he didn’t want this discrepancy to hold up the line.  Obviously, what was most important to him was moving customers through the checkouts as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Well, I certainly didn’t complain that he chose to honor my price of $19 instead of taking the time to verify the actual price.  So, after I checked out, I pushed my cart to the side and walked back to the shelves where I found the wine cooler.  I looked over my shoulder and he was following me.  He said that for peace of mind, he just wanted to check it out himself.  I told him that I was on the same mission.  When we got to the shelf space, I realized that the demo model was on top of the price tag of $79 and that the box where I had picked up the wine cooler was mistakenly placed on a shelf with a $19 price tag.  At that moment, we both realized that a) the box was misplaced, b) my memory was correct, but c) the actual price was $79, not $19.

The manager told me to just go ahead and go home and he would honor the price.  But, since I had my teenage daughter with me I felt like I should go out of my way to set the right example.  I told him that I didn’t want to steal anybody’s money and we need to go back and correct my charge.  He needs to add $60 to my bill … and we did.

Certainly, I could have gotten away with paying $19 for a wine refrigerator instead of $79.  But, the point is that the Target management felt that a positive consumer experience combined with extraordinarily efficient checkout was worth far more than losing a little bit of money here and there.  In the process, they gained my consumer loyalty.  I can guarantee you that if Circuit City and Target were direct competitors, I would put my money on Target.

By the way, that may explain while Target stock prices are on the rise while those of Circuit City are on the fall.

Is Circuit City going out of business? 

Yesterday, I walked into the Circuit City in McLean, Virginia (just outside the Washington DC beltway) and was surprized to see four Circuit City employees in their bright red shirts sitting outside on the sidewalk goofing off.  As I entered the lonely Circuit City on this particular Saturday afternoon, I also noticed the store was virtually empty.   “Strange”, I thought to myself, as I had just left a very busy Target and Best Buy.

My quest targeted exclusively around a Cable Modem to hook up my new Comcast connection, but there didn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason for how the store was organized.   My mantra for organization is, “A place for everything and everything in its place.”  Obviously, Circuit City and I do not share the same school of thought with regard to both organization and customer service.

I finally managed to find the sole employee on the floor, who seemed to be deeply engaged in a conversation with a couple, so engaged that he wasn’t even aware that I was patiently waiting for him.  As scarce as employees were on the floor of Circuit City, I would have hoped that he could to a little multi-tasking and simply point a finger to the right general direction of cable modems.

Frustrated, I walk over to the cash registers and cannot find a single employee, much less customers.  I find my way to the manager’s area and see a lumpy looking guy sitting on a bar stool in his bright red shirt that now looks more like a cross between a Christmas tree ornament and a huge Hershey’s kiss.  He seemed lost in thought and I hated to disturb his day dream.  So, with a little bit of guilt, I asked him Why there are four Circuit City employees jacking off in the parking lot while only one employee is on the floor?  Snapping out of his deep thought, he asked me What am I looking for?  I told him cable modems.

Rather than extend his arm and point me in the right direction or simply give me an aisle number (as if they had one), he walks out to the parking lot to find somebody.  Meanwhile, I wander the aisles until I finally find only one choice of cable modems in the entire store. 

You would think (at least I would) that as many cable modem manufacturers there are and as many variety and speeds of cable modems that exist, you might expect to see at least two choices.  Nope, just one.  Finally, about 5 minutes later, one of the guys from the parking lot asks me if he can help me find something.  I looked up from where I was kneeling on the floor (why they don’t put these at eye level, I don’t know … Do they think 3 year old kids are shopping for cable modems?) and told him that I had already found it.

Exasperated, I head towards the exit door and went back to Target to buy my cable modem.  My prediction is that Circuit City will crumble over the next 12-18 months.  Sell your Circuit City stock now.

I visited the Akamai offices in Reston, Virginia today and toured their NOCC.  They gave me a VIP demo and a nice brown bag lunch.  Basically, Akamai is a technology for accelerating delivery of your web content.  They started out as kind of a caching service.  Then, they distributed about 35,000 redundant servers across the edge of the internet around the world.  The result is a much more stabilized and consistent of getting your content onto the decentralized and distributed network of workstations, laptops, and computers around the world.

Visiting their NOCC is very much like visiting a military command and control center.  They have a dozen plasma TVs around the room showing off hot-spots around the world, internet choke points, and even areas of cyber attack.  Their eyes are on everything with regard to internetworking.

Akamai‘s client base is nicely distributed across the U.S. government, U.S. military, top U.S. media outlets, top entertainment brands, top retail brands, and other Fortune 500 companies.  For more information about Akamai’s solutions, please visit their website.

inQbation is thrilled to announce the recent launch of Enstruct Corp‘s new website, the trusted source for financial modeling.  inQbation’s lead project manager, Luis Cuellar worked closely with Enstruct founder and CEO, Keith Allman.

As you can see from the before and after shot (after is above and before is below), inQbation catapulted the design and styling of Enstruct Corp to new heights.  We will continue to support Keith Allman with his online marketing needs and wish him the best with Enstruct Corp’s new web launch.

Regardless of whether you are a McCain fan or an Obama fan, it is hard to deny the success of Obama’s online outreach program.  If you would like a benchmark to see how  your campaign or website compares to that of Obama, read on.

Obama’s online scorecard

The first thing we did was run his site past a couple 3rd party measuring sticks.   We ran it through Alexa, Statbrain, Google, Yahoo, Website Grader, and a few other key performance indicators.  There are the results:

Obama’s Online Marketing Techniques

So, how does the Obama team do it? What are the tricks?  Let’s take a look.

On Page Elements

BarackObama.com has ensured that all TITLE tags, META description tags, and META keyword tags and completed and unique for every page.  This site also significant content and most all of that content has been indexed on Google.  Interestingly, the site doesn’t take advantage of Htags or images with ALT tags.

Off Page Elements

What is happening outside of BarackObama.com is what is really making the difference.  The Obama team has made tremendous use of viral video marketing via YouTube.  This viral video effect is multiplied, almost exponentially, by Obama’s fans making their own videos and remixes.

While the folks at Google might downplay the value of inbound links, the results cannot be denied.  His incredible number of inbound links, almost two million, play a significant role in his search engine optimization.  This is particularly important because if you follow your instincts and simply type www.obama.com into your browser, you will surprized to see that he doesn’t own it.  So, it’s crucial that when people Google, “Obama,” that he ranks first place.

The two most important factors in web design and development are:

1. Your targeted website visitors
2. The purpose, mission, and goals of your website

Every design decision that you make, with regard to your website, must apply these factors.  Otherwise, your website may just fail to launch.

Who are your website visitors?

It is absolutely essential that you clearly define and understand exactly whom do you want to visit your website.  After the fact, it might also be interesting to discover who actually does visit your website.  But, for planning purposes, you should at least start with who you want to visit.

You need to understand exactly who they are.  What type of people are they?  What is their attitude?  What kind of information do they seek from your website?  What is their educational background, their literacy rate, their expectations?  What keywords would they use to ‘Google’ you if they didn’t know who you are?  How do they think?  Do they drive on the left side of the road or the right side of the road?  Do they read left to right, right to left, or top to bottom?  You have to put yourself into their shoes, into their minds, into their body.  Can they hear?  Can they see?  Are they using an iPhone to see your site or a laptop or an engineering workstation or a 50 inch plasma TV from a corporate conference room?

Are you getting the idea?  Because every decision you make from color choices to layout to font selection to graphic to sound to the keywords you use depend on properly defining this target market.

What is your website’s purpose?

Okay, you’ve defined your targeted website visitor, now what?  Now you need to know what do you want them to do?  What is their call to action?  What are you trying to achieve?  Why bother spending money on the website?  Why does it exist?

The fabric of a website

So, if you take a vertical set of lines and call them website visitors and then a horizontal set of lines and call them the websites purpose then you get the fabric of a website.  This mesh needs to be applied to every design and development decision throughout the lifecycle of the website.

• Should we add sound?  I don’t know … who is your target audience and what is the purpose of the website?
• Do we need to worry about other browsers?  Who is your target audience and what is the purpose?
• Should we have Flash?  Who is your target audience and what is the purpose?

Getting my drift?

TEAM USA 2008 Olympics

• Michael Phelps, Gold Medal, Official Website: www.MichaelPhelps.com
• Mariel Zagunis, Gold Medal, Official Website: none
• Natalie Coughlin, Silver Medal, Official Website: none
• Sada Jacobson, Silver Medal, Official Website: none
• Kara Lynn Joyce, Silver Medal, Official Website: www.KaraLynnJoyce.com
• Lacey Nymeyer, Silver Medal, Official Website: none
• Emily Silver, Silver Medal, Official Website: none
• Julia Smit, Silver Medal, Official Website: none
• Dara Torres, Silver Medal, Official Website: www.DaraTorres.com
• Katie Hoff, Silver Medal, Official Website: www.KatieHoff.com
• Larsen Jensen, Bronze Medal, Official Website: none
• Ryan Lochte, Bronze Medal, Official Website: none
• Becca Ward, Bronze Medal, Official Website: none