Blue Ocean Strategy – Original Thought or Just a Reflection of “Myopia”?
Posted on | July 22, 2008 | joshua lyall
A little while back, I finally got down to Blue Ocean Strategy in my ever-renewing stack of new books. Any book based not in opinion but in research gets my attention. In this case W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne spent a decade formulating their ideas based on analysis of 150 strategic moves across a variety of industries and eras (comparable to a lite version of a Jim Collins project).
Kim and Mauborgne came to the conclusion that most current industries are already overcrowded with quality competitors who are fighting over a limited number of potential customers (i.e., Red Oceans). They contend that in order for companies to experience significant growth in the future they need to look for uncontested market space (i.e., a Blue Ocean) outside of what they may consider their current market.
The authors provide an excellent systematic approach for a Blue Ocean search, but the big idea behind the book doesn’t feel that new. Almost 50 years ago, father of modern marketing Theodore Levitt spelled out these same essential elements in his most famous article, “Marketing Myopia”.
SEO Quick Tip: Meta Description
Posted on | July 22, 2008 | drew stauffer
Following up on my last SEO tip, SEO Quick Tip: Title Tags, today’s SEO quick tip deals with the meta description tag. The meta description tag is in the head section of every webpage and is a short description of the content on the page.
Second to the title tag, the meta description tag is the biggest influence in whether or not a user will click on your listing. If your description is well written and accurately describes the content, then you can easily increase your CTR (click through rate).
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Welcome to “The New Clutter”: Everyone Who’s Trying to “Cut Through The Clutter”
Posted on | July 9, 2008 | steve whigham
Seems like everyone’s feverishly yapping these days about the need to ”cut through the clutter” while spazzing out on their fourth Red Bull of the morning. But just what happens when everyone starts cutting through the clutter at the same time–and in the same way? Take a look around. Welcome to 2008, The Birth of “The New Clutter.”
To say you’re wanting to “cut through the clutter” and then actually doing it are two separate issues. Unfortunately, they are rarely connected. That’s good news for the serious idea person (which I’m assuming you are–or at least want to be.) Cutting through the clutter is still a simple proposition, but a simplicity most are not willing to embrace. Why? Because it’s hard. Simple, but hard. But it’s doable with a certain discipline to your idea making. And that’s what I’d like to discuss with you… about going to the 15th.
One Easy Way to Generate Traffic
Posted on | July 8, 2008 | drew stauffer
Traffic for any website is usually a main goal, but a lot of people don’t know how to generate traffic. I hear it all the time in the office, “We need to get the word out.” Then weeks or months later, nothing has happened.
We’ve all heard that creating unique and compelling content is the best way to get links and attract people to your website, but what happens when you’ve created your fantastic content and your traffic still isn’t increasing?
Users aren’t going to flock to your website as soon as you publish what you consider to be the most important piece of content on the web; you have to let people know.
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Where is Your Sitemap?
Posted on | July 3, 2008 | drew stauffer
Sitemap pages are a great way to let the search engines know what content is on your website. But what kind of sitemap are you using?
You could use a regular page from your website, an HTML, PHP, ASP, or whatever type of page will work. These pages are great for users because they list all of the pages in your website. Ideally, you would also include a description for each page so a user would know what they’re going to get when they click the link, instead of just a word that lists the page names.
These pages will help the search engines but not nearly as much as an XML Sitemap. An XML Sitemap is a page that you can literally upload to the search engines to let them know specifically what pages you have on your website instead of waiting for them to find all of your pages.
Through Google Webmaster Tools you can submit your XML Sitemap, and once your site is verified, you can get a lot of extra information about your website, including:
- Any errors your site has
- Last time your site was searched by Google
- A content analysis that will give you information about your titles and descriptions
- Your top search queries
- Crawl Stats
- Both external and internal link data
- Plus a lot more
You can easily generate an XML Sitemap through many sources, I prefer XML-Sitmaps.com. Simply enter your URL and the site does the rest. It will spit out your perfect XML Sitemap that you’ll then submit to Google.
Follow all the steps in Webmaster Tools and you’ll be well on your way to making sure your entire website is as Google friendly as possible.
Synaptic Navigation
Posted on | July 2, 2008 | jeff baker
Synaptic navigation is the art of presenting the web site user with a custom navigation experience. Synaptic navigation allows users to follow their own thought process while navigating your site. For example, if a user is looking at a specific product or service and sees a link or call out to related information, there is a chance that they will stay engaged on your site longer.
Usually backed up by linear or traditional navigation and robust search capabilities, synaptic navigation is a departure from directing users down a specific path to what you think they are looking for. The challenge is for designers and developers to think about all the ways content can link to itself throughout the site.
Most web sites attempt to follow the three click rule. If users can’t find what they need within three clicks, they will most likely move on to your competitor’s site. Users are becoming more savvy and want to build a relationship with you on their own terms. Synaptic navigation is one way to do this. Another way is through using PURLs (personalized urls). In the world of B2B and B2C, personalized URLs can make a significant impact on your users. We’ll take a look at PURLs in another post.
USA Today Speaks with Matt Cutts About Search Engine Optimization
Posted on | June 26, 2008 | drew stauffer
Earlier this week, Jefferson Graham from USA Today sat down with Matt Cutts, head of Google’s Webspam team, to discuss search engine optimization. Matt gave some basic tips that can help any webmaster achieve better rankings on Google. Here are some of the highlights:
- Use the keywords and phrases that people would search for your site in your content.
- Create good title and description tags.
- Get other sites to link to you.
- Create a blog and post often.
- Use free tools like Google’s Webmaster Central Tools and Google Local.
In the article Matt goes into detail about each tip and how webmasters can utilize these suggestions to begin to optimize their own web pages. Matt also goes on to dispel other myths that people associate with search engine optimization such as paying for advertising to get better rankings.
There is also a video of the interview if you just don’t have time to read the post. Either way, it’s great information for anyone interested in search engine optimization.
Email Checklist
Posted on | June 17, 2008 | drew stauffer
Seth Godin, author of “Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable” and “All Marketers Are Liars” has compiled an email checklist that is definitely worth a read. Seth goes through a 36 point checklist just to make sure every email is perfect.
Here are a few of the ones that stood out to me:
13. Am I angry? (If so, save as draft and come back to the note in one hour)
14. Could I do this note better with a phone call?
16. Is there anything in this email I don’t want the attorney general, the media or my boss seeing? (If so, hit delete).
32. If this is a press release, am I really sure that the recipient is going to be delighted to get it? Or am I taking advantage of the asymmetrical nature of email–free to send, expensive investment of time to read or delete?
33. Are there any little animated creatures in the footer of this email? Adorable kittens? Endangered species of any kind?
35. Bonus: Does the subject line make it easy to understand what’s to come and likely it will get filed properly?
Check out Seth’s post and let us know what you think. Are your emails as perfect as they could be?
SEO Quick Tip: Title Tag
Posted on | June 10, 2008 | drew stauffer
It’s often been said that the title of your webpage is the most important tag on the page. The title tag is what shows up in the search results and basically either convinces a user to click on your link or keep reading to find another website.
You can quickly search for all of your title tags by using a site operator. Simply go to Google and type “site:www.yourdomainname.com” without the quotes. You will see every page that Google has indexed for your website. Read through all of your title tags and make sure they are written well enough to capture your attention.
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Re-branding a Website? Don’t Forget Your Re-directs
Posted on | June 3, 2008 | drew stauffer
Creating a new website is always an exciting time for any company. A lot can go into a new website and one aspect that people often over look is the redirection of their old web pages.
Every web page on your site has a unique URL and it’s very easy to change the structure of your website when you go through the process of a re-design. If you don’t take proper redirection into account you can end up with many 404 (page not found) error pages. Error pages are very unprofessional and can often confuse the user so much that they will leave your website.
For example, xyz.com decides to re-design their website:
Their old about page is:xyz.com/about
On the new site they want the about page to say company: xyz.com/company
If you don’t setup a 301 redirect, when a user goes to xyz.com/about they will get a 404 error page.
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