inter:digital strategies

Rand McCarley, of 14th Colony Scout, lists his 13 reasons web sites fail, following up on Todd Malicoat’s You Wear a Suit to Work, but let Your Nephew Design Your Website?. Both posts are getting at the same important point: professionalism is a critical part of web site development.

Your website is no less a reflection of your business than your physical location is or than your are yourself in a business meeting, and the design and detail of your site should be given just as much thought as any other aspect of setting up your business.

Although there are certainly vast differences in the visual impact of a site which can be appropriate, there are certain common factors which all sites should have in common. Rand lists a great number of these issues: but they all come down to one thing - the essential mistake a business can make with their website is not thinking about their customers throughout the development process.

Taking a few of Rand’s points for examples:

3. Quitter’s choice. These site owners started and got frustrated that things weren’t happening fast enough or they got too busy or [insert a whole list of excuses] and quit.

7. Stale abandonment. The site is out of date and out of touch. Some stuff may not work anymore causing errors. This is akin to having a busted window but the breeze you feel is the viewers rushing out.

13. Glad that’s over. Thinking the site is launched and won’t need tracking, adjustments or follow-up. Every site is a work in progress no matter how complete it is for the moment.

Anybody making these mistakes? The common theme: not thinking about the customer. Your website is about you: but it’s not FOR you. Always approach your site as if you were a customer. Try and put yourself in their shoes: if you knew nothing about your company except what’s on the website - what would you do?

Images are a critical part of almost any website. Having a well-communicated brand identity can make a huge difference in convincing visitors to return - and having high quality product images can be the difference between a sale and an exit page.

I’ve had too many cases where, in an otherwise beautiful design, I’ve had to work with clumsy, out of focus, poorly optimized images. All the copy in the world may not help you if you’ve got low quality pictures.

The internet is a place where people can make decisions based on concrete issues - they can look at how an item is manufactured, what materials it’s made of, whether it’s non-toxic, and read reviews. But at the end of the day, gut feeling will inevitably play a part - and part of that gut response is going to be based on whether they can visualize your product in their life.

When you’re purely dealing with issues of search optimization, your written content is absolutely the most important single issue to focus on. But that only solves part of the overall marketing question: getting targeted visitors to your site. Convincing them to purchase your product can be greatly helped by strong visual impact.

Tips for Better Images

1. It’s not JUST about the product.

   Setting the stage for your product isn’t just a matter of going into your shop and taking a picture of it on the shelf. Do your storage room’s utility shelves help sell your product? NO. Depict your product either in use or in an appropriate abstract environment.

2. It’s ABOUT the product.

   Yes, I know what I just said - but even though the picture isn’t just about the product, it is mostly about the product. Don’t make people search for the product in your picture.

3. Work large.

   Assuming you’re not going to have a professional take your pictures, don’t make the mistake of reducing all your images yourself. You should always do any editing work at full-size - and you should always deliver full-size originals to the web professional who’s working with your site. You may think that they’re just too big to be useful, but trust me - your marketing team wants the best possible image to start from!

4. Never get rid of the originals.

   Thought you’d save yourself some hard drive space by deleting all your full-size digital images or scans? Whoops! Now all you’ve got to work with is your web-scaled .jpg. Face it - you never know when you may want to re-purpose an image.

5. Don’t be satisfied with just one shot.

   How do professional photographers work? They take a lot of pictures. Yes, professionals also have the benefit of years of experience and training in photo composition and lighting, etc. But anybody can take a great picture with patience.

6. If you don’t like the picture; don’t use it.

   You are a good judge of your product. If you don’t think that your picture is presenting the best view of what you’re selling, you’re probably right. Sometimes deciding between different great pictures is difficult - but you should always be able to eliminate the bad ones right away.

Take the time on your images that you do on your copy - it’ll pay off. Remember that a picture is worth 1,000 words. Google can’t read them, but your customers can.

One question it can be useful to ask yourself when beginning an SEO study is how, exactly, you would go about finding the product you’re trying to emphasize. It’s not enough to simply brainstorm synonyms or chain together descriptive terms: you need to think like an amateur.

The vast majority of customers for any web site are amateurs. Amateurs buying ski gear, amateurs buying computer equipment, amateurs looking for medical information. They aren’t likely to be professional researchers, either. So you should never assume that they actually know anything specific about your product.

After all, why would a beginning canoe enthusiast know that your particular brand of tortured plywood kayak is the best? For that matter, do they even know what "tortured plywood" is? Probably not. But they do know that they’re looking for a boat which is light, easy to portage, hard to overturn, and they may even know whether they’re going to be using it on whitewater or flat water.

Even assuming amateur customers, you’ve got to assume some knowledge at some point…

But the key point here is that you can’t just describe your product - also describe how it’s used and what advantages it has. Not only will this provide you with a wider variety of search phrases to be found for, but your potential customer will be able to learn more about your product sooner. It’s a win-win situation.

A good practice technique to use when thinking about product searching and product descriptions is to go shopping for something else. Specifically, some product you don’t sell and don’t know a lot about.

Searching for gifts is a great way to explore this whole avenue of thought. You’re looking for a product which you know little about and you can’t ask the nearest expert without giving away the secret - the perfect opportunity to try and discover what a good product description is in this industry.

Escaping the barrier of your own knowledge is such a challenge in writing product descriptions. When you are an expert in your product line it’s easy to find yourself focusing on the nitty-gritty details and ignoring the more widely known characteristics in your writing.

Providing your detailed specifics certainly doesn’t hurt you - but don’t write your description just for the product’s designer.