Oh, this is fun. Two of my favorite things in one awesome title.
Okay, we, lamentably, aren't talking about food (the most perfect food) but we are actually talking about navigation on a website. You've seen it around… usually you'll see this menu structure in mobile views of your website but we are starting to see this more and more often in desktop views as well.
The real question is, "Do people know what these really are?"
I know. You are shopping to build a new website or manage your marketing. You might have heard about this new "fandangled" approach to web marketing called Inbound.
You've decided it's time to get serious and compare your service providers so you ask for proposals. Some will just give you a proposal and some will actually take some time trying to understand your goals. Some might just ask for a list of features you want (a clear indication that they are just mouse clickers and not thinkers).
And now, you're at a point where you have to make a decision on which agency to choose.
What, OH WHAT, do you do to adequately compare these services?
Here's a fancy chart that might shed some light on the only way you can compare:
Let me get to the switch on that bait right off the bat. Your sales pitch is probably okay. What really sucks is your sales approach. But, that might not make you feel any better.
The sales world is changing. In my opinion, the consumer isn’t really changing but, instead, the options available to consumers in they way they buy makes the consumer realize they don’t have to put up with the crap traditional sales people spin. Inbound marketing has changed the way people buy and if sales people are still using the old methods of selling the consumer simply gets angry.
In my more than 20 years of employment, I have learned some key things about my own level of productivity. I've learned that in the morning I'm almost never very productive. I get a second (or third or fourth) wind as the day wears on. Sometimes I need a change of scenery. Sometimes I need to close the door and sometimes I need to invite others in to bounce ideas.
More often than not, I need a place that allows me to focus on what I need to focus on without the distractions of phone, email, people, etc. In fact, as I write this blog post, I'm not at the office. I'm away at an undisclosed location to focus.
Search engine optimization is not rocket science. With the way some people talk, you'd think that SEO was the same as going to Mars. True, there are some components that make it a little more complicated to understand... after all, that is why SEOs (search engine optimizers) charge a pretty penny to help websites get ranked in the search engines.
SEO (search engine optimization) is something that needs to be continually addressed. Not only does a site need to have new content added all the time, but the existing, static content, needs to be adjusted, changed and modified.
If your site isn't evolving, then why in the world would someone ever come back?
If your customers have already seen your brochure, do they go back to it very often to try and glean new information? Then why do we seem to think that people will do that with our static and never changing sites?
So, if search engine optimization isn't rocket science, then what is it?
Over the past ten to 15 years, a term has taken prominence in digital marketing. That term is "hero banner," but also often called a "hero image".
I have noticed a few different ways that a hero banner has been defined over time. Some have defined it as a home page or the main call-to-action, but that's really not what it is.
Here's a better definition:
A hero banner is part of a home page (or other important landing pages) and could contain a phenomenal call-to-action.
The design and elements contained in a hero banner should always depend on the goal you are trying to accomplish.
So, why should you be concerned with this aspect of design? We'll cover that here, but first, let's take a look at how the hero banner became an important part of web design and marketing in the first place.
It was only a few years ago that I thought that mobile use of the web would require very little consideration. When the first iPhone was introduced, the ability to pinch and zoom made it possible to use the small screen to see elements on the page without difficulty.
With Google's algorithm updates in April 2015, mobile responsive is more than just a thing. It's critical to the success of your website in mobile search. You can't expect to be successful in your search engine optimization efforts without having a mobile friendly site.
Years ago I worked in the office equipment industry. The companies I worked for sold copiers and printers to businesses, organization, etc. During my tenure at my last copier company, HP rolled out a new copier line. They simply relabeled a line from Konica Minolta.
Our company decided to pick up this line and sell it.
It wasn't a very good copier line. Which is probably why the product line was scrapped after a short while.
I remember asking our rep, "Who is your target market?"
Back came the response, "We sell to small & medium business, departments in large businesses and large businesses."
"So," I said, "you sell to everyone?"
Recently we had an issue with a new client. The old website provider decided that they were not happy we took over web marketing for this client and sent us a nice letter telling us that we needed to remove the website under the DMCA.
Before we had a chance to even think about responding we got a notification from our hosting provider that they were going to take it down because of failure to comply with the DMCA.
The problem was that all the brand elements on the site were brand elements of the client (taken from their artwork). All the images on the site were stock photos... pretty sure that this web builder doesn't own those images. And the content was so bad that we changed it this week anyway as part of the new contract.
The best part is that the bottom of the old website said, very specifically, that the copyright was our client's. So, it was reasonable to assume that our client owned the copyright.
You'd think that, too, if it was yours, right?
A number of years ago I was traveling in upstate New York and went to a Friendly’s restaurant. For those who don’t know the chain, it’s a family restaurant. You wouldn’t necessarily expect the service and food to be stellar but you would still have an expectation that someone says hi, comes and takes your order in a timely manner and gives you food that is halfway decent.
That particular evening as I was sitting in this restaurant it became pretty clear that they didn’t care about me, my money or my experience. I sat in this mostly empty restaurant for nearly 20 minutes before I even got my glass of water and gave my order. I then waited nearly 30 minutes for my fairly simple meal to find it’s way to me. This meal was mediocre at best.
