Website Development Strategy That Will Drive Customers

What should be the first step in developing a website?
1. Creating a design to use as a basis,
2. Deciding how the content needs to be integrated and managed,
3. Gathering content from corporate collateral,
4. Developing a strategic plan for your specific needs, or
5. Choose the most cost-effective hosting plan.

In just about any profession other than website development, your answer would be choice 4. After all, you couldn't build a house without considering the layout, number of bathrooms, and features of the home. You wouldn't create a design for a major advertisement and then plan the content and message of the ad. Yet, when it comes to website design, often the design comes first and the strategic plan for the site comes last.
Being a veteran of about 20 years in marketing and design, this issue has perplexed me for years. It seems to me that the development process should be:
1. Discover the reason a business needs a website and the expectations of the business.
2. Understand your typical customer and what influences their purchasing decision.
3. Have a clear understanding of how the website fits into the marketing plan.
4. Research to find what customers are searching for in Google, Yahoo in relation to the business (keywords).
5. Carefully plan a site architecture which is best for the demographic, online search trends, and have a site that's easy for search engines to follow, is designed with the target market in mind, and has clear definitions of conversion goals.
6. Create a design which speaks to the target demographic.
7. Launch the site and begin an internet marketing plan to fulfill realistic expectations.
8. Modify strategic marketing plan as needed in response to real-time data.
Then issues such as server configuration, hosting service, domain registration variables, proper site construction, CMS, SEM, PPC, Social Media, and many other features need to be researched and fine-tuned. For example, choosing a hosting package with an IP that has been associated with a "bad neighborhood" in the past (bad neighborhoods are offensive sites, etc.) can cripple your website marketing plan before it begins.

Instead the plan is usually:
1. Create a design.
2. Add content. (most plans end at this point because there usually are no marketing goals for a site.)
3. Contact SEO firm who performs keyword research based on content of site.
4. SEO firm proposes keywords.
5. Site is optimized by SEO firm by editing original site to make it more SEO friendly.
6. Results vary.
7. Usually followed by redevelopment IF business doesn't lose faith in the internet.
All the details are usually not dealt with because the average designer doesn't know they exist.
I think the reason the internet world can get away with a backwards strategy is because the design portion is fun, is more tangible, and looks impressive. It gives a client the ability to suggest colors, logo position, interactive media, position of the navigation system and other elements. The process usually goes smooth because the developer gets the excitement from the client and the client is impressed by the nice design work. BUT... that's also why over 99% of all internet businesses FAIL.
Because there is no quality infrastructure and strategic plan in place. Either the site is poorly marketed, keywords are unfocused, or it doesn't fit into the overall business marketing plan. In most cases, this is where the business owner begins to think the internet is all hype and will not work for their particular business. They disregard stunning statistics, such at 65% of all Americans begin their search for local services on the internet FIRST. This is followed by a competitor leveraging the internet as a strategic advantage and ultimately leads to a loss of revenue by the disillusioned company. So What's the CURE?
Your website needs to be planned. A thorough understanding of your expectations, target demographic, and geographic influences have to be considered. The proper research needs to be done to assure your internet marketing plan has the right infrastructure and architecture and then you can eat the "cake" (design).

BUT...
This is easier said than done for the following reasons:
* It's more expensive to create the right plan.
* It's not as fun to start off with planning, expectations, and realistic goals.
* A good team to create your plan has to understand design, marketing, social media, SEO/SEM, custom development, and customer service to get the job done.
* Most website developers mask their weaknesses. Some are good at design, others technical work, others SEO, but few are good at it all...
* College students and novices practically give away website design which is hard for the business to turn down.
* Consultants usually do not have a complete understanding of the entire process.

AND THE WORSE PART...
Is now the internet developing world has realized that cheaper, do-it-yourself systems sell better than a comprehensive plan. (See our article on "canned solutions.") So companies like Intuit provide "simple solutions" (because it is high profít, low overhead), and the one who ends up suffering is your business. Be Smart and Eat Your Vegetables First... Then have Dessert.
Proper planning is the cure. Hiring an experienced company to help you is the one way you will truly have an opportuníty to dominate your market online. It will cost a little more, it won't be as fun up front, but it will be worth it in the end.

About The Author
John Carroll is A.C.E. and SEMPO certified and has almost 20 years experience in marketing and design. His internet marketing plans have helped many organizations reach new levels of success using both the internet and traditional marketing techniques. John Carroll is founder of www.MaxWebGear.com.

Google Instant Previews - Implications for SEO & Marketing

Google wasn't satisfied with just having Instant Search, now it has introduced something called Instant Previews. Searchers and web users can now browse a large instant "preview" of a site's content by placing the cursor over the small magnifying glass displayed beside each listing. These previews are large and Google sometimes highlights a major paragraph or quote from each displayed site.
Searchers can get a general look at the layout and design of a site, onpage graphics and bold headlines can usually be seen from the preview. However, small print and the general content of the page can't be read, so searchers will have to click through to your site if they want to read your information. Assuming of course, they don't find what they're looking for in the headlines or bold print.

Whether searchers will use this new feature remains to be seen, but these instant previews could have some ramifications on who gets the "click through" to their site. One would also reason that getting the top spot in the rankings have diminished somewhat, if searchers can quickly preview all of the top 10 listings and then make their decision. So they might not click the top listing, but decide one lower down is worth clicking. This could make any listing on the first page more worth having, not just the top one.

Google Instant Previews Screenshot

This doesn't really affect any of your SEO strategies and you should be optimizing for the search engines as usual. After all, getting those top rankings for your targeted keywords in the major search engines is what brings in the quality traffic to your site. In this regard, it's business as usual.
However, Google's Instant Previews does change the whole nature of SERPs or rather Google's search results in that webmasters and marketers have another hurdle to get past before they get that final click. Searchers might click your top number one ranking preview and decide your page is not up to standard or it's not what they're looking for, and can quickly try out the other listings instead.

From Google's perspective these previews could improve the "overall" quality of their results because searchers will come away happy, especially if they have not wasted their time clicking on a link, only to find it's not what they're looking for. Now they can easily find the right results more quickly and efficiently.
For the webmaster or online marketer, these new Instant Previews can be seen as another chance to get that all important click. They must make sure their page design is up to scratch and featuring a catchy headline which draws visitors to their page or site. Also, highlighting a well worded summary could help attract more of these visitors. So too, would placing your main keyword phrase in bold print so that it can be read from the preview.
Needless to say, webmasters/marketers must always keep their targeted keywords front and center. Highlighting them on your page in the main title is already a given, but now you should make sure they can be read from the preview. This could possibly give you an edge with it comes to getting that click from Google.

On a more general note, these previews also add to the time searchers will spend on Google's results pages. Google has been steadily focusing on this factor in recent months. Why? One good reason - the longer a searcher stays on your page the more likely they are to click your paid ads. Stands to reason, if the searcher can't find what they're looking for in the so-called "free organic listings" (actually, truth be told, for very lucrative keyword phrases these are not free, nor organic) they will look to the paid Adwords listings.
If you check out the average time spent on Google, according to Alexa, in 2009 it was around 7 minutes and now in 2010 that average has jumped to around 14 minutes. And that's before both Google Instant Search and Google Instant Previews are fully rolled out and implemented. One would expect that number to go much higher. While this is nowhere near Facebook's average time of 31 minutes, Google has still doubled the time it had only a year ago. No wonder, Google can afford to give their employees that 10% raise, they have probably earned it.

Daily Time On Site - Google/Facebook

Nor should Google be criticized for doing all of this, they are a business and their goal is to bring in more revenue. Besides, these previews will no doubt improve the effectiveness of Google's SERPs. Searchers can more quickly find what they're searching for on Google and come away happy. A satisfied customer is the ultimate goal of any business, why should Google be judged any differently.
However, for the webmaster and online marketer, keeping Instant Previews in mind when creating webpages is a must. Here are some suggestions you can follow:
1. Improve Your Graphics - These can really grab the searcher's attention in the preview so it's vital to have eye-popping graphics right next to your important information.
2. Create Great Headlines - Good headlines quickly capture the searcher's attention and draws him/her to your page; just make them bold enough to be seen in Google's previews.
3. Write An Informative Summary - Place your important information in a short summary which also captures the viewer's attention. Entice these viewers to visit your site or page.
4. Take A Multi-Layered Approach - Just don't aim all your marketing towards free organic search, but try video listings, news listings, image listings... to get other ways onto Google's first page.
5. Finally, PPC Advertising - This is probably not what you want to hear, but paid listings through Google Adwords is another option. Besides, for extremely lucrative keywords, as more and more major companies throw major funds into SEO and Keyword Link Buying, organic search is not really free or even available to everybody anymore. For the small-time webmaster or marketer, paid listings in Google may be your only option and that option is quickly becoming too costly for many.
Of course, how Instant Search and Instant Previews play out in the near future is still open to wide speculation. Will searchers even use those added features in their daily searches? Or will users opt–out and go back to a more gentle, less hurried Google? One thing that all of us can be sure of, Google will be constantly rolling out new features and innovations just to make all our lives a little more interesting.

About The Author
Opinions expressed are solely those of the author, a full time search engine marketer who operates numerous niche sites, as well as two sites on Internet Marketing: www.marketingtoolguide.com and www.bizwaremagic.com Titus Hoskins Copyright 2010.