Executionists - We Get Web Done

By James Copper

There are millions of websites on the internet all competing for the attention of users. This makes the design of your website very important if you want to stand any chance of surviving. You can spend huge sums of money promoting your site, but if the website design isn’t up to scratch then it’s not going to make any difference.

Before you look at SEO or other promotional campaigns, you should first experiment with the design of your site. All good web designers should already be aware about the importance of good website design.

Simple

Sometimes simple is better and this is true on the internet. It is possible to create stunning and very advanced sites. These are time consuming and can also take a long time to load. It is almost always best to stick to simple website designs.

Be careful if you are ever using pop-up windows as most people have pop-up blockers. These can also cause irritation if used too often. Simple websites will load quicker and will be indexed by search engines much quicker.

Titles

Every single page of your site should be valuable. All of these should have a clear aim in mind and should have a title. The title must contain your keywords as this will help to get your site indexed in search engines.

You can find out about keywords which you might like to use by using keyword tools like the one offered by Google.

Images

Using images on your website is great and will look fantastic. However you need to be careful not to overdo it. If you include too many images on your site then this can slow it down and make it take much longer to load.

The same goes for flash. Flash may make sites look professional to some people but it also makes it slow down. It also means that many people will have to download additional software to view your site. If you must use flash then keep it to an absolute minimum, not that many people appreciate flash websites anyway.

The main problem with flash and images is that search engine robots cannot see what they are. They will only index a site based on the text content. Set the alternate labels to try and reduce the impact this has on your site.

Meta Tags

When you’re designing websites it might be tempting to ignore meta tags and other information. However the meta description is used by search engines and should be able to encourage surfers to visit your site. Make sure you create a unique meta description and put the right one on each page.

Text Links

You must be very careful to create text links to different pages of your site even if you have another form of navigation. These are normally displayed at the bottom of each page. This will make it much easier for web spiders and robots to crawl your website and index it in search engines.

You need to be able to consider SEO at the time you design your website. If you design your website correctly then you should be able to make it look appealing to search engines.

James Copper is a writer for http://www.thebigagency.co.uk, and can be reached at info@thebigagency.co.uk

How Much Does A Website Cost?

Almost every potential client asks this question. I’ll get to the answer in a round-about way but first some obligatory back story. Over the past 13 years we have developed hundreds of website with budgets ranging from $1000 to $50,000. We have also worked on Fortune 500 company websites in conjunction with other development companies, these total budgets have been $100,000 – $1,000,000. For websites of this scope the team can consist of 10 or more people working full-time for six months or longer.

Websites just don’t happen, they are the result of the execution of a methodology or process that arrives at a successful result. Our website design methodology is based on 13 years of experience, starting with a website for FootLocker.com back in 1996. Our methodology has evolved over time, to make the process more streamlined and flexible. Our basic approach is:

1. Discovery
2. Planning
3. Interface Design
4. Integration
5. Testing
6. Launch/Maintain

This simple 6 step process can be modified to fit a smaller project by reducing the amount of effort spent on various steps. For example the “Discovery” process can involve just one simple phone call with the client to learn about their brand and goals or it can involve several all-day meetings. The “Planning” process can involve a short document that addresses the creative and technical requirements or it can involve days of research into the competition and building matrices of features and functionality. So you can see that each step in this process is flexible and can be modified to fit a target project budget and requirements.

Flexible process = Flexible Effort = Flexible Cost.

So, how much does a website cost?

It depends on what you are trying to build. Here are some of the key elements that we need to consider:

• Online Marketing Strategy: Do you have one? Don’t think that “if we build it they will come”. It’s important to have an understanding of marketing channels and how your business will use them.
• Branding/logo: Do you have your logo developed? Do you have a style guide for your brand?
• Interface Design: How long will it take to arrive at the look-and-feel that you envision for your business?
• Features and Functionality: This is the meat of the website, what features do you want (online portfolio, media downloads, etc) and what functions do you need (ecommerce, interactive forms, etc.)? Although ecommerce, search and membership are commonplace on the web – that does not mean that this is easy to develop. There are a lot of pre-built (open source) solutions but they invariably have to be customized and that effort can be time-intensive.
• Hosting: This is usually a small cost but still an important part of the process. Will your hosting company allow us to easily configure the options we need for your website?
• Testing: The more complex your website, the more testing is required. Also what browsers do you want your site to work on? If you want IE 6.0 or Safari that could take a lot of additional time to test and troubleshoot.

The above list illustrates that there is a wide difference in requirements for websites and many questions that need to be answered.

More Requirements = More Complexity = Higher Costs.

So how much does a website cost?

When we estimate a project we try to get a good understanding of the project requirements and then estimate the number of hours required for the following 3 primary tasks:

• Interface Design = Design for all site graphics and page layouts, may also include Flash animation design (if required).
• Programming = Hosting setup, database setup, application design and programming, testing, technical project management.
• Project Management = Primary point of contact with the client, project schedule and milestones, communication, consultation and testing.

Other tasks like Logo Design, copywriting, and Marketing Strategy can also be added to the requirements if needed.

Once we have estimated the number of hours for each task we multiply that by our hourly rate which (at the time of this article) is approx. $90 an hour for all services. We then provide the final project estimate to the client and if accepted, our in-house team strives to keep the project within the approved budget. During development, if there is danger of the project exceeding the budget due to unforseen circumstances or new client requests, the issue is brought to the client’s attention so that the budget can be adjusted or compromises made.

Note about our rates: If you search for website design and development services you will find a wide range of fees. Offshore companies may have rates as low as $17 an hour. Students fresh out of school may charge $15 an hour, boutique development companies range from $75 – $150 an hour, larger national firms can easily charge $250 and more per hour. Keep in mind that there is a world of difference between the experience of a $17 an hour developer and a $150 an hour developer. Our rate is based on what we believe is reasonable for the bulk of our clientele which are small to mid-sized, Los Angeles-based businesses. Our methodology has been tailored to deliver design and development services based on that cost.

So, how much does a website cost?

Let’s walk through a few brief client scenarios to help you get an understanding of costs:

Client One: MJ Associates

This small, professional services business needs a website primarily for marketing purposes. They have an offline brand/logo and some website design ideas. They will provide the content for their website which consists of text, headshots, logo and a video of their CEO. They provide a short list of websites they like during a meeting that our Project Manager and Art Director have with them in our/their offices. They don’t require any databases but we will hook up a 3rd-party email management tool for them so they can collect client inquiries and send out email blasts. There will be approximately 8-10 pages.

Estimate is as follows:

Interface Design: 18 hours – will include some Flash design
Programming: 24 hours – HTML, PHP and CSS
Project Management: 12 hours
Total: 54 hours = $4,860

Deliverables:

Following is a semi-complete list of the deliverables from our team:

• Planning document that lists creative and website goals
• Content checklist and schedule
• Access to our project management tool (if desired)
• 2 home page design options that get modified based on client input to arrive at one  approved design
• Design for website pages (based on the home page design) and all associated graphics
• Flash design elements (usually a promotional animation)
• Programming for the website and integration of 3rd-party email management tool
• Integration of all client content
• Integration of Google Analytics
• Upload to client’s hosting server and setup of email addresses
• Testing and Launch
• Proactive submission of site to the major search engines
• At the end of the project we provide the client with a complete copy of all our original files on CD (.PSD, .FLA, HTML, etc)

This type of project accounts for about 1/2 of the projects we do. Post-launch, these companies often come back to us for content updates and enhancements. We bill these at our regular hourly rates or fraction thereof. Clients who require regular edits can save money by getting one of our Retainer Plans that offer discounted rates.

Client Two: Ecommerce Website

This mid-sized business needs a marketing website and ecommerce for their product line. They have an offline brand/logo and some design ideas. They will provide the content for their website which consists of text, headshots, logo, product photos and PDF downloads. They provide a short list of websites they like during a meeting that our Project Manager, Art Director and Tech Director have with them in our/their offices. They have a merchant account.

Estimate is as follows:
Interface Design: 24 hours – will include some Flash design
Programming: 50 hours – HTML, PHP and CSS plus integration and customization of ZenCart (or similar) for online shopping.
Project Management: 24 hours
You can expect to pay a little more for the hosting and an SSL certificate
Total: 98 hours = $8,820

Deliverables:

Same as client one above but add a few hours for training on the ecommerce solution.

Client Three: Membership Website with CMS

This business needs a marketing website for a new brand. They also need membership and email marketing components. They will provide the content for their website which consists of text and video clips. They provide a short list of websites they like during a meeting that our Project Manager, Art Director and Tech Director have with them in our/their offices.

Estimate is as follows:
Branding design and online style guide: 36 hours
Interface Design: 60 hours – will include some complex Flash design
Programming: 120 hours – HTML, PHP and CSS plus integration and customization of Drupal or similar CMS and membership modules.
Email template design and programming: 16 hours
Project Management: 48 hours
You can expect to pay a little more for the hosting and an SSL certificate
Total: 280 hours = $25,200

Deliverables:

Same as client one above but add a few hours for training on the CMS solution.

Cost of Website Add-ons

There are a thousand add-ons you can use to enhance your website. The estimates below reflect the general requirements we have seen, however there are many factors that can push these estimates higher. If you don’t see your add-on here just give us a call and we can provide an estimate.

• Custom Content Management Systems- For clients who want to manage their own content we integrate and customize  content management systems (CMS). We work with PHP-based open-source CMS solutions like Drupal. Costs for integrating and customizing Drupal can range from $4,000 to $20,000.
• Custom Blog- Many clients want a WordPress blog within their website customized to their website branding and design. This ranges from $1,250 – $3,000.
• Email Marketing Campaigns- Clients that want to gather emails and send out branded email blasts for announcements or newsletters require an Email management tool. We integrate the 3rd-party tools (graphicmail, mailchimp, constant contact,etc.) and create an email blast template design, we can even manage your email blast. $720 and up.
• Branding/Identity Development- Logo design is something we are often asked to do. We start with an 8 hour process that generates about 6 rough logo concepts. If one of these is chosen we go through several rounds of edits to arrive at a final version.  $900 – $3,200
• Style Guides- An online styleguide is important because it establishes brand consistency and provides a guide for all your print collateral and online marketing. Basic styleguide $1,440.
• Targeted Landing Pages- Landing pages are pages that promote a specific product or service. They are usually part of an email, social media, or banner ad campaign. We can design and create these pages starting at $450.

So that’s how much a small business website costs.

One final note: If this website will be a significant part of your business please don’t skimp on the design and development. If you’d expect to pay $100,000 for a brick and mortar retail shop (inventory, interior design, furniture, rent, utilities, staff, equipment, insurance, etc) – then don’t balk at paying reasonable rates for the creation of your online business.

We send out 5 – 10 proposals a month for all types of web projects, so feel free to send us your requirements or call 310-754-3807, and we’ll get back to you quickly to let you know how much your website will cost.

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An important factor in successful social media marketing is to continue to create engaging communities.

1. Create focused communities around a central issue or mission where people gather to discuss similar topics, interests and news.
2. Offer resources, training, and host events to interact with community members. Gather feedback on how users would like to get involved and continue to build open relationships.
3. Promote your products and services by rewarding members for their active participation.

If you are paying for clicks, you must ensure that the landing page where consumers end up post-click can convert. Impressions count more than ever when it comes to PPC landing page design so let’s review what sites are doing right (and wrong) and perhaps even find some inspiration for our own PPC campaigns and the landing page designs they feature.

When you want to analyze what works best in PPC landing page design, you want to start with the most competitive terms. We took a look at ten landing page designs (only nine are featured as one was was ultimately just a parked page) to determine similarities and differences that the design concepts have. You might end up applying some of the techniques on your own site, but before settling on one, remember that testing is the only sure fire way to ensure that the right elements are available to convert your specific audience of consumers into buyers.

The keyword in focus (and of course the landing pages that result) are under the keyword “ringtone”. Clearly our choice of keyword will influence the type of landing page designs that resulted. Expect the sites that bid on those terms to focus on acquiring a younger, more socially-connected, technology savvy audience.

There are a few core trends which revealed themselves by comparing multiple PPC landing pages. The sites listed below are in the order in which they were found on the results pages. Once we can determine what’s going on with landing page design, we’re able to make informed decisions and perhaps even understand how to influence the quality score of those individual listings.

Trend One: Limited Paths For Users
Common among the first five listings are the limited paths users can take when arriving on the landing page. Ovi Store by Nokia (which occupied the first position during our review) had just three options: register, login, and a call for developers. FreeRingToneLocker, CellWare and ThumbPlay took a similar “less is more” approach (see trend four for additional information).

Trend Two: Prominent Images
The next trend is the prominent use of large images. In fact, on the landing pages of the first two listings this was the core design element. CellWare (within the third position) took the use of a prominent visual a step further by including a video of a young attractive woman presenting information on the offer.

Trend Three: Strong Call To Action
Several of the top five listings (Ovi Store excluded) had a clear value proposition presented that was coupled with a compelling call to action. For example, ThumbPlay’s “Join Today, Get Ringtones” is a straightforward statement, leaving no doubt in the mind of the user what they need to do to get what they came for. Tonefor.Me is using dynamic keyword insertion on their landing pages coupled with a static call to action.

Trend Four and Five: Data Collection, Content Teasing or Registration
We’ve decided to combine trends four and give into one, but it’s the most important of the group. The sites we reviewed leverage three very different conversion tactics. While some required registration to proceed, others either focused on a basic data collection (name and email) or what I refer to as content teasing.

What I find fascinating about conducting a review of this nature is the insights that a basic study such as this might reveal about quality score. What other design trends do you see on these sites and how do you think this influences quality score?

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The Evolution of Internet Marketing
Social media is the latest step in the evolution of online marketing. There are over 200 million active Facebook users, 8 million Twitter users and other social media platforms account for millions more. By strategically using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter, you have the potential build your online business presence immensely.

Inform customers of your products and services
If you sell a product online, chances are that a good portion of your customers are on Twitter or Facebook, sharing opinions, asking for advice on which new products to buy, and complaining about brands they dislike. If you are in the professional services industry, your clients are probably online, letting their Twitter followers and Facebook friends know how you’ve exercised your practice to assist their needs. Now you have the opportunity to engage and reach your target audience wherever they gather.

Utilize communities to engage, listen, and respond to your customers
Rather than constantly selling and blasting product releases, we recommend that you provide free tips and resources that allow your customers to appreciate you for your knowledge and experience. Social media can help you build long-term relationships, credibility and customer loyalty.

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As Twitter continues to sweep the Internet, it only makes sense that users are adding more and more followers each day. And while services like TweetDeck can help manage all those incoming tweets, not everyone is using them. That presents a problem for those using Twitter to market their brands. How do you stand out amidst all the noise?

Twitter is an excellent tool for finding breaking news. As such, many users scan their Twitter accounts quickly to find something of interest. Pay attention to how you scan Twitter, and you might find yourself looking at users’ images more than the actual list of tweets. That’s because as you become accustomed to the value of a particular user’s tweets, you look for them specifically. It’s much easier to pick out an image of value rather than the entire tweet. Therefore, it’s important, as a brand, to have an image that is instantly recognizable – one that stands out. That way when users are scanning a long list of tweets, the chances increase that they will stop and read yours. That all depends, of course, on the value you are providing with each and every tweet associated with your image.  Check out Executionists on Twitter!

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Technorati Profile

1) Organic Traffic: With their Universal Search protocol, Google has started showing press releases in organic search results. If your press release is well-optimized, it can rank for two to three days in Google organic results. The press release can also get traffic from Google News and other news aggregator websites.

2) Link Building: You can use your important keywords as anchor text and link them to relevant pages on your website. When the press release is distributed these links will be picked up by distribution partners. Links from many of these sites will not be counted, but some of them will.  No matter how big or small your business, link building within your website is a great way to get aggressive on the web.

3) Reputation Management: If someone has criticized your company, one sure way to get the criticism off the first page of Google Blog Search or Google search results is to issue multiple press releases. Of course, if you want to do a professional job, then you need to get external links to your press releases and bookmark and tag these releases.

4) Bloggers and Web 2.0 Audience: Many bloggers subscribe to online press release distribution services like PRWeb. If your press release interests them, they might blog about it and give a link to your press release or your website. If you consistently reach out to this audience, you can get significant links, traffic and sales from them.

5) Traffic from Traditional Media: If your press release interests journalists, they will follow up with you and write a story about your business.This will most certainly lead to a short term boost in your website traffic and sales.

By: Milind Mody

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Heard of search engine spiders?  These are automated scrips that visit pages and copy the source codes for later processing and indexing by search engines.  They don’t always enter a site from the home page.  In fact, every page is a possible entry from across search engines.  With this being said, here are some important strategies to make sure every page on your website is being crawled by these search engine spiders:

1. Each page should have a link to an HTML or XML sitemap.

2. Links have priority over text in the body of a page.  Sidebar text and links are given less priority compared to the main body content.

3. Instead of manual submissions, it’s best to get pages crawled.  Use inbound and outbound links and get listed in directories.

4. Keep page sizes under 100 KB.  MSN live and Ask will not index body text above 102 KB.

5. Put header tags and content near the top of the site pages.

6. Use CSS to feed the spiders links, text and images strategically.  List your text link navigation and keyword rich text at the top of your source codes.

Remember the search engine spiders crawl behind the scenes of your website and only see the text and code in the rendered pages!  Start thinking like a search engine spider!

By: SEO Corner

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Being a recent college graduate many of my closest friends have been dispersed throughout the world… literally.  As a result, we have resorted to email blasting one another on a weekly basis to catch-up on the ever-surmounting events of our lives.  One week we got on a particular topic, a passion which all of us share.  One of my friends suggested that we should start a blog, which as everyone knows has skyrocketed to be quite the social craze.

The reality is that these days millions of people are blogging on everything you can imagine. I am blogging about blogging!  The important question is, however, can a blog bring you more business?

The answer is “YES!” if this can be accomplished with good content, strategy and commitment.  If a blog has intrigued you one time or another, perhaps the following benefits can help boost your confidence to invest in a blog:

•    The opportunity to offer expert advice about your service or product.   Give advice or your opinion about the latest events within your industry.  By doing this, you appear authoritative and are more likely to create interest from new clients and customers.

•    Blogs allow you to directly communicate and educate your customers of your businesses’ news.  Whether you blog about a new product, up-and-coming service, or latest offer, it can potentially capture your visitors and lead to direct sales.  In today’s tough economic times, why not differentiate your company from the competition by creating a personal connection with your audience?

•    Websites with blogs rank higher in search engines than those that don’t have them.   Having a blog allows the opportunity for hundreds of keywords that will be picked up by search engines.  Blogs with frequently updated content are more likely to be promoted by engines.

•    A blog allows your prospective clients and customers an inner perspective on your company.  Viewers will learn your opinions and practices on a more personal level.  This will build a level of trust and they will be more apt to visit your website and purchase your product or service.

•    A low cost and easy way to build a web presence.  User-friendly blogging tools such as Typepad or Wordpress make it simple and fast to access and manage your posts.  Once you get your blog up and running, it’s not difficult to keep your blog updated with fresh content.

•    Blogs are an open source for you to reach a greater audience.  You can easily connect with interesting people from all around the world, creating new business contacts which you may not have had with a normal website.

Here are a few blogs we have customized for our clients either used as websites or simply a customized section to broadcast news:

http://www.minutemanparking.com/

http://richardsonmiddleschool.org/

Now that you’ve heard the benefits of a business blog, get blogging!  Contact Executionists at 310.754.3807 for a free consultation on how we can help jumpstart your website!

By Jeanelle Rabadam
Executionists Marketing Team
email: jeanelle@executionists.com

Today there are hundreds of social networking sites (Friendster, imeem, Flickr, Myspace, Plaxo, Xanga, the list goes on) that are connecting people around the world with different backgrounds, interests, hobbies and professions.  The three major sites that remain at the forefront are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  What, you may ask, is the difference between the three?  Which one will be the most beneficial for my business?  If you are unfamiliar with the growing phenomenon of social networking, here is an overview of the basic differences between Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  Depending on you or your company’s goals and objectives, you will hopefully have a clearer perspective of which service best fits your business.

Who’s using what?

Facebook was created in 2004 by Harvard sophomore, Mark Zuckerberg with the original intention to connect college and high school students.  By September 2006, Facebook had been opened up to everyone: from high schoolers to working professionals.  However, since the original target audience was comprised of 18-24 year olds, teens to mid-twenties do comprise of the largest percentage of the 175 million Facebook users.

Twitter is a relatively young company, beginning as a start-up project in March of 2006.  Although Twitter is growing at a rapid pace, the 25-44 year old users have seem to found the most use out of Twitter.  Unlike Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter users consistently update their status in brief, 1-2 line segments so Twitter visitors tend to be younger, web-savvy and heavy Internet users.

LinkedIn was created in 2003 by it’s five original founders who invited 300 of their most important contacts to join.  As of February 2009 LinkedIn has over 36 million users, many of them being college graduates, working professionals and top-level executives.

Casual vs. Business

Facebook is perhaps the most complex of the social networking sites.   Aside from basic information (age, relationship status, interests, work and education information) Facebook has several add-on capabilities that allow you to do anything from “Invite friends to become a Fan of U2” to send e-gifts on your friends’ birthdays.  Thus, while Facebook does have the largest amount of users, it allows for a more detailed and personal insight.  In other words, while you may find that your co-worker graduated from NYU and was president of his business fraternity you may just as well discover his drink of choice during happy hour.

Since Twitter is based on simplicity, it is difficult to gauge whether it is more business or person oriented.  Unlike Facebook and LinkedIn, in order for your Twitter profile to be beneficial you have to update it on a regular basis.  Twitter users answer the simple question of “What are you doing?”.  Friends, family members and co-workers can “tweet” on anything from running late to lunch to links to their latest blog post on the benefits of great web design.  By “following” your favorite people, you get immediate updates to what everyone is up to in a quick, simple fashion.

LinkedIn allows you to connect with other working professionals.  Your profile is made up of your basic information, school/job history, and professional expertise and accomplishments.  Through your network you can recommend colleagues, create and collaborate on projects, market your company and/or blog, but most importantly be introduced to new business contacts.  LinkedIn is also a great place to join or start groups in order to gain new insights from discussions with other professionals in your field.

The Verdict?

Facebook is the site if you don’t mind combining both professional and personal aspects of your life.  With the greatest number of users, it requires little time and upkeep to create a profile which can potentially help drive other users to your company website or blog.  It is the more casual of the three and with the rising number of add-ons and features, your profile can become quickly cluttered with unwanted junk.  However, with Baby Boomers being the fastest growing demographic on Facebook and over a million Americans joining by the week, it would be a good idea to jump the Facebook bandwagon and begin “friending!”

Twitter is the site to use if you are a heavy web user and are looking to effectively promote yourself and your business on a consistent basis.  You will build a greater following if you constantly update, because you will always have new things to read.  If you rarely update, chances are not as many people will bother to read your Tweet.  Remember to be careful with your Tweets so they don’t get too “spammy”, you’ll want to mix promotions for your business with other relevant info. Twitter is simple, to-the-point and up-to-date.

LinkedIn is primarily geared towards professional use only.  Your profile summarizes your professional qualifications and expertise. LinkedIn promotes you with your connections, your connections’ connections, and the people they know… thus opening the door to literally hundreds of potential clients, associates and customers.  The time to set up your LinkedIn account, upload a picture and link your websites is well worth it.

by: Jeanelle Rabadam
Marketing Team
email: jeanelle@executionists.com