However, the portion of a Web site seen by web users is only half the site. Although the site’s look and feel and content are an extremely important extension of the organization’s branding strategy, properly addressing the invisible portion—or programming of the site’s meta data—is just as critical. The site’s meta data holds all the information that search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and now Bing need to crawl and rank the site. The branding strategy should be just as prevalent here as it is in site’s visible information.

Determine keywords based on branding strategy. It is critical to use words that are searched by users and    accurately represent the brand. Keywords that are programmed into the site’s meta data; including page titles, URLs, and page descriptions, as well as in the site’s content will all aid search engines in locating and displaying the site. Programming the site’s meta data to be harmonious with its design and content will not only make the site more search engine friendly, it will ensure the branding strategy is powerfully articulated on each and every page.

Today, an organization’s first impression on a potential customer is most often through its Web site. It is not uncommon for consumers to research products and services before picking up the phone or traveling to a store. Sound branding strategy will increase visibility, credibility, and profitability. If a company’s Web site does not accurately reflect its branding strategy both in the visible portion as well as the meta data, chances are the site will not be found. Potential customers will never see the value you offer.

The Web has also effected the way organizations brand themselves. The web’s ubiquity and ability to break down geographical boundaries, makes it more important for organizations to distinguish themselves online. One of the most effective ways to stand out from the crowd is through your web address, or url. A url should uphold the tenants of effective branding—it should strive to be relevant, memorable, tangible, timeless, and important. Though an organization’s name would appear to be the most obvious choice, there are other conventions for choosing a url—attaching a geographic area (bostoncarpetcleaning.com) and using a descriptor (carpet-cleaner.com) are just a couple options.

Recently the options of choosing a url have increased to allow numerals. Organizations now have millions more opportunities to secure an effective url by including number and letter combinations. Adding a numeral into a url is another way to extend your brand and stand out from your competition.

In the coming year, organizations will have the ability to purchase a unique suffix. Instead of having .com, .org, or .edu; companies can have .anything. Though this is coming at a hefty cost—$185,000 plus a yearly maintenance fee of $75,000—companies willing to pay the price will have the opportunity to set themselves apart and own a unique suffix. These changes will continue the evolution of the Web, will set a new precedent for the way organizations market themselves online, and will affect the way enterprises brand themselves in the future.

Business has changed dramatically in the past twenty years. While a company’s core brand my have remained the same, the way they communicate the brand should evolve to reflect the changing enterprise and the current standards and methods of communication.

Every year, thousands of companies embark on changing their corporate logo. Generally there are two models for updating a corporate mark.

The first is a series of subtle changes. Coca Cola is a prime example of subtle logo evolution. They update their logo frequently and subtly. The average person may not notice each evolution but if you look back over time, the changes become clear.

On the other hand, some firms see the need for a drastic change. Keeping with cola, Pepsi is a good example. Pepsi recently changed the look of each of their brands—departing from the traditional look and adopting a more contemporary appearance.

Which is the better model? It all depends on the organization, its evolution, and its market. Success starts with an accurate representation of the brand through the logo. If the logo is no longer applicable, changing it may strengthen the brand, making the visual and verbal messages cohesive.

Holding on to an outdated logo leads to the following issues;

• An impression that the company doesn’t care—Like architectural styles, fonts and colors reference decades. An audience may not be able to pinpoint a font, but they recognize it looks old. Colors of decades past may eventually come back around but for now are discernibly outdated.
• A perception that the company has not adopted modern business methods—an outdated logo looks like it lives in the past. Unless being old school is the cornerstone of the brand, an old looking logo makes a company look stogy.
• A disconnect between the visual and verbal brands—A company with a logo portraying the early days of the computer industry that offers cutting-edge technology has a huge gap in messaging.
• A lack of importance—Unless an organization has a monopoly, an outdated logo communicates that the company no longer matters in the marketplace. Another player, but certainly not the leader.

Though all elements of a brand—written, verbal, and visual—are equally important when communicating with an audience, the logo is what leaves a lasting impression. Ensuring the logo adheres to the same standards as the rest of the brand—important, tangible, immutable, relevant, and superlative—will help an organization and its brand rise above its competition.

1. Website metrics are free!—there are several quality, open-source software solutions that are able to gather and analyze data as well as benchmark your site against similar sites, giving you invaluable insight with minimal capital outlay.

2. Website metrics are easy to use—the free, open-source software is designed with you in mind. Most website metrics applications are capable of running custom or prepackaged reports that are displayed in visual and easy to use format. Because the software is web-based, you can access your analytics from any computer at any time.

3. Website metrics help you learn about your site’s users—once you know where visitors are going with in your site, you can see why they are going to your site and what’s most important. Web site metrics help put your site’s visitors into perspective; who they are, their geographical location, how they navigated through your site, which pages they paused at and which they skipped, if they purchased anything, and where they exited the site. This invaluable information provides actionable feedback for strategic modifications that will make your site more user friendly.

4. Website metrics will help you drive more traffic to your site—once you have installed metrics on your site and observed the trends of your users, you can start to revise your site to make it more appealing to search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Discovering how people found (or didn’t find) your site is valuable information about keyword strategies you should implement for search engine optimization.

5. Website metrics helps you plan for the future—as you monitor your site with website metrics, patterns will emerge. Use the information about these patterns and trends to help increase the traffic to your site and build your brand. As you plan upcoming marketing initiatives, consider the online community as a viable audience.

Website metrics are a crucial source of information about your web presence and your online audience. One of the best things about the web (and email) is that it provides the platform to collect endless amounts of measurable data that is waiting to be analyzed and put to good use. Make your website work for you and become one of your most valuable marketing resources.

1. Use keywords wisely
Keywords are an important search engine optimization tool that are often misused. Instead of packing a page with several keywords, it is best to select one key term (one to four words) on which your page will focus. Implementing this approach allows search engines to pick up your most important message on each page.

2. Implement header tags
Header tags are a great way to attract the attention of the search engines. Strategically placing keywords within a page’s headings and callouts strengthen a page’s ranking and is a great search engine optimization tool.

3. Incoming Links
Show support for your site by obtaining as many incoming links as possible. An incoming link is a link that connects to your site from an outside site. An effective search engine optimization tool, obtaining links will help your site grow in popularity with the search engines and Web users.

4. Be brief, but not too brief
Having an appropriate amount of content on each of your pages is another important search engine optimization tool. Pages that are too long or too short can be passed over by the search engines in favor of pages with a more approachable amount of content. Try to keep your content between 300 and 1000 words for maximum impact.

5. Always update your content
The more you update, adding content to your site, the more the search engines will have to catalog. When you add content, your site becomes active—the search engines value your efforts by pushing you higher up the ranks.

Implementing effective search engine optimization is one way for your site to be viewed by more Web users. Using these search engine optimization tools is a great way to get started and send your site up the ranks.

• Lack of credit, a slowing economy, and disappearing profits are hitting marketing budgets hard.
• Tighter budgets result in greater accountability and demonstrated return on  investments.

CEOs and tight budgets are requiring greater accountability. Fortunately the tools are better than ever to prove that budgets are allocated correctly. The Web is setting new standards for establishing metrics, gathering data, and calculating return on investment.

1. Web site analytics: More and more firms will realize the value of attaching analytics to their site. Open source software can pull infinite amounts of data into functional reports that not only reveal how many visitors reach your site, but how many were new, where they came from, where they navigated, and how much time they spent on the site. In fact, we can monitor who opened this e-mail, who clicked through to our Web site, where they navigated, and their time on our site. We are able to track individual users as well as general user trends.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): How is Google finding you? All new sites should be built to accommodate SEO. Firms will recognize how they want to be found through organic searches and take the steps to accommodate the search engines. The alternative is to pay for placement—a significantly more expensive option that gives your site immediate rankings.  There is a downside, users recognize payed placements—at least two out of every three users will click organic results before inorganic. These “pay-per-clicks” can get expensive quickly—implementing an organic SEO program will provide significantly greater returns over time.

3. On-line communities: Businesses are realizing that in the right environment, an on-line community cannot only provide important information, it can also energize a product and accelerate sales at incredible rates. They’re not for everyone, but in the right place, they can be incredibly powerful.

4. Videos: Business has discovered video. Visitors want to watch videos.  A recent web survey reports that the average web user watches nine videos a day. If you multiple that times the millions on-line, you are well into the billions. Put testimonials, media, and messages on video feeds. Keep them short to avoid latency, and load them on your site, and be sure the video’s quality accurately reflects your brand.

5. Continued Web innovation: It’s said that necessity is the mother of invention. Marketers will continue to find and develop ways to communicate through the Web. It’s the least cost method and if used correctly, can be more effective than other mediums. More businesses will put collateral on-line and allow visitors to download the material they wish. We’ll see more Web-based forms, modeling software, data gathering as well as product and service ordering. Businesses will continue to search for ways to leverage the Web to reduce costs while improving communications.

This is a great time to shift your approach to communications. Work with the right people to find ways to improve your communications, reduce your costs, and establish ways to demonstrate the value of your efforts.

Client feedback is an important aspect of your brand’s management that is often overlooked. In the past, we relied on our people most in touch with our customers—sales folks, service people, account managers, and installation and maintenance people—to provide information about our audiences. Though insightful, their information was often biased—overlaid with personal interest, the latest customer encounter, and anecdotal judgments.

If you were able to afford a good market research firm, they would interview clients and prospects, investigate the competitors, and uncover the trends of your industry. Traditional market research provides valuable feedback and actionable data, helping you gain insights that are often well worth the dollars spent.

However, obtaining good feedback does not need to be that expensive or time consuming. An online survey is an efficient and cost effective way to reach your audience. The mere action of sending out a survey has an instant positive impact because not only will you be receiving immediate and constructive feedback, your clients will know that you value your relationship by asking for their opinion. Surveying your audience will:

• Provide you with quantifiable data
• Allow you to reach a range of people all at once
• Provide benchmarks for future evaluation
• Gather real-time intelligence

Online surveys provide actionable data—revealing where products are positioned within the mind of the customer, exposing whether campaigns are influencing behavior and in what way, uncovering trends, and even monitoring the level of brand awareness. We even use online surveys to provide a foundation for more productive, in-depth interviews.

Surveys provide the insight and the intelligence needed to spend your marketing dollars effectively. As a cost-effective means of reaching your audience, online surveys give you genuine data that can be used to both evolve your brand and strategic direction while keeping your company top-of-mind—making your organization’s marketing dollars and time better spent.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the science of being found on the Web by the search engines. The better optimization a site has, the higher it will rank with the search engines. Over 90 percent of Web users turn to search engines when pursuing specific information. Very few venture beyond the initial page of results. If you don’t rank on the first page, your chances of being found are compromised.

Should my site be optimized?
You built your site for a purpose. If people can’t find it, was it the best use of your company’s funds? SEO is a very cost effective manner of gaining exposure and tracking visitors. Without it, the ROI of building and maintaining a site may drop significantly.

How long does it take to see results?
Achieving a favorable ranking in the major search engines is a gradual process. You may see some tangible results within days, but typically it takes one to three months to see a positive return. A savvy keyword strategy is critical to achieve a favorable rank—consider targeted keywords and phrases, align their relevance to your site’s content, research their popularity, and determine the level competition you will encounter.

How Do I Monitor My Site’s Activity?
One of the great attributes of the Web is the ability to gather actionable data. In no other medium can you track results as accurately as on the Web. Any site can include the analytics to track hits, their sources, navigation patterns, pages per visit, time on the site, and exit pages. This type of data provides the information to resolve real time issues, improve the experience of your user and improve your organic search ranking.

Employing, maintaining, and monitoring search engine optimization is one of the most critical elements of a successful Web site, yet is often overlooked. Whether it is time to redesign your site or not, do some research—search ways you want to be found and see where you rank in Google. Are you there?

Of course, the general purpose of your site is to market your organization along with it products or services and overall branding strategy, but beyond that—how can you make your site really work for you?

Today’s Web sites serve many purposes—to communicate the branding strategy, generate leads, sell products, relay or collect information, serve as a capabilities brochure, an e-commerce site, or information hub are just a few possibilities. Often, Web sites stray from initial strategic goals to meet immediate tactical challenges, losing their effectiveness over time.

Is your site working for you in the most efficient way? Reviewing your site in detail every year is recommended to assure the branding strategy of the site aligns with its mission— for example, if your product or service lends itself to in-person selling, then your Web site should focus on engaging potential customers to generate leads. On the other hand, your site may be developing into an e-commerce platform, driven by a strategy to gain the economies of the Web. Addressing the branding strategy, robustness, and user experience of your site will become vital to your organization’s success.

When evaluating your site, always start with your branding strategy. Your brand should be expressed in a working document of no more than two paragraphs. It will lead to and clarify your site’s purpose, which will drive its navigational structure, design, content, and functionality. Constantly updating your site without revisiting its strategic purpose can lead to disaster.

Sites can evolve to become disorganized and haphazard, loosing their original integrity. Different groups within the organization make additions to serve their tactical needs while loosing sight of the overall purpose of the site and the organization’s overarching brand. Navigation becomes illogical and messaging becomes confusing, resulting in a poor user experience.

On the other hand, some sites embrace technology, creating complicated visuals that lead to loading latency.  If technology represents an important part of your brand and will intrigue your audience, then this is appropriate. However, though once a popular trend, most organizations are moving away from the sizzle to find the steak— the purpose. Users have a purpose when visiting your site. Fulfill it.

Often the first impression of the organization, the Web site is one of, if not your most important marketing tool. Aligning the Web site with your branding strategy to establish its purpose, developing it to communicate your brand and fulfill that purpose, and monitoring to insure it meets the purpose are three fundamental steps to improving your site’s performance and strengthening your brand.

© 2007 ADAMS

Having an up-to-date Web site is an important element of any organization’s brand and identity. Experts say that the average shelf life of a Web site is two or three years.  In that time, many of the ways we do business change and we need to change with them. As the first impression of your organization, your Web site needs to be constantly monitored and evaluated based on;

• Technological advances and site functionality
• Marketplace evolution
• Organizational evolution
• Search engine optimization

Whether your site spans 100 pages or nine, it is your marketing link to the outside world. It must communicate the organization’s position, messages, and most importantly its branding strategy. It also must have a design and navigation system that is relevant to your audience. It is the most accessible representation of your organization, and you have complete control over the user’s perception.

Technological advances and site functionality
The following reasons demonstrate why it is important to keep up with the technological advances and the functionality of your Web site.

Compatibility. It seems that every few months our Internet browsers are asking us to install updates for security, speed, new features, and programming languages such as SQL and Java. When we create our Web sites, we create them so they are current with the latest browser technology and no sooner is the new site live, the technology changes. While no one can control the frequency of these updates and one update does not make a Web site obsolete—years of updates can have an impact on the way a site is displayed and located.

Software Development. Computer programmers are constantly inventing new ways to make our lives easier. How would you like to be capable of updating your own site with no knowledge of HTML or any coding language? You can do that. How about a funky flash intro? Or online ordering system or client service area? There are several options available today that may not have been available when your current site was created. Appear savvy to your audience and streamline your business practices.

Functionality. As we update items such as news, events, and images, the Web site grows and changes and can eventually become larger than its intended framework. Redeveloping a site every few years creates a logical opportunity to refocus the site and incorporate new functionality.

Marketplace evolution
The marketplace your organization serves is constantly changing. Over time, perceptions change, hot-button issues develop, technology advances, and trends emerge. No matter how timeless you intend your site to be, you cannot anticipate or control these external changes. Keeping your Web site current—addressing the needs of your audience, the benefits you have to offer, and your position relative to the competition—allows you to maintain and build your branding strategy while better serving your clients and prospects.

Organizational evolution
While your marketplace is evolving, your organization is growing and changing to stay competitive. You may be offering new products or services and you may have eliminated those that are obsolete. You may have just been featured in the New York Times. Your Web site should reflect the branding strategy you are working so hard to strengthen, position, and market. A user can tell much about your organization by the pertinence of the information posted. If your news section notes that your last bit of news was from six months ago, it is only natural for users to assume that either you have done nothing in the last six months, or you’re not concerned with keeping up your site. Keeping current keeps traffic.

Search engine optimization (SEO)
With our culture becoming increasingly web-centric, locating your site in a search engine such as Google is as important as the site itself. How and where you rank in an organic search is evidence of the resources behind your site. Because search engine criteria is constantly changing, your site needs to be a dynamic, evolving communications tool to remain well ranked. A static site tends to fall in rank. Refining and developing key words and phrases and adding information regularly are a couple of ways to ensure your SEO stays on target.

The solution to your evolving online world is to develop a regular program that evaluates the effectiveness of your site (at least every six months). Ensure your branding strategy is accurate; your position within your marketplace is relevant; the technology and functionality are fulfilling your needs; and your audience can easily locate your site. Also, be sure you are systematically updating appropriately—addressing changes to products, services, or terms of agreement and updating news and announcements. Developing a Web site maintenance program will keep your online personality current, fresh and relevant.

© 2007 ADAMS