10 Ways To Get Noticed By More People

Taken from : http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/12/10-ways-to-put-your-content-in-front-of-more-people/

Which is more important, driving traffic to your website or encouraging as many people as possible to see your content? Believe it or not, they are not one and the same.Too often, we as website owners live and die by web analytics applications. We fret about bounce rates, unique visitors and dwell time. However, when we focus so heavily on the performance of our website, we miss a fundamental point: we should aim to expose users to our content, not our website. The website is a tool to showcase our content, but it is not the only tool that does this.

Organizations with truly successful websites understand this principle. Take, for example, the following: Amazon’s primary objective is to sell stuff. YouTube aims to use video content to carry advertisements. Twitter facilitates “tweeting.” (Who knows what its business model is!).

In each case, the content matters, not the website. That is why each company provides numerous ways to access its content beyond the website. From Amazon’s affiliate scheme to YouTube’s embed feature, these companies can reach audiences that may never visit their websites.
Twitter is probably the best example of all. How often do you actually read or post tweets via the Twitter website? If you are like me, the answer is very rarely.


The majority of users do not read tweets via the Twitter website.

The lesson here is obvious: as website owners, we need a broader Web strategy to release our content from the shackles of our websites. How do we do this? Below are 10 opportunities that you can integrate into your online strategy.

While the points mentioned below will refine your strategy to deliver content to more people, they can not serve their purpose without an appropriate environment. In the age of social media and the rise of interactive web-applications such as Facebook, Twitter etc. building a community around your website is the most important way to drive traffic and keep the users coming back.

Using forums, polls, comments and engaging users in the global conversations via external services turns out to be a silver bullet for gaining more exposure and winning more loyal visitors. Once you are building a community around your site, it’s time to think about more refined strategy that will help you to put your content in front of more people – and this is where the tips below will come in handy.

1. Target The Desktop

eBay recognized that it needed a desktop application. Many people make a living selling on eBay, and these people need desktop software that streamlines their business processes. They need desktop notifications, faster and more desktop-like interaction and easier access to eBay features.



eBay Desktop: eBay saw an opportunity to bring the functionality and content of its website to the desktop.

Using a platform such as Adobe AIR, you can easily put Web-based content and functionality onto the desktop. This is exactly what eBay did, and it has proved very successful among the company’s power users.

As a website owner, you should consider whether a desktop application is right for you. Do your users need desktop features, offline access or better integration with the operating system?

2. Going Mobile

It won’t be long before the Web is accessed by more mobile users than PC users. In many countries, this has already happened. Traditional websites often render poorly or are hard to use on mobile devices. They do not take into account the context in which a mobile user browses the Web. Approaching the mobile Web as a separate channel to your traditional website, then, is critical.
Here are some methods of delivering content on the mobile Web:

• Create a mobile website.
  Mobile websites take into account small screens, different input devices and the numerous other unique characteristics of the mobile Web.
• Use text messaging.
  Text messaging is ideal for notifications and updates. It is a perfect complement to your website and a way of keeping users informed.
• Build mobile applications.
  Mobile platforms such as the iPhone and Android make it increasingly easy to build applications that run directly on mobile devices. They allow you to make your content available even when the user is not connected to the Internet or away from their PC.

Video-streaming service uStream makes its content available on the iPhone.
Pushing your content to mobile devices is ideal if your target audience is often away from the computer or requires access to your content “in the field.”

3. Start Tweeting

Twitter has so much hype at the moment. However, it does provide a unique opportunity to reach a larger audience with your message. The question is, how best to use it? Some organizations use Twitter as a broadcast tool, turning it fundamentally into an alternative to RSS. An example of this is BBC News or CNN, which provide latest updates via the service.



CNN uses Twitter as a broadcast tool, turning it fundamentally into an alternative to RSS.

However, using Twitter as a broadcast tool misses its true power. Organizations that really “get” Twitter include Zappos and Omnifocus. They use Twitter as a way to engage with their followers and even provide customer support.

Use Twitter as a way to engage with your audience. If a number of people work on your website, encourage them all to tweet, rather than having a single branded account.

4. Write For Others

Writing for other websites is an excellent opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and spread your message to a larger audience than would otherwise be possible through your own website.
Do not limit your words of wisdom to your own website. Look for other editorial websites and blogs that speak to your own audience and offer to write for them. After all, your audience visits many websites other than your own. Why limit your writing skills to your own blog when you can reach new audiences by writing for others?



Whenever I write for other websites, they almost always include links back to Boagworld and Headscape. Here an example from one of my previous Smashing Magazine’s articles.

Of course, any article you write for others should be more than shameless self-promotion. The owners of those websites will want quality content that fits their website and is of interest to their audience.

For example, I recently wrote an article for a website whose audience consisted of franchise owners. If I had simply written about how great Headscape was, I doubt the article would have been published. Instead, I shared a case study of our experience in working with a franchise-based business. The content was both relevant to the publication and useful to its audience. However, it also raised our profile among a base of potentially new customers.

What websites exist that reach your target market? Would they consider publishing some of your content? How could you rewrite your content to make it more appealing to them?

5. Embrace Facebook

Another option for expanding your Web strategy beyond the website is Facebook. Explaining the importance and reach of Facebook is surely unnecessary. However, you may be tempted to dismiss it because your target market is not teenagers, who are normally associated with these kinds of social networks.

What may surprise you is that Facebook is no longer confined to a younger demographic. Over the last year, the number of users between 35 and 54 has jumped 276%, to over 6 million people.



Carsonified Fan Page on Facebook: Facebook has introduced fan pages, which are public-facing profiles for organizations.

So, how do you reach your audience on Facebook? Here are three good starting points:

• Create a group.
  Groups have been around for a long time and are ideal for building a dialogue with those already interested in your product or service. You can easily invite people to participate, and those people in turn can invite others. This makes groups ideally suited to viral marketing.
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• Create a fan page.
  Fan pages are basically public profiles for organizations rather than individuals. Unlike groups, pages are public-facing. This means they can be seen by non-Facebook users and are indexed by search engines. Fan pages are perfect for building long-term awareness and for reaching people both inside and outside of Facebook.
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• Create an application.
  Facebook allows third parties to build applications that can be added to user profiles. These range from games to RSS feeds. Unlike with pages and groups, building applications requires some technical skill. However, the possibility of users embedding your content in their profiles makes this an attractive proposition, if you have appropriate content.

Of course, Facebook is not the only social network. But it does have considerable reach and provides some the best tools for reaching its massive audience.

6. Develop A Widget Or API

The ultimate way to distribute content has to be by providing an API or widget.
An API gives other Web developers access to your content, allowing them to build applications and websites around it. Using an API, developers can do anything from embed your content on their websites to build desktop applications that offer advanced functionality.
Twitter really gets APIs. When was the last time you viewed or posted tweets from the Twitter website? Chances are, a long time ago. Because Twitter offers a powerful API, thousands of developers have built all kinds of applications that allow you to view and post tweets. The actual service that Twitter provides is in fact very basic; but its API makes it possible to do everything from viewing tweets on a Google map to posting photos, video and audio.



Tweetdeck is just one example of the powerful applications that can be built using the Twitter API.
Unfortunately, APIs have some drawbacks. They require a considerable level of technical expertise to implement. As a result, they are of use only to developers. What about the rest of us? How do we add third-party content to our websites? That’s where widgets come in.

A widget is typically a small piece of code that you can copy and paste into your website. Literally thousands of widgets are available. They allow website owners to use the content and functionality of other websites quickly and easily. Widgets are used to embed YouTube videos, show your Amazon wish list and display your location on a map.

Widgets are powerful because they are easy to implement. This means anybody can add them, thus allowing you to distribute your content much more widely. Widgets are also easier to build than full APIs. This makes them a good starting point for those wanting to put their content in front of more people.

7. Offer Better Feeds

Not all approaches to putting content in front of more users have to be as time-consuming and complex as developing an API. Doing one other thing could increase your views within minutes.
Users increasingly rely on RSS feeds to consume content from websites. This is especially true for news, articles and blog posts. However, some website owners are so obsessed with driving traffic to their websites that they provide only teasers of their posts via RSS. To read a whole article, the user is forced to click through to the website.

This approach to RSS is counter-productive. When a user is browsing a large number of feeds, they are less likely to read your content if they have to leave their news reader to do it.

To maximize users’ exposure to your content, ensure as much of it as possible is displayed in the RSS feed itself. Require users to click through only when absolutely necessary.



Google Reader displaying a partial RSS feed: many websites truncate their content in RSS because their advertising revenue is based on page impressions. They see driving as much traffic as possible to their website as being in their interest. This is a short-sighted.

It is also important to note that when users read content from an RSS feed, they do not have the context of your website. Ensuring, then, that your content stands on its own and that your copy incorporates calls to action is necessary.

8. Use Multimedia

Of course, limiting your content to the written word is becoming increasingly unnecessary. Creating audio and video content has become a trivial task. Services such as YouTube and applications such as AudioBoo make production and hosting easy.

Also, pioneers like Diggnation and Wine Library TV have shown that users care more about quality content than high production values. Both shows essentially have presenters speaking to a single locked-off camera. This kind of production value can be achieved with a consumer camera and basic editing software.

That said, creating popular content is harder than it appears at first. Many organizations believe that simply uploading their latest product demonstrations to YouTube will generate millions of views. That is simply not the case.

Good rich media content has to be engaging if people are expected to watch it and, more importantly, recommend it to their friends. This can be done through a passionate host, great content, humor or shock value. With thousands of videos uploaded everyday, standing out from the crowd is important.



Wine Library TV proves that great content and a passionate presenter are more important than production values.

However, don’t forget that your content has to be appropriate to your target audience. Shock tactics may work well with a teenage audience but may not go down so well with middle-aged business executives!

9. Start Streaming

The next wave of multimedia on the Web will be not pre-recorded material but rather live streaming. Services such as Ustream, Qik and Justin TV are all fighting to dominate this space. Each offers the opportunity to stream live content on the Web at zero cost. This makes the barrier to entry extremely low.

The main benefit of this approach over pre-recorded material is interactivity. The live format allows viewers to engage with the presenter in real time via chat. This brings a host of opportunities, including, but not limited to, the following:

• Live product demonstrations
  Live streaming allows you present your products and services while taking questions from the audience. This is considerably more powerful that showing pre-recorded promotional videos.
• Community sessions
  If you run an online community, live streaming gives you the chance to engage with that community on a much more personal level than with the written word. Social news website Digg has run a number of “Town Hall” meetings in which its user base engages directly with the CEO and founder.
• Online training
  Finally, live streaming is a perfect environment in which to provide remote training. Whether the training is on using your product or selling online workshops, live streaming allows users to both hear and see what you are doing.

Social news website Digg has run a number of Town Hall meetings in which its user base engages directly with the CEO and founder.

Live streaming is still relatively immature, and few are taking advantage of this new opportunity. Your company has a real opportunity to differentiate itself through its use.

10. Don’t Forget Email

Amidst all this talk of video, audio and APIs, it is easy to forget the tools we have always had for reaching beyond the confines of our website. Although not the sexiest tool on our list, email had to make it on before the end of this post. Email should be a key tool for keeping your content in front of users. Obviously, email can be used for a lot more than syndicating content. However, for the purposes of this article, it can be used to subscribe to your content. If users can subscribe to your content via RSS, they should be able to do it also via email.



ProBlogger allows its readers to subscribe to his RSS-feed via e-mail.

Fortunately, there are services such as AWeber and MailChimp that make this easy. FeedBurner is an option, too; however, it lacks subject line customization and has very limited design customizations available. You can find more information about why FeedBurner isn’t good enough in the article FeedBurner’s Free RSS-to-Email Syndication: Why You Can’t Afford It. With one of these services implemented, users can subscribe via email with a single click of a link on your website.

A word of warning, though. If a user subscribes to your content via email, they are not giving you permission to spam them indiscriminately. If you fail to respect their email subscription, you are in danger of losing that user and inciting them to post negative comments on your website, which could put off others.

Conclusion

There was a time when a website was enough. Now, your website needs to be just one small part of your overall Web strategy. Expecting users to come to you is naive. Instead, take your content to them, whether on a social network like Facebook’s or a mobile device like the iPhone.

Taken from : http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/05/12/10-ways-to-put-your-content-in-front-of-more-people/ 

You Are Wasting Time On Social Networking

I find it encouraging that website managers increasingly recognize that a Web strategy is more than running a website. They are beginning to use tools such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube to increase their reach and engage with new audiences. However, although they are using these tools, too often they do so ineffectively. Tweeting on a corporate account or posting sales demonstrations on YouTube misses the essence of social networking.

Social networking is about people engaging with people. Individuals do not want to build relationships with brands and corporations. They want to talk to other people. Too many organizations throw millions into Facebook apps and viral videos when they could spend that money on engaging with people in a transparent and open away.

Instead of creating a corporate Twitter account or indeed even a corporate blog, encourage your employees to start Tweeting and blogging themselves. Provide guidelines on acceptable behavior and what tools they need to start engaging directly with the community connected to your products and services. This demonstrates not only your commitment to the community but also the human side of your business.

Taken from:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/02/10/10-harsh-truths-about-corporate-websites/

How do web users think?

Basically, users’ habits on the Web aren’t that different from customers’ habits in a store. Visitors glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. In fact, there are large parts of the page they don’t even look at.
Most users search for something interesting (or useful) and clickable; as soon as some promising candidates are found, users click. If the new page doesn’t meet users’ expectations, the Back button is clicked and the search process is continued.

• Users appreciate quality and credibility. If a page provides users with high-quality content, they are willing to compromise the content with advertisements and the design of the site. This is the reason why not-that-well-designed web-sites with high-quality content gain a lot of traffic over years. Content is more important than the design which supports it.
• Users don’t read, they scan. Analyzing a web-page, users search for some fixed points or anchors which would guide them through the content of the page.
  
  
  
  Users don’t read, they scan. Notice how “hot” areas abrupt in the middle of sentences. This is typical for the scanning process.
  
• Web users are impatient and insist on instant gratification. Very simple principle: If a web-site isn’t able to meet users’ expectations, then designer failed to get his job done properly and the company loses money. The higher is the cognitive load and the less intuitive is the navigation, the more willing are users to leave the web-site and search for alternatives. [JN / DWU]
• Users don’t make optimal choices. Users don’t search for the quickest way to find the information they’re looking for. Neither do they scan web-page in a linear fashion, going sequentially from one site section to another one. Instead users satisfice; they choose the first reasonable option. As soon as they find a link that seems like it might lead to the goal, there is a very good chance that it will be immediately clicked. Optimizing is hard, and it takes a long time. Satisficing is more efficient. VIDEO showing eye tracking
• 
   
  
   
  
  Both pictures show: sequential reading flow doesn’t work in the Web. Right screenshot on the image at the bottom describes the scan path of a given page.
  
  
• Users follow their intuition. In most cases users muddle through instead of reading the information a designer has provided. According to Steve Krug, the basic reason for that is that users don’t care. “If we find something that works, we stick to it. It doesn’t matter to us if we understand how things work, as long as we can use them. If your audience is going to act like you’re designing billboard, then design great billboards.”
• Users want to have control. Users want to be able to control their browser and rely on the consistent data presentation throughout the site. E.g. they don’t want new windows popping up unexpectedly and they want to be able to get back with a “Back”-button to the site they’ve been before: therefore it’s a good practice to never open links in new browser windows.

This was taken from an article on the Smashing Magazine site:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/31/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/

Personalisation Is Changing Search Engine Optimisation

How personalisation is making online marketing an even tougher environment for marketeers.

"An invisible revolution has taken place is the way we use the net, but the increasing personalisation of information by search engines such as Google threatens to limit our access to information and enclose us in a self-reinforcing world view", writes Eli Pariser in an extract from The Filter Bubble

The filter bubble in action - here is a visualisation of what’s taking place. The comparisons only scratch the surface of what Google’s filters are doing, but this is enough to give you the idea (taken from http://www.thefilterbubble.com/what-is-the-internet-hiding-lets-find-out)

Another good source of information about this troubling form of 'censorship' is here - http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jun/12/google-personalisation-internet-data-filtering. The following is an extract of this article:

"Google uses 57 signals to create personalisation (possibly more by now) – everything from where you were logging in from to what browser you were using to what you had searched for before – to make guesses about who you were and what kinds of sites you'd like. Even if you were logged out, it would customise its results, showing you the pages it predicted you were most likely to click on.
Most of us assume that when we google a term, we all see the same results – the ones that the company's famous Page Rank algorithm suggests are the most authoritative based on other pages' links. But since December 2009, this is no longer true. Now you get the result that Google's algorithm suggests is best for you in particular – and someone else may see something entirely different. In other words, there is no standard Google any more.

It's not hard to see this difference in action. In the spring of 2010, while the remains of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig were spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, I asked two friends to search for the term "BP". They're pretty similar – educated white left-leaning women who live in the north-east. But the results they saw were quite different. One saw investment information about BP. The other saw news. For one, the first page of results contained links about the oil spill; for the other, there was nothing about it except for a promotional ad from BP. Even the number of results returned differed – 180 million for one friend and 139 million for the other. If the results were that different for these two progressive east-coast women, imagine how different they would be for my friends and, say, an elderly Republican in Texas (or, for that matter, a businessman in Japan).

With Google personalised for everyone, the query "stem cells" might produce diametrically opposed results for scientists who support stem-cell research and activists who oppose it. "Proof of climate change" might turn up different results for an environmental activist and an oil-company executive. A huge majority of us assume search engines are unbiased. But that may be just because they're increasingly biased to share our own views. More and more, your computer monitor is a kind of one-way mirror, reflecting your own interests while algorithmic observers watch what you click. Google's announcement marked the turning point of an important but nearly invisible revolution in how we consume information. You could say that on 4 December 2009 the era of personalisation began.

With little notice or fanfare, the digital world is fundamentally changing. What was once an anonymous medium where anyone could be anyone – where, in the words of the famous New Yorker cartoon, nobody knows you're a dog – is now a tool for soliciting and analysing our personal data. According to one Wall Street Journal study, the top 50 internet sites, from CNN to Yahoo to MSN, install an average of 64 data-laden cookies and personal tracking beacons each. Search for a word like "depression" on Dictionary.com, and the site installs up to 223 tracking cookies and beacons on your computer so that other websites can target you with antidepressants. Open a page listing signs that your spouse may be cheating, and prepare to be haunted with DNA paternity-test ads. The new internet doesn't just know you're a dog: it knows your breed and wants to sell you a bowl of premium dog food."

So how does this affect the average internet marketing effort on Google to be found for a particular search phrase. The answer is you can't really know. All you can do is to keep monitoring the search volumes and competition for those phrases. The best approach is to get ahead of Google rather than trying to chase after it. You do this by thinking about your niche, creating relevant quality content which you 'know' people will be looking for and spreading it about on the Internet in as many places as you can. You can only do this by knowing your subject inside-out - there is no real way of fast tracking this approach. It's a long term approach which in the end will make sure you are found for anything that you choose to publish.

The Best Job Advert for the Worst Job

I stumbled across this Job advert - I have removed the name of the company so the person who set it up doesn't get into any more trouble than they are already in! I used to work in recruitment advertising and I would have loved to put an advert like this in the press. Somebody was really pissed off with their boss when they created this advert:

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Client Services position
Do you get a kick out of frustration?
Do you enjoy being criticized by your boss on a day to day basis?
Perhaps this gives you the motivation to do better?
Can you work overtime whenever needed? Take no holidays, but happily be criticized for being 5 or 10 minutes late in the morning?

If your answer is YES then WE WANT YOU!!

For more information contact #∞¢#∞¢#∞¢
NB: If you are not English do not apply! Your application will not be taken seriously.
It is also important that you like to drink like a fish, watch football and suck up to the MD at all times!!

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I would like to point out that I am not endorsing this - I just think it's funny!

Free Emoticons Download - Retro Style Pixel Art

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These retro style pixel art emoticons are suitable for most platforms
Download the Free Emoticons here.

Top 5 Reasons to Have Video on Your Website

Video on websites isn't a new thing, but it's one that's not taken off quite as much as it should.

We're great believers in engaging the audience of sites that we build, and with this in mind launched our latest service recently, where you can have web video for as little as £99.

Here are our top 5 reasons you should have video on your website:

1) People buy from people - they want to feel as if they know you and trust you before they part with their hard earned cash. It's not always easy to get personality across on a website, with awkwardly posed professional photographs and copywritten text that can often be devoid of personality. A video allows them to see the real you, the person they will be dealing with, or the company that they're spending their money with. It makes you seem more personable and approachable and could be the difference between a sale or an exit.

2) It allows you to play alongside the 'big boys'. For a long time the smaller business suffered because they didn't have the budget of the big brands - their websites looked inferior, and they couldn't afford the gizmos and gadgets that the big players could. That's all changed. With web video costing as little as £99, any business can invest and make the most of it for their website.

3) Some people just like video. I'm not going to quote stats to you, but it's well known that some people learn and understand by hearing something, some by reading, and some by watching. Video gives you two of those ways, and your website the third - that way you've reached the maximum potential audience in the way that they like.

4) Some industries reaaly NEED video. I'm talking about hotels, estate agents, holiday companies etc. They need to be able to show off their wares, to connect with people's emotions and make them able to see how great the hotel room / house / beach is.

5) Video is not just about talking heads. You can use video on your site in a number of ways: tours around your facilities, demos of how to work things, small commercials, montages of your products, educational tools, and yes, of course, a talking head interview or speech. You know your audience, what would they like to see?

It's easy to think that video isn't for you - but do you remember the days when even large companies were saying they didn't even need a website?

If my 5 reasons have helped you to realise that web video could be the way forward for your website, get in touch!