user experience Archives - Chuck Sink Link

Online User Experience: How much do you control?

Chuck Sink — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 12:26:28 +0000

There is only one place on the Internet over which you alone have control.

Every online platform except for one can modify, add to, or even ban your company messages. Your brand can be all over the place; Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Google, YouTube, directories, blogs, guest landing pages, etc.

You can maximize your presence in all these online media and the brand experience visitors have will be limited and in many cases disappointing. Why? Because these spaces don’t belong to you and you are being used by them, not the other way around!

The hard truth of social media marketing: Your company information and, very likely, personal employee information are actually the product of social media companies, sold through advertising to other marketers. Your data (which is cumulatively collected with each login) belongs to them as much as it belongs to you. And if you want more than 5 or 6 people to see your posts, you must pay to have it distributed, even to your own friends, followers and connections!

So where is this one place on the Internet that you control completely? Hopefully, it’s the one in which you invest the most time and money – Your Website.

Your own Company Website gets top priority in all matters concerning online marketing. You can totally customize the experience for your specific target audiences. Social platforms, search engines and other channels are fine for distributing Your Website content, but they are not where your brand resides. Metaphorically, you should be entertaining your customers right inside your Home rather than having a quick chat inside a Starbucks.

Content Marketing at Work

I suggest getting busy writing about how you solve specific problems better than your competition. Take pictures and shoot video! At a minimum, hunt down some appropriate stock images for your campaign messages (just know how to choose them).

My company website has been producing higher quality leads in recent months following a content marketing campaign that resides, guess where? Right where your eyes are focused now. This blog.

Questions? Ask a content marketing expert at
Chuck Sink Link.

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Organic SEO in 2018

Chuck Sink — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 11:34:11 +0000

To get the most out of any media channel or public space, it’s usually necessary to invest some money in it. Then you need to keep your messages consistent. Certainly, this is true of Social Media now as well as in Google if you want to immediately drive targeted visitors to your site. And even many of those “targeted” visitors can wind up being “tire kickers” or they may find your site out of context because of industry-specific terms or keyword confusion.

When you understand the pitfalls, paid search can boost web traffic and sales very quickly when properly executed. In the world of paid online advertising, you need to understand the Google platform and this is best reserved for specialists. It also takes a significant ad budget to generate enough clicks to make paid search pay off.

Great SEO Results – Naturally

But today we’re focusing on Organic SEO, that is unpaid, high internet search engine optimization results based on the structure and content of your website. The good news is, your website can rank and perform highly in search engines if you simply do a good job with your website development and content quality as well as keep it maintained!

Many businesses are in a position to forego the high cost of a Google Ads campaign if they don’t need to push results immediately but instead want to grow their inbound leads and sales results over time. With a little patience and conscientious website development & maintenance, Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc. will start to visibly deliver your website to people searching your site’s keywords and phrases. This process may only take several months or a year to start showing impressive results!

Your site’s organic ranking will get higher and higher as your content quality improves and more people reach your site through searches and link referrals.

Content Relevancy and User Experience

The ticket to high organic search engine ranking is the situational and contextual relevancy of your site’s content to an established industry or the specific needs of a target market. Another critical factor is the quality of user experience (UX). The time people spend on your website; how they interact with it and download information can affect search ranking considerably.

Ask yourself these crucial UX questions: Do people who search for your product & service expertise get rewarded when they land on your website? Just how authoritative is your site’s content when judged by an objective marketplace? How well do your competitors’ sites stack up against yours? Are you envious of competition websites? How current is your information? How quickly do you respond to the market with updated content about technology changes or new trends? Do you have an active blog with videos, downloadable content and easy contact forms?

You know what the answers to the above questions should be. All you need is some focused dedication and your website will generate the inbound leads your company needs to keep growing.

High organic search engine performance is reserved for the businesses that take their websites seriously and continually maintain them. It’s really that simple.

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Dress and Code Required

Chuck Sink — Wed, 13 Nov 2013 13:11:28 +0000

By Chuck Sink

Being found by your target audience on the web is a great way to keep your new business pipeline full. There are several ways to raise your search visibility and page rankings. Ideally, all of them should be practiced. They include developing authoritative status; excellent content using keywords including contextual and situational long tail phrases, off page SEO – social marketing, email marketing, blogging and back-linking. What is often overlooked is good clean HTML code that greases the skids for search engines.

In some circles, the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) profession has a reputation slightly above politics. Notice I have nothing against used car salesmen. They would do a much better job running the government than the misfits in office now, but I’m getting sidetracked.

There has been a lot of snake oil sold in the SEO marketplace. Brash claims and promises are made to business owners. “We’ll get your website in the first few listings on Google for your targeted keywords!” Those promises may be legitimate if the person making them is among the elite in the online marketing industry. And keep in mind that the value proposition and calls to action on your site need to be clear and strong to be effective!

The search engine’s mission is to find you the best information or companies to help you, according to that for which you’re searching or shopping.

Attempting to fake out Google has been a highly profitable game for sketchy web development companies. Figuring out how the algorithms work and getting unworthysites to rank high in Google serves nobody! Google has figured this out and has been making changes for the better. Some have cried foul, mostly those fouling up the web development industry.

There are some firms (including very small shops) who build great websites in clean code, which is step one! Then they focus on helping the client create excellent content that is relevant and valuable to the target audience.

There is a lot more to online marketing best practices and the Chuck Sink Link will be publishing more in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, here’s an article, very well written, on web development best practices by one who pulls no punches. The author is a bit techno-haughty and makes some controversial claims but it’s worth a read: the grand conspiracy of SEO agencies.

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There’s a better way to design your website.

Chuck Sink — Wed, 25 Sep 2013 21:38:40 +0000

By Chuck Sink

There is web design and there is graphic design. These are two completely different disciplines. Avoid melding the two.

There several different definitions of the word, design. Let’s consider a few of them:

Design:

to prepare the preliminary sketch or the plans for (a work to be executed), especially to plan the form and structure of,
to plan and fashion artistically or skillfully,
to intend for a definite purpose,
to form or conceive in the mind; contrive; plan.

If you’re thinking about or are in the process of getting a new website designed, you need to focus on definitions 3 and 4!

Many small business owners (and sometimes enterprise-class business executives) end up with websites they accept and later come to hate after seeing well designed websites in their industry. What often happens is the person in charge of designing a new website knows a “web designer” or graphic designer who does websites. It might be a friend or family member, or a referral from a friend. They place their trust and confidence in the person to do a good job because they make the mistake of thinking: “We just need a decent web presence and our other marketing or word of mouth will take care of business.

Website user experience – UX – is a science for which major universities offer PhD degrees. It is a field of study that is helping to shape not only the way people use websites, but how business is accomplished.

I don’t know about you, but my business and many others run on the internet. When you and I have a good experience, whether its on a website, in the form of an email or a social share engagement, we’re delighted and we remember it. If, for example, you need an online management tool or client portal to integrate with your business, you crave simplicity and ease of use. You want to go there and intuitively find what you need and just start working efficiently. Who has time for frustrating trial and error; long learning curves?

You want your website to deliver your brand experience, make clear your message and call the visitors to do business with you, right? Your website has a purpose and it must be true to its purpose. This requires strategic planning. It often requires guidance from a senior marketing professional to get it right.

There are lots of artistic “designers” who can make the website look nice and that should be a given, whoever designs your site. The differentiating factor of great web designs is knowing exactly who the target visitors (audiences) are and planning for their user experiences. It requires knowledge of such factors as user cogitation, navigation paths, interactive features, backend programming and, yes, branding.

As an executive or manager, you must bring your specific business expertise to the design table. After that you should expect the work to flow smoothly and efficiently according to your strategic direction, having had the best consultation right up front. Incidentally, I love helping to build great websites!

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SIMPLE Website Best Practices (Please read!)

Chuck Sink — Wed, 09 May 2012 18:02:53 +0000

Eat it or beat it? What are you serving up?

by Chuck Sink

The website user experience (UX) your organization purveys will either drain you or sustain you in business. Plenty of money can be spent serving up completely different experiences to your audience depending on whom you choose to design your online marketing programs. The difference to your website visitors can be dramatic! One design may have their interest soaring while the other, they find, is utterly boring. Okay…

Bouncing visitors can be very disappointing and even costly, especially if your firm spends money on Pay-Per-Click advertising. You allocate a budget for search engine marketing and get great click through rates to a dull static website with no real value or entertainment to draw visitors in to interact and take action. Or maybe the information layout is difficult to navigate and confusing so they leave the site after 2 or 3 seconds. Then you wonder why your website doesn’t seem to be doing anything for you. (Hint: It must do something for them first!)

Your website is your most valuable communication asset.

Work with a web partner that demonstrates a knowledge of user experience and information design as well as traffic generation. The author’s opinion is the horse has to come before the cart.

You have the choice to serve your online visitors or be indifferent to their experiences. Make certain your site’s UX is worthy of their time. Then go ahead and invest appropriately in traffic generating activities.

So how is your website performing these days? When people land there are they apt to explore and ask for more?

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