Strategically Communicating

I know we aren’t necessarily posting this week, but I couldn’t pass this up! I had a flashback to SEO when I saw this posting on Mashable about 404 errors. (Who even knew 404’s really were before SEO? OK, maybe lots of people, but not me.)

Regardless, apparently 4/04 is the day to celebrate 404’s! In honor of that, Mashable posted some of the more creative options designed to inspire and humor (or aggravate and annoy) users. My two favorite:  1) Stormtroopers (on the site of a company that makes Star Wars costumes of all things), and 2) Broken Internet (on the site of Digitalmash, which is run by a Facebook product designer.) There are many more at this link:  http://mashable.com/2012/04/04/funny-404-error-messages

Enjoy!

In the Google age, how is possible that any marketers, managers, creative directors, writers, and website developers are not informed, at least about the importance, of Search Engine Optimization? Who does need to understand how to optimize a web site?

In four years of undergraduate study in Public Relations, Media Studies and Writing, SEO didn’t come up. In 2006 we were learning from industry veterans about all the ways they had executed communications plans, not how they would in the years after we graduated. How could they deprive us?!

For my creative, analytical mind… SEO is brain candy. If words like meta-tag and alt-text taste like brussel sprouts to you, hire people who know their SEO.

In five years of public relations work that extended at times into content development, digital communications and ad buying, no one ever asked me about their SEO ranking.

I have never hired a website developer, but the ones I’ve worked with were doing very little to optimize their clients’ websites.

I knew SEO was a thing and left it to the people who knew about it. But not very many people actually know what is meaningful about it or how to effectively manage it. I was one of the many until studying SEO at the University of Oregon’s School of Journalism and Communication at Turnbull in Portland, OR.

Building a website without an optimization strategy is like opening a storefront without a sign or address.  It won’t matter how shiny your salvaged pine floor, how large the front windows or how artful the lighting. No one will know where you are or what you’re selling in there.

Our dependence, as citizens and consumers, on search has become so great that we Google (as a verb) even our favorite web sites over and over again.

Integration of search and social media only muddies the waters, but makes their currents that more powerful.

SEO is an integral part of the communications and marketing mix. Any business owner, manager, communications professional or creative director needs to know it’s importance and essentially, what it is. It allows people to see the sign that tells people who you are and how to get to you.  If you are in business and have a website, you need an SEO strategy and your website developer, manager and content contributors or editors need to know what the strategy is.

Content planners and developers, writers and website developers need to know how to do it, at least in part.

What I find most intriguing about SEO is its focus on the customer experience with the brand. Of particular interest, is the “reel ‘em in” strategy where organizations build website content based on what is attractive to the user. This is an important perspective to remember because often times organizations make decisions based on what they want the customer to know, not what the customer actually wants to know.

I found this rule helpful in analyzing my own organization’s website because it made me realize that our content was written for our own organizational interests opposed to that of the customer. We had built content based on what we wanted the customer to know about our product instead of trying to “reel ‘em in” with content they find valuable. Some organizations have found ways to link a good customer experience with increase in loyalty and sales (ROI). I find it especially difficult to do this when the goal is to raise awareness, which is hard to quantify. Quantifiable metrics like purchases would be easier to equate with the customer experience.

Following is a link to an interesting study on relating the customer experience to ROI. While it does not focus on SEO, it is interesting to see how customer experience is big for business, no matter what.

The Business Impact Of Customer Experience by Megan Burns

Working on my presentation for the SEO workshop has me to thinking about the power of a first impression. So I googled it (of course) and this is what I found: “it takes users less than two-tenths of a second to form a first impression, according to recent eye-tracking research conducted at Missouri University of Science and Technology. But it takes a little longer—about 2.6 seconds—for a user’s eyes to land on that area of a website that most influences his first impression”.

So, this made me think about my own web browsing tendencies and yes I am quick to judge you for your website. I am willing to meet you but if you intend on developing a relationship with me, you better make a good first impression in under 15 seconds or I will “bounce” right out of your site. Isn’t it interesting that websites live and die on the same Darwinian principals that govern existence- survival of the fittest?

http://www.ragan.com/Main/Articles/Study_First_impressions_of_a_website_form_in_less_44432.aspx