KISS Computing Ireland is pleased to report that a new shopping cart has been added to the website for Golf Glider, a Dublin-based manufacturer of electronic golf caddies. Within the first month of turning the new shopping cart on, Golf Glider sold its first caddy online, to a customer in Denmark.

In addition to building the shopping cart for Golf Glider, KISS Computing Ireland also lent assistance with search engine optimization for the site.  Previous to that work, Golf Glider was no where to be found on Google for its primary product.  New copy was written, and a new heading was included for that copy, all optimized for good indexing by Google.  Within the first month, Golf Glider moved into the top ten, and ultimately the top five, on Google.ie for the keywords “electronic golf caddy” and “electronic golf caddies.”  We don’t think it was a coincidence that the first online sale through its new shopping cart happened with the website’s new top five ranks on Google.

We wish Golf Glider well and continued success in its business.  As the new heading on the web site says, “The Best Electronic Golf Caddy in the Business.”

I was engaged recently in an interesting back-and-forth with a potential client on the subject of pretty vs. purpose and process in a new website design. It gave me very good reason to more thoroughly think through the concepts in order to explain them well and clearly in that conversation. I’m not sure I did so well in that effort, but I’m going to try again here.

Every research study I have read on the subject of Internet attention span tells me that we have about 2/10ths of one second to make a favorable impression on a first time visitor with the design of a website. Thereafter, we have about 2.5 seconds to explain to that first time visitor what they should do on the site, and how to do it, before we’ve lost them to the next search result at Google or Yahoo.

Does that mean that pretty is very important, though? Not necessarily, and in my humble opinion, no. I think the bar is pretty low here, actually. It’s more than saying it can’t be ugly, but not much more. Let me expand upon and explain that, please.

Today’s design standards pay more attention to minimal, with maximum emphasis on purpose and process. Some suggest that function is design today, although I have a better way of portraying the concept . . . . the dancer becomes the dance.

The best example of minimal on the Internet today is Google. Raise your hand if you think the Google home page design is pretty . . . . . not so much, it seems. Purpose and process are all you will find, but for the occasional themed iconography for special days. Yahoo’s home page is a little busy for me, but it is clearly purpose and process oriented. It’s fair to say that pretty does not get in the way of purpose and process here. It is also very fair to say that the “design” matches the business of each site, and this is a crucial element for success.

These are extreme examples, though, and not your everyday e-commerce web site. The company I was having that pretty vs. purpose and process discussion with is in the technology industry. I was suggesting to the company that their “design” should match their industry and their business, and that I would be hard-pressed to find anyone who thought “pretty” when they thought technology. If there is an industry where purpose and process are more important than pretty, it would certainly be technology.

Let’s look at a couple of examples to illustrate the point. There’s Network Solutions, the first of the big domain name registration companies in the technology industry. Some color, some non-descriptive figures, and the rest of the home page is pure process. Same with Register.com, one of the next domain name registration companies to follow Network Solutions - - a guy on the phone in front of a laptop, and then pure process.

There is the managed hosting company, Inetu, as technology-ish a company as you will find. It offers Windows hosting and Linux hosting, and will be happy to provide a quote. Look at the left sidebar - - Windows hosting, Linux hosting and Quotes. Pure process. Sure, there’s a guy standing in front of racks, but this site design is all about purpose and process.

You aren’t looking at fashion, flowers or flash at these sites. The website design matches their business purpose and process, and stays within what they are and what they do. The dancer certainly has become the dance for them. Contrast that with some of our work at KISS: Nauset Lantern Shop, or Puritan Cape Cod, or Terrapin Logo, or Massachusetts Cultural Coast. These sites sell early colonial copper, brass and pewter lanterns, high fashion clothing, children’s educational software, and culture along the Massachusetts coast, respectively. The purpose and process are clearly defined on each of those websites, but the design matches the products and services each offers. Each design is within the character of the company or organization, and is consistent with their identity. The sites have not tried to make them into something they are not.

What does all this mean? How is it one should approach website design for their business? Be yourself, stay within who and what you are, and stay out of your customer’s way when it comes to design. That’s good website design. Pretty should never get in the way of purpose or process - - that’s the rule to follow.

I read an interesting article over the weekend in one of the E-zines I subscribe to on the subject of Google Adsense revenues. It was reporting on the rise of complaints by publishers on the drop in Adsense revenues over the last year, and blaming changes by Google in the program as the cause. A little background might help here.

Google Adsense is a program that permits web site owners (publishers) to insert Google Ads onto their sites. It actually is a pretty cool concept - - you open an account in the program, pick your method of display (simple text lists, or theme-able boxes and presentations, number of ads to show), and insert code Google provides into the HTML of the page on your site where you wish to display the ads. I’m sure you seen them, perhaps in the right or left sidebar, or maybe in the middle of text on a web or blog page. For an example, visit Josiah’s site here: JoseFresco.com, and look in the right sidebar for the section headlined “Ads by Google.”

The Google algorithms then review the copy on the page where the ads are to appear, picks what it thinks are the right keywords from the copy, searches its data base of advertisers for the appropriate ads based upon those keywords, and sends the ads to the web site where you’ve inserted the Google code. If a visitor to the site clicks on one of those ads, the web site owner/publisher earns something from Google - - maybe 10 cents, maybe $1.00, or anything in between. A nice little revenue stream for sites with a lot of traffic.

I’m telling you all this not only to explain how it works, but also to illustrate two points. The first is that Google searches the copy on the page for what it deems appropriate keywords, and then sends ads targeted to those keywords. Put another way, Content is King.

Secondly, and here’s a direct quote from the article I was reading:

“AdSense Publisher Support pretty
much says so, reminding publishers that content is king:

‘[Smart pricing] leads to higher payouts for publishers by
drawing a larger pool of advertisers and rewarding publishers
who create high quality sites… The best way to ensure you
benefit from AdSense is to create compelling content for
interested users.’ “

And, there it is again . . . . . “Content is King.”

You might think there are tricks and magic and special little things that can be done to help your site’s rank position on Google, Yahoo, MSN and the rest of them, and once in a while someone will suggest that the “King” is dead and replaced by social networking sites. I want you to know that the “tricks and magic and special little things” remain and center around developing solid and well crafted content for your site. Google says so itself, and it remains the 800 lb gorilla in the room. I’d say you ought to listen to it.

Words. Well researched. In proper count. In proper places. In proper keyword density. Measured regularly, and refreshed accordingly. High quality sites with compelling content.

It’s not magic, and it’s really no trick. It’s not sexy or especially exciting. It’s simply Internet “Best Practices,” and it’s called Search Engine Optimization. Google Adsense publishers are earning less because they don’t pay sufficient homage to the “King” that is content. It’s not Google, it’s them.

In some of my very recent consultations, clients and prospects are asking the difference between search engine optimization (SEO) and paid advertising, and which is better for them. With a lot of chatter lately, too, about diminishing click rates on paid advertising banners, it’s a good subject to revisit and discuss today.

You know those results that appear at the top of Google’s search pages, and in the right side bar, with the colored background and within the section entitled “Sponsored Results”? Those are paid advertising spots - - technically, those advertisers are not paying to be there; rather, they have bid a price to be paid to Google should a consumer click through the ad to the advertiser’s web site. It’s called “cost per click” or “pay per click” advertising, and it is Google’s main source of revenue. By revenue, we are talking billions, by the way.

One of the e-zines I read daily published an article this week on Google’s click rate on sponsored results, and the attendant hit Google’ stock took on that news. I’m not sure I buy the statistics or the reports relied upon in the article, but the suggestions was that consumers are clicking less on those sponsored results, and the columnist was wondering if advertisers would become more discriminating in their Google Adwords campaigns as a result.

Whether the reports are correct or not, and it’s always hard with Google because it’s a black hole when it comes to releasing internal information, I’d answer the question the same way. If you have to choose between spending your money in a CPC campaign or an SEO campaign, and you really could afford only one, I’d still recommend SEO. I would do so for several reasons:

1. Effective management of a CPC campaign requires a great deal of research on site traffic and conversion rate to calculate a “Customer Acquisition Cost.” The CAC, coupled with the average profit per order, helps you determine how much you should be willing to pay for each click. There’s a wealth of information on these formulas in our newsletter archive elsewhere on our site, and I’d recommend reading it. If you don’t know these numbers, you may well be bidding too much per click and losing money.

2. Bought traffic stops coming when you stop buying it.

3. Effective SEO that achieves the desired results (high organic rank positions) is far more permanent and far less expensive to maintain if you engage in SEO Best Practices of regular content growth, solid keyword research/monitoring, and a regular frequency of content updating.

Sometimes, too, those Best Practices mean simple and modest adjustments in home page content, like writing a good heading for the H1 tag, and some supporting copy for the paragraph beneath it. And, sometimes a simple and modest adjustment like that can bring quick results. Earlier in the year, we wrote some new copy for a Irish web site, www.golfglider.com, with structure (headings, paragraphs) after researching their business and applicable keywords. Within weeks, the site moved to the #1 position on Google for one of their top keywords. Go to www.google.ie and search the keyword “electronic golf caddies” - - - www.golfglider.com will be your #1 result. Try “electronic golf caddy” and you’ll find the site is ranked #3. Before those simple adjustments, the web site was not in the top 20 results. By engaging in SEO Best Practices, Golf Glider should be able to maintain those high rank position in the future.

As I said, if I had to choose one over the other, I’d spend the money on search engine optimization for my site. I would recommend you do the same. The results will be more permanent, and the cost to maintain will be less. The methodology really does work.

We’ve had a similar conversation with enough clients over the last year concerning the efficacy of search engine optimization practices that I think it’s time to write about it. It’s a common misconception that stems from a fundamental unawareness of online commerce concepts and how search engines work, and it stands in the way of successful commercial efforts.

No, it’s not about unrealistic expectations, although that is common and something we’ve written about in earlier posts to this blog. It is the belief that SEO depends on an understanding of the web site’s business, industry and market. Clients think that because we don’t understand their industry we can’t help them with Internet marketing and SEO. It is a fair question, one deserving of an answer, and that’s the purpose of this column.

One of our case studies appearing elsewhere on our site is about the Nauset Lantern Shop. Michael Joly’s site was built and launched in 2003 - - a custom built shopping cart, lots of lantern photos, a custom design - - and we’ve been managing his online marketing for him since. He just re-upped with us, as a matter of fact, for a 6th year. I will be the first to admit that I know nothing about coppersmithing, or colonial/period piece lanterns, or inside solders, or raw copper prices, or brass or pewter. I don’t know anything about his customers, or at least the customers that visit his shop on Cape Cod. Yet, in that industry ignorance, KISS has been able to market his site effectively online, drive visitors to his web site, and help his business grow.

In point of fact, the methodology of SEO is the same no matter the business, industry or market. We don’t need to know our client’s business - - we need to know how search engines work, and what works with search engines. The research is the same no matter the client or business - - assembling a list of keywords applicable to the client’s business/products; researching inventory for those keywords (how many searches were conducted in the last 30 days/1 year); picking the most appropriate from the list; crafting copy around those keywords in the right word count and keyword density; inviting new indexing by the major search engines; measuring the results 30 or 60 days later, and then repeating that process, again and again, and then again.

Nauset Lantern Shop’s products all have names - - onion lantern, nautical lantern, colonial lantern, barn lantern; and materials used to build them - - copper, brass, pewter. I don’t need to know the business to recognize keywords when I see them. Copy was written around that list, added to the home page of the web site, and the results were measured. Adjustments were made, and our work for Nauset continues monthly. At last count, 10 keywords we had chosen got Nauset Lantern Shop’s web site a total of 43 top 10 rank positions across five major search engines, including Google, Yahoo and MSN. His business has grown as a result.

It’s the methodology that matters. We don’t know anything about the accommodations business (hotels, B&Bs), but we’ve been able to help clients achieve top 10 rank positions in that industry. Same with the golf industry, and same with others. The common element in each of those Internet marketing campaigns is the methodology - - we do it the same way for each of them, and the results speak for themselves.

We don’t need to understand your business, and you don’t need to know anything about Internet marketing or search engine optimization. Together, though, and along with the proper techniques, we can do good things to help grow your online business, and that is the point of the exercise.

“Handsome is as handsome does.” A statement made to perpetuate stereotype, for sure. In web site design, though, pretty should not get in the way of purpose. A beautiful home page is worthless if no one sees it, and search engine robots do not see pretty. Word value based systems value only words, of course, and if you don’t have enough of them in the right places and in the right way, you won’t rank well. Poor rank means no one finds you, and all of that pretty is wasted. Get past it - - pretty isn’t important, but purpose is.

“The award goes to the long distance runner.” You know the story of the tortoise and the hare, and what happened to each. Google values maturity, and a web site with some age to it is less likely to game Google algorithms. Too many self-claimed SEO experts shoot for the quick hit, the “hare” practices, and they might achieve initial success, but at the cost of a more measured approach and lasting results. These “black arts” practitioners play games that come back to bite the site owner in the butt, but by that time the “experts” have already moved on. Anything that sounds too good to be true most often is. Plan for the long haul and leave the sprints for others.

“Comin’ in on a wing and a prayer.” It’s an old expression from World War II, and refers to a situation where you are relying on hope and good luck to see you through. Any SEO practice that comes in on a wing and a prayer has little or no hope, frankly. Measured approaches and measured results get you where you want to go. How?

*** Solid keyword research. One word keywords are too general, and the likelihood of getting indexed and ranked well on their basis are virtually nil. The longer the keyword, within reason, the better chance you have to be indexed and ranked well, top 10, even. Think about it . . . “hotel” gets you in the mix with thousands; “hotel in Boston” narrows it down to hundreds; “downtown Boston hotel” narrows it down to tens. This is an oversimplified example, but I think you get the point. The more targeted the keywords you go after, the more likely you are to get visitors who convert to customers. That is the point of the exercise.

*** Solid Copy Writing. Craft some good copy around your chosen list of keywords. Make sure you include them in the meta tags, and then be consistent in the main body text copy with those same keywords. Structure your content well - - headings and paragraphs. Use your most important keyword in the first heading - - the H1 tag, and then repeat it in the paragraph that follows. Repeat with the H2 tag, and so on. Shoot for 400 or 500 words in total count, and keyword density in the 10-15 range for that word count. If you go up to 700 words, go up to 20 in keyword density.

*** Submit. Google and Yahoo allow you to submit your URL to the list of sites to be “crawled” by their robots. Be sure to invite them to your site when you’ve inserted your new content.

*** Analyze Measurements. What’s happened with your rank in the thirty or sixty days since you added your well researched, carefully crafted copy? Was the movement in the right direction? What search strings brought visitors to your site? Which search engine referred the most visitors? Figure out what worked, and do it again.

*** Refresh and repeat. Store owners put new products on their shelves all the time. They change show room displays, window dressings, the flowers in the window boxes each spring, their newspaper and magazine display ads. It happens all the time. Treat your website the same way. Work it. Refresh your home page content regularly, based upon your measurements, and repeat the procedures above. Your efforts will be rewarded.

This isn’t all there is, but it is a good start. Check back from time to time and you’ll find more of the story here.

Some early numbers are in on US retail sales for the 2007 holiday season, and you’ve probably read them somewhere already. While offline retailers barely scratched out a slightly positive growth figure of 2.4%, they had to offer deep discounts to do so.

As it has every year for the last five, though, online shopping showed a substantial increase over the previous year. In 2006, holiday season online shopping sales hit $26.2B, an increase of 24.8% over the 2005 figures. This year, retail online sales are projected to hit $31.1B, and this would represent a more modest, but nonetheless meaningful, 18.5% increase over last year’s figures.

It’s a pretty safe prediction that the numbers and percentages will increase again during the 2008 holiday season, although it is too early to project anticipated increases. It is, after all, 11 months from now, and lots can happen during that time, not the least of which will be the election of a new US president. It is never too late, though, to begin the SEO due diligence every online retailer should engage in on a regular basis. You can bet your competitors will be sharpening their elbows over the first half of the new year to brush you out of their way for better search engine rank positions. Movement in those positions is not necessarily quick, and once achieved can be sustained only by continuing those same efforts that helped you achieve a good rank in the first place.

Is your 2008 SEO Plan solidly in place yet? If it isn’t, it will be too late in three or four months, so don’t delay. Do what you should be doing to be a part of next year’s meaningful numbers. There’s billions of dollars in play.

Last month I wrote a piece about Internet security, and you’ll find it here. Since then, other events have occurred that cause me to revisit those thoughts and help explain some of the new basic concepts about email use.

Five months ago, an eastern European country’s Internet was shut down for a day, the victim of a spam attack. Not just a web site, and not just one ISP. An entire country.

Last month, a test was conducted in the United States involving a power grid. A simulated attack was conducted on a US power grid, resulting in a simulated power grid failure. It did not receive much media coverage, but it should have. I hope those in this country who should have seen this saw it.

Internet service providers like Comcast, Verizon, AOL and others may very well not be able to withstand a concentrated attack, whether denial of service or denial of computing. As I noted in my earlier piece on the subject, it might be only giants like Yahoo and Bank of America that could. When an ISP goes down, so does every one of its customers, and we’re talking tens of millions of computer users in the US alone.

If you read the news carefully and thoroughly enough, you’ll find lots of hard news stories about incidents like this occurring all the time. My guess is it’s sort of like the existence of UFOs and alien presence on earth - - if they were real, those in positions of authority would not tell us for fear of the affect on the masses. Now, I don’t wear a tin foil hat or anything, but we should be aware that a cyber attack of some kind is likely at some point in the future. Not time for EVERYONE TO PANIC, but everyone who lives and works in the virtual world needs to be aware.

A generation in technology is about 18 months, according to generally accepted standards. Just a couple of years ago, spam volume was in the hundreds of millions of pieces per day. Today, that figure is estimated to be 2 billion. That’s 2 billion. Per day. ISPs have to cope with this volume of email trying to get to you. Since they might not be able to hold off a dedicated attack, they have had to hunker down, block anything that offers the merest suggestion of spam. Because this happens “behind the curtain,” if you will, nobody feels it or sees it. That is, until they try to send an email that another ISP red flags.

What’s this mean for the average Internet business person? It means you have to become more aware of the environment in which you work, to be honest. Email was intended originally as a easy, free and anonymous way to pass simple messages back and forth. It still is a good vehicle for that purpose. It was never intended to serve as vehicle for mammoth file size transfers, for instance . . . that’s what FTP is intended to do. And, since viruses, worms and Trojans are easily hidden in HTML code, ISPs are getting pretty tight about any emails filled with raw HTML in the main body. These are two of the more obvious red flag items ISPs are reacting to, and business email habits need to adjust accordingly. If you get an email bounced back to you for seemingly no apparent reason, it may be because you are trying to use email in a way for which it was not intended, or in a way ISPs will no longer permit.

Things change. Three IT generations ago, spam was several hundred million pieces per day, as I said - - - today, 2 billion. If a human generation is 18 years, then 3 generations is 56 years. No matter what industry you are in, no matter what you do for work, are things being done in your industry the same way they were done 56 years ago? Things change. Just as you have kept pace with changes in your own industry or work arena, you have to do the same if you work in the virtual world.

Things change, and you have to change with them. Security does need to tighten up, as recent events show. You don’t need to be afraid yet, but you should be aware.

How many times have you heard or used the expression “you get what you pay for in this world”? While in my personal life I am considered penurious, in my business life I am more concerned with the effectiveness of a product and its ability to meet my business needs than I am with its cost. In that sense, I want to get the best at meeting my need, the option most effective at taking care of my business.

When it comes to the Internet, the standard for your business should be the same. Sure, you can cut corners, have your friend’s cousin’s next door neighbor design your web site for you, or you could even use a simple template from a very reputable and decent source like Yahoo or Go Daddy to create your Internet presence. In fact, if you are selling low-priced, low profit margin “widgets” and need a simple and very basic shopping cart solution for your online sales, those are good options for you to use.

I’ve had several meetings with a prospect considering an Internet business venture over the last year, and I’ve written two proposals for him, each with options that he could either do himself or live without for a time post launch, so that he could choose a price point that fit his desired budget. He’s no closer after that year to making a decision than he was at our first hand shake, and much has to do with a comment an acquaintance made: don’t spend more than a few hundred dollars on a web site, they’re a waste of money.

That expression came back to me again, getting what you pay for, and I started putting together a list of rebuttals that I’d like to share with you today. First, let me acknowledge they are all self-serving, because KISS is a software and web development company, and some may think it’s all about survival. But, read the list before you make that judgment, please.

1. Content is more important than design. The most beautiful website in the world is useless unless people can find it, and search engines are word value-based systems who do not recognize beauty. Design should never get in the way of purpose or process.

2. Copywriting is an essential component of a good web development project. Keyword research and well-crafted copy in the right word count, in the right places, with the right keyword density, is essential to being indexed well by the major search engines. This is how people will find your site.

3. Canned e-commerce systems are restrictive and closed. Commerce carts for shopping must be customizable to fit your product, your site and your way of doing business. You should never change the way you do business to suit technology - - turn it around, and make technology fit your way. Fewest number of clicks necessary, clear call to action from the moment your visitor lands on the home page, good product visuals - - these are essential to success.

These were the first three that made my list, although I continued on with another ten items before I put my pencil down. Let’s now discuss . . . . . . .

Canned templates look like canned templates, and if that fits your company’s image, they’ll work just fine. But if you’re trying to sell upscale “widgets” in the four figures or higher price range, you’ll be the silk purse from the sow’s ear. Consider your image well and carefully.

You’ll get no assistance with content creation or effective copywriting from a canned template. You’ll be left to your own devices for your due diligence research on keywords, optimum word count and keyword density, and best SEO practices. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. After all, that’s what I do for a living. However, it’s what I do for a living, and not what you do for a living, and that’s the point. Managing a web site is a time-consuming, never ending task, and if your business is selling “widgets” you’ll not have time to manage the business of your web site. One of them will suffer, and inevitably it will be your web site.

As for canned commerce carts, they’re fine for the simple things, the inexpensive things. If canned commerce carts were “the thing,” though, everyone would be using them. I know for certain that LL Bean, for instance, has its own custom built cart for the $1.56B in online sales it did last year; all of our clients’ systems are custom designed and built to suit their businesses, and collectively they represent millions of dollars per year in online sales. It’s important to note that one of our clients in that million per year club has an average order size of less than $80, so we’re not talking $10,000 “widgets” here.

Canned solutions are what they are, and you take them as such. For many, they will work just fine, and they certainly have a place in Internet commerce. Be careful, though, you DIY crowd, because as I wrote in a column just a few weeks ago, putting your site online is only the beginning. If you have designs about reaching the global market with your “widgets,” you may find those canned solutions too restrictive, or the effective managing of your website a little too time-consuming.