As a writer, I have been plagued with friends and family who say things like “Oh, you write…I could do that.” I’ve observed on a few occasions that people don’t say this kind of thing to doctors or engineers, but as a writer I am regularly told that what I do isn’t special. That anyone can write. Except that I have read the email messages, letters, and notes from these very same friends and family members, and I can assure you that most of them cannot write professionally. It is a skill set, and just like learning to read the signs of illness in a patient, it takes time to develop these skills to a professional level. Anyone can learn, but not everyone has put the time and effort into honing these skills.

It seems that there is some discussion in the world of website writing and online marketing over the quality of writing and whether it matters to Google now or will matter in the near future. This week, Chris Silver Smith wrote an article called “Google Penalty for Low-Quality Writing?” about just this issue. Chris has been writing about Google’s tools, including their usability testing and page speed diagnostics, and their ranking factors, including page speed and “shifting some ranking factor weighting from keyword relevancy to quality criteria”. It’s no surprise that he is interested in the quality of web writing and how that can affect rankings.

There are ways to cheap out on web writing. In this industry, we all know about those ways. Many of them are primarily relegated to spammers, who often steal content and insert random keywords into text. If you’ve stumbled upon a site that sounds like pure nonsense, likely it falls into this category. However, some business owners want fast, cheap labour and are either not willing to pay for quality writing or just do not see the value in it. Chris Silver Smith points out that some of these companies “resort to copy writing companies that outsource article assignments to third-world countries. Poorly-educated writers result in terrible grammar and bad spelling. And, foreign companies sometimes hire bad translators to convert their pages for English readers.” It’s clear that there is an abundance of poor writing on the web.

However, we still wonder whether or not Google is ranking or will rank based on the quality of website writing. At the moment, we just don’t know, but considering the ongoing development of Google’s ranking strategy, it isn’t a big leap to see writing quality becoming a ranking criteria in the near future.

Beyond ranking factors, I’ve written before about how certain factors can alienate prospective clients from your site: including writing for the wrong audience, having broken links, and utilizing a poor search solution. The harder it is to get your message across, the harder it is to keep your clients on your site. Good writing will engage your clients, impress them, and get them the information they need quickly. Good writing makes good business sense.

Do you remember when we used to have to watch television when it was aired? Before even the age of the VCR and “taping” a show. Viewing habits changed as television could be taped and watched later, then again with time-shifting channels, whole seasons available on DVDs, and then PVRs. In the last few years, I know I have rarely watched any show when it is aired on television; most of it comes to me through online streaming done by the channels themselves. I love watching a couple weeks of my favourite shows at a time.

Chris Neal, vice president of Chadwick Martin Bailey, points out that “industry developments like increasingly fast and ubiquitous broadband access, Netflix’s shift to online movie rentals, TV networks making more shows available on their websites, online video services like Hulu, growth in iTunes video downloads and massive peer-to-peer video sharing through social networks are all helping to break down the mental divide between a TV screen and the internet.”

Gadgets, like the iPad, Android based cell phones, and 3D TV, are still of interest to consumers, which makes sense to me (both as a consumer and a marketing professional), since the point these gadgets is to get us the consumables. It’s a bit of the chicken and the egg scenario, really. Only studies like this one show us which options drive our consumers.

Although looking at these numbers and talking about who is excited about what new technological advances merits its own level of interest, it is also important to remember them when approaching your online marketing strategies. Consumer interests drive all of our markets. We’re all here to catch the attention of our consumers and since the bulk of the interest is in the consumable experience at this time, we need to keep that as our businesses’ guidepost.

The same changes are true when you think about gaming, cell phone usage, and internet activities. We’ve shifted with the available technology, so that we can barely remember how it was before this technology became so popular. Sometimes I find it interesting to look at technology from another point of view: from the consumer end, rather than the marketing end. What are people interested in seeing come onto the market? What technology are people using the most?

Mike Sachoff wrote a quick article entitled “Consumers More Interested In Content Delivery Than Gadgets” about just this topic. He talks about a study done by the market research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey that asked “over 1,200 U.S. consumers ages 18-65 which of the recently hyped technologies they are most excited about. Topping the list was movie rentals via the Internet with 29 percent of consumers being “extremely excited” by this. Having the ability to surf the Internet via TV also came in high at 24 percent.”

Chris Neal, vice president of Chadwick Martin Bailey, points out that “industry developments like increasingly fast and ubiquitous broadband access, Netflix’s shift to online movie rentals, TV networks making more shows available on their websites, online video services like Hulu, growth in iTunes video downloads and massive peer-to-peer video sharing through social networks are all helping to break down the mental divide between a TV screen and the internet.”

Gadgets, like the iPad, Android based cell phones, and 3D TV, are still of interest to consumers, which makes sense to me (both as a consumer and a marketing professional), since the point these gadgets is to get us the consumables. It’s a bit of the chicken and the egg scenario, really. Only studies like this one show us which options drive our consumers.

Although looking at these numbers and talking about who is excited about what new technological advances merits its own level of interest, it is also important to remember them when approaching your online marketing strategies. Consumer interests drive all of our markets. We’re all here to catch the attention of our consumers and since the bulk of the interest is in the consumable experience at this time, we need to keep that as our businesses’ guidepost.

It seems like not too long ago that web designers were talking about the scroll-down factor for web pages. The short of it being that people are much less likely to scroll to read to the end of the page, so web design began to incorporated much more succinct methods and scrolling became less of an issue. It was about keeping your audience interested and engaged. Good marketing does this everywhere, from the grocery store (who wants to have to compare prices on cans of tuna over three aisles? And, yes, I once encountered a grocery store that did that!) to the organization of books in your local bookstore to our online marketing. The quicker and easier it is to browse for your item and find what you want, the more likely your customer will stay and purchase/use your services. When was the last time that you, as a consumer, walked into a store that was crowded and decided to dig for the one small item you wanted. I know that I turn and walk out immediately. The same is true online.

Although most of us now take what I have come to think of as the scroll factor seriously on regular websites, the opening of the mobility market has us thinking in even smaller chunks, just because the real estate on mobile device screens is tiny. To make mobile online activity more accessible and less crowded some rethinking must be involved. As Doug Caverly explains in his article “Google’s Short Answers Move to Mobile Phones”, Google has “taken an important step, then, by making the short answers it introduced a month ago available to folks who are on the go.” Rather than explaining how this will help mobility users, take a quick look at a visual comparison of search results on a regular search versus the short answers version:

Google’s shorter descriptions for each link provides the mobile user with better selection and a less crowded experience, which makes it a much more enjoyable experience. Sometimes to get the attention of our users or customers, we have to think like they do and anticipate their needs and desires. Google seems to be pretty good at doing just that. When building your own mobile website and implementing your online marketing strategy, thinking outside of the old paradigms may be the key to increasing your own market share.

The other day I was using a site and needed to use their search feature. A good search gets you fast, relevant results. What I encountered the other day was not fast and not relevant. I’m persistent, so I tried a second keyword. Still nothing. I clicked away from that site and went elsewhere. We’ve become an audience that doesn’t want to dig around for our information. Gone are the days of searching card catalogs and pestering librarians for our information. We all want it fast and easy.

Businesses need to remember this point. As an article on search solutions by Shaun Ryan points out, “73 percent of visitors will leave an ecommerce site within one to two minutes if they don’t find the products they’re looking for, 36 percent of which won’t ever bother returning to the site.” You don’t want to do a load of work to get customers to your site, and then have 36 percent of them flee forever because your site search was ineffective.

Since there are many options for site search solutions, here are some points from “How To Choose The Right Site Search Solution” to think about:

- Are the results relevant? Google has some of the best relevant search returns on the market, so as a business, you have to strive for similar results. “The best solutions “learn” from visitors’ site search activity by leveraging information about search queries—the keywords used and resulting items that site visitors actually click on.” If your visitors find what they are looking for, they are more likely to stay, purchase, and return.
- Do you have the resources required to run and maintain your site search? Search can require considerable resources. If you don’t have the resources to support your search capabilities efficiently, consider using a search vendor that has a hosted service. Other benefits to hosted search solutions include no installation and training time and no ongoing maintenance.
- Does your site search give you control? Search can be another method of promoting your products, including simple options like how items are positioned within your search results or adding promotional banners to your search pages.
- Can you repurpose data from your search solution? Being able to reuse data can help your business determine key words, narrow down your SEO focus, and even determine which products and services your customers are looking at the most.
- Does your search solution improve over time? Search has changed drastically over the last 2-3 years, and any solution you choose should not remain static either. Be sure that your solution evolves and fits with your unique business requirements.
- Can you measure your site search performance? Analytics can be used to improve your business and your site, so having access to them is key.
Not only can your business improve its site search solution, with customer satisfaction at stake, it should be a focal point on your business improvements list.

Whether you are a small business or a giant conglomerate, it is fairly common to have some hesitations before embarking on social media marketing. From the CEO and board of directors to the single owner of a small shop, the main concern is “show me how this will make money”. It’s a valid question. After all, businesses want to make money. Marty Weintraub talks about some strategies to address the wary business’s concerns about social media marketing and how to see the results it brings in his article “How to Turn Your Social Media Averse Boss into Your Champion”.

Expand your English-speaking market: there are substantial number of English-speaking internet users who are not American, British or Canadian. Social media marketing is a great way to access this international market.

Build a community by connecting with users: Whether your clients are long-time clients or new to your business, there is no better way to connect to them than by building a place to interact with them. Companies like Pizza Hut have employed social media to grow their markets successfully.

Increase your brand visibility: Expanding your community via social media marketing will increase your brand visibility. As Weintraub points out, “We’ve not met a CMO yet who does not understand the benefit of enhanced keyword rankings, traffic or improved presence in universal search verticals. Most business leaders understand the value of creating measurable syndicated content channels to disseminate information if the result is new and retained users. To many it’s not a very far reach to justify the value of 47,000 Twitter followers, compared to the value of a focused customer email list.”

Drive customers to your customer service tools via social media and PPC: Both social media and PPC advertising can be used to drive traffic to various customer service tools. Your company can use “a moderated fan page on Facebook, Twitter community manager or YouTube video FAQs, the only limit is creativity”. And no one will argue against improved customer service for their company! Happier customers come back again and again.

Social branding increases sales: Paid search campaigns through Facebook and LinkedIn ads can target specific demographics, resulting in big impact for low costs.

Measure the results of your social media efforts: There are a number of ways to measure your efforts and prove that social media marketing works. Weintraub provides us with these measuring tools:
• Measure new and retained unique friends at measurable CPUF (cost per unique friend).
• Measure proclivity to become a customer.
• Measure e-commerce lift without branding compared to e-commerce lift with Facebook and LinkedIn Ads branding in different geographic areas.
• Measure SEO prominence as indicated by traffic to social assets and feed from universal organic search.
• Measure customer service usage on social assets.
• Measure engagement in participation threads, both on and off site.
• Measure inbound traffic to and from the feed and divisional site (churn).
• Measure socio-global expansion as indicated by traffic, sales and support tool usage.
• Measure whether users return on any of these nodes.

It turns out that most Americans do not know the speed of their internet connection. Do you know the speed of your internet connection? In the interest of honesty, I had to poke around and ask a few questions to find out. And our family has had everything from mid-range to turtle-slow to smokin’ fast connectivity over the years. We’re a little above average these days, but that’s due to a lot of work done from home.

I was not the least bit surprised to find out from Mike Sachoff’s article “Majority of Americans Don’t Know Their Broadband Speeds” that the Americans surveyed were woefully lacking in knowledge on this front. (Don’t get smug if you are a Canadian reading this, because I would bet our numbers are pretty similar.) Before reading the article, I guessed that younger people and men would have a handle about this statistic, just by virtue of what kind of information interests those groups. And this thought seems to be true: 29% of men know their broadband speed, compared to only 10% of women, while 27% of people in the 18 to 29 age range knew, versus the 12 percent in the 54 and over age category.

The most striking news is that the knowledge or lack of knowledge of broadband speed does not seem to impact the satisfaction rates on connectivity. As Sachoff points out, “Most Americans are satisfied with the broadband speed they are getting. Ninety-one percent of broadband users say they are “very” or “somewhat” satisfied with the speed they get at home.” The crux of this is that most people are unlikely to seek out increased bandwidth any time soon.

It comes down to this: most of your customers don’t know their broadband speed and they generally don’t care. Most of them are happy with what they have. What does that mean when you are making online marketing plans? You have to keep in mind that your clients have to be able to access your online marketing. There is nothing worse that trying to load webpages that take forever (read: more than a few seconds) to load on your machine. If the PPC link you’ve developed leads to a page that takes the intended audience more than a moment or two to load, that audience will click away before the load is done, rendering your marketing useless.

I’ve talked about specific steps that make for good online marketing practices, there have been times when I’ve talked about knowing your audience, but even more basic than that is that it is important to not be part of the crowd that is ignoring broadband speed. In this business, it’s all about having your message accessible and seen. Your customers aren’t concerned about their speed, but you need to think about it and make sure that your audience can see your messages.