1. Keep your text READABLE.

It’s one thing to want to make sure that search engines know what you do, and to ensure that you appear highly in them for the keywords that are important to your company. It’s another thing altogether to make your site a collection of unreadable, poorly formatted keyword paragraphs. Many people don’t even realize the way their content comes across to site visitors, because they haven’t taken the time to read it themselves, or to solicit feedback from individuals who don’t know the company or the industry well already.

How to do it.

Ask friends and neighbors to read through your most important few pages or products, and to give you honest feedback. After reading each page, would they know more than they did when they started, or would they have a headache trying to make sense of what is written?

2. Keep your text FRIENDLY.

No one wants to be talked at, in person or on the internet. Does your text have a friendly demeanor, or is it boring? Does it inspire people to buy from you, call you, e-mail you, or does it inspire them to look to the next web site?

How to do it.

Don’t take yourself quite so seriously. Yes, you sell an important product or service, and yes, people need to know more about it. But friendly costs nothing, doesn’t hurt the quality of the message and makes people feel like they are doing business with a human, not a computer. Note that this doesn’t mean you should tell jokes about your products or showcase your items in a ridiculous way, it simply means adding a personal touch.

3. Keep your DESIGN friendly.

Is your web site solid black, or bright blue with yellow text? Is the text large enough, the menu noticeable and easy to navigate, and the color scheme one that makes people want to stay on the site? Do you have a bunch of meaningless flash animation, with dancing letters or loading screens?

How to do it.

Be very aware of how your site design is perceived by others. Does it make them feel happy or sad? Lethargic, annoyed, or intrigued? Try asking a select group of non-company related individuals to use five words to describe your site design, and see what comes up. Also remember that if you are selling products, white sells. There’s a reason Ebay, Amazon, Target and all of the other large, successful online retailers accent their web sites with white. It emphasizes the product rather than the web site, and it makes people want to buy. What colors are you using?

4. Keep your content FRESH.

Seeing a news headline that invites visitors to a conference in Cleveland scheduled for two years ago, or a Merry Christmas message in the middle of April is a dead giveaway that you don’t pay attention to your web site. What does that mean to the visitor? It means that you may not be paying attention to keeping your product cutting edge, either. People want to know they are getting a new product with solid innovation behind it. If your site shows signs that it’s old and outdated, people could easily assume your product is as well.

How to do it.

If your site allows it, put “end dates” on your time sensitive articles. Our customers use SE’s built in date function to allow articles to disappear before they get too old, so there’s never a concern about having a conference invitation that has long expired, or reference to a holiday that has long-since passed. If your site can’t do this, then keep a note on your calendar to remove these old items the day they become dated. Another note, if you don’t have a lot of news, make sure your articles don’t mention the date. Nothing says “never updated” like an article with a post date of 2006.

5. Make it EASY to reach you.

It always amazes me when I see a web site with tons of great information, a clean design and… absolutely no way to contact the company.

How to do it.

This one’s easy. Place your phone number prominently in the top-right hand corner of your site header (studies have shown that this is the first-looked to location for contact information), and have some sort of simple and obvious link or button that directs people to your contact us page. Speaking of, you do have a “Contact Us” form, don’t you?

A simple, clear and concise contact us form is much easier on the visitor than a simple e-mail link. Instead of having to open their e-mail program (or give up if they are on a public computer without access to their account), the visitor simply needs to enter a little information and press send. Having a well-built contact form also prevents spammers from getting your e-mail address and using it to their advantage (aka sending you spam). Just remember, the more fields to fill out, the less chance someone will do them. If your contact us form has 20 fields to fill out, expect your e-mail box to be lonely.

Taking it further.

Did you like this article? Need some clarification, or want to know how these principles apply to your business and web site? Send us an e-mail and tell us what’s on your mind.

Consider this scenario. You have a plain, not much to look at web site, which you have optimized with keywords to the point that the text is not very readable, nor very useful. As a result of this effort, you are one spot ahead of your competition on Google. A potential customer finds your web site first (remember, you have tons of fluff keywords, but little meaningful content), reads a little, and then presses the back button on their browser.

They then visit your competition, whose web site is by no means great, but has readable content, a friendly undertone and is much easier on the eyes than your site. Given the choice between a web site that came up first (yours), but has poor content, or a site that was seen AFTER yours (your competition), which has better content and looks a little nicer, which do you think customers will choose?

The answer may seem obvious, but let’s explore exactly why this is happening.

• First, people visit your web site. They see a poor quality, hard to decipher site and it sets the benchmark for their expectations.
• Next, they find your competition’s web site, which as we’ve already established is better than yours. Given their original benchmark (your web site), the competition’s web site will appear to be much better, even artificially so, based on that pre-existing benchmark.

Now let’s reverse this train of thought. A potential customer finds your web site, which let’s now say is pretty darn good. They browse around for a while, and bookmark it. For the sake of thoroughness, they peruse the other sites that come up near you on their search engine of choice. Instead of having a poor web site as a benchmark, they have your high quality one. It won’t take them long to stop searching elsewhere, and to settle on your company as the clear choice for their business.

In fact, as long as your content is decent, this same principle will work FOR you, rather than against you. Customers will browse other web sites, and find yours much better by comparison.

So the question is, does your web site help sell you, or are you paying to help sell your competition? Before you answer, have you ever actually stopped to see what people outside of your company, outside of your friends and family think of your companies’ web site? Have you compared your site to your competition, to see how you match up? If the answer to either one of these is no, then it’s time to get a second opinion.

Taking it further.

Did you like this article? Stand by, our newest article entitled “How to ensure that your web site sells you, and not your competition” is coming soon!

Want to learn more, or to see first hand how your site measures up? We have lots more advice that can ensure you are selling your company, and not the competition. Send us an e-mail and let us help you stay on track.

1. Customers have to click on, or wait for a flash animation to finish before being able to see your site.

This is not attractive, it’s annoying. Customers don’t want to waste 15 seconds of their life seeing a boat bouncing through faux water, or watch your logo spin and land on the page to click on, they just want to get to you and get moving. It’s been said that you only have three seconds (tops) to catch people’s attention before they leave your site. If that’s true, wouldn’t you rather catch their attention with your content?

2. You play music or sounds on your website automatically.

Unless you are a musician (and even then, we’d recommend you make it optional), no one wants to hear your site play music, or sound at all for that matter. 90% of people browsing the internet fall into one of two categories.

1. They are listening to music/TV already. In this case, now all of a sudden they are listening to two songs at once, and neither one of them sounds good. So what do they do? They immediately close your web site, shake their heads, and continue about their normal business. Your loss.
2. They don’t want to listen to music. That’s why it’s not on already. Either these people are at work, and don’t want the sound of music blaring through their speakers to alert all those around them that they are browsing the internet, or they have no interest in hearing noise while they work/play on the internet. Turn the music off, or risk turning your customers off.

3. You wonder why no one is calling or e-mailing you.

Visitors are not going to tell you your site is bad, they are just going to go away. If your business has slowed down since the launch of your new web site, or if it hasn’t shown significant gains, the chances are your site isn’t helping you sell yourself online. Take the hard-learned advice to stop relying on your neighbor/son/daughter/cousin/friend to do your web site, and turn to someone who can make your site shine. It doesn’t have to be us, but find someone who will take care of you. It’s too hard to tell a family member or friend when something doesn’t look good, and too easy to accept that often sub-par work as “good enough.” Let that person know this isn’t personal, and take care of your business.

4. You direct a caller to your web site for advice, and they get quiet or say “thank you” and hang up.

If a customer has been to your web site and is calling you, it means that they didn’t find everything they wanted to know from your site. Directing them back isn’t going to help, and could easily direct them out the door and to your competition (you know, the one with the good web site). Instead, ask these customers if they have been to your web site, and if they have, find out what it is they had trouble with in finding the information that they needed. It could be as simple as a poorly formed menu. Take these customers as important contributors because they are in the minority. Most people look at a site, and if they can’t find what they need immediately, they leave. Those who bother to call you for more information could provide valuable insight into what you’re doing wrong, and what you can do better.

5. No one finds you from your web site.

If the people who are coming to you are all referral-based, or from phone books and other forms of advertising, chances are your site is all but invisible to search engines. Try typing in your company name in Google. Do you come up? If so, where? If you aren’t at the top, or at least in the top 3, it’s time to get worried. If you are, then it’s time to start looking for other keywords related to your industry. Use some common sense here. If you are a local company who sells electronics, don’t expect to be on the front page for “Sony” in Google, it’s just not going to happen. But if you create custom lawn furniture, you could look up “custom lawn furniture Atlanta,” or wherever your location may be. If you aren’t showing up, it’s time to get some help.

Want to learn more, or to see first hand how your site measures up? We have lots more advice that could help you to raise your rankings. Send us an e-mail and let us help you get back on track.

In the majority of situations, our SE system has a feature or function that can handle their need already, and we simply make a few tweaks and show the client how to use their new feature. But, on occasion we find an opportunity to simplify the system; or conversely, we may find an opportunity to add an entirely new feature to the system.

Because the SE Content Management System always has and always will be developed in house, we are intimately familiar with the inner workings of the code and database of the system. This means that we have complete control over layout and features of the system, big or small. One of the main goals of the SE Content Management System is to provide you, the site owner, with the easiest possible way to control your site, so if an idea for an improvement isn’t simpler and easier than the existing system, then it isn’t an improvement and the idea gets scrapped (or heavily revised).

With that said, we’d like to share with you some of our recent updates to the SE Content Management System. This month, we have focused heavily on improving our extremely popular “Listings” system. Our goal was to add more features while keeping the system just as user friendly. So, we’d like to briefly list some of the new features we have added to the listings system:

• Full control over the order of listings. Previously, listings could be ordered by their title (alphabetically) or in the order which they were created. Now, SE users are able to change the order of these listing using the same familiar system used to change the order of links in the site menu.
• Full control over the order of listing images. Pictures on each listing page can now be sorted in any order you wish.
• Full control over the titles of your attributes. Attributes can be used for nearly anything. For example: a used car dealership could use them to define a cars: Make, Model, Year, Color and Mileage; a real estate agent could use them to list a homes location, number of bedrooms and baths, price and MLS number. Or, if you prefer, the attributes could simply be used as bullet points. In the past, these attributes could only be changed by us, but now, we’ve created a system that lets you change them any time you want. And, as a bonus, we’ve made it possible to have anywhere from 0 to 10 attributes. If you want to hide an existing attribute, simply don’t give it a title and it will disappear.
• Video Integration. Just like our standard content pages, you can now integrate a video (YouTube or otherwise) directly into your listings, without having to write a line of code. Simply add the link to your video and we’ll take care of the rest.We’ve also made some more behind-the-scenes changes to the SE Framework that make your experience even easier; like improving the file upload system to ensure that file names with special characters or spaces get automatically fixed so that they display properly on your site.

If you are an existing customer and have an idea to make the system even better, please let us know! We look forward to your feedback.

To set your Firefox preferences to automatically open links in a new tab:

• Select “Options” from the “Tools” menu. (Mac OS Users can select “Preferences” from the “Firefox” menu.
• Click on “Tabs”
• For the “New pages should be opened:” dialog, select “a new tab”
• To open a new tab, select “New Tab” from the “File” menu or use the (Ctrl T) key combination.

In Internet Explorer 7, tabbed browsing is enabled by default. To open a new tab, click on the small blank tab to the far right or use the (Ctrl T) key combination.

2: Add commonly edited pages to your favorites
If you find yourself making changes to a particular page or adding images to a gallery in the SE System frequently, then adding a those pages to your Favorites (or Bookmarks) can save time. Lets say, for example, that you used the SE Listings Module to display your most recent projects, and you found yourself adding a new project on a weekly basis. If you added the Listings Editor page to your IE7 Favorites or FireFox Bookmarks, you could quickly return to that page directly.

3: Organize the images on your hard drive before you start to create image galleries
You can add an image gallery to any page within the SE Content Management System by simply uploading images to with the SE Pictures system. Sometimes, however, we have found that our customers lose their ‘momentum’ because they spent too much time looking for a certain picture on their hard drive. While we believe that the SE Pictures system is the easiest around, the process can be frustrating if you cannot find the pictures that you need. So, to make your life easier, we recommend that you keep pictures of all of your projects in their own individual folders in the ‘pictures’ folder of your hard drive.

4: Use the integrated “Back Arrows” in the SE CMS

Navigating through previous generations of our content management systems was easy, but we found a way to make it even easier. We added “Back Arrows” into all of our pages. For example, when you are finished uploading new images to a new (or existing) image gallery and you want to return to the content manager, you can simply press the “Back Arrow” and you will jump back to the Content Manager, regardless of what page you were on previously.
This works with our SE Upgrades too. Whether you are uploading something in the Customer Files Module or publishing a breaking story in the the News Module, simply click the “Back Arrow” and you will be taken back to the home page of that module.

5: Write your content directly into the SE Page Editor
Ever hear the phrase “Cut out the middle man”?

Ever think you would hear it said about your website?
Well here it is: Cut out the middle man!
When you are working on creating a new page for your site, instead of opening up your favorite word processing program to type out your thoughts, simply create a new page in the SE Content Management system and start typing. Your page will not show up in the sites menu until you click the ‘add to menu’ button, so you dont have to worry about visitors seeing your incomplete work. By working directly in the editor, you save time and the headache of copying and pasting large amounts of text. While word processors, like Microsoft Word, are extremely capable, they use some characters and symbols that cannot be displayed properly on websites. While the SE Content Editor has a MS Word import tool that helps to convert as much as it possibly can, working directly in the editor is clearly the most efficient way to work. If you add an image into Word and work hard to position it as you want it, you will have to repeat the exercise by uploading the picture using the picture wizard and reposition it. Working directly in the editor allows you to save your work online and therefore work on it from any computer with an internet connection. Why create extra work for yourself? Cut out the middle man! To learn more about the SE Page Editor, visit about-se.com.

6: Make sure that your images are appropriately sized for the web
Modern digital cameras are able to take pictures that are in excess of 10 megapixels. A 10 megapixel image is 4 to 5 times larger than the average computer screen and would take several minutes to download on a slower internet connection. Pictures directly from these cameras are completely impractical for use with the web and need to be resized first. The SE Content Management System has been designed to ensure that you don’t accidentally upload an image that is too large to download and view quickly by the average site visitor. This means that if you try to add an image from your digital camera, without resizing it, you will be told to first resize the image and try again.

So, to avoid any frustrations, make sure that your images are suitable for the web. We recommend:

• The largest file size for a single image should be 500kb
• The largest width for a single image should be 800 pixels
• To resize an image on your computer: read our help guide on about-se.com

7: Don’t work hard, work smart!
Do you have a great idea for a page, but dont want visitors to see it until a specific time? Do you want to have a page on your site for a limited time (perhaps a sale or seasonal offering), but plan on being out of town or super-busy taking care of your customers? If so, then the Page Publisher module is perfect for you. The Page Publisher allows you to create exactly what you want and make it visible to site visitors exactly when you want. The Page Publisher is our newest upgrade, and if I can say so myself, its pretty cool. Find out more about the Page Publisher on about-se.com.

1. Problem: Lack of new content.

Say your company has completed a new product or project, and interested potential customers are searching for more information on that product in Google. If you have not taken the time to add information about this new item on your web site, they may not find your site at all. Worse still, they may very well find a competitors web site, someone who understood the importance of the product or service that you are offering and decided to discuss that on their web site.

Solution: Create a schedule.

No matter how full your life is, the chances are high that you can spare an hour or two a week to keep up with the web site. Schedule this at a time when you can expect minimal interruptions, so that you can ensure that all of the time you set aside is effective. If you only have two hours to spare a week, try starting out on Monday with an implementation plan. Review your newest products, projects or services, and decide what should go on the web site this week. If you need to write or find images, now is the time to do so. Later in the week, ideally only a day or two so that the content is still fresh in your mind, do a quick review and then implement this new content on your web site. If anything time sensitive comes up after this point, you can take additional time later in the week, otherwise, you have at least covered the necessities.

2. Problem: Outdated content.

This may sound similar to problem number one, but we are referring specifically to content that is already on the web site which is in need of care or revision. Outdated content is usually very easy for site visitors to spot, and can make your site seem old or dated even if it isn’t. Often, the easiest ones to spot refer to “upcoming” events that have long since passed, or pages that show “this page was created/updated on…” This can also refer to items that are clearly no longer new releases still being designated as so, or products that are no longer available being offered on your web site.

Solution: Make a list.

There are a few ways to combat this, depending on the type of outdated content your site contains. For one, if you have dates automatically attached to each page of the web site (and this is unnecessary for your business), ask your web site designer to remove that feature for you. Secondly, create a list of your time-sensitive pages or articles, so that you can keep an eye on those pages on a weekly or monthly basis. If you happen to have a web site created by us, you can also take advantage of our new page publishing module, which will automatically turn on and off time-sensitive, specified pages after a configurable amount of time.

3. Problem: Just plain lack of time.

Realistically, we know that there are some days, or even weeks where there’s just no time to spare. There’s no way to manufacture time, and especially if you are on the road a lot, access to the internet may be sparse as well. During these times, your quality of work may suffer even if you do find a free moment, which can hurt your companies’ credibility (think spelling, grammar errors and disjointed sentences) on the web.

Solution: Delegation.

In these circumstances, it pays to have somebody, preferably in the office, who can help carry the load for you. This could be as simple as uploading content that you have written and adding product images, all the way to writing the actual content for you. The point is, if you just don’t have the time to get it done, you can probably delegate your duties to someone who does. If you are the owner or a senior member of your company, chances are you would be better served delegating these duties anyway.

Taking it further.

Did you like this article? Stand by, our newest Making Life Easier article entitled “The top 7 ways to speed up your SE experience” is coming soon!

You may, for example, want to create a page discussing the addition of new services, a new employee or a sale, but you don’t want that page to be visible until the announcement has been finalized and made public. In this scenario, you would write the content of your page today, but set the “Publish Date” to the day of the big announcement. In this case, the page will appear automatically on that day, without needing any further input from you.

Or, you may want to create a page that discusses your seasonal project, or possibly a short term sale. In a situation like this, you would want that page to disappear from your site after the applicable period is over; and all you would have to do is set the “Expire Date” to whatever that date may be. The Page Publisher even allows you to set both the Publish and Expire dates, giving you the freedom to show your site visitors what you want when you want it. To make it just as simple as possible, the Page Publisher includes a pop-up calendar, allowing you to browse month-by-month to find the exact publish and/or expiration date.

We’re taking this feature even further!

We liked the Page Publisher so much that have also decided to implement a similar, and just as intuitive system into our News Module as an included (standard) feature. With the News Module, you can set the default lifetime of an article, and the system automatically calculates when that page should expire (and disappear from your site) based on the News Preferences. However, if you have a news article that you want to delay publishing or remain active for a different amount of time, you can use the News Publisher in the exact same way as the Page Publisher. Now that’s consistency.

Learn more about the new SE Page Publisher.

1. To host video testimonials.

Video testimonials are a great way to get your product message across, and adding videos to YouTube is so easy that almost anyone can do it. Nearly any initial video format works (as does virtually any standard digital video camera), meaning that whether you design and edit your video clips on a Mac or a PC, they can be uploaded to YouTube and look great. Which brings us to our next point.

2. As a bandwidth-saver.

Instead of creating 10+mb video files that are hosted on your web site, Integration of YouTube videos within your site means that customers get to see more from your company, without increasing your hosting budget. Not only that, but you’ll even bring in the occasional YouTube browser who finds your video and visits your web site as a result. Learn about the SE Video Module.

3. As part of a viral campaign.

Some of the funnier/more relevant videos on YouTube easily surpass the 2 million view mark. Now, don’t expect that putting some kittens in a basket with your company logo will do the trick, but a well thought out viral campaign could provide you with an otherwise untouched marketbase for your products. A successful viral campaign will take off fast, which can again make the external hosting offered by YouTube an important feature.

4. To showcase your products.

Many companies have already started using YouTube for their business. If you are a reseller, there’s a good chance that at least a handful of the companies whose products you sell have videos on YouTube. Help your web site stand out from the pack by integrating these right into your product pages.

5. To show off your work.

Even if you don’t have access to any pre-made YouTube videos for your business (or if you don’t sell ready-made products), you can still show off your work with a video of your own. Say, for example that your company creates custom interiors for high end homes. Rather than simply showing a handful of pictures on the site, you can augment that picture gallery by creating a three minute walkthrough video that shows the detail work that has gone into your project.

6. To build and involve your customer base.

What better way is there to sell your services than by letting a customer tell his story? Now, I know that this sounds a lot like #1 above, but it is distinctly different. Traditionally, a testimonial is structured in some way, and typically does not actually involve the use of the product or service being discussed. If, on the other hand your company were to offer a contest that included a prize (or simply notoriety on your web site) for video of customers in action using your product, the resulting videos could send a powerful message to your site visitors. Think about which you would prefer, visiting a web site that showed a static product image (let’s say a kayak), with product information and specifications, or that same site with multiple videos of customers in action, riding the rapids on your product in Colorado?

7. Two words: Video tutorials.

It can be tough visualizing how to build, install or repair some products based solely on a product manual, but often these challenges can be avoided with a simple video clip. Especially if your product is unique, a YouTube video could be an essential asset in reducing customer technical support calls and returns. These video links can even be e-mailed to customers directly, simplifying the process of replying to repetitive technical support issues.

Taking it further.

Did you like this article? Stand by, our newest YouTube article entitled “Advertising: How utilizing video testimonials can bring in more business” is coming soon!