Queen Bee Marketing’s Blog About Marketing, SEO, and Design.

One of the easiest ways to tell an amateur design apart from a professional design is to look at the level of consistency through out. Designs containing more than 3 fonts, sporadic color choices, and inconsistent hierarchy are not considered “good” design and are probably not produced by a professional designer. Creating consistency is extremely important in a design. It helps guide the viewer through the message and avoid confusion. The goal of a graphic designer is to convey a message as quickly and efficiently as possible in most cases. But a designer can only do so much, especially when the client needs to have some control over content. Limiting certain options can help preserve the consistency of the design. Two main areas that designers can assert the most control over the options is through Content Management Systems on Web sites and through Brand Manuals.

Content Management Systems are very popular for Web clients who need to have control over their content. There are a couple things that can be done to limit the options, however. The first is to declare as many potential styles as possible in the CSS. Be sure all H1-H3 (or more), P, A, and maybe even IMG styles are defined. This allows the client to use these tags without having to style them. Another way to control consistency is to not allow access to the main template on every page. Many CMS’s will allow you to set up various permissions for users, and denying access to the template ensures the layout stays the same on all pages.

The other major area designers have control over is branding. Branding Manuals define exactly how the logo should be used in every situation. Obviously the designer can’t force anyone to follow the guidelines, but most clients who are concerned about consistent branding will follow them. These manuals will include things such as: exact colors, type faces, amount of space to surround the logo, black and white versions, etc. It will also include things not to do, like cutting part of the logo off, stretching it, and colors not to use. Following the guidelines can make the difference between a strong brand and a weak one. People expect to see a logo the same way every time. In larger companies, the branding extends beyond the logo, as well, to things like uniforms, signage, packaging, advertising, etc.

Limiting these options for clients, and educating them on how to keep consistency, will only help their business in the end.

The term “Long tail” was originally coined by Chris Anderson in an October 2004 post on Wired. Essentially “Long tail” is the theory that the collective sales of low demand products/services can exceed those of popular demand. The term has taken off in Search Engine Optimization circles with regards to unpopular or lengthy keyword phrases. The old 80/20 rule which states 80% of the business can be obtained from 20% of keywords has actually been proven to be the opposite in many cases. Below is Chris’s chart which helps to understand the importance of long tail in the marketplace.

A recent client of ours www.oopermits.com is a prime example of the long tail theory. This is a startup company who’s Website became active in early July, and in just under 3 months of operation has had 320 different keywords/phrases utilized to find their Website. I calculated the total number of hits they received from keywords that resulted in more than 1 visitor to the site (short tail visits) vs. those keywords that only brought 1 visitor to the site (long tail visits).

64 Short tail visitors vs. 256 Long Tail visitors

As you can clearly see the Long Tails ended up kicking some tail. I usually play devil’s advocate and would argue that this example is on a new site, covers a short period of time, and is based upon a single specific site within a niche industry. Sure I’m aware of all this; but it doesn’t change the facts that 20% of OOPS’s traffic came from short tail and 80% came from long tail.

In short (sorry for the pun), don’t forget that while targeting your short tail keywords that long tail keywords can actually be more effective in gathering traffic, conversions, and are easier to rank for in most cases.

There’s an interesting discussion over at the Graphic Design Forum about today’s strongest brands. Everyone’s list is different based on their career, personality, geographical location, etc. I think it’s interesting to see what brands everyone chose and how many of them overlap. The following is my personal list, in no particular order:

1. Apple
2. Microsoft
3. Coca-Cola
4. McDonald’s
5. Nike
6. Starbucks
7. Target
8. BP
9. Google
10. AT&T

Here’s the official list of 2007’s Top 10 Brands, as ranked by Millward Brown Optimor:

1. Google–$66.4 billion
2. General Electric–$61.9 billion
3. Microsoft–$55 billion
4. Coca-Cola–$44.1 billion
5. China Mobile–$41.2 billion
6. Marlboro–$39.2 billion
7. Wal-Mart–$36.9 billion
8. Citigroup–$33.7 billion
9. IBM–$33.6 billion
10. Toyota Motor–$33.4 billion

What’s your top 10?

Aarrrrr!! Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day! We decided to have some fun today, in honor of the holiday. First, go check out our Special Edition SEO Pirate: Talk Like A Pirate Day Posers.

We also came up with some SEO/Marketing/Design related pirate jokes.

- What did one pirate blogger say to the other?

Subscribe to me RRRRRSS feed!

- What do a pirate and a marketer have in common?

They’re only concerned about R.O.Aye.

- How does a pirate get people to read his blog?

He HOOKS them in!

- Why did the pirate hire an SEO?

To increase their trafficking.

- Why do Web designers hate pirates?

They ignore standAAARRRRds.

I can hear you now… “Those are so lame!” Oh yeah? Well, let’s hear some of YOURS!

And finally a really bad picture of me “YAAARRRRRR”ing for the camera:

Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!!!

A new service that promises increased traffic to your blog, BlogRush, is gaining an incredible amount of buzz. In theory this little widget is a great idea, but as others are noting there are a lot of questions and a lot that could be fixed. We decided to try it out on here, and we’ll see how it goes. My top 3 observations and first impressions are:

1. It will benefit the larger blogs that already have tons of traffic and leave the smaller blogs behind. The system is designed to help blogs that have more traffic by giving them more impressions. I think this is a huge flaw that will deter many small blog owners from signing up.

2. Being able to customize the widget to our site design would be a great addition. It wouldn’t surprise me if this is a change that will come in a future version. Even just changing the colors, like Adsense lets you, would be an improvement.

3. I can definitely see this benefiting smaller niche markets that don’t have blogging “powerhouses.” When everyone is on a more level playing field, more bloggers will see the benefit.

More updates on BlogRush to come after we start to see if this service actually works for us or not.

Marketing can make or break a company, yet it is often overlooked - especially by small businesses that don’t have a lot of money. A marketing budget should be included in every company’s plan, no matter how big or small. The first thing to think about is why you are marketing. Pinning down what you are trying to accomplish will help focus your efforts. Are you a large company that is trying to influence your brand image? Are you a small company that needs to attract new customers? Do you want to increase customer loyalty? Gain referrals from customers?

Second, you need to figure out who you’re directing your message to. Figuring out your specific target market or markets is key to seeing a return on your investment. If you determine that your target market is teenagers, maybe you’ll want to run a commercial on a local Top 40 music station or become a sponsor for a high school sports team. Getting in front of your intended audience is the main goal. Some forms of marketing are better at this than others. But if you don’t reach your target, your marketing will most likely not be very successful.

Next, you should think about what you want your prospective customers to do. Your main goal is probably a purchase of your goods or services. But what about the people who don’t buy? Is there some way to still convert them? Maybe they can sign up for your newsletter or subscribe to your blog. Or you could give out something for free like a button or sticker. At least your brand or marketing message will keep spreading with it.

Once you have thought about all of the above points it is time to start planning your budget. Take into account what you will need to do to reach your prospective customers and how much those avenues cost. Normally a company should set aside 8-12% of net sales for marketing. This can vary greatly depending on how established a company is, how large the company is, and what they are trying to accomplish. Earlier this week James wrote a post about the cost of different marketing mediums and the value of SEO. Often times SEO is overlooked by businesses because it is not a traditional approach, but it can have a big impact and be very cost effective. Obviously it is not for everyone, but it is worth considering.

It is also important to consider when you need to implement your marketing strategy. For a company who has a certain busy season, it may be important to focus most of the budget on the months leading up to that season in order to gain as many sales as possible. For another company that doesn’t have a busy season it’s important to avoid “feast or famine.” Keeping the marketing consistent will ensure you never have a “famine.” Many businesses will have this problem if they forget to keep marketing when they are very busy or successful.

Finally, don’t forget to track your ROI. It is often easy for web-based businesses to track marketing success because of analytics programs. But for other businesses you can do things like ask customers how they heard of you, implement separate coupon codes for different sales, set up multiple 1-800 numbers, etc. Use this data to track which marketing strategies work best and revise your plans, or reallocate funds, as you go along. There’s no single right answer, but if you create a strategy, a budget, and track your success, you should start to see greater returns.

Let’s talk about value first, so we’re going to go back to Dictionary.com to get a definition.

Value: relative worth, merit, or importance

I just read a post by Chris Silver Smith discussing Print Yellow Pages vs. Online Yellow Pages, and he makes a point I strongly agree with: People are leaving the phone books and going to the internet to get information. The phone books have been a prime source to provide information to consumers in the past, but is not the only one. The main marketing medias in recent years have been:

TV
Radio
Newspaper
Billboard
Direct Mail
Magazines
Phone Books
Online

So what medium has the best value for your business? Depends on your business. Each marketing option has it’s own strengths and weaknesses. I found a profile of the major media types on www.iesbdc.org which was very interesting. They listed the advantages and limitations of each media type and only listed two of them as having low cost in the advantage category: Online and Billboard.

The report goes on to say that for a billboard the cost are- “$3,000 to do artwork and install media on billboard; rates depend on impress level, ranges from $5,000 to $500,000 (the higher the qualify of the artwork and the larger the demographic group, the higher the price); minimum contract is 16 weeks”. So lets simply say the low end of $8000. $8000 divided by 16 = $500 a week. Other costs were as such:

*Newspapers- $1300 a week for 2′ x 2′ ad
*TV- $200,000 for 30 seconds of prime time
*Direct Mail- $1500 for 1000 standard postcards including postage
*Radio-$90-$120 a week on a rotator
*Magazine- $1200 to $5000 per month or issue
*Online- $.60 PPC or $1200 to $1800/month for aggressive PPC campaigns

These numbers seam fairly accurate (depending upon several different factors) to me, but what disappoints me is the fact that the report actually excluded SEO efforts. What is the value of being the #1 natural ranked result for targeted keywords on search engines such as Yahoo, Google, or MSN? Of course the exposure alone is worth it’s weight in gold, but also consider the credibility factor. Do you want to use the company that finished in 1st place or in 10th place? It’s a little simplistic, but people have been naming their companies “ABC Whatever” just to be listed 1st in the phone books for years.

It’s difficult to establish an average cost of SEO because their are so many different levels of effort and needs, but for companies that do not have geographical boundaries for their product or services, online marketing is the most cost effective and controllable media type available. Geographically defined companies can’t overlook the need for SEO though, because it has been estimated that between 25-50% of searches done are local in nature. If someone goes online to find a mechanic they will search for one near them.

Of course the biggest disadvantage to online marketing is skewed demographics- if the consumer doesn’t own, use, or have access to the internet- you won’t reach them. The other ongoing debate between push vs pull marketing was recently reviewed by Blog Bites Man. While you must evaluate all marketing avenues to find the right mix for your specific business, it seems that many companies are overlooking this extremely cost effective and valuable form of marketing.

In an age where domain names like www.business.com are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, it’s still hard to evaluate what the value of being ranked #1 for your industry specific keywords is. Many people ask “What will it cost to perform SEO for my website?”, when the real questions is how much you want to make? The reason companies are willing to spend $200,000 or more for only 30 seconds of TV air time is because they believe it will create a positive return on the investment. For many companies, proper SEO will maximize your expense-return ratio better that any other media type.

We hope you enjoy the new blog design layout! We made these changes to help incorporate the blog into the Web site and help with branding. If you’re viewing this in a feed reader, please click through and see our changes.

A big debate I’ve seen in the design community is whether design should be considered art. The arguments on both sides are valid, which makes it hard to come to a conclusion. First I’ll define each word to provide some sort of beginning point. The definitions come from Dictionary.com and I’ve chosen the most relevant definitions.

Art: The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

Design: The purposeful or inventive arrangement of parts or details

In a sense, design can be considered art. The best argument for this is the fact that a designer brings his or her experiences and influences to every item they design. The design comes from the designer’s imagination, and no two designers would come up with the same final product. A designer usually also tries to create something that is visually appealing, which goes back to the definition of art.

The argument that design is not art is much stronger in my opinion. A design is created for a specific purpose, to communicate a concept visually. Normally a designer is creating something to help a company achieve a goal: more sales, better branding, marketing, etc. The personal expression that goes into a piece of art is left out of a design for a client. The designer may not even have a say in the aesthetics of a piece, they might only be the technician putting the parts together.

The argument becomes tricky when the two overlap. There are times when a designer has full control over the piece he or she is creating and allows their personal taste to influence the final product. But even then, there is still a purpose for the piece beyond expressing personal emotion.

Welcome to the initial evolutionary stages of the “Information Age” within our society. Have you ever forgotten where you put something? Your keys, ID, money, or worse? We are currently in an age of human history where information is constantly, instantaneously, and via multiple channels being distributed and controlled. Communication channels such as phone, fax, TV, radio have been the prominent avenues for the last ten years until the advent of the internet which can perform each of these functions.

What does this have to do with me losing my car keys you ask? Fugitive Information is simply put; information that is currently unavailable to you. Examples are:

You no longer have access to the information
You are unable to locate the information
The information has been forgotten
The information is not known
The information resource is currently unavailable

Consider the average consumer in today’s society. What is the most effective way for the general buying public to find information about a company, product, or service?
The Internet

Marketing and sales are the fuel to any profit machine. Information management and lead generation are currently most effectively performed via the following top 3 avenues:

1. Online
2. Phone
3. In-person

I am a strong believer in the “so what” question. So what does this mean for my business? If you are online reading this- then I hope you are closely evaluating and monitoring your company’s online presence. Your actual Web page or Web site (on-page) is the 1st place to start. Then you need to turn your eyes outward (off-page) to see what’s going on.

Effective online marketing can drastically reduce marketing expenses for many businesses. Initial relocation of marketing funds towards this approach can improve the long-term marketing budget. Making the information- resources, availability, contact information- about your company or organization easily and readily accessible is most effectively and efficiently done online in today’s marketplace.

Do you want to help those that would be best served finding you? Do you want to help your consumers avoid “Fugitive Information” regarding your business or organization? Do it online.