Design in Context: A Web Design Blog by Greg Kihlstrom

Good article on Social Media and SEO

I thought there were some good thoughts in this article that talks about how a marketing firm used Social Media and Search Engine Optimization to promote one of its clients.

Click here to view the article >

Enjoy.

Blogs vs. Forums: Taking Control of the Conversation

Blogs and forums both provide a way to get feedback from your customers, and some times you may wonder which is the right fit for you. In this article I'd like to talk about a specific marketing and communications need: providing a focused, consistent message to your user base.

Blogs (or weblogs) generally consist of daily or weekly posts about a specific topic that originates with the owner of the blog, Web site, etc.  These can be very on-topic or some times slightly off-topic, depending on the tone of your blog author.  For instance, 99% of the time you might be responding to the daily news about your industry, but once in a while throw in something a little random that allows your blog readers to glimpse a more human side.  This can be very effective if done carefully.

Forums are usually (not always) a little more free-for-all.  Effective ones generally let members start their own topics and allow other users/members to comment on whatever they decide to post about.  A great use for this is for a software company that allows their users to post issues they have with their products.  Some times all the QA /testing in the world can't bring out some of the bugs or issues that users can find. 

But what happens when you have some important topics that you WANT people to discuss?  What is the best way to control the conversation, and still have allow your visitors and users to be a part of the discussion?

Blogs are really the best option here, because all the posts and thoughts originate with YOU. It doesn't mean you are trying to censor your visitors, it just means that instead of waiting for the perfect forum thread to be started, you are going to start the conversation yourself.  This also sets the tone for the type of interactions that you would like to have with your user base.

The idea of using Blog posts to start conversations is also a good way to avoid the  "Empty Forum." You know you've seen them.  It might have even been on a Web site that you respect on a topic that you're fascinated by.  Some topics on Forums might have a large amount of posts, but then there's some topics started by well-meaning members that just don't get any responses.  Or, you might have started some topics on a Forum of your own and not gotten a single response.

Blogs help your site visitors join in the conversation because it provides a good starting point.  Some times when a user has the option to talk about ANYTHING they want (such as on a blank forum), they actually have a tendency to say nothing.  A good blog post is tied to something current, relevant and even if it doesn't get a lot of comments, it's okay.  There's always tomorrow's post.

So when it comes to taking control of the conversation and providing that consisten message to your users, blogs are a much better option.  Obviously, there are times when a forum is a better choice, but knowing when and where to use each one will help you strengthen your online communications strategy.

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Greg Kihlstrom is Creative Director at Carousel30, a Web Design and Development firm in Washington DC.

Beyond Search Engine Optimization: Your Business in the Larger Online World

Search Engine Optimization is and will continue to be a major way that organizations promote and market their businesses online, but the sooner you begin to see SEO as only one component in the larger online world that now includes the Social Media sites like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.

Those that catch on quickly and truly understand how everything ties together will begin to pull ahead of those that are solely focusing on SEO.

Until then, it's time to get back to some Search Engine Optimization work.

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Greg Kihlstrom is the Creative Director at Carousel30, a Washington DC Web Design & Development firm

A Little Help with Web Analytics

If you're just getting started trying to read your site metrics using Google Analytics or another application and don't really know what you should be looking at, here's 3 things that can tell you a lot about who's coming to your site and how they're getting there.

1. Unique Page Visits
It's important to distinguish between visits and 'hits.'  Hits are each time a page (or any file) is served from your Web host.  If your pages have a lot of images on them, or if every employee in the company has the company home page set as the default page in their browser, you might be getting a lot of HITS but not a lot of valuable VISITS.

2. Referring Sources
By looking at where your traffic is coming from, you can tell a lot.  If most of your traffic has no 'referring source' it generally (though not always) means that people are directly typing in your URL to get to your site. 

If they are coming from a Search Engine such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN, you can also drill down and see what keywords (or search terms) they used to find your site. 

If they are coming from another Web site, you might want to see what page they are being directed from.  Maybe your company is mentioned in an article, or a partner link.  I've actually found out that I've won a design award just by doing that, so some times it can be good news.

3. Top Content
By seeing what your most viewed pages are, you can begin to learn about how your Web site visitors are actually USING your site. 

Web analytics is not an exact science, and there is generally a lot of interpretation that needs to be done, even by the most savvy experts out there, but there's a few things that you can detect fairly easily.  First of all, unless you have a lot of advertising or inbound links to very specific pages in the lower levels of your site, your home page is going to be one of the highest traffic-yielding pages.  This is not going to be a surprise to anyone.  Where it gets interesting is when you start to see what the other top content pages are. 

Again, unless you track users' exact actions, you can make deductions that might not always be true, but if your home page is the page that gets the most hits, and your "Services" page that is one level down in your site's navigation gets the second most hits, I would say you can safely assume that most people first come to your home page, then click the "Services" link.  That in itself is pretty valuable information.

And from there you can spend as much, or as little, time as you want to.  I hope that helps a little.

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Greg Kihlstrom is the Creative Director at Carousel30, a Washington DC Web Design and Development firm

Web 2.0 for Small Businesses, Part 1

All this buzz about Web 2.0 has been centering around two things: Large companies and startups.  But there's plenty in this whole thing they call "Web 2.0" for smaller organizations.  In fact, some of the technologies and methods of connecting with customers are a way of levelling the playing field, so smaller companies can appear larger.  You don't have to be a large company to have blogs - we all know this, of course, because large companies have actually come into the blogging game a little late.  But they are catching on fast.  Smaller companies that can make quicker decisions and have more direct contact with their customers are able to build a more personal network more quickly.

And that's what Web 2.0 is really about: tapping into social networks of people that are already talking about the subjects that your potential customers are interested in.  The trick is to get them to notice YOUR product and company and create something that is useful, inventive and unique enough to get conversations going about it.

Does your company need a Myspace account?  That depends, and, I'm going to say it might not.  But there are plenty of other ways to get people talking about you. Part of what my company, Carousel30, does is to help companies and organizations find ways to get influencers to start conversations that involve your company's products or services.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Greg RS Kihlström is an award-winning Designer and is currently Creative Director at Carousel30, a Washington, DC-based firm that specializes in Web site Design, Video Production and Post-Production and Print Graphic Design.