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Archive for September, 2007

B2B Website Usability Basics – Part 1 – Research

Posted in B2B, Tips, Usability on Friday, Sep 28, 2007 | Comments Off

What type of information do you need to start redesigning your site to be customer-centric and usable? You need to understand why your visitors are coming to your site and what they’re looking for. This type of information is going to come mainly from your analytics software. If you don’t have any analytics software, you [...]

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B2B Website Usability Basics – Introduction

Posted in B2B, Design, SEO, eCommerce on Wednesday, Sep 26, 2007 | 1 Comment »

As mentioned in a previous post, usability is important in designing a customer-centric site. Usability, as defined by Wikipedia:
Usability is a term used to denote the ease with which people can employ a particular tool or other human-made object in order to achieve a particular goal.
In the non-Internet world, we expect certain things to be [...]

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Customer-Centric Sites

Posted in B2B, Design on Monday, Sep 24, 2007 | 1 Comment »

In Good vs. Bad B2B Websites, I introduced the idea of customer-centric sites: designing your site with your customer in mind instead of your company or organization. Why is customer-centric design important?
Your Customers will go somewhere else. There are plenty of websites and companies out there that do the same thing. If your [...]

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B2B RSS Resources

Posted in B2B, Tips on Friday, Sep 21, 2007 | Comments Off

If you’d like more information on RSS feeds and how to use them in B2B here are some good sources:

RSS definition from Wikipedia
Introduction to RSS from WebReference (more technical)
What’s RSS Marketing’s Future in B2B from MarketingProfs
B2B Marketers Prefer Blogs, RSS, Podcasts Among Web 2.0 Tools from MarketingVox
Using RSS Radars in B2B CRM from MarketingStudies
RSS as [...]

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RSS for B2B Websites

Posted in B2B, Content, SEO, eCommerce on Wednesday, Sep 19, 2007 | Comments Off

RSS, or Really Simple Syndication, is a feed which sends content from the website out to a feed reader. RSS provides an easy way to check hundreds of sites for updates in one place. Google and Bloglines both offer a web-based reader, and there are several software based readers including NewsGator.
More importantly, what good [...]

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Good vs. Bad B2B Websites

Posted in B2B, Content, Design on Monday, Sep 17, 2007 | 2 Comments »

I just got back from a B2B trade show in Las Vegas, representing the publishing company where I work, to sell our online products to our B2B customers. As part of my research of each customer, I visited their website to see what their Internet presence looked like. I looked at about a dozen websites, [...]

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Video for B2B Websites

Posted in B2B, Content on Friday, Sep 14, 2007 | Comments Off

Video can have powerful impact for your business. You are probably aware of video on major consumer websites such as the New York Times, MSN, CNN or video sharing sites such as YouTube. Video that provides information to your customers helps establish credibility in for your knowledge and expertise.
Content
Information that is valuable to [...]

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Measuring Your Success in the B2B Marketplace

Posted in Analytics, B2B on Wednesday, Sep 12, 2007 | 1 Comment »

You have a spiffy website with engaging content organized in an easy-to-find manner. How do you know what is and isn’t working on your website? Where are your visitors coming from?
Analytics. Otherwise known as web statistics. There are three types of basic information for a website: page views, visits, and unique visitors. Page [...]

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Website Content for the B2B Audience

Posted in B2B, Content, SEO on Monday, Sep 10, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Now that we have some design ideas, what content should you put on your website? How should it be organized? Again it helps to put yourself into your visitor’s shoes. What would you be looking for if you were a customer? It probably falls into one of three categories:

Information about a product or service [...]

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B2B Website Design

Posted in B2B, Design, SEO on Friday, Sep 7, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Now that we know that the Business to Business (B2B) audience is different than the Business to Consumer (B2C) audience, how do we design our website to cater to their needs?
The most important part of any design is to put yourself into the shoes of those who will be using your design. When you [...]

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Business to Business (B2B) vs. Business to Consumer (B2C) Audience

Posted in B2B on Wednesday, Sep 5, 2007 | Comments Off

Business to Business (B2B) websites audiences are much different than Business to Consumer (B2C) websites audiences. But recognizing how they are different is key to understanding how to make your B2B website work for you.
B2B website visitors (or audience) are looking for information, services, or products related to their business or profession. They [...]

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Measuring B2B Advertising Success

Posted in B2B, internet advertising on Sunday, Sep 2, 2007 | 1 Comment »

Advertising only works if you can reach your target audience (obviously). How do you reach that audience on the web? More importantly, how do you do that without spending a lot of money on an advertising firm?
The easiest way to advertise is through a search engine such as Google or Yahoo! They both offer services [...]

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