Once you’ve decided to promote your website through online advertising, there is a wide array of options available: tile ads, banner ads, skyscraper ads, page-peel ads, rich media ads, video ads, etc. How do you know what all these are and which to use?

The Interactive Advertising Bureau is a wonderful resource on all the basics of online advertising, including examples and guidelines for different types of ads. They also conduct research into what type of online advertising works and in what situation.

If you are just starting out in advertising online, then I suggest a banner or skyscraper ad on websites which are important to your audience. Good places to look are association or publications for your particular industry - remember to look for what your customers read, not necessarily what you read. In order to properly track the effectiveness of the ads, I suggest creating a unique landing page on your website for each ad you have. This will allow you to track from your analytics program how many people click on the ad and make it to your website.

For those who are more adventurous or willing to spend more money, rich media ads (ads with audio, video or interaction) can be extremely effective in capturing your audience’s attention. There is a wide variety of rich media ads - the IAB has some rich media guidelines to help. You’ll need a Flash or Rich Media Developer to create the ad - make sure they follow the specs for the website on which the ad will be posted (rich media ads with their added interaction can become quite large in file size and time for visitors to download. Try to keep your message to the point).

I’ll cover more about measuring advertising and specific ad examples in future posts.

Technorati Tags: advertising, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting

B2B numbers from 2006 (latest info I could find - July, Sept, Nov):
From Knowledge Storm and Universal McCann:

• 80% read blogs
• 31% use RSS
• 63% use online video
• 23% use social networks
• 86% use wikis, only 6% contribute
• 66% use podcasts

Sources:

1. KnowledgeStorm - Podcast - Emerging Media Series: Online Video, Social Networks and Wikis
2. KnowledgeStorm - Emerging Media Series: How Blogs & Real Simple Syndication (RSS) Impact B2B Technology Purchase Decisions
3. KnowledgeStorm - Emerging Media Series: Online Video, Social Networks and Wikis

Spending the week with family and friends.

Have a great Thanksgiving and enjoy whatever gives your life meaning.

I’ll be back next week with normal posting.

You have your website optimized for usability, customer-centric design and search engines. What else can you do to promote your website and get more traffic? Advertise. There are a lot of options now. What makes sense for your business?

Cheap Methods of Promotion

• One of the best ways to promote your website is just to include the link to your website in any communications you send out: emails, enewsletters, quotes, RFPs, brochures, etc.
• Trade links with association websites and partner websites. Make sure you place links on your site in a place that makes sense for your visitors. Avoid link exchanges which place non-relevant ads on your site.
• Contextual advertising such as Google Adwords can be very affordable since you can set spending limits and place several different ads to target specific segments of your audience.

Brand Awareness

Once you have some traffic coming to your site, you might like to increase your brand awareness. You want your customers to think of you when they have a need you can fulfill. Here are some types of advertising to increase your brand awareness:

• Ads in newspapers, magazines, or other print periodicals. Properly designed, this type of ad can not only make your company more top-of-mind, they can also drive traffic to your website when people remember your name during a purchasing cycle.
• Ads on industry websites: trade magazine sites, association sites, etc. These can be especially effective because professionals typically turn to the web for research and news. Many websites are also very affordable for limited runs and smaller ad sizes.
• Sponsorships. Sponsor a round of golf, a charity event, a local event, etc. These can be great publicity plus a tax write-off. Your company will be seen as generous and in-touch with issues and/or the community.

Targeted Campaigns

You may have specific products or services you want to promote or a corporate event you want your customers to know about. This type of marketing requires a bit more targeting.

• Targeted ads on industry websites. Look for sections or features which target your customers and find out about advertising or sponsorship opportunities. You’ll get more impact from bigger ad sizes (skyscraper, medium box, leaderboard).
• Contextual ads. Find out if your industry’s websites use contextual ads to target your audience.

Don’t be shy about trying out a few different advertising methods. Sometimes it takes a little trial and error to figure out what works best for your specific customers.

Technorati Tags: customer-centric sites, advertising, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting

We’ve discussed some of this before, but just as a refresher:

There are three types of basic information for a website:

• Page views are the number of web pages viewed on your website.
• Visits are the number times people visit the website. They can view multiple pages (page views) each visit.
• Unique visitors are the number of people who visit the website (usually as near as possible to ascertain).

What other information should you look for in your analytics package to find out if your site is usable and designed with your customer in mind?

• pages/visit: how many pages (on average) do people look at when they come to your website. Obviously, the higher the better. Some of this will depend on if your traffic comes mostly from search engines or from direct traffic. Visitors from search engines are less likely to browse around once they’ve found their answer (or if they didn’t find their answer).
• average time on site: how long (on average) do people spend on your site. Again, the longer the better. If this is a very small number (under a minute), your visitors aren’t bothering to read much of what is on the page.
• bounce rate: is the percentage of visits where the visitor only viewed a single page and then left. This often means the page where the visitor entered was not relevant to what they were coming to the site for (although it could also mean that they found their answer and left). This stat is extremely important for eCommerce sites which don’t want visitors to leave until they’ve purchased something.
• % of new visits: how many of your visits are from new visitors. This will tell you how loyal your audience is. If your site is engaging, your visitors will come back from time-to-time for more information and updates.

Technorati Tags: analytics, web analytics, web statistics, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting

Too often I come across websites or clients who want to get as much as they possibly can into the smallest possible space. They think that makes their site look trendy and up-to-date.

The problem is that the human mind processes text in a certain way - it actually uses the shapes of words and the contrast between white space and “ink” to figure out what’s going on. When you bring up a webpage, you actually scan it starting at the top left to right and then move down and then left to right again - very similar to how we read words on a sheet of paper.

Good design takes advantage of these natural tendencies by balancing colors, text, and, very importantly, whitespace. This is called negative space in the traditional design world and it is just as important as what you put on a page or canvas (or space, etc.). So when you layout your website design, keep in mind that whitespace is important and you need to space things out a bit just so people can get a handle on what you’re trying to convey. If you don’t, they’ll just go somewhere else that is easier to understand.

Technorati Tags: customer-centric sites, design, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting

Since I covered an example of a bad B2C website last week, let’s take a look at a couple of good B2C websites and what makes them good.

• L.L.Bean - This site has been one of my favorite consumer websites for several years. Why? Because I can always find what I’m looking for. If I need help there are multiple different ways to contact the company: email, phone, online chat which are clear from every single page. I can find products by their catalog number, by searching, by browsing (in multiple categories). Browsing allows the ability to narrow your choices by several different types of information (dependent on what you’re looking at) - for example, on comfort fleece, I can narrow my choices by department, attributes, price and colors. When I add an item into my shopping bag, I can label it with different names if I have items going to different people and during checkout it will ask me for different addresses and gift card information. I also can save items in my bag for later if I’m considering different items or shopping around. They have details on every product including the ability to zoom in to see more detail. L.L. Bean is a catalog company so if they lose a visitor off their site, they’ve lost a sale. You can’t get much more customer-centric.
• Lands End - Also a catalog company, Lands End has many of the same functions as the L.L. Bean website (they compete on many of the same items). I think their display of items is somewhat better since they offer several different views of each product and offer recommendations on how well something will fit you (based on your personal measurements). They also offer the same great customer service options and abilities as far as finding products.

Obviously eCommerce sites are going to be very different than other B2C websites and different from most B2B websites, but they are very good at being customer-centric since they must be so to compete. Most B2B websites are also selling products, but often forget to offer good customer service and to think about what their customers want when they are on their website.

Technorati Tags: customer-centric sites, design, B2C, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting

As a case study of what makes a good website, let’s take a look at a B2C site that is aesthetically pleasing, but fails to be customer-centric.

Apple is known for the design of their products and their website certainly is pleasing to the eye. If you happen to be looking for information regarding purchasing a product, you will be escorted through beautiful images, rich information, and links to their online store. However, if you are searching for specific information about fixing a problem, how a product should work, or even making an appointment with tech support, good luck. This information is buried on their website and doesn’t even always come up in a search.

Customer-centric design means trying to help your customers no matter what information they are trying to get - not just information for purchasing.

Technorati Tags: customer-centric sites, design, B2B, internet consulting, B2B internet consulting