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Website for Fisher’s Tudor House

February 2, 2012 By 2 Comments

It may not look like it on the surface, but this was a huge project. The mandate was to take two very dated, very old school websites and bring them into 2012. There were so many pages and interior links that just sorting it out required a flow chart. The SEO was Jurassic but losing ranking in such a competitive market wasn’t an option. Top it all off with an eCommerce component and a former webmaster that didn’t want to be a team player. I even pulled in old friend Marc Fuller to tweak the SEO.

 

The shining light was a client I just love. He understood the challenges and listened to my advice. Now he is no longer held hostage and is amazed at how easily he can update the new site himself.

Fisher’s Tudor House 2012

Just so you can get some idea of where we started…

thanks Pete.

Filed Under: Announcement, Website Design, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

Facebook or Your Website? What’s More Important?

October 25, 2011 By 2 Comments

I was out trolling the internet for inspiration this morning and ran across a  little website I rather liked until I saw this on the portfolio page…

For current photos, please visit our blog or facebook fan page.

 

Excuse me but that is exactly backwards. Exactly Backwards. Your social media presence is (or should be) designed to funnel people to your website, not the other way around.

Your website is the main hub of all your marketing. Everything else you do should be designed to get them to that point. It is where you have (or should) the most real-estate to capture their undivided attention. It is where your contact forms are, your full portfolio, your pricing information and for goodness sake your freaking sale pitch. Why would you use it to send them somewhere else?????

But wait! there’s more…

What this one statement told me is that first off, the website was not designed with the clients needs in mind. You, as the site owner, should have full control of your site. You should have full reign to update any and everything on it. Moreover, you should have been trained on how to use it. If you weren’t, you are being held captive by your web designer.

Then there is the issue of the blog being on a different url. Why? Your blog should be a fully integrated part of your website. Your blog is one of your best SEO tools. It is a near effortless way to add important keywords and tagged images for the search engines to delight over. Why put that much effort into a blog in the hopes that people will make the leap to your website. Dang it, they should already be there.

{can’t your tell I am just slightly irritated}

How about this…

Your blog is an integrated part of your website, just another page really. You work hard and keep updating your blog. The best of the best pictures you also ad to your gallery/portfolio. Every time you do that, your site is set up to automatically post it to both your Facebook page and your Twitter account. Now doesn’t that sound simple?
How about…If you have a website, a separate blog and are still putting all you effort into your Facebook page you are working way to hard. Just like the hub that it is, your website should not only be the central point you bring everyone, but it should also radiate out your hard work.

One page to rule them all

or is that to Lord of the Rings?

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Blog, Rants & Raves, Social Media, Website marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Yes Virginia, Content is STILL King!

October 19, 2011 By 1 Comment

I have said it and said it: the content on your website is the most important thing you can do for SEO. If you aren’t  blogging and tweeting and adding new GOOD, RELEVANT content on a regular basis, then you are behind the times.

Search is all about relevant content. The more you add the higher you rank. This info graphic says it better than I ever could, well at least more completely anyway.

Oh, one more note: for all you people that think your Facebook page is all you need, do you even see Facebook mentioned on here?

Brafton's Infographic: Why Content for SEO?

Still unsure about blogging? then get your tushie over to Eventbrite and sign up for Ashley’s blog camp. Not is the mid south? Send her an email since she is considering either taking the show on the road or packaging it into a single weekend so you can fly in to take it. Ya, it really is that important.

Disclaimer: Yes I am a speaker at Blog Camp but no, I am not making a dime. I just believe in it that much.

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Social Media, Website marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , ,

Don’t You Wish This Was Your Google Analytics

August 19, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Last week I posted about a website I had updated for a client, Picture This Nashville.

Well today I got this in an email from Elaine, the sites owner.

Wouldn’t you love results like this for your website?

Just  sayin’

 

Filed Under: Blog, Website marketing Tagged With: , , ,

The Picture of A Great Website

August 5, 2011 By 1 Comment

I loved the phone call I got on Wednesday.

I had a site go live for a client, PictureThisNashville.net, on Monday. On Wednesday Elaine, the owner, called to tell me she had booked a wedding from the site and for the first time the client said they had found her on Google.  That 3 days to go from not showing up on Google at all to showing up on the front page. Not bad if I do say so myself.

Here is what Elaine had to say

Where do we begin to thank you. Christine you are amazing and we are so glad we met you.  I will never forget our first meeting I knew right then and there you were the person to help us get our business heading in the right direction. Since you redid and relaunched our website we have had a 42% jump in viewers and we booked a wedding from someone that found us on a google search which I know you helped with.

Thank you so much. You ROCK!!

Elaine Pardo – Ingram
PICTURE THIS NASHVILLE
www.picturethisnashville.net

Have a look for yourself. (the image is a live link)

By the way, Elaine’s concept for a completely new type of Photo booth is killer. Please check it out, especially if you at all techie. It’s worth a look just for the Touch Screen iMac’s. They are so fun to play with!

Filed Under: Announcement, Website Design Tagged With: , , ,

Twitter. How the Big Boys Roll

May 4, 2011 By Leave a Comment

…and I bet you are doing it better than some.

I ran across this article that shows the results of an experiment digital agency IQ ran to see just how Fortune 500 companies were doing at social media. With the exception of a few, most of them sucked.  Check this quote:

The results? HP, UPS, Wells Fargo and GM stood out as top-performing brands, according to five best practices that IQ gleaned from the study: clearly labeling the purpose of a Twitter account; clearly identifying who is replying to a question; keeping the tone light and friendly; making sure you respond; and responding quickly.

Of the 50 companies, IQ did not send tweets to 16 because the agency couldn’t find a Twitter account, couldn’t find an account that seemed credible, or the Twitter accounts it did find were too specific in their topics.

Of the remaining 34 companies, 23 responded to McFather’s tweets. Among the 11 that didn’t: Boeing, Exxon Mobile, Home Depot, Walgreens and Wal-Mart. The fastest to reply were GM, UPS and Best Buy — getting back in 2,3 and 4 minutes, respectively. (Best Buy has previously gained recognition for its Twelpforce customer service page on Twitter.) These companies also quickly redirected messages sent to the incorrect accounts for customer service.

For companies that spend more on marketing than you or I could ever fathom, that says something. What that something is I’m not quite sure.Are you a Twitter Queen?

  • Are they afraid to take risks?
  • Do they just not get it?
  • Are they still trying to turn the battleship of their giant company?
  • Like so many, are they deluded into thinking that things will go back to the way they were 10 years ago?

I follow the Twitter feeds of many of you and I see how in touch you are. I also see far too many client come to me with no plan or in some cases even a glimmer of understanding of the what, why and how of Twitter.

Everyday, social media like Twitter becomes standard operating practice as a way for people to find the information that they need. The simple fact that Twitter is searchable is reson enough that you can not ignore it.

You can read the full article here at Media Post Publications or download the white paper with the full results from IQ’s website. It’s a short paper; be sure to check out page 2 for some great examples.

Filed Under: Social Media, wedding marketing, What's Hot Tagged With: , ,

E-mail Marketing Refresher

January 20, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Now that the bridal shows are upon us and you have gathered a nice little lead list, I think it is time for an email refresher course.

Um, you did gather your own leads at the bridal shows, right? I thought so.

  1. For all those new visitors to your website, let’s capture those leads too. Make signing up to your email lead list easy, have a lead generator on every page of your website and only ask for 2 things, name and email address. People are more like like to sign up the less information you require. (Your lead generator is different from your contact form. You can require more info on the contact form.)


  2. Use a good emails service, don’t try to do email marketing through your own email program. You will end up blacklisted. Instead use a qualified third party emailer. I am a big fan of A Weber and have been using it for years. The price is right and the service is easy to use. Yes, I’m an affiliate but only because I am also a fan.


  3. Use good, non-spammy subject lines. Your subject line may be the only thing people read to determine if they want to open your email. You should split test to see what kinds of headlines get the best response from your subscribers.


  4. Make your emails informative. Don’t just send out notices of sales and coupons. Give your readers a reason to open your email even if they don’t have a dime to spend today. The goal is to get your business top of mind when they do have money to spend. A good rule of thumb is 80% information and 20%pitch. If you look at my emails blasts, they are almost entirely information about what is new on the websites, but I include a link to my ebook and other services over in a sidebar.


  5. Resend your email blast to the people that didn’t open it the first time around. Wait 24-48 hours ansend to ONLY the people that didn’t open it the first time. You will be suprised at how many more opens your get.


  6. Track everything. I shouldn’t have to say it, but what is the point of putting in the effort if you aren’t going to keep track of what is working. It is even a good idea to divide your lists up. Have one that comes from a bridal show, one that is generated by your website and one that comes from any leads your get off websites you advertise on. They you will even know which places are working for you.

Email does still work, if you use it right. With so much marketing today being pull marketing, it help to add a little bit of push to the mix.

Filed Under: Back to Basics, Blog, Marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Wedding Experts and Web Content

January 13, 2011 By 3 Comments

This has been bugging me for a while so prepare yourself for a rant!

I have been following a couple of discussions over on eWedNews, one about wedding portal websites and another about so-called experts in the wedding industry. Gah!

First off, have you done any bride-style surfing on the internet lately? Seriously type in any search string  that a newly engaged woman  might use, like “How to start planning a wedding”? Every damn one on the first page for that search is some self-serving drivel written as “keyword content”.  There were 5,240,000 results. The 7th listing was from a website called MamasHealth. For real! What makes them experts in wedding planning?  The 8th result was for a site called the Power of Home Biz telling you how easy and lucrative becoming a wedding planner is. For crying out loud, the Knot didn’t even make the first page! Not that they are an example of great content, but still.

This is the world your brides step into the minute they get engaged. It is one loaded with hucksters and shysters and carnival barkers all wanting a piece of the supposedly rich, recession proof wedding market.

If you take the time to read some of this stuff you will quickly get an understanding of why today’s brides are so confused/deluded/insane.

Once they get past the basic search and start hitting the blogs to gather information to put into their binder they get hit with fairy dust stories of spectacular weddings on a buck .95 budget. Whoops, that bride with the over the top wedding on a $5ooo budget neglected to mention that her sister is a photographer on a par with Jasmine Starr, her aunt owns a posh boutique bakery, her uncle Louie is a caterer to the stars and her best friend is Martha Stewart’s assistant. But hey, she did it for $5K, so can you!!!

How did all this happen? Greed. Greed for search ranking.

In a post Google world, search ranking is the golden ring and content is king. Google is after all only an algorithm, it can’t discern the quality of the content, only if it has the right searchable keywords. Therefore, any article with the right keywords, no matter how bad the information, can get to the top of the list. To the searcher, that gives it credibility. Google has judged your content to be worthy and declared  you an expert. Pffffft! Give a huckster a list of the right keywords and they can game the system to make themselves look like an expert in any field, not just this one of badly informed brides. Go MamasHealth!

With the portals, well they aren’t much different. They want your money, they use their website stats to show you how wonderful they are so you will advertise with them. How did they get those stats? Content. Have you ever actually read any of it? Most of it is bullshit with dash of recycled garbage and a touch of fairy dust. When brides read it, one of two things happen: either the site completely loses credibility or worse case, the bride buys into the bogus information. The first group won’t bother to look at vendors on the site and the second group you don’t want as your bride anyway.

Then there are the bloggers. I’m not talking about all wedding bloggers. Please don’t think that I am.Some of the only really credible, honest information today is found in the blogs.  There are two kinds of wedding bloggers. There is the vendor that chats about their business and the weddings they have done as a way to market their business and educate brides on their business and their part of the industry. Good on you. Then there are the ones that are just trying to keyword load and will post anything they can think of to wrap around a keyword. My all time favorite was the DJ that was telling brides if your baker wouldn’t guarantee you that your cake would be baked the morning of your wedding, move on and find a reputable baker.

Then there are the probloggers. Generally these guys are pretty good. After all they make their living off this and know where and how to find the real experts to quote and inform. They have a little work to do on budget honesty, but all in all, most are pretty good.

I know this was a long rant and I appreciate you patience in reading it. Unfortunately I don’t have an answer for you…yet. I just wanted to make you aware of the lay of the land in a Google world.

Filed Under: Blog, Rants & Raves Tagged With: , , ,

When Advertising Fails, What Then?

January 11, 2011 By 5 Comments

I have been following some interesting discussions on what advertising works and what doesn’t. The general consensus is that none of it works; at least not consistently. Not print, not bridal shows, not wedding portals, not online adverts, nothing, zip, zilch zero, nada.

So what do you do?

You know you have to market, you are even willing to drop a few coins in the pot to do it; but if nothing works what is the answer?

Here is where you begin. Notice that in the above copy I used two different words: advertising and marketing. They are not interchangeable. Advertising is static and marketing is active.

Time was when a bridal vendor could buy a page in the local glossy bridal publication and that was all it took.  That was advertising, set it and forget it. OK, maybe do a bridal show or two and then forget it.

Marketing is constant.  Marketing is networking.  Marketing is PR.  Marketing is reaching out to the people who can bring you work. Marketing is fluid.

Marketing for today’s bridal vendor is in two places: online and face to face.


Point 1:

A truth of the industry that has always been and I imagine shall always be is that the majority of brides find their vendors by referral.  Yes, a lot of that is from other brides but a lot more is from other vendors.  To sell today’s bride the biggest trigger is that she feels comfortable with you and that she trust you.

Yes, I know their opening salvo is always about price, but believe me, if she trusts you she will pay your price.

So, once she finds that one vendor that she trusts, she will take their recommendations in the highest regard. You need to be who they are referring.

This is the face to face aspect. If you aren’t out there networking with local vendors you are missing the boat. This doesn’t just mean calling them and asking them to refer you. Seriously, some people think that will work. No, not even close.

The real essence of networking with other vendors is getting to know them and building relationships with them. Work with them, help them, refer them, support them. All the work you put into and qualities you expect from a friendship are inherent in good networking.

This is an ongoing process and belive me, it is marketing. The more positive relationships you have with other vendors with in your market the more your business will grow. I promise you.


Point 2:

The other marketing today that does work is your own website. It is your marketing tool when you aren’t there. Again this has to be an ongoing project.

You need to keep  your website constantly updated for 2 main reasons.

The first is search. Everytime you update or add to your site the search engines take a fresh look and index more pages. The more content, the more long tail keywords, the better chance you have of showing up in the long, complicated search strings that brides type in to their search engine. Keep adding content and keep fueling the search. This is the main reason that having (and using) a blog as part of your website is so powerful.

The second reason is that if your website looks stale and dated, that is the impression that prospective clients will have of you. If you look stale, they won’t even call. That wedding from 2008 may still be your favorite, but it probably looks old and tired to brides that have been searching the net for months. Give yourself a fighting chance. Keep updating your portfolio with new and exciting images of your work.


Just about now is where you are starting to argue with me that you just don’t have the time for all that. Tough. Make the time or invest those old advertising dollars to hire someone to do it for you. In today’s world, this is what it takes.

Marketing works,

advertising just doesn’t anymore.

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing, wedding marketing Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Where are Brides Online?

January 4, 2011 By 4 Comments

I think that we have already established that today’s brides are doing most of their research online. The question is where. To answer that, you need to figure out how they are doing their research.

From what I have looked at, here is my drill down.

  1. Image search
  2. Planning research
  3. Community
  4. Local Search
  5. Reviews and Community Referrals

Let’s take these one at a time.

Image search.

The first thing they do is go look at all the pretty pictures. I know it sounds trite but that is just the way this generation is. They are very visual. What this means to you is that you need to make sure that your images come up in a Google image search. The best way to do that is to be sure you have done a good job of tagging your shots when you put them on your website. For more information on just how to do this, read Labeling Your Images for SEO Gold. Now mind you, this won’t make them call you, in and of itself, but it will start the process of making them familiar with your name.

Planning Research.

Trust me, the newly engaged are completely clueless when it comes to planning a wedding. So they hit the internet for planning tips and tools. You know as well as I do that there is enough info on this topic on the internet to fill a good sized library. Most of it is bullshit, some of it is down right scary, a lot of it is worthless marketing junk and a tiny bit is of real value. The problem is, it doesn’t come color coded, so a bride is likely to mistake the garbage for gold.

You know what I am talking about. How often have you sat in a client meeting and wondered where they came up with such a harebrained scheme. She got a tickle of an idea in the back of her brain and then found some source to support it. ~sigh~

Which brings us to our next destination…

Community.

This is in reality where brides that spend the most time online will be: in the forums and bulletin boards of places like WeddingBee.com and WeddingWire.com.

According to a recent report, the only sites in the top 10 that didn’t lose ground are the ones that support community. Even the venerable Martha Stewart Weddings took a hit. The comments on Bee and the forums on Wire are very heavily trafficked. What our brides are doing is talking about their wedding with other brides and learning from them. They have become the primary authority on all things wedding. God help us. It is like kids that learn all of their sex-ed on the playground.

The other place they are finding community is on Facebook. They may notice your page there but that isn’t why they are there. They are there to socialize.

Local Search.

Now we are getting down to it. They start looking for you. Notice I did not say that start looking at the ads on the Knot, or any other site for that matter. They go straight to their favorite search engine. Ok, so ya, Google, but there are others too, at least that is what I hear. ;-) Something else you need to know, these ladies are really good at search. They don’t type in “DJ in New Jersey” they type in “DJ,Trenton NJ, Not Cheesy”. They don’t type in “Wedding Dress, Bellingham WA” They type in “2Be Brides by Gavin Michaels Style No. G233916S + WA”

As you can see, they have already decided what they want and know how to search to find it. That is the reason that you need to put as much information on your website as possible.

Reviews and Community Referral.

Now that they have found you and looked over your website, they still aren’t ready to contact you. They want support that they are making a good choice. For they they go back to their community and ask if anyone knows anything about you. Once comfortable that you are who they think you are, they will check your review on Wedding Wire and Yelp. Save them the step and put the WeddingWire.com Review widget right on your website. Something else the net savvy bride will do is type in “{your name}+complaints”.

Now, maybe, if you have come out on top on all this, they might send you an email.

As to the original question, “Where are brides online?” the answer is search. They aren’t paying attention to banner ads or paid listings, they are doing their own research. When they finally hit your website, it had better be top-notch. It might be the only shot you get.

Filed Under: Blog, Facts & Stat, Marketing, Website marketing Tagged With: , , , , ,
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