LDS Media Talk

Another post from the Web 2.0 Expo:

Integrating SEO, Usability, and Internet Marketing for High Performance Results

Web sites are not “projects.” They are living, breathing environments. SEO, usability, and Internet marketing are often introduced on completion of the site and retrofitted later to support visibility and promotion to target audiences. This is counter-intuitive and country-productive.

Every aspect of the experience needs to be optimized with intent:

• Web site architecture
• user experience and interface
• content
• metadata
• assets
• media & publicity
• Internet marketing

Proven methodologies

• Competitive research and positioning (not copying other successful sites)
• Keyword research and positioning
• Ongoing content management
• Metadata optimization
• Formatting to maximize efforts, leverage best practices for widespread success (metadata, keyword utilization, etc.)

Since search engine algorithms change, best practices sustain these changes over time, without putting your site at risk of being blacklisted and will perform best for YOUR Web site.

True SEO incorporates (1) company mission, (2) unique value proposition, and (3) pre-qualification of audience. You want to attract people who are perfectly matched to your content.

Usability:

• Give your visitors what they want as quickly as possible.
• Promote engagement before they “bounce” (leave your site).
• Empowers the user to control the experience.
• Empowers viral marketing.
• Provides clear execution of desired outcome at all times.
• Promotes conversion.
• Answer every conceivable question or objection leading to the conversion.

Your mission is to meet the immediate and long-term needs of your audience.

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I have launched a social network called LDS Online at LDSonline.ning.com. (Ning is an online service that lets you create, customize, and share your own social network easily and for free.)

LDS Online is intended to be a community of Latter-day Saints where they can share ideas and collaborate on how to best provide accurate and positive information about the Church on blogs and Web sites. It is intended to be a resource for people who want to respond to Elder M. Russell Ballard’s challenge to participate in a gospel discussion online.

It is not intended to compete with either of these two great sites, but to be complimentary to them:

• LDS.net is the premier LDS site for blogging, chatting, sharing testimonies, and participating in groups and forums. LDS Online is the place to help you learn how to do these activities, and also to provide some resources to get you started. It also lets you collaborate with others in forums and discussion threads so you can learn to do these activities more effectively.
• The More Good Foundation Web site is a great resource with ideas to help you share testimony online. LDS Online has a similar purpose, but provides forums, groups, and discussion threads you can use to share ideas and collaborate with others so you can learn to participate online more effectively.

I invite you to participate with us at LDSonline.ning.com.

LDS Online is not owned by or affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

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I’m in San Francisco right now at the Web2.0 Expo. Just attended a great session on how to improve blogs. (Oh, no. Now you’ll expect the quality of this blog to improve!)

Here are my notes:

Passion

The most important thing about blogging is passion. If you don’t have passion about your subject, you won’t be engaging enough to keep people coming back nor will you have the stamina to keep it up. (60-80% of blogs are abandoned in the first month.)

Content

Pick a topic that is uniquely you. Focus on your area of expertise. What are you passionate about? Keep it narrow enough so that you are the best there is on your subject. You may want to create your own category so you are the creator of that topic.

Write newsworthy content. Blogs are of the moment; they are event-driven. If it isn’t current, it belongs in a book. Provide exclusive information.

Headlines: Find the most interesting part of the post and put it in the headline. Be plausible sensational, but don’t over promise.

Focused content: Why is your content important? Pick one point about the topic and make your point. It had better be interesting. Respect people’s time by writing what is relevant, timely, and useful.

Linking

Linking causes trackbacks. Trackbacks show up on posts. Posts are crawled by search engines and people click links, especially blog owners.

Moderation

Getting comments is harder than moderating them. Err on the side of openness. Use Akismet to take care of spam. You must read the comments, and comment back. It will build community.

Give back/Add value

Facilitate community. Be a focal point. Participate in existing communities. Give away something for free. Promote your fans.

Promoting Your Blog

Invite people to link to it. Blog regularly so there is something interesting for everyone. Create community wherever you go. Become friends with the friends of your friends. Guest write for other sites.

Distribution: Feedburner is the quintessential distribution channel for blogs. Others: Digg, StumbleUpon, Yahoo Buzz, other blogs, AIDE RSS, FriendFeed, Del.icio.us, Facebook. E-mail newsletters.

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I just visited a great site, ReflectionsofChrist.org, which is a good example of a worthwhile project that can touch lives and testify of the Savior.

The project is intended to cast new light on our perceptions of Christ–to inspire though beautiful images and music. As the creator of this site said, “What else do we really own, other than our personal story?” This is his way of testifying of Christ. Can you think of your personal way to testify of Christ to others?

(If you log in to the site, you can also watch some behind-the-scenes videos.)

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“There is no known cure for addictive content.”

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Many Web sites are missing the boat with search engine optimization by focusing primarily on the home page. Key pages of content also need to be optimized, especially when site visitors may jump directly to those pages without going through the home page.

Many people–and in some cases most people–will find your content with a search engine, which will take them directly to the content they seek, instead of being escorted through the home page front door and relying on a site’s internal navigation or internal search engine. While this is a valued benefit of a well-planned search engine optimization strategy, it also raises issues about successfully introducing and cross-referencing content.

It is critical for a site to have a solid information architecture to accommodate a variety of different user scenarios. That model can’t rely on a single home page to introduce visitors to your content and brand. Instead, you need to treat every page like it’s your home page. Brand awareness, site navigation, and marketing need to be reinforced at all levels. Even the deepest parts of your site should help visitors understand what the site is about as if they were seeing your brand for the first time.

Site navigation is not only a user’s guide, it is a communication tool and opportunity to market your content. Carefully consider the navigation labels you use because they will inform site visitors of new offerings that may interest them.

Once on a page in your site, visitors will be most responsive to content related to what they searched for. If done right, contextual promotions will prompt them to read the message and interact with it. Introducing modules that integrate with the content such as “If you’re interested in X, you may also be interested in Y” is a great example of this.

Understanding how visitors arrive on your site and how they get around will help you craft a holistic user experience.

(Several of the ideas in this post came from Business to Business.)

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One way to run an effective multichannel messaging campaign is to create a microsite—a centralized site with a unique and easy-to-remember URL. This can be a stand-alone site or part of a larger Web site. The purpose of a microsite is to attract specific audiences and get them to take precise actions—subscribing, placing an order, replying to an invitation, or simply asking for more information.

When developed as the strategic core of a multichannel campaign, a microsite can guide and support the entire promotion. Each marketing effort drives its target audience to the site, which then reinforces key messages, special offers, and promotions.

Another benefit of a microsite is your ability to track and report the results. In fact, you can set up separate URLs for each marketing channel so you know which channel drove how much traffic to the site.

For example, CircuitAlert.com is a microsite developed by Gardner Bender for the launch of its hand tool, the Circuit Alert wire stripper. All advertising, public relations, and other marketing done for the product invited prospective customers to visit the site and “see the tool in action” by viewing a 60-second demonstration video. The effort was a success: tens of thousands were sold within months of the launch.

Stick to Your Message

People usually are on a mission when they come to a Web site. If their goal is to buy your product or request more information, you don’t want to distract them in any way. Microsites can focus on one main message and prevent the visitor from getting lost or disoriented within a larger Web site.

Target a specific audience and tailor your content especially for this group. Provide exclusive content, special offers, breaking news about new products, and allow visitors to sign up for e-mail lists or take surveys.

Benefits of microsites:

Efficiency. Microsites are easy and relatively inexpensive to create and reuse.

Tracking. Monitor how visitors arrive at your microsite and where they click on the page(s).

Customized URLs. Track targeted audiences for each campaign.

Control. Customized content shows visitors what you want them to see.

Data. Research indicates that visitors to microsites share more about themselves than visitors to regular Web sites.

Leverage content. Editorial can be repackaged from other sites and media.

Savings. Using a microsite as a response mechanism is more cost-effective than telephone, mail, or fax.

Get your message heard. Attract visitors to the microsite and tell your message.

This post was adapted from the article Central Station by Grant A. Johnson in Direct magazine.

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One of the best ways to get your site or blog listed on page one at any search engine is to have a substantial number of inbound and outbound links. So, how do you get those links? First and foremost, make sure your site has useful, interesting, up-to-date content that people will consider link-worthy. Next, set up a blog as part of your site because it is one of the best ways to build both inbound and outbound links. Below are some ways to get inbound links.

How to get people to link to your site

1. Get found. Find out what phrases people are searching by using a tool like Wordtracker. Then, make sure your pages use those phrases, so people will find you before they find other sites.
2. Stay current. Make sure your pages contain relevant, informative, and interesting information.
3. Promote your site. Encourage readers to digg and del.icio.us your articles. This puts links to your site on some very credible news feeds.
4. Let visitors generate content. Allow comments on articles and blogs.
5. Make lists. There’s nothing is more link-able than a good list.
6. Start controversy. That’s right, don’t be afraid to be controversial. As they say,“any press is good press”.

Consider who would benefit from linking to you

1. Bloggers. A great way to get noticed is to get out into the blogging community and start commenting on other blogs. Most blogging platforms will link to your site when someone clicks on your alias. Many bloggers rely on outside articles to supply their blog with updated, relevant information. Many are a quick “copy & paste” of information with a link to the external source. Even journalistic blogs will cite other blogs as references for their information. Whenever you get an e-mail or a comment from someone on an article you’ve written, make sure you follow up with them. If they are reading your content, they must think you are a reliable resource and this could be the start of a great business relationship.
2. Business Partners. These could be your blogger friends, your conference networking buddies, old colleagues, but they may also be your competition. It may be easier than you think to form a strategic alliance by finding a way that both will benefit. Many people will link to you if you link to them–even competitors.
3. Customers. Who better to spread the word about you than your loyal clientele? Offering links in your thank-you e-mails to related articles, and even outwardly asking them to link to you is a great way to invite traffic to your site. Many people will do so if you just ask. Any incoming link helps.
4. Suppliers. Think about offering testimonials (closing with a link to your site) on the testimonial pages of your dealers. Most organizations can use new testimonials, so a good deed for a good deed is good business. Ask them to list you on their “Partners” page.
5. Friends. If all else fails, talk to your friends. In the digital age, almost everyone has a blog or is part of some social network. Tell your friends to link to your site in their forum signatures, blogrolls, MySpace and Facebook profiles, and anywhere else they can think of.

How to get bloggers to write about you

This is the epitome of link building. If your list of blogger prospects isn’t large enough, find more at Technorati, Google Blog Search and Ask.com’s blog search engine. Here are a few ways to get bloggers to notice you and link to your articles:

1. Contact the blogger. This is a bold move, but if you think that something you’ve written will be of interest to the writer, then by all means, put yourself out there. You can usually find contact details on a bloggers site or contact page. When you contact bloggers, start with a compliment. Talk about how much you enjoy their blog, and do your research beforehand. Make sure you provide them with all the details they need to link to your site. For more tips, check out Ogilvy’s Blogger Outreach Code of Ethics.
2. Comment on other blogs. This has multiple benefits. If you write genuinely-interesting comments, people will feel inclined to learn more about you. Most blogs link back to your Web site if a user clicks on your comment name. Another benefit is that your comments immediately create backlinks to your site. Don’t leave obvious promotional comments; no one likes reading them.
3. Ask for a review. If you are product-based, offer relevant bloggers a chance to receive a free product in exchange for their review. Even if they are not an immediate fan, if they blog about your product you still a backlink that others may follow and even find a different product they prefer.

How to get your competitors to write about you

On the Web and in the blogosphere, it may be you have no competitors at all–just potential partners. Find arrangements that are mutually beneficial when it comes to link-building.

1. Exchange links. A non-threatening place to suggest a link-exchange would be in a blogroll or “partners” area of your competitor’s site. It doesn’t distract their readers but it’s still a valuable placement.
2. Fill a void. It may be that you have a complimentary article or product on your site that they don’t cover and they may see it as valuable to their readers. Many bloggers rely on other bloggers to fulfill their editorial needs by cutting and pasting, or speed-linking (a post composed completely of links to interesting articles and sites) to fill some white space. Fill that space.

How to get other inbound links to your site

Think about user-generated sites to create your own external inbound links. Use forums, online communities, social bookmarks, and online reviews to create live links to your content.

1. Social networks. Read more about how to do this in an article about being a social networking evangelist. It includes a link to our “evangelist toolbox” which shows you multiple places to set up shop and create links to your site from multiple domains, including Digg, MySpace, LinkedIn, Technorati and more.
2. Online Press Releases. If appropriate to your content, consider an online press release, which may generate multiple links to your site from all over the Web. Not only from PR sites themselves, but also from any browsing blogger looking to pick up a story. A list of free and paid resources (as well as a step-by-step how-to) is at Quick guide to distributing press releases online.

How to find out who is linking to your site

1. Try Yahoo! Site Explorer
2. See the backlink tool in Google Webmaster Tools
3. Check out the backlink analyzer Domain Stats Tool
4. The Firefox browser has a great plugin called “Search Status” that displays Google PageRank, Alexa rank, and Compete ranking anywhere in your browser, along with a fast keyword density analyzer, keyword/nofollow highlighting, backward/related links, Alexa info, and more.

This post was adapted from several articles at Mequoda.

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Elder M. Russell Ballard urged graduating students at Brigham Young University-Hawaii today to use the Internet, blogs, and other forms of new media to contribute to a national conversation about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Elder Ballard asked the students to “join the conversation by participating on the Internet, particularly the New Media, to share the gospel and to explain in simple and clear terms the message of the Restoration.”

He explained that conversations about the Church would take place whether or not Church members decided to participate in them. “We cannot stand on the sidelines while others, including our critics, attempt to define what the Church teaches,” he said. Church leaders “can’t answer every question, satisfy every inquiry and respond to every inaccuracy that exists.”

He said students should consider sharing their views on blogs, responding to online news reports, and using new media in other ways. Read his full talk Using New Media to Support the Work of the Church.

Read related stories at the Newsroom, particularly the Additional Resources listed on the right of that page

For more ideas on using modern technology to share the gospel, see the category Sharing the Gospel on this blog.

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How usable and memorable is your site’s Web address (URL)?

When you tell people about your URL to get them to go to your Web site, it is typically a small space at the end of a brochure, a single line in a magazine article, or a few words on screen for a few seconds. You have a brief moment to make an impact, tie it to your brand, and make it memorable. So make every character count.

Research has shown that offline media drives people to the Web for more information. So, when you pique someone’s interest, do you provide a URL that is memorable, understandable, readable, and typeable? (Is type-able a word? That means if you have hyphens, forward slashes, back slashes, underscores, etc., the average person won’t be able to type it correctly.) Remember, not everyone is Web-savvy. There is still a significant percentage of the online population that can’t (or doesn’t bother to) differentiate between an address bar and a search box. Two of the top ten queries on Google and Yahoo each month are “Google.com” and “Yahoo.com.”

Give people URLs they can easily remember and easily type. Here are a few best practices (borrowed and adapted from Aaron Goldman and other sources):

Dos

1. CapitalizeTheFirstLetterOfEachWord. For example, HowStuffWorks.com is easier to read than howstuffworks.com. It can also alleviate miscommunications, as in speedofart.com, which is more clearly read when spelled SpeedOfArt.com.

2. UseDifferentColorsOrBoldToHelpEachWordStandOut. For example, SamsungJuke.com.

3. Whenever possible, use YourBrandName.com.

4. If .com is not available, use .org. If you’re really desperate, use .net. If .com, .net, and .org are taken, find a new brand name. Seriously. Don’t even think about .biz and other options.

5. Use YourSlogan.com when running an integrated media campaign.

6. Use subdomains (like temples.lds.org) rather than subdirectories (like lds.org/temples). If you need a specific temple, SaltLakeTemple.lds.org is much better than lds.org/temples/saltlake. These can be set up easily, so NEVER use a convoluted URL. Set up a subdomain that is simple to remember and simple to type.

7. Use subdomains when driving people deeper than your homepage. I recently got a mailing that said “go to http://www.dol.gov/osbp/sbrefa/poster/matrix.htm.” Are they kidding? Why didn’t they set up the subdomain poster.dol.gov?

8. Use alternate URLs or subdomains to track campaigns. For example, in a TV ad for Allstate, they use the name GetAllstate.com instead of Allstate.com so they can track the traffic driven by the TV spot.

Don’ts

1. Don’t include www. Most people know that the phrase “go to LDS.org” means to go to a Web site. If it isn’t clear from the sentence, then say “go to the Web site LDS.org.”

2. Don’t include http://. This just confuses people further. Most modern browsers are able to interpret a Web address without http:// and without www. Don’t make your audience think they have to type more than they do.

3. don’tusealllowercase (canyoureallytellwhereonewordendsandthenextbegins?)

4. DITTOFORALLUPPERCASE.

5. No-hyphens/or slashes. See the comment about subdomains in #6 above.

6. Don’t use acronyms, abbreviations, or numbers unless your brand is widely known as such.

7. Don’t bury your URL at the bottom of a billboard. How many people drive around with a 4x zoom lens to find URLs?

Some good and bad examples of URLs can be found at GoodURLBadURL.com.

In an integrated effort, like Church Web sites, you may not want to run out and get unique URLs for every site. It may be important to brand the sites into a suite or family of sites, both visually, and by URL. In our case, we have a consistent central brand around the domain name LDS.org, and can use subdomains of LDS.org for most things (for example, temples.lds.org, primary.lds.org, ces.lds.org, music.lds.org, catalog.lds.org, and youngwomen.lds.org) without having to reinvent an entirely new domain name.

Church Web sites for members typically use a subdomain of LDS.org to make it clear that the site is an official Church site. Because there are many LDS-related Web sites, this helps members distinguish between Church site and other sites. For example, members cannot know from the name whether josephsmith.net or josephsmith.com is the Church site. (Do you which is the Church site?) Also, there are many sites with names similar to the names of official Church sites. To solve this, we usually tie official Church sites back to the LDS.org brand so it is clear from the URL that these sites are Church sites. For example, josephsmith.lds.org makes it clear that this is an official Church site about Joseph Smith.

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The term user is way over used. Who is a user anyway? One who abuses drugs? A selfish person who takes advantages of others? I’m surprised at how many people are commenting lately on eradicating the word user and just calling people what they are: people. Sometimes it seems we use more acronyms and buzzwords than is healthy. The problem is that inaccurate buzzwords and overused vernacular, like users, distance us from our true intentions and interactions with customers and each other—not just in technology, but in marketing, media, advertising, the Web, and everywhere.

John Udell from Microsoft, while previously at IDG, last year explained:

Everything about this buzzphrase annoys me. First, calling people “users” is pernicious. It distances and dehumanizes, and should be stricken from the IT vocabulary (see Those clueless users), as well as from the publishing vocabulary. IT has customers and clients, not users. IT-oriented publishers have readers, not users.

Thomas Vander Wal, a blogger and principal at Infocloud Solutions, eradicated the word from his lexicon and noted:

One benefit that came from focusing on the person and not the user has been being able to easily see that people have different desired uses and reuses for the data, information, media, etc. for the products I am working on…. I can see complexity more easily focusing on people than I could the user.

Josh Bernoff at Forester says:

When I started in the business twenty-mumble years ago, writing software manuals, people who used software were unusual (and had to be masochists). We spent a lot of time talking about users. The word user was helpful — it helped us to keep in mind that there was a poor slob on the other end of what we were building.

Those times are long gone. We know users are important now. Disappoint them and you lose. So why do we still have to call them “users,” which puts the emphasis on the technology they are using?

Yes, I know “users are people, too.” But you know what? All people are users now! (With nearly 80% Net penetration in the US this is pretty close to true.) Users put up with computers. People just do stuff.

Nobody talks about users of dishwashers, or users of retail stores, or users of telephones. So why are we talking about “users” of computers, browsers, and software?

Try, just for a day, to stop using this word. You’ll be amazed at how differently you think about the world.

Web users become people looking for information.

Application users become employees trying to get stuff done.

Users of your Web site become customers. (Forrester’s group focused on usability of Web sites and other technologies is called the Customer Experience team. I like that.)

User-generated media becomes amateur media.

And most importantly, social media users become people connecting with other people. Once you think about it that way it becomes a lot easier to understand. And it focuses you on the relationships, which will always be around, not the technologies, which are always changing.

It’s amazing (to me) the clarity this brings to writing, and to thinking. Words matter.

Jimmy Guterman took the pledge to stop talking about users at O’Reilly. Way to go, Jimmy. So now you take the pledge….I promise to avoid the word user whenever possible. I will think of people who use technology as people, customers, and friends. I won’t use them, and they won’t use me.

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