Spring 2016
Three things to think about for your web site right now.
WHAT YOU LIKE VS. WHAT WORKS
Whether we admit it or not, many of us (especially enterpreneurs) see our web sites as much as a statement of 'us' as a practical tool. But the fact is that it often takes an outsider to give you an objective take on your marketing efforts. And although I care about what you like (I really do! I really do!), I'll tell you right now that my first loyalty is to give you what works, ie. what lots and lots of research has shown people will respond to. To do otherwise would be like a doctor who isn't willing to give you their best advice because they're not sure you'll like it! So I'll break it to you gently: what the world responds to isn't always what you respond to; especially on the web.
Now it goes without saying that you know more than I ever will about what you do. But the fact remains that your customers don't see you the way you see you (if you take my meaning.) So part of my job is to show you what all that research says about color, layout, copywriting, etc. There's a reason why you see the same techniques and words used over and over (and over) in ad layouts. It's not because designers are lazy (OK, some are!) It's because these techniques work! Even though you and I may loathe some of them, they do get results.
For example, I've had clients who love purple. It's their favourite colour and it's not only a part of their brand, it's a part of their life. But then they see my initial design and there's only a hint of violet. So they're a bit disappointed. Then I ask them a question: why aren't there too many purple web sites? And the answer? Sadly, the colour has been shown time and time again to not rate highly with general purpose audiences. Now, is it possible to have a great purple web site? Sure. I've taken that challenge and done what I believe is pretty good stuff. But when it worked, it's because purple was a good fit for the brand. In other words, I wasn't trying to force anything just to make the client happy.
It's also likely that you're a lot more invested in your brand than a guy who works for some large company like Boeing. That personla connection is great in so many ways, but the advantage the large business has is a certain amount of distance. Corporate employees are often more open to evidence-based ideas on branding and layout because, unlike you, they don't do everything from soup to nuts. Again: they don't take their brand personally. And that's the point. As much as possible, I try not to let my personal taste get in the way of the evidence. When there is clear research as to what works I want to go with that. That's my decades of training at work. That doesn't mean I'm 'conservative' in my designs. But what it does mean is that I'm constantly checking in to make sure that what you and I 'like' isn't interfering with what the evidence says that your audience will like.
So I guess what I'm hinting at (with not too much subtlety I fear) is that it's important to let the designer help you step outside yourself. I had a client who once told me he thought of our relationship as being similar to that with his interior decorator. But what we're doing here is not like that at all because you are not really the one we should be trying to make happy. It's actually your audience that we're trying to make happy. It's your visitors who are going to be living in your web site, not you! Obviously we want everyone to be happy with the final results, but in the end, it's your audience that should matter most.
WORDPRESS 4.4
So many of you run your site on Wordpress that I think it's worth an occasional mention of the way this publishing platform is developing. And it really is a 'publishing platform'. What does that mean to you? Version 4.4 can now serve up your content to other sites a lot better. If you use social media sites like Facebook, you'll notice that when you paste a URL to share something, they can magically extract the image and excerpt from it. Well, with Wordpress 4.4 you can do exactly the same thing (with a little help from moi of course). Previously, if you wanted to paste in content from another site (the equivalent of a Facebook Share) you had to manually paste in all the images and excerpt material you wanted. What a pain! Now, it can be easy easy as dragging content from the page you want into a new Wordpress post. This will make it much faster for you to share interesting content with your viewers and that will translate into more page views and better search results!
Additionally, Version 4.4 has a bunch of new features which will automatically format images in your posts a lot nicer. Images were not really handled all that great in Wordpress until Version4; the whole Library was hard to use. But now you can easily manage your own images and they get auto-magically resized to look decent.
And of course, there are security fixes so all in all, if you haven't upgraded yet? Now's the time! And if you want to take advantage of the new data sharing features? Call me.
SECURITY: FUN WITH SPAM FILTERS
And speaking of security, this time I want to mention problems that many of you report throughout the year with your mail system. Most web hosting plans offer a mail server along with a web server, but really the two are very different beasts. So the security for each has different rules.
One thing I'm noticing recently is that many hosting companies and ISPs are unilaterally adding 'spam filters' to messages which include attachments which they consider suspicious. The idea is that attachments which appear to not originate with the message are often spam. For example, we all get bogus messages with images and zip files. One way that spam filters identify these as spam is because the actual text of the message is from one web site and the attachments from another (those tricky bots!) But this can often cause headaches for us legitimate emailers!
For example, let's say you send me a message with one of those 'virtual business cards' at the bottom with your contact info and a tiny logo. That's considered an attachment. OK, so I reply to you and include your original message (with that virtual business card). Your ISP or hosting company may well block my reply. Why? Because my reply includes content (your business card) which it sees as being content originating from another site. Get it? The filter thinks I'm including junk from another site, which it considers suspicious. Yes, even though that 'junk' is actually your content!
Now here's the really insidious part: It's likely that your ISP or hosting company have spam filtering systems outside of your inbox over which you have no control. You're not even aware they exist, although they monitor all inbound and outbound traffic from your web site's email!
What to do? One way people get around this is by using gMail or Microsoft's Live. Those mail systems are so huge that most hosting companies and ISPs give them a free pass. Problem solved! Well, no. You want your web site to use your domain. You don't want to have jchwebdev.com as your web site but then use 'jchwebdevwhatever@gmail.com'. That will cause you all kinds of problems with your site's SEO rankings as well as confusing the heck out of your visitors. If your site says 'jchwebdev.com', visitors expect to send and receive email using 'jchwebdev.com'!
Other ideas? Sadly, there is currently no permanent fix. If you send and receive email using your domain, you will likely run into some variation of the above scenario from time to time. The thing to do when you notice that your emails aren't getting through to one visitor, is to ask them nicely to contact their ISP and hosting company. Include a copy of the messages you're sending that aren't getting through. Be sure to include the all-important headers for each message! Nine times out of ten you will find that your domain is marked 'suspicious'. If you're on a shared hosting plan, it's likely that this is because the machine your site shares with ten other web sites has a problem. In other words, you may be penalised for the sins of sites on that machine. Fortunately, most ISPs and hosting companies have a 'white list' system. They will mark your site as 'good' and thus emails will again start to flow.
I know it's a pain and no one likes to call their ISP or hosting company, but in addition to re-establishing communication with your visitor, you'll always be helping the ISP or hosting company to improve their filters. Although they may seem annoying for messing with your email, remember this: the vast majority of email is now spam. Think about that. Legitimate email is actually the minority of traffic that ISPs and hosting companies manage! So they are well motivated to filter out as much of the crap as they can to avoid being overwhelmed. It's an ongoing battle and they're just doing the best they can with the tools they have to work with. I guess what I'm saying is that when you have such a problem you should approach the ISP or hosting company less with outrage than some empathy. We're all fighting the same battle.
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As I always say, I know you're busy. Hopefully my occasional nags help you think about how you can get more benefits from your e-marketing. But even if you don't have a thing for me to work on at present (shocking but possible) drop me a line anyway and let me know how things are going; market-wise or otherwise. It's always good to hear from you.
Spring Forward!
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