interesting

www.dictionaryofsydney.org/

Developing an online strategy for Fuzzbuzz Branding - Part 1

Introduction
In this post I’m helping a good mate to tune up his web strategy. This grew from an initial offer to assist with some SEO. Happy to take comments or detailed critiques! Also Fuzzbuzz Branding is not the real company name.

Step 1. Review your business strategy
This is important because it creates a context for your web activity, tightens your focus and helps to provide rational for how your web strategy is approached. A brief summary of what I think is the Fuzzbuzz Branding business strategy:

• A specialist consultant focusing on branding strategies and graphic design
• Current target market is large Australian not for profit sector organisation
• Key service offering is the design and layout of reports
• Marketing strategy is personal contact via an established personal network, currently focusing on generating more business with existing clients

Relevant constraints include:

• Limited time and money for marketing; servicing existing customers is a higher priority
• A large number of competitors offering the same services with very low barriers to entering this market space. Basically there are 1000’s of graphic designers waiting to take over your clients.

Step 2. Align the your online presence to the business strategy
This probably seems like a motherhood statement but if your going spend anytime (money!) using the web in your business then put the effort into making it work for you. Notice; I’m also broadening the focus from how to ‘SOE your web sites’ to how to use your online activity as a marketing tool. This is an important concept to grapple with because much of your online marketing will be done away from your web site. It will also help you to get more into a Web 2.0 and social media headspace if you chose to. This is where you should assess your comfort level with ‘being online’. A blog is a great online marketing tool but you have feel comfortable operating in space and be willing to commit real effort into making it work. It’s not for everyone.

So in the case of Fuzzbuzz Branding I’m suggesting what I’m calling:

The ‘online business card’ strategy

By this I mean the primary function of your online activity will be to assist people who you’ve already had some form of interaction with to make to contact with you. Just like handing out old skool business card so people have your phone number.

The rational for this is it is;low resource, aligns well with your existing personal approach to marketing, and works well with your current comfort level with things like bloggs. It will also give a sound foundation if you chose to expand your strategy at some later date. So to stay focused I’m recommending you avoid doing any of the following:

• Create an online gallery to show case your funky designs
• Lots of SEO & SEM in an effort to generate a lot of ‘eyeballs’ on your site
• Blogg and twatter to develop a relationship with a community of potential clients
• Use lots of web technology to service existing clients, no payment gateways, online collaboration tools, etc

Step 3. Work out how to execute the strategy
This is where we get in to the nuts ‘n’ bolts and talks specific activities. The key tactic in the online business card strategy is making sure when someone searches for Fuzzbuzz Branding or your name they can easily find your contact details. Key activities:

• Tuning your web site
• Creating links to your site
• Getting your name and contact info out there in other place

End of Part 1
In the next installment I’m going to focus on tuning your web site. With two goals:

1. Making it super easy to find your site and the associate contact information
   
2. Improving your results when customers use a search engine to try and find you contact details

Stay tune...

Elastic lists - a great interface for faceted browsing

Have a look at this neato interface for 'faceted browsing' - Elastic lists

And if you want some Friday afternoon mind bending...

Card Sorts

Some quick resources to get the low down on doing a Card Sort. Remember it is as easy as it seems!

• www.boxesandarrows.com/view/card_sorting_a_definitive_guide
• www.usability.gov/design/cardsort.html
• www.markboulton.co.uk/articles/detail/card_sorting_part_1

This article offers a critique of some of the pitfalls with card sorts

• www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2008/10/extending-card-sorting-techniques-to-inform-the-design-of-web-site-hierarchies.php

For me what’s interesting that card sorts are single tool used in part of a larger design process. Also interesting are the alternative activities esp. the findablity testing. These might be a better fit in situation where IA is constrained by other factors such as dealing with the inevitable politics of ‘my business area must have spot on the homepage’ or the existing IA is heavily entrenched.

Behavior Based Taxonomies

Found this interesting post on Behavior Based Taxonomies

This one is somewhat full on: Behavior-Based Taxonomy (BBT)
If you stick with it there is a great summary of BBT – basically a taxonomy based on “the actual list of search terms that people actually use when they search a site”.

Everything you ever wanted to know about “faceted classification”, including how make one!

There are two basic ways to make a faceted classification usable on the web: keyword searching or facet-based navigation.

Simple example of this at work would be an online mobile phone shop with options to view products via different facets: price, brand, features (MP3, Camerra, etc)

What to do with search logs

This is a great on article covering how you should be monitoring search logs – Interpreting Your Search Activity Reports

Also like that it points out the connections between search logs and more general usage logs.

Why old content is like sour milk!

Web content migration: disastrous strategy has a great analogy for the classic strategy “we’ve got to migrate everything into the new CMS”: pouring sour milk into a new jug! Not sure if the reasons for bad content are entirely accurate but still a good read.