That Pam Chick

I recently took a friend to see Eddie Izzard for his birthday. The show was at the Spreckles Theater in downtown San Diego so I wanted to find a nice restaurant near by to grab dinner first. I perused Google Maps and found a very nice looking restaurant called Currant just down the street from the theater. Their menu and wine selection looked great so we were pumped for a great meal.

The restaurant had a good vibe and was smartly decorated with a chalk board advertising their wine flight selection. I ordered the Pinot Noir wine flight only to be notified that the chalk board hadn’t been updated since they opened and they no longer had those wines. Annoying but I can get over it.

We barely glanced at the menu after we were seated since we had both already made our selections when we looked at the menu online. However when I didn’t see what I had selected on the menu, I asked the waitress about it. Her response was basically the same as her response to the chalk board. She said that they change their menu quarterly so they don’t keep their website up to date. Oh wow, your menu changes 4 times a year? Clearly I can see how updating your site four times a year would be such a major time suck and totally not worth it (sarcasm). As a side note, their site is completely in Flash so yes it would take longer to update but that’s not the only way they are getting screwed by their Flash website as we all know.

The waitress had no idea what was even on the website and I bet if I asked her what the domain was she would have to ask someone else. It is astonishing that companies still feel like once they put up a website they are done. Your website needs to be fully integrated into your everyday business and updated regularly. Especially if you have client-facing employees, they need to be well versed in what is on your website. You and your employees will look like idiots if a customer asks a question about something they saw on your website and the employee has no answer.

I most likely won’t go back to Currant since the food was mediocre on top of not being able to get what I was looking forward to. But for their sake, I hope they start to take their website seriously and stop thinking of it as just a fancy place to put their phone number.

And a quickie version for those of you sitting in cubes who can’t watch because you’re pretending your working:

This video is in response to a post by Jill Whalen on Search Engine Land this week following up on a debate in the High Rankings Forum about whether SEO is an extra skill or a prerequisite to being a website designer or developer. A lot of the conversation seems to center around what is best for the client or what the designers responsibility is to educate the client about SEO. I would argue however that the focus of the conversation should be what is best for your business as a web designer or developer. If you are not already offering SEO, you will be in the future. If you already offer SEO services but the client chooses not to invest in SEO at the time you design their site, they probably will invest in it later. If you were good at what you did for your client, they will most likely return to you for their future web services so you should make it easier on yourself when they do want SEO.

When you are designing and coding any new site, you should already be keeping basic principles of conversion, usability and code standards in mind anyway. So if you develop the site properly from the start, whether they are your SEO client or not, if they do become your SEO client you’ll have an easier time doing the optimization. And even if they do go to another company for their SEO services, you will want that company to see that you provided a top notch product to your client or you may quickly get a name for being a poor web designer. Anyway you look at it, keeping SEO in mind when developing websites for clients is a good idea for you and for your business.

Cyber Monday is over and the results are in.  It’s no surprise that Nielsen reported a 10% increase over 2006 in shopping traffic and comScore reported a 21% increase in online sales.

So what does this mean for you?  It means if you are selling a consumer product online the future’s so bright you’ve got to wear shades…if you’re facing the right direction.  Sure, Cyber Monday 2007 has passed but there is plenty of holiday shopping to be done.  And all of 2008 on the horizon so get moving.

There is a lot of information about how to sell consumer products online via eBay and Amazon, as an affiliate and more.  But what if you have your own unique product?

If you have a unique product that may not be known to the public, but you know they just won’t be able to live without it once they hear about it, you will need to get creative with your online marketing to get the word out.  Build it and they will come only goes so far.  Develop content on your website that will get people interested and promote it on relevant niche networking sites.

For instance, let’s say you are selling solar powered dancing lawn gnomes (you know you want one now).  You could post photos on your site of the gnomes dancing in unexpected places.  You could place the gnomes somewhere that unexpected passers by will be stunned by their presence and film their reactions.  Or take the sex angle and get bikini models to dance with the gnomes.  Have fun with your products and don’t take yourself too seriously.  But be thoughtful with your efforts.  Try to find an angle that will create interest and be memorable but will drive interest in your product so you will actually convert some of the traffic you generate.

And don’t waste all of that effort.  Make sure that it is very easy for users to convert from your buzz content without making it seem too commercial.  Don’t force BUY NOW links down the visitors’ throats or you won’t make it far.  Offer opportunities to learn more about your product with easy ordering after they choose to get more information.  Be creative, be smart and be successful.