RedFusion Media has designed a new website featuring information and helpful links for the Career Visions Alliance.Career Visions Alliance is a joint effort throughout the Inland Empire community, lead by Baldy View Regional Occupational Program, to help students, both academically and professionally. In a truly unique and collaborative system, business, industries, and educators in both the public and private sectors are teaming together to better prepare the next generation to become a well-trained workforce, through emphasizing academics, plus aiding in career pathway development.

This new website spotlights the services provided by the Rancho Cucamonga office, making them easily accessible for everyone. The site has helpful links to regional career pathways, career development aids, and job application and training services. As an especially valuable resource, the website includes contact lists for schools in Inland Empire school districts.

Conleys.com Website Redesigned

RedFusion Media has recently redesigned Conleys.com, to display this rapidly growing company’s state-of-the-art greenhouse designs and equipment.

Established in 1946, Conley’s Greenhouse Manufacturing and Sales has remained family-owned and operated for the past fifty-five years. Located in Montclair, CA, Conley’s provides products and service for all commercial, retail, educational and personal greenhouse needs. The website displays the company’s superior strength, extended product life, and product flexibility.

Also offered on the new website are pictures and information on all greenhouse sizes that Conley’s provides, including types and accessories (such as ventilation, benches, doors, and shade and heat systems). Instruction manuals for product assembly are available and easily downloaded from the site.

by Ron BurgessThe marketing media is still buzzing over major companies pulling ad money from TV and shifting it to higher yielding Internet advertising. While large industries have carefully studied the effectiveness of various advertising medias and have structured their plan according to this information, most small businesses don’t have a media plan at all, let alone a way to measure the effectiveness of newspaper vs. radio vs. Internet advertising.

The most probable reason why major advertisers are so infatuated with online advertising may be the declining TV audience and newspaper subscription rate. Or, it might be that it is easier to measure effectiveness in the general corporate trend by measuring everything possible!

Either way, it is undeniable that Google rules in the realm of search advertising. This advertising is placed directly on a page based on the key words chosen by the advertiser and which are associated with the page’s content. The idea is that someone who searches on “gifts” will see websites and ads about gifts. Ads are best targeted by a highly refined search.

A frenzy is occurring online in this big-stakes game for all of the large advertising players, including Microsoft’s MSN.com network, who has a major study underway to examine the return on their investment of certain kinds and combinations of online advertising. MSN’s AdCenter hopes to compete with Google and Yahoo in the placing of key-worded advertising.

“The ROI is very good because the keyword prices are so low,” said Danielle Leitch, Vice President of More Visibility.[1] “Some advertisers are the only ones using specific key words. The DM News reports that one advertiser’s campaign generated $22,000 in sales in the one week after Thanksgiving with just a $400 investment,” according to iCrossing’s Noah Elkin.

The ways in which Microsoft is imbedding behavioral and demographic targeting features will differentiate with Google’s geographic strength.

“Some advertisers will really leverage the new targeting criteria, and others are going to completely drown in it,” says Josh Stylman, managing partner of Reprise Media, New York. However, smaller advertisers have a more understandable online option in display advertising on local and industry specific websites, with ample traffic.

Just like buying ad space in magazines or newspapers, display ads (or button and banner ads) are purchased for a monthly price on pages that you select. Budgets can be easily controlled, and performance is more easily measured than most medias - if the ad space is properly setup by your webmaster or the media company. One advantage of advertising online is the branding ability of the media. Branding is accomplished as many people may view the page, even if they do not click on the ad. If the number of times a logo is viewed is the goal (just as in newspapers and magazines), then the online-per-view cost is a fraction of the cost of newspaper advertising.

For instance, a regional business print publication costs over $40 per thousand views for a small 1/8 page ad. This assumes that every subscriber looks at every page - which is rather doubtful. A regional or city directory website might be as low as $10 per view, and can be coordinated with the actual copy on the page to target the ad. Therefore, the effectiveness multiple is more than just four-to-one, and may even be eight-to-one or more!

The costs of advertising online will probably not continue to be as low as they are today. Many key words and ad spaces are already becoming more expensive as advertisers change their emphasis from traditional media to online resources. But, at the present time, the Internet is an advertisers’ market, with low prices producing increasing usage and visibility.

Inland Valley Manufacturers’ Council Partners with RedFusion Media to Extend Services

Redlands, CA: The Inland Valley Manufacturers’ Council (IVMC) has just completed an agreement with RedFusion Media of Redlands to build its website and an extended industrial and manufacturing directory in its regional directory website, InlandEmpire.US.

The IVMC is a membership-based, non-profit association for manufacturers in the Inland Empire. The mission of IVMC is to improve, increase, and enhance manufacturing within the Inland Empire. IVMC members network to share ideas and best practices in manufacturing. It also is strives to empower the organized voice of manufacturers. The members of the council interface with state and local government representatives, participate in educational programs, and host meetings to assist manufacturers to improve efficiencies and profitability.

The partnership with InlandEmpire.US will enhance IVMC membership by creating a sourcing directory for local suppliers and materials, and provide relevant linking opportunities to member websites, plus links to the IVMC website, as a recruiting tool for the organization. Members include: Portland Cement, Farmdale Creamery, Brithinee Electric, Garner Holt Productions, Quell Brothers’ Sign Company, Williams Furnace Company, and Magneto Inductive Systems. The full membership is available on its website: www.IVMC.US.

InlandEmpire.US is devoted to creating the region’s largest directory of businesses and events in Inland Southern California. The InlandEmpire.US network of local and regional websites expect over 1.5 million page views this year. Currently traffic is increasing at a 30% per month rate.

“We are pleased to partner with the IVMC in this way to create a local presence in the manufacturing sector for the Inland Empire,’” says Molly Burgess, general manager of RedFusion Media. “Since PE.net shut down its site last spring, the IE has had no dominant local directory for reference or events. Because we manage so many websites that contribute to the community, we also wanted a place where we could gather Google ranking through relevant linking programs. Linking opportunities that help websites increase their Google ranking are difficult for webmasters to find, and are not usually understood by most webmasters. We have had very good success with these types of programs, without it costing the market rate of about $100 per page, for search engine optimization on websites,” says Burgess.

IVMC hopes that its involvement in sponsoring the manufacturing directory, will assist its member websites, and do a service to the Inland Empire as well. “We’re excited to be in on the ground floor of such an innovative program,” says IVMC president Bob Botts. “We needed a website, but didn’t expect to learn of some of the opportunities available locally with RedFusion Media.”

If you are a manufacturer, you can learn more about the IVMC at www.IVMC.US. The new manufacturing directory will be completed by January 1, 2006 and can be found in the Business section ofInlandEmpire.US.

RedFusion Media is the leading web design and content maintenance firm in the Inland Empire. Based in Redlands, it maintains over 200 websites for clients such as San Bernardino County Museum, the City of Redlands, ROP, Arrowhead United Way and the Air-conditioning, Refrigeration and Mechanical Contractors’ Association of Southern California. RedFusion Media operates the local directory sites: InlandEmpire.US, RedlandsWeb.com, and RedlandsWeddings.com.

Contact: Ron Burgess
Phone: (909) 798-7092

By Margaret Donahue-Rippetue -

A report from Forrester Research predicts strong online sales will grow up to $210 billion by 2010, representing a 14 percent compound annual growth rate over the next five years. This takes into account that online sales in 2005 will top a record $100 billion dollars.

E-commerce is here to stay. Nearly two-thirds of households in North America are actively online, with most already having made at least one purchase. Most people research items they plan to purchase online, and the report states after making a purchase that they are likely to be loyal to the product. Web stores have no closing time; busy consumers can shop without leaving their homes.

 

More manufacturers are anticipated to launch e-commerce sites as they learn that up to 27 percent of web shoppers have purchased from a manufacturer’s site. Along with traditional retail sites, overstocked items are also available at sites such as OverStock.com, and there is an auction every day at Ebay.com. Innovative dealers are allowing consumers to purchase items online, and then to pick up the items in their local store - helping to bring a new segment of the population into a comfort zone with online shopping.

For interesting sites by category that offer online shopping visit http://dmoz.org/Shopping/

Online Sales Strong for Start of Season http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051130/ap_on_hi_te/online_sales_1

How many offers for credit have you torn up today?
Ever wonder why your mailbox is saturated with offers for credit cards? The answer is simple: “because direct mailing works!”While online advertising has taken the lead in many markets, credit card applicants are still responding strongly to direct mail solicitations. A recent study by ComScore Networks for the U.S. Postal Service determined that consumers typically respond more positively to direct mail than to online advertising in this particular arena.

ComScore’s conclusions were based on a pop-up survey appearing to online applicants, which revealed that direct mailings were responsible for more than 13 million of the 35 million online credit card applications in 2004. Prospecting appears to be most successful when done through the mail. ComScore included that signing up online is most often the end-result of consumers reading offers that arrive in their mailbox.

ComScore Networks specialize in analyzing consumer behavior and attitudes.

To access more resources in this specialized industry visit: http://www.comscore.com/press/pr.asp?year=2005

To access recent articles on postal news visit:http://www.dmnews.com/cgi-bin/artcategoryp.cgi?category_id=17&ppg=2

New, Easy-to-use Online Web-based Calendar RedFusion Media announces its new stand-alone online calendar at http://www.redfusionmedia.com/web_calendar.htm. RedFusion Media and its technical partner MacMillan Interactive developed the easy interface to fill our clients’ specific calendaring needs. With clean and straight-forward interface and a live database, you will be able to create a calendar for your website that is up-to-date and easy to read, as well as cost-effective.

With your own personal Username and Password, you will be able to Login at your own convenience to add, delete, and edit dates and events quickly and easily. The calendar is live, so the information you enter will be immediately available to the public.

WebCalendarHost.comprovides a user-friendly calendar layout with which you can include as much or as little information as you wish or need. Each event title you enter shows up in the box of the date you entered it under. For each title which you enter additional information, such as a description of the event, time, location, price, or contact information, the viewer can click on the event title to view anything you may have entered.

You can include a link to your calendar page from your website as well as in an e-mail. There is also a link at the top of your calendar page back to your website so that you and your viewers may navigate efficiently between the two. At the bottom of the calendar page, there is a Print feature that allows you to print the calendar page of whichever month is showing.

We are offering Version 1 of this tool to current RedFusion Media and MacMillan Interactive clients. Anyone interested in utilizing this service and adding a calendar to your website may contact us.

Methods

Actively going out to acquire incoming links, also know as back-links by Google. Most of these are quick to do and are a one-time submission task. Some of these methods do involve paying a listing fee.

Top-Level Directory submission - The big three, Google, MSN, and Yahoo, can all be submitted for free. Others you will need to pay for.

Second-Level Directory submission - all the rest, Alta Vista, DMOZ, Ask Jeeves, and many more are considered generic or second tier directories. It is worth your time getting in as many of these as possible.

Niche Directory submission - perform a search on your favorite search engine for “your keywords + directory”. Try searching for a couple of different keywords or combinations to find different directories that cater to your company’s niche.

Resource sites - taking a similar approach to above, do a search for your top performing keywords and identify any industry resource sites.

Other Methods

Becoming an authoritative site in your area of expertise is the key to all successful websites. These types of links are built up over a long period of time, think of it like running a marathon, you have to keep running.

Content - build top-quality, unique content that provides value to people. They will then naturally provide links to your site.

Start a forum - though very time consuming and resource intensive, a forum where people can talk about ideas related to your area of expertise is an effective method of building content.

Blogs - similar concept to a forum but less resource-intensive. A great way for people to link to your site, and it provides a great customer retention tool.

Press releases - issue press releases. A great way to build up general awareness of your business, assuming you have something positive to crow about.

RSS Feeds – This is basically a press release function, but is expands the area to which you press release is read, by feeding the information to multiple news outlets through XML coding.

Testimonials - provide a testimonial to your suppliers regarding the great service they are providing your business.

Free Tools - provide some sort of free tool on your site. This is a very effective way for the resource sites that are out there to link to your site.

Newsletters - start a newsletter that you can email to your clients. Put up a newsletter archive on your site allowing anyone to view these.

The Manager’s Guide to Running a Company Website

Are you being held hostage by an over-tasked IT department or a webmaster who keeps you in the dark with high-tech mysteries?

Perhaps your situation isn’t as dire as this, but in an economic environment where websites have proven success and increasing importance, understanding website management may save you both headaches and dollars.
Overview

This white paper reviews the short history of websites and how some companies have fallen into a knowledge void on how to continue managing the website. Changes in software, Internet servers and skill levels required are discussed to reveal where the real costs are today. Finally outsourcing is compared with internal costs to reveal how a manager needs to blend both for successful website management.
Topics

Content management, webmaster skill, website cost containment, in-house webmasters, outsourcing web content, web writers, database driven websites.

The early days of the Internet spawned the term “Webmaster.” While this title seems to indicate a mastery of the web, in just ten short years since the term was developed, it is clearly a misnomer.

Requiring a technical programmer has become a thing of the past. In the early days, a webmaster spent most of his time writing HTML code. Today, almost no “programming” is required to accomplish a polished website. In fact, the technology available today makes early websites look like child’s play, no coding required.

Today’s reality is that web workers spend the vast majority of their time in design, layout and content development, which includes text. Where website maintenance is concerned, the skill-set needed is clearly no longer in the technical domain. While technical skills are necessary at the web-server level, the relative cost of this portion of maintenance is now less than one-percent.

Most managers are busy running their operations, and although they have become proficient web users, they have not been exposed to the complexities of solid website management. The clear importance of the Internet to commerce, education, communication, and leisure is no longer seriously debated.

Unlike most operational costs, few managers really understand the needs and costs of managing a website. Becoming familiar with these costs is critical, as budgets of websites will continue to rise due to the broad range of business and marketing functions that consumers now demand.

The counter balancing benefit is that many of these functions can be made more efficient using the Internet, which is creating a positive cost/benefit. Therefore, cost-conscious managers will invest more into their websites. Over time, this will create some efficiencies in business. However, the overall trend will be to shift more cost to website and Internet applications, taking a larger percentage of the company budget. For these reasons, managers must strive to really understand the skills required, plus understand how to optimally use the appropriate skills needed, in order to keep pace with competitors. This white paper explores a realistic view of what it now takes to maintain websites, the skills required, and the subsequent costs incurred in the process of hiring or outsourcing to qualified personnel, in order to accomplish one’s website objectives.

It is useful to briefly recount the development of what has been called “Web Design.” The term web design—what a webmaster actually does, is dramatically different compared with the early days of the Internet. Many observers mark this date as 1995. The Internet we know today came into existence when the World Wide Web(www) was created as a subset of the Internet. This is why so many websites have a www. preceding the domain name. Today, few domains still require this prefix, and the “www” is now used less often.

The difference between the www and the original Internet was the HTML coding language. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. This programming language was a brilliant way to format text and images in color, in a way that required very little memory, so that it could be transmitted over slow telephone data lines. Using HTML in the early days was quite literally programming. It is a dull but precise task of placing text and boxes (with images) at a specific location on the page. Every tab, line break, font, headline, etc. had to be written in programming language. This is the environment in which the word webmaster was developed.

Following page layout and publishing software development, several innovative companies immediately realized that this laborious and precise task was taking too long and could be done more easily by using a graphical interface - using a mouse to move an image and allowing the program to write the underlying code. While early users were captivated by the online access of formatted text documents, the design and layout was just awful. This fact was clearly understood by the Adobe and Macromedia, who have always had a design orientation. These and other companies developed software, making layout relatively easy and fast compared with programming. Quite literally, HTML programming became obsolete for most design. (It is still useful to understand basic HTML for professional web maintenance, but manual changes represent a small percentage of today’s industry.)

With good web development software available, web design quickly became the domain of designers. Most programmers then struggled to understand the designer mind, and rarely do programmers and designers have the same skills set. Today these skills sets overlap only minimally, but each should understand the value of the other. Managers must understand this difference as well. Today Macromedia has moved on to sophisticated applications that create code which only a top-notch software engineer can understand, let alone write. Flash, Macromedia’s brilliant animation software, is the world standard; it is creating capabilities for designers that will rival television.

In 1987, early in the game for desktop publishing, computer nerds learned how to use the formatting of the old word processors. Designers quickly took over the leadership—they understood the visual dialog that a wonderful layout produces. Today, most experienced computer users can easily use Microsoft Publisher. However, for higher-end publications, professional graphic designers are still used; not for their application competence, but because they are designers who have mastered the tool. Having a grand piano does not make one a concert pianist, design is no less the case for publishing or websites.This is what has happened in the website industry. Many businesses have someone who can manipulate a web design program. This is no different than making everyone who can type on a word processor into a writer! Having a technical person design a website does not mean a business will be well served. This brings us to the threshold of website maintenance, where technology has empowered those skilled in other crafts such as writing and design. Software developers have handed the user wonderful tools—applications that write HTML (such as Front Page and Macromedia). This new relationship is taking a small part of what was the IT domain, empowering the manger to manage the website to the benefit of the organization. This is better illustrated by a discussion the skills sets necessary for today’s typical website.

SKILLS

To understand who should be contributing to the website, it is necessary to know how much of each skill set must contribute to the total. The specialized tasks are listed below for the basic site which does not include online applications. This does not include online applications, where it may be necessary to have an in-house server. A complete evaluation for most organizations indicates that serving a website from an in-house server is many times more expensive than a professional hosting company can provide. Outsourcing is also clearly better on up-time and security for all but the largest websites with data applications.

From this illustration, it is obvious that the total cost of maintaining a website is heavily dependent on how the content is created. For a site that might cost $1500 for the semi-technical support, the internal content creation might cost an additional $4000 or more, depending on the internal company salaries. The pronounced issues are that developing content generally requires knowledge of the subject, as well as basic writing skills – technical skills needed are extremely minimal

TECHNICAL COSTS

Technical duties can vary widely in an organization. They are generally allocated to the mission-critical applications for day-to-day operations. They are expensive, and usually in short supply. The technical issues of today’s websites are largely outsourced to large, highly efficient companies called server warehouses. These facilities are far more secure, and staffed by high-level technicians focused on internet servers only. The cost for hosting an average large website is literally in the few-dollars-per-day category (a fee that would be used up by internal technicians in about five minutes!) When organizations attempt to serve general websites in-house, they spend hundreds of times the necessary costs.

Today, most professional web-techs can post websites and manage the servers on which they work. To correct problems, they simply report issues to the high-level technicians in their server facility. Small and medium-sized companies (having small websites of less than 1000 pages) can get hijacked by IT folks who want to “play” with web technology. Websites are anything but toys. For some industries, they are becoming a major part of corporate and brand communications, a job traditionally left to marketing, not technical personnel.

Out-sourcing updates to web professions who repeatedly perform the same tasks, is usually more cost effective, even if they charge up to $150/hour, when compared to in-house IT personnel, who are permanently on the payroll at around $40/hour.

The total technical cost is just 1.5% to 2% of the website cost. It is illogical to have a technical person produce writing, content flows, and design. Even when competent in these non-technical skills, they are too expensive – especially when mission-critical issues usually place web updates at the bottom of the task priority list (at least once the novelty has worn off).

Web specific skills such as architecture and SEO (search engine optimization) navigation are very economical to the overall site costs. These elements are critical to the overall success of the site. Since they change rapidly, only those who work full time in this field, with broad exposure to the industry, can maintain the website’s search skill and speed.

Another specific skill is design. While web professionals (who have mastered the technical aspects of web applications) can be told where to place an object, only those who are blessed with an eye for design can design. Few talented technicians rarely become talented designers. Some aspects of design can be learned. However, experience indicates that without natural design talent, it is difficult to maintain economical production speed. A production designer is not only gifted, he or she is fast and understands enough technical aspects to accomplish the design in a cost-efficient manner.

Many larger companies have design types who can direct a web tech. While these designers make large contributions to what can be seen, they are unfamiliar with what cannot be seen. Not all designers are technically oriented. This can cause misunderstandings and miscommunications. Web design and maintenance is expensive – whether conducted in-house or outsourced. Best practices in this area are to have internal designers consult with an outside web professional. Good web designers will desire guidance and support in understanding the company’s branding, identity, and target markets. Great web content companies will have an experienced marketing professional on staff to coordinate with the company marketing executive.

CONTENT

Content is the critical issue; it is core of telling your company story. In general, this very important aspect of the website usually stays in-house. Good web companies will be open and collaborate with in-house personnel by discussing issues of web writing, SEO, and key word usage (which have become critical since Google).

The cost of producing an advertisement’s content is still a small part of the laborious task of collecting the information and images, then writing the words that tell the story. Several categories of content exist, which makes the cost difficult to estimate.

General “billboard” information such as About Us, Products, Services, Contact Information, and Events, is straight forward and easy to provide. However writing a “sell” should have the marketing person’s input; technical information may need an engineer, and so on. Therefore, the cost to create good content can skyrocket. However, much of this information should already be prepared in some form, so the investment is mostly made. It simply needs to be re-purposed to another media.

This new media can tell the story in every possible way except face-to-face. Adding illustrations, voice tracks, music, animations, interactive applications, and movies may assist the content. These areas still require competent designers who possess technical skills. While the cost of some of these options is still relatively high, the communication value they can achieve with most audiences is superior in quality.

Ads, demonstrations, and other Flash features are rarely effectively when done by hobbyists or employees who like to play with technology. In each case, the issue is not the technology, but the communication that is important. Most amateurs are easily identified by pros and viewers alike by how they over-do blinking text, or make a Flash intro too long. Today, few professional sites open with Flash, as it does not impress the user who does not want to wait for the download to take place every time they log on.

On the other hand, placing these tools on appropriate pages, to illustrate a point or demonstrate a capability, is welcomed by viewers. Flash can be expensive, but as professionals become more skilled, the time required to do complex things is dropping, making some Flash elements very economical compared with the communication vale.

INSOURCING VS OUTSOURCING

Companies have many talented people. By examining the costs of each skill required, it becomes apparent that certain skills are best outsourced, while some (notably content creation) must have strong internal involvement. Few web companies have the expertise to assist with primary content development.

However the technical, web design, and content maintenance aspects make up only 12% to 15% of the cost of a website, and probably just 8% to 10% of the time required. Most companies can easily see this is valuable. But some companies, believing they have large enough websites, may conclude that they can afford professional web staff too. Some times this is the case, but the break-even point to support a web staff can be much higher than expected.

The reason for this is that to in-source, each skill must be provided by someone Even intelligent IT people will need to spend valuable time learning or remembering skills they require only a few times per year. In-house employees are not free. There is a cost incurred for any time spent on a project. Web designers are less expensive than IT people, but the average web designer’s total compensation is still over $40,000. While perhaps half the salary of a technical person, a productive web professional can maintain dozens of large websites, each possessing a hundred pages or more. Even a part-time webmaster should be able to post 100 new pages per month and maintain another 1000 pages on an average website. Clearly, outsourcing general website needs is the cost-effective route.

A frequent error by non-profits is to allow volunteers to maintain their website. Too often, these volunteers are hobbyists, who use unorthodox methods, making websites hard to take over by another. They become overwhelmed by the potential demands of the organization . On the other hand, having volunteers work on content, and outsourcing the critical maintenance issues, creates better websites at a lower cost. Many non-profits can tell horror stories about loosing their domain or a volunteer webmaster missing in action. In these cases, the entire cost of the development is lost; a poor use of donor funds.

ONLINE APPLICATIONS

The cost structure changes dramatically when an online application is developed or a database is used as the backend of a website. Both approaches are highly technical and require a manager’s careful study.

DATABASES

Many database applications were introduced several years ago to handle very large websites where hundreds of new “pages” were added monthly or even daily. The large scale of these huge websites (10,000 pages or more of information), caused programmers to realize that with a user interface they would no longer need to have a webmaster to flow design or post all content.

Naturally, when webmasters were making $50,000 to $80,000 and in short supply, this was very reasonable. If several salaries could be eliminated from the web staff, the high cost of database design would quickly be recovered.

Since then, three things have changed: First, web applications made programming HTML unnecessary, and the number of webmasters soared. Then, Google showed up. Google could not read most database pages, so no one could find them in a search. Major database applications have been stunted since Google came on the scene. AOL has just spent over $100 million to “make sure the search engines could see its pages.”

As for smaller sites, the original technical-web programmers continued to keep up with the state-of the-art, database serving to websites. The dream and promise of these expensive (generally five to fifteen times more expensive) database sites was that “anyone” could post a story or update a page. Unknowingly, managers compared what they thought was “free” to web rates of $50 to $100 per hour. They expected trouble-free applications, and that their employees would take to the web like ducks-to-water.

Neither has happened. Changes to a database design are expensive. Remember, this is programming again. Programmers could build a basic site, but changes and enhancements got them into trouble. Many small web programming companies simply abandoned them, leaving the owners with no way to fix or update the site. Many sites did work, but the employees were afraid to post to the internet. They were self-conscious about their writing, and criticized by the publicity and marketing people. When workers did post content, the control of the message was lost and internal tension resulted. This circumstance bred a brand new level of content management software.

The new generation of content management software is complex and very expensive, with many programs starting at over $100,000. Yet, the software only does what every PR firm, advertising agency, and in-house writer does. This software “manages” new content in two ways. First, it keeps track of time-sensitive information and acts on it; second, it makes sure one or two supervisors or editors approve new content before it is posted.

Flow charts illustrating how content-management software packages work would more than fill this page. Yet, people can simply manage the same process. As a manager, you obviously need a huge website to justify this kind of expense.

In our experience, most medium and smaller businesses have not built a work flow chart of their current operations, let alone thought through how to manage content online. Most readers will not need to entertain such investments. This is because many creative new “applets” are being created that can be added to your existing HTML site. These applets include shopping carts (and credit card clearing), calendars, calculators, online surveys, and various data gathering programs.

Many of these more complex tools, such as shopping carts, operate on the vendor’s server for all their customers. Your webmaster simply coordinates with the vendor and then links to the entry page for the add-on application. Many of these tools have a low monthly cost for the service. If you need to supply customer information, many accounting and production software packages are building the web interfaces for your existing applications. Because they are familiar with the software, industry and the Internet, they simply provide links to the web design company. You rely on existing support for this new feature on the website. You may find a website company to do this work, it is almost certain that your IT company or the software maker will not be able to do what the web content company does. It is not a wise use of resources to put a communication devise in the hands of IT people of any variety.

Many of the established webmasters of the 1990’s who love program coding, can build small, custom, one-purpose applications that can be added to the server. These are useful for gathering data that needs to be downloaded and imported into another desktop application. The advantage is simplicity (for a program) and lower cost. A simple type of application may be from $800 to a few thousand dollars. Each of these functions can be evaluated independently to determine break-even or return on investment of known administrative functions.

Bolting onto other applications and services is a cost effective way to provide functionality, or the appearance of technology that may be needed to needed in some markets to compete favorably. Problems that arise don’t take down the whole site, and keeping expensive programmers on retainer is unnecessary.

Know who you are dealing with. While most strictly HTML sites are very portable, applets and tools may not be. Selection of a professional website maintenance company will reduce the chances of abandonment. Individual “webmasters” and very small companies tend to have lots of technical types moving through the industry. They take the opportunity to build the website, but don’t really have an interest in maintaining the site. Most companies that have had a website for over five years can attest to this trend.

Organizations which are serious about their websites will recognize that the low priced small web company may be run by a good designer, but lack a sustainable business model. All small start-up companies have a high failure rate for their first five years. Web design companies are probably higher than that. Look carefully for a company that has been in business for over five years. Then, ask how many people and what skills are represented. Also ask who their major partners are, and what skills they bring to the total package. If they list programming skills first (such as Java or a database programming such as Pearl ), use extra caution— they may be more interested in fun projects rather than keeping your needs first.

MANAGEMENT

Each website should have a key inside person who will be responsible for keeping the site current, relevant, and growing. This person needs to be a champion of the Internet, and have the ability to coordinate and motivate others to provide the content.

Because the first and foremost use of the website is for communication and marketing, this person may be the top marketing person in the company. But, many will ultimately need to contribute technical, sales, procedural or product information.

If left to write and post this information on their own, experience indicates that most will perform poorly. It is seen as an additional burden, or “not my job.” As a result, successful website projects are almost always driven by the top management, who understand how the website will ultimately interface with multiple functions in the organization.

Outsourcing all “technical” aspects of web management can dramatically ease the tension of teamwork on the website. In this case, using a firm that quickly and cost effectively posts the content that does get developed, boosts morale and increases the creativity of your best people. When the friction of managing a site is removed, friendly competition may even develop between departments.

From a management perspective, even if you have the resources in-house to handle the website, the above experience is valuable to prevent turf wars between the technically oriented, and those who are less technical (often represented by those at management level). Let professionals assist your decisions on how to build and add to the site. This keeps you and your staff focused on your business, much the way your CPA supports your accounting staff.

For companies having dozens of contributors or departments, website management should be structured to be overseen in a way that parallels the business order of the organization. The top executive and marketing person should approve the overall design and navigation. The website, first and foremost, is a communication media. The marketing person should authorize changes to this structure in the absence of the president. The department head should sign-off on text and images that fit into the page design. Any alterations to the “look and feel” within a page or departmental section need a compelling reason to break the consistency of the site.

These are the kinds of expertise a professional web design and content maintenance company can offer. In addition, you can ask them to police the design integrity across the site. One of the long-term effects of many contributors is what we call “design decay.” This is a slow decay of the original design specifications of the site; fonts, logos, design elements, and general style.

Professional designers immediately notice this decay; many others subliminally “see” the decay, but cannot discern why it is wrong until the whole site lacks the original integrity that it originally contained. This is probably the time to comment on aesthetics in general. If your firm has good designers, rely on them. They have a natural eye for such things. Very few companies have “talented” people capable of making these decisions. While companies do have many talented people, those people do not have vast experience or the production quality that professional designers possess. Generally, these talented people only have more talent than you do—almost never more than the designer has.

Remember, the overall design of the site is not for you or your employees; it is for your customers. Understanding your customer requires a careful understanding the customer’s demographics and psychographics. If you can find an outsourcing web company with a marketing emphasis, you will get more value in the design. Focus your employee’s talent on writing, images, and concepts. Then let the pros turn them into good communication.

SUMMARY

The importance of good websites will only increase over time. Good websites require a serious look at what you do, and an explanation of how and why you do it. Websites must be current, and they should have new content continually added, so they are SEO friendly. (For more on SEO see our white paper on this issue).

Companies on a budget should start now to build the site they want to have in two or three years. Even an unlimited budget requires thoughtful consideration, by many of your best people, of the message, so it still takes time.

If you plan to get outside help and to take advantage of the benefit of outsourcing, start looking now for a company you can hire as strategic partners for the long-haul. They can help you with the next step of organization and navigation. Don’t make the common mistake of attempting to plan the site by committee. A good web company can literally shorten the process by months. It is not unusual for larger organizations to spend over a year in committee meetings, only to discover that they were working with old concepts or technology.

One of the most amazing and cost effective aspects of a website is its flexibility, when it is designed correctly. This flexibility allows additions and changes as they are ready. It is the antithesis of a glossy corporate brochure—don’t treat it that way. Get your people working on what they do well, and hire those who do the rest. You will be ahead in both money and time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Ronald Burgess has been involved in computer technology since the Apple II was first used in business. Formally educated in design and business, he has been a consultant to business for twenty-five years in the area of strategic marketing. As an early adopter of the Internet, he has worked with clients to develop websites since mid-1990’s. Mr. Burgess has written over one hundred articles on business strategy, marketing, and technology. Out of frustration from working with webmasters, he started RedFusion Media in 1998 with wife Molly and son Jon. RedFusion Media currently manages over 200 websites for municipalities, non-profits, mid-sized companies and agencies, and is the leading web maintenance company in its regional market of Inland Southern California.

In 1998, two Stanford University students, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, created Google, an Internet search engine. Their success was founded in the fact that they could quickly and efficiently deliver relevant search results to their users. Google was a well-developed system that could show immediate results, based on the top queries of their unique “page-rank” system. The page-rank system could easily read documents on the Internet, reporting back the page’s individual performances within certain criteria. Google’s page-rank system is a mathematical equation that brings together and defines three main areas of interest: content, backlinks, and outbound links, with the ultimate idea of determining a website’s “page-rank,” enabling the website to be pigeonholed into a ranking against all the millions of Internet sites in the world.

The content that Google looks at can be described as any words, information, or photos that are placed on a website to create a general topic. That is, simply put: all information included on any given site. The content then goes on to provide a base from which “keywords” can be pulled. Keywords are the most specific words derived from the real purpose or content of your website. Keywords contain the composite meaning or definition of what your website is really all about.

Back-links are fairly simple; they are defined as any links pointing to your website from another website. They are called back-links because they simply go back to where they came from. The root of these links is from the original name of Google: Backrub—which literally meant that if you rubbed my back, I’ll rub yours! In essence, Google was trying to determine who was an expert in any given field by who was confirming, from other places, that the website was really an expert on the subject. If you are curious about your websites backlinks, you can check how many you have by using Google’s toolbar.

Finally, Google likes to see that you are pointing to another site, or giving away back-links. Google believes that if your website is not an expert in a subject, then you might point people to the website that is an expert. The easier way to look at it is that your site is recommending someone else as a source of more important information.

If you look beyond what Google technically achieves with its search engine, it has molded itself as a strong company to follow in the marketplace. Google is a company that has put itself in front of society as the authority on the ranking of websites—so it must take a stance on what Google thinks is important to society. This opinion is clearly seen by observing that Google has based its ideas and positioning on its company ethos, which is, “Do No Evil.”

Google’s brand name is so strong that it states that, “Google doesn’t spend money advertising; it spends money making sure the product is the best and that consumers use it. As a consequence, the brand gets stronger” (Burrell, p. 1). Google isn’t finished yet with its positioning on the Internet; it claims to have only indexed, “8,058,044,651” web pages on its servers. Google states that the eight-billion plus number is important, because it believes that “Less than 10 percent of the world’s information is online today. The remaining 90 percent is still out there on television programs, on radio stations, and in books in libraries” (Burrell, p.1).

Google gets paid, based on the fact that people who use its search results are viewing advertising. Google makes money when “someone clicks on the commercial link—something that’s happening with increasing frequency, prodding advertisers to pay a higher price to have their messages displayed.”

Google is a publicly traded company, so its stock prices are an important factor in evaluating how the company runs, showing the success of their decisions. Google, unlike most publicly traded companies, “refuses to forecast its future earnings, leaving it to analysts to try to figure it out on their own” (Liedtke, p.1.). When the stock was released to the public, it was around $85.00 a share; today, the stock trades around $297.25.

One of the common thoughts about Google it that “Google make the Rules.” This is an interesting commentary on how Google works, what some of the common misperceptions are, and where they are going next. Misperceptions abound, such as: “Google is just a baby-Microsoft, posed to take over the world,” or “Google product line is splintered and too diversified to continue to hold market share” (Levy, 2005).

Some interesting points about Google are that they overlook short term revenues and focus on the long term, even including in their IPO that they, “weren’t overly concerned about quarterly results” (Levy, 2005). Google doesn’t want to be considered with the likes of Microsoft, and stating a core value in their IPO, “Don’t be Evil.”

One of the other things to be noted about Google is the allocation of resources to Google’s business plan. Co-founder Sergey Brin created a mathematical formula to focus time and effort on the core business. The model is 70-20-10, which means that Google spends 70 percent of time and resources on its core business, 20 percent on products like G-Mail, and 10 percent on products unrelated to its core business, such as Keyhole Mapping software. In the long run, Google would like to focus their efforts into integrating products and services together, and not to appear so splintered (Levy, 2005).

Google is an organization with foundations strongly based in technology, which has found tremendous success in the marketplace. As Google has gained the trust of the public, and built market share, the organization has shifted away from being the only a technical company—becoming a personable service company, as well. As Google moves forward today, it is business positioned to serve the Internet community and the world. The mission statement says it all—Google’s aim is “to make the entire world’s information readily available to everybody” (Levy, 2005).

References Schofield, Jack. (2005). Life Online: Searching the front runners. The Guardian. February 24, 2005, p. 24 Carroll, Daniel. (2005, June 6,). Google Phenomenon: Tips and tricks to using the search site. The Columbus Dispatch, p. 10Burrell, Ian. (2005, June 6). The Interview Nikesh Arora: We’re Living in a Google World. The Independent London. Liedtke, Michael. (2005, April 22). Google’s Stock Soars to New High. Associated Press. Levy, Steven (2005, April 11). Living by Google Rules. Newsweek. Vol. 145, Issue No. 15; p. 72.