Dear [first_name], I hope you enjoy this month's topics. This is your newsletter, so if you like or don't like something about it, please email us at newsletter@bullmoosemarketing.com and we will adapt. Like everything on the Web, we too at Bull Moose Marketing need to be flexible... Thanks for reading, Nick Ellinger CEO, Bull Moose Marketing, LLC. In this issue... Google and Ye Shall Find Best Practices: Basic Web Site Creation Quick Clicks Google and Ye Shall Find ForeSee Results and the University of Michigan just released their Q2 American Customer Satisfaction Index results on many different industries and companies. The ones that interest us most, however, are the search engine satisfaction ratings. Satisfaction with MSN increased by five points to 72 (all scores out of 100), Yahoo!'s increased by three points to 76, and AOL increased by one point to 59. However, the big story has to be Google, which scored 80, the best of the search engines. Google has come from seemingly nowhere to be a significant part of the zeitgeist; in fact, there is a site on Google called Google Zeitgeist that measures the searches for various people and events on the Google search engine. The Nielsen/NetRatings study shows that Google is the fourth-most popular search engine in the US (Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL are #1, #2, and #3). And, whereas you can see TV ads for Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL (and innumerable AOL CD-ROMs/coasters), Google has achieved its ratings through satisfaction, not large marketing budgets. What does the Google rise mean for businesses? Site usability is actually important. The Google home page downloads quickly on a 56.6K modem (not everyone has broadband access) and has few frills. The features that it does have (e.g., the "I feel lucky" button) each make a significant contribution to the user experience. (cheap plug: Bull Moose Marketing can assist you in improving your site usability through design and/or testing) Don't forget to submit. Unlike some sites, Google does not have a traditional "submit a site" section. However, you can get around this by searching for your site, then, if you don't find it, click "Dissatisfied with your results? Help us improve." at the bottom of the page and submit your site URL. This will decrease the time it takes for your site to be spidered (searched for inclusion in the directory). Maybe we should be advertising here? Overture is the most widespread cost-per-click search engine and it has a good model--if you advertise with them, if you are in the top three listings, you get into the featured listings of several other sites, including Yahoo!, MSN, and AOL. However, Overture doesn't have a deal with Google, so if you want to have access to that traffic, you should either have good search engine optimization (SEO) or advertise with Google (cheap plug: BMM can do SEO and/or advertising for you). Consider Googling your site. That is, you can place the Google search engine on your site and use it as your search solution. Learn more here Optimize your site for search engines. This would be a good thing to do even if Google hadn't risen, but Google searches better than most, so it can't be fooled as easily. Thus, make sure that your site has important keywords in important places (in your body text) and increase your link popularity (the number of relevant sites linking to you) by searching out directory sites and asking to be listed. More on search engine optimization in future newsletters. Do you have any hints for our readers? Any questions, comments, or death threats? Please send them to newsletter@bullmoosemarketing.com. Best Practices: Basic Web Site Creation So you want to create a Web site for yourself or your business? Here are some basic tips. Start at the very beginning (a very good place to start): Each Web site should have five basic items: Who you are What you do (i.e., products and services) Why people should use you How to contact you or order from you (more than one way is always preferable) Call to action (tell the user what you hope for them to do) Most of the rest of a Web site is elaboration on these major points. Let's take a large Web site-- Kinko's (www.kinkos.com). Their front page says who they are and what they do (the services section). Each service says why you should use Kinko's (look at the bullet points in the center). At the bottom of each page is their email address and phone number. In the middle of the screen is a big green "Go" button. Plus, if you look through their site, you will see little that can't be grouped into one of those categories. Kinko's is a very professional site, yet they clearly started at the beginning and found what was critical for their customers. Make it accessible to all people: And by all we mean all people: Use alt tags for your images. Not only will it help search engines find your site (more on this next month), but also it will help the blind navigate your site using special technologies. Make it quick loading. Many users still have 28.8 or 56K connections to the Internet. Studies show that people on the Web get bored after 5-8 seconds. A good rule of thumb is to reconsider if your site goes above 60K--what can be taken out or downsized? Use a 12 point font (ten point as your absolute minimum). You may have good eyesight, but not everyone has good eyesight, especially older people. Twelve point is easy enough for almost everyone to read on screen. A good rule of thumb--designers have better eyesight than 98% of we mere mortals. Use HTML. Flash is a wonderful tool that can bring in animation, sound, graphics, and more to an otherwise dull Web page. However, not everyone has or wants the Flash player. Thus, if you have a Flash version of your site, also make an HTML version. (For extra bonus points, you can have a text version of your site; however, even we think this is pushing it.) There are very few businesses out there that can afford to turn away customers. If you are in one, feel free to disregard the previous section. If not, make accessibility your watchword. Make usability your watchword: Yes, you can have two watchwords. Making your site easy to navigate is imperative in attracting and retaining customers: Use standard navigation. That is, make sure that there is always a place where the user can go to find other sections of your site. For our site, this navigation is on the left. Others go on the top, left or bottom; it doesn't matter. Just make it as easy as possible to move back and forward throughout your site without having to hit the back or forward buttons. Use a one or two sentence tag-line to describe what you do. If someone found your site accidentally, would they be able to glance and say "Ah ha!"? Search engines tend to bring random traffic by luck or fortune and, as Louis Pasteur said, fortune favors the prepared mind. Everything important needs to go "above the fold." Above the fold was originally a newspaper term, meaning that people would buy the paper based on what they saw on the top half. Scrolling down to find information is one extra step for users and you can gain more of their business by making it easy for them. If you need help with your site, request a free consulting report from Bull Moose Marketing. Quick Clicks The quick clicks for August 2002: HTML Reference Guide. A list of all of the HTML tags commonly and uncommonly used. A must for those of us who forgot the tags they need every so often. Bruce Clay's Search Engine Chart. Must have Adobe Acrobat Reader to open. This charts the relationships among various search engines and is a valuable tool in your search engine optimization efforts. If you have a site you would think should be a quick click, send it to newsletter@bullmoosemarketing.com. You're subscribed as [email] because you have opted in to receive this at www.bullmoosemarketing.com/business. If you would like to subscribe, click here If you would like to unsubscribe, email us at unsubscribe@bullmoosemarketing.com with "Unsubscribe" in the subject line. While Bull Moose Marketing and its agents used their best efforts in collecting and preparing the information published herein, Bull Moose Marketing does not assume, and hereby disclaims, any liability for any loss or damage caused by errors or omissions, whether such errors or omissions resulted from negligence, accident or other causes. © 2002 Bull Moose Marketing, LLC. All Rights Reserved. You may freely distribute Bull Moose Marketing material, as long as it bears the following attribution: Source: 2002 Bull Moose Marketing; www.bullmoosemarketing.com/business