the alynn group

Hilarious - Paid Search Rap

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:06:00 +0000

Over a month!

noreply@blogger.com (Erin) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 04:09:00 +0000

We've been away for over a month! In case you're wondering what we've been up to, we'll share:

We moved to our new home - hooray 1964! Serious renovations are in order, but we feel that it has the potential to be our dream house someday in the (hopefully not SO distant) future.
We rented out our old abode. Cleaning an apartment for your property manager has nothing on this! We spent 2 full days scouring our place for the new tenants, who moved in on September 1.
We stamped, assembled, addressed, and mailed our wedding invitations. What an undertaking. The endeavor included a 5-hour Saturday Fireworks marathon where I perfected a map of Austin to explain to guests all the important points on a quarter sheet of paper.
We spent almost 2 weeks with home internet (or cable!) If you know us personally, you know how hooked in we tend to be. We were truly suffering.
We completed one SEO project... and are on the verge of completing 2 new sites!

So, needless to say - we've been swamped. And, our "pre-owned" 1964 house still looks almost entirely 1964-ish on the inside.

That can wait. For now, our focus is on the work we've promised our clients!

Girl in machine

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:26:00 +0000

Do you think this is real?

Interpreting Google Analytics

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 19:12:00 +0000

On most sites that we've developed recently, we've used Google Analytics to give our clients quick and easy-to-access information on how their site is performing. We visit the reports regularly and we know that this data is important to each organization we work with.

We often receive questions on how to understand the information that Google Analytics. We don't believe that you need to become an expert on this information - leave the heavy lifting to us - but we want you to be able to use these reports to grab the information you need when you need it.

In this entry, we'll describe how to interpret the reports you'll find in your Google Analytics interface.

First and foremost, the top right hand corner is where you set your time frame. The default is to look at the past month so if that's OK, you don't have to change it. Otherwise, you can adjust it as you like.

Important analytics lingo: When you want to know how any people have checked out the site, look at VISITS. You won't ever need to think about pageviews, so just ignore that.

Key reports:

The Dashboard is your high-level overview of all information, but on the left hand side you can drill to more specific reports.

Going down the left nav -

Under Visitors, you can get lots of info about the people how have visited your site. You might be interested in the 3rd report down - "Map Overlay". That shows where your visitors are located geographically.
Under Traffic Sources, you can learn more about any type of traffic by clicking around.

Direct Traffic includes people who typed in the URL or had it bookmarked. Basically, anyone who did not click on a web link.
Referring Sites includes people that clicks on links on any site other than a search engine.
Search Engines include all traffic from Google, Yahoo, etc. Click on a search engine name to see what terms they were searching for when they found the site.

Under Content, you can out how individual pages inside the site are performing. This section is a bit more technical. If you have enough traffic to your site, you can watch the way users are interacting with individual pages and make tweaks to increase the site's performance. Please contact us if you're interested in learning more about these reports, or working together to optimize.
Goals is where we can set 'conversion points in your web experience. If visiting a certain page or path of pages indicates that a user has done something you hoped they would, we can set that as a goal. Often times, if a site that includes a submission form of some kinda, we'll mark the 'Confirmation' or 'Thank You' page as a conversion goal so we can track the number of people total who are completing the form. Talk to us if you want to learn more about conversion goals.

Once you've seen your metrics, you may be a bit disappointed in your traffic or your search volume. Don't be. It takes effort to get traffic and it takes more than a good website to rise in the search engines. Our last blog entry offered some suggestions on getting traffic to your site.

As always, we'd love to help you build toward a polished strategy for a successful web experience. Contact us to ask questions, get advice, or to develop & execute a plan to get your metrics where you want them.

If you build it, they may come...

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 17:18:00 +0000

You got your new website. It's live. It's beautiful! You're terribly proud of it, as of course you should be. If you're lucky (or knew enough to request it), your new website's creator got you plugged into analytics so you can watch the number of visitors, see where they're coming from, and more.

You may be the type who watches & refreshes minute by minute. Or perhaps you don't check it for a few weeks and you finally decide to log in. Typically, you then feel a mixture of excitment and dissappointment. Where are all the visitors?

Without a well-executed plan to generate traffic, your numbers will be depressingly low in the weeks (or months) after go-live. And with all the time and energy you likely focused on getting the site out the door and onto the web, you're not to blame.

Now is the time to put a stategy into place to begin getting the visitors you've been thinking about for so long onto your site, where they are sure to be impressed, pleased, and eager to spend money (or call or or join or submit the form).

How might you begin to drive traffic? Suggestions include:

1) Get as many other sites as possible to link to your website. Not only will this drive traffic as users click on the links, but it will also help get Google and other search engines to notice your site and increase your liklihood of appearing in search results. If there is a search keyword or phrase that your users may be using as they search for your site, you can especially benefit from getting the other sites to link those particulary keywords to your site. (For example, "croixfinancial.com is the website of a financial advisor and wealth management consultant in El Campo, TX."

2) Get connected. Not only are Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and other social sites fun ways to connect to old friends, they're also an exciting way to farm prospects among your personal social networks. Old high school and college connections are entertaining to catch up with, but also have the potential to be prospective customers or business partners. Make sure they're aware of what you're doing and use every opportunity to share interesting comments, links, and other information with your network.

3) Find yourself. Whether you're marketing a corner ice cream shop or an in-home seamstress business, there is chance that your business has been mentioned, rated, or discussed online. Citysearch, yelp.com, and other such sites allow customers to publicly indicate their level of satisfaction for all to see, often creating default pages for each business to which you can add information (website link, hours of operation, description, etc.) Constantly search for your business name to always understand who is talking about you and what's being said - and try when possible to get links to your site alongside the discussion. Take any critical feedback to heart and work to improve.

4) Don't be afraid to pay. As you work towards a complete online identity for your organization, you may be stuck waiting for traffic to hit your site. A great way to boost incoming visits either temporarily or as a part of your complete marketing plan is to bid on key search terms and phrases relevant to your business to ensure that you appear in the advertising around the natural search results. This can be pricy or expensive, depending on the specificity and popularity of the keywords and many other variables. Target your market as much as possible to keep costs down. (If you're a primarily local business, only bid on searches in and around your area. If you're bidding on a highly sought-after term, use a combination of words with the term to corner the searchers who you know will be interested in what you're offering.)

5) Hit up your database. If you've been marketing online for a while, you're probably used to doing this - but if you haven't, it might be a new thought. A great way to drive preliminary interest is to reach out to those in that slew of email contacts you've been collecting who you know would like to hear about the site. Email an anouncement, or better yet - ask them for their thoughts on the site! Devoted fans of your organization will likely be willing to forward work of the new site to their friends, family, or business contacts as well, so long as the subject matter is relevant. In the process, you might ask your friends if they'd like to opt in to reguarl communciatino from your business. Just be specific about the frequency with which you'll contact them so that they're not worried about getting spammed.

6) A signature move. If you're anything like me (or anyone else I know, besides my grandparents) you likely do a great deal of communication online via email. Sound true? An email signature is one of the best ways to link to your site. Get everyone in the office on board with a standard email signature that features a link to the new site. For maximum impact, we recommend slimming down your current signature to what's only what's necessary. If you use HTML (or 'rich text') to send emails, you might ask your designer to create an HTML email signature for you. Otherwise, a text link is entirely appropriate.

For help developing a plan to drive traffic to your site or executing any of the ideas we mention here, please contact The Alynn Group. We'd be glad to help!

Not your everyday design house

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 16:21:00 +0000

Often times, a small business realizes that they need a website (or that they need to completely revamp the one they've got) but they have no idea where to turn. These experts, who often understand their business, their message, their market, and everything that a good business manager should, are clueless about who to turn to and how much to pay to to get a quality small-scale website up and running.

After lots of discovery and research into what exactly they're looking , the business will often find a firm who specializes in design or development and provide an explanation of exactly what they want. When the contracted work is complete, it will go live... and the business wait until the need is urgent before beginning the process all over again.

At the Alynn Group, that's not how we work. Far from a design or development shop, we operate our business around the concept of complete guidance. Sure, we design websites. We build websites. We edit websites that others have created. But the value that we strive to bring ot our clients is so much more.

Our goal is to become the primary, well-trusted web strategist for every client with whom we do business. As your go-to, we'll make sure you don't have to understand or deal with the back end. You don't have to know exactly what you want your user experience to be like - just explain to us your goals, and your target user's mindset, and we'll work with you to create a web experience that bridges the gap. Our clients feel comfortable calling and emailing us personally with questions, thoughts, and ideas at any hour because most client relationships become more than business partnerships -- they are also friendships.

We consult on much more than websites. We offer advice and implementation on lead collection opportunities, natural "Google" search, paid search and online advertising, your HTML emails, blogs, and optimal marketing landing pages. We report on site statistics and help our clients interpret the metrics we collect regarding their online presence. We manage brands by creating logos, style guides, and more. We get excited about the ideas our clients are passionate about and we advise honestly if we feel an idea could hinder the online or brand efforts.

For a small business looking for minor edits to an old website or a once-and-done, get-it-live project, we're probably not the best match. But if you're in the market for someone who you can partner with to evolve your organization's online presence now and into the future, we're you're group. Contact us today to schedule a consultation.

What size should my site be?

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 00:05:00 +0000

A question we commonly get involves the best size at which to build a website. What size will allow most users to see it without appearing tiny to users with larger screens?

At this time, we recommend building a site 1 of 2 ways:

1) Target 1024x768. At this time, around 50% of users user browsers at this resolution, and nearly 40% use browsers at larger resolutions - which will display fine. Fewer than 10% of users are on screens smaller than this.

2) Go Elastic. An elastic site stretches to the width of the user's browsers. These sites take considerably longer to build as great pains must be taken to ensure that all sizes flow correctly... but for some sites, it may be worth your while.

Home Sweet Second Home

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 19:01:00 +0000

It looks like its going to happen! We've had an offer on a house for a few weeks now and things are finally settled. So far, so good. Looks like we'll be moving in September. Here come the home improvement projects! You can tour the neighborhood via Google Streetview.

View Larger Map

Watch out!

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Fri, 30 May 2008 18:36:00 +0000

Since we work primarily with small business and organizations, one of clients' key concerns is search engine optimization. Sites that show up in Google are at a distinct advantage compared to those who don't.

At low price points, I've seen design companies comp entire sites, then just slice them up into block images and piece them together with minimal HTML, creating sites with little system text that are basically collections of .gifs.

At the higher end, I've known clients who worked with designers who upsold them or encourages them to go with sites build entirely in Flash, likely to get more billable hours or stay within a technology that they felt comfortable with. Clients generally love the fancy hover states and the exciting impressions that motion graphics can provide, and are led to believe that the costs are in line with what is to be expected

Unfortunately, neither type of takes into consideration best practices around searchability. Uninformed clients can easily end up paying way more than they should for what they receive.

A preliminary guideline, when analyzing the searchability of a firm's work, is to visit their live sites and to try and select body text to see if you can copy & paste it. If embedded in an image or in flash, it cannot be highlighted and often cannot be read by search engines.

For some more high-level information about how to optimize for search, check out my favorite quick-start guide: http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php

Eden Rock Communications new website launch

noreply@blogger.com (b r a n t) — Sat, 17 May 2008 22:41:00 +0000

We recently told you about an informational site that we built for MediaCast Systems, a company that provides secure online HD media distribution.

In tandem with that project, we also built a site for Eden Rock Communications.

Eden Rock, located in Bothell, Washington, was also working with a partnering firm to launch a unified brand presence. In addition to a new logo, style guide, and brochure, they needed an urgent turnaround on an accompanying website.

Our partnering firm brought us the content the client had provided, their style guide, and site goals. The Alynn Group quickly designed and developed this basic site in HTML and CSS.

As the site build progressed, the client decided to rework their content a bit, adding additional information and polished taglines, etc. Those revisions, as well as the last-minute addition of the flash chart on the left side of the screen, added a bit of time to the end of the project.

Who is Eden Rock Communications?

Eden Rock Communications is a leading provider of technology and services to the wireless industry and specializes in OFDM wireless solutions for LTE and WiMAX.

Latest pet peeve

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:33:00 +0000

Had a usability debate today at work about linking. A site we're working on involved several pages with a large number of paragraphs /sentences with linked text in context.

I talked to the team about how linked text in normal writing can create an awkward experience, as users are torn between clicking through and finishing what they’re already reading.

A best practice for site with a lot of links is to on message in the the main content and suggest next steps in groupings, so that users are expecting them and not torn between activities.

A user experience is enhanced ever more when the site gives prominence to 1 or 2 highly recommended links to make it easier for users to choose a next step, rather than providing a laundry list of potential options that the user has to analyze.

Some of you may want to call us out on this - the previous post includes linked text throughout. Yeah, well... our goals with this site are two-fold. On one hand, we want to share insights and work for our prospective and current clients. On the other, we want to make sure our clients get all the 'inlinks' they can to enhance their search rank. :)

Year-end review: CBPrepcourse.com

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Fri, 16 May 2008 19:03:00 +0000

It has almost been a year since the launch of the new and improved cbprepcourse.com.

The Customs Broker Exam Prep Course is a business that is somewhat self-explanatory in its title - a course to help people prepare for the U.S. Customs Broker Exam. The grueling test is something that every potential Customs Broker must pass in order to become certified. Tom O'Leary, the course's instructor, delivers live classes as well as various options for the individual who wants to studying at home. He has holds private lessons for companies looking to train groups of potential customs brokers.

It's been an impressive year overall for the website, which has brought in large, corporate opportunities that have converted to business as well as offering a continuing stream of individual online registrations.

The 7,000+ visits to the site are an impressive number for such a niche product with a meager budget for outbound marketing. The CB Prep Course website was built carefully according to all best practices for maximum searchability, which results in traffic of 55% new visitors from all over the country.

Of those new visitors, only 36% immediately bounce -- a very impressive number to those who benchmark that sort of data. In fact, the average new visitor spends over 3 minutes on the page and views over 4 pages. These numbers may seem small to some of you, but they're actually phenomenal. Most sites see upwards of 70% of search traffic bouncing immediately without clicking a single time.

The Customs Broker Exam Prep Course is a good business that helps empower people like Dave to pursue their dreams by passing the rigorous exam. We're proud to be a partner on this successful site.

www.croixfinancial.com went live!

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:00:00 +0000

Tonight, we finally get to celebrate the go-live of a simple site that's been a long time in the works.

CroixFinancial.com is a website we created for J.J. Croix, a financial advisor & friend of my family in El Campo, TX. This simple site serves as an entry point for several resources provided by LPL Financial, the company he works through.

We started work on this site back in October, but JJ is very busy at work active in the El Campo community so the project moved on a leisurely timeline.

JJ, congratulations on the go-live! You've a pleasure to work with, and we look forward to helping your site grow along with Croix Finanical over the coming years.

walk of shame

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:34:00 +0000

Working in creative design, we're always on the lookout for good ad campaigns. Here are some recent favorites.

www.walkofnoshame.com
www.orangeunderground.com

www.mediacastsystems.com launched.....hooray!

noreply@blogger.com (b r a n t) — Wed, 07 May 2008 22:51:00 +0000

The Alynn Group recently completed an informational site for a company that provides of secure online HD media distribution.

MediaCast Systems, located in Redmond, Washington, was working with a partnering form to launch a unified brand presence, which included a new logo and corporate style guide as well as a print collateral. They needed an urgent turnaround on the accompanying website, so our partnering firm brought us the content the client had provided, style guide, and site goals. The Alynn Group quickly designed and developed this basic site in HTML and CSS.

The clean code helped the site to be immediately sensed by search engines, and the site is already high in the results for several keywords.

One compromise that we did have to make in build the site was the use of image-based headers and titles instead of HTML copy. Our partnering firm wanted to maintain a consistent brand across all media types, and the font that they wanted to use for the headers was not web-safe. Ideally, we would have preferred to use image replacement to drop headers in over HTML copy, but time and budget didn't allow for it.

About MediaCast - Secure online HD media distribution

MediaCast provides a media distribution middle ware platform enables highly scalable, ultra low cost distribution of high quality media such as movies, TV, electronic games and personal media to consumers regardless of broadband connection speed and with no new set top box or equipment costs. Their technology excess network capacity and traffic shaping techniques to deliver HD media transparently over broadband networks regardless of connection speed. See them at www.mediacastsystems.com.

zoom zoom zoom

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:52:00 +0000

An ethnographer I've been working with recently spent time meeting with a series of web users in their natural habitats to observe their behaviors as they research products and shop online.

Of all the things he noticed, one thing that surprised him most was the importance of the zoom functionality on product pages.

We got into a discussion about the use of intense zoom as a replacement for touch when shopping online, and several useful examples surfaced from within the team of very well done zoom functionality.

One example users liked was a Northface.com product page.

My favorite discussion from the day was around shopping by outfit. An awesome example of this, which was done with some inexpensive video, lives on Martinandosa.com. From this page, select a different filter to see more motion.

Another site that really caught my fancy in this regard was Madewell1937.com. Great use of video throughout, which all seems to have been shot in real time as they photographed the clothes.

Information {Doodle} Designer

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Mon, 05 May 2008 20:23:00 +0000

Earlier this year, I remember reading several articles about the Information Designer who created visual meeting minutes for the events at SXSW Interactive. Turns out, she's actually from Austin.

Colorful doodles and block letters were what I lived for in middle school and high school. Maybe I'm in the wrong profession? 'Information Architect' isn't too far from Information Designer.

Her website: http://www.eyescience.blogspot.com/

Real Men of Genious

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Thu, 01 May 2008 02:48:00 +0000

Every now and then, I get a bit nostalgic. Tonight, it was because I stumbled across these videos on YouTube. I gotta admit, the NI culture (for the most part) was top notch.

Real Men of Genius - Mr. Barefo0t R&D Programmer

Real Men of Genius - Mr. Paint The Stripe to Duval Entrance

ever notice that ikea rhymes with idea?

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:51:00 +0000

Doing some competitive research today for a project I'm working on for JCPenney, I noticed something simple yet innovative on the Ikea site.

The problem with large feature graphic/promotional banner spaces on top level pages is always sacrificing that kind of real estate for something 'pretty' that usually contributes very little in terms of click thrus and transactions. But nobody in an organization ever wants to sacrifice a big, pretty, impressive photograph.

This Ikea feature graphic does what everything on the web should do - it takes advantage of the interactivity of the web as a medium. Furthermore, it seems that it'd be relatively simple to throw together and templatize in Flash, if the organization had the photography necessary to pull it off.

Screen captures.

Don't Blend me, Bro!

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:20:00 +0000

I'm going to be honest with you: I'm way behind the times on this. Today I learned about willitblend.com, a site sponsored by blender company Blendtec, that won .net magazines 10th annual “Viral Campaign of the Year” for 2007.

The site features videos of a guy in a lab coat wearing safety goggles and using the Blendtec blender to annialate random objects, from a Rubix cube to a taser.

According to "Blending Video and E-Commerce" by Bill Siwicki in June 2007, this site created a 650% increase in traffic, around 10 miillion views, and more products sales in one weekend than in the best month they'd had to date.

Not to mention, air time on The Today Show and The Tonight Show.

Gotta love good viral marketing...

so true...

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 19:20:00 +0000

Another flaw in the human character is that everybody wants to build and nobody wants to do maintenance. - Kurt Vonnegut

snood much?

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:50:00 +0000

I was on the web doing some research and I stumbled upon this very entertaining blog called iminlikewithyou.com.

This made me laugh out loud.

http://blog.iminlikewithyou.com/post/28693982

phil: did i tell you the story about when i was playing a lot of snood?
setpixel: no
setpixel: do tell
phil: i was walking down the street and i saw two black women walking with a white lady, and i thought, if i had one more black lady i could free that white woman.

hardest game ever?

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 01:57:00 +0000

OK... not sure if you're into little flash games on the internet, but I've been known to enjoy one from time to time. Brant & I just got completely engulfed in this for a few minutes, and I finally had to pull myself away from it to try and get something productive accomplished.

http://www.onemorelevel.com/game/the_worlds_hardest_game

flash navigation

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:26:00 +0000

Late last week, I was contacted by a client and friend with whom I've been in touch with recently. We'll call him John. He was building his own site, but wanted some fancy motion effects on the navigation. See below for our correspondence.

On Thu, Apr 10, 2008 at 9:29 PM, John wrote:

Erin,

I am attaching two PNG graphics of our the new "structure" of our new website that I am building out right now. I need to sets of flash buttons. One, for the home page is 1024X50. If we need to make the height a little smaller, that is fine. The other pages will need a file that is 750X50. If you adjust the height on the Home page, please adjust it for the other page as well.
You will see the index page that will take you to what will be our new home page. What do you think will be the best look for the Flash buttons? I am thinking some time of metallic gray when one scrolls over the button or maybe a brush stroke of color (the paint brush we are using on the home page made me think of this).

Ultimately, we want an elegant set of buttons that fit the minimalist website we are designing. If you need us to create the buttons graphically, I can do so.
Something you can handle?

John

On Fri, Apr 11, 2008 at 10:08 AM, Erin wrote:

Dear John,

Time for some advice. Typically, navigation shouldn't be flash.

One reason is flash is 'invisible' to search engines - the words in it can't be read by the crawlers. And the words on your nav, as well as the pages to which they link, are very important.

Another reason is in Internet Explorer and some other browsers, security features make users click on Flash elements 1 time to 'activate' the interactivity before they can interact with them. On a Flash game or interactive presentation, its less awkward because there's a lot of focus and interaction on/with the piece. For navigation, it can create an awkward experience, as some users may click once and not realize that they need to click again. They may assume your site is broken. As you probably realize, users do not devote much time to figuring little things out.

You can accomplish many 'hover' effects with CSS alone, or with CSS and javascript. Both of these are preferred methods and could occur within the HTML rather than as separate files.

If you do need Flash to accomplish the effect you're looking for, you should offer a plain text version of the global navigation in the footer of the page.

We can help you build either.

Erin

lost in translation

noreply@blogger.com (erinlynnsmith) — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 21:46:00 +0000

want a good laugh? check out this article:
Lost in Translation: Awkward Signs from Around the World