Niche Marketing Web Design

Client projects and tech blog posts about Niche Marketing

The Gorillas and Chimps of the Social Networking Scene

Over on the New York Times, an article about a new Nickolodeon-created website for parents

now in the final stages of beta testing.

In a nonpublic test of the site over the summer by about 1,000 recruited participants, executives learned that these users wanted to blog; now, every user with a profile can, Ms. Reppen said. Through the beta test, which is now open to new members, Nick is learning that parents want spaces to sell their crafts, a separate Christian home-schooling discussion and bigger type on the Web site. Local discussion boards will also be added, as will user-generated video.

They also quote a Nissan marketing executive, who says that "community sites are one of the big phenomenon happening on line this year."

There is a big shift going on.

It's startling to realize that my three year toddler is almost the same age as Myspace and older than Facebook. In just a few short years they've come to dominate much of the online world, especially with under-25 users. The kind of independent blogs that dominate a sites like Livejournal and Blogspot don't have the web of cross-connections--what I called the "folksonomic density"--of the new social networking sites. It seems appropriate that Myspace was founded by spammers: who knows more about sucking people in?

The question: will the net have room for independent niche sites? Myspace is changing its architecture to disable key linking features of third-party embedded plug-ins like the from the popular video site Youtube. The big search sites also want a piece of this market--new features on Yahoo local and the geotagged maps on Yahoo's Flickr are impressive). It all reminds me some of the debates about local food co-ops versus enlightened supermarkets: is it a good thing that organic produce and soymilk can be purchased at the local Acme, even if that cuts into the independent co-op's business? Don't we want everyone to have access to everything? In the end, philosophy won't settle this argument.

Categories: Practical 2.0
Tags: Beta, Facebook, Myspace, New York Times, Nick, Nickolodeon, Nissan, Parents, Phenomenon, Wikipedia | Edit

Simple Design does not mean simple execution

Every website should try to serve a clear set of purposes. Even a personal blog has a target audience, one's friends or family perhaps. While a good site looks simple, it is often very complicated "under the hood."

Google went from being a grad school project to the world's most important search engine by ditching the design clutter of its competitors for a very clean homepage with maximum white space. This effect focused one's attention on the search function. More PhD's are said to work at Google than at any other company in the world, yet the complicated engineering and the tremendous computer infrastructure that brings that logo and search box to your computer is invisible to the average user.

Even websites without PhD designers need to marry a simple outward appearance with a more complicated set of calculations around intended audiences. The average visitor looks at one or two pages on a site and then hits the back button. Often they'll be following a search link and looking at a page buried deep in your site. They'll be there seeking out specific information and you only have about twenty seconds to pitch your site and keep them there. You need to give them a very concise description of yourself or product and you need to entice them with related material.

Any site that consists of more than three pages presents visitors with more information than they can handle. Good design works to funnel visitors to the specific content they are looking for. It's relatively easy to get a first-time visitor but successful websites keep them on your site and give them reasons to return. The key to this is defining your audience and presenting your material with them in mind.

Once you've identified your constituency and built your design, the next step is release. You don't want to pander to a potential audience, but instead converse with them. It's fine to mix different elements of your life together and to write creatively off-topic once in awhile. There are a thousand generic websites crammed full of useless bu zzphrases and unused featured. What you want is one that will have a voice, that builds a niche that no one else might ever have identified. When it comes time to produce content, forget all the slick marketing calculations you've done and let your quirkiness shine.

Categories: Web Design
Tags: Design, Google, Grad School, Personal Blog, Phd, Search Box, Search Engine, Search Function | Edit

Marketing and Publicizing Your Site



"Build it and they will come" is not a very good web strategy. Instead, think "if I spent $3000 on a website but no visitors came, did I spend $3000?" There are no guarantees that anyone will ever visit a site. But there are ways to make sure they do.

Much of web marketing follows the rules of any other mode of publicity: identify an audience, build a brand, appeal to a lifestyle and keep in touch with your customers and their needs. A sucessful web campaign utilizes print mailings, manufactured buzz, genuine word of mouth and email. Finances can limit the options available but everyone can do something.

One of the most exciting aspects of the internet is that the most popular sites are usually those that have something interesting to offer visitors. The cost of entry to the web is so low that the little guys can compete with giant corporations. A good strategy involves finding a niche and building a community around it. Personality and idiosyncracy are actually competitive advantages!

It would be cruel of me to just drop off a completed website at the end of two months and wash my hands of the project. Many web designers do that, but I'm more interested in building sites that are used. I can work with you on all aspects of publicity, from design to launch and beyond to analyzing visitor patterns to learn how we can serve them better.

Making sites sticky

We don't want someone to visit your site once, click on a few links and then disappear forever. We want to give your visitors reasons to come back frequently, a quality we call "sticky" in web parlance. Is your site a useful reference site? Can we get visitors to sign up for email updates? Is there a community of users around your site?

Making sites search engine friendly

Google. We all want Google to visit our sites. One of the biggest scams out there are the companies that will register your site for only $300 or $500 or $700. The search engines get their competitive advantage by including the whole web and there's no reason you need to pay anyone to get the attention of the big search engines.

The most important way to bring Google to your site is to build it with your audience in mind. What are the keywords you want people to find you with? Your town name? Your business? Some specific quality of your work? I can build the site from the ground up to highlight those phrases. Here too, being a niche player is an advantage.

I know lots of Google tricks. One site of mine started attracting four times the visits after its programmer and I redesigned it for Google. My sites are so well indexed that if I often get visitors searching for the oddest things. We can actually tell when visitors come from search engines and we can even tell what they're searching for! Google apparently thinks I know "how to flatten used sod" and am the guy to ask if you wonder "do amish women wear bras." I can make sure your important search terms also get noticed by Google and the rest!


Categories: Niche Marketing | Edit

Search

As Seen In

EBook

Shortcut cover
Web 2.0 Mash-Ups & Niche Aggregators (O'Reilly Media, 2008, $9.95): Order here.

Social Networks


Other Sites

Archives