An article posted a couple weeks ago at the New York Times gracefully details the rise and fall of six companies that had started between 1996 and 2008, all of which closed up shop in 2010. Unfortunately, many of the failures were a result of the economy and therefore couldn’t have really been predicted, but I find it surprising that half of these stories involve some kind of defeat by a competitor who simply ‘does it better.’ Ouch!

Culminating all six of these stories, there are a few clear trends that can be acted upon by us as business owners entering 2011. To start, here’s one way to avoid the heat that melted these companies: Know Your Competition. Basically, learn about your competitors as though you were a typical consumer, looking to hire or purchase from them.  Pay attention to find the areas in which you think they’re on the right path and areas where they’re probably losing ground.  Remember that something that differs from your opinion or the way you do business may not be wrong—you’ll often benefit from heeding new ideas!

From Tim Berry of Entrepreneur Magazine:

• Shop your competition.
  Depending on what business they’re in, you can probably call them, visit their offices and perhaps buy from them. Get a price list. Listen to their pitch. If it’s applicable, count the cars in their parking lot. Count customers coming out of their store, both with and without purchases.
• Talk to their customers.
  What do their customers like or dislike about each competitor? Why and how do customers decide between one competitor or another?  [Honestly, people will often give you this information freely, whether they're hoping you'll offer something better or they're looking to boast about the services or products they receive.  Testimonials are good only for specifics; of course they'll all say glowing things, so read testimonials only to gain insight about what the company is doing well.]
• Purchase credit and background reports at Dun and Bradstreet’s website.
  [It costs $119 right now to get a full report on a company, so this is only for those competitors that represent huge losses for you.  Also, it may not be exactly the information you're looking for.]
• Small or not, local or not, check your competitors’ websites.
  Study them carefully. Many companies offer an abundance of information about themselves on the web. Do they offer their products or services in an online store? Or do they simply provide information only? Do they have a price list? What are they emphasizing on their site? What do they say about themselves? What conclusions can you draw? Their websites are a great source of company information. No website? That’s interesting competitive information as well.
• Do a thorough search of the internet, using your favorite search engines.
  Besides their own site, you want to see where else your competition turns up. Maybe they don’t have their own site, but they’re listed on other sites or have a store in an online mall. And maybe you can find press information on them, articles that profile them or offer information on changes they may have gone through, such as store openings or hiring a new CEO. The web is amazing in what it can reveal.

From Kim Gordon of Entrepreneur Magazine:

• Evaluate “perceived” competitors.
  Chances are, you have a lot more competitors than you think. In addition to real competitors, evaluate the marketing tools and materials of any businesses your prospects perceive as offering a similar set of products or services. For example, a custom cabinetmaker may believe he competes exclusively with other companies that build kitchen cabinets to order. But if his prospects think of the customized cabinetry offered by major home centers as competitive products, the cabinetmaker must evaluate the way the major chains market cabinetry in his local area.

From Rich Harshaw of Y2Marketing:

• Consider the appeal of not doing anything a competitor.
  To wrap up the parts of Harshaw’s long article that focus on “inertia” or the draw for a prospect to not take any action, you want to view this inaction as a competitor, too. Prove yourself better than the direct and indirect competition; but also prove yourself good enough for the prospect to make a move and not be lured away by the potential to save time and money by ignoring their need for you altogether.

From JK Harris of Entrepreneur Magazine:

• [Recognize] products and services you don’t offer and haven’t thought about offering.
  You’re also competing with the businesses that are meeting the needs of your customers with products and services you don’t offer and haven’t thought about offering, and the businesses that might make your products obsolete. You need to know who all your competitors are–not just the obvious ones, but the ones flying under the radar as well.
• Use programs like Google Alerts to track what’s said about them online.
  [TweetDeck and others can be set up to notify you when competitors are mentioned in tweets.]
• Be prepared to cooperate and collaborate when necessary.
  If something is going to have a strongly positive or negative impact on your industry, reach out to your competitors so you can join forces and take appropriate action. Depending on your particular business, you may also find that competitors can serve as backup resources. For example, you might get an order that’s too big for you to fill alone.Or if a competitor suffers a disaster of some sort that prevents that company from serving its customers, you can step in and help out.

It’s easy to put your blinders on and stick to what you’ve been doing, but don’t let it take you down. And don’t be bothered if these methods seem shady to you: If your competitors know you’re there, they’re probably doing the same things to keep tabs on you! Just be honest in your approach, and don’t be afraid to try something new. Read the NYT article here.

As LymeLight prepares to launch its mobile website service for building mobile versions of business websites, I found the timing of this Inc. article perfect. In “Better for Business: Mobile Web or App?” author Kim Boatman does an excellent job comparing mobile websites to apps (stand-alone applications for smartphones), including benefits and cost. Not sure if you need either one? The simple response is yes, you’d be wise to invest now because millions of people own and use smartphones daily, and the numbers will grow exponentially. Check out Joshua Odmark’s article, “Top 10 Reasons Your Website Should Go Mobile” for some very compelling evidence of your need for a mobile presence.

Onward, we delve into the question: To go mobile via website or web app? For most small and mid-sized businesses, the answer will be a mobile website, mostly due to its substantially lower cost. Part of the cost for applications comes in needing a separate app for each platform, and at the very least, you’ll want apps for Android and iPhone, but RIM still holds a solid portion of the market. There are six parts to the debate over which medium is best for your purpose, as Boatman points out:

1. Utility

A mobile website will work across platforms, while an app developed for the iPhone won’t work on the Android and vice versa.


2. Need

Do you provide a service to customers, or will a recurring action be necessary? Go with the app. Is your business location-based, or are you looking for something sales-based? Get a mobile website.

3. Traffic

A website that gets a lot of traffic from mobile users may benefit more from having a mobile version than from having an app.

4. Content

For a site that is mostly text-based, a mobile website is best; a website that is graphic-oriented could fare better with an app counterpart.

5. Availability

A service that is used regularly is best in app format, but if users only need to visit once in a while, a mobile-friendly website is perfect.

6. Cost

Once again, a mobile website will cost much less than a mobile app. The mobile version may cost 50-80% of the cost of your full website, but an application will run $35,000-50,000 per platform.

I also like this list from Best Rank, Inc. of types of businesses that benefit most from having mobile websites or applications:

• Content Driven News Sites/Blogs
• e-Commerce Stores
• Impulse Purchases (example: pizza delivery)
• On Demand Services (example: taxis)
• Local Businesses (example: restaurants)
• Emergency Services (example: tow trucks)

Look for more information on LymeLight’s mobile website services within the coming months.

When business slows down, sometimes we throw ourselves into an alarming despair, hastily searching for any new work that we can latch onto. But those who have ‘been there, done that’ all seem to agree that it is of utmost importance to only choose to work with the clients we want to work with—and we know that by only taking on the enjoyable clients, we keep our stress levels to a minimum and free up time that would be wasted with the clients who are too difficult to work with. So where’s the happy medium, where we can boost business without taking chances in acquiring unwanted clientele? Revamping a stale business with simplicity seems to be the way to go.

Entrepreneur writer, Antonio Neves, offers five great ways for you to redesign your business in a simple, yet effective, fashion. To recap, Neves suggests that you 1) tell your story; 2) focus on direct sales (for retail, this is selling your items rather than sending them to distributors); 3) collaborate with strategic partners; 4) charge your real cost; and 5) revamp your company culture, thereby raising morale and increasing organization.

Telling your story seems simple enough, but when you try to think through your own company’s story, you may find yourself a little lost. Marketing expert and founder of Shoestring Marketing, Jessica Swanson has a great, fresh piece on telling your business’ story: why it’s important, how to find the story and how to get others to sink their teeth into it. Other important aspects of revamping your business are marketing and, of course, your website. Inc. magazine offers an excellent article that shares the expert marketing opinions of entrepreneurs who have suggestions for a fashion company. Their suggestions can flow into any field or market, and I’ve even heard the suggestion of seeking celebrity endorsements before. When a chef was running out of ideas to boost his restaurant’s business, he humbly asked a national food television show to come visit the restaurant. They did and they loved it, bringing an instant crowd to the small restaurant.

While there isn’t much information out there on how to revamp your business, I hope these ideas will get you going on a thoughtful, useful plan with simple steps toward a redesign that may be quite necessary right now.

Building trust is crucial in business, and it becomes more difficult when the first line of communication is via the internet. As a customer, you can walk into a brick-and-mortar store, office or bank, look the representatives in the eye, listen to what they say—and how they say it—and decide almost instantly whether you feel the company is trustworthy. When shopping online, however, none of these benefits are present. If you’re more skeptical of online merchants and consultants, then why wouldn’t others be more skeptical of your online presence? Check out some of these tips, collected from all around (including my own experience), and try following this like a checklist.

There are more topics to cover when considering the trustworthiness of your website. Next week, I’ll cover website badges, and on November 4th, we’ll look at website rating engines. It’ll be a fun and particularly useful series, so stay tuned!

I wouldn’t expect a new company or one that is still growing to have hit all of these points—in fact, my own company hasn’t had the chance to catch up on all of it—but they should still be somewhere on the “to do” list:

• Start a blog

  Not only are corporate blogs appropriate for companies of all sizes these days, they are almost essential! Companies like GM, Google, Southwest, Nike, NFL, Giant Supermarket and many, many others have corporate blogs, and with good reason. With few ways for your website to stand out among hundreds of millions, finding your “voice” and “speaking” to your online audience will help them get a feel for who you are and how genuine you are. Blogging will also keep your site up to date, which builds some level of trust. As an added bonus, customers will know where to turn when rumors spread or even when your products are recalled. Instead of trying to run for cover, put the facts and any due apologies out in the open and in your newly found “voice” to reassure customers that they have every reason to stand by you.

• Keep the readability to a moderate level

  Visitors don’t want to feel overwhelmed or berated by a website (of all things), but they’ll be turned off by a site that reads like it was written for kiddies. Industry jargon is too confusing for those outside your industry, and you aren’t trying to sell to people who are already doing what you do! So keep the diction to more general terms, but also remember that using “bigger” words will often help with conciseness. LymeLightWebs.com reads at a high school level (rated by HubSpot, which I’ll cover soon), and I think it’s a great position to be in.

• Make friends with other website editors and bloggers

  When you’re comfortable with some of these editors and bloggers, ask them to write something about you on their site and link that piece to your site. It’s understandable that as an interior designer, you may not feel led to request a spot on another interior designer’s website, but go for the architects and real estate agents, as well as the landscapers, because they’re all wonderful complements to your field of work. When a person is confidently hiring a particular landscaper and they see that this landscaper respects you and recommends your work, you gain instant trust with that client.

• Use clean navigation, an intuitive layout and quality design.

  Loose, clumsy navigation makes it look like you’re trying to hide something. At the opposite extreme, confusing navigation that is all piled in the same spot looks unprofessional. Ensure that each link—from main page to storefront, from blog to portfolio to contact page—flows to the next and that there are no surprises. Similarly, anticipate the route that your visitors will take to make sure that each section is a continuation of the next (or indirectly tell them where to go). Finally, a quality website design enhances the professional look you’ve created through blogging and online references. This isn’t just about aesthetics; it’s about functionality and interactivity, too.

• Post only your own content.

  This may seem like a no-brainer, and sometimes the line between what is your content and what came from someone else is blurry. But a critical example of this is of a web design firm’s identical copy of an article from a developer resource website (excerpts shown below). The design firm breaks virtually every rule of building trust, including having a terrible website (paradoxical, I know), but in this case, they’ve stolen intellectual property and have given no credit to the original writer.  Really, what’s the likelihood that two authors had the exact same idea for introductions to their articles?  The “copycat” changed a few words here and there and removed one point that seemed redundant and one point that is wrongfully overlooked as an integral part of website building.  Every industry has them – don’t be “those people.”

Catch up on Trends by reading parts one (starting out with Google Trends) and two (diving into more details) of the series.  Google Trends is a fascinating tool for helping you pinpoint keywords for SEO (search engine optimization) of your website.

Exporting your Google Trends data

Exporting is quite easy, though understanding what you’ve exported may not seem as simple. By clicking the small blue plus sign to the left of “Export this page as a CSV file” (under the subregions/cities/languages sections), you can choose to export your .csv file with relative or fixed scaling. A .cvs file can be opened with Microsoft Excel, Open Office Calc, Google Docs, or another spreadsheet application.

When working with email newsletters for clients, we export to .csv files so that the names, email addresses and other information are easy for clients to sort. So you may see these files more often than with Google Trends.

For right now, we’ll say you want to see the “fixed scaling” report because it is likely easier to read. Your browser should have automatically downloaded a small file called “trends.csv,” so go ahead and open that.

Understanding standard deviation

One of the first things you may notice about the chart is that for each search term, there is one column labeled with the term and one labeled as “std error” (indeed, I might call an STD an error, but this is a little different). This oddball column is to account for “standard error” or “standard deviation,” which in layman’s terms means “plus or minus.” So you see that for a particular week, one search term has a ranking of .6 on your scale and a standard error of 2%. This means that the position given to the term during this week of .6 is accurate +/- 2% of that .6. Generally speaking—and for our sake of finding some keywords to use—the standard deviation will not be important.

Reading the “fixed scaling” Trends report

The information in the “fixed scaling” report is generally based on information from January of 2004, and the 1.00 mark doesn’t change with time as it does with relative scaling; therefore, you can trace the numbers and compare them to one another. These numbers still don’t look like much, though. Putting them in a graph (in Excel, select the data and select “Insert -> Line Graph”) will make it all much easier to read. Ideally, you don’t even need the graph to include the standard error columns because seeing the minor changes in standard error over time is even less useful to us than is seeing the percentages for standard error. Again, because this is fixed scaling, you can certainly look down the line and see precisely how it’s been moving over the course of your selected time period.

Putting your SEO keywords into practice

After you’ve run as many keywords and phrases in as many ways possible, take some time to figure out how you should proceed with your website and other marketing. Quite possibly, the things you assumed were the best descriptions of your work or company are not being searched nearly as often as the more simplistic versions. The people who are looking for you are doing so because they don’t know your field—they don’t know the industry buzzwords or what your work is technically called. If they did, they wouldn’t need you.

For my company, we’re more technically web developers because the additional programming that we do behind the scenes is what sets us apart from others who only do design work. But who would really assume that they need a web developer? Thus, my results are quite predictable. Similarly, for entrepreneurs who haven’t yet realized that they need a website or for those who aren’t sure how to start, I broaden our keywords to include things like “starting business” and of course “small business.”

Your own results with these keywords

Do you have any revelations to share since playing around with Google Trends? Have you found from your website statistics that people are hitting your website based on certain keywords that you didn’t expect to see? Did you at least find this three-part series on using Trends helpful? Leave a comment below!

Today’s post is more of a how-to, designed to help you familiarize yourself with a neat Google tool that will guide you toward an answer to the question:  ”Knowing that I can rank better in search engines by writing about the things people are searching for, how do I find out what the heck they’re searching for?!”

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts put in full-time hours to conquer the intricate aspects of optimization for their clients, so while there is no definitive answer, there is Google Trends.  ”Trends” lets you search up to five terms at a time, and from there, it draws a line graph to compare how often those terms are searched by Google users.  It breaks the information down into which geographical areas are searching for those terms most, and it also points out a few online news headlines that were running during the specified period of time.

I’ll run through what Google Trends does and then explain how this can help you.

Search Query / Queries

Upon opening the Google Trends home page, you’ll still feel right at home with the Google logo atop a standard search box and some gibberish at the bottom of the page (the categories are self-explanatory).  Start by typing two search phrases into the box, keeping in mind what you think your potential customers are looking for.  I’m looking to first compare “web design” with “web development.”  Click “Search Trends.”

Settings / Filters

Before diving into the results, it’s important to look at the light blue bar stretching across the top.  My recommendation is to limit your search by region to “United States” and by time period to anything less than the pre-filled “All Years.”  I’m going with the past 12 months.  After the page reloads, a subregion field becomes available so you can also choose a specific state.  For instance, if you’re an architecture design firm that only operates within Arizona, then you’ll want to choose the subregion of Arizona.

Search Results: Line Graph

Note that you need to be signed into your Google account to view the numbers or to export the data.  The one thing to bear in mind when looking at the line graph is that it is relative, so all changes in the slopes of the lines are based on the average of the ‘baseline’ search query during the specified period of time  (I’ll explain).  The numbers on the graph represent the mathematical relativity, moreso than the actual number of searches.

So in my example, “web design” is my first term and is therefore the ‘baseline’ term, situated around the 1.00 mark; the results for “web development” will be relative to the results for “web design.”  I can now see that people have been statistically five times more likely to search “web design” than “web development” because the latter scored merely a .20, compared to the former’s score of 1.00.

This part will seem even more baffling, but remember that the entire graph is based on relativity.  Each line fluctuates according to changes from the average for the specified period of time.  In my example, to say that fewer people searched for “web design” in December 2009 than in January 2010 is not exactly what’s read from the graph.  Rather, December 2009 saw far fewer of these searches than was average for all of the past twelve months, and January 2010 saw a slight increase in the number of these searches for this time period.  I can still assume that more people were looking for web design in January than in December, but the actual drop/incline is relative to the year’s average.

Now I know that I can relax more during the holiday season because people won’t be looking for me (they’ll be looking for sales)

You can change which term becomes the ‘baseline’ using the drop-down under the graph.  By making “web development” the baseline, you can see more easily how relativity is working.  ”Web development” is now ranked 1.00, and “web design” is suddenly ranked 5.10 because “Trends” is still showing us that people have been five times more likely to search “web design” than “web development.”

Play around with the chart alone for now, trying out different words and phrases that relate to your business in a way that others’ may be thinking.  Ask the people around you:  ”If you were in the market for _________, what words or phrases would you be using to search online?”  You may be surprised at the names and comparisons people come up with in their searching, especially if you’re selling a service.  Another tip:  Use keywords that are problem-based, not solution-based.  People are going to jump online and tell Google about their problems because they don’t always know what solutions exist.  You want to come up in the search results as being the solution they need, no matter how they go about searching for you.

Bear this in mind as we now move on to part 2! You can also jump to part 3 for exporting your data.

A few days ago, one of my favorite sources of small business information, BusinessWeek, posted a ‘quickie’ about the value of educating your customers.

It isn’t just telling people about your product or service – although that is one benefit that shouldn’t be underestimated – but rather, it’s teaching people about extra benefits or how to fend for themselves. Surely you’ve heard about “advertising the benefits, not the features?” Just as you’d be wise to tell people how your product makes their lives better or easier, so you’d also want to educate them on your industry or complements to your products and services.

Read into the third paragraph of the BusinessWeek article and get your creative juices flowing as you think of at least one thing you can teach your potential customers about. Bear in mind that you don’t need to teach them how to do exactly what you’re doing – this would just be silly. Instead, think about something similar to the examples offered; something that will either help them choose wisely (and be prepared for the possibility of them going elsewhere when they do make their decision – it happens) or something that will help them make the most of their investment in you.

This is precisely why I post to LymeLight’s blog about various aspects of small business. I wouldn’t necessarily explain every little part of how web design works, and frankly, most people would be frazzled or fall asleep with such technical talk.  Instead, I post broader tips to small business owners that enhance their marketing strategies, which of course include their websites.

And by teaching you about sharing such information, I’m making more educated clients for any web developer, as you now know that you want a blog to share your own interesting tips See how that works?

So what can you offer your potential clients to make them more educated consumers?

Few people would – even if they could afford it – spend a million dollars on a car. But whether we’re talking about a car or a more abstract vehicle, an idea that has a price tag attached to it, sometimes you’d be foolish to not cough up that $1,000,000. An opportunity in the form of a sticker on a car or hiring a broke college student seems like it costs a fortune, but it’ll pay for itself tenfold. These are the business investments that have disguised themselves as typical business expenses. In an article on entrepreneur.com, author Sherre DeMao goes through the top five areas that are too often considered expenses by companies trying to survive the tough economic times, instead of being seen as the investments they are, as large growth companies understand. These five areas are:

1. Image and Marketing: The decal on your personal vehicle is a good step, but as DeMao’s example shows, company-owned vehicles may be an answer to establishing your image in and all around the area. Other investments – like ads in pinpointed locations, a nice suit for networking events and meetings with potential clients, and a professional, fully customized website (hint hint) – will further help you promote your image and even pay for themselves in better exposure.

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Numbers really have a way of capturing our attention. I recently read an article from NASA that briefly explained – among other things – that the length of Earth’s days change quite regularly:

Recent news reports have focused on Earth’s length of day, noting that the Chilean earthquake might have shortened days by as much as 1.26 microseconds out of 24 hours. That’s true. But it’s also negligible compared to the normal effect of wind and tides, which can lengthen or shorten days a thousand times more than earthquakes can.

~ Science@NASA

I don’t really know how quickly 1.26 microseconds pass, but based on basic concepts I learned in college Chemistry, I can safely assume that writing this sentence alone took tens of millions of microseconds.  To many people, numbers are simply fascinating.  Given that, the title of a recent article from Entrepreneur.com titled “10 Common–and Effective–Emotional Triggers” caught my attention.
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The author of Blink, Malcolm Gladwell, and the president of a Cleveland advertising firm, Steve McKee, are both going against the grain – and have a very good point to make, collectively. Reading an article by McKee about why market research can lead a company down the wrong path reminded me of a presentation I heard about, given by Gladwell.  While the former is about minivans and Apple, the latter is about spaghetti sauce and Grey Poupon (and will probably leave you feeling quite hungry).  The former is to-the-point and interesting, the latter more humorous, though long, as it will cut through about 17 minutes of your day.

Personally, I found that points 3 – 5 made by McKee in this article are the most impactive and most relevant.  That Absolut Vodka would flop because it’s Swedish and people were only drawn to Russian Vodka.  That the minivan wouldn’t be a big seller because no one had ever asked for a minivan before it existed.  That New Coke would be a gold mine, discounting the possibility that people wouldn’t take well to the change in its formula.  It has been proven time and again that people simply do not know what they want, and they especially can’t tell you what they want to have or see until they’ve gotten a taste of it.  As is clearly pointed out in McKee’s intriguing article, no amount of market research can be so blindly followed; likewise, he says that “[the] best research is the real world,” which honestly means you’ll watch at least one of your ideas flop.  The good thing is that it happens to all companies, and the giants aren’t exempt from this one.
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