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.

To continue on the topic of improving your website’s credibility, it seems only necessary to cover the topic of badges. You’re probably so used to seeing them that you hardly notice them anymore, and when you do, maybe you get warm fuzzies, knowing that someone is watching out for you.

While it’s always a good idea to beware the impostors who gain access to or replicate legitimate badges and falsely advertise commitment to your safety, it’s also good to know how you can get badges for your website—the right way.

Badges (or seals) help customers identify you immediately as a trusted source or a secure seller.  Ultimately, the badges will drive more visitors to hit the “Buy” button: When given the choice between a site that seems secure and has reasonable pricing and a site that has been proven to be secure and has reasonable pricing, of course they’ll choose the latter.

Note that some of these fit in multiple categories, and they are merely categorized according to what seems most important to each badge provider.

Badges for e-Commerce Sites & Shopping Carts

TRUSTe Seal (for small and medium-sized businesses)

VeriSign Trust Seal

Trustwave Trusted Commerce Badge

Badges for Websites Handling Sensitive Information

McAfee SECURE Service

Instant SSL by Comodo

Business Accreditation and Website Ranking Badges

Better Business Bureau Accreditation Badge

Hubspot’s Website Grader (for SEO) Badge

Alexa Web Information Traffic Ranking Badge

WooRank Website Analysis Badge

Accreditation with the BBB is recommended for any business, but these ranking sites have their places, too. By displaying a badge from a third party that has objectively (automatically, no people involved) graded your site with a high mark based on numerous points, you’re telling visitors that you took the time to make your site the best that it can be.

Indeed, there are many more scanning/verification/accreditation/ranking badge sites, but these are some of the more common ones that I’ve been able to check out. I’ll post more as they come to my attention, and of course, if you’re looking for any information on those mentioned above, drop me an email or post a comment below! I’d love to hear your thoughts or questions regarding website security and trust =)

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.”

I might admit to being a bit of a Google “fan girl,” but in fairness, they’ve recently rolled out two exciting new features, one for your mail and one for your searching/research.

Gmail Priority Mail

I’ve had the opportunity to play around with this new setup quite a bit and do find it easier to manage my inbox; primarily, I find it easier to pick out the things I want to trash in an instant. It may seem a little backward, but it helps tremendously: I log into my Gmail account and the first section I have set up is of “Important and unread” emails, the second section is of “Important” emails, the third of “Unread” emails, and “Everything else” is in the final section of my inbox. I pay most attention to the first and third sections because I immediately read the emails in the first section and almost always trash the things in the third.

For example, I subscribe to emails from a number of clothing, electronics, and office supplies stores so that I can see what sales and new products are being offered. But since I don’t need to purchase these items every single week—and since funds would dry up very quickly if I tried—I delete most of these emails before even reading them. With “normal” Gmail (as though it’s taboo to use “normal” programs), I had to sift through a mess of emails to find those that were unwanted, but with Priority Mail, I move straight into the “Unread [and Unimportant]” email section and go to town with the delete button! Similarly, I now see emails from friends and family, as well as those from my banks as soon as I log into Gmail. In the “Important and unread” section, they’re bold and marked with yellow tags, so I can’t miss them.

We can probably assume that it will be five years before Microsoft latches onto this kind of automatic organization/prioritization for Outlook, but I can’t wait until Mozilla can incorporate this into Thunderbird. And yes, I enjoy picking on giant corporations

Instant Google Search

Thought your Google searches were pretty fast, eh? Just yesterday, Google unveiled the new Google Instant, which hasn’t hit everyone just yet—but you’ll see it soon enough. WBAL points out that small businesses could be stung if instant results hit too quickly on major brands, but honestly, unless someone types into the search box “small business that manufactures shoes,” they’re always more likely to see Nike and Adidas before they’ll see the start-up.

With Google Instant, you’ll see something similar to the way Google used to fill in the search box with queries that it assumed you’d be looking for, but now it won’t stop and refresh every second or two. Instead, the suggestions will change instantly with each letter you type.

What’s even better is that the entire page of search results is just as instant. The “News for…” section, the “Images/Videos for…” section, the “Sponsored Links” on both the mid-section and the right, everything changes in the blink of an eye to match whatever you seem to be typing. As Google puts it, you don’t want search-as-you-type, “you really want search-before-you-type.”

You should be saving 2-5 seconds with every search you run on Google, so over the course of the rest of your life, you’ll save a good chunk of time.

How have these tools helped you in day-to-day business, or how will they affect you?

Dare I make a joke about getting your money’s worth out of these two? Yes, they’re free as always. Powerful tools at no cost. So how have they helped you shave time off of the monotony to allow for more productivity and/or more fun?! If you haven’t experienced the new toys, then how do you suspect they’ll help in the future? Maybe you do a lot of research throughout the day, or maybe you just get a lot of emails… Whatever the case, leave a comment for us below!

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!

Has your brain been wracked enough yet? Well either way, it’s time for round two! If you haven’t, be sure you read part 1 of “Google Trends helps you reach your target market” to get caught up – we’re looking at this very useful, free tool and how it helps us get past the first step of finding keywords for our websites. Let’s jump right in…

Your keywords in the news

Beneath the graph that we were looking at last week, the Search Volume Index Graph, is the News Reference Volume graph. This graph isn’t scaled the same way that the Search Volume graph is; so while you don’t need to look as deeply into this one, you do need to remember to switch modes when looking at either one. Instead of using relative comparisons for plotting the lines, the News Reference Volume graph simply shows you when there was an increase or a decrease in the number of news stories about your keywords. Notice that there are no numbers on the axes of this graph and that it follows the time frame you have selected. In my case, December 2009 saw the largest decrease in the number of news stories about web design and May 2010 saw the largest increase in the number of news stories about web design.

What the news is saying about you

Maybe they aren’t talking about you, but if you look to the right of the two graphs, you see a list of news headlines with their sources and publish dates. This is in no way a conclusive list of news headlines, as A) these correspond only to points in time when Google picked up on a notable spike in related news stories, and B) these particular stories have been drawn at random from all related stories published around the specific point in time. For example: In early October 2009, there was a spike in news stories about web design, so Google Trends marked it with the flag B. This happens to be at a time when there was a relative increase in the number of general searched on “web design.”

My guess in this case is that the two are hardly related. The news story that was automatically picked from that time period is about a script that allows Ubuntu users to use Mozilla Firefox. Ubuntu isn’t really a news-maker and the script allowing Ubuntu to run Firefox probably wouldn’t have led the masses to search for web designers. Just a guess

Similarly, news flag D happens to mark a point when searches on “web design” began to decline (relative to the entire year). A news story about a web design company creating 40 jobs when Americans are struggling to find jobs is likely not the cause of the decline, so it’s safe to say that this randomly chosen news article is not quite indicative of the time. As you see, you don’t need to live by this news section of Google Trends.

You can click on “More news results” under that list to be taken to Google News, where Google will have already searched your keywords for all the news that has been published about them.

Where in the world…

Where are these people who are looking for you? And do you need to learn some quick Russian to be able to get a hold of them? Look below the graphs and news section and you’ll see sections for subregions, cities and languages. Google explains this one best: “Google Trends uses IP address information from our server logs to make a best guess about where queries originated. Language information is determined by the language version of the Google site where the search originated.”

It’s possible that these results won’t be 100% accurate, as “Trends” is using its best guess, but it may be helpful to look into these results. To determine top-ranking regions and cities, Google Trends divides the number of searches on your keyword from each region by the total number of searched from the region. So if there are X number of searches coming out of Las Vegas, NV, and Y number of them are on “web design,” then Google Trends works out the math in Y/X and ranks Las Vegas among other cities using the same math each time.

What do you think so far?

Now that you know a little more about this powerful, free Google tool, see what kinds of information you can glean from all of these aspects and how the information can help you. If you’d like some additional insight or more help with the tool, leave a comment here or email me (jayme@lymelightwebs.com). And if you’ve come up with astounding information or other helpful tips, comment below!

Next up, we’ll export our data and analyze it to find the right set of keywords.

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.

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 feeling of autonomy is great. We’ve likely all enjoyed the excitement of getting that first car, moving off to college, finally nailing a job that doesn’t nail us to a desk… But do we necessarily want to have free-range in roaming around a website? In most cases, the answer is simply no. Many people simply don’t have the time to learn how to navigate each website they visit.

There is a such thing as too many possibilities, especially when it comes to offering visitors the option of going wherever they want on your site. It may not make much sense, but think about the ideal website: You land on the main page and you see an attractive, easy-to-understand navigation bar with, say, five links. Generally, you can read about the company/person, read about any products they have to offer, contact the company/person, see a list of references (portfolio or clients), or you can move right in to buy their products or services. The best websites will have these links conveniently intra-linked or otherwise tied together to take you from a page of reading about the excellent products/services offered to buying what you just read about.

On the other hand, if your site’s visitors have been fishing around your site, hit any dead ends, or can’t find an easy way of getting from point A (learning) to point B (doing) as you want them to, they will ‘walk’ away. To avoid losing potential clients to the frustration of a complicated website, lay it out ahead of time. Go through, step by step, to figure out exactly what you want visitors to do when they land on your website. Sure, you’d want to give them some autonomy by not locking them into a hallway with only one exit door; but be sure to include conspicuous links on each page to show visitors where they can go without having them wander in circles.

LymeLight will gladly help you work out the floor plan for your website, so you can be sure that you’re taking care of your visitors and increasing your site’s number of accurate leads.