Over the years I have built the first Web sites for many individuals and businesses of all sizes, and have taken over the on-going development of others. Where I am proud of the work my firm Dunkirk Systems, LLC has done, in some cases I am disappointed, and that comes from the fact that a lot of the features and functionalities of these Web sites are not being used to their fullest.

Trust me, I am not on an ego trip here. I state this in general as I want my clients to fully exploit all of the tools they have in their Internet toolbox! I also fully understand, as a business owner myself that the continuous changing of hats and roles in a business causes for priorities to change and something inevitably falls on the list.

Know What You Own

There’s no time like a slowing economy to revisit what you have to see how it can help you. Here’s a list of some suggestions I have made to my own clients recently, most of which apply to anyone who owns a Web site.

• Review your Web Analytics – Whether it’s Google Analytics or the reporting from your Web host, gain an understanding of the traffic to your Web site. Where are Web visitors coming from, what are they going to, how long are they there, and what are they doing while they are there? This will tell you how effective your Web site is itself, its search ranking and will identify potential “opportunities” to improve your Web site.

  If you are not aware of how to do this or don’t have Google Analytics on your site, this is a worthy, yet affordable, enhancement for your Web site.

• Review the Web Site Itself – When is the last time you actually looked at your Web site? Sure, you may be familiar with the home page. But when is the last time you fully walked through every page of the site, reading it in detail? You may be surprised to see what you are reading! Not only is this important to know what is out there from a branding and accuracy standpoint, but it is good to know what your customers are reading.

  Identify any important content changes, and make those changes yourself if you have a content management system (CMS) on your Web site. If you don’t have one, having your Web developer execute on even the smallest changes may make a big difference.

• Buy Something From Your Web Site – If you have an eCommerce Web site, buy something. This will allow you to re-visit the user experience of shopping on your Web site, both to see what others see and compare it to other shopping carts you have used on other Web sites.

  Many eCommerce platforms have a robust set of tools, most of which may not always be utilized. These include volume discounts, coupon codes and affiliate marketing management. It may be as straightforward as activating one of these features and setting up coupon codes to send to customers to drive sales. If you can, why not do?

• Ask Your Customers About Your Web Site – No matter the economy, I always ask my clients to query their customers at some point in the sales process. Simple questions such as, “have you been to our Web site?” or “did our Web site help you in doing business with us?” can give you real insight and feedback on the effectiveness of using your Web site.

  But don’t just ask, write it down! Logging and reviewing this feedback can provide areas of improvement, not to mention a reinforcement of how awesome your Web site may be.

• Build Your House List – If you don’t have one already, start compiling the address – both postal and email – of your customers. You don’t even have to be currently sending any mailings to your customers, but it is important to have an accurate “house list” of your customers and strong prospects to market to. If and when you decide to start a newsletter or other correspondences, you can then focus on the campaign itself and not on the mundane of compiling information.

Share Your Wish List

As you have read, going thru what you own may identify areas of change for your Web site. Write them down and review them. You may decide to wait on these until sales and revenue increase, or you may deem them vital now to increase sales and revenue. In either case, share them with your Web developer so you will both be on the same page of the importance of your Web site.

Are you doing any of these? Is there something else you’re doing that could make the list? If so, please post a comment to join in the conversation.

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Business • Technology • (0) Comments • Permalink

Have you ever seen a blog post with comments and next to some of them are photos of people, presumably whoever posted the comment? But when you go ahead and post your own comments your picture or logo doesn’t appear? If you’ve wondered how to do this, you need to setup an account with Gravatar.

Gravatar is a portmanteau for “Globally Recognized Avatar” and is tied to an email address or account you use for posting comments or logging into a Web service. Where some blogs and services are closed systems and require you to set up your own profile and avatar, Gravatar allows you to set it up in one central place, and based on your email address or login, it will display the corresponding avatar. This allows you to manage your avatar in one place, which simplifies the process if you ever want to change it.

I setup Gravatar on The Hot Iron some time ago, but never promoted the fact I did so. I would say based on experience close to half of those who leave comments have established a Gravatar account. If someone posts a comment and does not have a Gravatar account, a default avatar is displayed. In the case of The Hot Iron, it is New Hampshire’s legendary Old Man of the Mountain.

When I originally created my Gravatar account, I used the Dunkirk Systems, LLC logo. However the more and more I observed Gravatars, I decided to use my new headshot photo, as shown in this screen grab from a comment on the blog Upgrade: Travel Better:

Gravatar is a free service I have no direct connection with and they did not ask me to write about them. There is no charge for either creating an account or implementing their display on your blog or Web service, though for the latter you will likely need to develop code or use a plugin. I have simply been a happy user of the service, and once you try it you probably will be too.

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Technology • (4) Comments • Permalink

The next likemind will be Friday, October 16, 2009 in dozens of cities around the world.

In Chicago, it will be at Argo Tea, 140 S Dearborn St. at the corner of Adams and Dearborn Streets in the Loop from 8:00 am to 10:00 am.

I call likemind a gathering of creative-minded people, from various disciplines including Internet, advertising, art, social media, et. al. For more information on likemind, you can read this great article on likemind from the New York Times.

No RSVP is required. You are also welcome to join the likemind Chicago Facebook group.

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Announcements • Business • (0) Comments • Permalink

Dunkirk has a new mailing address. Effective immediately, post mail and packages can be sent to:

Dunkirk Systems, LLC
17 E. Monroe St., Suite 120
Chicago, IL 60603-5608 US

Our phone number remains the same, as does our Web site and email addresses.

You may be wondering why the immediate change. As many entrepreneurial companies do, Dunkirk has had its mailing address at a UPS Store. This has worked very well for us for over 3 years. But after a change in management, service went downhill at an accelerated rate that it effected the level of business at the store, and we just got informed it is shutting down next week! Fortunately we had an option, and have a new mailing address at a different UPS Store, one with a different franchisee and one that comes on high recommendation from customers.

Now it’s back to changing our address everywhere…

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Announcements • Business • (2) Comments • Permalink

Ah, the days when you didn’t have to pay extra to check bags onto a flight. Just about every US carrier, with the notable exception of Southwest, now charges for checking the 1st 2 bags onto your flight. Where you can pay the bag fee at the airport when you check-in, some airlines have integrated payment into their online check-in process. One such airline is AirTran. In their case, they simply hacked existing Web functionality to do so, and along the way insulted me for checking a bag onto my flight.

As I checked in for my most recent flight online, I was prompted to select the number of bags I was to check. I selected 1, and clicked the button to continue. On the next page, I was surprised to see the Web page title – pay for excess bags – as you can see below.

The following image is a crop of the page title.

What? This is not an excess bag, it is my only bag! As someone who builds Web sites, I know why this is the way it is and what their developers did. They simply changed the threshold value for what is an “excess” number of bags from 3 to 1 – remember, AirTran and other airlines used to allow you to bring your 1st 2 bags for no additional charge. Where the functionality works fine, by not changing the words on the Web page, AirTran is being misleading, not to mention snarky. And it doesn’t end with the page title – look at the label of the submit button, which I have cropped below.

As you can see, it is labeled “purchase bags.” I am not acquiring a new bag, I am paying a fee, and one which to begin with I don’t want to. Please don’t sugar-coat the messaging, as it would be better to simply label the button as “submit” or “continue” rather than to attempt to be creative.

I fault this with the AirTran Web site product manager or whoever in their marketing department is the business owner of the Web site. Don’t blame the techies here, as it functions correctly, and that’s probably all they care about.

This is a good example of not knowing about what your customers look at everyday. Print out all of the pages of the Web site and put them on posterboard if need be, so that when a change is required, the function as well as the form are in sync.

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Business • (4) Comments • Permalink