Need an events/news section with press releases, events, etc

Where is the link to your blog on this website?

I see a lot about your services, but who do you help and what business problem do you solve? Most of the best websites have customer personas.

Admittingly, I am better on LinkedIn than I am on Twitter. I see clear uses for LinkedIn – keep up with business colleagues, profile companies, help with job hunt, etc. As a beginner, I am still unclear on the uses of twitter and why it would be valuable to the masses, especially in the business environment. Spamming will further alienate people like me that are kicking the tires. They will need to solve that fast.

1.) Seems like they’re missing an opportunity to optimize by not having the company name in the page title, no?

2.) The “free project review” button, which is their primary call to action (gets people over the ‘what’s the benefit?’ and ‘does it really work?’ jitters) is too low on the homepage. Most definitely below the fold for laptop users.

3. Lots of acronyms on the homepage. We all probably know what they are – and this somewhat depends on their market – but they may want to consider spelling those out on the homepage and then drop into acronyms lower into the site.

4.) The main brand canvas area of the homepage has too much content. They are using the homepage as a place to put their “about us” content which is a section that’s missing from the site. Create “about us” or “company information” section, drop the homepage text in their and then use the brand canvas as an opportunity to create a unique brand impression — what does their service REALLY do for customers (depicted graphically)?

5.) Remove the link to sitemap – never have pages in “under construction” mode. Makes ‘em look like small potatoes.

6.) Same with their privacy policy page. It would be worth engaging with a lawyer for like an hour of their time to get a doc that looks a bit beefier from a legal perspective. One of the unique attributes of the web is that you can appear on your website to be just as big as your largest competitor even if you’re a small shop. (I don’t know a lot about authority – if they’re big and I get the feeling they’re small then that’s indicative in itself, no?)

7.) Drop the overall point size of the font on the main content pages for easier reading and less scrolling.

8.) I prefer the nav style used on the majority of the site. I’m not a big fan of the new nav style introduced in the Social Media Consulting section. The icons used in the left nav of the main site attract your eye — I think they’re too big, but they’re cool.

9.) The “main services offered” in the lower, right-hand corner is duplicated content with what is in the left navigation. Unless they’re doing this for optimization purposes, it can be removed.

10.) The main call to action is “free project review” so this should have a permanent placement through out the site. Perhaps, upper, right-hand corner in the main content well in the form of a smaller graphic?

Let me know if you have questions on any of my thoughts and I hope it helps.
~Naomi

-Make a company account on Twitter to beat their chest with-I.E press releases, new products, announcements, contests, etc.
-Have every employee create an account and wrap their page (their username being their full name spelled out) with a full profile and have the company branding attached. From there they should dangle information carrots about the company. Be the expert/thought leader-create value!! This should be 60% of the time. The other 40% should involve being a real human. Talk about gardEning, sports, their pets,making ships in a bottle. This creates trust that your prospects, customers and partners are doing business with real people that they can relate with.

I have found this formula to work. The problem I am finding is too many companies are creating an account for just their business and scratching their heads wondering why Twitter isn’t working. You will get back as much as you give in Twitter.

Jon-humans are creatures of habit. They hate change! Alas, the backlash about Facebook’s changes-to me-are unfounded. I liked them out of the gate because they made sense. If I was Facebook I would make minor tweeks to show they are listening to their users. But I would NOT make wholesale changes right away. Over time the users will relax and get used to the changes and eventually like them. It is the way of things…that is until facebook make sensible changes again and irritate the masses and mess up their flow.

d

I tend to only consider people that have a detailed profile, but even then I end up ignoring a lot of people

Mark

Another great one is the FB stance. People who do web apps realize that *any* change will be controversial and I really haven’t heard anyone evaluating FB changes objectively. Well done.

Picture on home page – I don’t get the road curve picture on the homepage. It doesn’t fit with the other clean graphics.

About Us – There’s no about us section. I’m suspicious of companies that are not transparent in who is running the place.

Top menu bar – I would add the SEM blog to the top menu bar.

Case studies – do you have any? People like to hear about case studies, even if you can’t disclose names.

First sentence under the picture – you should spell out three and add a comma after three,

Baseball – thanks for picking my Angels to win the AL West! And you really think that the Mets can get a Wild Card? It’s hopeful and on the first day of the season, everyone is in first place.

I really hope Twitter figures out its spamming issues.

Heather | @heatherjstrout