Ansel Adams midwestern exposure photography award

Receiving my prize, an Ansel Adams print signed by his son Michael Adams.

I walked 2 hours in 95 degree heat to pick it up, then another 2 hours back home. I enjoy extreme weather.

In the midst of everything else going on,

did I mention that I won

the Ansel Adams "Midwestern Exposure"

photography award

sponsored by the Peoria Riverfront Museum?

My photo "Cicada Emerged from Shell"

was the winning photograph.

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Zoom In On Your Customers

Be customer-centric.

Not we-oriented.

Zoom in on those who buy your products.

The closer you can get to them,
the better your product will be,
with smarter advertising
and more effective SEO.

Make your website and social media
be channels for expressing
and proving your expertise.

Share insights and tips.

Provide answers to common questions.

Demonstrate your superiority.

Become the Top of Mind Choice.

Establish credibility
by giving out good information
that helps others succeed
and think of you as the expert.

That's how you leverage social branding.

Talk about customer problems,
needs, dreams, demands....

and how your product is the star of that show.

Your product is the answer.
And you know the question.

Because you zoom in on your customer.

You spend time listening to them,
in real life and on social media.

You enjoy having conversations
about the problems your products
can solve, because your customers
need you to be that committed and zealous.

Look at your product
through the eyes of
those who have a need
the product can fill.

Then make all your marketing
and PR communications
be unified in these sales psychologies.


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Web Content That's Creative and Communicative

Your website needs to be the most compelling
marketing tool in your arsenal.

Speak to the customers on their level,
with their language,
understanding their needs.

Originality arises from customer psychology,
tuned into their problems and wishes.

Convey the message:
your product fulfills a desire,
meets a needs,
satisfies a longing,
exemplifies a lifestyle,
exudes prestige,
solves, helps, improves,
fixes, repairs, prevents,
enhances, wards off, takes care of,
does something
your customer needs to get done.

See things from a different point of view.

Through the eyes of those who buy.

Experience the difference
that difference can make.

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Website Content and Usability are Prior to SEO

You want your website to perform better. You want to drive a lot more traffic to it. Qualified customer  traffic, ready to buy or ready to learn more, shoppers armed with credit cards, hot prospect traffic. 

So you decide to find an SEO specialist to help you optimize your website for high search engine rankings based on proper coding and effective keyword strategies.

Whoa. Slow down. Stop.

First, you must carefully examine and critique the content of your website -- and consider if the design, layout, images, colors, tools, and navigation are all working together for a good user experience. 

Your website must first be tweaked (or majorly overhauled) to ensure that once this flood of shoppers arrives at your SEO enhanced website, they find the information or tools they need, quickly and easily. 

That information and those tools must be exactly what your customers want. The content must be easy to consume. Your website should help people ignore most of the content -- so they can zoom in on the precise piece of information, analysis, news, video, audio, photography, or widget they need at that exact moment.

This means your website must announce clearly and with visual impact WHAT your company is and what it does. Don't assume that "St. Jerome's" will be understood to be a hospital with many satellite clinics. Some people may think it's a church or a rescue shelter. 

Essentials elements in a website home page:

(1) A strong corporate logo or brand image...

(2) ...with a strong promotional slogan or tagline near the logo. (If for some bizarre reason, your company doesn't have a powerful slogan, make one up now and start using it everywhere.)

(3) A reinforcing of the slogan with a concise definition of what customers derive from your company, an explanation of what you do, or some other powerful statement that will orient the customer who arrives at your website, convincing him or her that they have found the ideal source of information for the topic they were searching online.

(4) A photo of the CEO, founder, or manager -- to humanize the company and bring a warm feeling to the user experience.

(5) A picture of happy customers using your product to solve a problem -- or a photo of the end result and chief benefit of the product -- some image that conveys an immediate sense of why the person should be at this website.

(6) Quick links to the products, services, information, media, etc. that customers typically are most interested in, to help them get the job done swiftly.

(7) Differentiation of the website sections: "If you're a parent, go here", "If you're a member, go here" clarifications that identify the type of user and takes them to a set of webpages devoted to their needs.

(8) Contact information. Yes, you have that on your Contact Us page, but often a customer will go to your website just to find your street address or phone number. Especially if you are a retail store or restaurant catering to local clientele. They're in a hurry and don't want to hunt around on your website, clicking and scrolling. Consider putting your street address, phone number, and email address in a visible spot near the top right of your home page.

Before any SEO work can be done on your website, it's vital to nail down the ingredients for an effective home page, as well as top navigation and product pages. You have to tell your story in an interesting manner and have strong calls to action.

Your web content should provide answers to questions your customers typically have regarding various topics related to your field. Give your customers the information they need to pick the product best suited to their needs.

Weak webpages will not be conducive to a successful SEO campaign. 

It would be like trying to beef up a jalopy and then hoping it will race like a fine-tuned muscle car.

Make your website a highly usable platform that communicates your  business message with unique, original content, and then tweak it for SEO strategies that will drive traffic to it.

If SEO tactics and special promotions send more customers to your website, that might be a bad idea.

It's not good to drive more traffic to a poorly designed website with slim content -- it could result in turning more people off to your brand and driving them to your competition. People who were not aware of your company now look at an inferior website -- which only causes them to form negative opinions about you.

Consumers are judging companies by their websites. Ugly layout, unreadable text, spase content, broken links, typos, grammatical errors, no human warmth -- these are big reasons why people reject a website and the company behind it.

When the new web traffic arrives, your website must make a good impression. People have to find it easy and quick for accomplishing their goals. Get the right content and usability on your website, then the powers of Google-compliant SEO can work wonders in a nice ROI environment.

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