Web Sites Still Matter!: Your Home Page Is Your Home Page

From my co-author, all around good guy, and someone who really "gets" communications of every kind, Shel Holtz.
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These things are true:

• If your website domain isn't instantly intuitive, people will go to a search engine to find you
• If people are looking for companies that do what your company does, they will go to a search engine to find you
• As people conduct searches about your organization, they'll find what has risen to the top, whether it's positive or negative
• With increasing regularity, people visit destinations other than standard websites when trying to learn about an organization

I get all that. And yet I am increasingly irritated when I hear someone utter this nonsense:

Google is your new homepage.

This phrase produces more than 8,500 results in a Google search, mostly blog posts exhorting companies to embrace this belief. Yes, search in general and Google in particular are vitally important. But your homepage is your homepage.

At the risk of sounding pedantic, let's remember that a homepage is defined as the opening page of a web site. Your index file, not Google, is the opening page to your web site. But this is a bigger issue than just a formal definition.

While the era of the destination website may be over, the corporate website is far from dead. The notion suggests that destination website no longer dominate the customer's attention online. They once did, mainly because there wasn't much else online to see. Now, with social networking and online video dominating people's attention, the importance of the destination website has diminished.

That only means traditional websites are now part of a bigger mix of options online, not that their usefulness has vanished.

The 2009 Trust Barometer from Edelman reiterates that a company's own website is one of the most credible source of information a company can provide about itself, beating business blogs, social networking sites or advertising. Only corporate communications — such as press releases, white papers and emails — ranked higher, and only by a two percentage points. And while searches of Google News and Yahoo News ranked higher, searches of the core Google search engine didn't even make the list. At the very top of the list you won't find any new media at all, but rather the staid and traditional industry analyst report, reinforcing the high levels of trust people place in third-party experts.

Certainly, consumers may glean information that doesn't help your company's cause when searching Google. In fact, according to one study, search engines are the most common way consumers find opinions about products, brands and services. But if they're looking for what you have to say, they'll still click through to your website, and most often the top search result will connect consumers to your homepage.

Your website is also the home of the static content that still serves a purpose. The bio of your CEO, shareholder information, details of your corporate social responsibility efforts, archives of your news releases (your authoritative statements of record), job listings — all these represent details people need.

And search engine optimization, which has become a core corporate activity as the importance fo search continues to grow, is still about enabling discovery of your content on your site. As this Google-as-home-page notion gains currency, I fear people will spend less resources on the maintenance of their websites — an odd dilemma, since one SEO fundamental is to continuously update your website and infuse it with new content.

Still, according to a study just released today, web content managemente has fallen as an intrinsic component of organizations' communication efforts. While social networking is part of web-based communications for about 72% of organizations, web content management is an activity among only about 53%. That's particularly odd given that the study found SEO is an activity at nearly 70% of organizations. What's more, web content management is declining as a skill companies look for when making a PR hire.

That is, more organizations are optimizing their sites for search than are managing those sites in order to ensure that the sites offer value to those who find them, despite the fact that corporate websites are among the most credible communication a company can produce.

That's a huge disconnect.

SEO, along with social media engagement, are critical, but let's not lose sight of the basics as we embrace new media. SEO is a critical skill and companies must do it well. But your homepage is still your homepage.

Social Media's Top 10 Dirty Little Secrets

Thanks to Bob Cargill for pointing out this excellent post!

1. Social climbers are attracted to social media
That's right. The same people who climb their way up the social food chain in the real world tend to do well in the social media world. They'll be your friend for a while, until they find someone else with more Twitter followers to tweet with.

2. Most social media is bad marketing/PR
Few organizations really want to engage with their customers. It's just easier to slap together a blog, Facebook fan page or hire someone to tweet about your products and coordinate events that hopefully generate buzz. Participation is hard.

3. Everyone hates internet celebrities, but secretly want to be one
Yup, I'm sick of the whole internet celebrity thing too. But it's funny—sometimes I think the people who slam it the most actually want to be the next social media rockstar, whatever that is.

4. Social media burnout syndrome is real
We joke about it, but it's true. We're overwhelmed by technology which promised to make life better for us. Instead, most of us haven't figured out how to restore the balance we once had in our lives.

Read more at Logic+Emotion by Dave Armano
Hmmmm, I may be suffering from social media burnout.
Or am I just tired from traveling or working all of the last 13 days including 11 night?

Effective Internet Presence - distasteful, absurd and ignorant?

Another view of my ebook Effective Internet Presence (click the title for a free copy).
I may comment later, but now will just say thanks for taking the time to write me, and you spelled my name wrong:)

Good Day Mr. Demopoulus,

I wrote this email to you expressing my thoughts on your e-book about building effective internet presence.  I have no doubt in my mind that you are a talented and well thought out business leader in your field, and for that I am extremely grateful.  However, what I struggle to understand is why you so firmly believe that it is an error for one to discuss the most essential elements of life in their pursuit to building presence online?

As the Director of an Independent Gospel Label I found your comments about 'Religion' to be quite distasteful, absurd and ignorant.  You suggests from the title of your e-book that building internet presence is essential for success in business and in life, but you shun people like me who desire to point people to Life Himself.  And yes, I proudly am one of those people that 'finds it difficult not to say the name of Jesus in every other sentence.'

Before you decide to throw this email out as nothing more than a religious fanatical rubbish, I want you to know that the very people you criticized are the very people praying for you.  I forgive you for your lack of understanding, just as Jesus forgave you when your sins hung Him on the Cross: 'Father forgive Ted, for he knows not what he does,' He said.  You may consider this nothing more than proselytizing garbage but I guarantee you that your 'success' may be found in business but has no place in life.

True success is found in knowing, as you so eloquently state, 'who you are.'  And the only way that one can begin to comprehend who they are is if they first humble themselves and ask who He is.  So Mr. Demopoulus, I will do as you suggested and post this email on websites that support and appreciate the Pursuit of Holiness rather than the temporal and worthless pursuits of false success.  To reach Jesus Christ, just bend your knee, humble yourself and repent of your prideful ways or choose to continue warring against Him in your disdain and apathy.  To reach me, feel free to visit my very relational, non-religious website at: www.crossvizion.com.  May your path find you at the foot of the Cross. 

A. Niya McCants
Executive Director
Cross/ViZion Records, LLC

The Godfather of social networking

The Godfather of social networking? Who could that possible be?

Who "launched multiple, synergistic initiatives" leveraging his installed base.?

Who was "a visionary leader who understood social networks, marketing and monetization?"

Who built an early P2P network WAY before Napster?

Well, this is all just modern-speak for what Jerry Garcia and The Grateful Dead did years ago, and continue to do, unfortunately without Jerry.

Read the full details here - and no, this certainly isn't a joke, simply the truth (thanks to Chris Jones for the tip!)

Blogging for Business Book in the news

Co-author and all around good guy Shel Holtz just let me know that Blogging for Business was mentioned in the Wall Street Journal again. Just happens to be my favorite dead tree paper, although I rarely have time to read it except when traveling these days.

In the article "For Companies, a Tweet in Time Can Avert PR Mess" by Sarah E. Needleman, Shel is quoted:

"Social media have magnified the urgency of crisis communication," says Shel Holtz, a communications consultant in Concord, Calif., and co-author of "Blogging for Business." He says seemingly small incidents can quickly spread into bigger PR problems via the Web.

The article is here, but no idea how long this link may be valid.

Good article by Sarah! And just in time for my birthday.