As I read through the pages I’m awestruck by the explanation given for the qualities associated with the searcher’s experience. The authors boil this down to a simple illustration called the User Experience Honeycomb.

The User Experience Honeycomb Includes

• Useful
• Usable
• Desirable
• Findable
• Accessible
• Credible
• Valuable

While many readers might not deem this concept worthy of much pondering, I do. If you understand search and website design, you know the user experience is paramount in any Internet marketing effort. Explaining this to prospects and client’s is sometimes difficult for me, because not everyone grasps the subject. Some individuals are so burdened by their daily work requirements, they have a difficult time digging into the theories behind a quality search experience. Search is a science and an art that goes much deeper than just the front page of Google.

Many times one of the first things a prospect asks about is reaching page one of Google. Unfortunately, most think this is a short-term event that is triggered by voodoo and magic. They think there is a quick fix to reaching page one and converting each visitor to a lead or a sale. It isn’t that simple. Search has come a long way, but it still requires work. And more importantly, solid content that embodies the honeycomb concept mentioned above. If you provide useful content that visitors will find usable and they can easily locate, you will be rewarded.

Reaching page one or increasing your Internet sale volume requires work and real effort. If you are afraid of either, stick with your pay-per-click campaign or physical storefront and just call it a day.

I have a client who recently told me he doubled his sales funnel since his new website went live a few months ago. Why some may not believe that claim, it is true. I watch his Google Analytics account closely and I can tell many people are finding what they are seeking on his website. They are staying and they are converting.

Together we built a new website and launched an Internet marketing campaign that was built around the honeycomb theory. He produced solid content that people in his industry would find useful, usable, and valuable. In doing so, he increased his already high credibility factor. I took his strong content and made it findable and accessible. Together we became a powerful force and his company is reaping the rewards.

The client believed in the long haul of Internet marketing. He received benefits quickly and I’m sure has obtained a great deal of his project ROI. He did so because he is smart and he believes in the value of hard work. He also believed in the honeycomb theory. When I would talk about usability, he would listen. When I would say we should have “x”, he would deliver it quicker than I expected. He would also think about the project on his own and make valuable requests that would benefit the overall process and his ultimate success. He was an invested party and an active participant that believed in the honeycomb theory.

As I continue to read through my new book, I already applaud the authors for simplifying what many of us website designers and SEO consultants find so difficult. After so many years of working with organic SEO and website design, I find it fairly common sense. Well, I’m a geek and I am not normal. For others, they need an understandable concept and thus far, that authors of Search Patterns are providing just that to their readers.

If you would like more on the subject, I encourage you to purchase the book. Search Patterns is available through O’Reilly Media.

Below is a list of my favorite plugins.  These plugins are both functional and easy to use.  The augment WordPress’ core functionality and require little or no coding.

1. Add to Any: Share/Save/Bookmark Button – Help readers share, bookmark, and email your posts and pages using any service.
2. All in One SEO Pack – Supports easy definition of page specific meta tags for search engine optimization.
3. AWS Easy Page Link – Easy interlinking between pages when writing content.
4. Breacrumb NavXT – Generates breadcrumb trails for your WordPress blog or website.
5. Contact Form 7 – Simple and fully customizable contact form.
6. Dagon Design Sitemap Generator – Generates a fully customizable sitemap.
7. Datafeedr Random Ads V2 – Aallows you to simply and easily show random ads anywhere in your template files or using widgets.
8. Events – Enables a list of events with a static countdown to date in both pages and sidebar.
9. Featured Content Gallery – Rotating images on home page.
10. Fun with Sidebar Tabs – Adds a tabbed sidebar to existing themes.
11. Google Maps Anywhere – Interactive map to locations utilizing Google maps.
12. KB Robots.txt – Creates a standard robot.txt file for regular WordPress and WordPress MU.
13. Link to Post – Supports easy internal linking to post entries.
14. List Pages Shortcode – Introduces the [list-pages] and [child-pages] shortcodes for easily displaying a list of pages within a post or page.
15. PhotoSmash – PhotoSmash Galleries makes it easy to create photo galleries in posts or pages that your users can upload images into for sharing with other users.
16. Really Simple CAPTCHA – CAPTCHA field that supports multiple contact forms.
17. Show IDs – Adds a column to the administrative dashboard to show page and post ID’s.
18. Simple Google Sitemap – Generate a sitemaps.org compatible XML sitemap of your WordPress.
19. Simple Image Link – Sidebar images within existing sidebar format
20. Simple:Press Forum – Easy to configure forum that integrates with the standard version of WordPress.
21. Simple Sidebar Navigation – Adds in a customized menu within sidebar widgets. Support multiple instances and integrated easily with tabbed sidebars.
22. Social Homes – Adds a sidebar widget containing a subtle list of all your social homes as linked favicons.
23. Special Text Boxes – Adds simple colored text boxes to highlight some portion of post text. Use it for highlights warnings, alerts, infos and downloads in your blog posts.
24. Subscription Options – Adds subscription option icons for your RSS Feed URL; your FeedBurner Email Service URL and your Twitter Stream URL.
25. TinyMCE Advanced – Enables advanced features and plugins in TinyMCE.
26. TubePress – Displays professional YouTube galleries in your posts, pages, and/or sidebar.
27. Twitter Friends Widget – Widget to display your Twitter Friends in the sidebar.
28. WP-Table Reloaded – allows you to create and easily manage tables in the admin area of WordPress. A comfortable backend allows an easy manipulation of table data. You can then include the tables into your posts, on your pages or in text widgets by using a shortcode or a template tag function. Tables can be imported and exported from/to CSV, XML and HTML.
29. WP Easy Uploader – Easily upload any type of content without the need for FTP.
30. WP-DBManager – Allows you to optimize database, repair database, backup database, restore database, delete backup database , drop/empty tables and run selected queries. Supports automatic scheduling of backing up and optimizing of database.

Ugly or Just Confusing?

Some may question if a given URL can be ugly, but to Google and other search engines, a URL can be as ugly as the shirt your grandmother gave you on Christmas. More importantly, designing a website with friendly URL’s is key to making a website easy for search engine spiders to read and index. They are also important to the actual website visitor, because the pages are easily remembered and shared.

Here is a classic example of SEF versus Ugly URL’s:

UGLY = www.web-savvy-marketing.com/cgi-bin/gen.pl?id=871&view=basic

SEF = www.web-savvy-marketing.com/internet-marketing/search-engine-optimization-seo/

The first URL provides little information. The second URL tells the search engine spider and visitor that the page “Search Engine Optimization” is indeed about search engine optimization and that it is a subset of the category “Internet Marketing”. Visitors and search engine spiders like to see clearly defined pages and easy to follow website structures. Such use of SEF URL’s help both a physical person and a virtual process digest the information conveyed by the website’s designers.

Flipping the SEF Switch

There is a time and a place for “flipping the switch” on SEF URL’s. Typically a new site or a complete website redesign will utilize the ugly URL’s until right before launch of the new website. This will allow the website development process to change dynamically without the need of creating the SEF URL’s or worrying about the URL’s changing as the project migrates through the build process. Good website designers will stress this caution, because large scale websites can dramatically change as the design and build process unfolds. Once the build is complete and the site is ready to launch, the migration to SEF URL’s is fast and relatively painless in mainstream open source CMS packages like Joomla or WordPress.

WordPress and Joomla are common open source or free software packages that are available for download and usage via the Internet. These two CMS packages represent a easy to use software program that allows provides the backbone or a website. Both come with fairly basic functionality that can be expanded by searching for and adding any number of plugins. These plugins are mini-applications that perform a specific action or task for a given website. While many times free and easy to install, they do pack a powerful punch for building a tripped out website and pimping this website to meet a company’s or webmaster’s specific requirements.

Plugins come in a variety of shapes and sizes. They can create a social network, help provide SEO or search engine optimization, or they can provide quick contact form for website visitors. There are many and they are readily available for open source CMS’s packages regardless of the webmaster’s knowledge level.

In fact, in all honestly, WordPress plugins require little effort to install. The webmaster simply needs to find the plugin, click install, and review the available setting options. The plugin does all the heavy lifting and work.

So before you second guess the power of a CMS package, you might want to review the available list of plugins. These little guys can take your website from ho-hum to outstanding in just a few clicks.

This “quirkiness” of Internet Explorer may given companies with older websites something to think about and presents a need to reconsider a website refresh.  How do your prospective customers view your website and what type of perception does it give to visitors?  It depends on which version of IE they use, as well as your website’s CSS file.  Unfortunately the results may surprise you.  Remember that your website is one of the first things prospects see in regards to your company.  This image can quickly lead to dead prospects if this image is distorted by poorly written CSS code or a lack of understanding for browsers and more importantly different versions of IE.

To do a quick health check of your website, visit www.gomez.com and check out the gizmo.

It generally takes a third party to point out a website’s physical and esthetic flaws. Sometimes it takes a few hundred of your dearest friends and colleagues to convince you that your website is ugly. An ugly website can come in many shapes and sizes. It may have a horrendous color scheme, a nasty logo, outdated architecture, inappropriate images, spelling errors, or it just might be difficult to navigate and locate information. Regardless, these ugly ducklings exist and they seem to be growing and living well past their intended lifecycle.

As a small business owner or C-level executive, listen to those around you and seek outsiders’ opinions. If someone you know and trust or even a prospective customer tells you your website has “issues”, it probably does need a refresh or a complete overhaul. Seek outside help and seek it quickly, before you are labeled one of the ugly ones. This isn’t the playground and you won’t hear your girlfriends whispering behind your back. All you’ll know is you are receiving little traffic, few conversions, or virtually zero website leads or sales.

Developing a world class website provides little value if no one finds it. If you are the thought leaders of your industry and you have a brand everyone knows and remembers, this may not be an issue. Visitors will find your website no matter what because they already know who you are and what your company offers. For the rest of us, we need help with the branding and marketing of our company, product, and service offering. This incremental need is where Internet marketing comes to play.

A strong website development firm or traditional marketing company will quickly discuss the necessity of having both a highly optimized website and solid internet marketing campaign. Discussing one without the other is futile.