Observations

People Want To Buy Stuff

Data is pouring in from different places about how people use the Internet to do research before they buy.

It is going to be next to impossible to get real-time inventory data on live goods at the local garden center / nursery until RFID systems are ubiquitous.

Regardless, Internet users want to know what you have. Here is a chart that shows what they are doing:



Click here to see the full size graph.


Yes, they are doing research on the Internet and going to the store to purchase ... in a combination of scenario's.

The chart below shows what they influence of the Internet and in-store combinations:



Click here to see the full size graph.

Web Site Design Mistakes
Animation and Flash

Studies show that users of your web site want to get down to business starting in the upper left hand corner.

The use of animation and Flash are a distraction, plus they may inhibit the successful crawl of a search engine spider.

To be sure you get crawled thoroughly, keep important content in HTML and use Flash as an additive or "accessory".

Stick with html based web design and provide colorful images and great content that convey the emotion and the message that is compelling to your customer, and you will be on your way.

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An alternative to Flash is to have animated .gif, but that has some limitations. An animated .gif will not fade in and fade out. The images will simply jump from one image to another.

We built a web site for MattMartin.tv and utilized Flash to display images that tell his story.
Click here to see the page.

The trick to using Flash on the html page is to place the Flash source code as far down as you can so the upper parts of the page can be read by the search engine spiders.

There is some great content on the web about Web Animation. Here is a good source.

Do you have some examples of using web animation on your site?

Please share.

Thanks,

Steve

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) (Definition)
Title Tags

Making your web site visible to the search engines is VERY important. These days, web site designers are not SEO Engineers too. Finding both attributes in the same person is extremely rare, but not impossible.

For starters, let's address the Title Tag. The Title Tag is found at the very top of your web page (at the top of the screen) as a blue bar. In the blue bar is the text that defines the page.

Best practices for the Title Tags are to make the Tag words very specific to the content of the page. A classic mistake is to have Title Tag on every page be the name or your company.

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Title Tags (and pages) should be selected and titled according to the popularity of the chosen search term (keyword) for the page.

Build one page at a time, and design the page with the objective of teaching the search engines to land there for a specific keyword.
It all starts with the title tag.

Here is a link to Title Tag best practices.

Here is an example of someone who used the title tag to include some geographical informaton as well. There are issues with some of the other attributes of the page that I don't agree with, but as far as the Title Tag goes, he is heading in the right direction.

Do you have examples of Title Tag optimization that is working for you?

Thanks for sharing,

Steve

Statistics

The Influence of Search on In-Store Purchasing

In 2005, less than 5% of all retail sales was eCommerce. That means that 95% was catalog and in-store sales.

Of in-store sales, almost 70% was influenced by research on the Internet before going to the store to buy. In the consumer electronics space, almost 90% of purchases were influenced by the research on the web.

We've heard that the consumer is overwhelmed by the local nursery and garden center. Might using the Internet to research your store break-down the barrier to entry for the consumer?

Might a portfolio of images of 'Outdoor Living Spaces' be an influential idea generator for landscaping services.

These are ideas that are inexpensive to implement, and ones you can take to the bank.

If you are one of the ones that says (or thinks) "I don't sell on the Internet, so I don't need to advertise or have a web site", then you SERIOUSLY need to reconsider the facts.

Here is a chart that shows the influence of the Internet on local in-store purchasing.

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Here is a recent article from the New York Times titled: Small Companies Are Finding A Home On The Web.

One of the quotes in the article that caught my eye was this:
"In its first survey of small-business Web sites last April, Jupiter Research found that just 36 percent of all businesses with fewer than 100 employees had a Web presence.

So don't just run out to your nephew and post a half-baked web site. Make it a professional representation of who you are, and the way you do business, and it will significantly influence in-store purchasing.

Do you have a web site that you feel is professional? Please share it with us.

Thanks for sharing.

Steve

Trends Number of Searches Growing I recently was at a Search Conference and the presenter stated that the number or searches per person was currently at 40 searches per month. He said that 65 searches per month would be the number in 2010. That is a 60% increase per person. Searches Per Day (Millions) Per Month (Millions) Google 91 2,733 Yahoo 60 1,792 MSN 28 845 AOL 16 486 Ask 13 378 Others 6 166 Total 213 6,400

The numbers above are how many searches happened within the United States in March 2006, based on comScore figures.

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Another interesting note about searching is that 40% of all searches have a geographical modifier. For example, let's do a search on Google for the word landscaping. Notice the results are mostly content sites like about.com and hgtv etc.

There is NO WAY your small landscape company is going to show up in a search for landscaping unless you do the sponsored ads on the right side of the page.

So having a geographical modifier on your pages makes a lot of sense because the Internet searcher is going to have to add a geograhical modifier in order to get relevant results.

Do you have pages that are geogrpahically optimized? If so, please share them with us.

Thanks for sharing,

Steve

On the flight home from the ANLA Management Clinic 2008 I was reflecting on what had just happened.

For 3 nights in a row, Andy Hull (acting as Vanna White for the evening) and I interacted with just short of 200 people, and reviewed nearly 150 web sites for message and Search Engine Optimzation techniques. All 150 web sites failed the examination.

So the thoughts on the plane ride were along the lines of :

"How are these green industry businesses getting this information ?"   

"Well they aren't !" 

"Is a once-a-year conference going to be enough to make a difference ?"

"Nope."

(Note I was not actually talking to myself - well, atleast not audibly)



So then came the Ah-ha moment. I need to transorm my "ranting blog" into an informative newsletter and blog combination that allows for education and discussion.

So here goes friends, the first thread in what is now:

Dot Common Sense - Internet Advertising Insight for the Green Industry.

There will be a newsletter covering assortied topics as part of the Dot Common Sense offering. Each topic in the newsletter will be covered here as an opportunity for discussion.

Please chime-in.


See you online.

Steve

Having just returned from the ANLA Management Clinic 2008, I have to shout out that the event ROCKS !

Where else do you see 1,000 decision makers gathered to share, laugh and hoot-n-holler?

Hat's off to the ANLA MC 2008 Team for an outstanding job well done.

Already looking forward to the ANLA Management Clinic 2009.

See you there.

Steve


www.10-20media.com

10-20 Media, Inc. is an Internet Publishing Company with specialized knowledge in Database Development and Search Engine Marketing (SEM). We have specialized knowledge in the green industry.

The 10-20 Media, Inc. mission is to be the authoritative aggregator of fragmented green industry data and utilize the Internet to deliver structured data to the trade and to consumers so that the industry may grow, and consumers may know, that we realize the full potential of the industry's environmentally beneficial and mentally stimulating products and services.

 

Internet Publishing Company - we publish several web sites serving the green industry

   ~ www.LawnandGardenSearch.com - a directory of Lawn and Garden consumer products and services

         ~ GardenViews - a blog network about lawn and garden topics for consumers and businesses

         ~ BrandMAX - a unique advertising that places brands in local search. Here is an example.

   ~ www.GreenIndustrySearch.com - a directory of Green Industry trade products and services

   ~ www.VirtualPlantTags.com - a searchable database of plants

 

Database Development

   ~ All of our web sites are database driven. That means that the pages are created on the fly by a computer.

   ~ Our databases are developed and published using the Microsoft platform.

Web Site Design – Our award winning web site design team has the creative knowledge to make your look good and deliver the message needed to develop relationships with customers.

 

Search Engine Marketing

   ~ We Search Engine Optimize (SEO) web sites using our graphic design department and our technical design department.

   ~ We act as a SEM agency on behalf our clients to give them visibility in the search engines. We are an authorized reseller of the Google Adwords™ program.

 

Specialized Knowledge of the Green Industry

Data Fragmentation - We have specialized knowledge in the green industry (lawn and garden). Our services aim to address a severe fragmentation issue found in the green industry. For example, each plant has a Latin name (Example; Acer rubrum 'Red Sunset'). The same plant has a common name (Example: Red Sunset Red Maple). Then the same plant has a trade name or patent name (Example: Franksred Maple). Fragmentation can be aggregated using computer databases by standardizing and structuring data.

Company Fragmentation - Companies in the green industry may have multiple profit centers under one roof. It is entirely possible that one company could do the following: Landscaping, Landscape Design, Landscape Construction, Nursery, Greenhouse, Garden Center, Lawn Maintenance and Arborist Services. Some might include paving and pool installation as part of their portfolio.

Missed Opportunities From Fragmentation - The Yellow Pages Association has 5,000+ categories that make up their Yellow Pages books. When a company advertises in the Yellow Pages, they have to select the categories that best define their company. The Lawn and Garden category (is not really a category in YPA data) is broken into 11 categories across 5,000. If you were to aggregate the 11 categories together and call them Lawn and Garden, Lawn and Garden would be the 7th most popular category with 296,000,000 (two hundred ninety six million) look-ups annually - ahead of the Automotive category. That is a huge number of eyeballs looking in just a few categories. Categories that are absent from YPA data are one's like Annuals, Perennials and Shrubs for starters. Then there's Hydroseeding, Lawn Renovation and Erosion Control too. Bottom line is the language of the industry is missing from the data structure.

10-20 Media, Inc. uses its industry knowledge to create and manage categories that truly represent the fabric of the green industry. This data is then stored in databases and blended smoothly into web sites that are user friendly and advertiser friendly.

 

Business Model

Our business model (revenue) is earned by advertising a company at the right time and the right place (when the Internet user asks for it). We do not charge a fee to those who want to use our site for information. There are no barriers to entry such as user names and passwords. Use our web sites all day long for FREE. Fees are paid by advertisers only.

We currently use a flat-fee subscription model on the trade web site and a performance-based model on the consumer web site.

 

Since 1998

We started this journey in 1998 as Green Industry Online, Inc. We then became Green Industry Yellow Pages, Inc. in 2001, and expanded into 10-20 Media, Inc. in 2007.

The changes we've made along the way (including our names) are many. However, the changes have been made with the sincere desire to provide products and services that are easy to use, affordable and effective.

 

Steve