Vin65 Blog

What makes a good URL?

There are several factors that make up a great URL.  Yesterday clients on our current platform received an email from Brent talking about good URLs.  I thought I would copy some of the content here in a blog post for the general public.

What makes a good URL?

First, they should be readable and informative. This means that the URL should suggest the page you’re about to land on. For example, the URL for a Vin65's blog is http://www.vin65.com/blog so you know simply from looking at the URL it's going to take you to the Vin | 65 Blog page.

Second, your URLs should be harmonious. This means that visitor should be able to guess what a page on your website might be from seeing other pages. For example, if you were searching on the site Pine Wines site for different wines, you should be able to guess from this Red Wine URL, http://www.pinewines.com/Wine/Red-Wines, that the White Wine page would have “White-Wines” instead of “Red-Wines.”

Finally, don’t keep changing your URLs. It’s possible that websites, visitors and search engines have recorded and indexed your link or have pages linking to you site. You don’t want to have potential clients wanting to search your site have an error message because the link is no longer active.

Why a good URL matters?

There are a number of reasons why a good URL matters.  Some of them are aluded to above.

First a good URL creates a better user experience. Just read through the examples above, and you can see how a URL of www.pinewines.com/Wines/Red-Wines is a better URL than www.pinewines.com/index.cfm?method=pages.showpage&pageid=e56d3f37-1e0b-4e34-f02f-9956542aff8d (both URLs point to the exact same page).  Users bookmark URLs, they link URLs, they email URLs to friends, etc.

Second, URLs do matter to Search Engines.  The URL is one of the 10 ten factors Google uses in determining your search engine rank.  You can 'stuff' keywords, (such as Wine, Red Wine, etc) into your URL and affect your search engine rank.

Finally, a good URL makes your statistics readable.  If you are monitoring your traffic on Google Analytics or another statistics program (and you should be monitoring your traffic), it's way easier to tell which pages visitors are looking if you have a nice marketing URL (such as /Wines/Red-Wines/) rather than looking at a database driven URL (such as /index.cfm?method=pages.showpage&pageid=e56d3f37-1e0b-4e34-f02f-9956542aff8d)

------

Clients using our current platform got an upgrade this past weekend.  If they leave the 'marketing URL' field blank, our admin panel automatically suggests a URL for them. Brent also put together a nice video on how to edit URLs.  (If your on our current platform, it's in the help documentation). 

If you would like to talk to us further about your URL structure, or would like us to assist you in improving your URLs, feel free to contact Brent or myself.

Jun 24, 2008 at 9:00 AM

Permalink

Be the first to comment on this post

What's Your Pain?

What are the biggest problems you face with your website? What keeps you for getting more out of your website?  What features/tools/or solutions would make you switch website vendors?

This past week in our office, we were putting together a brochure and we've been having a discussion about what clients really want out of their website, and what the hinderances are, what our competitive advantage is, and where we should be driving the platform.

We know that some clients are looking for more connectedness between their in-house systems and their websites (and we do have some great ways to move data between accounting systems and the web, and these are getting better all the time).

We know that some clients are requesting faster ways to edit data (this past week we added a number of editing enhancements, and we feel we have some great tools here).

We know that clients need marketing assistance.  (There is no magic bullet here, but lots of hard work).

So what is your pain?  What are the features that you would like to see improved? What tools/solutions/features would enable you to get more out of your website?  (Feel free to add your comments, or send an email to andrew@vin65.com)

Jun 22, 2008 at 7:15 PM

Permalink

Be the first to comment on this post

Key To Success #5: Monitor & Analyze

It’s the final episode in our mini-series on ‘Keys To Success’ for your website.

I believe that in order to have successful marketing efforts, you have to be able to measure results. Tools like Google Analytics provide you with the ability to monitor how many users are coming to your website, where they are coming from, how they found your site, and what pages they are looking at.

It’s not so much about having the above information, as much as it is about analyzing this information, and then using your analysis to improve your website.

It’s relatively easy to developing ‘key performance indicators’ such as conversion rates, funnels, etc, but very few people actually develop these indicators for their website. Once you have these measurements in place, you can use tools like Google’s ‘A/B’ testing tools to try different copy, buttons, etc to performance tune and optimize your site.

Measuring and Analyzing is an ongoing process. Test, measure, analyze, tweak, and then repeat.

The difference between an underperforming website, and an optimal performing website, is often that the website isn’t going through this process.

Jun 15, 2008 at 4:00 PM

Permalink

Be the first to comment on this post

4 guys in a basement head-to-head wine tasting series

So today at Vin | 65 we started a new series we pitted two wines head-to-head. Naked Grape Unoaked Merlot vs Mission Hill SLC Merlot 2003. Because we are 4 simple guys who claim no credentials at all our reviews are going to pretty informal and will be posted on our Okanagan Wines facebook group.

Here is the first match up:

Naked Grape: Naked Grape wines reveal themselves as they really are, without being hidden by the flavour of oak.

2003 Mission Hill Merlot: Aromas of dark spicy plum, fig and nuttmeg introduce this wine.

Click here to check it out.

Jun 6, 2008 at 3:50 PM

Permalink

Be the first to comment on this post

Is the Fade-In/Fade-Out Flash Image Converting Sales?

Are the cycling images and messages on your homepage a killer app? or killing your sales?

In this mornings 'Web Marketing Today', there is an interesting piece titled 'Are Distracting Cycling Images and Messages Hurting Profits?'  Although there is no hard facts listed in the article, they did list some negative from their useability study:

1) Distraction: A large percentage of the people they tested found cycling images incredibly distracting.

2) Disappearing Message: Some sites cycle images a few times and then stop, and it's impossible for the visitor to go back to a previous image.

3) Ineffectiveness: Flash doesn't seem to increase the effectiveness of messaging, however these displays take upwards of 30% of the homepage real estate.

4) Transitoriness: In their tests, when images remained for 8-10 seconds before a transition, users rarely remembered the content from the previous image.

5) Trained Avoidance: In their testing, they found that flash is becoming like banner ads and people have trained themselves to ignore them.

Cycling images on the homepage are quite common on wine websites, and we have definately built our fair share of them.  (We even have a component that makes it easy for people to change out photos, etc). In my opinion the right cycling image definitely increase the overall aesthetics of the site and homepage.

We look at messages like this one on this none wine website at Currency Marketing homepage for example and I find it very effective. (We programmed this site, but the design and content was done by Currency Marketing)

So maybe it's not a hard written rule, but definately something you should think about.  Are the cycling images adding to your overall message?  Are they conveying your message at all?  Or are you using valuable space and it's just distracting visitors?

Jun 3, 2008 at 7:51 AM

Permalink

Be the first to comment on this post

Welcome Brent Johnson

We would like to welcome Brent Johnson to the K1 Technology and Vin | 65 team this morning.

Brent joins our team in a new role as Account/Sales Rep to support our growing client list. Brent’s has recently graduated from BCIT with a specialty in sales and marketing. He will be responsible to phone and meet with our clients and prospects and assisting them with their internet marketing. We are really excited to have him on our team.

So if you are calling into the office, make sure you say hi to him (and maybe ask him to take you out for lunch).

Jun 2, 2008 at 8:00 AM

Permalink

Be the first to comment on this post

Key To Success #4: Customer Retention

With the high cost of attracting people to your site, a successful website will have a plan to capture and retain these prospects. Success also depends on having strategies for marketing to existing customers through community building, newsletter and regular emails.

So how do you capture prospects? The simplest way is to take advantage of email marketing. Include an opt-in email signup form and give prospects the proper incentive to signup. Gain active consent and clearly outline the benefits of signing up. Upon signup, follow up immediately and set expectations right from the start.

How do you retain customers? Loyal customers are your company’s number one asset. You should reward them for repeat business, by letting them know just how much you value their business. People love the idea of special treatment! (The local restaurant that I visit every Friday for breakfast knows me by name. They know the seat I want. They know the way I like my food. And they treat me special).

Sometimes it’s easy to bombard consumers with deals and incentives. It’s also really easy to send a promo to all customers… however all customers are not the same. Make it personal by profiling their buying habits and preferences. (Use our list builder and preference based marketing tools to segment your list, and make offers relevant to your customers.)

How do your favourite companies treat you? How often do they contact you? Email you? Try doing the same for your customers.

Jun 1, 2008 at 9:32 PM

Permalink

Be the first to comment on this post