I'll be trying this website search tool on my new company website. The current one from whatuseek serves up Overture listings. Imagine my competitors seeing a link from my site! Try Atomz Search Express (up to 500 pages)

Higher price

Got to talk to a new rep at GlobalSpec. I was polite to listen to their pitch again and will continue to sit on the fence, I think. Got some interesting info, tho. Their price has gone up from first $6K (a year ago), to $8K (last January), to now $14K. And the rep said they currently had about 15 leads a month for my product category. Thats $77 a lead! Cheaper than a trade show, but very expensive for a measured web metric. So what's the value I would get? How much better is this than a web search? And what am I giving up? When does critical mass occur that I need to be on board with these eye-ball aggregators(sic)?

This is a very cool website. It makes my head spin thinking of the possiblities. Web guides, out-of-the-box-experience, user interfaces. Now, if I can only read it all and implement it!
IBM/Ease of Use/Design

They still don't get it

I visited a website from a related industry's top brand (or so I'm told). Their website was barely useable, which means it only meets the minimum standard. Its ugly, poorly laid out, and unclear. They could pay someone just a couple grand to make it look really sharp (should I give them my number?).

Yet, on their home page they are promoting the release of their latest paper catalog. Don't they realize that they have already made an impression on the website visitor and they aren't going to want a catalog from a company with such a clunky website? My industry is riddled with so many smaller companies with ingrained marketing machines that just can't seem to adapt to the web, even seven years later!

I am going to be posting my third generation site shortly. The cool thing is that I don't have to change the content much--it is already streamlined. I am only fixing the navitation scheme. What will they think when they see my new site? Will they even consider trying to catch up? To really blow them away, I really should outsource the website design, but they make the bar so low, I am not ashamed to do it myself. But ultimately, my control of the website is what makes it useable, forgetting the design.

Going to the printers

I ordered new envelopes for our company with our new-and-improved logo recently. I usually don't get involved with this stuff, but because of the issues with the logo, I was anyway. Our new logo is orange. The envelopes came in a color closest to maroon. It appears they mixed in "cyan" (blue) when none is needed to make orange. The sales rep seems stumped as to why they saw blue as being required to make the logo. I showed him my original Photoshop file (at my desk, on my PC), where no cyan is required. He showed me their test proof (I only saw a fax of it) that was almost maroon.

They will reprint the envelopes, but now I need to make a visit to their press to inspect the output. But where the heck did the cyan get mixed into my logo file? And why didn't I get a color proof?

Thanks to the Random Trout (link also shows my comments), he points to a article about The Church, going, going, gone.

From a marketing perspective, what is in a name? Does "church" help define the product effectively, or does it scare people away by their preconceived notions of what a church is? And how does this affect your core congregation/customers?

Next link

I just ordered one of these harmonicas. Looks way cool. From a business perspective, I think these guys need to work on marketing. I suggested with my order that they try listing on ebay.
TurboHarp

Friday cool link

This one is for playing!
sodaconstructor

Just to verify that there is a website for everything. A website that tracks every Mets player's numbers.
Mets By the Numbers -- The Mets Website That Counts!

Further on search-marketing, Rob Poel reminds us of Google's philosophy about getting higher rankings--make a website people would like to visit!
POELog | commentary, opinions and thoughts on the web, ebusiness and marketing

Found by those I was talking about

I was surprised how quickly this blog was found by the owner of www.environmentaltestchambers.com. He obviously knew who I was. This is what he had to say:

However, I am confused as to why you think print trade magazines at 5 grand a month or a Thomas Register program at ten grand a year is inexpensive compared to our site.

We are getting at least ten times the user sessions than TR!!!

IQS was founded based on the discussions with Envirotronics and their use of the web. They cancelled their sixty thousand dollar program due to their high rankings on search engines. I decided it was time to check out how to capture this usage.

Thus, our first site was www.environmentaltestchambers.com and the rest is history. I resigned my territory contract with Thomas Register and several reps came with me. We had a record sales month in June and on 7/4 the US Patent Office published our patent with its resulting provisional rights.

The advantage over Overture is that we qualify the user twice--by key word search and the preview ad--so your company does not get all 2000 users to your site.....since 70% of the traffic on the Internet are selling not buying!

I hope you reconsider our propostion. Let me know if you have any questions.

Where do I start? I don't think I said that Thomas Register or trade ads are inexpensive, however since I do use them, I guess that could be implied. My real issue is the long-term value of depending on a web listing thru a third party to drive traffic to my site. There is a stubborn streak in me (and my management) not to use another service that is offering the visitors we feel we should get anyway. By being an industry leader, we have to also consider our actions. If we list there, other major companies maybe compelled to do the same. They, like me, haven't stepped forward to do this.

I will agree with him that the Register is on its last legs and doesn't provide much value. Part of my ramblings on this blog is to allow me to consider the value propositions of right now. And where do we go next?

Is the IQS service a value or a crutch? Envirotronics may be very happy with the results. But they have such a slow-loading (and antiquated) website that they can't generate any value out of the visitors that come to their site unless they are using T1 lines. There is a total package to consider. Not just getting traffic, but being useful to the visitors and satisfying their needs. Ultimately, the value my company's website provides is head-and-shoulders above the rest (boy I am I modest?), so even with fewer visitors, I am generating more value from the web long-term. Perhaps in the future, IQS will be a tool to consider, but right now I need to make sure the destination is up to snuff.

What's related?

Or how to see how you stand on the web in relation to other websites. Neat, although I didn't find anything I didn't know about. But if you were looking for something you didn't know about...TouchGraph GoogleBrowser V1.00

Get a clue!

Here is a good article about "dis-connection" between the existing community on the web and churches (thanks Dean Peters). Basically, church leaders (i.e. pastors) are still looking for "cool" sites for their churches while their members are looking for community.

This fact goes for more than just Church sites. In two projects I've been in where we are trying to increase their business, people start worrying more about what the site looks like than what it does. You need to stay off WPTS, but will green or blue really affect your sales? I think people who don't know how to build a website start focusing on the parts they do understand. That makes for a lot of work for us christian-geeks (or geeks of any faith).