Project Management Solutions

For years I’ve searched for the silver bullet in project management software. I’ve used close to a dozen. I have evaluated more than twenty and I’ve researched many, many more. At one time, we even built our own, in an effort to get exactly what we needed.

I don’t claim to be an authority in this area. But I have managed projects that lasted anywhere from a few weeks to over a year. I’ve worked as a lone ranger. I’ve managed small teams and I’ve led multi-vendor teams located in several states and across three countries. For me, a solid and simple project management solution can be the difference between success (on time and within budget) and missed deadlines or even project failure.

If you are still using Outlook Tasks, or Excel to manage your projects, I encourage you to at least consider a browser-based solution. There are just too many cases where you’ll work with tele-commuters, sub-contractors, multiple vendors, or off-shore teams that specialize in one facet of a project. Virtual teams are fast becoming the norm in many sectors, and online applications allow for the the most effective collaboration and project tracking.

You may think that online applications are too complicated but believe me, there are some very nice tools that are not only affordable but will have you running in minutes and productive in a few hours. Some also offer many of the formal project management processes that larger organizations require.

My point isn’t to critique these applications, or even to present an exhaustive list. For a more comprehensive list you can check out this link to web-based project management software. I simply want to give you a starting point of what I think are some of the best solutions for the price. You have to weigh costs and features based on your needs. Any one of these five applications could work for any size organization.

1. Ace Project - A very good all around solution. My only complaint is that they don’t have sub-tasks. That’s a deal breaker for me.
2. Basecamp - If you’re looking for a simple solution, check out Basecamp. I tried using it but it just didn’t meet our needs. Still, it’s a perfect solution for some. They also have tight integration with a few time tracking solutions if you find that you need that as well.
3. Celoxis - This is what we use though it can be overkill for some organizations. But the reporting is tremendous and it is extremely powerful. It’s my personal favorite though it is a little more for my “low end” solutions list. But for the amount of features, it’s much less than comparable applications.
4. Gemini - We use this for incident tracking. It’s also promoted as project management but I personally think the reporting and time tracking isn’t as good as Celoxis.
5. Zoho - I might consider moving to Zoho if it had better reporting and time tracking capabilities. If you don’t have complex needs in those areas, you should give this a try. It’s similar in vision to Basecamp, but I think they do a better job. This is my second favorite, next to Celoxis.

This is just a sampling. You may have other favorites.  But these will certainly give you incredible bang for your buck and not require a degree in engineering to use.

As I said in the beginning, I’m constantly keeping a sharp eye for the silver bullet in browser-based project management software. Deep down I know that it doesn’t exist. But I believe that if you can find one that gives you 85-90% of what you’re looking for, you’ll still be more productive than using a locally installed solution like Excel or Outlook tasks.

The Importance of A Site Map

The site map is a visual representation of the various content areas of your site. It shows the content levels and how they relate to one another. In other words, it’s a snapshot of the site as a user would want to see it to get an overview of where things are and how they will find what they need.

I’m convinced that if folks would take the time to create a site map, they would alleviate a lot of future headache.

It doesn’t matter the size of your budget, when it comes to developing an effective site structure for your redesign project, the site map is a key component. It will become the backbone of your new site. Yet I am amazed how often folks want to jump right into the look and feel of a redesign.

You can go all out to draft your site architecture by using one of any number of tools like Jumpchart or Protoshare or Axure. If you’re a Mac user, there is a nice tool by The Omni Group called Omni Graffle. But you really don’t have to spend a lot to get it right.

You can sketch out your wire frame on paper and build it out in PowerPoint if you like. The main thing is that you think through your site architecture from an end user’s point of view. If you do, you will save yourself a lot of headache and your users will navigate your site easily.

10 Redesign Tips

Everyone loves lists. While this is not a “top ten” list, these ten redesign tips will help you as you begin the process of your next site redesign.

1.	Plan Ahead - I recently completed a list of changes for a customer site. The changes were needed but the way they approached it resulted in more effort on our part and a less effective change process. If you think you need to revamp your site, think through what you need and why. That may sound very basic, but I’m surprised how many people jump into a redesign without a plan.Part of planning involves all facets of your business. Well constructed marketing plans will mesh seamlessly with your Web presence. A monthly organizational theme that corresponds with products, services or perhaps mission and vision is a great way to maintain centralized messaging and often will make it very easy what marketing needs to happen on the Web side of things.
2.	Have Clear Goals - Make a list of what works on your site and what doesn’t. If possible, conduct usability tests to see where customers might get confused or bail on your site. You need to be clear about what issues you have with both design and function rather than assuming you know or simply changing for the sake of change.
3.	Remember Project Management - This may seem like a repeat of the first two, and it is related. But what I’m referring to here is a bit more involved. With any project you need a process. Web development/design has its own nuances. You should have an appointed internal contact that is dedicated to the project and will work closely with your vendor, if you outsource.There are many processes you can follow such as (Pre-production, Production, Maintenance, Evaluation) or (Define, Design, Develop, Launch). At SystemTrends, we’ve munged three different project management processes into our own flavor. The key isn’t “what” process you use but to have a process and use it.
4.	Consider Cost of Ownership - As you think through what you want to accomplish with a redesign, you will undoubtedly identify many cool features you can add to your site. But as you do, remember that with each new feature you will have to maintain it. The most common example I run across is a blog. Many customers ask me about adding a blog to their site. My first question is, who’s going to maintain it? Same thing with news, announcements, a library or pretty much any new content area. One of the reasons people have gravitated toward news feeds, and user-generated content is that it keeps their site’s content fresh with minimal effort. But content isn’t the only area where you need to consider cost of ownership. New applications can potentially require updates and developer maintenance and that new banner advertising will eventually get old and need replacing. If you don’t have internal graphic resources, you need to plan to spend a little money here and there to keep the eye candy fresh.
5.	Remember The Developers - When people think of a site revamp, they often forget the technical aspects that will make the cool new design a reality. I was once brought in on a project late because the designer, who was primarily a print designer, wasn’t able to take his vision to the web. We had to rework a lot of items and do most of the site with JavaScript roll-overs. Had we been brought in early on, we could have taken a different approach and saved us all tremendous headache.
6.	Analyze Your Competition - Visit your competitor sites, honestly and objectively, to see what is working for them. You might discover more effective ways to lead potential customers through your sales funnel. Competitors may be using a particular service that you can add. You might even notice something that you need to avoid with your redesign.
7.	Design With SEM In Mind - If you’ve not done so already, plan to incorporate Search Engine Marketing into your next revamp. As competition stiffens, SEM will become more of a standard and if you neglect this area, it could impact traffic and your ultimate bottom line.
8.	Design For Users - The old marketing axiom “know your audience” rings true in Web design as well. If your users find it difficult to navigate your site, or if you have organizational pressures forcing you to make certain decisions about advertising placement or content that cause confusion to your customer, you may lose potential sales.Another common mistake is to structure a site to mirror the internal organizational structure. Think about what a user needs to know who is not familiar with your company. Then lead them through the clicks or pages you want them to see and read.
9.	Manage Expectations - If you are part of a company any larger than 1, you need to manage expectations. I’ve seen projects get totally derailed because of lack of communication between vendors, project teams and stakeholders. If a project is longer than 6 weeks, I try to have weekly status calls with clients to review issues, iron out scope changes and generally manage expectations. Your project management process will work wonders here if you let it. When you set clear goals, you can always point to them and explain that these are the agreed upon objectives and anything beyond them will require scheduling and resource changes. With any Web project, you will always have more that you want to do than what you can do in the allotted time or budget. Consider a phased approach to introduce important features. It’s a great way to stay on task and still account for needed future additions.
10.	Allow for On-going Evaluation - Once you launch, your job, in many ways, is just beginning. If you’ve done your planning and execution well, you’ll be in a mode to monitor what is working on the site and be able to make quick tweaks to adjust as things pop up. You’ll also want to conduct post launch analysis of Web logs to see what pages get the most traffic, where customers are bailing on your site, etc. That will help you make informed decisions about what needs changing.

I’m sure you can think of many more but these are ten of the most common tips I keep in mind as I work with clients.

The long hiatus

There’s nothing like travel to quell momentum. I’ve been out of town a lot lately, but thankfully I am back in full swing. So I will be more consistent with post throughout the rest of the summer.

SEO Demystified: On-going Evaluation

This last step seems so obvious, I hesitated to even include it. But I’m surprised how many people view SEO with the same attitude they do about building a house. There really is no end. Just as with your site, there should always be on-going evaluation to see how well you are doing with your keyword terms, your page optimization and content generation.

Your vendor should not only keep you appraised of your PageRank, but also be suggesting ways to improve it. You should also be tying your increased traffic to conversion. How well is your site’s sales funnel leading visitors to purchase, subscribe, register or whatever the call to action is? Should you now combine your SEM strategy with a Pay-Per Click (PPC) campaign? These are all valid questions that should be asked and monitored over time.

Final thoughts

As a business owner or decision maker, you do not have to know all the techniques or the technical nuances of Search Engine Marketing or Web development. But you should be armed with enough understanding to keep you from spending a lot of money for very little return.

In my opinion, if you are selling a product or service or if you have a community or informational site, you should be doing SEO. I hope the SEO Demystified series has given you enough information to help you make wise decisions as you proceed with selecting a vendor and engaging them in an SEM campaign.

SEO Demystified: Getting Indexed

In today’s world of sophisticated search engines, you’d have to try real hard not to get a site indexed. The easiest way is to simply do a good job with SEO. If your site is easy for spiders to crawl and has decent link popularity (sites linking to your site), then spiders will index your site. It’s pretty straight forward really. However…yes, there’s usually a “however”. However, what if your site isn’t showing up on Google? What if you’re not being indexed?

Well if that is the case, don’t blame the search engines. Instead, look at your site. Was it developed in a way that is easy for spiders to find and crawl it? Have you been penalized for search engine spam? Often the unscrupulous will attempt to get past a search engine’s guidelines. I’ll describe the main ones, though I’m sure there are others I’m not aware of yet.

Content Spam - This occurs when a site attempts to deceive search engines through manipulation of content on the site. It can include keyword stuffing, misuse of meta tags or deliberately creating misleading content.

Link Spam  - This is any deceptive scheme created to boost link popularity artificially. This could be hiding links from users or search engines or creating artificial domains to manufacture links.

Domain Spam - This is when someone registers multiple domain names in order to boost search engine ranking by obtaining multiple directory listings, creating cross-links between the sites or by putting more pages in the index to increase the odds of having a page ranked.

Redirect Spam - This is when a site redirects search engine visitors to a page other than the one that was ranked. Many spammers will create doorway pages that rank well, and then will redirect a user to another page or conceal the ranked content behind a pop-over element.

Cloaking - This is probably the worst form of spam from a search engine’s perspective. Cloaking is when optimized content is delivered to a search engine and different content to users. All search engines tell you not to cloak. If you do and get caught, you will be banned from their index.

So why did I included all these forms of search engine spamming? Well, unfortunately, there are still those out there that want to deceive the search engines, thinking that they will “one up” the competition.

Personally, I think that besides the obvious ethical and legal problem, the amount of energy one has to spend to stay ahead of the search engines is greater than what has to be spent to accomplish better results legally and ethically. It may be worth a few questions to your SEO consultant to see what techniques they use. You may not understand all the technical jargon, but you should know enough to discern if they are “white hat” or “black hat” in their approach to search engine marketing.

SEO Demystified: Link Building

One of the most important factors in determining your ranking in search engines is the number and quality of in-bound links to your site. Link building can include directory submissions, advertising, even link exchanges. But the most effective long-term strategy is to simply create great content.

Search engines will spider or crawl your site more frequently and spider more pages if you have a lot of good links pointing to it.

Before we proceed further, I want to address reciprocal links vs in-bound links. From time to time, I will receive a form email from some entity that wants to exchange links — that is, they’ll link to us if we link to them. That simply will not help you and in some cases may even hinder your efforts to get better positioning in organic search results. As a rule, I always suggest that our clients turn this down unless they are exchanging links with strategic partners.

You should also be mindful where an in-bound link appears. Well placed links from authoritative sites will not only help with your page rank, but they will also bring in a steady stream of quality visitors to your site. That will, in the long run, result in more conversions than if you simply go after random links from anywhere.

Linking to keywords

In the best circumstances, you’ll be able to control where and how your in-bound links appear on a site. For example, in directories, you can be sure that you’re mapping your in-bound links to your keywords. However, that isn’t always the case. If sites find your content useful, they may simply refer to it with the domain name or perhaps some “click here” text. You cannot control that. But wherever possible, try to have the hypertext of the link contain some of your target keywords.

SEO consultants will have all sorts of techniques for accomplishing this. Often, they will submit content to article directories (ezinearticles.com, easyarticles.com, articledashboard.com, etc) with signature links back to target landing pages on the site. This not only promotes you as a subject-matter expert, but also provides in-bound links.

Bottom line…it takes time

As you discuss link building with your SEO consultant, they will likely tell you that it takes a while to build solid in-bound links. There are somewhat dubious shortcuts that you can take but in the end you will fare much better to build slowly and steadily. Next up…getting indexed.

SEO Demystified: Optimizing Your Pages

Page optimization is probably the easiest step in the SEO process. I don’t mean to minimize its importance. The truth is that you’ll need to have or hire the skills to address several key elements. But so much is written about this aspect of SEO that many people see it as the starting point. If you do plan to tackle SEO internally, resist the tendency to start on this step. If you blast past Keyword Strategy and Site Design & Structure, you will be like the proverbial thug who brought a knife to a gunfight.

A word about vendor selection

Let’s assume that you don’t want to attempt SEO yourself, but would rather farm it out. As you begin thinking about or searching for a vendor to deliver higher search engine ranking, remember this. Many so-called SEO consultants will focus primarily on the technical aspects of page optimization. Often they will rely on you to give them the keywords and many will try to steer you toward “more focused” (meaning obscure) search terms so that they can maintain their claim to get you in the top 10 for your keywords.

I worked with one SEO company that is pretty large. Their entire focus was content. Content is huge; I concur. But in my estimation they did not have a comprehensive approach to SEO. Basically they had the customer choose the keywords and they sent me copy to add to the site. The result? Very poor, to say the least. I only wish I was more vocal with the customer about their choice.

A good SEO consultant will certainly get your input regarding search terms. But they will also do a comprehensive analysis of your competitors as well as what search terms are the money makers - meaning those that are more likely to lead to conversion traffic, not just more traffic. Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let’s talk about what goes into page optimization.

Key components of page optimization

I said this is the easiest of the steps. Perhaps I should have said most straight forward. Let’s take a closer look at each one. They are:

• Good copy writing
• Technical considerations
• Page layout

Don’t skimp on good copy

I used to write quite a bit. Short stories, songs, poetry. You name it, I tried to write it. In fact, there was a time when I fancied the idea of becoming an author. You may have your own aspiring writers on staff. Perhaps you’ll task them with writing your Web copy. If so, keep this in mind. Writing for the Web is different than the high-toned language a university professor may require, or the no-nonsense approach of a project proposal or manual. Successful Web copy is often less formal and more personal. And the balance a writer must strike with SEO copy is to be able to appeal to the reader and search engines simultaneously. That’s not an art that is taught overnight. A good SEO copy writer will not only keep the user first, but will also understand how search engines “see” text. They’ll be able to work awkward search phrases into the copy without it sounding forced. They’ll also be more “thematic” and not just load the page with keywords.

Technical aspects of optimizing

In today’s Web development arena many of the technical aspects of optimization are addressed by most developers. A growing number of content management systems also include SEO-friendly features such as how the URLs are rendered and CSS vs JavaScript menu systems. Be sure your vendor(s) used for SEO and Web development are crossing the “T’s” and dotting the “I’s” in terms of well formed HTML.

Page layout

You must know how and when to strike a balance between what the user sees and what the search engine sees in the area of page layout. Page design can impact how it’s interpreted by a search engine. For example, the most important content should be close to the top of the page. But other page elements such as graphics and use of HTML tables can push that content lower as far as a search engine is concerned. Your vendor will know certain tricks of the trade to help facilitate this while not sacrificing your page’s usability.

Final thoughts for on-page optimization

Make sure your vendor addresses all aspects of on-page optimization: copy, technical and page layout. It will be helpful to introduce the SEO consultant to your Web developers so they can work together to get the results you desire. Avoid the tendency to focus initially on this step and be wary of low-budget consultants who want to steer you to do so.

If you’ve done your homework in the first two steps, this step should be pretty straight forward. In my next post, I’ll address one of the more misunderstood parts of SEO - link building.

SEO Demystified: Site Design & Structure

This is the third installment in the SEO Demystified series. Since each post builds on the previous one, I decided to link them in the right-hand column. If you missed the first two, I recommend starting from the introduction.

It’s also worth repeating that these articles are written to educate you in the craft of Search Engine Optimization. They are not intended to help you implement SEO. In fact, if you’ve read the first two posts you’ll notice that I continually encourage you to hire a seasoned professional. You’ll fare much better in the long run.

Where to begin?

A huge factor in SEO is the overall site structure of your Website. If a search engine cannot crawl your site in an effective way, your ranking will suffer. Likewise, the site’s internal linking structure influences an individual page’s ranking in very subtle ways. So where do you begin? Well, as they say, at the beginning.

In an ideal world, you will plan SEO during the site design or redesign. I always try to encourage clients to think this way, even if they do not see an SEO project on the horizon. Spending a little time and money on the front end can save some headaches later on. But ideal is often not reality. In most cases there is a time crunch or budgetary constraint that prevents too much effort here. We always include basic things like descriptive page titles and hypertext links, a site map uploaded to Google and meta data that houses site description and key words. But these are basic steps; not intended to replace a well structured site.

From keyword strategy to site design & structure

In the most simplistic terms, the point in the Site Design & Structure step is to map the terms you’ve selected in the first step onto pages within the site. If you do this properly, it will help your visitor arrive at the best landing page for their needs. For example, some users will simply be gathering information, while others will be comparing alternatives or deciding where they will purchase. Each type of user will have different reasons for visiting your site and will arrive through different search terms. As a result, you will have different copy, graphics and navigation all designed to mesh effortlessly. You can see why it’s better to approach a site design with SEO in mind.

You will design and structure your site with these two questions in mind. Can search engines crawl the site? Will users be able to easily navigate the site? There are both technical and usability considerations here. Be sure your SEO consultant can address both.

Remember, your goal is to bring those folks who search on your key phrases to the pages that offer the best match for their queries. No matter where a visitor lands, you want to guide them to your site’s sales funnel, so not only will you want to be sure your site can be crawled by the search engines, but is also easily navigated by the user.

If you have an existing site and embark on an SEO campaign, it is highly likely that you will be asked to implement certain changes to improve a search engine’s ability to crawl your site and a user’s ability to navigate your site.

My next post will address what most people think of when they hear the term Search Engine Optimization — optimizing Web pages. Years ago, it was the primary area consultants focused on. Today, it’s really the easiest.

SEO Demystified: Keyword Strategy

In my last post, Intro to SEO Demystified, I defined SEO and introduced the steps or phases of a typical SEO campaign. Today, I want to delve into the first one — keyword strategy. As I stated at the outset, this isn’t intended to be an in-depth look, but more of a primer to help you make informed decisions and take the mystique out of what some see as a confusing, even dubious, aspect of the Web world.

Keyword Strategy

First and foremost to any SEO campaign is the research and analysis required to arrive at a solid set of keywords and phrases that you will target in your campaign. This is not an exact science, though a seasoned SEO professional will not only have good tools, but also a keen sense for what will work and what will prove less efficient.

Everything else you do flows out of the decisions you make during this step. Its importance cannot be overstated.

Be aware of SEO companies that guarantee top keyword placement. Oftentimes, the keywords are so obscure that even with top placement, you will not see any additional traffic because they are not words or phrases people are searching on.

A good SEO company will do a couple of things as part of the keyword strategy. First they will want to do a site analysis to see what technical or architectural aspects of your site may need to be tweaked for optimal search engine friendliness and to determine your current keyword phrases and modifiers, based on use and density. Second they will work closely with you through several steps of creating your keyword list. They may ask you to come up with an initial seed list, but be prepared to answer questions about your industry and competition. In the end, you will have keyword phrases, terms and themes that you’ll use for the other phases of the SEO campaign. Whatever you do, please don’t skimp here. Your participation and thoughtful reflection are crucial to the success of this step.

What if I want to do this myself?

Even if you decide to strike out on your own to try SEO, consider hiring a consultant to help you know what to do and what tools are available (free or subscription-based). I suggest this route because even the initial step of keyword research can be daunting. For example, keyword research involves looking at competing sites, perusing forums and newsgroups and utilizing search engine keyword suggestion tools.

But the final list of keywords is only part of the equation. You need them sorted according to the proper metrics such as popularity, relevance and competition. There are many tools out there, and some work better than others. Having a relationship with a trusted SEO consultant is an invaluable way to “apprentice” during your first campaign.

That said, it has been my experience that most organizations simply do not have the internal resources with the necessary skills to effectively go with this approach. A couple of years ago, a number of the non-profit organizations I served wanted to pursue SEO, but they didn’t have the budget. So I created a tutorial that gave step-by-step instructions on how to optimize their site. I gave them to several folks and as far as I know, not one organization ever utilized it.

More about Metrics

Be mindful of using too broad or too narrow keywords or keyword phrases. Very broad and popular keywords such as coffee will have fierce competition and companies pay big money to have their sites rank high for those. Very narrow keywords are less likely to be searched on. You may rank number two with a niche phrase but only have 10 people a month searching on that term. It’s important to understand and weigh the balance between value and competition. Then you can effectively evaluate search terms that are too competitive and ones that may be good opportunities. There are other pieces that come into play here such as a competitor’s external profile, on-page factors and any Pay-per click (PPC) campaign they may be doing.

In other words, you need to know how much effort has been put into their in-bound link strategy, how they have developed dedicated landing pages to targeted search terms, how well they have optimized their site for these terms and what sort of bidding and money has been invested for PPC campaigns. A good SEO consultant can provide a pretty accurate lay of the land, though it’s unlikely they’ll be able to tell you dollar amounts for any PPC campaign.

Keyword research and metrics is a very deep topic and there is no way to cover all aspects and stay within the stated bounds of this article. I only touched on competition here. Relevance and weighted popularity are just as important.

Sum it up in three words

I think it was 1992 when the Atlanta Braves went worst-to-first and won the division championship. I’ll never forget Otis Nixon’s comment in the excitement of the win. He said, “I can sum it up in three words; it don’t get no better than this.”

Well, I must confess that I’m beginning to sense the same thing happening to me. My goal was to write a couple of brief posts to give you a high level understanding of SEO. I’m on my second and so far I’ve only managed to define it and talk briefly about one of 6 steps. Like Otis, in the excitement of the moment I didn’t realize how many words it would take.

But the truth is that SEO requires a good grasp of the basics, an understanding of the tools involved and how to effectively use them. Perhaps most intangible and elusive of all, a seasoned SEO consultant will have a feel for search engine trends and how changes in a major player’s algorithms affect the way an SEO campaign should be approached. It’s the last characteristic that separates the veterans from the rest.

If I try to keep it too brief, I will not give you a good foundation. So that’s all the apology I’ll offer. My next installment will address Site Design and Structure. You can have the best keyword strategy on the planet, but if search engines cannot crawl your site, then you won’t get indexed. That means you won’t show up on the search results page. So stay tuned.