I went photo-walking with the Basel Photography Meetup on Saturday. The theme was #Openings.
On my way into town, I saw this yellow monster. Nothing open about it. And very noisy.
I like this snapshot of openings within a gate:
This snapshot of some openings in this construction site scaffolding fits my likeable criteria equally well:
An enjoyable photo-walk thru Basel.
Yesterday, I set my alarm to 6 am and jumped on the 7:33 train to Zürich-Oerlikon. On a Saturday. To attend a barcamp on media.
If you are unfamiliar with the concept of barcamps, a barcamp is a conference that organizes the talks by itself, on the day, Someone provides some rooms and infrastructure such as wifi and screens. And they send out invites via Twitter and other social media channels.
And that’s how i found my way to #medienbc, the event’s hashtag.
In yesterday’s case, the Medien-Barcamp organizers had access to the rooms of SRF, the Swiss public radio and TV station, in Zürich.
It’s not my first barcamp. I’ve attended many and even presented topics at some. Yesterday I was in listening mode.
Here’s a brief recap of the talks that I attended:
First, I attended a talk by Markus on Voice User Interfaces. He provided an excellent intro to the rise of voice. He says many new jobs are being created in this space. And I made a mental note to look up SSML.
Fabian and David invited us to discuss how to get more “old” people engaged on social media. The discussion covered a lot of ground:
Next, I listened to Vincenzo talk about the challenges and learnings of setting up an email newsletter for a small regional newspaper. A very honest and useful talk. His newspaper uses a tool called Revue, by a Dutch startup, cos it’s even simpler than Mailchimp.
I peeked into the session on no-budget video production. I would like to learn more about this.
I listened to a talk on analytics. Not new for me, but I was curious to see SimilarWeb. It looks a lot like SEMRush.
We looked at the stats for Nau.ch that had just announced it is now making a profit. The stats showed Nau.ch is investing in organic search. Markus recommended that journalists do keyword research for their articles. I would think that is obvious by now.
In the last session of the day, I got valuable advice on how to prepare to speak in front of audience or take part in an interview. In my own words:
Thank you to the organisers and participants for an enjoyable and fulfilling event. Good food, awesome location, great speakers. I like barcamp sessions cos we can leave out the sales speak and dig deeper. I feel excited and encouraged.
There are so many beautiful poppies this year. I captured some impressions on Flickr. It must be the additional rain that causes poppies to bloom. The field next to Fondation Beyeler is red with flowers.
Smug Mug acquired Flickr in April 2018. The question every long-term Flickr user is asking:
Should I renew my subscription?
I’ve been on Flickr for a very long time. And seen many ups and downs. Probably more downs. And it’s 2019 and I still use Flickr.
I have some time until my subscription expires. I have a local copy of all of my photos and I’ve started to pull a backup of my Flickr account.
The question is: Should I stay or should I go? And if I go, where should I go? And does it matter?
It’s the 6th of January. And… I already went for a run three times this week. I hope to continue my running streak throughout the winter months.
The plan is to carve out 30 minutes per day.
And perhaps I’ll write about it here. Because writing helps.
Beautiful sunny October in Basel
I was interviewed by Ursula Thomas-Stein on SEO.
Check out this podcast.
Much like how today I’d take 10 email subscribers to my newsletter over 1,000 Facebook “likes,” I think in the future, we’d all much rather have 10 Google searches for our brand name than 1,000 Google searches for phrases on which we’re trying to both rank and compete for a click against Google themselves.
Sparktoro
I like this definition of humility.
Summer of 2018 will be remembered for its long, extended heatwave.
Five pillars of collaborative product ownership. As seen here on Linkedin.
I think this works for other work situations as well.
BTW, I’m testing Gutenberg…
Maybe this will happen soon… Read this Techcrunch article
it’s #MyTwitterAnniversary pic.twitter.com/Ve3HsmBghR
”” Panchenga (@nchenga) April 14, 2018
Wow.
Here are my slides from my recent Women in Digital talk in Basel. I made them “resource-full” with lots of background links.
The session was interactive from the start. Lots of questions throughout. Wow. I think the topic hit a nerve.
Notes:
SEO for small business websites
How do you get found in an increasingly busy and complex online search market?
Are you a small business owner looking to get started with SEO? Already got a site up but the traffic is low? In my presentation I discussed key requirements for a web presence and how to stay focussed.
Intro
Be nimble, fast, smart – use your smallness as an advantage
“Small businesses can compete with large companies if they keep in mind that search engine optimization is a marathon, not a sprint.”
1) Learn the basics of SEO
2) Do your marketing homework!
Carry out:
See also my previous blog post on SEO for B2B services and products
3) Does your site match the intended purpose? Does it answer your client’s question?
Google looks at your site as a whole, as well as on a per-page-basis. Keep in mind that SEO is evolving. There are lots of additional items you need to grapple with.
4) On-page factors
5) Local
I expect Google to offer more local search results, based on location and tailored to smartphone sensor data.
6) Technical SEO
In 2018 technical aspects will re-gain importance. Test your page speed. Clean up crawl errors and duplicates.
7) Plan your content
Text fonts and page layout matter:
“On an average web page, users read 20% of the words.”
Include:
8) Promote your site
9) Measure. Add improvements. Repeat.
A page isn’t getting enough traffic? Why? Thin content? Go back and try and figure out why. Test how you can improve? Add Heading 2s. Add an additional paragraph.
“What kind of web content would you find useful?”
Ask your clients for website feedback.
Or if it isn’t working, maybe you’ll need to re-think your marketing approach?
Links:
SEO basics for entrepreneurs: Easy tips for optimizing your website
Small business SEO: Your questions answered
How to Rank in 2018: The SEO Checklist – Whiteboard Friday
How Google Gives Us Insight into Searcher Intent Through the Results – Whiteboard Friday
Free add-on: Answers to the questions on Slides 9 and 10
Before my talk, I asked some entrepreneurs in my community what SEO questions they have, what challenges they face. Here are some answers of the top of my head:
Question 1: I don’t want to invent the wheel, so what basics do I need to know about SEO or do myself?
My answer: I recommend reading Moz’s beginners guide to SEO. If you are publishing your own website content, please read thru the section on on-page ranking factors. On-page changes are the easiest to influence and take care of.
The other thing to watch out for is that your small business website follows best practises.
If you are using a content management system, make sure the site is fast. Try to reduce CMS bloat as much as possible.
Check that each piece of content is accessible via only one URL.
Duplicate content issues may arise when Google can access the same piece of content via multiple URLs. Without one clear version, pages will compete with one another unnecessarily.
In developer’s eyes, a page is unique if it has a unique ID in the website’s database, while for search engines the URL is a unique identifier. A developer should be reminded that each piece of content should be accessed via only one URL.
(Source: Strategic SEO Decisions to Make Before Website Design and Build)
Plan your site structure. Decide on languages and regions.
Question 2: What are the top 3 mistakes that I have to avoid?
My answer: There’s lots of things that can go wrong.
Question 3: Is SEO and web design totally connected, or can I outsource this to separate providers?
My answer: Web design and SEO are connected by the words usability and user experience. Google looks at engagement metrics. If web visitors land on your web page and leave after a split second, despite having good SEO content, then it might be due to your web design. You don’t need to assign design and development to the same provider. The times when designers wanted to use Adobe Flash for their designs are thankfully over. If your website design follows common web design patterns, you’ll be fine. Make sure the fonts are easy to read on different devices
Question 4: How do I select an SEO provider?
My answer: Ask lots of questions. Be wary if they promise too much. Discuss your business goals.
Via Moz here are some questions to ask:
Question 5: How regular should I, or my provider, work actively on the SEO to keep the good results? Or: what is my decay-time?
My answer: It depends on the purpose of your website. If you are building a webshop or an e-commerce app, you will need to invest a lot more energy, time, resources, and money than if you are a consultant for a service that is highly in demand.
As a newcomer, you’ll need to build a web reputation.
If I’m building a consultancy business, I’d start off with blocking off 2 SEO time-slots per week.
A typical, regular SEO content activity is for instance
Question 6: Should I do SEO in every language of my website?
My answer: Yes. Without adequate SEO keyphrase analysis, the translation doesn’t perform well. After translation, you should check and adjust headings and tags to match your primary and related keyphrases.
Question 7: Is SEO scalable? Meaning: if I have set up my SEO properly, that with every added search word, I have proportionally more results? Or do I have diminishing returns, every time I add a search word, or content improvement? Where do I reach the optimum in money and effect?
My answer: If you’ve built a good web reputation and found the topics that your clients are interested in, it will get easier. Please note: SEO is a mid-term or long-term investment. There’s a risk that Google will change its algorithm and something that worked 6 months ago may no longer work now. Google is investing heavily into artificial intelligence and in some ways this will level the playing field. I would focus on finding the topics and questions that your clients are looking for. Build a website that helps clients get their jobs done.
Question 8: How do I measure success with SEO? Proof that it works!
My answer: This is the huge benefit of digital marketing. It is measurable. Before starting any SEO project, decide on your measure of success and discuss in detail with your SEO provider.
Again, consider your business goals: What’s the purpose of your website? Do you want to get more contact form submissions? More downloads? More shopping cart submissions? Measure a conversion rate that is important for your business success.
I would avoid vanity goals like “more traffic”.
Question 9: What are the content activities I should do that help with better SEO results? Like: weekly blog publication, news items, reposting other people’s content”¦ etc?
My answer: Blogging is a good way to get started and to find what resonates and what doesn’t. If you have relevant news or if you are attending an event, I would also share these. I’ve moved away from “content curation” (= reposting other people’s content) for B2B purposes. Curating content is time consuming. If you see a piece of content that fits, I would quote it but try to write my own version. Consider other content types such as interviews, videos, audio podcasts. And build good pillar pages on your core topics.
And once you have created good content, give it as much promotion as your budget and resources allow.
Here’s a useful reminder to make sure your PDFs contain useful SEO-relevant infos and links:
10 tips to make your PDFs SEO friendly
In my experience this is where many B2B companies can improve. Often the PDFs don’t contain any useful titles or descriptions. Sometimes they show the draft infos. In many companies, PDFs aren’t reviewed by the SEO team. Very often managers don’t want to go back to the DTP team. Yet another change request.
Solution? Raise awareness from the start.
Is this a PDF that will be hosted online?
Do you want web visitors to find it?
A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to provide some free consulting on how I would start SEO for a new B2B services or products company.
Here are my notes:
#Sandra’s advice on how to start
There are different kinds of web visitors. Try to find groups and segments, and the info that they are looking for.
These include:
Learn as much as you can about your web visitors, clients and potential clients.
Build a persona description for each important web visitor group. This will help you create web pages and blog posts tailored to this type of web visitor.
Interview clients (if you are allowed to) and client-facing staff (if you are not).
Analyse the websites of competitors.
Remember, products and services that achieve a similar solution to yours are also competitors. I encountered technology companies that argued there’s no competition for their new service. Many times they ignored substitutes.
#Factors influencing SEO (cross-clicks, anchor texts?)
Follow best practices for on-page SEO.
On-Page SEO: Anatomy of a Perfectly Optimized Page (2017 Update) https://t.co/QJuq8sfJGT via @Backlinko
— Panchenga (@nchenga) October 17, 2017
Remember that page titles and meta descriptions are the very first texts that a web visitor will see in the SERPs. Prepare these two with care.
For any web page, these elements remain important:
Follow the tips in this article on RankBrain:
Publishing long paragraphs without headings, bullet lists, images is a recipe for failure. Many people scan thru a web page before they dig in.
Remember that Google is looking at many additional factors. It measures engagement.
#Keyword research
Think in topics.
Consider search intent. Are search words informational or transactional? Always check the SERPs to see what kind of results display.
Voice search is changing how keyword research has been done in the past couple of years. Expect more 3-word phrases, more questions, more variants as people search by speaking to Cortana, Alexa, and Google Voice Search.
#Content/Inbound marketing
Content should be “useful” for your clients, help them achieve their work goals faster, educate them.
Who cares if you are the world leader? Can you solve my business problem? Are you a reliable provider? This is more relevant to me.
Here’s a good test:
Regular blog posts:
You need both: Quality and quantity.
If you can: Try two new blog posts per week. Higher frequency helps you find what will stick faster.
#Platforms (B2B) ”“ target, content, frequency
Find out what your competitors are doing (special industry platforms?, Twitter? Linkedin? Whatsup groups? Chatbots?)
Linkedin is probably the best B2B social media platform of the moment.
Build communities of people interested in your service.
Promote your content on social media.
#Measurement and evaluation
Tools I use regularly include:
Measure the number of leads to try and find what kind of pages or marketing activity will convert better.
Find out how many sessions you need to convert a web visitor into a lead.
Get a tool like OpenInbound.com or Leadberry.com to see the customer journey on your site.
WordPress plugin for OpenInbound:
Drupal module for OpenInbound:
https://www.drupal.org/project/openinbound
Measure usability with Hotjar or Crazy Egg.
#References on internet marketing for further studying
I read a huge amount of SEO news. Regular reads include:
Moz.com
Backlinko.com
Searchengineland.com
Be careful, even wary, of case studies, success stories, sweeping generalizations, easy fixes.
#Consider the interdisciplinary nature of SEO
Technical aspects, content, interaction design, usability, marketing strategy need to play together.
Build a small, agile team.
End of September is anniversary time. When I remember packing my Mazda 323 and driving over the alps to Lugano. Moving from Germany to Switzerland.
WordPress is very popular. Some stats say 25% of all websites are made with WordPress. Popularity comes at a price. Security is more important than ever.
To refresh my knowledge, I am working my way thru this Udemy course on WordPress maintenance.
Fished this from my Twitter timeline:
.@CrossroadsBasel stop waiting for what you want and start working with what you have
— Panchenga (@nchenga) May 21, 2017
I attended last Saturday’s #uxcampch in Zürich.
First talk was on designing screens for HbbTV. 10 Foot UI. Samuel Raymann talked about his project at SRG and designing for TV sets. I liked this project report about design challenges.
Good talk by @samraymann on HbbTv design challenges
— Panchenga (@nchenga) May 20, 2017
Next, I joined a discussion on digital education. Difficult to summarize in a couple of words. Apparently, even in 2017, there are tonnes of teachers that don’t use digital resources and apps in their teaching plans. At the same time, many students are distracted by very elaborate, leading edge, commercial apps. Educational software publishers could benefit from UX methodology and agile processes. And one attendee suggested UX designers should consider enter the teaching profession.
Then, there was a session on virtual reality. One hololens and 120 attendees. And very shaky videos as we watched people try out the headset. Conclusion: User interaction is not quite there yet. The hand gestures are quite difficult to learn, it seems.
I felt this session shows what is happening. Enthusiasts, gamers, early adopters are embracing virtual reality, augmented reality faster than ever before. While at the same time the digital divide is increasing (c.f. educational system). Many of us, normal folks, will be consumers of elaborate marketing and manipulation machines that we don’t know how to program.
One thing to note is: voice control will become more widespread.
"Where did I put that window?" #hololens #augmentedReality #uxcampch pic.twitter.com/GzLRMPB6gG
— Kristiina Juu (@kristiinajuu) May 20, 2017
In many ways the VR session reminded me of shaky holiday videos from long ago. But it’s coming into our daily lives in a big way.
I have the impression that basic interaction principles (selection and modification) are very hard to do with a hololens. #UXcampCH
— Philipp Murkowsky (@pmurkowsky) May 20, 2017
Other sessions of note:
Making privacy useable
Hey #uxcampch folks: I posted the slides of my talk about "Making privacy useable" here. https://t.co/AZN01Ni4vY
— Philipp Murkowsky (@pmurkowsky) May 20, 2017
Users don't care about metadata! Very interesting presentation about #dataprivacy @pmurkowsky @uxcampch #uxcampch pic.twitter.com/eBlOCcRPcz
— natalie kirkoroglu (@_DigitalPanda) May 20, 2017
Conversational Design
#Slides von meinem #Workshop zu #conversational_design am #uxcampch findet ihr auf #slideshare: https://t.co/tkjuTEEKMI pic.twitter.com/eY4tTcjw6F
— Martin (@mk_it_easy) May 20, 2017
On design sprints
Here are the slides of the #DesignSprint workshop at #UXcampCHhttps://t.co/iLqlFeEe0W
— Pat Mächler (@Valio_ch) May 20, 2017
Big thank you to the organizers.
I liked 2 Jeff Gotthelf tweets on design:
Q: How do we integrate design into #agile ?
A: Company must recognize that design is part of "how we work." w/o that,design de-prioritized
— Jeff Gothelf (@jboogie) May 15, 2017
There are tactics that help visualize the design work, but if the org doesn't perceive the value of design, priority will always go to dev.
— Jeff Gothelf (@jboogie) May 15, 2017