My brother was a bull rider. He had a lot of fun, even created some of his own bull riding events and raised bulls. It’s the source of a lot of joy for him still. It was also the source of a lot of pain; he had broken bones, blood clots and had every bone on the left side of his face smashed by the horns of a bull as he lay unconscious at a rodeo in Austin, Texas (he’s still a gorgeous young man thanks to the miracle of a Texas plastic surgeon who does nothing but fix broken bull riders).

He said the best advice he ever got about bull riding was to be consistent (the riders who consistently got 73’s won more money than the rider who occasionally threw up an 85) and to pretend like you have to stay on the bull for 9 seconds instead of 8. The theory goes that it’s, in part, a psychological game. If you think you have to stay on for 9 seconds, it makes it easier to stay on for 8. This theory can be applied to web design. Websites have 8 seconds to capture a visitor’s attention and cue them to continued time on site, pretend like you have only 7 seconds. As web marketers we like to cover our bases. Did we talk about our products? Did we establish our value proposition? Did we share our philosophy? There are many questions to be answered from a single page, but make certain you establish the important ones on a cursory glance of your web site.

Today’s more sophisticated algorithms deliver traffic deeper into a site, not just to the home page. That means we need to be even more vigilant when we’re assessing the purpose of a page. Here’s a great exercise for your team. Pick the top 20 landing pages on your site and review them one at a time (get customers to help with a mini focus group if possible) and ask these questions:

*What does this company do?

*Is it clear what I should do next?

If they’re able to assess these questions and act in 8 seconds you’re doing your job. If not, spend time discussing how you can improve your landing pages. Remember that, at the end of the day, your visitors have the final say. Review your analytics and assess how well you’re accomplishing these goals based on visitor action.

Another element of web design is acknowledging different personas on each page. Some visitors may be ready to buy, others may want to get to know you (lead generation) and others may just be looking for information to help them make a decision. Some personas are browsers, some search with pinpoint accuracy. Delivering the design, content and site elements your visitors need to make decisions is a daunting, but not impossible task.

Just as you wouldn’t have a house built without an architect, so should you not build a website without a designer. Designers understand these elements in a way the marketer and web programmer do not. They understand white space, how colors and fonts evoke emotion, spatial elements that trigger eye tracking and other design principles. You can avoid some of the pain of web design by engaging with a professional.

It’s also important to understand the principles of usability. Shari Thurow has been a mentor since I first began web marketing as a career. Her constant pleas to give as much focus to website usability as we do to SEO are finally being heeded (especially now that site performance is becoming more important and relevant to Google’s algorithm). She reminded us that, as search professionals, we have two customers, the search engines and our visitors. You can make a lot of design mistakes and the engines won’t punish you, but your visitors will. At the end of the day your visitors buy your product or service. Engage a web designer at the beginning of your plans for development. Allow your visitors to find what THEY want, and they’ll do what YOU want.

In bull riding the rider is given two scores, one for the rider and one for the bull, a potential of 50 points for each for a total of 100 points. If only one is performing, the score will reflect that lack of performance. As a search marketing professional, your web designer is a foundational part of your web score, don’t leave them out of the mix. (Also remember that, just as in bull riding, it’s nearly impossible to get a score of 100;)

Recently, I presented at a Software Association of Oregon meeting for our local Columbia Gorge Chapter and Gorge Tech Allliance on the topic, “Growing Your Online Marketing Channel”. It was a great group of local businesses with a focus on tech companies, but retail, non profit and content sites were represented as well.

When broaching a topic this wide, it’s easy to get caught up in over simplifying or over whelming. Summit Projects Executive Account Manager Rob McCreedy presented great information and case studies from their Nike sites and gave some helpful guidelines for understanding Website Usability.

My focus was creating framework for good Search Engine Optimization and how Natural Search can help grow your business. The hardest part about these short meetings is providing value. We could spend a week on Keyword Research alone (1 of 15 slides in a 20 minute presentation). It’s always the hope that these educational meeting lay the groundwork for understanding that Web Marketing and Search Marketing are complex disciplines and that investing in your success as a business owner is worth your time. This takes a great deal of insight and responsibility from the business owner.

The two biggest issues I see with business owners struggling to make the decision to grow their online marketing channel (especially small to mid-size business) are:

ISSUE
1) The desire to spend precious little time or budget on online marketing, then having unrealistic expectations regarding results.

SOLUTION
As a business owner, create an expectation for your marketing agency for ROI. Research the potential for growth for your company online, determine your ability to garner more of the market place, define parameters for potential growth and make decisions about investing in search marketing, web development and other online marketing strategies.

ISSUE
2) The expectation that you can pay an agency for a project, walk away and return to great results.

Get involved with your agency and collaborate through the entire project. As a write this, I think about a project we’re working on now. The business owner (I’ll share more about the project upon completion;) has been involved, not just with creating project parameters, but with design, content development and user experience. It’s not an easy process to say the least, but the potential for success of the project increases dramatically with your involvement as a business owner. No one knows your business better than you.

Kudos to those who attended this (or any) meeting exploring Growing Your Online Marketing Channel, and dare to take the next step and create an actionable strategy for growing your business online. If you think you need more education, attend SEMPDX meetings, attend local Community Education courses, read articles on the topic (ClickZ or SearchEngineLand) or reach out to an agency who has provided results for their clients.