Richard Falconer

I’ve been working with a couple of friends to build a fan site for the HBO show, Boardwalk Empire.  I’ve used Drupal as a platform for the first time and whilst I’ve had a few issues it’s been relatively pain free and quick to set up.

There’s still a long way to go before the site is anywhere near complete but that’s okay since the show doesn’t air in the US until Autumn and I’m guessing it won’t hit these shores until the Winter.  Doesn’t hurt to start promoting early though

Crooked Tongues Screenshot

Online marketing can be a frustrating business.  It’s difficult for big companies to be passionate enough about their product to actually sell it well.  When you find a site that really does and you know it’s got a big future.

I was talking trainers the other day and was recommended Crooked Tongues. I’ve spent a bit of time (not to mention cash) on the site now and although there are some pretty basic SEO problems that haven’t been taken care of  it doesn’t really matter. This site is built around the product – trainers.  Selling them almost feels like a necessary afterthought but undoubtedly they must be selling tonnes.

So, where are they getting it right?

So many places but it basically boils down to giving a shit about the stuff they sell.  They are talking trainers on the site, not just making conversions.  Take a look at the top level navigation.  It’s not category pages; mens, womens, kids etc. Instead the top priority is given to news, editorial, on show, forum etc. with a single link to the ecommerce store.  This goes against the grain of what almost every other site is doing.

Crooked Tongues is exactly the sort of site that Matt Cutts has said should do well in search results and it appears to be doing just that.  Their budget must be small compared to the big online sports retailers but they do pretty well in the few searches I made.  It has plenty of good content and is very engaging, it’s not just another e-commerce site.

Granted, it’s selling a product that people really care about but the lessons here can be passed on to any site.  The passion and understanding that you have about your product is transmitted in so many ways. For example, writing a quality blog and linking to it prominently on your site is a great way to send the message that you care about your product.   Interacting properly with your users (they are users who buy things, not just customers) via forums and social media is huge.

Sales in social media is a secondary effect.  Interaction should happen because you care about the user and the product you are selling.  It’s very obvious to users when a blog/tweet or facebook page is an afterthought.  There may be some benefit to it but the real benefit only comes when you actively engage because you care.  In this case the prominence of the blog, forums etc.on the site is really important.  I would go so far as to say that the day it changes, you’ll know they’ve sold out.

Imagine if you did the SEO and other online marketing equally well? Maybe they are, I’ve not looked too hard into it but I like to think that’s how I would run my online store.

I’ll retract all of this if my trainers don’t arrive tomorrow

Google yesterday launched its new social offering, Buzz. How many social sites now share the same name? Surely they can’t all be happy?  Unlikely….

First off, Yahoo! named one of the social features Yahoo! Buzz 18 months ago. Yahoo Buzz is a Digg clone where users can vote for articles. It also feeds into Yahoo! Updates which is the Yahoo version of what Google has named Buzz in that it is based around its email service (Gmail) and has similar functionality. Yahoo is likely to be displeased about Google using the exact same name.

Yahoo released a statement during the launch of Google Buzz with an update on the current status of Yahoo! Updates. No mention was made of Google’s presumably intentional name theft and the email, which can be read here, appears to be an attempt to gain some attention during the launch of Google Buzz.

At Buzz.com there is a site that begs further questions over the name “Buzz” for a social website. It is owned by AT&T and has not yet been publicly launched yet. On the homepage it says “Want to know the best places to go or businesses to call? Let buzz.com help you tap your social net for business recommendations from the people you trust most – your friends and family.” – sound familiar? Yes, another potentially big player on the social media scene. How serious they are will be put to the test with Google stealing their name from under them.

Again it seems highly unlikely that Google didn’t know about AT&T’s little adventure into the land of social media. I’d like to check how long the site has been there in that state but archive.org has become unbelievably slow or simply doesn’t work of late. Either way, there is no way someone in Google wouldn’t have at least looked at what was at buzz.com, checked who owned it or at the very least done a Google search for “buzz” where the site sits on the first page – I smell a deliberate attempt to undermine their competitors.

It gets murkier too, as I found this article from only a couple of weeks ago.  It seems that Buzz.com is AT&T’s version of Yelp, which you may remember Google is reputed to be trying to purchase for $500m.