"Kitchen Nightmares" as website nightmares

Gordon Ramsay is a well-known chef around the world. He has set up many successful restaurants, but his success is mainly based on his television shows like "Hell's Kitchen" and "Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares," and the swear words he uses in these shows.

In "Kitchen Nightmares," he comes into a restaurant, which is usually almost bankrupt and barely attracting any customers, and helps save it. Strangely enough, looking at that show can help you a lot when optimizing your website. Think whatever you want about Ramsay and his swearing, but he knows what he's talking about.

It turns out running a website is just like running a restaurant. Let's take a look at some lessons we can learn from Gordon Ramsay.

Clean up Your Menu

Most restaurants Ramsay visits in his "Kitchen Nightmares" have extended menus. The owners try to put up as much food as possible, with as much variety as possible, to give their guests as much to choose from as they can. Ramsay always cleans up the menu and focuses on only a few dishes and making these special.

Most websites have the same problem. There are so many sites out there which are so full of information that you can't find what you're looking for, even if you try. These sites often also have a hard time ranking because search engines simply can't place the content.

Too much varied content won't help your site, so start cleaning up your menu. Focus on the really important areas for your potential visitors and create landing pages for those. Make the specials interesting for your guests!

Find Your Niche

There are many restaurants out there, which means a lot of competition. To stand out from all the competition, Ramsay looks for a niche. Is there no fish restaurant? Make a fish restaurant. Is there no "original burger joint"? Create one.

Ramsay is looking for niches, and so should you as a website owner when optimizing your site. Why try to rank for that one high volume keyword which also has a lot of competition? Aim for the long tail and find keywords that will make your website stand out.

Redecorate

Most restaurants you see on "Kitchen Nightmares" are horribly decorated. My grandmother wouldn't even bother to walk in because they look so old fashioned. So Ramsay decides to clean them up and redecorate.

Many site owners should consider cleaning up, too. You can optimize a site all you want, but if it doesn't look appealing to your visitors, you can rank number one forever without converting.

Get Your Kitchen Sorted Out

In watching the show, you see the horrific state some kitchens are in. If guests saw how their food was being prepared in these areas, they would instantly walk out. A restaurant that runs well needs a kitchen that runs well. Without the right material, no good food will come out of the kitchen.

The same goes for a profitable website. If you have a bad CMS, if the technical part of the site is failing, you won't rank. So make sure your "kitchen" is in order: check and optimize your site speed, make sure there are no frames, and have a technical SEO look at your CMS.

Cook What Your Guests Want to Eat

They say restaurant owners are stubborn, and that they tend to think they know what's best for their customers. You often see those restaurant owners ignoring the things the visitors are actually asking for, which leads to customers not returning to the restaurant.

Well, if restaurant owners are stubborn, most website owners are even more so. I've dealt with many clients pushing elements on the site they liked very much, without listening to the (potential) visitors.

I've heard the phrase "it's my site, I'll put on it whatever I want" way too many times. My answer has always been: "it's not your site, it's your visitors' site.

This goes for design elements, but also for SEO elements. Using keywords that nobody is searching for is still a huge issue on most websites. Listen to Gordon Ramsay here: focus on what your visitor wants, not what you think is best.

Get the Right People in the Kitchen

Have you seen the shows in which the restaurant owner was also the chef, the head waiter, and the host all at once, but he really couldn't cook or wait at all? These restaurants are usually doomed. Ramsay tries to get the owner out of the kitchen as soon as he can and tries to find a real chef to run the kitchen.

Things aren't much different with websites. There are way too many site owners out there who think they can run both the technical, content, and search marketing part of the site, when they actually don't know what they're talking about.

Site owners must make sure to get the right people to do the right jobs. A professional SEO or a professional technician can make all the difference when it comes to ranking.

Give Your Potential Visitors a Taste of What They Can Expect

On every show, Ramsay tries to find new visitors for the restaurant. He goes out and talks to people, but he also takes the "improved" employees from the restaurant out on the street to spread the word on the "new and improved" restaurant. They usually give the people on the street a taste of what they can expect -- something small, but delicious.

A website owner should also go out and give potential visitors a taste of what they can expect. This is easier for a site owner than a restaurant owner -- after all, he can get his titles and descriptions right and he can use social media to go out to where his potential customers are and give them a little taste of what to expect.

Aim for High Quality

One thing makes Ramsay (and all great chefs) so much better than most others: quality. Ramsay always aims for the high standards. Trying to stand out is what makes a restaurant successful.

Site owners must be that chef who aims for high quality. Half a site won't attract many visitors, it won't rank and it certainly won't convert. You have to give it all the attention it deserves.

What you put into your website will come out of it. So aim for high standards and high quality and you can be the successful chef of your website.

thin, flexible solar technology

There's no doubt solar energy is a compelling alternative to fossil fuels, but implementing it has traditionally meant installing the standard, costly and ungainly solar panel. SRS Energy's dual purpose roof tiles offer one way to get around that requirement; now another comes in the form of thin, flexible solar sheets that can be integrated with architectural building materials.

Iowa-based PowerFilm makes low-cost foldable and rollable solar panels in which the solar technology is monolithically integrated in a polyimide substrate that's flexible and durable, yet as thin as 0.025mm. With an absorber layer made of amorphous silicon, PowerFilm solar panels use as little as 1 percent of the amount of silicon used in traditional solar panels; they're also cadmium-free. Since 2005 the company has been using its technology to manufacture solar field shelter tarps for military applications, and now it's developed the ability to combine it with standard building materials as well. Standing seam metal roofing, single-ply elastomeric membrane roofing and architectural fabric can all be combined with PowerFilm's flexible paneling for a variety of low-cost, building-integrated solar applications. In such uses, the electricity generated by the solar panels is stored in local batteries and converted to 110 AC for general wall outlet use or—in some cases—used directly for low-voltage lighting systems. The buildings can be either off-grid or grid-connected. PowerFilm recently completed a 10-kilowatt demonstration and evaluation project on metal roofing, and is now in the final stages of developing the technology.

PowerFilm also makes a variety of portable solar chargers—one of which won second place in the Mobile CE Fashion & Lifestyle Products competition at CTIA Wireless 2009—and it manufactures for OEM and custom orders as well. The lightweight and durable nature of its thin paneling, meanwhile, seems eminently suitable for use in the developing world. One to get in on early for the application of your choice...?

Website: www.powerfilmsolar.com

Godiva Chocolates - brand loyalty program run by the IT guy! go techies

When Godiva Chocolatier created its customer-rewards program this year, the initiative wasn't run by the marketing chief or advertising chief but instead fell to the chief information officer. Godiva CIO Mike Giresi says he drew on his history with sales and information technology to design a program tailored to Godiva and its customers. The program centers on creating better understanding of customers' preferences via an online community that Godiva initiated in 2008.
from Information Week

Social Shopping and the Brand Experience

Denise Zimmerman, president and chief strategy officer of NetPlus Marketing Inc., has spent the past 18 years of her career focusing on the emerging digital landscape and best practice applications in marketing, advertising and communications. She talks to eMarketer about the different forms social commerce takes and how retailers can understand it.

eMarketer: Why do people like to follow a brand on its Facebook fan page?

Denise Zimmerman: That answer depends on the retailer you’re talking about and how they use the platform. This is an interesting challenge for retailers, too. Because of the kind of communications and messaging you’re talking about, social media demands a very intense, thoughtful plan and approach in terms of what we call brand.

And not all of them have been good at this. I think Best Buy kind of breaks the mold. Zappos certainly does. Target does. Some of your larger retailers understand and cultivate their brand, and they can tell you what their brand is. But there are a whole host of them whose marketing, for the most part, historically has reflected commodity-type marketing—price promotion and very DM-focused—which is why they initially really latched onto affiliate marketing, search marketing, pay-for-performance type stuff. But when you’re out there in terms of communicating on these sorts of platforms, you really have to consider what is your brand. Your brand could be about price.

eMarketer: How much social commerce actually takes place on Facebook?

“If you successfully connect and make shopping valuable to the community in a way that’s easy and accessible and meets their needs, it’s a no-brainer.”

Ms. Zimmerman: I know that just when I’m out there and I regularly check what’s going on, I connect to a lot of these folks myself. I think it’s a natural evolution. Maybe I’m biased, but I don’t think so. If you successfully connect and make shopping valuable to the community in a way that’s easy and accessible and meets their needs, it’s a no-brainer.

eMarketer: Retail Websites are offering more and more social shopping features such as Facebook Connect. Do such features pose a competitive threat to social shopping sites or do they complement each other?

Ms. Zimmerman: I think they sort of complement each other. When we develop what we call a socially enabled Website, we don’t even like to call it a Website. We call it a social hub, which is really an evolution of the Website experience. So it should be really an experiential extension of the brand or of the retailer. When somebody goes to your Website, what they experience there should be reflective of the brand and however that expresses itself in terms of functionality, design, features and all that sort of thing.

“The social aspect is really an evolution of the brand experience.”

I think the social aspect is really an evolution of the brand experience. The big question from a very, very tactical perspective is the level of investment in terms of the technology, in terms of how you want to really enable your site: What’s going to really enhance that experience and furthermore what’s going to ultimately drive the sale?

The priority of a retailer is to focus on enhancing that shopping experience in how it actually influences the purchase. And there might be some community aspects to that. This comes down to really understanding your customers, understanding their shopping behavior, understanding what they want, understanding how they’re currently interacting with your site, understanding where your sales are coming from.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007322

small business ecommerce

Here's a great explanation of what you need to do if you're a small business wanting to sell stuff online.

(from http://www.usatoday.com/money/smallbusiness/columnist/strauss/2009-09-21-putting-your-business-on-the-web_N.htm )

Step 1: Notice what works: Whether it is eBay, Amazon, or your own favorite, e-commerce sites that succeed tend to do the same things right:

• They are attractive, intuitive, engaging, and easy to navigate
• They offer plenty of inventory
• They are easy to shop and check-out
• There are discounts and specials (coupons, free shipping, etc.)
• They offer great customer service

Step 2. Consider the competition. Who else sells what you want to sell? Take a look at the players both big and small. Buy some merchandise from them and ask yourself – what do they do right, and wrong, and how can it be it be improved?

Step 3. Pick your products: If you are in business and have products that you already sell, then adding them to your online store is easy: Take pictures of them, add them to your online catalogue (see below) and write some great copy.

If you don't know what you want to sell, then consider your options. There are tons of wholesalers and distributors from which to choose. If you don't know of any, I would suggest you surf over to my site –MrAllBiz.com– and check out the wholesale product search engine we offer. You can find wholesalers for just about any product you are looking for.

Note: The culture of the Web is one of discounts, keep that in mind, and remember that selling expensive items online is more difficult.

Step 4. Create a great site: You have about five seconds once someone finds your site to impress them enough that they will decide to poke around a bit and maybe buy something. That means your site must be graphically pleasing to the eye, unique, and useful.

Step 5. Consider drop shipping: What if you just want to get your feet wet and don't want to spend a lot of money discovering whether this online universe is for you? Then check out drop shipping. Drop shipping is an arrangement between you and a wholesaler whereby you offer their products on your site but you don't actually physically stock any inventory. If someone clicks and buys, notice is sent to you and the wholesaler, the wholesalers ships the product using your labels and logos, and you split the profit.

If you think this is a great way to get started, you are right. There are no products to buy and stock, no huge up-front costs, no labor expenses, etc. You can find drop shippers for most any product by doing an online search, or again, by typing "drop shipping" into the product search engine at my site.

Step 6. Build your store: There are two parts to your online store – the front end and the back end. The front end is what the world sees – your products for sale, specials, policies, and so on. The back end is what you see – inventory control, reports of what sells, etc.

You will need to find an online partner / Web host to help you build your store. Their software will create both the front end and the back end. It will allow you to create thumbnails of your products as part of your overall online catalogue.

What you want is a partner that offers

• Pre-designed, customizable templates
• Inventory support
• Easy acceptance of credit cards
• Search engine optimization
• Easy adding and subtracting of products
• Up-selling tools, coupons, gift certificates, etc.
• Real time stats and reports
• Secure transactions, and
• Plenty of support

Step 7. Handle sales: To be able to accept online sales, you will need a merchant account (an account with a credit card issuer) and / or the ability to accept PayPal payments. You will also need to be able to handle inquiries, returns, exchanges, and refunds. Don't underestimate shipping and related costs either.

Plenty of other small businesses have made the leap to online success, and if they did it, so can you.

Solar Panels shaped like clay roof tiles

I love this!

Converting to solar energy means covering a roof in unsightly solar panels. Not necessarily: Philadelphia company SRS Energy has developed the Solé Power Tile, a roof tile designed to sustainably convert sunlight into electricity without compromising aesthetics. The dark blue tiles, manufactured by SRS Energy, are jointly branded and distributed by US Tile and specifically designed to be compatible with the clay roof tiles manufactured by US Tile. Customers who purchase clay tiles will be given the option to upgrade a section of their roof to Solé Power Tiles. When installed, the system can offset a large proportion of a homeowner's energy costs—not to mention cleaning their carbon conscience. The tiles are available in select West Coast markets this autumn, with a nationwide rollout planned for spring 2010.

SRS Energy says that the Solé tiles, made from a high-performance polymer often used in car bumpers, are lightweight, unbreakable and recyclable. Flexible solar technology by United Solar Ovonic is embedded inside each tile, allowing them to function independently of each other. Meanwhile, the performance of the system as a whole is monitored remotely by SRS Energy and US Tile. The director of engineering at SRS Energy is J.D. Albert, who also developed the electronic ink technology used in Amazon Kindle and the Sony Reader.

What's so attractive about the Solé Power Tile system he and his team have produced is that it makes it easy for consumers to make a green choice, without having to settle for a product they find unappealing. With more tile styles and colours in the pipeline, SRS Energy could soon be enjoying a big chunk of eco-bounty, as will any other company that can remove the disincentives from sustainable technology.

Website: www.srsenergy.com

Asking questions helps retailers reduce returns

Auto-parts retailer JC Whitney cut back on customer returns by allowing customers to post questions on its e-commerce site that the staff answers. It helps shoppers make the right purchase and helps vendors identify marketing opportunities.

What a great idea!

http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=31814