Newton’s Law of Inertia says “An object at rest tends to stay at rest and an object in motion tends to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.”

I bet he had no idea that his law would ever be applied to the Web! Well, it does… or at least half of it does.

If it’s been awhile since you’ve done any major updates with your Web presence in content, design, functionality and search engine indexing, you may think your site is still right where it was back then. But it’s not.

Unfortunately, your site is not at rest. If you’ve been following the articles in our newsletters, you already know that technology, design, strategies and tactics that were “state of the art” or “best practice” just two or three years ago are now more than just obsolete in many cases they can actually be hurting your business. So, the rapidly evolving landscape of the Internet is actually causing your site to be an object in motion…in the wrong direction!

And, according to Newton’s Law, it will continue to stay in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

Graphic Redesign

Visitor expectations for Web sites have risen dramatically. A common set of elements now must exist on any Web site whose owner wants to be taken seriously. The public is exponentially more Web savvy than they were a few short years ago.  When they come to your site, they have a multitude of expectations some conscious, and some subconscious. They still expect to be able to find what they’re looking for immediately. But their eyes and their clicks are now instinctively drawn to specific areas of a site for specific purposes. They make subconscious judgments about a company’s credibility, quality and service, based on the quality of graphic design, a common navigational scheme and the existence and arrangement of particular elements on the site.

If your site isn’t taking advantage of the industry best practices for layout, navigation and visitor expectations, it’s moving in the wrong direction. And as the public becomes even more Web-wise, that fact will even act as an unbalanced force to accelerate the motion downward.

Of course a great Web developer can act as the unbalanced force to get your site moving in the right direction. Trivera’s vast knowledge and body of experience is being put to work by many of our clients to act as that force by re-designing and re-engineering outdated Web sites to meet those visitor expectations. We combine our industry knowledge with a site’s historical traffic patterns to help develop the optimum navigational layout. And we’ll design a new look that will communicate credibility, quality and commitment to service.

In addition to getting your site moving in the right direction, we’ll get you set up with content management tools that will help you maintain that momentum by easily and economically keeping content fresh, without having to depend on an outside provider every time it needs to change.

Search Engine Optimization

In addition to the human eyes that visit your site, automated spiders and robots are also coming to index the content of the site and determining how your site will come up in search engine results. What they’re looking for and how you’ll place is also constantly changing. The relative market share of the major search engines is also swings drastically and regularly.

Contrary to what many self-appointed search engine “experts” may tell you, search engine optimization as not just an event. If you’re not actively engaged in an ongoing search engine strategy, your site is moving there, too! But the motion of your site is a free-fall.

Unless, of course, you have a Web partner that can act as the unbalanced force to get it moving in the right direction.

With Trivera, Search Engine Optimization is a process. That process begins with seeing how people have historically been coming to your siteanalyzing the search engine-generated traffic by site and by search terms. It continues by doing the same with your competitors’ sites to see how you stack up against them. Then comes the research to determine if there are any terms that are being missed. Using that information, and plugging it into several other analytical tools allows us to develop a custom strategy for your site that will consider your most optimistic goals, temper them with realistic expectations, and combine those to produce the best possible results.

But that’s only the start. We can continue to monitor your placement in the search engines, and make adjustments as needed to help you maintain your position. And because the forward motion of your site is too important to be left up to the constantly evolving and undisclosed methodologies of competing Search Engines, we can also recommend some other tactics that will economically guarantee you first page placement regardless of how and when the rules change.

What most other developers miss

Having your site optimized so search engines will direct people to your site, and then meeting the visitors’ expectations for design and navigation when they get there still is not enough to the whole equation.

Successful businesses look for every opportunity to build or improve a relationship with a prospect, a customer, a vendor, a partner, a distributor or an employee. Those relationships are built one transaction at a time. To build those kinds of relationships via the Internet, a Web site full of information isn’t enough. It needs to facilitate transactions.  Anyone can build a site that consists of layers of information…back in the old days (you know, back when your current site was designed), almost everyone did that. But that kind of site is like a salesperson or customer service rep who just talks and talks but doesn’t ask questions and doesn’t listen.

So, in addition to a sound design and navigational structure, Trivera provides its customers with a full line of transactional tools to help our clients build those relationships over the Webe-commerce engines, digital asset management systems, CRM tools, dealer portals, content management systems, dealer locators and arguably one of the most amazing email list managers on the market today. We learn enough about your entire business…your brand, policies, procedures and systems…and work with you to help you to determine the best combination of features that fits within goals and your budget.

Unless your Web site is built on a transactional philosophy, its course is ill-fated.

Isaac Newton meets Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan’s variation of Newton’s law says that he not busy being born is busy dying. And the same is true of your Web presence. On the Web, there is no inertia. You’re either moving ahead or you’re falling behind. Staying the same is not an option.

The unbalanced force of change, competition and new technologies will accelerate your motion in the direction in the direction you’re headed. If your design, navigation, search optimization and transactional construction is up to current standards, and is being constantly maintained, your motion is upward. And the unbalanced force of change, competition and new technologies will accelerate your motion in that same upward direction, only faster. But if your motion is downward, those forces will only accelerate that death spiral.

And that’s not just our opinion…it’s the law!

by Tom Snyder,
President and CEO, Trivera Interactive