I just finished reading The New Rules of PR and Marketing by David Meerman Scott. The book is all about how to use online channels to reach customers and build media relations. Part of our Philippine SEO services is to do online promotions for our client’s company or product.  Some notes from the book that are useful for online promotions are:

• use rss feeds
• focus on keywords and phrases your buyers use
• add links to your news releases
• use the appropriate social media tags
• non-targeted, broadcast pitches are considered as spam
• pitch to bloggers and start your own blog (for more about blogging, you may read Janette Toral’s Blogging from home book)
• include an about page on your blog
• comment on blogs related to yours

In our company, we make sure that we don’t just create a fancy website design, we also consider the functionality and experience that it should offer to your customers. Here are some tips on website design based from Nielsen/Norman, Human Factors International.

1. Do not obstruct or compete with user’s critical tasks.
2. Present elements related to specific tasks based on frequency, importance or sequence.
3. Use buttons and links consistently. Always use the same label for the same function.
4. Pages should push no unexpected animation or sound at users.
5. Allow users to purchase without registering.
6. Lay out objects hierarchically to match the user’s expected task flow: left to right or top top bottom. Most users start by scanning the content area.
7. Ensure manageable page lenghts. Don’t use scrolling on home pages and make sure interior pages are fewer than 2.5 screens.
8. Ensure that pages can be easily printed and that printing does not cut off critical information. If this is not practical, provide a printable version.
9. Don’t design critical information os it looks like advertising.
10. Don’t force users to hover over something to see options.
11. Link names should communicate the content of the page they link to. Avoid generic links such as Click Here and More.
12. User your user’s vocabulary.
13. Write content that is short and simple, correct, in the active voice and interesting.
14. User bulleted lists, introductory summaries, clear titles, and stand-alone chunks to facilitate scanning.
15. Display a search box in the upper-right corner of every page.
16. Chunk search results into categories.

When submitting your website to directories, make sure that the directory is credible enough that it may not affect your Google page rank. The top directories that Search Engines trust are:

• Yahoo! Directory ($299 annual recurring fee)
• DMOZ (Free, but it takes time to get listed)
• Business.com
• BOTW ($99 annual recurring fee or $249 one-time review fee)
• JoeAnt (one time fee of $39.99)
  
• GoGuides

Before submitting to a directory, make sure to evaluate its quality. Try not to list under directories that:

• requires reciprocal link
• clones DMOZ
• has zero page rank (or clones its page rank)