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What is Relationship Networking?

Relationship networking is simply the art of meeting people and benefiting from those relationships. Often the benefit of these relationship is to obtain information and leads to further grow your business. Any successful relationship, whether a personal or a business relationship, is unique to every pair of individuals, and it evolves over time. Effective relationship networking is all about building those relationships and maintaining long lasting connections with other professionals.

The Internet is an excellent vehicle for networking. Relationships can develop in newsgroups, forums, and via email. Though nothing really beats good old-fashioned face-to-face networking to start the process of building a relationship and trust, which is why industry conferences can be so important.

Not all contacts will be useful or worth pursuing. There will be leads that don't provide much information. Use your judgment on whether the information and relationship is worth spending more time on.

Relationship networking opens new doors, often it's "who you know, not necessarily what you know".

Tip to Build Network Relationships:

1. Provide genuine assistance to others.
2. Be open-minded.
3. Remember personal details.
4. Respect cultural differences.
5. Research people and companies. Know their goals and interests.
6. Reciprocate.
7. Introductions.

Where to Network:

So many people wear multiple hats; everyone and anyone could possibly be a networking opportunity. However, just like targeted search engine traffic, the more targeted the networking the higher the chance of success. 'Targeted' networking offers the most potential.

1. Trade associations or industry specific organization.
2. Trade shows.
3. Friends.
4. Schools.
5. Focused newsgroups and topic specific forums.
6. Customers.
7. Suppliers.
8. User groups.

Constantly refine and grow your network of relationships, as they are valuable and need cultivating. If you are perceived as someone who is only trying to get something your network will likely not increase. Networking is about building relationships and mutual interaction benefiting both parties. Share information and help others grow their businesses.

In many ways relationship networking and partnering overlap, and on some occasion's relationship networking will lead to synergistic partnering.

Partnering

Partnering is an attractive flexible way for companies to develop new markets and additional revenue. Working together, partners can combine strengths in critical areas. Often a larger well-known vendor provides small vendors with credibility, while the smaller vendor contributes specific industry knowledge unknown to the larger vendor. Synergistic relationships come in all shapes and sizes, but the best relationships and partnerships are the ones that benefit everyone. Partnering is a good way of tapping into related customer bases. Often the partners complement each other in such a way that they can provide a combined solution that neither partner could deliver alone.

Expectations

In order for a relationship to work you must have a clear understanding of both your companies and product(s) strengths and weaknesses. By being aware of any deficiencies, you will find partners with strengths in the areas of your weaknesses.

1. Know what you have to offer.
2. Know what you are looking for.
3. Don't waste yours and your potential partner's time.

Different relationships/partnering that works:

1. Product bundling.
2. Newsletter exchanges.
3. Integrations.
4. Link exchanges.
5. Technology or knowledge exchange.
6. Revenue share.
7. Ad exchange.

Win/Win

Only when each partner is successful can the partnership itself claim success. Partnerships are genuinely a win-win. Developers, who master the art of strategic partnering and relationship networking, will obtain long-term profitability and success.

Final Tips

1.) Qualify sources.
2.) Adage - you are who you hang with.
3.) Not every relationship is a good one.
4.) Evaluate potential partners.
5.) Make it personal by taking the time to say thank you.
6.) Results are not always immediate.
7.) Carry business cards everywhere you go.

Being proactive and following up, you can have a network of contacts that you will be able to access quickly when you need them. Whether by more traditional means, such as in person or over the Internet, personal networks are essential for furthering your business. Relationship networking is give and take, be sure to help others in your quest for help.

About the Author -

Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com, and http://www.small-business-software.net

SEO without usability - an exercise in futility

Online poll

Having to register before buying
Hidden charges at the checkout
Lengthy checkout process
No clear delivery details
Phone number not provided on website

(Submit your answer and we`ll show you the results so far)

Recently, I needed to purchase some specific promotional materials. No problem, I thought, I`ll find a source online.

The industry is fairly competitive and the sites that I found in the search engines had employed some aggressive SEO techniques to get to the first page of the results.

The page titles had the exact keyword phrases I searched for, and the page copy repeated them many times. There were long links within the content that included the keywords as well. SEO had worked well for them - here I was, a qualified buyer with credit card in hand who had found their site through a search engine.

And yet I abandoned that site (and the nine others like it) in disgust. In fact, I was so irritated that I actually turned my computer off and pulled out the Yellow Pages to find a local supplier.

The sites were textbook-perfect examples of pure SEO. They weren`t deceitful in any way, but they were designed completely for search engines, not for people. The goal was to reach the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs) and that goal was accomplished with flying colours. Unfortunately, the goal was wrong. The site should have been pursuing buyers first, and then traffic.

SEO without usability

I was looking to place an order right away - so what stopped me? Here are a few of the pitfalls I encountered:

No prices on the pages. I was supposed to call for pricing or put something in my cart before the price was shown.
Incomplete or minimal descriptions. The name of the product was repeated over and over again but things like sizes, shipping weights, and available colours were not included.
No pictures or poor-quality pictures.
Inconsistent navigation. The one site I almost managed to purchase from changed the text in their links from page to page (targeting slightly different terms) and I got caught in a circle, unable to find the checkout!
Unusable shopping carts or insecure order forms.
Poor organization of products. I was unable to find related products or accessories.

In other words, time and money was spent to "optimise" these sites in a way that brought them traffic, and then drove it away!

Now those companies are most likely convinced that:

The Internet is not a good market for their products and/or
SEO is a waste of time and money

After all, they get tons of traffic and may even be paying for more bandwidth, but no one seems to buy anything. So once again SEO is given a bad reputation.

Incorporating "the big picture"

Should every SEO learn usability? Not any more than they need to learn design skills or database programming. However, in the same way that the average SEO can spot design or technical issues and recommend or work with a specialist, they should also be able to spot major usability issues and recommend or work with a usability analyst.

A usability analyst can walk through the site and spot obstacles that may prevent users from completing their goal. They typically address marketing, layout, technical, and design issues that can frustrate users or even drive them away. When site owners are presented with a usability study in addition to an SEO analysis, they have a better picture of overall "health" of the site and a blueprint for greater profitability, not just more traffic.

Usability reports are a relatively inexpensive investment that return far more than their cost in increased sales, subscriptions, leads, etc. SEO and usability improvements implemented together can result in dramatic changes in traffic and conversions.

Do-it-yourself usability

Anyone who is looking to improve the usability of a site without investing in a professional report can easily find the current issues with a site by performing a quick-and-dirty usability study.

Find five to ten users who have never been to your site. These people should ideally be your target demographic: age, lifestyle, income, etc. Ask them to perform a set of tasks on the website - tasks that you`d expect your average visitor to accomplish. As you observe them carefully, ask them to talk out loud as they perform the tasks. Don`t guide them or lead them in any way, and don`t answer any of their questions. Make sure that you write down everything that you witness during this exercise.

You`ll be amazed at what you can learn. An official report or theoretical discussion pales in comparison to watching a user get frustrated and click away from a site. Usability analysts are skilled at interpreting the results of these studies, but anyone can find out what is wrong with a website through this method.

The future of SEO and usability

Search engine optimisation is still in its infancy, and is a constantly changing discipline. As the search engines get better and better at rewarding the best/most complete sites, usability will become even more important.

Many long-time SEO are now looking at the big picture and working with usability analysts. This ensures that their sites are crawler- and user-friendly along with being ready for sales conversions. Sites that can be found and that are usable as well will also attract links. It just makes sense. The double impact of more traffic and higher conversions makes for happy clients and powerful testimonials, as well as satisfied searchers.

This article was written by Scottie Claiborne. Scottie is the owner of Right Click Web Services, a firm specializing in usability, search engine optimisation, and Internet marketing.

What next?

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