1. 5 DISCUSSING
  • Tad Chef   Feb 02 2012   Flag

    Start with formulating the goals of the site end with the looks of it.

  • Chris Warren   Feb 02 2012   Flag

    Fantastic article, I know several people who are going to appreciate getting this forwarded to their inbox. Exemplifies why we need a site like inbound.com for SEO because I would have NEVER have found this article otherwise.

  • Tad Chef   Feb 03 2012   Flag

    Did you mean inbound.org ? ;-)

  • cavezza   Feb 02 2012   Flag

    I believe these techniques are setting people up for failure. I'd much rather prefer a landing page approach to test conversions before building an application. It will help you build an seo presence to get out of the google sandbox, validate your hypotheses for the top of the funnel, and give you an early custom base to learn from. You can either learn from them directly by talking to them or learn from them indirectly by doing some linkedin/facebook/twitter research on who's finding your landing page.

  • Chris Warren   Feb 02 2012   Flag

    I've just seen a lot of companies go down this path it really resonates with how I have seen them approach the task of "building our viral/Twitter/website/(insert buzz word)", that's inevitably when you get an email that starts off "So Chris, you're really good at this SEO thing, what do you think..." Simply creating a goal oriented plan focused on what you want out of your website will help prioritize how resources and time are spent and is an important step one in my opinion.

  • Martijn Oud   Feb 02 2012   Flag

    For those of you wondering where the actual content is, scroll down a little... In all seriousness, excellent article. I love the breakdown of the different stages. But I do think this post could have been a lot shorter it felt rather repetitive (especially the "intro").

  • Chris Fernandez   Feb 12 2012   Flag

    Hey guys, thanks for the (mostly) great feedback on the article. I just decided to poke around inbound.org and saw that somebody had already submitted this, which is an honor to me that so many got such value out of it. Regarding the comments that @CAVEZZA stated, I believe we are talking about different things: campaigns vs. websites. True if you have a simple product, or series of product launches, then a 1-2 page approach with substantive A/B testing is the way to go. But for a corporate website, one that serves many needs, not just those of selling products specifically, attention to detail and planning are a must. Within that process I fully advocate testing, monitoring results and making changes, in fact I said as much in the piece regarding it being an iterative process, but with a solid foundation, you at least have a firm grasp of the ultimate objectives and who you are trying to service to help you get there faster.

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