The case of the National Federation of the Blind v. Target should send a bone-chilling shiver down the back of an e-commerce website owner. Jeffery Bashaw’s (University of Washington School of Law, Class of 2008) legal abstract makes the message clear:
Get your website in line with the American Disabilities Act or get a lawyer…. A good one.
The case ended with Target Corporation paying out over $3 million with an additional 6 million dollars in a settlement fund to further compensate because their Target.com site was not easy to use by the blind. Not being accessible to the blind is a clear violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And yes, websites are governed by this law.
Does my site need to follow ADA Compliance?
Is it an e-commerce website? Then yes.
While you may think of Target as a normal store, the court proved that since Target.com extended services to Target customers and that it was considered a part of the stores. So it had to be ADA compliant.
What if my business is 100% online, am I OK?
Nope. Those are included too. A good example is the Attorney General of New York v. Priceline.com for failing to have a blind accessible website. Priceline.com settled the lawsuit before any ruling was even made. Be afraid e-commerce site owners, be very afraid.
But how could this be legal?
Department of Justice’s Amicus Curiae states that the definition of public accommodation includes entities that operate solely on the Internet.100% online sites are public accommodations as defined by the ADA. Every website is governed under these rulings.
How Do I Make My Site ADA Compliant?
The visually impaired use browsers that will read the page and all image names. The browsers must be able to correctly read the page and lead the individual on where to click. Parts of Target’s site was gibberish as random image names were read and user’s couldn’t figure out where the pointer at all times.
It’s time to save yourself from lawsuits and get working on your site.
Is there any good news to come from this ruling?
In the case of Target, they were able to save face by becoming compliant and was given an award by The National Federation of the Blind to commend their work on making their site accessible. All it took was 2 years of work, countless dollars spent on fixing the problem and the massive settlement.
The real good news is adding in the ADA compliant fixes also have SEO benefits for your website. This allows more visitors to find your website through searches on Google.com and other search engines. Effective search engine optimization can be the difference of little to no traffic to your website becoming a household name.
What are you waiting for?
Don’t wait for your site to be investigated by the Department of Justice or an Attorney General. Get into compliance now and save your company from potential headaches down the road.
There are countless excuses for why this might not be a focus for your company, but none of them are worth the potential fines you may receive for non-compliance.
Is your content management system too old? Get a new one! Are you not properly staffed for this project? Find some efficiency tools and hire an intern!
The SEO side benefits alone are enough to get your site into compliance today!
Last week I had the honor of speaking at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management for a class entitled BA 1905 — “Internet Search Economics, Google, and New Business Opportunities” - a great name for a course covering this relatively new industry, with some truly engaging curriculum around my favorite topic of conversation: Search Engines, Marketing, and creating a business model around increasing visibility on the web.
With a blank canvas to work with and many possibilities for conversation, the professor and I decided that it would be best to do an hour long presentation on Google. The presentation pretty much wrote itself from that point on. Here is the full slide deck:
Since I am so closely involved with, and dependent on Google (I use their products, actively read their blogs and use their search engine every day) the talk came naturally for me. The presentation was mostly just an “off the top of my head” overview of what I know about Google from various books that I have read, interactions with teams, etc. Here is a loose outline of what I talked about:
Creation of a New Industry
What Google Means to Online Marketing
What Makes Google Interesting?
What Does the Future Hold?
About Three Deep
Questions and Answers
Being the slacker that I am, I spent all weekend pulling my presentation together and didn’t even get a chance to rehearse before my Monday afternoon talk. Fortunately, the subject matter came naturally to me and I was able to turn out a well received speech.
It was really humbling to receive feedback from the students on my presentation. They found it to be a very valuable and engaging experience, but don’t take my word for it – listen to the students!
* “Really neat info on how to make money from Google. Very informational, straight-forward. Good presentation. Cool guy.”
* “I thought this was a very interesting presentation. I learned a lot of fascinating things and this opened my eyes to a completely new industry that I was unaware of before.”
* “I thought the presentation was really good. The presenter is very knowledgeable and passionate about what he does. I liked hearing about what we have been learning, from the perspective of someone who is in the business.”
* “Jeff was really great. He is very knowledgeable and willing to share information.”
* “Presented and covered many relevant topics about how Google’s innovations have made the company successful. Suggested possible market or venues that Google could venture into. Answered hosting and marketing questions and gave advice to explore interests in internships and find contacts and connections.”
* “He was interesting and very knowledgeable about Google. He also had a job related to Google which made the presentation especially interesting. Interesting to learn about the new company. Fun to see different things about Google.”
* “I liked the real-world timely examples given.”
* “Would have been interested to hear more about Three Deep Marketing and how they grew their company. More relevant info about online business growth and models would have been helpful and interesting.”
* “Very interesting to get a real-world perspective on some of the issues/topics we’ve talked about in class! Very worthwhile/interesting!”
* “Some of the information was review, but speaker was very informative and gave a really strong overview of Google. Really gained my interest when he started to analyze why Google does what it does and how to be successful through Google.”
* “I thought the presentation was very interesting. Jeff had a lot of good, useful information that was very relevant to the class. I like the fact that he had experience and real-life examples of certain things (such as the stories about domain names) because it was so real and put things into a good perspective. He knew a lot about the topics he talked about and presented it in a way that was clear and easy to understand. I learned a lot.”
* “The presentation helped to link all the different Google ideas into the real business world and how they relate.”
* “Good and clear information provided.”
* “The information about starting your own website was very useful and interesting.”
* “Useful overview and review of Google with insights from the real world. Great personal anecdotes that related to subject matter at hand. Material was presented in a catchy and eloquent manner but did not go over my head.”
* “I found this very interesting and I was very engaged the whole time! Jeff knows his stuff and has a great way to get his information across and was a great speaker. It made me want to get into starting my own website. Great presentation!”
Here at Three Deep, we are constantly thriving to provide actionable insights for our clients. For those who are unfamiliar with our company, we are a very data-centric organization. The name Three Deep actually refers to our discipline of looking past surface-level data, and digging three levels deep into the data at hand to provide the highest quality feedback possible.
We have recently developed a way to tightly integrate phone conversions with web analytics data to paint a more accurate picture of our clients’ marketing efforts, right down to the ROI.
The idea was sparked when we identified a disconnect between the online and offline conversion data of lead generation clients in our home improvement vertical. Nearly every lead generation website (regardless of industry) includes a phone number as a point of conversion, but we never really had a concrete way to tie this to online metrics.
Our solution involves dynamically writing the phone numbers on a given website based on the traffic source and/or medium. This is done with the help of the Google Analytics cookie (_utmz to be exact) and a bit of JavaScript on the website. The JavaScript extracts the visitor’s traffic source and medium from the cookie, which is then used to determine the phone number that displays on the site. Therefore, this can be applied to any traffic source or medium, and since multiple tracking phone numbers can be directed to the same phone number, the number of different sources tracked is essentially unlimited.
This solution is most valuable for PPC traffic, as it helps provide more accurate data for metrics including the actual number of conversions, cost per conversion, and conversion rate.
From a referral standpoint, the level of granularity is unlimited considering that referrals (such as banner ads or email campaigns) can be tagged with URL tracking elements for each unique campaign.
This can also be used to effectively measure search engine optimization efforts. Not only will this provide a more accurate count of conversions resulting from organic traffic, but the JavaScript mentioned above can be used to extract the actual search term used to find the site (this can be done for paid search traffic as well).
To take this one step further, this information could be fed into a CRM system along with the lead itself, providing the sales staff with more information about the visitor’s intent, their stage in the buying process, and so on.
You may be wondering how all of this data is consolidated. Don’t worry, Three Deep has a solution for that too. We are pleased to announce that we are currently in the process of developing a consolidated business intelligence reporting platform that will combine data from over a dozen data sources to provide some of the most accurate and insightful reporting in the interactive industry. Be sure to follow Three Deep on Twitter, Facebook, or RSS for updates!
It’s time of year again – a night of exciting football and advertising frivolity. Sunday, February 7th 2010 marks Super Bowl XLIV (that’s Super Bowl 44 for those that are Roman numerically challenged), an annual event where commercials command just as much attention as the game itself. Raking in as much as $3.1 million per 30-second spot, it’s the priciest bit of commercial real estate in the advertising landscape.
Over the years, folks have tuned-in to watch Cindy Crawford sip Pepsi, witness Ali Landry pop Doritos and learn that the FedEx package Tom Hanks held so dearly in the movie Castaway, ironically, contained a survival kit.
But times have changed.
Continue Reading Super Bowl, Chips and the Internet →
We are Google’s favorite place! You read it correctly! After years of hoping, prodding, sweat and tears, I can finally announce to that Three Deep Marketing is Google’s favorite place in the United States, and presumably the world.
I would like to thank my family, friends, acquaintances, complete strangers and people who I might meet in the future; we couldn’t have done it without you!
In the mail today, Three Deep received a package from Google containing a large window sticker with a bar code, like the image shown to the right. I have been anticipating this package for the past 10 days; ever since reading this announcement from Google. I knew it was only a matter of time before Google would send us an affirmation of how much they truly like our organization.
What does it take to be Google’s favorite place? A strong presence for your local business listing. Those fortunate enough to receive this designation and a package in the mail (about 100,000 exclusivebusinesses) have worked hard to optimize their local business listing on Google so that they often show up in local business oriented search results.
Continue Reading Three Deep is Google’s Favorite Place →
Before reading too much into the title, please make note that this article pertains to the paid search engine marketing practices of Amazon and Zappos.
While getting dressed this past Monday, I found that through general laziness toward laundry and a hectic travel schedule, I was left with one pair of dress socks. These socks were getting old, and had sprouted a few holes in them through everyday wear and tear.
For most normal people, there is a clear solution; go to the store and buy new socks. I wish it were that easy for me. The truth is that I live in the frigid state of Minnesota, and the cold weather conditions have lead me to despise shopping in “brick and mortar” anytime during our cold season, which generally runs from October to May.
Continue Reading Why Amazon is More Relevant than Zappos →
Last week I came across a great slide deck put together by InsightR consulting that compares two free web analytics tools: Google Analytics and Yahoo Web Analytics (formerly IndexTools). While we haven’t had much experience working with Yahoo! Web Analytics, the results from this study are quite intriguing, and favorable for Yahoo! in many areas.
As a GAAC consultant, this really does not change anything when it comes to our preferred choice of tools, but I do think that it proves Yahoo Web Analytics to be a true competitor in this space. Competition is good!
Continue Reading Yahoo! Web Analytics vs. Google Analytics →
There has been a lot of chatter on the web recently about how Google better watch out, because Facebook ads are gaining on them. While it may be fact that Facebook is experiencing a higher percentage of growth than Google (naturally, since Google has already reached critical mass, and Facebook had minimal revenue in 2008), the reports of Facebook being the next “Google Killer” are downright irresponsible.
While I cannot definitively say that no advertisers have had positive experiences with Facebook (Shoemoney’s Facebook Ads article from earlier this year is still the best example of success that I have read to date), I can say that I have had poor experiences thus far with Facebook advertising. I’m embarrassed by how bad they performed!
As a performance oriented marketer who tends to look at campaigns from a direct response point of view, my results from an August 2009 campaign were absolutely putrid. Even removing my direct response glasses and putting on a “brand hat” – the results were about as poor as they get.
In fact, I’m so embarrassed by my results that I’m almost ashamed to show them in public… but in the spirit of transparency, they will be shared at the end of this post.
However, I would first prefer to share what I have learned from my recent foray into Facebook ads:
Be Specific With Your Targeting – Demographic targeting is your friend! Find your target market and make sure you only advertise to them.
A few weeks ago, we received a concerned call from one of our clients. Apparently, they had been solicited by another company that offers similar online marketing services to Three Deep, and they were directly questioning the work we had done for them. The solicitors did a great job of undermining our efforts by simply putting the URL through a free service called Website Grader, printing a screen shot, and clicking send.
Frankly, they made a compelling argument; the grade the site received was not great by any means, and was a definite cause for concern at a surface level. Nobody wants to receive a poor grade. At the same time, I was equally concerned with the implications of these results, because I personally built much of the site, entered content, and did a quality job of making the site search friendly for the their local market and the services they offer.
It looks bad, but it's not really THAT bad
I have spent many hours with this client over the past several years, working hard to make sure they were happy and that we were meeting their objectives. So when the work that we had done on this website came into scrutiny, it hit me like a ton of bricks. Were we not properly servicing this client? How much work will it take to fix?
Rather than dwell on the poor score we received, I spent the next 45 minutes skimming through the criteria that this site used to grade SEO scores (honestly, I feel the criteria is very out of date and I don’t agree with much of it). I then found the elements of the site receiving poor grades (90% of the grade comes from home page only) – “fixed” it – and reran the grading program.
Voila! In no time I had increased the score by 51%! Now the site was no longer a laughing stock, but actually a leader among its sitegrader peers.
But what exactly changed on the site during those 45 minutes to actually make this site better for SEO?
Continue Reading Automated SEO Services like Website Grader – Thoughts →
Here at Three Deep’s offices, we are always talking about our craft, whether email marketing, SEO, reporting, etc, and how to improve the service we provide our clients. We are presently in the process of building out a model for how we can best serve our clients… and also educate them on how SEO best fits into their overall marketing mix. Through much trial, continued learning, and a few hundred whiteboard sessions, we have made major inroads in establishing an equation as to where exactly SEO fits in to our clients marketing mix (the answer is everywhere).
Given all of the time that we have put into working on this equation, it’s a little surprising that we don’t have any excellent infographics to help visualize what we are working to achieve for our clients. Fortunately, there are many bright minded and artistically gifted bloggers out there who can help fill the gap. This weekend, our president Dave Woodbeck sent us the following graphic (courtesy of SEO superstar Matt McGee):
SEO Success Pyramid
You can read the full breakdown here, but the basic premise is that rather than relying on one or two tactics to simply try to “exploit” Google’s ranking algorithm, the most successful sites focus on building quality content that engages users, presents something of value, and is easily “linkable” from other sources.
Continue Reading SEO Success Pyramid – Strategic SEO →
The case of the National Federation of the Blind v. Target should send a bone-chilling shiver down the back of an e-commerce website owner. Jeffery Bashaw’s (University of Washington School of Law, Class of 2008) legal abstract makes the message clear:
We are Google’s favorite place! You read it correctly! After years of hoping, prodding, sweat and tears, I can finally announce to that 
Before reading too much into the title, please make note that this article pertains to the paid search engine marketing practices of Amazon and Zappos.
