Looking good isn't good enough. All flash and no function is a bad combo! Make sure your website looks good, but functions even better.

I just got a call from an aviation parts distributor unhappy with their website.

They spent quite a bit of money redesigning the site, but had not noticed an appreciable increase in traffic or inquiries. Even worse, when the company president went to show a customer the website on his iPad, the only thing that came up was a blank rectangle.

“On the laptop, the website certainly looked great!” commented the president. I agreed the site was well-done – nice graphics, animation, and photography, but unfortunately, it was created in Flash, which as you may know, is not supported by Apple’s iPhone or iPad. (More about Flash later.)

This particular company’s website was a delight to look at. The whole focus was to make a dazzling impression at first glance, but just like a Lamborghini may look great in your garage, it’s not the ideal car for stop-and-go commuting.

Function Over Beauty:  Websites Need to do More than Just Look Good

Your website should be built only after a comprehensive audit and analysis has been done. There should be clear objectives of what you want your website to accomplish and how it should do it.

Some basic considerations are:

• Attracting visitors. This may include search engine optimization, advertising, social media, email marketing, etc.
• Deliver a compelling sales message. How are you different or better than your competitors and why they should buy from you?
• Answer frequently asked questions. Information that provides clear answers to likely questions about your products or services.
• Establish credibility. Information, sources, media, and testimonials that establish your credentials, authority and reliability of your business, products, or services.
• Ability to collect information. A means to collect basic contact information from potential customers – a free newsletter, report, or some other incentive to provide contact information.

Additional features for your website:

• E-commerce capability. Provide an easy and intuitive way for customers to purchase products or services.
• Customer service. Provide ways for existing customers, for instructions, answers to questions, a forum, support, etc.
• Reasons for customers to keep coming back. Provide additional information of interest to your customers, a blog with comments, a referral or incentive program, or another means of staying connected after the sale.

Once you have the basics done, you can work on the design. Trade the dazzling and stunning for a website that works.

See Paula Williams’ post about websites that don’t sell

Steve Jobs vs Adobe’s Flash

Steve Jobs took a big gamble by when he chose to not support Adobe’s Flash technology.

“Flash is a spaghetti-ball piece of technology that has lousy performance and really bad security problems,” Jobs said, according to biographer Walter Isaacson.

Steve Jobs was right.

Under Jobs, the iPhone became the industry’s leading smartphone and the iPad emerged to virtually dominate the tablet market. While more phones run Google’s Android software (many of them promoting their Flash compatibility), no products captured the public’s imagination and attention, quite like the iPhone.

So when Jobs blasted Adobe’s Flash technology, people listened. He called it “buggy,” a battery hog, and a product created by lazy developers.

“Allowing Flash to be ported across platforms means things get dumbed down to the lowest common denominator,” Jobs said, according to Isaacson. “We spend lots of effort to make our platform better and the developer doesn’t get any benefit if Adobe only works with functions that every platform has.”

Although Jobs did not live to see it, he was vindicated in his assessment as Adobe announced in November following his death, that Adobe will abandoned its Flash initiative for mobile devices.

Apple put its support behind HTML5 as the preferred web platform to provide multimedia experience on smartphones and tablets, insisting it provides the best solution for creating and deploying content in the browser across mobile platforms. Apple’s support is a big reason why HTML5 now universally supported on most major mobile devices.

Steve Jobs was confident in his decision then, and vindicated in his decision not to support the ubiquitous Adobe Flash. Now the rest of us mere technological mortals know full well, Jobs was right. And as always, his goal was function and design, and not forfeit one for the other.

Step 1: “Houston, we have a problem.”

What prompts this realization? Usually, it’s the acknowledgment that the status-quo no longer works:

1. Their past promotional efforts has been somewhat effective, but they have a strong suspicion they can get a better return on money invested.

2. Realization that the usual referral, or word-of-mouth business is not going to sustain and grow their business in the future.

3. Opportunities lost to the competition that is doing a better job marketing themselves.

4. They require professional structure and guidance in their marketing efforts to take this burden off current management.

5. They realize that sales is not marketing – and the best sales people usually are not the best marketing people.

6. Their brand image is dated, sales message ineffective, and their current marketing does not represent their company they way that they would like.

The best solution is to hire an experienced VP of Marketing with aviation experience and a passion for this industry. The cost of this marketing pro, with an assistant, office space, benefits, etc. can easily exceed six figures. Usually, that expense is far beyond the reach of most mid-sized firms.

Another alternative is to hire a marketing consultant with aviation experience. (I happen to know an excellent one, if, by chance, you need a referral!)

Here are some explanations about SEO and its terminology:

Meta-tags are bits of code embedded in a section of web pages called the head. This section contains the code to help browsers render your web page correctly. In addition, information in this section helps search engines understand what content is contained in your website. The three primary meta-tags are the page title, keywords and description.

Crawling for Keywords

In the mid-90s two popular search engines at the time, Infoseek (now defunct) and AltaVista (owned by Yahoo!), first popularized the keywords tag, used to determine what topic and content each website page provided. However, spammers began gaming the system by stuffing meta-tags with keywords containing no relevance to the website’s content, and hence meta-tag importance was diminished in determining how high a website would rank in search results.

Content is King

In terms of search engine rankings, content reigns supreme. If you want your aviation website appear to high in search rankings results for specific keywords and phrases common in your industry, then they must appear within the content of your website.

How often keywords appear and how they fit into your overall business message is exactly where a SEO professional can provide real benefit. These professionals can accurately choreograph where and when specific keywords are placed, so that your aviatin business can be found by potential customers searching for you.

When you provide valuable content for your specific demographic, whether light craft, manufacturing, service, and/or charter air travel, readers will recognize this and return to your site as the authoritative source for their needs. Providing consistent, valuable content will establish you as a leader in your industry, and provide a reliable source when customers are ready to purchase.

An Opportunity to Promote Your Aviation Business

The main purpose of keyword meta-tags is to support content in search results. The description meta-tag has little impact in how well your website is ranked, but does provide an important function: search engines display the text of description meta-tags under the page title in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Instead of repeating keywords with boring copy, use this opportunity to sell and differentiate your company from other websites on search engine results page (SERP).  As in any advertising sales message, making a creative, compelling argument for your business will do wonders for the amount of web traffic generated from search engines.

Beware of SEO firms making big promises

I am amazed at the vast number of emails I get from SEO companies promising to get my aviation marketing website on page 1 of Google. These firms must not be doing their homework because my website is already on page 1.

Many times , these so called SEO experts who spam your inbox are snake-oil salesmen reincarnated, using unethical techniques to drive up search rankings. If you’re a novice to search engine optimization, you may be tempted to contact one of these firms – especially those who offer an enticing ploy of not charging until they achieve a target search objective. The problem is that in search engine optimization there is the right way (“White Hat” methods) to achieve good search rankings, and the wrong way (“Black Hat” methods).

Black Hat Methods Can Get You Blacklisted

SEO firms that employ “black hat” methods such as keyword stuffing, hidden text, cloaked and doorway pages, link farming, and blog spamming, can indeed improve your search rankings short-term, but these techniques violate search engine terms of service, putting your website at risk of being banned. Search algorithms identify these SEO tricks and will eventually blacklist your site from future searches, keeping potential customers from being able to find you. It happens every day, and quite often business don’t even realize it until much later.

More money to reinstate your site’s SEO status and integrity

One day your aviation business website appears on page 1 of Google and you happily pay the charlatan’s SEO fee; the next day, your website has been “blacklisted” and doesn’t appear on any search engine. Now that great deal is going to cost you more money, time and resources to correct the damage done.

The first clue a SEO firm may be unscrupulous is the fact they promote themselves via unsolicited emails; if they market their own company by using unethical spam techniques, how ethical will they be in their SEO practices to promote your aviation company? Not very.

In choosing a search engine optimization firm, you want a firm who has a proven track record of results and satisfied customers. It’s always a good idea to check a firm’s background and ask for references.

Low-cost marketing tips that will keep your charter company flying

The economy has been in a slump for some time, and while there are signs of improvement, the recovery is not here quite yet. Unfortunately, aviation has taken a disproportionate hit during these tough times, undeservedly positioned by the media as a prime example of corporate excess. Automobile executives flying corporate jets to Senate hearings only added fuel to the fire, and flamed an anti-aviation agenda in the news media.

Even those not hard hit by the economic downturn feel it is bad taste to flaunt their wealth. For example, a neighbor is installing a luxury pool in their backyard, but won’t allow the contractor to place a lawn sign advertising the pool company so as not to draw attention to this display of wealth.

Aircraft Charter Especially Susceptible in Tough Times

In good economic times, wealth expands, allowing for discretionary dollars to flow towards activities like private jet travel. During a recession, the opposite occurs, and businesses look to cut costs. They limit air travel in general and air charter in particular. Because an air charter company’s aircraft and infrastructure costs remain fixed despite the economic climate, an extended downturn can have a major impact on the company’s ability to sustain itself resulting with a number of high profile companies like JetDirect going bankrupt.

Smart Marketing Can Help Your Air Charter Company Get Through Tough Economic Times

In a down economy, aircraft charter companies that are able to maintain – even increase their marketing and sales efforts, through a smart, low-cost marketing program – will be best able to weather the downturn and emerge even stronger when the economy eventually improves.

Aircraft Charter Recession Strategy

PART I: Utilize cost-effective marketing tools

The first part of the air charter recession strategy is to utilize low-cost marketing tools that can have an immediate impact in generating sales. Look no further than your website.

1. How easy is it to book a flight or request a quote from your website? Many air charter websites have the ability to request a quote right from the homepage. Prospective customers may visit two or three websites. The one easiest to use, wins the business.
2. Is your website optimized for search engines? Will a prospective customer find you via a Google, Yahoo, or Bing search for air charter in your particular city? If you type “aircraft charter (your city)” into Google and your website does not appear in the first three pages, then you are at a definite disadvantage to those competitors that appear higher in the search ranking.
3. Are you active in industry groups that serve aviation as well as industries that use air charter services? Networking is still a great, low-cost way to meet new customers and build a network of associates who can refer business to you.
4. Are you getting your story out to the press on a consistent and frequent basis? An on-going public relations campaign is another relatively low-cost, but effective way to build awareness for your air charter business with prospective new customers.

PART II: New Opportunities Exist, Find Them!

Lady Gaga would find charter more comfortable in her crazy costumes

The second part of our Air Charter Recession Strategy is to be on the lookout for new opportunities – even when business turns south.

1. Corporations that have closed flight departments. Many of the aforementioned automakers have sold off their corporate jets, and closed or reduced their flight departments. However, these high-level business executives will prefer not to fly commercial if a practical charter alternative is made known to them.

2. Individuals who have sold their private jets. Like those celebrities that have traded Humvees for a Tesla, owning a private jet these days is considered much too bourgeois. But Lady Gaga must travel, and she’s not going to feel comfortable in one of her crazy outfits, even if she flies first-class.

3. Companies sending teams of people on location. Any company that needs to send a team of employees to service a client’s needs on location is going to find air charter an attractive and cost effective alternative to commercial air travel. Research engineering and consulting firms or other industries that need to transport teams of staff to the same locale. Reach out to them and show them how a private charter flying direct to their destination can provide considerable savings in cost and time.

4. Companies doing business in locations not served by major airports. If a business executive needs to book connecting flights into regional, rural or secondary airports, the cost for commercial flying rises dramatically. Educate these companies about the savings air charter can provide in terms of money and time when travelling to regions not served by major airlines.