Do They Know What You're Doing?

If you run a genealogy web site, you probably (or maybe not) spend most of your time building the business by adding more content, or working on your marketing efforts to drive more traffic to you site. But do you ever ask yourself if the people arriving at your site understand what you're trying to offer them?

Many people (especially earlier this month while I was on a great genealogy tour) ask me what Genealogy Today is all about. And the more often I get asked, the better I get at answering. But, the better I get answering, the more I begin to realize that the Genealogy Today home page wasn't as successful at conveying the same message. [The home page has been improved since I wrote this post]

Often it's the evolutionary process that creates this disparity, so you should expect this to happen if you often engage in a variety of projects -- involving different type of information, or geared towards a slightly different audience.

There are plenty of articles out there on the topic of testing, but they typically measure success based on the number of visitors that complete a specific task. How do you measure whether or not someone understands what you're actually doing after they visit your web site?

Find Yourself a Genealogical Niche

If you're a small genealogy business owner, stop posting general information like census data or passenger lists on your site, the big companies will always outpace your efforts. And our industry is seeing an increase in the number of medium companies (e.g. WorldVitalRecords.com and GenealogyBank.com) joining in the fray.

Yes, many genealogists are frugal and will often seek a free source for the information they are looking for, but as these medium companies grow and the bigger companies invest more and more in mainstream advertising, will the next generation of genealogists even think to check your site for these commodity items?

Compound this changing climate in our industry with the glut of keyword-happy Google AdSense web sites, and the visibility of a smaller genealogy web site will clearly be on the decline.

One of the solutions is to hone your collecting skills and expertise on smaller, more unique information sources and then become the best online resource.

Another reason I'm looking at this strategy is that the affiliate marketing opportunities available today (versus several years ago) are more focused on new customer acquisition. By specializing in more unique resources, you have the opportunity to reach individuals that may be interested in genealogy but not actively pursuing the hobby.

For example, a couple of months ago I stumbled upon a World War Two ration book in an antique shop. The book had interesting genealogical information on it, so I bought it. When I got back to the office, I did some research and found that there weren't any online repositories of these little books.

Now, as I'm collecting and expanding the WW2 war ration book database index on Genealogy Today, I'm also attracting military enthusiasts and researchers.

And the last marketing incentive for creating a specialized online resource is the ability to establish links from non-genealogy web site. Developing a highly focused page on the topic will get you good search engine placement, thus webmasters will find your page and link to it. How can they resist when you're the only site with an abundance of information on the topic, right?

The remaining question is how many niches can you establish and still have enough resources to be remarkable in each!

Don't Jump.... To Conclusions

Here's a deep thought, what is the truth when it comes to genealogical information? This evening, I attended a talk by Arlene Eakle (blog) who made an interesting statement. She said that documented information is simply information that has its source defined.

Over the years, many people have cautioned about online information and its validity, and I've blogged about anonymous websites and unsourced information that continue to compound the problem. If your a genealogy webmaster, you owe it to your visitors to explain where your information came from, the original source AND who interpreted it. That's another distinction Alrene made. We often say that information was transcribed, which is appropriate for clearly type documents, but for hand-written documents it really is interpretation.

I've learned this first hand with my ww2 war ration book project. My enthusiam oftens clouds my judgment as I didn'r realize what I was getting myself into with this project. I never imagined running around my house to stare at a little book in different lighting with a magnifying glass to figure out what the surname is. My wife now knows if I approach her and hand out a ration book, it means I'm baffled and need a second opinion.

So, sure people have gotten the message about trusting information, but I wonder how many apply that rule to the less professional looking sites. Do they trust the information found on Ancestry.com as opposed to some of the personal web pages? Shouldn't they trust Ancestry.com?

A point was made in another session I attended today that the census data on Ancestry.com was actually transcribed (and thus intepreted) in countries where English is not the primary language. And thus the people interpreting the handwritten census records are not familiar with Anglican names. Interesting point.

It seems like all genealogy companies be more responsible with the information they publish by clearly stating who was responsible for the interpretation. Not necessarily name the person (for privacy reasons), but stating a first initial, last name, and regional information (country or state).

I'm going to take a closer look at this topic and consider adding this extra piece of information to the databases published at Genealogy Today. It would probably also be interesting to clarify whether the source was typed or hand-written.

Genealogists should ask the webmaster, or the company providing the information, whether the source was handwritten, and if so, who did the interpretation. Don't just assume that because its online that the transcriber did an accurate job. I can now say with experience that dealing with handwritten documents is not an easy prospect.

What's Your Weakest Link?

Between running your business, worrying about year-end accounting, and doing some planning for the new year, it's a challenge to find the time to stop and look at where you're NOT doing a remarkable job. But, perhaps such an exercise may yield better results in the long-term.

If you take a moment and think about what part of your business doesn't quite run as smoothly as it should, or is there a typical business function that you haven't even addressed. This should be part of your planning for the new year. Do what you do better before you attempt to do more.

So, I asked myself last month, what could I do better? The answer was improve my customer service. What if instead of waiting up to two days to get a response from me, customers could get one in a matter of hours? Sounds like a great plan, but how can a small business afford to provide remarkable service like that?

Enter the Virtual Assistant!

The explosion of the Internet created a whole new industry, giving talented people the opportunity to work for companies remotely. Then International Virtual Assistants Association defines a virtual assistant as, "an independent entrepreneur providing administrative, creative and/or technical services."

There are many VA's out there looking for opportunities to fill up a 40 hour work week. The best part of this arrangement is that you can get what you need (say 5 hours of help a week) without having to foot the cost of hiring a full-time (or even part-time) employee.

Interesting, right? So, rather that try to fix the real problem (i.e. I'm wearing too many hats to provide my customers with prompt responses), bring in some extra help to offset it. When you distill down something like customer service (for a small company), it shouldn't add up to more than a few hours a week. (If it's consuming more than that, perhaps you have a weaker link in your business and need to dig deeper)

Several years ago (when the VA thing was starting), I contacted several VA's (and a few contacted me), but could never get past the mental block of what could this person really do for me that I'm willing to pay for. It's really the exploration of what your weakest at, or what you're not even getting to altogether, that will help identify where to invest in outside help.