so edition #4 of adobe’s creative suite does some pretty amazing things. check out video tutorials on the adobe web site for a quick “how-to”, or even just for inspiration.

mantra of this post: it’s important to pay attention to things in our daily lives. they teach us things about our business.

ok, so i was up late over the weekend working on one of those internal projects that never seems to get done during the work week. i turned on the television for some background noise. my home office is an offshoot from the living room, and i can see about 60% of the screen (hence the pic) — it eases the pressure of working in complete silence, and i get to keep abreast on the latest rerun of scrubs.

back on track: this infomercial came on, with a goofy-looking kid, anthony morrison, who promised riches beyond measure by using his system, hidden millionaires. all right, i know what you’re thinking. i was thinking the same thing. because these things are all the same, right? the one thing that got me was Anthony’s use of the phrase “affiliate marketing”. as you may know, affiliate marketing accounts for a small stream of our revenue, so i instantly tuned in (still working, but a greater percentage of my attention dedicated to the tv).

the basic tenet of affiliate marketing — i push someone else’s product, they pay me cash for the lead or the sale. to draw our current affiliate income, we currently use our seo/sem skills to place ads, plus send messages to opted-in subscribers via online outbox, our email marketing platform, to get the message out. got it? moving on…

it seemed odd to me that someone in an infomercial like this would let the cat out of the bag before the general public got to the event they were pushing. some meeting in the basement of some dingy hotel conference room, with music pumping and big lcd screens on the walls: that’s where they finally unveil their magic potion, or secret formula. so, honesty? that intrigued me.

so i’m not making $200K+ every month from affiliate marketing like this kid is, right? so i register for his event in my area for the next day, out of curiosity.

disclaimer: i didn’t sign up for the millionaire program. in fact, i left early, in the middle of the guy’s presentation. it was a 90 minute presentation, it was worth about 30 minutes, and i stayed 15 minutes too long, debating on whether it was rude to get up and leave while the guy was talking.

anyway, i knew that i wasn’t signing up for anything, but i attended to conclude WHY i wasn’t signing up for anything. i owed that to myself. so here’s my conclusion:

1) within the first 5 minutes, they introduce the company that they’re affiliate marketing for: it’s a credit card company. i have nothing against credit cards, the issuers, or their customers. i have credit cards. but not everyone who has a credit card should have a credit card. and i have a moral issue with the way credit cards are marketed, especially to those already steeped in debt, without much hope of getting out. a $1,000 visa card is not the solution to their debt.

2) the program is like $4,800. they offer convenient financing options. first, that’s a lot of money to pay in order to start working for someone. the affiliate marketing programs that our team participates in have been established by relationships. we haven’t paid a penny to become an affiliate with anyone.

second, the presenter spoke for forty-five minutes straight, speaking in very simple technical terms, explaining the basic tenets of search engine marketing, promising that anthony himself would come later in the evening and give us the very phrases that we should use in our campaigns. this sounds like a lesson in search engine optimization. a very expensive lession in search engine optimization. other than the web site that they give you included in that $4,800 package, i saw nothing proprietary in what they offer.

i googled the company and in a post, saw someone’s opinion that said something like, “if it really worked, they wouldn’t charge you until after it worked.” that’s a little lame. if i’m the late sam walton (or i guess, sam walton’s kid), and i sell someone a can of slim-fast, i don’t let them pay after they’ve lost 40 lbs. i sell them a product. what they do with it is up to them. however, i didn’t see $4,800 worth of product in the package.

3) a little investigating showed some suspicious aspects of the company’s existence, such as no articles of incorporation, no contact information on the public services web site other than to register for an event. you know, the basics. and support, no matter what you’re selling, is crucial.

so what does that teach me about business? first, sometimes it’s worth investigating something just to know for sure why it isn’t a solution. second, allocate enough time to investigate, but once you know enough to make an informed decision, make that decision and move forward. third, google, google, google.

all that to say, in this rambling post, that we’ve got a good thing going here. at a $4,800 discount. thanks for reading…

have i mentioned lately that i love what i do? but fridays are a fan favorite. the rest of the week is filled with meetings and deadlines. not that i dislike them. but there’s more of a sense of performance. get up before dawn. put on slacks and coordinate shoes and belt. and it’s off to the races.

but fridays are different. the typical friday allows me to sleep in an extra hour. i throw on an old pair of jeans and hang out at one of the local cafes, sip something sweet, a classic U2 tune in the background, and spend several hours uninterrupted at the computer, thinking and planning, sometimes throw in a little coding. but for the most part, it’s a different pace.

i highly advise getting out of the office occasionally. take an hour for lunch and take a book. sit on a park bench and watch the cars go by. turn your phone off. there’s not much that can’t be put off by one hour. it’s therapeutic.

you can’t market a business without making some mistakes. ’tis an unfortunate fact. but the misfortune comes not from the mistake, but the timidity that comes as a result. the businessperson who is not making mistakes is stagnant, for he isn’t dipping his feet into unfamiliar territory. and it’s the unfamiliar that breeds greatness. it’s a pool of opportunity.

if you aren’t out there making mistakes, learning what works and what doesn’t, or getting a feel for how you can best utilize your strengths and compensate for your weaknesses, then are you really getting anywhere at all?

my recent mistake: i recently quoted a project at a flat price to an new client. while there was a typical profit margin built in, the scope of the project had that tendency to creep over the duration of the project. we honored our commitment to price and deliverables, but i came out the other side a little wiser. here’s my take on how to scope significant projects:

1) quote a project price, in order to give the client a break on our hourly rate. but be clear in the SOW how many hours, how many rounds of revisions, etc. are included in that price.

2) if scope creeps, as it sometimes does, schedule a weekly call with the client, where we review the hours via the client extranet. this gives a summary of hours spent, and gives a good estimation of hours remaining.

3) determine whether an addendum is necessary. our practice is to notify the client before crossing our estimate, and establishing parameters for the next point of escalation. typically that next point is 10%. if time spent on the project exceeds 10% of our total estimate, we need to break again with a better estimate of remaining hours.

granted, if this had not been a new client, we would have better known how to quote, or would have had the affinity to address the situation quickly.

this mistake (or “learning opportunity”, as our corporate culture has come to call it) will give us better footing for providing our clients a better experience, and keep our company profitable as well.

all is well, the client is happy, and i’m happy, but that, my friends, is a mistake worth learning from.

as the number of legitimate websites out there has quickly grown to well over 182 million, website marketing has become an increasingly important function. and by the term “website marketing”, i don’t mean so much the marketing that takes place on a website, listing info about a company and its products, but actually the organic efforts that happen behind the scene on a website, that take place in an effort to draw traffic. this has become so important, that within the past few years, it has developed as an industry in itself: an industry we call search engine optimization, or seo, for short.

since there are over 182 million sites out there, what sets one apart from the rest? pushing a particular site to the top of search engine rankings is a science that is constantly evolving, but there are some constants that hold true:

- a site’s ranking is based on its popularity. that is, how many hits the site is getting. so the more hits a site gets, the higher ranked it is in search engines, so the more hits it gets. overly simplified? maybe. google puts it like this: “page rank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value”. it’s sort of like voting for class president in high school. the popular vote rarely went to the one most capable of handling the duties of an office, but rather to the kid who was most well-liked.

- it’s not a crapshoot. there are things you can do to boost your site’s performance beyond making it look pretty.

boost popularity with tags. tags are invisible fields that web developers put inside the code behind a web page that tell search engines what the site is all about. here they list keywords that they’d like to be associated with, a description of the website and its content, and instructions to the robotic “web crawlers” on the layout of the content on the site.

boost popularity with content. speaking of content, the text on the pages of a site have a lot to do with how search engines rank the site. tags can be deceiving, whether done so intentionally by the site’s designers or not, and search engines realize that the content on a site is a better indicator of what the site is all about than is what a designer says the site is all about.

boost popularity by creating a buzz. stirring up interest, creating noise out there about your site can be done by writing internet articles, blogging, linking from other popular sites, mass emails, etc. the more “noise” there is out there, the better for your rankings, even if you’re only creating the noise yourself. others will follow.

boost popularity by advertising. old fashioned advertising can help as well. tv spots, newspaper articles – anything that drives traffic to the site from multiple sources will help. after all, if it’s popular with readers, it’s popular with search engines.

keep a site under constant analysis. making a site stand out can be a chore, and can demand lots of time, and time usually means money. since business managers are usually not web developers, it often makes sense for them to hire an expert in the field of seo. it’s important to view seo in the long-term rather than the short-term. a seo campaign can take up to four, six, even eight months before results are noticeable, but the traffic that ensues can make it all worthwhile.

it sounds like a sales pitch, but seo can truly drive traffic to your website, and lack of seo can leave a beautifully functional website old and dusty.

there are several ways you can improve your search engine rankings yourself, and we’ve listed several free and low-fee tools. if you’re ready for a professional touch, seo is one of the web services we offer, so please let us know if we can help in any way.

rob riggs, principal
www.yourdesignonline.com
atlanta, ga

are you just getting started? are you not sure where to look, or even what questions to ask? this is a great place to start! take a few minutes and read some helpful hints below.

is it worth it?
is it worth the extra investment of time and money to gain web presence?

what it all boils down to is this: will your site generate revenue? if it generates more business than it costs to produce and maintain, then it’s worth it. if not, then it’s a high-tech toy.

developing a website can open possibilities for expanding your customer base beyond your local area, and even worldwide! if you think about it, the web is the great equalizer: every business, no matter how big or how small, can represent themselves (and represent themselves well, i might add!) on the internet.

traditional advertising done on print media (newspaper ads, billboards, mailers) are great methods of spreading the word about your business, but they are expensive, especially when compared with the potential cost per person reached. for example, you can ideally send a full color postcard (designed, printed and delivered) for less than a quarter, but you’re almost guaranteed that each postcard will be viewed only once, by only one set of people. imagine the possibilities if you could put the same information on a web page that is viewed by millions of people every day! the cost per contact decreases significantly, not to mention the overall cost of a web page is much lower. a web page designed one time can be viewed an infinite number of times, by an infinite number of people, for a very long period of time!

can’t you just do it yourself?
sure you can! many businesses prefer to develop and maintain their own websites. when you build your own site, your main cash outlay will be the monthly fee for your host service (other than software and resources, there is not much expense in the actual day to day work of a website). any changes or updates will rest on your knowledge of web design. you could either build a minimal site and be satisfied, or you could spend time learning the web development process and wow your e-guests.

if you have someone else develop your site, you will have some up-front costs to build the site, but once it is built, you should only have a monthly hosting fee (unless you need ongoing development).

the big question is, is it worth it for you to spend your time designing a website, rather than build your professional business? it’s been said that every opportunity is another opportunity foregone. if you decide to build your own site, that takes valuable time away from the focus of your business.

i’m a big believer in the “only do what only you can do” ideology – in other words, keep your main thing your main thing. i don’t change the oil in my vehicle, i take it to wal-mart. not only do i not want crawl around under a car, but when i count the cost of doing it myself, i find it’s not even close to worthwhile. the first cost is time: it would take me longer to change clothes, get under the car and actually change the oil, dispose of the waste, shower and change again, than it would for me to drop it off and let an expert do it. my time is most valuable when i’m doing what i’m an expert at. the next (and most obvious) cost is money: i could probably buy the materials to change the oil for less than $10, but when the guy at wal-mart will do it for less than $20, is the savings really worth it?

i encourage you, if you want a website that looks professional, is appealing, functional, and easy to navigate, hire a web designer. you’ll have fewer headaches, you’ll be able to spend your time doing what you’re actually good at, and you’ll probably have a better site in the end.

prepare yourself
when i’m thinking about a website, what questions should i ask myself? what questions will a developer ask me? will they make me feel like a complete idiot?

starting your website can be an intimidating process! many people don’t know where to begin. here’s the way i walk through the initial process of understanding what a customer wants:

1 – start general. what is your purpose in developing a website? are you expanding your current business market? does your business have the potential to reach customers from a wide geographical base? think about who will be viewing your web page, the need that drove them to your site, and what information will help them make their decision. this will help you determine your answers to the following specific questions of design and function.

2 – next, think about how the information should be displayed. how should the information be divided and categorized? will you have main pages containing links to sub-pages with more detail, or is your information related enough to be combined onto only a few pages? many businesses prefer to keep the information per page to a minimum, so as not to overload the online guest with information that may not be related to their search. so, that said, will a basic site (5 or so pages: a home page, contact info, basic product info) fill your needs? or will you require a premium site (over 50 pages)?

3 – think about design. are there other websites out there that contain features or design concepts that you like? does your company have logos, graphic and color schemes already established? are you wanting flash or other animation techniques? a great way to prepare is to get out there and do a little research. visit the websites of some other companies in your market, or even outside your market. keep track of websites that you like, and make note of what captured your attention. be specific!

you don’t need to know all the answers!
keep in mind, you don’t have to know all the answers up front! a web developer will walk through this process with you, but asking yourself these questions will help you think through the beginning stages.

for more personalized help with your questions, get your free forty-four page website planner workbook, designed specifically to help you think through the organization of your site! if i can help you think through this process, don’t hesitate to contact us!

rob riggs, principal
www.yourdesignonline.com
atlanta, ga