The economic storm is raging, and most of us have trimmed our sails and hunkered down. For seafaring men, time in port was not just spent drinking ale and carousing–the sailors needed to mend the sails, caulk the cracks in the hull, and take on provisions. In the economic downturn and the start of the holiday season, it might be easy to put off thinking about working on your website, but deferring maintenance may incur additional cost later…including the cost of missed opportunity. To be ready for driving business in the new year, now is the time to freshen your content, fix barriers to sales, and maybe overhaul your site optimization…or even the site design.

We have several design firms/developers/interactive shops we work with…there is no shortage of creative talent in Austin. Each company we work with has its particular niche and pricing structure, and each one really understands the importance of integrating a solid SEO strategy into the site architecture. If you’re thinking about putting the old site into dry dock and putting on a fresh coat of paint, give us a call and we’ll point you in the right direction.

Today we are announcing a new SEO coaching program, as well as a new, proprietary SEO management dashboard. This is a collaborative working environment for making improvements over time, as well as a way to monitor your rankings and clearly see the increase in penetrating the Total Available Search Market. If search engine optimization is one of those projects that you put off in the boom times, working with a flexible, creative, experienced SEO agency might be the most significant thing you can do in the lull to put wind in your sails when the new year dawns.

We have talked with three companies over the last few weeks who are all focused on creating or leveraging their directories. Although directories are nothing new, these companies are focused on capturing and aggressively maintaining position for the terms in the industries that they serve.

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It’s my “turn” to write a blog post. After listening to my whining for all of half a minute, our Blog Overlord said, “We have this great blogroll right there on our blog. Go read it. Find something interesting and link to it.” Very sympathetic. As it turns out, it was excellent advice.

The very first blog post I read was titled, “Blogging Lessons.” Its very first point? “1) It’s hard.“  (yes, it was written in bold.)  Now, that’s serendipity.

I just knew I’d found the I-Told-You-So blog posting to shoot back at our Overlord and get me out of having to ever blog again.  Nope. I realized she was right - again - to withhold sympathy.  Blogging IS important.  And it’s a commitment.  And it is hard.  Even for folks (like Spike) at Brains on Fire who blog all the time.  So, I feel better.  No more whining. For now.

Seriously, do read their work.  Very enlightening stuff.

This is so cool!

Nice. Simple. Powerful.

Once upon a time, I was in college and wanted to do historical restoration. I begged my way into courses in the very exclusive School of Architecture for two whole years while they repeatedly denied me the full change of major admission that would actually let me, you know, learn how to architect things (other than nefarious schemes). I took a lot of theory courses. Each had an inevitable point where we talked about the balance of form and function. Sometimes this point was once or twice in the semester, sometimes once or twice per lecture. It’s a binary way of thinking, but since a great deal of the world seems to favor one well above the other, it’s a good thing to consider. I was surprised that this conversation didn’t happen more in business. To me, it has seemed that people are often debating which one a product or site or campaign should be. Bring up design theory, and you can practically hear the crickets as the room goes silent. Forget that. Design matters. It matters HUGELY.

The ideal, of course, is something that is both useful and lovely. Form and function are wonderful things, in that a thing that is exceptionally functional can be exceptionally beautiful. Sports cars, high-end cookware, and even those little green, plastic picks that Starbucks uses to plug the drinking hole in hot drinks so you don’t burn yourself—all of these are highly functional as well as visually pleasing.

“But I don’t do product design… I’m just in marketing,” you say.
“Yeah, me too. You should read this and let it soak into your brain,” I say. “You see, we’re outsourcing jobs that rely on linear thinking (programming, engineering), but increasingly rewarding people who can think in hybrid ways, who can bring creativity and design and intuition and the human touch into their work.” And then I hand you this book, A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future by Daniel Pink.

Take heart, people. You don’t have to wear all black or become a designer. Everything you have to evolve is most likely curled up, half-asleep inside of you. Once you start thinking and seeing a little bit less rigidly, you’ll find that you already know these tenets to be true. It’s the stuff of humanity, of engagement, of being compelled and engrossed. Every molecule within us feels the magnetic pull toward connection. We want stories. We ache to have our senses delighted. Give it a try. At first, you might feel like you’re swimming through mud, but once things click, it’s wonderful. It’s like the room got bigger and lighter. It’s like you can finally draw a full breath to be able to create practical, useful avenues for creativity.

Here is a question I get fairly often:

I notice in your Twitter posts/tweets that you have a “tiny url” for the website postings you want the reader to see. What is TinyURL? How is this different from a regular URL?

GOOD question, Bob. Here is the answer: Twitter allows only 140 characters and that include any URL you may insert into the text. The problem with URLs is many of them are very long and hairy, as you’ve probably noticed. So … thanks to TinyURL freeware, here’s what you do to solve that problem:

1. Go to http://www.tinyurl.com
2. Scroll down a bit and you’ll see a box titled: Enter a long URL to make tiny:
3. Do what it says and click on the Make TinyURL button.

OR, if you want to add TinyURL to your toolbar:
1. Click and drag the following link to your links toolbar: TinyURL!
2. Once this is on your toolbar, you’ll be able to make a TinyURL at the click of a button. By clicking on the toolbar button, a TinyURL will be created for the page you are currently on. 
3. Next time you’re composing a note in Twitter and want to include a page’s URL, open another window (or tab up) so you can see the content there. Grab the URL and click on the TinyURL thing on your Toolbar, and it will give you the short version you can copy and paste into your tweet.

Try it out. You can always delete your test twitter.

BONUS:
This question also comes up about Twitter: Why should a business bother with Twitter? Well, what you have to keep in mind is there are two parts to the Twitter opportunity, and you don’t see the second one unless you know about it. I’ve had all sorts of businesses contact me when I twitter about something because these businesses are constant running SEARCHES against all Twitters for keywords. When they find something, they send that person an email (or Twitter). It’s the ultimate one-on-one marketing.

Go to Google and type Twitter Search and you’ll see all kinds of search engines. In fact, Twitter actually purchased a specialized Twitter Search software company that has been integrated into Twitter - see http://search.twitter.com/. 

The business leverage here is getting more intimate with people who are exposing so much about their daily lives (business and personal) that you can hook into this and engage with them. Answer questions, help them out, solve a problem for them, sell them a product they are looking for, fix something broken they are complaining about.

I tell you, when someone pops up in your email box telling you they saw a Twitter you posted and they are offering some help, it just about blows you away. This is true for B-to-B and B-to-C.

Another feature is the list of hot topics that are shown at http://search.twitter.com/, so go exploring and see what’s possible for you and your business on Twitter.

Tom

This just in (snort!) from Article Alley–honest, folks, I don’t make this stuff up:

Article Writing Service from Experienced Internet Copywriters

Do you want articles with 100% original content, which have been wrote by experienced and professional copywriters? How about an unlimited amount of articles wrote for your disposal? By using the professional article writing service brought to you from Article Alley this is exactly what you will be getting.

Armano tweeted a link to this article in The New Yorker, and it’s too good not to share. Forget SEO, forget marketing for now. This is for all of you creative people out there who weren’t skyrocketed into the spotlight of being a young genius and decided maybe you weren’t so good at this stuff after all. Maybe you’re better than you could ever imagine. Picasso was a prodigy, but Cezanne a late bloomer whose work only improved with his increasing age. Image courtesy wikimedia.

Here are some numbers from page 42 of Groundswell, by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff:

From a sample of 10,000 online US consumers, the percent who say they do the following things monthly:

Use Twitter - 5%

Write articles, stories, poems, etc, and post them online - 7%

Use RSS - 8%

Listen to podcasts - 11%

Publish / update their own Web pages - 11%

Publish / maintain / or update a blog - 11%

Post ratings / reviews of products or services - 11%

Listen to or download audio/music from other users - 14%

Contribute to online forums or discussion groups - 18%

Add comments to someone’s page on a social networking site - 18%

Update / maintain a profile on a social networking site - 20%

Read blogs - 25%

Read reviews / ratings - 25%

Visit social networking sites - 25%

Read online forums or discussion groups - 28%

Watch video from other users - 29%

Those of us in b2b marketing must keep in mind that business-to-business happens person-to-person. And more and more, folks are getting together online to swap stories in one way or another…are your prospects there?

…says the Wall Street Journal. I agree. The book is “Citizen Marketers - When People Are the Message” by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba (favorite bloggers of ours at Church of the Customer).

This insightful book is a quick read and helps explain how social media has come about and how one person can truly make a difference. The book is a social media primer. It’s an historical reference more than a how-to-do-social-media guide, but some of the history happened without my noticing and it’s nice to have a short and sweet explanation of things that now “define” social media.

If you’re not clear what all the hype is about, it’s worth a few hours to read this book. The authors deliver their message via informative, real-life stories. You’ll read about the effect an individual can have on a brand, and how that single person can influence what LOTS of people buy. Get ideas on how companies can benefit — and profit — from engaging Citizen Marketers. Social media is a “trend” that’s real and is becoming a new standard for good marketing and communications.

Now I *almost* understand why people spend so much time blogging, posting videos, creating podcasts and composing advertisements. It’s powerful stuff.