I’ve just completed a project where the desires of the graphic designer took precedence over search engine visibility and site performance.  I had only heard about these sorts of debates before and had never had been involved in one.

The designer admitted they cared more about look and feel of the site than they did about its features and functions.  Ultimately being forced to defer to the designer’s logic by putting a scroll box into a post, for the sake of aesthetics, enforced website design tactics that have not been popular since the late 1990’s.  Neither the project initiator nor the graphic designer seemed to care at all about search engine visibility, website performance, or the impact their design-based decisions were having upon the website.  Regardless of my feelings about it, I did as I was instructed and delivered a site that has absolutely no SEO value, much to my chagrin.  I contributed my ideas and they were ignored.  What else was there for me to do? 

But, my position stands that graphic design should NEVER take precedence over website performance, function, and search engine optimization.  I will augment this by saying that website aesthetics and website functionality and value are not mutually exclusive goals.  With a little bit of understanding, beautiful website designs can be rendered to functional code that performs well and is also optimized for search engine visibility.

In my experience, graphics designers rarely have website development or SEO skills.  I have the distinction of possessing design, development and SEO skills, among other things, so this is not true of me.  My composite skill set is extremely rare, so I have been told.  Because it is important to my clients, I keep abreast of current online marketing tactics and website development trends so I can educate my customers and offer choices, should the need arise.  Of primary concern to me is overall website SEO and performance.  A properly designed website can garner organic traffic, especially if it uses the built-in features of a content management system like Wordpress, and performance does not have to suffer if the developer knows what they are doing.

With the caveat that there are many people out there who know as much or more about this topic than me, I will share a little of what I know about these things in this post.   It is not all inclusive, for it would be impossible to encapsulate years of experience on such large subjects into a single post.

Why Should You Care about SEO?

A pretty website pleases the eye, and design does matter, but your website SEO strategy can make the difference between a profitable website and a wasted expense.  If you are not doing your own development work, you have paid a professional developer real money their time.  Viewing your website as a marketing asset should not be taken lightly.  With good planning, design, and a solid SEO strategy in mind, your website can becom an extremely valuable tool that facilitates your business success.

Search Engine Optimization is not a huge mystery.  There are several sites with valuable and free content out there for people to study, if they are willing to invest the time and energy.  While each SEO “expert” seems to subscribe to their own philosophy, some factors are constants.

Generally speaking, there is on-page SEO and off-page SEO.  On-Page SEO is what you do with your website design and post content.  Off-Page SEO can be loosely defined as the linking strategies you employ to elevate your site’s authority on the internet.  Both are important, but the latter has very little to do with website design.

On Page SEO

Each page of your website is viewed individually by search engines.  Thus, it is possible for some of your pages to have a more elevated listing status in the search engines than others.  Content management systems, like Wordpress, offer really cool SEO features like internal linking and frequent updates through RSS feeds and commenting features.  While some Graphic Designers hold steadfastly to their belief that there still is a place for straight HTML websites, open source applications like Wordpress, which is continually improving, make that belief all but obsolete.

Within a page, search engines are alerted by text styling tactics of using headings (H1 is best) or bold text to call attention to important content that contains the keywords you are pursuing.  Enabling Wordpress plugins that permit you to specify relevant meta titles, descriptions, and post-specific keywords will assist with acquiring organic traffic and gaining better page listings and rankings.  Since I put up my first Wordpress Website years ago, I’ve been using the All in One SEO plugin.  There are others out there.

Having a keyword rich domain name and page title goes miles toward a quick ranking.  Post titles and overall URL length matter.  The last time that I checked, search engines only read the first 256 characters of a URL.  This could have changed, so don’t quote me.  So, if you have a long domain name and a long page/post title, your effort in researching and placing keywords could be pointless.  Wordpress setup defaults are not the best for creating links.  There are multiple opinions about what is the best way to customize the permalink structure.  In any case, finding ways to eliminate unimportant words and numbers from the link is the only way to go.

Off Page SEO

This is, in a nutshell, your linking strategy.  Over the years that I’ve been involved with website delivery, I’ve seen hundreds of offers for SEO automation tools that claim they can drive floods of traffic to your site by exploiting loopholes in search engine algorithms.  I’ve never taken that bait.  As for other tools that offer SEO link building assistance that is white hat, I’m skeptical that these products have delivered the results promised but I do confess to not having tried more than a handful of them.  In my humble opinion, high quality external links are earned through the time-consuming work of posting articles, providing high-quality responses in active forums, and building an online reputation for your site’s authority by offering sincere and relevant blog comments or appearing as a guest blogger on a high ranking site.

Freelancers offer SEO services of link building through article creation, blog commenting and forum posts.  I cannot compete with offshore service provider pricing so this is not a service that I offer.  I educate my customers on link building tactics and sometimes refer work out to colleagues.  There are article spinning tools that allow you to write one good article and spin it multiple ways so you can have unique content up on multiple sites.  As for automating blog comments, I don’t approve spam comments on my sites so why should I expect anyone else to do so?    Forums may seem like old news but there are some very busy forums with high authority on which I’ve been actively pursuing links back to a few of my sites.  Just ensure that you become active in a forum that is related to the main topic of your site if you choose this tactic for link building.

Website Performance Notes

If you are using images on your site, upload and reference them with keyword rich names.  Embedding keywords as alt text for your images is a important too because search engines can read it.  More and more frequently, websites are being found through image searches.  Although it makes a site or post more interesting, excessive use of images is discouraged because each call for that image results in another http request which can inhibit performance.

Pages that are designed entirely in flash are … well, flashy.  I truly admire the skills that flash programmers have honed but I have never recommended flash introductions when text and images will deliver the same message.  Opinions may vary but mine is that flash intros and pages are not good for SEO.  Additionally, flash is a client-side application that relies on the technology configuration of the viewer’s computer.  Most non-technical people are not as fastidious about PC maintenance and technology upgrades as I may be and no developer can write code to overcome that.  Hire the flash developer, by all means, but keep in mind that your multi-thousand dollar expense for flash programming may be lost on a portion of your potential audience who is frustrated by the fact that they see nothing on the page or it is taking too long to load.

When moving a site from HTML to a content management system, I frequently hear my clients say that the site seems slower.  That’s true.  It is, by comparison.  This has to do with PHP and database access speeds.  Designing code that works as optimally as possible is my responsibility, so I’m not abdicating entirely.  Recently, when this protest kept coming up, I set up the same site on two other hosting services so they could compare site performance.  It was a proverbial “no brainer” decision.  Their hosting service was the stumbling block.  Both A2 Hosting and JustHost eclipsed Network Solutions for page loads and video performance.

The use of CSS sprites improve website performance because only one image is referenced.  I do not advocate for the use of image-based menus, however, because their use removes text from the pages and eliminates dynamic addition of navigation links.  This is best explained by example.  One of the features of Wordpress is that it automatically adds new category links to menus without having to alter site code.  This translates to ease of use for my customers, once they’ve gotten a handle on the difference between pages, posts and categories.  With the exception of the site that I was recently asked to develop, all of my site navigation code has been pure CSS, clean and simple.  After working with a beautiful theme that used one image for all of its iconography and backgrounds, my custom theme designs will be making much more use of CSS sprites.

The importance of creating a brand that sticks in the minds of your target market is obvious to people in stable businesses.  When the market paradigm shifts or a part of a product line is discontinued, it has potential to kill the brand.  Campaigns to create and obtain market share for a new brand can be very expensive so leveraging the investment you’ve already made in your branding strategy is economical and important, especially these days. 

When Volkswagen introduced themselves in the USA in 1949, only 2 vehicles sold.  By the end of 1955, the manufacturer had firmly established their presence in the United States. I’m not sure if it was the marketing experts or the public who created the “slug a bug” attachment to the vehicle but I certainly remember playing the game with my sister in the back seat of our family car.  I also remember my mother complaining about the odd appearance of the VW Beetle. 

Slug-a-Bug!

Lately, Volkswagen has been weaving this childhood game into their marketing campaign.  The inference of the new spin, however, is that the vehicle is moving so quickly that the onlooker who has been “slugged” didn’t see it.  This is brilliant! 

A brand can be established using imagery, colors, sounds or words.  Most times, it is a combination of some or all of these things. If a brand becomes “stale” or the marketing message has gotten muddied by exterior influences, like competition or economic constraints, it may become necessary to revitalize the brand to elevate awareness and increase market share.  Clever tactics for brand stabilization or revitalization are not accidents. 

Whether your business is small or large, there are a series of rules that must be followed steps that must be followed to accomplish the task of brand revitalization. 

Refocus

This step begins by evaluating the market that you are pursuing and redefining the purpose and goals of the company and the brand.  Every member of the organization must aspire that message in their work and the communication from the company to the market must consistently reiterate the new goals. 

Your message should succinctly state that purpose and be easy for consumers to remember.  Consider the branding strategy that AT&T is currently using for their wireless campaigns.  They want consumers to know that, using their technology, anything is possible.  This is a good message.  It conveys freedom and choice, something that is dear to all our hearts. 

Relevance

Since the promise of a brand is what leads to consumer interest and loyalty, it must clearly and accurately convey what consumers can expect to experience every time they choose your product or service and how that is different from the competition. 

As a business owner or executive, you must decide where you want to be and how you will get there.  You must understand the criteria your market uses to make purchasing choices in your niche.   You must also have an awareness about why people are choosing your competition’s products or services over yours. If you’ve lost market share due to global factors, your task is to repurpose the brand so you can keep your product or service viable. 

Reinvent

This is where action comes into play.  The active components of any market are people, product, price, place and promotion. 

Revitalizing a brand must begin with the people INSIDE your organization.  Every member of the company must feel committed to the new branding strategy if you hope to influence future success. 

Products and services are tangible evidence of the brand promise.  Reinventing a brand image involves innovation of your products and renovation of services that support it.  This requires investment of resources and  and the talent of your organization. 

Consider the variances you have witnessed with everyday use products like skin care, laundry detergent, or toothpaste.  With the rise of economical concerns, laundry products began to promote the fact that you could wash more clothes with less detergent.  Personal care products,like toothpaste, introduced and now promote their ability to make your teeth whiter.  Neutrogena has recently introduced a brand revitalization campaign that reminds women that they trusted the product as teenagers and should continue to use it to keep their skin looking young.  This is very clever… 

Pricing is part of this phase of brand revitalization.  If there is a way to re-package your product or service offerings in a way to grab more market share, you will have expanded your revenue stream without having to develop new products.  McDonald’s implemented this strategy with their Dollar Menu items. 

Inclusive in this phase of brand revitalization is the promotion aspect.  Your brand’s “face” is its place.  Whether the product resides on a store shelf or online, each time it is found, it must be easily recognized.  Packaging, colors, images, and sounds are all part of what makes your brand image memorable.  Promoting and maintaining the non-verbal aspects of your brand image are important, especially in a global environment where language differs. 

Results

It isn’t an obsession, exactly, but measuring results is a topic that you’ll find me referencing consistently.  The entire point of change is to realize progress and, if you are not measuring the results of your brand revitalization campaign, you have no way to see if your efforts are enhancing your bottom line. 

If your organization has staff, ensure that they are engaged in the results orientation efforts.  Stress the importance of bringing the brand to life for your market, especially if your employees are “on the front lines” and dealing with your customers individually. 

Rebuild Trust

Expanded access to information has heightened consumer awareness, and there are many reasons for them to feel distrustful.  Your brand must acknowledge the social imperatives that drive consumers during their purchase decisions.  Speak to their concerns about ecological matters, privacy concerns, or false claims.  Re-establish their confidence by engaging in local activities and events that are not profit oriented and by being open and honest about all of your business affairs. 

Realize Globally

Distill your brand revitalization strategy to a single document that is capable of expanding globally.  Make this resource readily available to your staff and your customers, along with the desired goals of your brand revitalization strategies.  If you have a brick and mortars presence, clientele will see that you are walking your talk by the experience they have as they are interacting with you professionally. 

Leadership Required

Creativity is essential, but  the new brand vision and positive momentum is a result of committed leaders who are capable of providing clear direction and maintaining priorities.  The brand message must be consistent, whether you are interacting with the board room,  investors, employees, or consumers.  Trust your instincts, by all means, but remember that you ARE the personification of the brand you seek to revitalize.

We joke about watching paint dry when time seems to move too slowly but, believe it or not, this is an actual role for which people are paid.  Duties include touching the painted item to ensure that it is dry.  What does this have to do with businss and online income?  Read on… 

Many people put up pretty websites and expect immediate results.  Very few people get what they desire, unless they have found a particular niche that is in demand and has not already been exploited or they have a well established and responsive list. 

As a website consultant, I’ve always recommended beginning with the end in mind.  During initial meetings with any new client, I always inquire about their keywords and SEO strategy.  Of all the hundreds of sites that I’ve built, only one customer actually had a plan in place.  Statistically, those who did not embrace the idea that they needed to identify niche keywords and strategically pursue them experienced less than optimal results. 

Once you’ve determined your SEO and linking strategy, you must set about the task of doing the work necessary to accomplish it.  This entails tactics that will build relevance based on keywords through on-site and off-site content. 

Perhaps the best known method for getting links to your website is writing articles, adding a link to your signature in a forum, or commenting on blogs.  But, how do you know which sites have importance from Google’s point of view?  Michelle MacPherson recently released a free tool for monitoring top internet properties for your content and links.  I don’t know if it is still available but I’ve used it and it is very helpful.  The caveat is that each site has different rules so make sure you read the fine print when you register and begin to use them.

Lately, there has been a resurgence in using videos to promote your business or opportunity.  This isn’t big news.  Video marketing has been a great way to give voice to your brand for years and new video distribution channels are popping up every day.  Your videos need to go viral, for them to really provide benefit, and if you don’t use good keywords when posting the video, it is just “out there” waiting to be found.  Alternatively, and as I mentioned earlier, you can deploy it to your dedicated and responsive list. 

Differentiating yourself online may be the biggest challenge you face.  Most of what I observe is a lot of emulation.  That isn’t a bad idea.  Heck!  It worked for me when I wanted to learn to sing like Joni Mitchell.    Still, emulating what everyone else is doing only makes you like everyone else.  Your market will choose to buy the offer, if it is something they want or need, and they will buy it from a link that appears in early in their search results.  Thus, if you have no SEO strategy, whether or not you’ve done your niche research homework, there will be a lot of people ahead of you in the pile. 

Assuming that you’ve are now convinced that learning SEO and keyword research is important to your business success … online or offline … what can you do?  Well, you can begin by learning more about SEO and keyword research from an expert.  Dan Thies has availed a great ebook entitled Fast Start SEO which you can download at this link.  Dan Thies also offers a free membership where people aspiring to learn more, or those who are active in the arena already, can interact and swap ideas.  You can choose to outsource the task to someone who knows what they are doing, if you feel you have more important things to do,  but I imagine it will be hard to sift the wheat from the chaff  when interviewing potential outsourcing partners without any knowledge so learning something about how SEO is done is still advisable. 

Building an online brand requires patience, dedication and belief.  Once you have your keywords and SEO strategy in place, all that remains to be done is to implement it.  However, waiting for the benefits you seek can be difficult if you are impatient.  Not much different than watching paint dry, I suppose.  But, if you’ve done your homework and selected a good niche and linking strategy, your results will come.

Tools help.  I use a product called Micro Niche Finder that is easy to understand and provides a lot of data very quickly.  If you don’t want to buy a product, you can also use Google’s free keyword research tool. 

If you’d like to know how I can help you, please don’t hesitate to ask.  You can complete the contact form at www.VirtuallyMarj.com and I will certainly respond.  I’d love to learn more about your business and, if it feels right to us both, help you build your online brand! 

Social networking is a great way to connect with prospects and friends.  Over the past few months, there have been a lot of internet marketers advising that Facebook is a better advertising spot than Google.  When you must advertise, it is good to have choices where your ads will be targeted but has Facebook gone too far to serve up data for their advertisers?  It would appear so, if the US Federal Government has gotten involved.

In a nutshell, here is what has changed.  Previously, Facebook flushed personal information from their cache each 24-hours.  The privacy policy revision states that it will be held infinitely and that advertisers may use it for targeted promotions.  Many internet marketers have picked up on this nuance and developed products for sale to help people get more bang for their advertising buck. 

Although Facebook users have the privilege of opting out, the user interface is confusing and most folks don’t know where to look for the opt-out.  Heck, finding your public profile link can be an absolute chore!  I do understand the genesis of Facebook as being sort of an online yearbook for a university.  This may explain the unwieldiness of it  but it doesn’t forgive the fact that we should be able to easily locate all news and important links by visiting out own profiles.  In other words, the obligation to track changes to the privacy policy of any social networking site is not the user’s.

Many Facebook users won’t care one way or the other.  Still, there are those among us who don’t enjoy unsolicited advertisements.  I’m sure one.  When I logged into my account today, I found a dozen ads that were geo-targeted to my location.  Local shops, product providers, service providers, Realtors and bars.  I’d rather not be bombarded like that.  I looked for a method of opting out and I just couldn’t find it! 

Facebook is not wrong to sell advertising space.  Their on-screen real estate is valuable and they must fund the site support.  All things being equal, Facebook ads are less expensive than Google Adwords. 

The fact remains that nothing replaces good SEO with a solid keyword strategy.  In my online branding business, I never advocate that my clients use paid advertising.  I will provide some consulting services to help them learn the SEO ropes.  It isn’t a big secret or anything.  Most of the information someone needs to learn SEO is available online for free.  With interest, the ability to read, and the willingness to monitor results and experiment, perseverance will take your site where you’d like it to be.

I didn’t create the page that I’m writing about today but I’ve been wanting to do someting similar for more than two years!  Because my site is G-Rated, I can’t put a link to it but if you don’t mind a little free expression, colorful language, and want a good laugh, I encourage you to search for the site using the title of this post to find it.    

Increase your Twitter followers by eleventy-billion in seconds uses all the tactics that experienced internet marketers have ever used, so far as I am aware.  There is an animated roll down script on the corner of the page, a bodacious lead in claim, multiple rave reviews, and a purchase option.  It even employs a tactic that I’ve noticed rising in trends and don’t much like.  There is no price given on the landing page.  But they admit they aren’t selling anything, which is part of the fun. 

From an educational point of view, this is a great example of what NOT to do on your sales pages.  From a social media perspective, it touches upon another source of my dismay, which is the automation of friend finding on social networks.  I mean, if you have to automate relationships, what is the point to them? 

Oh yeah … selling something!   

Recently, Michael Fortin had a much more politically correct post on the same idea.  Even a respected professional who has gained from product launch tactics sounds nauseated by them. 

The internet product launch formula needs a tune-up, I believe.  Maybe more internet marketers could try more honesty with a smidge of reality next time around.  Why not leave out the “hot spices” from the recipe so everyone can digest the cuisine without getting heartburn? 

I dislike citing problems without imagining possible solutions.  While I can’t say that I’ve been party to a huge product launch … yet … I certainly hope to see a trending upwards of these things. 

Forget the Bonuses 

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine that the worth of the bonuses is overstated if they are willing to give them away or sell them at 1/1000 of their supposed value.  A brief time spent on the internet will tell you that these products are approaching obsolescence.  Very few internet marketers have been up-front about the fact that they are clearing old product. 

Stand Behind Your Product 

This week, I listened to a webinar hosted by Frank Kern, who is working with Brendon Bouchard on a program called the Experts Academy.  While I decided against opting into their membership, I found their offer to refund all purchases, regardless of how far in the future the request was made, quite fascinating. 

This demonstrates two important things.

1. They truly believe in their product
2. They are genuinely concerned about customer satisfaction

Guarantees like that are the exception among internet marketers.  Clickbank products abide by the 56-day refund rule.  Sellers of software, that was misrepresented or has proven to be buggy or not working at all, have refused my requests for refunds less that 30-days after my purchase.  Although it is irritating, it isn’t worth the dispute and negativity it would create in my life to pursue it any further. 

Even with my desire to see product promoters offer extended refund policies, I do understand that the buyer of anything can’t just change their mind and claim something didn’t work for them.  If they’ve never tried the product, there is no flaw and no basis for requesting a refund.  If there is accountability coupled with lifetime guarantees, then it is fair for all parties involved. 

Don’t Promote … Campaign 

Something that Brendon Bouchard said during the webinar really made sense.  Even though the idea of a new product is exciting to the developers and they want as many sales possible in the least amount of time, the persistent promotion emails are tedious. 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again.  People don’t like being sold.  They prefer to use their best judgment and make a decision on their own.  Promotions are like putting the giant inflatable gorilla on the roof of a building.  They attract attention but they look silly. 

Build interest through a series of explanations about what the product overcomes or improves.  Leave out the links in the notes once in a while.  Request email inquiries and avail a mailbox that will be read and responded to.  People like to ask questions and to get answers. 

Real Testimonials Only,  Please… 

The FCC has endeavored to clamp down on false testimonials and paid reviews in the USA but who knows how that ruling is policed?  Do they prey on known offenders or randomly pick them out?  Either way, this ruling has as much “beef” in it as the anti-spam laws, based on the bulk email that I receive every day. 

When I see a plethora of testimonials on a page with no dates or full names, I cannot help but wonder about the vintage and credibility of the testimonial.  Since I am fully aware that many internet marketers give away copies of their products to their inner circle for trials before they are made available to the public at large, I feel that full disclosure would clear up any confusion.  Therefore, segregating raves given by people who got a trial version at no cost seems like a good idea.  It also would be wonderful if that round of reviews were updated within 3 – 6 months of the product launch. 

Say Thank You! 

Would it be too much to ask that the product owner take a little personal time to write a thank you email?  We are human beings, doing business with human beings, and someone has believed that our product was worth spending some money on.  Courtesy should not be automated. 

While we’re at it, is it to much to ask that follow up emails inquire as to how we are doing rather than continuing to promote more products for sale?

If you are using Wordpress as a basis for your business website, you’ll expose yourself as a newbie, possibly open yourself to online security risks, and lose potential SEO benefits the software provides if you don’t take time to learn how it works. While it is true that installing Wordpress is simple, setting it up correctly contributes to your website’s success, which also has an impact on your business success.

We’re talking business here, right? I do acknowledge that there are many extremely successful bloggers who established blogs on free sites, like Blogger, before Wordpress came of age. These days, sites like that are most useful in your SEO linking strategy and should NOT be the base for your primary website. This is also true of Wordpress.com, another free blogging platform.

For starters, free blogging sites offer limited theme and plugin options. The most important for you to understand about them, however, is that they own your content and can arbitrarily take your website down at any time. While “free” may sound good to you, building SEO for a website is actual time spent, whether you outsource the work or not. Why in the world would you choose to invest that much energy on a domain and content that you do not have complete control over? It boggles my mind…

Hire an Expert Wordpress Developer

So here you are. You have a great business idea and you know you need a website to make it happen.  Everyone is saying that Wordpress is what you should use too. You’ve found a lot of helpful and free articles on the internet explaining how to install and set it up so why would you want to hire someone to do this for you?

Based on stories I’ve heard from my clients and some of the projects that I’ve been asked to finish, I can think of several reasons. Primarily, they come under the heading of insufficient technical skills or a lack of understanding about how computers and database applications work. If you don’t understand the underlying technologies of your Wordpress software, you can get into trouble which can affect your business plans.

Other things that make it easy to spot a newbie include:

Lack of Focus
Have you ever visited a site with frequent and unrelated posts designed to bring in affiliate sales? Offering too many different things or choosing too broad a niche can make your website invisible. Up-front keyword research, to isolate low competition keywords with adequate search volumes, is essential to your website’s success, whether your products are affiliate offerings or your own content, like an eBook.

Having Too Many Pages
While every place you go on the internet is considered a web page, Wordpress uses the term pages differently. When I wind up at a site where the majority of the content is pages, I know that the site was created by an inexperienced Wordpress user. The beauty of Wordpress is that it notifies search engines automatically when post content is updated.

Default Installation Content on the Site
Another dead giveaway is seeing the default installation content, like the blogroll or the standard meta login. Worse yet is spotting the “Hello World” post or the default about page on the site.

Categories
Visiting a Wordpress site with nothing categorized is a tell-tale sign of a newbie blog. So far as I’m concerned, no content should exist in the “uncategorized” category.

Cross-Browser Inconsistencies
Although I’ve been tempted, I’ve never published a site with a “best viewed in …” message on it. Without inflaming the debate about which browser is better, and taking the high road, assume that you should not enforce the use of one browser over another. Over the past several years, I have learned that not all themes are created equal and solid CSS skills, as well as knowing what to look for in the theme, are necessary to resolve browser incompatibility.

After a free consultation, people often say that they can put up their own sites. After weeks of trying, some have come back to retain my Wordpress website development services.

Our blogs are intended to present us as professionals. The best advice that I can offer to you is that, if you are not technically adept, hire a professional who can deliver the website you want and help you learn what you need to know so you can build your online reputation and add value to your bottom line.

Wordpress was awarded the 2009 Open Source CMS Award last month. Not only is this a great honor for the software, it validates a decision I made to specialize with this CMS years ago and all of the recommendations that I’ve made to website clients for the past several years. Wordpress is a powerful CMS and, with the improvements introduced during the past year and this award, it is crystal clear that the software has stepped up to the plate for consideration as the basis for any website project.

Wordpress Wins 2009 Open Source CMS Award

Many of you who know me understand my deep appreciation for Wordpress. I began using the software as a blogger in late 2004 when I set up my first self-hosted blog. Since that time, my interest in blogging has become a way of life for me.  My Wordpress development skills have been a good source of income for me and I love being a self-employed entrepreneur.

In fact, entrepreneurship is a frequent topic on my blog. An important attribute of being an entrepreneur is having a willingness to take measured risks but crucial to entrepreneurial survival, regardless of one’s niche, is resilience. Ideas bloom, excitement builds, partnerships are formed, and there are many ups and downs along the way.

This amazing interview with Matt Mullenweg, the father of Wordpress, really gives a lot of great insights into a smart way to start and grow a company. Other participants in this show are Jason Calacanis and Joel Spolsky. All are visionaries and well respected in the internet arena. The interview is nearly 2 hours long but it is well worth your time to listen, at the very least. I must caution you that Jason uses some colorful language while telling some of his stories.

Personally, I find it enjoyable when something occurs that seems synchronous to events in present time. The other night, such an event occurred. While rifling through papers in my desk drawer, an old fortune from a fortune cookie surfaced. It read:

One’s mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.

Not only is this synchronous, it also is quite profound in its simple truth. Once we are introduced to a something new, and the idea takes root in our minds and inspires us, it is virtually impossible to operate as we did before we made our important discovery. Our eager minds pursue the idea and follow it through permutations and twists in the road. Through every turn, the core substance of the idea remains solid and the starting point to which you always will return, should you find a need to adjust your strategy.

Take Internet Marketing, for example. A few years ago, I decided that I would get income through online means. In pursuit of that vision, I began subscribing to newsletters and purchasing products that would teach me more about what people were doing online. Some of the methods that I evaluated are not ones that I use or would recommend but knowing what not to do is almost as important as knowing what to do, isn’t it? Due to my interest and attention, I am able to spot trends and, when it comes to opportunity offers, I have a pretty good system for separating the wheat from the chaff.

As I put my own business plan into motion, it became obvious that my time spent learning about internet marketing was extremely helpful to people who retained my services for Online Branding and wanted to get income online. Although my primary source of income is still from my consulting services, the fact that I am personally involved with my customers doesn’t imply that I am not an internet marketer. I source all of my business through Web 2.0 methods and enjoy working with people.  And, the best part is that my business is totally portable!

My mind was stretched by this self-induced learning. When I approach a potential business liaison or client, it is nearly impossible for me to talk merely about traditional means of sourcing new business. When I set up ecommerce websites, for instance, I make recommendations beyond layout, technology, and graphics. My degree is in business and that knowledge, coupled with the education I’ve received through personal learning, are assets to any project that I undertake and I’ve heard this repeatedly from my customers.

All things being equal, anyone who has a business website is an internet marketer. Here is the caveat; The prettiest site in the world cannot manufacture new business and cash flow. If you haven’t done so already, it would serve you well to either learn about, or retain the services of someone who knows about techniques that will improve your website’s visibility through Web 2.0 techniques that drive targeted traffic, as well as performing the time-consuming SEO methods that will get it listed and ranked by search engines. If you are in business and have no website, you are missing an incredible opportunity. Personally, I feel that it is sheer folly to be in business without a website. It is statistically proven that people look online prior to making any purchase decision.

Even though this is not business related, our minds can also be stretched by ideas that present themselves in everyday life. The ingenuity of a child who is working out a difficult “engineering” problem related to the sand castle they are building at the beach is a good example. It is not an unimportant side note to remind you to take time to relax your mind so as to re-charge your creative juices.  If we are fortunate, we retain our sense of awe about things that are remarkable and have nothing to do with making money, like watching swallows soaring high above us or witnessing the oceans that undulate through forces unseen. At times when you need to restore yourself, it is good to have easy access to those things that opened your mind as a child.

In my ongoing study of internet based businesses, I’ve subscribed to many newsletters and met online acquaintances through Skype. Occasionally, I will receive a Skype broadcast or email message inviting me to something like this:

Subject: Up to $15 per hour

This is something to get excited about! Here is a way that you can make $15.00 per HOUR by simply clicking on ads. I just did this tonight.

This is not your standard fly by night, run of the mill, surf site where your money gets tied up for weeks or even months so please hear me out and read this carefully.

I’m not excited. Are you?

I don’t mean to be disrespectful if this sort of offer is exciting to you, as each of us has different strengths and interests, but each time something like this is introduced, I wonder what would motivate someone to want to spend their time in this way. Equally pointless is taking online surveys “for cash.” These sorts of programs are aimless and, in my opinion, tend to stunt your creativity.

When I began my online journey and was more naive, I followed the recommendations of my “mentor” and tried ad surf sites. My takeaway from that short-lived cycle was that it was BORING! All of the ads seemed to make similar wild claims of instant riches without effort, suggested they were “the best ever” fill-in-the blank, and some even claimed to be the last stop in a quest to get income online. Pictures of fancy cars, palacial homes, and luxury vacations endeavored to lure in unsuspecting people who were trying to find a method to augment or replace income earned through traditional means.

The payoff at most ad surf sites is a point based compensation allowing the user to post their own ads at the same site which possibly will result to capturing a lead and/or new customer who might be surfing ads for similar reasons. Sadly, what passes for compelling landing page copy is nothing more than hype, in most cases.

An article posted today at the Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Interactive Advertising is down 5.3% from last year. The statistic is sourced from a PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP study and includes both display ads and digital video advertising. However, when digital video advertising is separated into its own category it is on the rise by 38%.

In fairness and most likely, the drop in interactive ad agency revenue, which would be interesting to a firm like PricewaterhouseCoopers, has a lot to do with our ability to leverage free resources to get our marketing message out there. The risk of using free advertising sites is relevant to one’s niche and presentation skills, especially using video.

Although the Law of Attraction suggests that new business will find us if our intentions are clear, any business person will agree that advertising makes their business more visible. As business owners, we need to make wise choices, especially when it comes to advertising an marketing expenses.  If you are on a slim budget, putting your content up on YouTube fulfills the digital video marketing need.  The challenge is to get your video noticed, viewed, commented and recommended.  In a best case scenario, it will be interesting enough to go viral.

It is somewhat of a conundrum determining how to effectively advertise our business online and ways to make our advertisement stand out. Consumers don’t want to be “sold” anything and we are bombarded by advertisements everywhere we go so something about your video needs to be special enough to make it stick in the minds of your target market.

Using social networks give us a potential audience. However, making friends merely to push ads about your business idea can get you labeled as a spammer and your account could be shut down.Social Media Mavens, claiming to know the best ways to leverage those venues, have had their Facebook accounts shut down without notice, which must have been just a little embarrassing since this was their claim to fame.  Additionally, your new online friends will learn to ignore you if all you are doing is sending ads.  It is highly recommended that you develop relationships with your social networking connections and send advertisements to them ONLY if they express an interest in learning more about what you’re doing.

Print advertising can be expensive but it is a way to reach people who you may not encounter online.  Using free online advertising sources like Craig’s List is another way to get out your good news but there are  restrictions which you need to understand and comply with or you ad will be taken down at those sorts of sites too.

Having your own website, hosted on your own hosting account, is an essential tool for anyone in business. Up front evaluation of your niche and target market is necessary. People shop online first so knowing what your market is searching for is critical. If you aren’t good at copywriting, hire someone to do this for you so you have effective content on your page which will resonate with your market niche.

When you have your new website finished, don’t forget to use PRWeb to announce yourself and your business site to the world.  At no cost, you can notify a wider audience.  For a nominal fee, the reach becomes wider.  PRWeb ads convert to print advertising, in some cases and the wider the reach, the better are your chances to draw in suspects … er … prospects.

Frequently we forget the importance of Brand Equity. As internet marketers, that brand is not a business opportunity or a company we may have chosen to represent. While those things may assist us to get income, they are tools we use. By carefully managing the online image that is our name, we build potential for a future we cannot envision today. Nothing is more important than protecting our online brand image.

It may seem a little obsessive, but I set up Google Alerts for my name years ago after learning that my Real Estate clients were Googling me. That also heightened my awareness of what they might learn about me. In that instance, they were interested to learn of my artistic pursuits but, frankly, it didn’t impress me that this was the most prominent data they could locate. Energy was diverted to changing that.

The same tactics that I used to erase my Real Estate career from page one of Google will work for you if you are just starting out online. Immediate results were achieved by interacting on forums and commenting on blogs. Ensure that your posts are relevant to the topic and add value and always include your name in a signature block.

As an Online Branding Consultant and Wordpress Website Designer, I’m fully aware of branding strategies for companies. Using education, experience and business acumen, I’ve helped many people identify and implement their online branding strategies.

To assist those of you who have not studied business, it might be important to explain the four different types of branding strategies that are used.

Single brand identity is as it says a separate brand for each product. By way of example, if you have a company with several products, you would develop each product identity as a stand alone brand name. Hershey does this by having product groups, but each product name is name is much better known. Most of us know that M&Ms are a Hershey product but do we automatically relate the Hershey name to Twizzlers or Heath Bars? The resources required to manage multiple unique product brands must be considered if this is the strategy you are choosing for your business.

When a company uses its name for all their products, they have implemented an umbrella branding strategy. This is the approach that is employed in my business model for it allows flexibility and ease of brand management. More famous examples exist, however. Sony, HP, Linksys, and GE, are household names for their product lines while the model numbers are obscure things we only look at when filling out a warranty card or contacting technical support.

Multi-brand categories are different brands for different product categories. In this scenario, the same company has different company names for their product groups. As a former Minnesotan, Pillsbury comes to mind. Through acquisition, they grew from milling flour to a large conglomerate owning several restaurants and store food brands. Mergers have returned the company to their core competency of baking products and they have since divested all their restaurant holdings.

Lastly, a company might choose to have a common name stem. This is useful for leveraging brand loyalty. Nestle has done this with Nescafe, Nesquick and Nestea.

What is a brand and why should you protect yours?  The marketing mix should focus on consistency and quality. Even if your business is primarily affiliate marketing, Top Gun affiliate marketers like Ewen Chia and Michael Cheney have instant access to their loyal lists to get income whenever they want it due to the careful management of their names and the products they have chosen to endorse.

Your brand is your reputation and, if you manage it well, it will serve you for years to come.