Just a few years ago I would have considered myself a perfectionist. No work of mine could leave my desk until it was as near perfect as I could get it.  I would painstakingly go over it and over it until I had exhausted myself. Needless to say, it was not a fun process.

So what changed? And why am I writing on perfection today? Well, what changed is that I was so stressed and so anxious that I was driving myself and everyone around me nuts. I mean absolute nuts! Through a series of serendipitous events, I went to a workshop that changed my life and has taught me how to release that intense need and pressure that I apply to myself. And the reason I am writing on this topic today is because I see so many small business owners doing exactly what I was doing to myself a short time ago.

There is a fine line between perfection and paralysis when it comes to getting yourself out there. Believe me I have dealt with my fair share as an artist and writer. I have fought many a  demon as I prepared to release my soul to the world.

As a business owner, you want the world to have a certain perception about your company and product, however, if you can’t let it go out into the world because it has to be at the highest standard, they won’t have any perception of you anyway. Not to mention the valuable time, energy, and resources you are wasting.

As a business that helps other businesses, we have seen many a client who couldn’t put their site “live” because it had to be absolutely PERFECT. Now don’t get me wrong, we strive for the highest quality in all our work, but in life, there is NO PERFECT. Especially when you are dealing with numerous browsers and varying opinions. What you see as perfect may be very different from your customer’s perfect.

So who is most important in the grand scheme of things? Your need for perfection and this pie in the sky perception you are looking for, or your customers? If you said anything else besides your customers, maybe you should rethink your whole vision. At any rate, yes it’s your customers and I can guarantee you that as a consumer myself, I do not rip apart most websites or won’t do business with a website because they had a typo or because the picture they have up is not the perfect size or shape.

Think about what is most important to your customers . . . the right information and  a site that is appealing and easy to navigate. Have you got that? Then good, get out there and start selling. The best thing about websites, they are always a work in progress and you can make changes as you go. It’s not like print materials that must be set in stone because once it’s run, that’s it, no going back.

I haven’t talked much about Search Engine Optimization on this blog, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. If you have spent any time on the web, you probably know at least that it has something to do with the Search Engines and you are certainly on the right track. In very basic terms, it means using different techniques and strategies to help improve your website’s rankings on the major search engines so that potential customers can find you. Now a few years ago, this sort of thing really wasn’t necessary because there weren’t that many websites, now that Google has indexed over 1 TRILLION websites, it’s become a bit of a necessity.  

Of course, with any “new” industry, there will be a shallow knowledge base to begin with and always the slick character out to make a buck on the backs of innocent, trusting businesses. There are two “types” of SEO, one of which is called ‘Black hat’ and the other ‘White hat’. I am sure I don’t have to tell you which one you want to avoid. But what exactly is the difference? If you don’t know much about SEO, you aren’t going to know the difference. We have been in TOO many meetings with clients who have been blindsided by one of these slick characters that promise ‘to get you on the 1st page of Google’. If you have someone making outrageous promises like this, don’t walk, RUN in the other direction! They may be able to get you on the first page of one of the big ole’ search engines, but it won’t last long and the search engines will ban your site from their pages, making it virtually IMPOSSIBLE for potential clients to find you.

In this world of instant gratification it can be VERY tempting to believe these fly-by-nights, but for the sake of your business’s growth, DON’T!!!!!! 

The following is a list with brief explanations of some techniques black hat establishments use in their campaigns, click on the titles for further explanations ~ 

Keyword stuffing -  just as the title suggests, your pages are stuffed with the keywords people search for throughout your page, this includes meta tags and ‘invisible’ text placed throughout the page.

Doorway pages- these pages, which spam the search engines with certain phrases or keywords that are likely to be searched, are only used to direct visitors  to an entirely different page and specifically for the purpose of increasing rankings. They muddy up the search results and cause LOTS of frustration!

Article Spinning- is the act of using existing articles and rewriting all or portions of them. They also involve using ‘pirated’ content from other sites.

Link Farms- this involves a group of websites that all link back to each other, typically through automated programs to spam the search engines and raise their ranks. They are used to ‘increase the link popularity’ of a site.

These are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of black hat tricks in the world of SEO. I would highly encourage you to investigate further on what NOT to do when building an effective SEO campaign. Here are some other resources you can check out -

I love wikipedia

About.com has some great information

Neil Patel of Quick Sprout has some great tips for SEO

And there are plenty more out there. If you are overwhelmed and need help with your campaign, please let us know, we are happy to get you on the right track!

I know, I know I have been harping on content lately, but as the famous phrase, at least in the web world points out, content REALLY is king! An article I was reading recently looked at how people read differently on the web, as opposed to print, it was fascinating and I could see it in my own online habits.

 Today I thought I would throw out some questions and some resources for more information on how to write good content, stats, and useful tidbits to make your website stand out!

The following is a list of questions to consider, they are certainly not exhaustive more to get your thinking going in the right direction~

1. What problem is your product/service solving for people?

2. What makes your product/service better than the competition?

3. Who is your target audience? Who are you talking to?

4. How do they like to get their information?

5. What is your goal in terms of when clients visit your site? Buy products? Sign up for a newsletter? Subscribe to your RSS feed?

6. What features do you want? How are you going to make your site interactive for your public?

7. What is your company story? And why are you the best at what you do?

8. Not everybody likes to connect the same way, what options do you want to give your clients/customers to connect with you?

 Resources ( again not exhaustive or in any particular order, but good information that I hope you will find useful)~

Writing Web Copy That’s Easy to Scan

How Little Do Users Read?

Website Tips

Killer Web Content

Writing for the Web

Life has a comical way of illustrating points for us when we focus on them. Last week I blogged about creating a ”blueprint” for your website before you go to a web designer to create it. A day or two later, as I am helping a friend of mine create a website for her fitness company, I asked her about the content for her site. I wanted to show her how to upload and manipulate the content and place it into the site.  This was her response -  “I guess I haven’t put much thought into all of this. I just thought I could get a website and start writing and it would just magically appear the way I wanted it!” 

Talk about a good belly laugh! This is exactly what I was getting at in my last post with how people approach their website projects, “I’ll have someone build it first and then I will start writing the content or thinking about what goes into it. ” And that may work in a limited amount of cases, but it would save you money and your designer time to have the content written and your must haves thought out and outlined beforehand.

As with just about everything in life, there is a trade-off. It’s called time or money, which one is more important to you?

If your time is more valuable, you can hire us to create a site complete with content. This way you are focusing on what you do best, your job and we will focus on what we do best, creating an aesthetically pleasing, easy-to-navigate, compelling website.  BUT, and this is a big BUT, if you hire us to create the content, you will still have to give us direction and help us to understand your market.

 If on the other hand, your money is more valuable, then I suggest sitting down and delving in . . . grab a pen and paper or your favorite word processing program and sketch out your content, what you want to convey to potential clients, images, quotes, and anything else that you have to have on your site.

Either way, the more information your designer knows about the project, the less it will cost you in both time and money and the happier you will be with the end result. In my next blog, I will provide you with some questions to consider and resources that will help guide you in building a content rich, relevant site.

I don’t know about you, but I love stories and I love to use stories and metaphors to illustrate points that I am making. I find that I learn things easier when I have an anology or metaphor to help me relate to my current situation. . .

I think maybe because the internet is a relatively new “space” and also because as we understand things or we deal with the same things day in and day out, we sometimes forget that others do not see things nor understand them the same way and often the little details are overlooked. So I’d like to share a sort of metaphoric story to illustrate something I see often in the design industry.

Imagine for a moment that you are wanting to build a house. Your family has grown and the space you are in is just too contricting. You and your significant other begin talking about building this house and thinking about all the various things you want in your new house and if you are like me, you sit down and start sketching out where you want the kitchen and how the master bedroom will be positioned in just such a way that the picture window will have an awesome view of [insert your perfect view here] behind your property. After you have sufficiently daydreamed about this house, you contact a few architects to find out what it will cost and so forth. After choosing the “right” fit for the job you wouldn’t just say ok make me a house and leave it up to the architect to figure out what features you absolutely can’t live without, right? Maybe some of you would, but most people would want to sit down with the architect and tell them how many bedrooms, 1 story or 2, an island in the kitchen, etc.  they want in the house. 

It works the same way for building websites. Just as your architect can create the perfect blueprint of your house with your special features, the right specs and building codes, a web designer can build your web site  to fit your style using web standards and principles of design. 

So when you meet with your web designer, make sure you have a pretty good idea of the features you’d like as well as, the content you want on the site. The more information you provide up front and the clearer you are on the direction you want to go with your web site design and it’s functionality, the easier the process will be and the better the final result.

I thought I would take a bit of a detour this morning. I have been reading, among many others, Jack Canfield’s “The Success Principles”, and thought I would share a bit today. In chapter 4, Jack talks about believing in possibilities and getting what you expect, he relays the following story and ideas~

 ” Doctors in Texas studying the effect of arthroscopic knee surgery- assigned patients with sore, worn-out knees to one of three surgical procedures: scraping out the knee joint, washing out the joint, or doing nothing.

During the ‘nothing’ operation, doctors anesthetized the patient, made three incisions in the knee as if to insert their surgical instruments, and then pretended to operate. Two years after surgery, patients who underwent the pretend surgery reported the same amount of relief from pain and swelling as those who had received the actual treatments. The brain expected the ’surgery’ to improve the knee, and it did.

Why does the brain work this way? Neuropsychologists who study expectancy theory say it’s because we spend our whole lives becoming conditioned. Through a lifetime’s worth of events, our brain actually learns what to expect next – whether it eventually happens that way or not. And because our brain expects something will happen a certain way, we often achieve exactly what we anticipate.”

Which way are you going to turn?

The brain is an amazing muscle, it works in so many ways that we are just beginning to understand and many more that haven’t been tapped into yet. The world of possibilities are seemingly endless.

This leads me to the point of this post, what do you expect?

Take a nice long look at what you have created in your business in terms of financial success. Have you been one of those who because of ”hard” economics times expected that your business will do poorly? Or have you expected another outcome?  What about your expectations for the following year? Do you expect this to be a financially prosperous year? 

Now would be a great time to evalute your expectations and if you aren’t expecting much success, re-evaluate.  Just because something such as financial hardships are happening “out there” doesn’t necessarily mean they have to affect your business. Take another look around, there are PLENTY of businesses that are thriving in this down economy. 

Shouldn’t your business be one of them?

By Isa Jones ~ Goddess Unleashed

1. He is VERY RESPONSIVE.

Communication was easy. He replied to emails,

phone calls, txt messages in a time sensitive way. He acknowledged

all communication I sent his way. I can trust that he’ll respond to my needs.

He’s a very good listener.

2. He is INCREDIBLY TALENTED.

He has a beautiful website himself.

His own website is optimized for easy search engine visibility.

He has years of experience and he is networked with everyone

necessary to make my website successful.

3. He is capable of sharing my VISION.

 He has a long term vision of my business.

He conveyed understanding and support for helping me achieve both my

short term and long term goals.

4. He’s EASY to do business with.

He asked what works for me.

He’s open and flexible. I am completely confident in his abilities

 which frees me up to focus on my business

 (I don’t need to worry about the website).

5. He’s REASONABLY PRICED.

His pricing is competitive.

I believe I will get a greater value with him because of his

eagerness to please & commitment to customer service.

6. He is ENTHUSIASTIC about design, web development, &optimization.

I want to work with people who are passionate about what they do.

It’s no fun working with someone who isn’t happy or

excited about their chosen profession.

7. He has a keen DESIGN AESTHETIC as well as TECHNICAL

SKILLS necessary to design and OPTIMIZE my website.

Great combination of skills: both right brain and left brain.

He’s creative enough to figure out how to do things.

8. He positions himself as a PARTNER.

Working with him, feels more like a

partnership, than a “project.”

9. He’s RELIABLE, trustworthy.

Integrity means everything to me.

I expect that if you say you are going to do something,

that you do it – or if something changes, you

contact me to modify the expectations.

Chris did everything he said he was going to do

when he said he would do it!

10.He’s willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done

and provide EXCELLENT CUSTOMER SERVICE!

He instills confidence. I trust that if he runs into a problem,

he’ll use his creative genius to figure out a solution.

 I trust that he cares about my needs and will do everything he can to exceed

my expectations.

The first recorded “eCommerce” transaction occurred in the early 1980’s; the internet hasn’t been the same since.

By 1994, with the advent of security protocols and continuous connection to the internet, eCommerce found a permanent place in the homes of people all over the world, from wikipedia. In the last 10 years, the internet has exploded like a supernova and Google has recorded over 1 trillion URLs, or addresses to websites, with no end in sight.

Because of its exponential growth, MANY different eCommerce platforms have evolved. Just do a search for “shopping cart software” and you will be overwhelmed with page upon page upon page of websites, reviews and advertisements for eCommerce software.  So which way do you go? What software do you choose?

Well that obviously depends on whether you are planning on figuring this out yourself . . . which unless you are quite “tech-savvy”, I wouldn’t recommend or whom you choose to develop your storefront.  Each developer has their own preferences and platforms that they work on for a myriad of reasons. I would HIGHLY encourage doing your own research before hiring a developer and before deciding on the right proprietary software.

The first step is to consider your vision for your storefront, what do you see? What features do you want? Check out some other competitors and eCommerce sites that you like. What do you like about them? Is it their easy navigation? The cheerful color scheme? How the buttons are laid out or roll over into a different color? Or maybe you love the customer review section that gives you all the info you need to make an informed decision.

Next, consider your customers. What experience are you trying to give them? What is the feeling you want them to have while on your site? What will help them make a decision toward purchasing from you?

Make a list of all the features you want on the site, if you are at all artistic and even if you aren’t, draw out the general layout you are thinking about. The more information and the clearer you are about your vision, the easier it will be for your developer to find the right software for your storefront and the easier it will be to create your vision.  

When you meet with a developer, make sure you ask them questions about the different platforms they typically use and TAKE NOTES. Ask them questions about the features and functions. What feeling do you get from the developer in terms of their knowledge of the software?

Another point to consider is whether you want to make updates or you want the developer to make updates for you and how often. How will that work? How difficult is it to navigate the dashboard? And if you plan on using the developer for updates, how easy or difficult is it to get your questions answered or have a phone call returned? You don’t want to go with a developer who doesn’t return calls or make changes for you in a timely fashion.  

A lot to consider I know . . . but then again this is just your livelihood . . . how do you want to proceed?

I don’t know about you . . .  but I have to admit something . . . I have not even thought about utilizing my local SCORE chapter. . . until now.

I recently won a social media contest through SCORE which gave me a ticket to their big social media learning event. I’ve learned a lot about social media in the “recent” past, but it is always good to refresh and to stay current with the latest trends, after all, in this business they change overnight!

Before I go any further, I want to thank Maryanne Weiss, Chairman of the Greater Phoenix SCORE (otherwise known as GPS), John Adam Kowalski who Mc’ed the event, all the fantastic speakers and experts, and of course the volunteers who all worked very hard to make this event possible! Thank you all for your effort! Yes, I won a ticket, but that doesn’t mean that I have an obligation to SCORE or anyone else at the event in terms of what I have already and am about to share.

As a business owner, it is not always easy to find the time to attend workshops and seminars no matter how important they are to you or your business’s growth. But as I am passionate about internet marketing and of course, the FREE ticket, I felt compelled to attend. What I found was a very well thought-out program with LOTS of meat.  The speakers were quite knowledgeable and it was obvious that they truly want to help businesses THRIVE! The layout of the program felt intuitive, kept my attention, and provided the participants with a wealth of information on social media. I actually couldn’t believe that the first day went by so quickly. The event was held at EVIT, East Valley Institute of Technology, a truly remarkable facility. Not only was a group of high school students who attend EVIT present for the seminar, but another group of these awesome kiddos made and served our delicious lunch!  (If these students are any indication of our future leaders, we can all rest easy!)

If you did not have to luxury of attending this important event, they did record the event and I believe it will be distributed at a later date, check with GPS for more on that.

The SCORE volunteers had a plethora of information including brochures, newsletters, and various other handouts, which of course, I grabbed one of each. And as I have begun perusing their materials I can’t help but wonder why I haven’t contacted them sooner? They offer some great services and everything except their workshops and seminars are FREE!!!!! Here is an excerpt from their website,”SCORE counselors provide you with in-depth, industry-specific business assistance to help evaluate a business idea or plan, resolve business problems, stimulate business growth and ensure long-term stability.”

So if you have a business, are starting a business or even considering starting one, please USE this resource! My guess is that you won’t be disappointed!

I know that question seems pretty rudimentary, we are in business right? But I am astonished at how many small businesses that don’t REALLY know the answer.

Because we work on the web, we can’t help but look at websites . . . ALL day. And what we’ve been noticing is that while some of these websites are graphically fantastic, their content is truly lacking; lacking in pulling us in; lacking in seducing us and making us feel as if “I HAVE TO HAVE IT”!

Who are you marketing to? What is your solution to MY problem and WHY should I buy from you? How is what you are doing any better than the next Joe? These are questions that we as business owners have to ask ourselves frequently. Why? Why would anybody want to buy from me? What is it that makes MY PRODUCT stand out? And HOW on earth do I convey that to people searching for what I’ve got?  

You start by asking the people . . . then REALLY listening to the answers. Find out what they love, what gets under their skin and use that information in your approach. Give the people what they want and they will come back for more!

 You can have the best looking site on the web; get yourself out there with social media; have your website optimized and what’s that gonna get ya? A bit of business, perhaps, but more likely a huge headache as you beat your head against the wall trying to figure out what went wrong?  

For some reason, people focus all their attention on the visual appeal, and don’t get me wrong, that’s a great start. . . but if you don’t have the “killer content” they ARE NOT going to stay or BUY!  

In case you haven’t heard, we are in the INFORMATION AGE, we are bombarded with crap every time we get on the internet. The last thing we want to read is MORE CRAP. We want something that grabs us, pulls us in, and doesn’t let go; we want a connection. We want to be left with a FEELING, people a FEELING.  Got it?

Good . . . now get going!