Tall Tales & Falsehoods

The other day I got a simple email from a client stating, “How much do you charge for SEO?”It has taken me almost a week to respond.

With the SEO stuff it is tricky. That is why I am hesitant to answer. People think SEO is this miracle pill that will send your sells over the top. You have these companies out there who charge $$ for big promises. They are everywhere. They have set this president that SEO is instant. They all state that they have the secret formula to Google’s search algorithm. SEO has taken an akin to “Take this pill, eat what you want and you don’t even have to exercise. In four weeks you will have lost 25lbs.”

We feel a bit differently about it at 803. We can’t claim to know what Google does or why they do it. What we do know is that certain aspects of web development haven’t changed over the years and it is those aspects that payoff within search results. We look at the big picture and the long hall. We formulate marketing strategies – not SEO miracle pills. We have a good understanding of  pay-per-click programs, link relevancy and strategic market placement. We also understand the need to take pride in what you do. While we can help clients achieve their web goals success doesn’t come over night.

I would love to say we can work with you to formulate a marketing strategy to help you achieve your web goals, but  in a world of fast food diets this is not what some clients want to hear. Just like with life you have to work at achieving your business goals.

If you could answer the question “What is your goal of your website?” or “Why do you think you need SEO?” I can help you formulate a marketing strategy. From there we can start to implement it in stages, resulting in goal achievement.

Sorry for the long winded answer. I just thought it best that you understood where “SEO” fits within an overall marketing campaign.

All of these supposed SEO companies out there really has turned my world into a frenzy. Clients telling me they need this or they need that – when what they really need is a plan. It is amazing that when some new hot new term pops up hat everybody what to jump on the bandwagon. What they really should be doing is looking at their overall marketing ideas and making sure that they are staying true to there goals. If your goal is to be the top ranked web page for a particular search term then that is fine – lets work towards that goal. If your goal is to make sure that your business is relevant, sound and user friendly to a wider online audience – lets work towards that goal. Sometimes achieving one goal will result in achieving multiple goals at the same time. Clients really just need to identify what their goals are.

Bad News Robot is up and running. An idea that has been fostering away for over five years has now come to fruition. Paul Reynolds of the Bakers Dog fame has once again lent his talents to make the Bad News Robot a reality. So for all of you out there who has bad news to send, but are to afraid to do it yourself, I encourage you to use The Bad News Robot!

Bad News Robot

PS. If you are planning on leaving negative comments on how bad the program sucks can you send it though Bad News Robot!

Don’t forget to follow all of the bad news on Twitter as well!

Design has become a numbers game lately. As the internet develops and matures so does how we handle advertising. Accurate statistical data can now be gathered to track the progress of an ad campaign, to whom the target audience as and even be assign a dollar value according to how much direct revenue it has brought in. While to most this is great news, to me this is a little sad.

Lately I have been in a design hole lately. Clients want results, they want them fast and they want them cheep. They expect all of this out of 125×125 pixel ads. No longer do I paint beautiful thought provoking ad campaigns across a wide canvas of direct mail, billboards, newspaper, radio and tv. Now I get to test my creative abilities in a 125×125 box. (That is roughly 1.75 inches by 1.75 inches.) I am all for design challenges, but it now has turned into a day-in-day-out thing. If its not 125×125, it’s 800×125, 120×75, 600×100. Email blast, cubes, headers – it is all becoming the same to me now.

Not only that, but clients (as well as myself) want and expect to see results – or at least the numbers of people who clicked on the ad, where the ad was located, where they went to, how long they stayed there, where they went to next – and what I am planning on doing about it. It’s all about the numbers.

Now the internet lets you do some pretty cool little things such as build personal url’s, geo-target clients, have real time conversations and monitor your business in real time. This is all great and I welcome all of it. However most clients are uneducated in the ways of the internet and are feed a lot of half truths from sales reps. (I constantly have to tear down misnomers and flat out lies told to clients form newspaper sales reps in our area. 1) Because they really don’t have a clue what they are selling and 2) they really don’t care what they are selling – “just show the clients big numbers.”) This makes my job even harder. I have to convince clients they they shouldn’t care to much for impressions or any of the other BS feed to them but actual look at the hard numbers (which are really easily found). I expect to see this data because I have taught my clients to see this data.

For me the really challenge is that I wear many hats. I am designer, so I want to do big bold stuff. I am a novice web guy, who knows enough to know that he doesn’t know what he should. And I’m in marketing, meaning I know that the numbers matter. I see the whole picture.

The world of 125×125 is forcing many companies to become multifaceted in number reporting and design. That is where I am at right now. Show me results 125×125, if not start all over again until you find one that does. Don’t become outdated and keep me posted of progress. Oh yeah, since you are so small 125×125, you do not cost much money to produce right?

That is one of the main elements clients do not understand. 125×125 is hard to design for. It takes just as long to knock out an 125×125 online ad as it does a postcard. The client gets pixels in return and doesn’t value it the same way as a printed product. They think that since it is only pixels and so small that it should cost them next to noting to produce. It is even hard to convince them that statistical data is valuable.

125×125 is become the norm. So I better get used to it. I have to reeducate my clients of its value, try and get others to do the same, and be happy about it. I know there is a ton of cool stuff you can do with 125×125 and/or its linking url, I just have to reinvent myself with the knowledge of how to achieve it. The designer inside me may have to step aside for the numbers guy and the programmer hopefully hidden in me.

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I remember when I hated doing 4×6 postcard direct mail pieces, trying to cram all of the clients text into that little space. I whole heatedly outright love them now. Bring them on BABY!

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I read this article in the NY Times that got me thinking about all of this stuff.

Since CREATE South 2009 I have had a few request for my sauce that I used on the BBQ. While some feel as if your sauce is your mark on the BBQ world I feel as if it is just a tool in the genetic make-up of your meat. So here it goes in full glorious detail!

The Mop Bucket Swine Sauce is used as a both a finishing sauce and as a basting sauce for pull pork BBQ (is there any other kind?) This is a pepper/vinegar sauces that has just the right amount of bite. It is best to make the sauce at least one day prior to serving.

Ingredients

• 4 Cups of Apple Cider Vinegar
• 0.25 Cups of Brown Sugar
• 3 Tablespoons of Salt
• 3 Tablespoons of Crushed Red Pepper Flakes
• 1.5 Teaspoons of Cayenne Pepper
• 1 Teaspoon Ground Black Pepper

Directions:

1. Pour vinegar in large sauce pot and bring to boil.
2. Stir in brown sugar. Let it fully dissolve.
3. Next add salt, cayenne and black pepper.
4. Stir.
5. Add red pepper flakes.
6. Let boil for 3-5 minuets.
7. Remove from heat and let cool.
8. Pour into your “mop bucket” sauce container.
9. Let sauce sit for 6-8 hours.
10. Shake and serve.

Sauce will hold for up to six months in controlled temperature.

* Best to make this sauce one day prior to serving.

Thanks to the love of my work I have be able to start to explore the world of Google Maps. In doing so I have got to apply for a Google Maps API, and start a little on programing. I am very new to this but have found a joy in experimenting with all of the features of it. From a very basic point of view I have learned how to plot instances on a map, change marker icons, add info text and photos, I have even started to learn how to plot tracks from my GPS.

This last feature is very exciting. I can now combine a few of my new hobbies together and share them with others thanks to Google Maps. The other day I recently tracked one of my new adventures. My friend Mikey (RedLine13) and I plotted our first canoe trip along the Waccamaw into Kingston Lake. By combining my track that I set-up on my Garmin 60CSx and a communicator (GPSBabel), I was able to export a KML file that I uploaded to Google Earth. Now I can view my journey through Google Earth (if I was thinking I would have taken photos along the journey and geoTagged them as well) as well as create a My Maps section and share with you here.

View First Canoe Trip in a larger map

I have always been into maps and now this gives me a reason to learn even more. I know there is a lot that you can do with them and have a few little projects that I want to get up and running. But for now I have to learn more info than I think I can (JavaScript). However if I can get the basics down I can port that knowledge over to future projects.

After two long nights of set-up I finally have my computer set-up as a localhost. It now has PHP 5, Apache, and MySQL database set up on it. I am not even going to pretend I know half of what that means but it is all set-up. Paul walked me through a little rough bit with the set-up of the MySQL database. I have no clue how people know where to look to begin setting it up properly. So thanks Paul.

WHY? D0 you ask. Well I need to get a feel for how WordPress runs and how to set it up. In the next few months you may see 803 Labs transform over from MovableType to WordPress. It is really my call and I have to have some inkling of how to set it all up, not to mention how to port all of the old entries over to WordPress.

I am also looking into Joomla! Joomla! is a powerful content management system (CMS) that is OpenSource and promising. It seems pretty cool so far, but I am not sold on it yet. I will keep you posted.

But don’t fear I am not getting into that whole side of everything. This is something that I wanted to learn more about so I can contribute a little more to the upcoming CREATE Conference. It is more for a learning experience than anything else.