Tag Archives: Web Design and Development

Set It Free!

Another late post, I know. It’s this pesky business of trying to do some work. I particularly like it when the work is the stuff I do for free. Yep. I think everyone should have at least one pro-bono account in their roster and I’m drinking my own Kool-Aid on that.

My client is in the process of building and launching a new website. This has been fun – a white sheet of paper, SEO built in from the ground up, lots of open minds (OK, maybe that’s not your idea of fun but I’m digging it). But the real fun is yet to begin since we’re just starting to populate the site with information.

“Where is this all going to come from?”, she wondered on our call. That’s when we talked about a pretty significant paradigm shift she, like most people in digital, was going to have to make.

I told her she had to stop thinking of the site as hers or her organization’s. Instead, realize that it belongs to your community – your users, your members, and those who you want to become part of either of those two groups.  We went on to talk about link-building, guest-blogging, and how “viral” doesn’t mean vaccinations.

The important thing here is all businesses have to embrace the Chinese proverb on setting things we love free to see if they return.  By opening up your site to the conversations, you don’t lose control – you gain engagement.

Thoughts?

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Filed under Consulting, digital media

Keywords

One of the more esoteric things I work on with clients is Search Engine Optimization or SEO. I’ll tell you upfront, as I do my clients, that I’m not an SEO specialist but the reality is that many of these folks are at 0 on a scale of 1 to 10 and I can get them to 6 or 7. If they want more help from there, we’ll bring in a specialist.
SEO for you non-search types is a variety of tasks that improve a site’s ranking in search engines. Since a huge percentage of web usage involves search, where you rank in the search results can have a big effect on your web success. Sounds technical and complex, right? Well, sorry to burst everyone’s balloon, but like many things in business, it’s actually fairly simple if you focus on one thing. Continue reading

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Filed under Consulting, digital media, Helpful Hints

Winemakers and Farmers

Wine grapes.

Farmers and winemakers have more in common than just planting things. They share a dependency on climate and as a businessperson I’m not sure I’d like to be so dependent on something so out of my control. But they also share another quality which I think we all should emulate in our daily lives, both business and personal. Continue reading

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Filed under Reality checks, Thinking Aloud