The Cobbler's Children Are Getting New Shoes

We've been talking about it for a while, but I'm finally ready to get going on revamping the current flyte new media Web site.

Not that we're not happy with our current site. It still looks good (IMHO, although I am not our designer), it's easy to navigate, there's lots of white space, and it continues to drive qualified traffic to fill out our contact form and keeps the sales pipeline full. It even sports a PageRank of 7, even though that doesn't really matter and who's counting anyway?

However, there are some things I'd like to change. I think it could do a better job of explaining what we do. When we designed that site a few years back, Web site design was our primary product. However, we now offer blog and email newsletter design as well.

Plus, there's little information on our Internet marketing services outside of our archived newsletter section. We need more information on search engine optimization, email marketing, business blog and podcast consulting, and viral marketing. In fact, there's no Service section at all.

Going forward I plan more Internet marketing seminars and that needs to be more heavily promoted than it is now. Plus, we have a few secrets I'm not quite ready to share.

Some content needs be cut. In reviewing our traffic reports--an essential step in any Web site revamp--I see that some sections of the site just aren't getting enough traffic. My goal is to really strip down the number of pages of the site (excluding the archived newsletters) to make it easier for visitors to achieve their goals at the site.

Also, behind the scenes the code needs to be cleaned up. We've learned a lot about CSS and accessibility over the past few years, and I want our Web site to be an example of how we're going to be building Web sites moving forward.

Originally I thought that we'd use our new site as an example of our work with the Joomla Content Management System, but we now have two Joomla sites in development and bids in on two more sites that we'll build in Joomla if we get the jobs.

I've decided to blog the whole process of revamping the flyte site because I think a lot of people don't understand what goes into developing a successful, effective Web site. We want to identify our goals, our prospects' needs when they come to the site, creating a site outline, creating wireframes, going through the design process, developing the pages with top-notch CSS, all the way through development and launch.

Hopefully, by blogging this process it will help other people who are revamping their own site, or perhaps building a site for the first time. Stay tuned!

Rich Brooks
Cobbler's Son

Tags: Web Site Design | Web Site Development | Maine Web Site Design

Visiting the Inn at Ocean's Edge

Took a trip up the Maine coast today along route one. It was foggy out, but still just beautiful countryside. Rocky coast, pine trees, roadside stands selling fresh strawberries, you know the routine. (No moose spottings, though. Guess they're all in Portland these days.)

I was going up to Lincolnville, Maine, just north of Camden and Rockport to visit Jesse and Heather from the Inn at Ocean's Edge and Sharon Kitchens from SK Public Relations. We had just created an interim site for the Inn and given a new face to The Inn at Ocean's Edge Blog.

I was doing some business blog consulting, strategizing with them on categories, themes, what to blog about, who would blog on what topics, how to promote the blog through pinging and tagging....

While I was there I took some photos of the new "infinity" pool, the inn, and the chef Bryan planting herbs that will be used on dishes later this season. You can't really tell from the photo, but the infinity pool throws sheets of water over the side; it's really stunning.

I meant to take some photos of the coast but my camera's battery died on me. Enjoy!

Rich Brooks
Blogging in Maine

Tags: Maine Lodging | The Inn at Ocean's Edge | Business Blog Consulting

Are You Leveraging Your Web Site?

Robert Middleton of Action Plan Marketing writes an email newsletter called More Clients that targets service professionals.

In today's issue, posted at his More Clients blog, he talks to service professionals about leveraging their Web site to help attract more qualified clients.

Too often people use Web sites like oversized business cards. That's old school thinking...in a bad way. Whether people find you through a search engine, a link from another Web site or word of mouth, you now have their attention for a moment. What you do with that moment might generate thousands of dollars worth of business or nothing at all.

If your Web site doesn't include calls-to-action, easy to find contact information, or an email newsletter signup how interested are you in actually getting the business?

Rich Brooks
What's Your Call-to-Action?

Tags: Robert Middleton

Doza Bench Giveaway from Green Design Furniture

Long time flyte client Green Design Furniture is giving away a 25" Doza Bench to one lucky new subscriber to greenmail, their new email newsletter.

I didn't have a photo of their 25" bench, but this a bench from the same family and should give you an idea of what you might win. Like all of Doug's work, there's an amazing attention to detail.

You can see more of his new Doza collection here.

If you want to enter the giveaway be sure to sign up by July 31st, 2006.

Rich Brooks
Flyte Employees and Their Immediate Family are not Eligible

Tags: Green Design Furniture | Cherry Wood Furniture | Email Marketing

Entrepreneur Magazine Cliff Notes

It's never a good idea for me to read Entrepreneur Magazine right before bed as I get to revved up and end up eating a midnight snack in front of my laptop. The same can be said for Inc., Business 2.0 and Fast Company.

(In fact, when Spider-Man recently revealed his secret identity at a press conference that kept me up half the night as well! Was it a dream? An alternate universe? Will there be a mass-hypnosis to make the world forget again?)

Here are some of the articles I dog-eared last night:

• Bird's Eye View: Entrepreneurs painting their rooftop for some "free" advertising from satellite photos like those at Google Maps. The article warns that many of these satellite photos are months or years old, so don't expect immediate results. I'm making a note to stop my nude sunbathing on flyte's rooftop veranda.
• Candid Camera: An interesting approach to using a Webcam. ScubaToys will bring products to a Webcam when customers call in with a question to explain things. Owner Larry Dague attributes "at least four sales every day to the technology." (Wow!)
• What's in a Name?: Catherine Seda doesn't exactly say this, but it appears in the negative space in her article: if your company is well-known enough, some people will say negative things about it, and these nasty messages may appear in the first page of the search engine results. How to keep them off page one? Make sure your site is optimized for your company name and the products and services you sell. Press releases, blogs, and articles that appear on other Web sites will help you appear multiple times on page one. Also, if there are negative comments that can be found online, see if you can find an online solution. An angry blogger may be converted to an evangelist with the right approach.

As you can see, Entrepreneur posts (seemingly) all of their articles online, which is great. However, a big thumb's down to their "blog" which has no RSS feed, no comments and no trackbacks. There's nothing wrong with posting Web-only material, but to call something a blog that obviously isn't makes it look like they just don't get it.

Rich Brooks
Entrepreneur

Tags: Entrepreneur Magazine | Satellite Photos | Webcam | SEO

The Benefits of Starting Small

The problem with most small business owners and entrepreneurs is that they have a million great ideas. Well, that's not really the problem; the problem is that they can't decide where to focus their attention because they're excited about the opportunities that each idea presents.

The same is true with their Web sites. All too often entrepreneurs want to put everything, every great idea, up on their Web site, and give each one space on their home page. They want a discussion board, a blog, a store, a chat room, a directory of professionals in their business, resources, links, an archive for their newsletters, audio and video, the list goes on and on....

What invariably happens is that the site takes twice times as long to build, three times what they budgeted, and when it launches nothing much happens. There are so many choices visitors don't know what to do--what's expected of them--and they leave.

Plus, because there are a million things to keep up with on the site, nothing ever gets done. The entrepreneur feels overwhelmed and everything suffers.

Think of it like your garden. You can easily create a cozy space in your yard with a couple of chairs or a bench, surrounded by fragrant flowers and plants that bloom all season long, providing you a perfect place to curl up with a good book. (Or open your laptop and respond to emails if you remembered to wire your garden for wi-fi.)

However, if you try and start a garden that spans your entire property you'll spend all that first season running from plant to plant, flower to flower, never relaxing, never having time to experiment with new flowers, to find out what works and what doesn't, to enjoy the benefits of your hard labor.

If you are one of those people with a million good ideas and the need to put them all on your Web site...stop. Take a breath. Choose the one, two or three best, lowest-hanging fruits and start with those for phase I. When you get those working smoothly expand into phase II with some of the other projects you've been wanting to try.

Rich Brooks
Watching My Garden Grow

Tags: Web Site Design | Entrepreneurs

Managing Priorities for the Entrepreneur

I've been struggling lately, especially now that my project manager is back, on what I should be working on grow flyte into the "world-class company" I want it to be.

I have a pretty good idea of where I see flyte and the industry going, and how I want to separate flyte from our competition. We also have some new offerings in the planning stages, that unfortunately have been in the planning stages for far too long without any progress. (I'm the bottle neck.)

Do I hand off all my day-to-day responsibilities to focus on these areas of growth and opportunity, or do I concentrate on sales, marketing, etc? Then I received this modern proverb via email:

A time management expert was speaking to a group of business students and, to drive home a point, used an illustration I'm sure those students will never forget.  As this man stood in front of the group of high-powered overachievers he Said, "Okay, time for a quiz."

Then he pulled out a one-gallon, wide-mouthed Mason jars and set it on a table in front of him. Then he produced about a dozen Fist-sized rocks and carefully placed them, one at a time, into the jar.  When the jar was filled to the top and no more rocks would fit inside, he asked, "Is this jar full?"  Everyone in the class said, "Yes."  Then he said, "Really?"

He reached under the table and pulled out a bucket of gravel. Then he dumped some gravel in and shook the jar causing pieces of gravel to work themselves down into the spaces between the big rocks. Then he smiled and asked the group once more, "Is the jar full?" By this time the class was onto him.  "Probably not," one of them answered. 

"Good!" he replied. And he reached under the table and brought out a bucket of sand. He started dumping the sand in and it went into all the spaces left between the rocks and the gravel. Once more he asked the question, "Is this Jar full?" "No!" the class shouted. Once again he said, "Good!"

Then he grabbed a pitcher of water and began to pour it in until the jar was filled to the brim. Then he looked up at the class and asked, "What is the point of this illustration?" 

One student said, "The point is, no matter how full your schedule is, if you try really hard, you can always fit some more things into it!" 

"No," the speaker replied, "That's not the point. The truth this Illustration teaches us is: If you don't put the big rocks in first, you’ll never get them in at all.

What are the big rocks in your life? A project that YOU want to accomplish? Time with your loved ones? Your faith, your education, your finances, a cause, teaching or mentoring others? Remember to put the BIG ROCKS in first or you'll never get them in at all.      

Received via Nancy Powers, business coach.

Rich Brooks
I've Got Big Rocks

American Dream Home Inspection: Stop Spamming Me!

I've gotten at least four pieces of comment spam from American Dream Home Inspection in the past week. There are quite a few ADHI's out there, but these are coming from the franchise in Westminster, California.

Although the comments have been left on real estate related posts, they are nothing more than spam, no better if they spray painted their name across competitors' signs.

Hey, americandream1@cox.net! You have my attention. Now stop spamming me! If you want to market your services, stop acting like a leach and start marketing like a human being. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.

OK, I've vented.

Rich Brooks
Pissed

Tags: American Dream Home Inspection | Comment Spam

New Internet Marketing Blog

Yesterday I started a new blog under the banner of MaineToday.com called Internet Marketing 101. (That link takes you to my first post; unfortunately, a registration is required if you try and access the Internet Marketing 101 home page. Beyond my control.)

The purpose of that blog is to start at square one for Internet marketing, and provide information to small business owners and entrepreneurs who don't understand why their Web site isn't being found at Google, why they're not getting the traffic they want, and why they can't convert those visitors into customers.

Regular readers of this blog may not get a whole lot of new information, but if you ever feel like I'm talking over your head, be sure to check out Internet Marketing 101.

MaineToday.com is the new media division of Blethen Maine Newspapers, publishers of the Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram, the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel, and the Community Leader and Coastal Journal.

Note: You can subscribe to the Internet Marketing 101 feed, but it hasn't yet been posted to the site.

Rich Brooks
Maine Business Blogger

Tags: MaineToday.com | Internet Marketing | Maine Blogs | Maine Business Blogs

Branding Your Digital Documents

We often work with our clients on creating a consistent brand across all of their marketing material, online and off.

We ensure that their Web site and their email newsletter and their business blog all complement each other, even if they aren't exactly the same. When someone receives your email newsletter they should never question who sent it.

We've created customized, complementary Word templates so that clients could send digital letterhead for proposals and correspondence. We've created custom PowerPoint slides for our clients' presentations so that they stand out from the generic Microsoft templates that other speakers use.

But this is the first time we've created a customized Excel spreadsheet. The Marketing Source, a leading strategic marketing firm that helps small business and non-profits, created a Marketing Campaign ROI Calculator which can be downloaded free from their home page.

By customizing the color scheme, fonts and layout and adding a logo, the ROI calculator is now an extension of The Marketing Source's brand. There's even embedded links back to their Web site.

If you have created a calculator or similar tool using Excel, don't just hand it out without first branding it--or hiring flyte to do it for you. ;-)

With digital products you never know how far or wide they might be distributed, ultimately finding the desk of your next client.

Rich Brooks
Web Marketing Expert

Tags: Excel | Digital Documents | ROI Calculator | Online Branding