Archive for May, 2007

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Microsoft is an Evil Spammer

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

So, despite never signing up for it–and being a life-long Mac user–I continue to get Microsoft Office Live Advisor, an email newsletter targeting small business owners who use Microsoft products.

Today I tried to unsubscribe again. The message was different this time, so apparently they realized their previous message was completely frustrating and obtuse. Unfortunately, the messaging has changed, but not their unintuitive, bass ackwards, completely assinine method (not) allowing people to unsubscribe.

After clicking on the Unsubscribe link in the email, I’m taken to a page with the following information:

You’ve reached this page because you want to subscribe/unsubscribe
to e-mail newsletters, or want us to stop sending you e-mail messages
altogether. You can set your preferences at the Profile Center.

To
reach the Profile Center, you will need to give us your Passport and
password, so we can be certain someone isn’t impersonating you. If you
haven’t registered with us before, we will ask you to create a
Passport. Why? So we can be certain we never send mail unless you say
so.

Who wrote this, George Orwell? To unsubscribe to an email I never subscribed to I need to take the time to create a Microsoft profile. And why? "So we can be certain we never send mail unless you say
so."

Ummm…too late!

And Microsoft wants us to buy into their anti-spam technology? First they should get their own house in order.

Rich Brooks
Take Me Off Your Damn List!

Posted in Email Marketing, Ignore It! | 4 Comments »


The Secret to a Web Site That Sells

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Ballpeen
When I first got into sales, my boss gave me some sales tapes to listen to in the car. The only one I ever enjoyed was Brian Tracy, I believe it was the Psychology of Sales or something like that. He told the following story.

When plexiglass first came out, one of the best sales people would bring along a pane of plexiglass and a ball-peen hammer. Since people had never seen plexiglass, when the salesman would take the ball-peen hammer to the plexiglass, the prospect would invariably flinch. They were amazed that the product would stand up to that type of impact, and would immediately start buying some.

At the sales conference that year, they asked this salesman what his secret was, he told them. Immediately, all the sales people went out and bought ball-peen hammers.

At the sales conference the following year this salesman was still number one, way ahead of everything else. They asked him again, what he did this year to stay on top. "Well, since I knew everyone else would go out and buy ball-peen hammers, I knew I had to change tactics. So now, when I go into the office of a prospect, I still bring in the hammer and the glass, but now I give the hammer to the prospect. Once the prospect has a go of it with the hammer they have to order a truckload of product."

I’m not sure how true that story was, or how close I got to it since I haven’t heard the story from Tracy in over 10 years. However, it stuck with me. Getting the prospect involved with the sales process increases your chance of closing. Period.

In this month’s issue of flyte log, our free email newsletter, the subject is The Secret to a Web Site That Sells. Although I’ve just spilled the secret, I provide a number of ideas that you can use on your own Web site to better engage your visitor, and put the ball-peen hammer in their hands.

Rich Brooks
Web Site Design & Development

Posted in Web Design & Development | 2 Comments »


Some Good Search Engine News (for us)

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

Last week I blogged about the hit we were taking at the search engines since we updated our site (flyte.biz). Although we aren’t back to pre-relaunch levels for many of our keyword phrases we track, we are up significantly from last week on most.

One thing I did notice, however, is that we’re now ranking for Internet Marketing (62) and Web Marketing (56). We rarely ranked in the top 10,000 for Web Marketing, and never for Internet Marketing.

Cowboyhat
Maybe it’s like Carolyn Phillips, our project manager, says: when you make a drastic change like we did (as much as we tried to minimize it) the search engines need to take a step back, take it all in and reassess. It’s kind of like if you’ve never worn a cowboy hat and suddenly you put one on. Everyone who’s ever known you is going to have to reassess what they know about you at that point. But ultimately, it’s gong to look cool. (It does look cool, right? Right?) BTW, that’s my buddy Erin from our weekend trip to Apalachicola, FL.

How much stock do I put in this? Not much, not yet. We’ll see where we are in a month and in 3 months. I’m also considering dropping $299/year on a Yahoo directory listing, something I wouldn’t have done a year ago. Is it worth it? Well, if you think it can give you $300 or more in business each year, then I guess it is.

Rich Brooks
Portland, Maine Web Design

Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing | No Comments »


3 Articles on Incoming Links

Thursday, May 24th, 2007

Here are three recent articles on the importance of incoming links as it relates to search engine ranking and traffic to your Web site:

Well, I’m off for Appalachacola, Florida, so this should keep you well fed while I’m away. Remember, no fighting.

Rich Brooks
In My Mind, I’m Already Gone

Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing | No Comments »


Web Site Video: Which Format is Right for You?

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

As high-speed bandwidth becomes more popular and the cost of storage goes down, it’s not surprising that more and more Web site owners are looking to add audio and video to their Web sites.

The question we often get is what format should a site owner use? QuickTime? Windows Media? Real Player? Right now I’d argue that Flash is the way to go for most people. It’s got 97% market penetration, the quality is good enough (I’ve seen better QuickTime movies and Windows Media videos) and it’s easy to set up.

Even if you don’t own Flash, or don’t feel comfortable working with it, there are some nice 3rd party applications that will create the movies for you. I’ve been playing around with Video2SWF which works for the Mac and the PC.

For the purpose of this experiment I recorded myself using my MacBook Pro’s built-in video camera and Conference Recorder 2 by eCamm. I then dragged-and-dropped the file Conference Recorder created into a Video2SWF window, made a couple of changes to the default settings, and hit "export." It created the Flash movie and the html page (which gave me the code I needed to put it in the blog post.)

In any case, I’d love to hear some feedback on the quality of the video, or if you have some other options for both Flash conversion or alternatives to Flash you feel work better.

Rich Brooks
Not Quite Ready for My Close Up

Posted in Web Design & Development, Web Marketing | 12 Comments »


NCAA and Product Differentiation

Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007

Katie Sternberg and Allison Kurpius of Fix Your Marketing Blog have an interesting post today about extreme product differentiation: your team logo on the A/C unit of your house. You know, that big gray box that is usually hidden by bushes?

While I can understand not wanting to spend extra money on customizing the look of an A/C unit, I remember fondly my Spider-Man credit card that I got after college.

No matter where I went, whenever I showed it, it sparked conversation. When Marvel and MBNA parted ways, they sent me my new card: a gray piece of plastic. I quickly closed the account.

Personalization is here to stay; why else would anyone pay extra for a U2 branded iPod, or spend real-world dollars to put virtual clothes on their avatar in Second Life? In fact, so much of Web 2.0 is based on the idea that people want to participate and customize their online experience, whether it’s at MySpace or an iGoogle page.

The A/C unit is the extreme example, but if you’re looking to move product, allowing people to customize the look and feel can be the deciding factor. I may not want to put the logo of my beloved Patriots on my A/C, but it would be cool if after I’ve already chosen the A/C unit (if I didn’t live in Maine), I could customize it with racing car flames, or a nature scene, or Matisse’s Dance.

Katie/Allison (they don’t sign their posts, so I’m not sure who wrote this one) opines:

But wouldn’t the money they spent figuring out how to put the
University of Georgia logo on the side of the unit and market it have
been better spent on real product enhancements like making their units
more energy efficient or quieter or smaller?

As someone who cares about the environment, absolutely. And for me, a quieter, more efficient A/C unit would be the best differentiator. However, I bet you it’s a lot cheaper to license college sports teams than to reinvent the cooling system, and a lot more profitable, anyway.

Ummm…wait a second. I just checked out the York A/C site. The page reads..without trace of irony, "Custom colors and college logos you’ll feel comfortable with — that’s innovation."

Uh, no. That’s not innovation. Licensing college teams hasn’t been innovative since…well, since there have been colleges. Oooh, different colors?!? Didn’t General Motors overtake Ford in the early part of the last century by offering multiple colors as opposed to just black?

York: college logos on your A/C units might make alumni happy, but it’s hardly innovative. Why don’t you work on that whole ozone-depletion, greenhouse gas thing you’ve got going on instead.

Go, Thoroughbreds!

Rich Brooks
Differentiating Myself One Post at a Time

Posted in Business Philosophy, Entrepreneur & Small Business | No Comments »


Ouch! Taking a Beating at the Search Engines

Monday, May 21st, 2007

As you may know, we recently updated our Web site with a snazzy new look. Although we kept most of the site structure the same, our page suffixes changed from .html to .php. We also lost a few sections (good-bye, "About You", we hardly knew ye.) However, I set up 301 redirects on the server for each page, and in reviewing our stats, we’re doing a good job redirecting people and search engines to the new, equivalent pages. (301′s are supposed to be the search engine friendly way of redirecting traffic, as opposed to a refresh tag in the header.)

Just check out this link to our staff page at http://www.flyte.biz/about/staff.html and see.

Unfortunately, it didn’t minimize the changes as much as I would have hoped.

We’re down 20 spots from last month for "portland maine web design," down 19 for "maine web designer" and a whopping 107 spots for "maine web design."

Like I said, "ouch."

Comparing the 11 days leading up to switch to the 11 days following it, we’ve seen our Google traffic -12.68%, MSN -27.78%, and Yahoo -50.70%.

Am I worried? No. Am I bummed. Yep.

We did enough good work that once the search engines catch up, we’ll be in a better spot than we were, and the new site better represents the work we’re doing now, which is a combination of Web design and Internet marketing.

Thank goodness we have this blog. Although I don’t track it for as many keywords as my Web site (why is that, I wonder?) as of today it had a top ten placement for two keyphrases near and dear to my heart: "web marketing for small business" and "rich brooks."

Rich Brooks
Web Marketing for Small Business

Posted in Search Engine Marketing | 4 Comments »


Rich Brooks is Back in Jail

Monday, May 21st, 2007

Rich_escape2Yes, it’s true I’m going to be locked up in a Mexican prison. However, that prison is Tortilla Flat out in Westbrook, and by helping raise my bail, you’ll be helping the MDA keep up the fight against muscular dystrophy.

Last year I had to raise $600; this year I need to raise $650. (Apparently, the cost of buying one’s freedom has gone up.) If I don’t, I’ll have to man the phones asking strangers for bail money.

My mom told me never to speak to strangers! You can see the dilemma I’m in!

Just to sweeten the pot, anyone who donates $50 or more to my bail will get a link to a Web page of their choice from this blog. (I reserve the right not to link to anything offensive.)

The MDA serves people with neuromuscular disease by
providing clinics, support groups, assistance with the purchase and
repair of wheelchairs, braces and communication devices, and summer
camp for kids. MDA also funds research grants to help find treatments
and cures for some 43 neuromuscular diseases that affect people of all
ages.

So please help me raise funds to keep up the fight against muscular dystrophy.

Donors:

Rich Brooks
If You Can’t Do the Time…

Posted in flyte news | No Comments »


How to Handle Blog Comments

Monday, May 21st, 2007

I’ve been heard to say that there are three kinds of blog comments: good, bad and spam.

The Good:

Oh, Rich, you’re so smart and good looking. How did you ever get to be so brilliant?

I get a lot of these. They’re good for the soul and ego and I generally let them stand.

The Bad:

You’ve got it completely wrong; Net Neutrality is a communist plot hatched to keep Verizon and AT&T from achieving their noble goal of maximizing shareholder value.

or

Your product/service is complete crap. I bought/rented/leased/stayed at your inn/etc. and found it to be completely unacceptable. The customer service was dreadful.

I’m not especially controversial, so I don’t get a lot of these. However, it’s just a matter of time until some client lets me have it publicly. I spoke to some innkeepers recently, who have to deal with unsatisfied customers now and again, or see negative comments on TripAdvisor.com. They don’t like the idea of having a blog that lets past guests rant against what they perceived as poor service or an uncomfortable bed.

My advice is I’d rather have the conversation go on at my blog–where I have home court advantage–than at TripAdvisor or something similar, where I can’t control the environment. If they complain at my blog, I have an opportunity of rectifying the situation and turning an unhappy customer into an unpaid evangelist for my company.

The Spam:

Visit my Texas Hold-Em site at ….

These you can delete without second thought. You wouldn’t let someone post billboards for their company on your retail store windows, would you?

However, there seems to be a growing fourth type of comment.  It starts as a regular comment, continuing the conversation, but then it suddenly turns into a subtle or not-so-subtle ad for the person leaving it.

The other day someone left a comment at our blog that basically finished with an advertisement for his company that was unrelated to the post. Basically, he was riding the post’s coat tails for search engine benefits (his own). I kept the comment, but edited out the self-promotion bit.

I asked my friend and fellow blogger Lance Duston whether that was fair or not. He responded:

Stymieing annoying self-promotion is about the best reason I can imagine for editing comments.

So it stands. Today I received two nearly identical comments on two separate posts about small business:

Comment One:

Commenter name: JanisPettit
Commenter email: janispattit@gmail.com
Commenter URL: [edited out]
IP address: 61.16.248.130
Authentication: None

Comment:
——–
You have written a good book for which it has focused on small business
for refreshing results,
If you are really motivated to build a thriving small, solo or home
based business and would like to know how to build a profitable
business in one year, this is a great no cost resource.

Comment Two:

Commenter name: Hervy Jonson
Commenter email: janispettit@gmail.com
Commenter URL: [edited out]
IP address: 61.16.248.130
Authentication: None

Comment:
——–
This story describes the Sustainable business like an Awareness to
Action on Business. And also tells the improve the workplace
productivity. I had the information on Small Business, If you are
really motivated to build a thriving small, solo or home based business
and would like to know how to build a profitable business in one year,
this is a great no cost resource.

Besides the atrocious English, the fact that despite using two different names they use the same email address, besides just being there to drive traffic to their site, the comments add nothing to the ongoing conversation.

Like everything else in life, it’s not the quantity of comments you get, it’s the quality. I just wish I wasn’t attracting so many Web marketers who just don’t get it.

Rich Brooks
Maine Business Blogger

 

Posted in Business Blogs and Blog Marketing | 6 Comments »


What is Web 2.0 Anyway?

Friday, May 18th, 2007

If you’ve been looking for information on Web 2.0 and how you can use it to turbo-charge your Internet marketing, I’ve got some good news.

The Maine Marketing Association will be putting on Web 2.0 – Internet Strategies for Power Marketing on Monday, May 21st, 2007.

There will be three workshops in this all-morning event:

  • Online and On Target – Strategies for One to One Marketing at the Speed of Light by Aileen Cahill, author of Internet Marketing: Building Advantage in a Networked Economy
  • Web Design for Action! by Rich Brooks (that’s me!)
  • SEO (Search Engine Optimization) by Anne Kennedy of Beyond Ink

The festivities begin at 8:30am and will be held at the Ambromson Center in the new Hannaford Hall building.

Registration is $35 for members and students, $45 for everyone else. Pre-registration is appreciated.

Rich Brooks
That’s Me!

Posted in flyte news, Web Marketing | No Comments »

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