2008 May | flyte blog: small business web marketing blog

Archive for May, 2008

State of the Rich (Brooks)

Monday, May 19th, 2008

So, today’s my 40th birthday. What’s weird is it doesn’t seem old to me. I remember when 30 seemed really old, but now I have friends in their 50′s and they’re skiing, snowmobiling, and partying like 20 year-olds. (It just takes us longer to recover now.)

What is it about round numbers that makes one take stock of one’s life? I’m not entirely sure, but I do feel that it was an appropriate time to start jotting down some notes.

I apologize in advance for using this space–and your time–to make promises to myself. But who knows, maybe it will jolt some of you into asking new questions and making your own list, whether you’re 20 or 60.

My wife asked me a few weeks back what I wanted for my birthday. While there are some "toys" I want, I’m at the point in my life that they’re either something I can easily buy for myself (a new video game, a camera) or that are way too expensive (a boat, a vacation home on the water, etc.)

Last weekend my wife threw me a surprise birthday party and got about 60 or 70 of my friends, family and co-workers together at a local pool hall. A few brought gifts. It’s interesting to see how your friends view you through the gifts they get you. A quick sampling:

Three bottles of bourbon (two Knob Creek, one Basil Hayden)
Two bottles of wine
A bottle of champaign
Two graphic novels (aka big comic books)
An adult sized Spider-Man costume

Hmmm….not sure what this says about me.

Right now I’m most interested in new experiences. Lately I’ve been playing around with the idea of taking a photography course, or sailing lessons, or learning to rock climb. (My friends, who know that I can spend two hours every night sitting in front of my XBox playing GTA IV are probably laughing right now.)

I’ve gotten better about trying new things, but this year I’m going to make a concerted effort to doing things that are outside my comfort level (taking a kayak out to our next "boy’s" island camping trip as opposed to motor boat) or just something I don’t usually do (a play, classical concert, etc.)

Goals for Rich:

Get a few lessons in with a personal trainer and drop 5 – 10lbs.
Take a course in something new.
Spend more time with my daughters: reading, playing, teaching them how to kick boys’ ass in video games.
Learn to cook 6 new dishes (salsa chicken and tuna salad will only take you so far)
To lead a more sustainable life: more recycling, less buying of crap, healthy food shopping, and less "second dinners" at 11 o’clock at night.
Have more points of contact with friends and family. This means face-to-face, phone calls, emails, Facebook, etc. Too many months go by between interactions with me and people I truly care about.
Do something with the 72 hours of home video that’s just sitting on digital tapes in my office.
Reward my wife regularly because she deserves it.

Goals for Flyte:

Put on four Webinars by year’s end.
Finish the several nearly-completed ebooks and put them up for sale.
Go to at least two industry conventions I haven’t been to in the next 12 months.
Get the company to the point where I can take a paid sabbatical within 3 years. (Yes!)

I’m sure there’s more that both I and my company can accomplish this year, but this seems like a good starting point. It will be interesting to check back on this post in 2009 (and 2011) and see how far I’ve come.

Rich Brooks
40 is the new 25

Posted in Off Topic | 8 Comments »

Problems for Lefties on MacBook Pro Trackpads

Friday, May 16th, 2008

I guess I noticed something was odd about my new MacBook Pro’s trackpad while I used it over the past couple of days, but most of the time I was using a mouse so I didn’t really notice it. I also chalked it up to the trackpad’s iPhone like abilities.

However, this morning, as I was pulling out my laptop for a presentation at MEBSR’s 15th Annual Sustainable Business Conference I discovered that the button on my trackpad wasn’t working. Basically, it was behaving as if it was the 2ndary button on a two-button mouse. To further frustrate the situation, I couldn’t manage the trackpad through System Preferences because THAT required a primary button click!

Luckily, I was able to work around using my laptop at the conference, but I was still pissed. After the conference I came back to the office where I had a mouse. I plugged it in and played around. The mouse worked fine, but the trackpad continued to behave like the secondary button on a two-button mouse. I couldn’t figure it out.

On a whim, I opened the mouse control panel and switched it back to the righty/default position: left button as primary button Boom! My trackpad behaved correctly.

Now, who’s the genius over at Apple who would have the primary button control affect the behavior of a one-button mouse!?! Is there not one lefty on quality assurance in Cupertino? (Please note that on all previous versions of the MacBook Pro changing the primary button on the mouse had no affect on the trackpad button’s performance.)

Icon_steermouse_2
Luckily, thanks to this thread at the Apple Discussion board, I discovered Steermouse, a free application that fixes this bug/feature.

You just need to install Steermouse, restart your Mac, and then open up Steermouse through the System Preferences.

I’m sure Apple will fix this bug in a later release, but if you can’t wait–and trust me, you can’t–download it now. There’s a lot of other features in Steermouse worth checking out, but if you’re a lefty like me, it’s a life saver.

Rich Brooks
Southpaw

Posted in Off Topic | 4 Comments »

The Value of Providing Free Advice

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Many people I speak with are concerned about giving away too much free information on their Web site. Their concerns range from providing ideas to their competition to giving away all their best ideas to do-it-yourselfers who will, well, do it themselves.

My experience has been that the more you give away, the better you do. Of course, every business and industry is different and YMMV. (Your Mileage May Vary.)

By providing free information on your site you increase your search engine visibility and establish your expertise. For everyone who takes your advice on organic gardening or search engine optimization and runs with it, more people will realize that they’re too busy or inexperienced to do it on their own. Those people are looking for professional help, and you’ve just established yourself as that professional.

Just today, a prospect shared with me that the reason they were talking to me was because of how I had positioned myself as an "expert" on Web marketing, and how they wanted to do the same in their own industry. They wanted my help in how to best leverage the Web to make it happen. This meeting wouldn’t have taken place if I was worried that my competition was reading my blog and stealing all my best ideas.

Whether it’s on the Web, or in giving speeches, or teaching classes, what you lose in giving away free advice is made up 100 times over in marketing and establishing your credibility.

Go ahead, give it a chance.

Rich Brooks
Free Web Marketing Advice

Posted in Business Philosophy, Entrepreneur & Small Business, Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing | 10 Comments »

What Google Knows About Spam

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

Matt Cutts, one of the more famous people at Google, recently presented at the Web 2.0 conference on what Google knows about spam. Although I wish he had given a few more concrete examples–i.e., "getting off the beaten path" to avoid spam–this is a good overview on spam and how to avoid it.

Via Search Engine Roundtable.

Rich Brooks
Search Engine Marketer

Posted in Search Engine Marketing | 6 Comments »

Do Longer Term Domain Registrations Help with Search Engine Visibility?

Tuesday, May 6th, 2008

Recently my friend Josh Hurley sent me the following screen capture. He asked "have you seen this — it is part of the up-sell strategy when renewing with Network Solutions:"

In case you can’t read that:

Did you know? Registering a domain name for a longer term not only
saves you money, but helps to increase your search engine ranking.
Consider a 5-year term!

Why it works: Search engines perceive
domain names registered for 5 years or longer to be more legitimate
than domain names registered for a shorter term, and therefore rank
them more highly.

I was intrigued; on one level it makes sense. On another level, lots of good-sounding, completely-untrue SEO info gets passed around as gospel because people don’t look at it critically.

So, I headed off to the forums at HighRankings and found this recent thread on the length of domain registration as it applies to search engine visibility.

Short answer: only Google (and Yahoo, etc.) know for sure, but it appears to have little to no effect on ranking from the little anecdotal evidence collected. If Google ever did put a lot of weight on that particular algorithm it seems insanely easy to abuse and is like to be the target of scam artists.

Just goes to show you that you can’t necessarily trust businesses to provide accurate information when the outcome may benefit or hurt them financially. Nope, the only sure way to increase your search engine visibility is a business blog. Guaranteed.

Rich Brooks
Business Blog Designer

Posted in Search Engine Marketing, Web Marketing | 2 Comments »

How to Respond When the Prospect Chooses Another Vendor

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

First off, let’s give props to any prospect who takes the time to tell you that they have chosen someone else. (And double-props to anyone who gives you feedback on why they didn’t choose you.)

Flyte’s not the least expensive game in town (nor the most expensive), and often it just comes down to upfront dollars for a client. You may be in the same boat.

Many times a prospect has told us that they’d really like to work with us but it’s just not in the budget so they’re either going to stick with what they have or go with someone less expensive. Sometimes that message is delivered over the phone, sometimes in an email.

If this happens to you, respond immediately. If they left a voice message, call them back. If they sent you an email, hit reply. If you’re on the phone with them, don’t hang up.

Thank them for their time. Complement them on their choice. (No way you’re ever going to recover this prospect if you insult their decision-making capabilities, no matter how boneheaded you think they’re being.) If possible, offer them something free (advice, handouts, etc.) that might make their project turnout better.

Most important, leave the door open to future collaboration/work.

I often ask them to please keep us in mind if things don’t work out with their first choice, or if they want some help with search engine optimization or Web marketing once the site has launched. I can’t tell you the number of times we’ve ended up doing something with the prospect down the road with this approach.

Other times the prospect leaves with such a positive perception, that they recommend us to associates who end up doing business with us. More than once, a client tells me that so-and-so recommended them, but the name doesn’t ring a bell. When I check my database I see that so-and-so didn’t do business with us three years ago.

Wow. I guess we made quite an impression.

Rich Brooks
Rejected

Posted in Business Philosophy, Entrepreneur & Small Business | 4 Comments »

Oh, The Things You Can Learn from TV

Friday, May 2nd, 2008

Earlier this week I put on the "tech expert" hat again for 207, Maine’s evening news program. The topic was online coupons and where to find them. Perhaps a timely topic for the recession. (Oops! I said the "r" word again.)

I don’t usually have anything to "plug", but the folks over at channel 6 were good enough to ask me about the upcoming sustainable business conference we’re holding on May 16, 2008. There’s still time to register!

You can watch the video here.

Rich Brooks
Coupon Cutter

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

This One Goes to Eleven

Thursday, May 1st, 2008

It’s May Day, flyte’s unofficial birthday. It’s been 11 years since flyte–formally b1 communications–started out of my apartment in JP (Jamaica Plain, MA). We’ve survived booms, busts, feasts and famines, as well as the current recession. (Am I allowed to call it that yet?)

Never did I think that I’d still be doing this eleven years later. And, on some level, I guess I’m not. I haven’t designed a Web site in years, and outside of updating flyte’s site, I don’t do much Web work, either. I’ve definitely let a lot of my skills atrophy over the years as my interests have shifted. Instead, I’ve hired people who are a lot more talented than I ever was, or ever could be.

My focus lately has been on Web marketing, search engine optimization, email marketing, blogging, social media, and developing Web marketing strategies for clients. It’s there I’m finding the most satisfaction.

There’s been a fundamental shift at flyte over the past few years from just building beautiful sites to building Web strategies that help a small business to grow.

I’m not sure what the next 11 years will bring in terms of technology or tools, but I believe our role will continue to be about helping businesses communicate more clearly and effectively with clients, and build long term relationships with their customers.

It’s also my hope that flyte and other businesses around the country and the world put more focus on the triple-bottom line: environmental stewardship, social responsibility and profitability. The current "green" fascination won’t last forever, so we need to take this opportunity to teach ourselves and learn from each other on how to build sustainable businesses.