Inner Circle Media

In 2009 BIG fonts are still all the rage!

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Since it’s January 2009, it seems the trendy thing to do is to talk about web design trends for the coming year (and you know how I like to be oh-so trendy). Smashing Magazine put out a good list of the top 10 trends for 2009 (they’ll expand the list in the coming months and present some color trends too). The list of trends provides good fodder for web designers in need of inspiration; however, I found that most of the “trends” have been around for the past few years and became increasingly popular in 2008. So technically, these aren’t new or upcoming

On occasion we have a client who asks, “If one website is good for my business, then doesn’t it stand to reason that 2, 3, 4 or more sites would be even better?” The answer is “MAYBE – It all depends on your audience.”If you serve just one audience, then one website is probably all you need.

If you serve multiple audiences, you should first determine – are their information needs different enough to warrant separate websites? If yes, then perhaps you should have multiple websites geared specifically at each audience.

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For the sake of example, here’s a story…

Imagine you sell goats. For the past 20 years your target audience has been people who buy your goats for milk production. You’ve had a website for the past 6 years that promotes your goats’ abilities to make prolific amounts of tasty, nutritious milk.

Then you get a phone call one day. Someone visited your website and wants to know if your goats are good grazers. You say, “Why sure, our goats are good grazers. They eat just about anything, but they prefer to eat the finest clover hay which makes their milk taste ever-so-sweet.”

And the caller says, “Oh no, I don’t want your goats for milk production. I started a new company called Rent-A-Goat Services. We’re looking for friendly goats to use as an efficient, holistic, environmentally healthy approach to weed control. It sounds like your goats wouldn’t be good for this since they’ve been spoiled on the finest clover hay. I’ll call someone else. Toodle-loo.”

Initially, you are surprised, but because you are such a brilliant entrepreneur, you recognize a new market for your goats. Immediately you call your favorite web design company and get started on a new website that promotes your goats as the world’s most voracious weed eaters. Six months later you’ve sold more goats than the previous five years combined. You decide to establish a company called, “Hungry Goat Staffing Services.” A year later you are the preferred goat provider to Rent-A-Goat Services all over the country. Two years later you decide to sell your goat staffing company and move to Tuscany to learn Italian, drink good Chianti, and perfect your Mostaccioli recipe.

You get the picture? If you decide you need more than one website, keep these things in mind:

1. Multiple sites can be good for your search engine ranking - because you can cross link between sites and because you’ll have multiple search engine listings.

2. Managing multiple sites can be time-consuming. Don’t spread yourself to thin. If you can’t handle the maintenance of several sites, then just stick with one.

3. Don’t cannibalize from your other sites. If you set up two or three sites that market the same product, they may compete for visitors and may not help you increase market share.

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By the way, Rent-A-Goat is the real deal. We don’t make this stuff up!

There really are Rent-A-Goat services sprouting up around the country. Here’s a link to one in San Francisco City Crazing.

For small lawns and those hard to reach places…

… consider baby pigmy goats. They’re cute, bouncy, always hungry, and many people will think they’re just strange looking cats – which means you can keep them in your backyard in Ann Arbor. Perhaps they’ll become friends with your flock of urban chickens.

This may sound crazy coming from a business owner trying to grow her company, but we send away business every day. When prospective clients call, we ask a bunch of probing questions, and when it makes sense, we direct them to a trusted group of web freelancers. But, why would a company EVER send business away? Because a good fit is vital to a good outcome!How do you know who’s right for your next web project? Here’s some quick guidance on how to choose between a freelancer and a web development shop:

Reasons to Choose a Freelancer:

• You want a basic informational site.
• Your budget is limited (i.e. under $3-5 K).
• You’ve already designed your site; now you need someone to code it.
• Conversely, you need someone to design your site, and you’ll have one of your in-house techies code the site.
• You already have a decent website; you just need someone to help you make changes or additions.

Reasons to Choose a Web Development Firm:

• Your new website will be complex – perhaps it’s database-driven, with a login area, an online store, and a content management system.
• You want to work with a team with a wide breadth of expertise – marketing, search engine optimization, design, programming, animation, video for the web – you want your web team to have it all.
• You want to hang out in a funky, orange office (+ spend time with Norm the dog).

If you’re still not sure who would build you the best website, you might consider talking to both freelancers and web shops. Here are some considerations when interviewing one-woman shops vs. larger companies:

Considerations when choosing a freelancer:

• What’s in the freelancer’s portfolio? Do you like their work?
• Does s/he ask the right questions, listen intently, and understand your goals?
• Do you have a good fit with the freelancer? (This is important since it’s a one-on-one relationship.)
• How quickly can the freelancer complete the work?
• Does the freelancer build websites part-time? Do they have a day job?

Considerations when choosing a web firm:

Almost 2 years ago, I wrote a blog post about this very topic. It tells you what questions to ask when choosing a web development firm. Here’s the link – Choosing a Web Firm: 20 Questions For Prospective Web Developers. The next time you come talk to us about a web project, make sure to ask these questions, and give me a dose of my own medicine!

Here at Inner Circle Media we’re somewhat resistant to formal job titles. In my previous life, I worked for a stuffy, corporate, hierarchical company where we had job titles like Senior Quality Liaison and International Documentation Coordinator. To me these titles were BS, and they often caused bickering and divisiveness because people would argue about who had what title. It was not uncommon to hear someone exclaim, “But why am I only a senior coordinator and not an associate or even a junior supervisor?!” (I’m so glad I never figured out the difference!)

So, when Catherine and I started Inner Circle, we decided to let our team members come up with their own job titles. That way, our team members can decide what they do best and how they’d like to define their role. And because they’re creating their own titles, they are all theirs. If they decide in six months that their title no longer fits their role, they can CHANGE IT.

This past week our brilliant new team member, Karl, was trying to figure out the title he’d like listed on his business cards. We suggested many possibilities – production assistant, web coder, digital developer – but none of them were quite sexy enough. So Karl created this handy little tool to generate his title. Personally, I love WEB CODE BOY. Give it a try, and let me know which one you like best.

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Share and Enjoy:

WARNING: If you want to read a blog post that justifies and commiserates with your dissatisfaction at work – then please do NOT read any further! This post is about how each of us is ultimately responsible for our own happiness at work. It’s not up to our bosses, managers, or co-workers to make us happy. If we’re not happy at work, we only have ourselves to blame. Yep, if you’re unhappy, it’s your own fault.
(Sorry, I warned you.)

Perhaps this sounds a bit harsh, but let’s take an honest look at ourselves. Each of us has a choice in tough situations. We can complain to our co-workers, feel angry, and drag our feet on the job, OR we can happily rise to the challenge, help our team, and feel satisfied in the work we’re doing together.

Let’s say my boss asks me to work on a last minute project. She says, “Hey, could you please jump in and help with this big, complicated website launch? By the way, it needs to be done by tomorrow morning…”

I have a choice in how I respond. If I choose to whine, procrastinate, get angry, who does this hurt? ME! Hmm, so that choice would just suck on many levels. So what’s the other choice? I know that by taking on the task, I can really help our company in a time of need – plus, my boss is sooo nice that she’d surely give me comp time if I worked all night

So maybe I’m just a freak-nerd who likes to enjoy my time at work (I definitely am), but I’ve learned that …

1) Being angry is a big waste of time, and life is short.
2) The people around us can sense the negativity we are putting out, and that’s no fun.
3) When we are negative, we are making the CHOICE to be unhappy. Worse yet, maybe it’s not even a truly conscious choice!

Here are my tips for finding happiness at work - even when projects are due, unhappy clients are calling, and your coworker is chirping about how she hates Mondays …

1. Catch yourself in the moment. Have you ever gotten angry about some little thing that happened at work and hours later you find yourself at home – or maybe even back at work the next day – still in a horrible mood? Well, I have. It’s really so easy to convince ourselves that we are completely justified in our unhappiness, isn’t it? In fact, most of the time we might not even realize that we are just unnecessarily hanging on to unhappiness; we have unconsciously gotten stuck! OK, so how do we get un-stuck? First we need to notice that we’re stuck, and then we can try to make a conscious choice to get unstuck. What if we could catch ourselves right in the moment that grumpiness sets in, and say, “Man, I’m so totally annoyed, but I’m going to choose to NOT go with that feeling. I’m going to do something different, because I WANT to be happy”? (Even if so-and-so is a complete pain in the rump – which may very well be the case.)

2. Do something different this time. OK, so maybe I’m feeling grumpy about a task that I’ve been assigned. I could whine and moan, or I could just do it. Yes indeed, instead of being unhappy about it, I could choose to meet the work head on, enjoy the challenge, and celebrate the fact that I’ve been given the chance to do my best (for our business AND internally for myself). Here’s another one: What if I’m feeling annoyed with a co-worker because THEY’RE complaining about work? Well, I can try to consider that maybe that co-worker doesn’t realize he’s gotten stuck in negativity, AND, since I know that sometimes I get stuck too– how can I hold it against them?!

Over the past few months, I’ve been talking with other Ann Arbor web companies and discovered an interesting trend – WE ALL TRYING TO HIRE THE EXACT SAME PERSON. Well, not exactly the same person, but we’re all trying to hire for the same job position.

We need experienced web programmers, especially those brilliant PHP and/or Ruby geeks who can jump right into projects, trouble shoot, and work well with a team. It’s also highly likely that these folks drink vast quantities of Mountain Dew, write code at 2 AM, and haven’t had a sun tan … ever. I say all this with kindness and admiration because our company depends on YOU. We want you join our team, and we promise to praise and reward your big analytical brains.

Seriously though – why are Ann Arbor web companies struggling to recruit for the same position? Why aren’t there enough good web programmers to go around? And how can we bring more of them here?

I think our local companies have an opportunity to band together and recruit more web programmers. Once they see that there are MANY career opportunities in Ann Arbor, they’ll be more likely to move here. They’ll understand that our region can offer them lots of job options and a career path where they quickly advance and easily change companies if need be. If you have ideas for how we can bring more experienced web programmers to the area, please comment on this post.

And for all you wonderful geeks looking for a new job, here are some Ann Arbor web firms who need you badly:

• Inner Circle Media (of course, I have to put us at the top of the list!)
• Dynamic Edge
• Ingenex Digital Marketing
• Igadea
• Boxcar Studio
• Linux Box
• MetaSpring (they’re looking for a designer right now, but always seeking great programmers)

I’ll keep adding to this list, so please let me know if you’d like your company added.

Here are my top 10 reasons to have a business blog:

1. Marketing – Talk about your areas of specialty, clients’ successes, and/or promotions.

2. Branding/Image – Create a “personality” or voice for your company.

3. Differentiation – Tell YOUR story. Be different & real.

4. Trust - Promote yourself as a trusted adviser; Connect with customers.

5. Low Cost / Cheap PR – Blogs are much less expensive than standard websites to create and update.

6. Writing Gigs – Great blog posts will promote you as a guest author, news contributor, or maybe even a book author.

7. Speaking Gigs – Industry leaders will recognize your brilliant thoughts and ask you to speak at conferences and meetings.

8. Customer Feedback – Comments on your blog posts allow customers to tell you how they feel (and you can respond).

9. Earn a Bit of $$ - If you employ Google Adwords, your blog can earn money for you. Simply sign up with Adwords to provide space for ads that are relevant and complimentary to your business. If you become an Amazon Affiliate, you can earn up to a 10 percent referral fee on books bought by Amazon customers who come from your blog.

10. Search Engine Optimization – Capture users in the long tail (highly specialized, low-traffic search terms that represent a significant amount of total searches); look fresh and relevant to Google

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And finally – here are some tips to avoid sucky blog syndrome…

1. Know and speak to thy audience. If you talk about the topics your target market cares about, they’re sure to listen and respond positively.

2. Present yourself as an expert – Be consistent & on topic. Decide how you’d like to present yourself through your blog and stick with it.

3. Don’t be too personal – i.e. I had the flu all last week. Let me tell you about my symptoms…

4. Be nice or don’t bother blogging. NO whiners, complainers, or digs at your competitors.

5. Use spell check and formatting to your advantage. Spelling matters. As with other websites, blogs are easier to skim and parse when they contain bold text, bullets, big messages, etc.

6. Allow comments (with your review + spam blockers). Blogs are only blogs if you allow an online conversation. While you may choose to block some inappropriate comments, it’s important that you let your readers speak to you and each other.

7. Link to important or relevant sites and other blogs. Act as a resource by connecting your readers with other sites and blogs that cover the issues important to your target market.

8. Create compelling content – not commercials. Tell a short story about one of your customers. As I’ve mentioned about good business karma, focus on helping others and your business will reap the benefits (plus, you’ll be creating a lot of good ju ju.)

On March 13th I’m talking about blogs with a group of Ann Arbor Chamber of Commerce members. Here are excerpts from that talk…
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“People don’t listen to companies, they listen to people.” Seth Godin

People like to do business with people they know. Whether you like it or not, your prospects won’t choose to work with you because you have the best brochure, the slickest sales pitch, or the prettiest proposal. They’re most likely to choose you because they feel a connection with you. A business blog is a great tool to help you make that connection and have an interactive conversation with your prospects and customers, as well as others who are interested in what you have to say (media contacts, employees, potential hires, partner companies, etc.).

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So, why don’t you have a business blog? Check all that apply:

• I don’t like to write.
• I don’t know how to come up with topics.
• A blog about my business would be SO boring.
• I’m afraid I’ll look silly or just not professional enough.
• I don’t have time.

If you answered – I don’t like to write, then remember blogs are NOT formal. You don’t have to follow a certain format. You’re not writing a thesis for a literature class. You’re having a conversation with people who care about your thoughts, advice, struggles, and successes. Have fun as you write. Be casual, helpful, brief yet poignant. Let people get to know you.

If you answered – I don’t know how to come up with topics, then think about the business topics you are passionate about. You should write about topics that get you fired up, where you have an opinion or some specific expertise. Also make sure to create blog post titles with SEO in mind – i.e. use search terms that your target market uses. Here’s a sample blog topic that would appeal to readers and Google – “Michigan Roofing: Ways to Prevent Common Weather-Related Problems.”

If you answered – a blog about my business would be SO boring, then perhaps you’re not thinking about your business in the right light. The problems you solve are of great interest to someone (or many people). For example, if you’re an insurance agent you may worry that folks will find your services dull. Here’s a possible blog title that would garner a lot of attention – “Term vs. Universal Life Insurance – What the heck is the difference?”

If you answered – I’m afraid I’ll look silly or just not professional enough, then you’re taking yourself too seriously. People choose to work with people who are HUMAN, compassionate, caring, honest, thoughtful. Your blog won’t make you look silly (unless you want to look silly). It will make you look REAL.

If you answered – I don’t have time, then set small goals at first. Agree that you’ll post in your blog on a weekly basis and spend no more than 30 minutes on your first post. Set aside half an hour on Friday mornings for blogging. Take yourself to a coffee shop with your laptop or paper notebook. This is the time for you to think, write, have fun.

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I’ll follow with another post related to the reasons you certainly SHOULD have a business blog.