Re doinging my website gave me a big feeling of relief

The big up side of a website & eletter re-design, besides the fact that they look better and better represent my business is that IT’S DONE!!!! YEAH! For the first time in months when I sit down to work, I’m not being nagged by a voice in my head telling me to work on my website! YEAH! I know there are some tweaks here and there but nothing urgent. What a relief!

How To Get Rid Of Bad Press Online

If someone has written something bad about you online there is hope on how to get rid of it or at least bury it. The first thing that you can do, is contact whoever is in charge of the website that mentions you in a negative or at least unwanted way and see if s/he will take it down. It will still live on at Google for a while but will eventually go away. If that is not feasible the the next best option is to bury it.

Develop as much content on the internet that is positive or at least neutral. To flood the internet with your name you can:

• Start your own website
• Write a Blog
• Write lots of book reviews on Amazon
• Make sure that your LinkedIn profile is up to date and complete
• Make sure that all business organizations, churches and alumni organizations that you are connected with have your name and preferably website listed on their websites.
• Comment on news stories & other people’s blogs and sign everything with your full name and link to your website/blog (see my post on how to sign with a link here)

Basically you want to populate the web with as many references to you as you can so that any negative press is buried on the second or later page of search results which are rarely viewed. If your negative press is not going away you should then and only then respond to it in a blog entry or website just so that someone really wanting to learn about can read your side of the story.

8 Essentials When Writing For The Internet

This is a re-pub of my May eletter

1.    Chunk Your Text - Text should be split up into short chunks-not full paragraphs like your English teacher taught you.

2.    Link Link Link- Linking is the new footnote. You may link to your own site in different places and to other sites when appropriate. This is super important when blogging.

3.    Use consistency with your name – Pick a name and stick with it. Use the same one on your card, website, blog, amazon reviews, LinkedIn, message boards and comments left on websites. For example, I use my name, Cordelia Blake, everywhere, it’s not C. Blake here and Cordelia H. Blake there.

4.    Write Key Word Rich Content – Spend some time researching key words that people use when researching your product or service and make sure that you use them naturally in your content. This means about 5-10% of your words should be key words - not all of them. Search engines rank words that are headings higher than regular words. Free Resources: Wordtraker: Gtrends, Google Keyword Research, Overture

5.    Leave links everywhere - When commenting on other websites and blogs, sign everything with a link to your website and blog. You will need a little html code to do this as most comment forms don’t have a buttons to help you out. Here is the exact phrase you can copy and paste:
-YOUR NAME, <a href=”http://www.WEBSITE-ADDRESS-HERE.com/” rel=”external”>COMPANY NAME HERE</a>, <a href=”http://www.BLOG-ADDRESS-HERE.com/” rel=”external”>BLOG NAME HERE</a>  [Don’t use all caps-this just shows you where you should put in your own info]

6.    Pay attention to layout-if the menu or graphics are messed up-no one cares how well written your text is. A simple but functional website or blog is better than a fancy but messed up one.

7.    Don’t Use All Caps-This should be used rarely and for emphasis only as it is the written equivalent of yelling

8.    Spelling and grammar count. Need I says more?

As always, keep emailing me with your questions.

Would you like me to speak at your business group or work place? Please download my speaker sheet and let’s talk!

You are welcome to use this article on your website, blog, or in your newsletter as long as you include this complete credit line: Copyright 2008 * Cordelia Blake Web Design. Cordelia Blake is the owner of Cordelia Blake Web Design, a web development company in Atlanta, GA. She creates and maintains websites for small businesses. Visit http://www.CordeliaBlake.com to get articles just like this one delivered to your inbox.

5 Skills for Work-at-Home Success

This is a good article that was on Yahoo. It was written by Christina Couch, ClassesUSA. Here is the re-pub:

One thing Chad Brown doesn’t stress about is his daily commute. Rolling out of bed, washing his face, and walking 10 paces to his computer, he’s already at work. The CEO of Plus 1 Tickets, a home-based, ticket-brokering firm that sells sports, theater, and concert tickets throughout the nation, Brown is one of the more than 4.2 million Americans who are ditching the daily commute in favor of punching in at home.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, almost half of the nation’s small businesses operate from home-based offices — and why not? As employer loyalty wanes and low-cost, lightning-speed technology becomes more accessible, it’s easier than ever to launch your own firm without leaving home.

Below are five skills you’ll need to kiss the cubicle goodbye.

Entrepreneurship

Tax Planning

When you own your own business, it’s all about thinking financially. “As a new business owner, one of the first things you need to know is how to structure your company to have maximum tax benefits,” states William Ellyson, a Richmond, Virginia-based attorney who specializes in small-business issues.

Entrepreneurs can find basic tax planning courses through local community colleges and small business association chapters. Those looking for more in-depth knowledge can check out year-long financial planning certificate programs offered online.

Public Relations and Marketing

“The main thing my major has taught me is how to network,” states Brown, a public relations major at Virginia Commonwealth University whose networking skills grew his ticket-brokering firm from a sideline hobby into a nationwide company with more than $150,000 in sales each year. “I’ve also learned how to effectively talk to clients and efficiently deal with problems.”

No matter the industry, all home-based entrepreneurs must be able to promote their services, reach the target demographic, communicate effectively with clients, and create a professional image for the public. While four-year institutions like Virginia Commonwealth offer bachelor’s degree programs in public relations, home-based business owners can also find PR courses through their local community college or chamber of commerce.

E-Commerce

“Five years ago, the attitude was ‘Yeah, I know I need to have a website, but I’ll get around to it,’” says Gene Fairbrother, lead small business consultant for the National Association for the Self-Employed. “Today you’ve got to have a Web presence to be in business.” According to the market research firm, Forrester Research, Inc., e-commerce retail sales topped $175 billion last year, with the industry projected to grow another $160 billion by 2012.

Brown fine-tuned his e-commerce strategy, moving his products from eBay to larger ticket broker sites such as Stubhub.com and Ticketsnow.com, increasing sales by an estimated 200 percent. To learn how to set up, manage, and promote your business online, check out e-commerce courses offered online through the University of Maryland University College and the University of Phoenix.

Project Management

Being the CEO, chief sales officer, HR director, bookkeeper, and janitor requires expert multitasking. “It’s very difficult to manage it all,” admits Monosoff, who leads a multi-million-dollar home-based business while raising two children and writing a monthly column for Entrepreneur Magazine. “You have to have discipline, organization, and be able to prioritize.”

Smithsonian Store Makes Huge Blunder

I was shocked by this following message that I received from The Smithsonian Store today. I can manage a few months without ordering but was mostly shocked by the emormity of the business situation. I wonder if they were not subsidized by the gov if they could survive? So, if you’re feeling bad about a few business decisions that may have cost you a few extra dollars, just take a look at this…

We, at SmithsonianStore.com, would like to thank you for your business and patience. You haven’t heard from us in a while because our outside service provider, which performed a variety of functions critical to our day-to-day operations, suddenly and unexpectedly closed its doors. Consequently, we cannot accept any orders at this time.

We want you to know that we are working very hard to return to full service and expect to be back to serve our customers by mid-summer. In the meantime, we’re busy searching for new and interesting products from around the world that we hope you will find irresistible.

Watch for our famous storewide sale that will celebrate our return!

How screwed are they? They are losing revenues every day for MONTHS plus they will have to discount everything when they re-open to stimulate sales. Who know how much money they spent and are not getting back from the outside provider. I wonder if it was really a surprise or if the signs were there, the financials ignored and the mistake made. Hmmm.

Simple, tasty and delicious-works for restaurants and websites.

Lately I have become a big fan of the BBC America show, Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmare’s starring our favorite Hell’s Kitchen chef, Gordon Ramsay. In the show he comes in to failing British restaurants and stays with them for a week-hopefully turning them around. There are so many thing I love about the show but will focus on the one that is also relevant for websites. In several episodes he discovers that the chefs of these restaurants are using fancy ingredients, excessive sauces and pretentious presentations and the end up with mediocre to poor food and dreadful service. He ends up converting the menu to one with simple, local ingredients, tasty entrees and reasonable prices.

I think the same principal can apply to web sites. I visit sites all the time that are fancy, have lots of animation, have songs, intro pages and I can’t even find the phone number of the business. I believe that websites should have solid writing, clear information and tasteful but not overstated presentation. They are here to serve the customer, not the ego of the designer or business person

Blogs - To Be Or Not To Be?

This is a re-publish of my April eletter.
I have been doing a lot of research on blogs lately. They seem so hot, so now, so vital, but what I have found is that for many people, they are so time wasting, so difficult, so unnecessary. Setting up and maintaining a blog requires a commitment of time and energy. They are wonderful for people who enjoy writing, who are in the technology or marketing industries, or who genuinely want to do one. However, blogs are not for everyone.

Many blogs have few to no readers. The few readers that they do have enjoy the blog, but do not buy the product or service. As a business person, it is important to make sure that you are investing time in something that will produce good results and not just doing for its own sake. If the time and energy spent to produce a good blog and to generate readers and maintain them is part of your overall marketing strategy, or something that you want to do because you enjoy it, then go ahead.

Many blogs are successful because the people who write them are passionate. In addition, these people also have taken the time to plan their blogging strategy. Even if they are in the business arena, they are also hobbyists. They enjoy the process. If you are someone who is passionate about your subject area, or who enjoys writing and spending time on the computer, then blogging just might be for you.

So, now that I have shown some of the limitations of blogging, I will spend some time on basic blog education. I’ve tried to compile some beginning information to help if you are just starting a blog or are ready to grow your audience.

Basic Terminology:
Post - an individual article on a blog
Widget - an item that is added to the sidebar of your blog. There may be ads, amazon books for sale or a list of previous posts. There are hundreds of widgets available. Some are provided from your blog host, others are on independents sites that provide you with the code so you can just copy and paste it into the correct place on your blog.

Other Factors:
Hosting: Most beginners do not host their own blogs on their own domain. That means that instead of a www.MYBLOG.com address, they have a www.myblog.blogservice.com address. Most of the top notch blogs are hosted on their own domain, but many popular blogs are hosted on services too. Search engines “count” all the content on your blog better when it is hosted on your own domain. The top blog service providers are either free or relatively low cost and offer both options. For more info, see: WordPress.com, WordPress.org, Typepad.com, Drupal.org

Searching: Regular search engines list blogs, but there are also sites that specialize in blog searches. These are important both for listing your own blog and for searching for others. The leader, the one that is most used is Technorati. You can register your blog there, and they also provide code to put on your blog to help increase your Technorati ranking. For more info see: Technorati.com, Blog Explosion.com

Statistics: The statistical tracking that is available now is quite robust and sophisticated. You can see where your visitors live in the world, how they arrived at your blog, and where they go next. For the best statistics tracking, most people use a service independent of their bloghost. For more info, see: Feedjit, Site Meter, Google Analytics

Other Useful Blog Resources:
Amazon: You can set up a mini-store and if your readers buy the items that you recommend, you receive a cut of the sale.
Digg: A site where blog content is rated and ranked. If content is good, it can be a good way to bring traffic to your blog.
AddThis: You can register here and receive the code to make an “add this” button on the side of your blog that will allow readers to add your blog to their favorites list using any one of the many of favorites managers that are available.
BlogHer: A community of blogs by women

There are so many more that I cannot list them all here. As you read more and more blogs, you will notice the multitude of resources available.

The best resource for business bogging is Ted Demopoulos’ Blogging For Business site.

As always, keep emailing me with your questions.

Would you like me to speak at your business group or work place? Please download my speaker sheet and let’s talk!

You are welcome to use this article on your website, blog, or in your newsletter as long as you include this complete credit line: Copyright 2008 * Cordelia Blake Web Design. Cordelia Blake is the owner of Cordelia Blake Web Design, a web development company in Atlanta, GA. She creates and maintains websites for small businesses. Visit http://www.CordeliaBlake.com to get articles just like this one delivered to your inbox.

Get A Second Opinion On Your Marketing Materials…

This is a real flyer that I saw at a cafe yesterday. Here is the exact quote:

“For Your Convenience…

Massage sessions are now available from

3pm to 7pm every 2nd Sunday.

Call now for your next appointment!”

Who exactly is that convenient for? To me this goes in the same category as early American Idol contestants. Didn’t anyone close to them say-do something else??

We all need to make sure that we have a friend, associate, someone review our marketing material who will give us an informed and honest opinion.

Being able to login and update your own site is not a benefit!

This rant is about web design companies who offer the ability to design and update your site yourself as a benefit! URGH! I think that most business owners and other business people should spend their time developing their business not learning how to update a website! If someone is a hobbyist or has time to do it-then great but otherwise, spend your time growing your business!

When I work with clients-our contract is usually by the year and all they have to do is email me or call and I take care of their website. That’s it. Service. Simple!

Made In The USA

My websites are made in the US. I don’t mean to be too political here but the thing that angers me so about global outsourcing isn’t just that we are “losing jobs”. Because so far, mine is ok (Selfish I know-but it’s where I’m at).

But what really angers me is that we pay people in foreign countries poverty wages! I mean seriously, could we not fork out the extra $5/$10/$100 bucks so that we make the country a better place for us being there? Big companies can actually make the world a better place and still save money and they still go on the cheap!

So instead of paying an American $30/hr for a job they pay an Indian $1/hr for the same job. These are not researched numbers-just an example.  Why could they not pay $5/hr or $10/hr and actually shift the whole reality of the county? Let those people do well with a 40 hour/5 day work week. Let them see their kids and spouses.

If outsourcing is the way of the future let’s use it to make the world better!