Fifteen Questions to Ask Your Future Website Designer

Posted in: Website Design | December 28, 2010
What Should You Ask Your Future Website Designer

Recently my sister decided to launch a website and blog. With my encouragement she selected WordPress as her platform of choice and then set out to locate a WordPress consultant. Why didn’t she come to me you ask? Well honestly, I didn’t want to work with family and I could not begin to meet her list of needs. Sisterhood aside, we both knew we were not an ideal fit for each other. She wanted a cute blog with minimal website functionality and that isn’t my strength. I’m a B2B or B2C girl who likes to work with small businesses and not so much individual bloggers. I wasn’t a Read more

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Twenty Tips for Creating the Perfect Blog Post

Posted in: Blog Management | October 15, 2010

When I said I blogged five years ago, people looked at me as if I was crazy.  Well I was, but blogging didn't drive me to insanity.  Today it is a bit more mainstream and bloggers are everywhere. I actually like blogging.  I enjoy it and it has been a huge help to me professionally.  Last weekend I attended WordCamp Detroit and I was surrounded by bloggers.  I wasn't prepared for that one, as I use WordPress for website design and I guess I assume everyone in the room would too.  Was I wrong.  There were bloggers everywhere.  Many who had day jobs and blogged at night about their Read more

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WordCamp Detroit: My Top Ten List

Posted in: WordPress | October 11, 2010
WordPress

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of attending WordCamp Detroit. What the heck is WordCamp Detroit you ask? It is a local WordPress conference designed to share and promote all that is good within the WordPress community. While I referred to it on Facebook as “chicken soup for the geek girl’s soul”, my husband defined it as geekfest. Regardless, I enjoyed my time and I truly loved seeing a sold out venue for the conference. When I was younger (aka pre-kids), I would send out a top ten list on Monday morning that would highlight my weekend’s journey with my friends. These days Read more

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A Good Blog Title is Like Wrapping Paper on a Present

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | April 23, 2010

I always loved Christmas as a child and love it today as an adult. It is filled with family, great food, and presents. As a child I liked the family and presents; as an adult I love all three. The difference is as a child I liked to receive presents and as an adult I like to give them. While I probably didn’t care much about the wrapping paper as a child, I do as an adult. I think the wrapping paper and presentation should be as good as the present itself. Gifts for adults need perfect corners, while gifts for children need lots of ribbon and a piece of candy on top to peak interest Read more

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Pay Per Click Campaigns: The Black Hole of the Internet

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | April 2, 2010

I hate pay per click campaigns. I love Google and even respect Adwords’ capabilities, but I hate pay per click and everything it represents. Pay per click is an Internet black hole that sucks you in so deep, you can’t get out. As an SEO consultant, it’s everything I can do to drag you and your hesitant self back out into my world of free organic search. I’ve talked to a lot of prospects and clients who have ongoing pay per click campaigns. When I say ongoing, I mean they’ve been spending hundreds to thousands of dollars per month for years. They’ve been doing it for so Read more

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When You Know Good SEO, Bad SEO is Like a Neon Sign

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | March 26, 2010
Bad SEO

This week I was working on a project for a long-term client of mine. In doing some online research I visited a large number of B2B software developer websites. Some were large companies and some were smaller niche players. I was disappointed at the large percentage of these websites that were using less than stellar SEO practices. Technology companies own these websites and I would have imagined they’d know better. Back in my early days of SEO (search engine optimization) I was overwhelmed by the over abundance of SEO information on the Internet. I didn’t know whom to believe and I Read more

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The Value of Search and the User Experience

Posted in: Search Results | February 21, 2010

I’m currently reading a book titled Search Patterns by Peter Morville and Jeffery Callender. Picking up a book is a rare treat for me, so even though this book is technically work-related I’m don’t mind. It is a good book and speaks to the Internet geek within me. As I read through the pages I’m awestruck by the explanation given for the qualities associated with the searcher’s experience. The authors boil this down to a simple illustration called the User Experience Honeycomb. Read more

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Conflicts Within Marketing, Social Media, and ERP

Posted in: Internet Marketing | December 9, 2009

Since college I have loved ERP software.  I embraced the concept of an order entry system back in 1993 when I created a tiny Lotus 123 script to enter a basic sales order.  From that day on I was hooked.  I mean really hooked.  I fell absolutely in love with technology and could not turn back no matter how hard I tried. After college I found a temporary position at a barcode and data collection distribution and before I knew it, I was a full-time employee running their operations.  Why?  Because I fell in love with the ERP system they installed three months before my arrival.  That Read more

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SEO Scams and Newbies Realm of Gullibility

Posted in: Search Engine Optimization | November 25, 2009

This blog post was authored by marketing consultant, David Jackson, who is the owner of Free Marketing Tips Blog. This article is available as a courtesy entry from SiteProNews.com. One of my all-time favorite tv shows is The Twilight Zone. I particularly like Rod Serling’s memorable opening narration: “There is a sixth dimension, beyond that which is known to newbies. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, and it lies between the pit of newbies gullibility and the sunlight of their naiveté. This is the Read more

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When a Website Designer’s Good Intentions Go Bad

Posted in: Website Design | November 23, 2009

Today I am meeting with a client to review the design and build of his new website.  Quite frankly I’m not looking forward to this meeting.  I am the barrier of bad news. When I originally accepted this project, I could see Google had indexed about 1,000 pages within his domain.  While it would take some time to migrate and optimize this many pages, I was up for the challenge.  The goal is to give him a more SEO friendly site that he can maintain himself in WordPress. If that meant throwing in some plugins and optimizing 1,000 pages, so be it. Last week I reviewed his Google Read more

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