Tag: PR

Categories
seo

Cutting The Wire

Cutting the Wire - iStudioWeb Blog on Technology, Marketing and Small Business Although this blog is not about search engine optimization, the company I run – Zealus Web Design Studio – is providing search engine optimization services. Which means we do conduct some in-house experiments. One of the experiments we did was on anti-optimization. In other words – we were trying to figure what actions may lead to web site’s loosing certain position in Google’s output.

Aside from obvious things, like decreasing the number of external links and their quality, removing links from social services and so on, we found that some things don’t quite work as expected. For example – removing pretty and fat links from other web sites don’t send the web site back to the position it held before. So for example, let’s say your web site was number 16 (or 6th on a second page). You’ve added a bunch of links from good web sites with some PR juice and your site jumped to be number 12. Now, if you kill every single link that you have added the web site will sink to (approximately) 14 – 15th position, staying one or two steps higher then before.

Not sure why is this happening, but it does. I’ll give it some time to see if it will sink deeper, but it looks like if you purchase links a little before Google’s PR update and remove them a little after – it may do the same trick as if you were paying for them all the time. All you need is just a sharp date of the next Google dance.

Categories
Main

Generally Speaking With A Client

Earth from space - Generally Speaking With A Client - Small Business, marketing and web design blog There is this phrase that I use like it’s a word parasite – “generally speaking”. I use it quite often when I need to point to a big picture. Get on a same page. Explain something in general or layman terms. Simplify things.

Interesting enough, most clients don’t quite get that big picture. Like for example this guy who wanted a six-page web site to sell about 2000 items of merchandise. Not a biggie. Or another group of partners who calculated the industry’s average price per page, then rearranged the information on the site so it would fit into their budget. Then started calling web design studios (us included) to ask for a quote on few pages worth of web site. Turned out they were trying to get a system the size of a Amazon into those few pages.

If you look at any advertising – you can also see what I mean. For example, look at any shampoo ad. You can see a bottle of product, the hair (that most likely belongs to an attractive woman), the zoomed animation that shows how hair is restored by use of shampoo, and all the other stuff. But you are not being sold the bottle of shampoo. Ad doesn’t even try to sell you that bottle, rather it sells you the ability to be attractive, to get that sex appeal. In other words – it sells you happiness, achievable easier than ever by purchasing just that one bottle. If you buy two – there’s a discount available, so it comes with even more happiness. Generally speaking – by buying a bottle of shampoo you are buying happiness. There, now you have it.

Ability to be “generally speaking” is quite rare, as I have found out. Most of the times when I hear someone “generally speaking” I tend to get very quiet and listen. It’s about the big picture, so it must be important.

Categories
technology

Gadgets As A Conversation Pieces

Gadgets as a conversation pieces - Small Business Marketing and Web Design blog There are couple of gadgets that I possess that make great conversation pieces. One is Lenovo X61p laptop, which I reviewed earlier, another one is famous HTC Advantage 7501. Both, as it turns out, attract a lot of curiosity.

When I am working (or blogging) at the local Starbucks with my X61 a lot of people pay attention to the small yet strong laptop figure. Most of people I see around me use large, bulky, flashy laptop, like Dell, Toshiba or Apple, with 15 and 17 inch screens. X61p that I own has only 12.1 inches and resolution of 1024×768. However, it doesn’t look like cheap plastic hardware, more like a business tool for a person on the go. It also attracts looks because it’s different from other laptops around, so it naturally stands out. And any conversation it starts can be turned into potential sales pitch. After all – it isn’t hard to predict the sequence: “Nice laptop you got there! – Thank you, I travel a lot, so I have to have as light load as possible. – Oh, wow, what do you do? – Web design, we create web sites. Our customers are all over US, so I get to travel a lot sometimes.” – and so on.

The HTC Advantage (follow this link if you want to see where I bought it and don’t fall for any price above a grand) is very unique. It doesn’t look like Amazon’s Kindle (another great conversation piece, actually), but I do read books on a subway using HTC Advantage, so people become naturally interested. Again, the sequence is very much the same. Although last time I got asked, the lady pulled out her Blackberry and started researching Amazon for HTC Advantage right there and then.

Generally speaking there is a lot of stereotype bashing going on right here. Being equipped with so many advanced gadgets makes me look like a geek. On the other hand, these gadgets help me make more contacts with people I would otherwise miss. Not a geeky behavior at all.