My Thoughts on 2010 Design Colors: Don’t be afraid of it. We ran through the “Green” era with large amounts of earth tones and soft warm colors. Mainly, following the trend of “Goin’ Green” that came upon us is still running strong; it’s just that the overall design colors need to be refreshed. Now that the “New Fad Smell” is fading away, you no longer have to brand yourself with Mother Nature’s color pallet to be considered a green and environmentally-aware company. Now, there’s a void left by the burnt-out earth tones that have bombarded people. Try making a change by using bold design colors to help bring a level of calm and happiness.

(Your Email/Customer Relationship, that is.)

When you’re creating your company’s email campaigns, it’s crucial that your branding stays consistent. Your customers will immediately recognize your company and what you stand for when you incorporate your logo, colors, and typefaces throughout your email campaigns, which will allow them to jump to the meat of the message.

As with anything that’s repetitive though, it’s easy to get boring. An example? Not to point fingers, but I signed up last month for the retail store Ann Taylor’s newsletters, and I’m already deleting them from my inbox without opening. I harbor no grudge; it’s just that I know what I’ll see when I open the email, and they give away everything in their subject line. Below are three emails where the company uses the exact same layout (one large picture with some text) – there’s no fire! My relationship with Taylor’s emails has fizzled like a bad marriage, and I’m looking elsewhere for my eye candy.

So how do you add the spunk back to your emails? Using multiple templates is a great way to spice up your campaigns, because it’ll switch things up. Try one large picture one week, and then add multiple columns the next. Use different fonts, and at least change the color or weight occasionally. It’s easy to have fun when you create your emails, and your newly-found energy for the campaigns will transfer to your customers. They will appreciate the effort, and your relationship will regain that old spark.

Welcome to the first installment of this Wordpress How To series.

So why would you choose Wordpress as content management system? Because it’s one of the most versatile and supported open source content management systems available today.

Wordpress traces its history to 2003 as a replacement for a now defunct blogging platform know as b2. So I know what your thinking, “Blogging platform? I don’t want a blog, I want a website to tell people about my business. I also want a storefront to sell items.” See I told you I knew what you were thinking. Bear with me.

Although the roots of Wordpress are founded in a blogging platform (and it still is the best platform for blogging out there) it’s also evolved into so much more. The modern Wordpress is a full fledged site management system with a list of over 8,488 plugins available to help you add functionality to your site. And if for some reason you can’t find the exact functionality you want, Wordpress has a built in API so any one of a large stable of independent developers can build that functionality for you.

“But I know what a Wordpress site looks like, and they look like blogs.” Are you sure? Does this look like a Wordpress site to you? How about this one? Did you notice each one also had ecommerce functionality built in? Certainly a Wordpress site can look like a blog, it can also look like a store, or a landing page, or any other type of site you can think of.

This is accomplished by themes. You can think of a theme as what the world sees when they visit your website. The window to your content. Their are theme showcases for you to browse, and several theme repositories with a nice selection of premade selections for you. Oh, and a Wordpress developer can make a theme from any design your own designer may come up with.

Need more convincing? Ask and you shall receive. Leave a comment and I’ll be sure to answer any question you may have.

Join us next week for part II: How To Install Wordpress.

I moved into a new neighborhood recently and am still getting used to all the noises outside my window. There is a train in the distance, a woman laughing loudly to a mans muffled joke and the buzz of a helicopter flying a bit too close. It’s funny how you can become used to these things and they almost become part of being home. I find that I often can’t sleep without those sounds when I’m away.

It’s noisy out there and just as noisy in here as I sit down to write a blog, scan Twitter and check out Facebook and Flickr. But again, I’m used to the noise. I expect it.

There was an article on TechCrunch recently comparing the current online social sphere to the noise and spam that was once the search landscape. “The online social landscape today sort of feels to me like search did in 1999. It’s a mess, but we don’t complain much about it because we don’t know there’s a better way.”

I don’t know about you, but I need a better way. I am mentally exhausted after weeding through all that content, spread across so many sites, to find those few pieces of information that are actually useful and add some value to my day.

So, what do we do?

How do you sift through the noise to find good information and make connections?

Still wondering why your local search page may be down on its luck? After reading a diagnostic chart surveying the successful factors for a page, there are plenty of ways to get back on your feet. Even though a few of them can seem straightforward, there’s a reason why they are at the top…some businesses keep missing those marks. For the time being, let’s focus on the 3rd most important factor: properly putting your business in the right category.

To better understand this, I need to go to Fantasy Island in search of a business starting from square one. How about…pets. Better yet, Pet Babysitters, Inc.! You’re an upstart company looking to corner the local pet-sitting market.

Now let’s get going to your first order of business: Google Local Listing Center. First and foremost, if you haven’t listed with Google, stop what you’re doing immediately and get your business on there! That’s one gigantic claim to leave dangling in the wind.

With that locked down, your next course of action is to scroll down to the categories. With a limit of 5 to choose from, you must carefully go through and choose the best possible categories for your business to show up in. Type as many words as you can to associate anything with pets, pet products, grooming services, etc. Depending on the variety of services your business possesses, being a pet babysitter can be narrowed into: “Dog Day Care”, “Pet Sitter”, “Dog Sitter”, “Pet Supply Store” and “Pet Groomer”. There are a few more that could be tagged along with it, but these are by far your strongest.

And while we’re at it, let’s go to the wonderful world of misguided pages! Here are a couple dreadful mistakes:

1. One and Done: Having one category or none at all is akin to putting blinders on. Simple as that.
2. Upon Further Review: You don’t look over your categories. For example, you were about to select “Dog Day Care” and instead you select the one above it, “Cremation Services”. Oops.

All in all, these errors can simply be avoided with a watchful eye. Making them as detailed as possible can ratchet up the percentage of clicks to your website. Rather than “just enough”, focus your thoughts on “not enough” and your doorbell may thank you for it later.

Do you lack keyword discipline? Do you lack focus? Do you think I’m taking this very loose Karate Kid reference too far already?

Though keyword density seems to be losing more and more strength in the SEO game, maintaining a solid focus with a specific, core keyword on a page still carries weight, can streamline your keyword hunt, and can make the puzzle-solving process of fitting multiple keywords into copy that much simpler. Since I’m still relatively unable to hit the bike trails here in Kansas City, thanks to our nasty weather, allow me to entertain myself by pretending we’re a bike seller pushing the very winter-friendly Surly Pugsley… a bike I wish I had in the garage at the moment.

As usual, I recommend hitting our free friend: Google’s Keyword Tool. We’ll toss in “surly pugsley” and see what we’re workin’ with.

No big surprise, “surly pugsley” is the winner… well, along with “pugsley surly”. Crap!

What do we do in case of a tie then? How about breaking this stalemate with the help of another free friend: the Wordstream Keyword Tool.

I'm having difficulty believing Kansas City is drawing more searches than the rest of the globe. Ah well...

Wordstream seems to have given us a pretty clear cut answer, so we’ll stick with our Surly Pugsley keyword and go from there.

Well, that solves that.

Now, here’s where we need to pay close attention, you don’t want to begin and end every sentence with your keyword. Your copy needs to read fluidly; if the keyword sticks out to the reader as though an excited child wrote the product summary for his or her favorite toy, then you’ve gone too far. Also, back to the original point of this article: you don’t want to have keywords spread all over the place, and by that I mean do not sacrifice a focus on your main product by watering it down with handlebars, wheelsets, tires, saddles… you get the idea. I’m obviously not advising you to ignore your peripherals, just focus those on their own pages. This focus (if anyone searches the term “focus” I may rank) on your individual product pages will strengthen their punch and make the search engines take notice… like Ali Mills on Daniel LaRusso!

OK, that was the last one, I swear.

Getting the most bang for your email buck can happen a few ways, but having a quality list is key, and probably the most important. Although having a well-designed email with tons of clickable links and buttons is great for getting people to convert, what if your email is promoting highchairs and you’re sending it to 20-something bachelors?

First off, you have the bachelors’ emails because you probably sell something other than highchairs. That’s great! A variety of products is the perfect springboard for segmenting your email lists. On your website or at your store, or however you’re getting your mailing list, give options for people to tell you what they’re interested in. You can provide these options with checkboxes that automatically populate a list in the back-end of your site: the magazine Real Simple is a perfect example. When you click on ‘Free Newsletters’, it offers 8 different kinds of emails to subscribe to AND you can customize it even more with the 7 ‘Areas of Interest’.

Immediately, you’ll see your click-throughs skyrocket, and your unsubscribes will dwindle. Wunderbar! Now you can take it a step further. In your email marketing provider (who you send your emails through), you’ll have an option to create segmentation or suppression lists, which you’ll be able to grow by defining your customer’s actions. If nancy@beans.com clicked on a link for bean-bag chairs, you can add her action (Click-Through to Bean-Bag Chairs) to a segmentation mailing list for that action alone. Now you’re sending bean-bag driven emails to Nancy, instead of Joe who only sits on bar stools. Nancy will be thrilled that you ‘know’ her, and she will respond with love, affection, and her credit card.

Although email marketing segmentation might sound like math class, most providers like Mail Chimp or Publicaster make it simple and provide tons of ‘action’ customization. Take a second to play around with it, and you’ll save yourself the loss of valuable customers.

I recently came across a web application called Proposable that is focused on making the sales proposal process simple and trackable. We really like things that are simple and trackable ’round here so I thought I would check it out.

The application is geared towards the emailed proposal and is divided into three key components: creating the proposal, delivery, and analyzing feedback and analytics. The goal is to turn the standard email ‘this what we can do and what it will cost’ proposal into actionable data in real time.

The very simple and easy to use dashboard allows me to create fully branded, dynamic proposals that can even include video. Very cool. Templates are also available to plug and send as well, if you prefer.

After the proposal is created, the application will even help you send it off. The proposal is emailed and can be opened on the potential clients end and is viewed inside Proposable. This maintains all the time and effort you put into making it pretty and dynamic and avoids any mail server distortion or garbling. Not only can the recipient review your proposal, but they can also comment on it allowing for direct feedback. You are then able to communicate within the proposal back and forth. Now, for me I don’t know that I would address client questions or concerns this way, but it’s a great “safe” way for clients to pose questions and/or concerns that you might not hear face to face.

The goal of the application is speeder turn around with the end result being better, faster feedback from clients and hopefully, more sales.

Additionally, Proposable allows you to view the analytics on your proposals, including when it was opened, the total views and average time on page. You can even get notifications of these actions if you are so inclined. (Yeah, I admit I wanted to know when it was opened.)

So, overall, Proposable is an easy to use, paid-web application that could be really useful for the small business sales force. Try it out and share your thoughts.

Forgive me. I ranted last week about Google not giving in to your business descriptions, character limits, blah, blah and more blah. And now I’m turning my ire to certain online directories who think mass confusion is the best way to add a business listing. Don’t get me wrong, there are some that hit it right on the nose, but the rest are built with little tidbits that do nothing but make you stare cross-eyed at the screen wondering if you’re even on the right site. Yay!

First, let’s start with a website that knows what its doing: Google Local Business Center.

Before you click off and judge me a hypocrite, the system works to perfection. Description-lite or not, the format and ease at which you enter your business data is one of the best. As you enter your website address, email, categories, photos, videos, and any other useful information, you get a pretty little box to your right showing you what it will look like. Simple interface, live demonstrations and a phone call with a PIN number for activation. Presto!

Another great online directory is Yelp. Very intuitive format, wonderful use of bolding important boxes, and much more. There’s a reason why it sees a lot of traffic. Throw in Yahoo Local and Yellow Pages for their speedy timing and you have some quality choices.

Now, onto the trouble makers. Here are reasons why adding your business to these online directories can almost be on even keel with a constant water drip to your forehead.

1. Finding the icon: It’s hard enough navigating some, but trying to find the “Add/Edit Business” icon is either non-existent with the home page, or tucked down at the bottom where it’s so small you double check to see if the website’s even an online directory. That arrow points to you, Info USA.

2. Deceiving Site: So you’ve finished what you thought was a free listing, you get ready to click submit, and then all of a sudden you’re taken to a page that basically says: “pick your poison”. It gives you monetary packages for the listing and completely falls back on its prior promise…just a bit. There’s an icon to say “No Thanks” and continue, it’s just too bad the icon is the size of a human cell. That one goes to good ol’ Mercant Circle.

3. Listing Guesswork: “Your business listing is complete: Congratulations, it will be up whenever I feel like it!” Some sites say 30-60 days, others tell you to become psychic, and so on. Simple as that. That one again goes out to Info USA, and most likely a few others as well.

I’m saving a few other horror stories for later on down the road. These are just a few examples of misinterpretation that may leave you wondering how your webpage is doing. With that being said, to every online directory’s credit, your site will eventually make its way onto the stage. Just bring a lot of patience to the table.

* My little intro disclaimer:
Design is completely subjective and different industries have different needs based on their page architecture, level of involvement and amount of content. For example, a Portfolio site can be a little “crazier” because viewers have a higher level of involvement and will typically stay intrigued long enough to figure out the clever nuances. However, that’s not always the case. A recipe site, for example, needs to quickly deliver and satisfy the viewers intentions or lose them to another site that may have what they are looking for… So when I talk design trends its in a broad direction I feel 2010 will bring to website and design.

1. Large Headers

This is in many ways bringing back the dreaded splash page, which is an easy NO for websites today. But at least large headers server two purposes: one’s to inform and the other’s to capture a viewers attention easily without over-powering them. Content can be scary… Keep the length of normal content text less than 3 inches (it can be hard on the web because different resolutions will make text larger or smaller). text will tend to frighten people because they/we/I don’t like to read–we want info now and don’t want to work for it! As viewers land on your home page you don’t want to push them away, but rather keep them and hopefully convert them to a client in some fashion. These larger headers push the bulk of frightening text down on the page to make sure they know what you do. And while these large headers succeed in creating a soothing landing pad, they also make room for a nice tag line; letting them know they’re hot on the trail to finding an answer.

More to come >>>