Social Media Explained by Donuts

G+ is also: "Why the hell do I need a Google+ account to comment on a video about donuts?"

Bad Design Might Drive Away Customers for Small Businesses and Freelancers

Why Clean Design is Important for Small Businesses and Freelancers: A relatively short rant pointed at strawmen explaining why cluttered design might drive away business. 

Just a fake logo for a fake company I made up in my head.
Follows my personal best practices for logo design.

Logo and website design is something that is often overlooked by new business owners as it does not pertain to the core of the business, but can mean the difference between a walk-in versus a walk-by because of preconceived notions about quality.

Before we go on, let's see two common examples of bad design from local businesses:

1. The Cluttered Local Coupon

A classic - the local ad done by someone who just learned how to use Photoshop. You've likely seen this one in your local penny saver/coupon book. There are several things that are technically good - the logo is actually clean, and a visible offer, call to action, and contact information. On the other hand... just look at it. 

Despite the fact that house painters don't necessarily need to be professional artists to do their jobs properly, the connotation of working with paint combined with the terrible mismatched design may provide enough cognitive dissonance to make a potential customer think twice about hiring them. 

Also, I get that SEO consultants usually stress the need for Twitter and Facebook, but I just find it silly in cases like this. Really no need to put it in the ad.

2. The Outdated Local Business Website

On a personal level, I know that only a truly experienced freelance Linux admin would have this appreciation of spartan design, but once again, many end customers might not understand that. This example also has good things going for it: Clear info and uncluttered design - unfortunately, the design is outdated by about 20 years. 

The logo looks like it was pulled from MS Word clipart, and all of the components of the webpage just are not themed out and looks disjointed.

So, with these extreme examples of poor design sensibilities in mind, I urge any small business owner to read up on logo design with printing in mind, then look back at how they present themselves online or in real life. When you are competing against bigger competitors with more resources, a simple, relatively small investment like a clean and clear logo and web presence might be just the leverage needed to make the sale.



Rabbit Design Philosophy and Examples: http://www.r4bb1t.com/p/design.html
Simple Small Business Website Package: http://www.r4bb1t.com/p/website-design.html

How Retail Sale Pricing Works

In honor of Black Friday, here's a simple picture to explain the intricacies of retail sales, and the importance of picking the right price point.

Unethical? Maybe. Effective? With an uneducated the right demographic.

Simple But Effective PPC Flowchart

From PPC Blog : http://tools.ppcblog.com/flowchart/ppc-flowchart.gif

Not really sure why it's a GIF, but ok.

This flowchart from PPC Blog does a pretty decent job of outlining the implementation and refinement of a Pay-Per-Click Campaign.

Left side is flow from top to bottom, right is purpose and details. 

Roughly translates into:

1. Start by defining Business Objectives and the expectations and needs from PPC advertising
   
2. Do Keyword Research by tapping into available information and keyword tools
   
3. Build initial Ad Campaigns & Groups based upon targeted demographics and relevant keyword groupings
   
4. Define Match Type based upon range of relevant searches for targeted keywords
   
5. Create Syndication Strategy for additional targeting methods and other search engines
   
6. Write high quality Ad Copy to attract relevant attention and improve Quality Score
   
7. Manage Bid Strategy based upon needs and budget
   
8. Analyze your results, and use data to refine Keyword Research and Bid Strategy

This picture is a bit outdated, because it doesn't take into account Remarketing (targeting people who have already visited your site), but is still a solid flowchart.

How to Deal With Google's Penguin Backlink Penalties

Case against "Black Hat" SEO and buying links: Not a long term solution.

Ever since Google's Penguin algorithm came out last year, many website owners and SEO "experts" have come out in protest of their affected sites, and more joined in when Penguin 2.0 rolled out. Now, out of the affected sites and searches, some of these websites were legitimate - in this post, I will cover the main reason why they were affected by this update: poor backlinks.

One of the earliest SEO strategies was to build up as many high Page Rank backlinks as humanly possible, as it was an integral part of Google's ranking algorithm. Of course, this led to years of people trying to game the system by buying tons of backlinks from people whose sole job was to create webpages with copied content and artificially inflated Page Ranks, a thorn in Google's side for years.

Fast forward to 2 years ago when the Panda algorithm came out and took down those sites with scraped/copied content - the obvious next step was to hit the backlinks.

From Wikipedia's page on Penguin:

The guiding principle for the update was to penalize websites using manipulative techniques to achieve high rankings. The purpose per Google was to catch excessive spammers, but it seems some legitimate sites and SEOs have been caught with this latest algorithm change. Few websites lost search rankings on Google for specific keywords during the Panda and Penguin rollouts. It appears anchor text was to blame in these cases, as the links pointing to these sites concentrated on only one or a few keywords while the content of the websites was satisfactory. As the update focused on the quality of backlinks, so the result varied for different websites.

So, website owners placed their trust in shady SEO companies/freelancers that spent money buying backlinks for specific anchor text to boost rankings for specific search terms, just to have it all collapse recently.

How to deal with the Penguin backlink penalty:

Now, this won't be quick, easy, or foolproof, but:

1. Go through your Google Webmaster Tools page and find these dubious backlinks individually.
   
   THIS CAN BE DANGEROUS!
   Precautions:
   Keep antivirus updated
   Google URL first too check for malware complaints
   Install NoScript, Adblock, and Web of Trust. Scan often for malware, with Malwarebytes. And I think Microsoft Security Essentials is the best free antivirus right now.
   
2. Find webmaster contact info, and send them a nice email POLITELY asking them to take down the link. You can't just expect someone to do work on your behalf for something that might not have been their fault (ie: comment spam), especially if you're rude. I made a simple little template for a link takedown request:
   
   Hello Webmaster/Owner,
   
   We are following up regarding the link on
   http://www.theirsite.com/thepage.html
   
   The link is connected by the [comment name/anchor text].
   ............
   
   To our site [http://www.yoursite.com]
   
   We appreciate your efforts to link with our website; however, we have received notification from Google that our site does not comply with their terms.
   
   We wish to seek reconsideration as soon as possible and must have this link removed in order to bring our site into compliance. Please note, as part of our reconsideration request, we have to report to Google any link we are unable to remove.
   
   Please remove our link from this page and any other page on your site.
   
   Thank you,
   -You
   
3. Wait a little bit, and if this does not work, use Google's Disavow Tool in Webmaster Tools.
   
   
   
   Instructions on using the disavow tool properly:
   https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/2648487?hl=en
   http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2273639/How-to-Use-Googles-Disavow-Links-Tool-the-Right-Way

Best of Luck!

Brief History Digital Age Advertising and Modern Web Marketing

A Brief History of Advertising in the Digital Age and some Thoughts on Modern Web Marketing

A brilliant post from reddit user & marketing guru over at VOIP startup 2600Hz, J2600:

First, there was SPAM. The DEC computer company sent out some SPAM over the ARPAnet back in the day, and thus began the torrent of abuse we all suffer from to this day.

After marketers realized SPAM didn't work (well some of them anyway), the next platform for battle was the web. But how to address this new dynamic audience? The first banner ad was from AT&T and essentially linked folks to museums all over the world (essentially demoing how the internet could narrow space and time). This ad had a whopping 44% click through rate, and for those of you who don't know, that's high, very high.

Originally, ads were sold with a suitcase. Sites had a set of inventory, and like traditional media businesses, that's how they sold. Yahoo, to this day, has an army of account managers gleefully cold calling the fortune 500 daily in an attempt to sell more space. If one had to articulate the difference between Yahoo and Google, it is a cultural difference. Yahoo was, and still is, a sales driven culture, whereas Google is all about the engineers. What do we know about most engineers? They don't like talking to peasants, and thus Yahoo sells with a briefcase and Google distributes through an online portal. If anyone asks you to articulate why Yahoo lost to Google even though Yahoo was first, it was because Google automated where Yahoo brute-forced with more salespeople. The moral is that payroll is always your highest cost.

So we're up to the point of automated ad acquisition on the Internet. People could buy ads, but then double-click came along and said, 'You can buy ads everywhere and control them!', which basically was an admission of the one true fact of online ads: Supply outpaces demand.

In online advertising, there is always a LOT more supply than demand. There are many more people trying to sell adspace than there are people that want to buy it. One might assume, naturally, that this would become a buyers market, but keyword based advertising is actually a seller's market. Adwords, for example, is really Google telling you how much you have to pay for an impression, and that doesn't reflect the underlying reality of our world. Again, supply > demand therefore the buyer should set the price. Even if you could buy based on audience or location and not keyword, you would still be paying for impressions that aren't actually valuable (people who don't have the faintest clue who you are will see your brand and that may or may not be valuable to you.

Well, if all of the search space is owned by Google, you sort of have to play ball right? That was true until the advent of retargeting.

Basically retargeting works like this:

• User hits your site
• User gets cookie'd
• Anywhere they go that is part of the ad network, an auction takes place
• The auction bidders are advertisers who bid based on the cookies a user has
• Some people bid on generic cookies like "user is 25-40 years old" or "user likes red sports cars" but retargeting is basically saying "I only want to bid on people that've already been to my website"
• Generic cookie folks are willing to pay a certain price for an impression if enough characteristics match up, but retargeting is always willing to pay the same price for the people who've been cookie'd
• So while the page is loading, hundreds (thousands?) of advertisers are bidding on the ad you'll see
• One the bidding is won, the ad is displayed

Almost all of those steps happen in less than half a second, and it's pretty incredible to conceptualize how complex the infrastructure that supports our advertising addiction has become.

So, let's talk, from a high level, about where to use the basic ad forms:

PPC: Pay per click ads are cool for branding. If you want people to see your brand, they work great, but they're basically spray and pray. If you're just starting out, don't go through the main channels like adwords as you'll burn your budget rather quickly. Consider alternative channels like Reddit or Stumbleupon as sources of relatively cheap traffic. I don't see a lot of value in PPC today.

Banner Ads: Private placement banner ads are still good, but you have to be tactical about purchasing them because they're not usually cheap. You can use an aggregation service if you have the volume, but this should be, IMHO, surgical. For example, at 2600hz, we've considered purchasing banner ad space on multiple Sysadmin blogs through direct relationships with their authors.

Retargeting: In my humble opinion, this is the only form of online advertising still worth a damn. You can follow people around the Internet, but only the people that already know who you are. It's glorious. The downside? Retargeting will eat your budget and fast. Remember the supply and demand problem? Because retargeting only cares that your customer went to your site, the places they display ads are different than say adwords which only displays on google searches. If you use retargeting, your customers will see your logo and they will see it all over the place.

My prescription, for Enterprise SaaS startups is to pour on the Retargeting and leverage a few surgical banner ads. I don't believe you should be using any sort of paid online advertising if your customer lifetime value is less than $50 as you'll be unlikely to ever break even. I believe online advertising can be a profitable channel for your business, but only if you are judicious about its usage. I've seen so many people burn through cash, it's crazy.

Remember also, cost per click is a relative term. If you relate it to your end goal, it's more reasonable. if you customer is worth $50, it's hard to justify paying more than $.50 per click, but if they have a value of $500, a CPC of $1.50 or even $4.00 could be justifiable. It all comes back to the business use case.

Do you have questions and PPC or other ad units? Drop'em in the comments below and I'll do everything I can to answer.

Curious about the history of ads? This is where I got most of my info: http://www.adpushup.com/blog/the-history-of-online-advertising/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Rabbit notes:

I do like the fact that he points out trying to use Adwords without knowing the ins and outs will have you burn through cash quickly, and suggests considering interest-targeted channels like Reddit Ads and StumbleUpon's Paid Discovery. 

A side note about Reddit ads - while there are a lot of factors that influence the success of Reddit ads, it is worth mentioning that it is one of the few ad networks that are generally whitelisted and may reach users who use Ad-blocking software - something to consider if the audience you want to reach is tech-savvy.

Remember: SEO, SEM, and SMM are 3 Different Things

This article is here to make you a better client for any Web Marketing firm or freelancer.

Too often do I see people assuming SEO is everything about the website's marketing efforts, and are confused that there are different costs associated with it. To be fair, nobody outside SEO experts cares about the difference between SEO and SMM, but as a client, knows the difference, you will likely prevent frustrating the person managing your website's marketing efforts.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization
Proper page structure, header tags, meta and alt tags, backlinks - all things to allow search engines to better browse your site and determine the quality of your page

SMM: Social Media Marketing
Using Facebook, Twitter, Google+, and other social platforms to build trust and as a PR interface

SEM: Search Engine Marketing
Some view this as the same as SEO, but I place Adwords Pay-Per-Click advertising and the like under this label


Just for the record, those three things are tied together which is why so many service companies offer them all. Don't be stupid and deny they aren't directly related, as in doing one is doing another as well.

Web design and SEO go hand-in-hand. They're not the same thing but there's a ton of overlap.

I can't tell you how many times I was approached to get a site into the search engines that had image menus, javascript links, dynamic content, a complete lack of h1, h2, etc, and even just things like overly complex page structure, or too much on one page. In terms of actually differentiating, it's arguable that you can differentiate those simply by pointing out the type of contract involved:

• Web site design is a fixed-task type contract. "Build a website and stop."
• SEO is a long-term ongoing engagement.

The part that pains me: accept that fact that going forward, if you want to improve at SEO, you're going to have to learn how to excel at SMM. And the market is going to reward those that do. It pains me because on a personal level, I think Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and the rest are stupid, and the development of these things as marketing and social platforms help no one but marketing companies.

Finally, I always advise moving on to SEM/PPC advertising AFTER getting the SEO and SMM down. The reasoning is simple: Adwords takes your Page Quality into account when determining what your bid and subsequent ranking will be. Without the SEO and SMM, you would have to pay more for the same keywords.

Hope that helps, and best of luck to you and your website!

Printing Best Practices as a Designer - Logo Do's and Don'ts

Best Do and Don't Tips on Logo Design and Printing

I often see designers asking for critiques on their logos. 9 times out of ten, the logos are unprintable and don't take into consideration that it will be shown in all different sizes and on different mediums. It's absurd how few designers actually have a good grasp on what goes into printing your logo (and I'm not talking about your Epson CMYK home printer.)

So, here is a small checklist on what you need to revise your logos:

Start your logo in black.

Straight up, only use black. C0M0Y0K100. Don't you dare touch the opacity or consider putting that K down to 50 or 20 or whatever. Do everything in black. This is your 1 color logo. When you have a one color logo THEN you can start coloring. Also, limit the number of colors you use. 4 is a good maximum number, but I try to stick around 3.

F*ck you and your gradients.

Gradients are the bane of a printer's existence. It may look great on computer monitor, but hand it to a flexographic printer and he might not be very happy with you. Gradients don't translate well in print. Even in CMYK printing, they can be messy and don't have the same tolerance from one color to another, printer to printer.

Play and experiment with your logo.

So, you've created a logo, huh? Well here's what you need to do. Print it. As small as you can without losing it's integrity. Not very legible? Did your anorexic ultra-thin type disappear? Yeah, time to go back to the drawing board. Create versions of logo that can be placed horizontally, vertically and without type (unless the typography is your logo). Your skinny type isn't going to show up on a piece of fabric because it's going to be lost on the threads. Always have longevity and functionality in mind when you design! That's design 101, and it's amazing how many designers forget that.

I get told a lot by a lot of amateur/small time designers that, "This is 2013, my logo can be as complex as I want!"

NO. And here's why:

Printing is expensive.

I don't know if you know this, but CMYK printer ink is more expensive than human blood. That's why you need to think ahead and consider alternative printing methods. That's why you need a 1 color logo. You have clients. Clients aren't into the most elaborate bang for their buck. They are looking for ways to cut down on costs and maximize profit. You owe them that.

The other thing is that using alternative printing methods price by the number of plates/screens/inks used. Right now, my printer charges $200/flexographic plate made up. 1 plate = 1 color. So, LIMIT THE NUMBER OF COLORS YOU USE, because YOU WILL end up having it printed or someone else will print it for you (ie, sponsor, advertisement, etc). And I'm sure you want it looking good and recognizable.

What alternative methods? I'm talking about offset and flexographic and screen printing. All of these forms of printing have their pros and cons, but all are meant for mass production. You need to learn how each of these work, because it's important to know what to expect.

VECTOR

Your logo needs to be vectored, converted to outlines and expanded. Turn it in as either an EPS or Illustrator PDF file. If you don't know what that means, then you probably aren't a designer.

Pantones

Buy yourself a pantone book, preferably 2 for solid color coated and uncoated inks. A pro-tip is to work from pantones. Convert all of your CMYK colors and RGB colors from a Pantone color first. It is much easier to match from a pantone color than to match TO a pantone color.

Color Match

Finicky about colors? It's your job as a designer to request that your colors be color matched to an already made up hard copy. Inks are typically transparent and the paper or substrate behind the ink has a tendency to come through. That means your logo has a chance of always being printed darker than it's intended color.

Ask for your colors to be color matched against an already perfect print of yours on the paper or medium you are printing it on.

FINALLY: It's your fault, not the printer's.

This one is simple. If you sign that proof, the ink is on your hands. Don't be angry at the printer. Printers may be nice and try to accommodate for your mistake (cheaper re-run, maybe?), but all in all, you are probably going to eat that cost.