I recently hooked up with an old college mate in LinkedIn who has his own design agency. His website was designed in Flash. The site was gorgeous, well designed, clean, simple, great typography and showcased his product offering elegantly. BUT, there was not a hint of optimization to be found.

I recently went to a well-known SEO guru’s website who must get a gazillion hits per month and was visually-offended by the lack of design on his site. Design was such an afterthought on this site that any respectable designer would puke. BUT, the content was amazing and is now bookmarked on my computer.

So who is more successful? The beautifully-designed website or the beautifully-optimized website? Can design and SEO co-exist?

It is in this designers opinion YES.

Content is king in this day and age. And good content is a balance between quantity and quality. Quantity is beneficial to robots (search engines) and Quality is beneficial to humans. And good design, especially good typography, assists the reader in reading your great content.

Good design orchestrates the entire process. It navigates the reader, it speaks. For example, if you we’re having a human conversation and spoke in a monotone manner how would you be perceived regardless of your content. On the other hand, if you ever listened to a dynamic speaker like Tony Robins, you will notice that his delivery is anything but monotone. The variations in his delivery reinforce his message. He raises his voice, he lowers his voice, he weaves and bobs, he pauses. This is all to reinforce his message. This does not mean the monotone guy has nothing important to say, it means that Tony Robins or a Tony Robins-like delivery resonates better.

So effective design and SEO are inextricably linked. And isn’t the point of great content to be read. Imagine the best of both worlds where you have great content, optimized with killer SEO married with great design. AWESOME.

In an age of new technology we don’t have as many business lunches, golf outings, and other traditional networking events like we used to, but that shouldn’t stop your clients from talking you up to their friends, coworkers and beyond, should it?

We’ve all heard from SEO experts (like myself) that getting listed in online directories such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, and others will help to improve your search engine rankings; but there are some other places to be listed that can work twice as hard for you, if you put in a little time. A few of my favorite places are listed at the bottom of this post. Take the time to ensure your listings are correct then take it one step further….ask for some help.

The three sites I list all have the option to let people review your products/services. Every review or recommendation can set you apart from your competition. So go back to your best client and ask them for a few minutes of their time to rate, recommend, and/or praise you. I’m sure that if you have forged a good relationship with this client they won’t mind helping you out, even better, offer to help them to by writing a review in return.

These personal recommendations get added to your listing and the next person who comes across you will take what is said into consideration. This concept works just like social events where people can interact and talk about you only now you supporters can touch every interested person in the room instead of just one or two. With praise coming from current clients you’ll be guaranteed to capture more awesome clients without ever leaving your office. So in this competitive market, remember to get by with a little help from your friends!

What are you waiting for? Get listed!

Google Local Business Listing – http://www.maps.google.com
To have clients write a review on Google Local Business map listing pass them the exact link where they can review you.

To do this: Search your company name on Google maps, click the send link towards the top right of the page, follow the instructions and send the link to yourself. Now keep it in a safe place and pass it along the next time you get a compliment from a client. Instruct them to click on the link “Write a Review” below your companies name. They will need a Google User name but if they use Gmail or Adwords, or are just an avid google user they will already have one. If not the setup process is quick and painless.

Yelp – http://www.yelp.com

YellowPages.com – http://www.yellowpages.com

Both Yelp and Yellowpages.com often have standard listings on companies but to enhance your presence on the web and give your potential clients more info on you, create a username/password then add to your listing. To have clients write a review on either just pass along the link from your direct page.

What tactics do you currently employ to get new clients interested in you? Share with us!

Of course if I’d been backing-up my files, I wouldn’t be going through hours of trying to figure this out. Birthdays, holiday’s and other priceless pictures would not be in danger of being lost forever. And with so many different ways to back-up your files, it’s inexcusable when files get lost.

Apple has found a way to make backing up even more easier, especially for those, like myself, who find dragging and dropping files just too much trouble. A program called Time Machine comes standard in every new Mac and is part of the new Leopard OS. When an external hard drive is connected to your computer, it immediately starts off Time Machine. After an initial set-up, Time Machine is ready to back-up your files automatically every hour.

Recovering lost files is easy and actually kind of fun. If you discover that you lost a file, folder, image, or email; just open up Time Machine, and the lost file will be shown cascading back in time on your desktop. To see how your Mac looked on any given day, simply click on a date, and it will show you that day’s work. The Apple website even has a video to show you how easy this works.

Fortunately for me, some of the pictures I lost were backed-up on CDs. But not everything was recovered. Needless to say, Time Machine is my new best friend. Anybody looking to buy a 5 1/2 year old computer?

Just like the Internet itself, social media is here to stay. However, as with clubs or hairstyles, what networking sites are the “in” sites will likely always change. Social networking and sharing online will be a constant, just a continuously evolving one. And since consumers are spending time online, business are adapting and hanging out virtually as well. But what’s the right amount?

According to The Small Business Advocate blog, small business owners can easily get sucked into spending too much time socializing online, leading them to neglect “tried and true” traditional marketing efforts that are, in fact, working. While it’s definitely possible that online networks can lead to new clients, one may not see immediate gains, or any at all if it just doesn’t work for your business. Therein lies the secret, except that the secret formula for the ratio of social media to traditional marketing is going to be different for every business.

As for the scientists’ warning that the overwhelming speed and volume of tweets “could harm [one's] moral compass”… I’m not sure I want to think about that just yet. We’re all experimenting, and businesses (and people) have to figure out what works for them. But you’ve been warned.

WHAT IS SEO?

SEO is simply the process that is used to get more visitors to your website via search engines. The design, functionality, content, and links are all carefully considered when making high rankings a priority.

WRITING MAIN CONTENT – SHOULD I HIRE A SEO SPECIALIST OR HIRE MYSELF?

If your budget allows, it is best to hire someone who knows the ins and outs of writing SEO techniques. If your tackling the writing yourself you should take the time to research how you wish to market your company and how you want to be found through search engines.

WHERE DO I START?

You should first work with your website programmer to incorporate information into the back-end programming of every webpage. This information is hidden but holds some of the most important information for SEO.

Title Tag – This should contain the major keywords of the page.

Description Tag – Simply describes what the page is about.

Keyword Tag – Includes words that are relevant and a priority to your business.

Main Content - From here you can work with the above tag findings to write the main content on every page. You should find a way to integrate your keywords into your writing while keeping quality content. Don’t get carried away by fitting in keywords or phrases. Above all your writing should be flow and read naturally.

Other Goodies - Having links and fresh content are also important aspects of SEO.

FINAL STEPS

Once a website is submitted to search engines your rankings should be monitored and your progress tracked so you see what makes your ranking successful.

The Beast
But wait just a second before you start cracking open the bubbly. Have you taken a moment to look at what the masses are coming to?? Have you missed to entire premise of steering people to your site. Have you looked at your site from the point-of-view of the customer. You could have the best optimized site in the world but it won’t mean a hill of beans unless when someone arrives they have found what they were looking for.

This is the classic cart before the horse story 2.0. So what about your site? Have you analyzed your site with the same vim and vigor that you analyzed your word tracker. Have you optimized the look, the feel, and the navigation. When is the last time you� looked, God forbid, at the content of your website. Even more relevant, when was the last time you added new content to your website.

I’m not disparaging SEO by any stretch. But what’s the point in steering people to your site only to have them leave as fast as they came. Consider “first impressions.”� Sometimes the only chance you have with a potential customer is that first impression. Two great indicators from analytics to study are bounce rate and average time spent on site. These will clue you in to whether your site has stickiness or slipperyness.

I looked at some Bible passages recently and realized that the book titles, numbered chapters and superscribe sentences had a direct correlation to some of the basic things I’ve been learning about SEO. Is employing a Search Engine Optimization strategy for a website similar to indexing the Bible? Are search engines and web crawlers doing the same thing that scribes and compositors did on pages of the Gutenberg Bible?

Because the Bible is considered one of the greatest books ever written, translated and sold, it has been studied and analyzed for centuries. Thanks to many minds, you can reference the Bible quickly and with accuracy. In many instances reference and analysis actually appears in the text and margins of ancient manuscripts. Another research tool created by scholars and theologians is a Bible Concordance.

The print version of the Concordance indexes an alphabetical list of virtually every word (especially the important ones) present in the text of the Bible, usually with citations of the passages concerned. Having it takes years off of research time and allows the researcher to establish search criteria, look up a variety of words or topics and cross reference them. Today, online versions do this even quicker.

On the Internet, Google and other search engines do the same thing – but about everything and anything! What are some ways the content of your web pages and their coding are effected? If your website is composed of SEO targeted writing – your site is more indexable by search engines. That consists of breaking your website down into many pages and considering which words you use in headlines and the text to best describe the product or service on each page.

Additionally, as in the Bible analogy, Google searches still further – into the html (HyperText Markup Language) that exists for each page in the website. While this information is not displayed to a website visitor, the web designers/programmers can view it and intentionally create title and description tags, again using SEO names and words. So, adding the right information here can bring traffic to your site but you must know how best to explain the content on the page.

By using SEO key word analysis you can improve the volume and quality of traffic to your website from search engines via “natural” (organic or algorithmic) search results for targeted key words.� You can also target different kinds of searches and the process can be helpful in determining the best pay-per-click ad campaign for you.

While this analogy is meant to be very general, SEO is a new “authoritative book”. It has a number of features, is very complex and constantly changing. CS Designworks is certified by the Search Engine Academy in all SEM/SEO best practices. We have been busy applying our knowledge to the creation of new sites and are also optimizing existing ones. This work can be done up front or on a gradual basis – but either way, it’s an ongoing task that can yield divine results.

I felt a little guilty eating their food, and enjoying myself while wondering if they’ll be around in the next couple of years. Of course not all paper companies will go, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see 1 or 2 less booths in next years show. Especially if we continue to “save as PDF” instead of “collecting for output”.

My routine a year ago was to stop by a local grocery store, pick up the newspaper (especially if the Mets won the night before) and read it on my way to work. Now my morning routine after dropping off my daughter to school, is to check the newspaper’s websites for the articles and use a great app on my iTouch called Instapaper. This free application allows me to save any article in the web into my iTouch, and read later say in the Subway, even though I’m away from an internet connection. It’s like TVo for web articles.

It’s ideas like these that leaves us all wondering about the future. Will I have another major printing project? Will Lindenmeyer have a show in 2010? Will the Mets get Sabathia? And unless we actually have a crystal ball, we’ll all just have to wait and see what happens.