Getting the most out of your outsourced or in-house creative staff can make a big difference towards a successful product launch or marketing initiative. In my 19 years as a outsourced creative designer, I’ve picked up the pieces of partially failed projects numerous times. Creative talent seems to have a reputation for being unpredictable and difficult to manage…

The people behind a company or brand can be more compelling and add a human touch to the overall marketing effort. How well does your business website do at showcasing your staff? Featuring company principals prominently has been popular in creative and professional service websites for some time. For businesses slow to embrace this marketing opportunity, a simple reputation management system for removing sensitive website content may give company leaders confidence to highlight employee’s backgrounds and achievements online…

Are you an attractive “follow” on Twitter? First impressions are key to the organic growth of your twitter audience. The words and images you use on twitter help portray the public image of your business, similar to your best outfit on a first date. Put the finishing touches on your twitter account with these tips. First, don’t focus on numbers. For most businesses having a large number of twitter followers alone won’t bring business results. What is needed is an engaged audience. Follower numbers are mostly useless in judging the real-world influence level of a tweeter. A prolific tweeter with 50,000 followers posting 20+ tweets daily using automated tools can be impressive to some. What impresses me is an account engaging with a smaller audience…

Although I am not physically present in client offices on the day that we launch their website, the way I envision things, the entire team toasts the bubbly and congratulations pass around for a website well done. The designer and developer bask in the glow of their thank you emails. The marketing team ends the day on a high note, and everyone goes home with a relieved smile and a slight headache. So what happens the next day? Don’t let your website lose momentum – invite your entire team to participate in getting your new site jump-started, with these three steps…

5 quick tips to improve the health and success of your website, including squeezing actionable insights out of your family and friends by selecting and training your “website review team”, fine-tuning your content strategy, linking your Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics accounts for improved data views, spying on your competitors and monitoring the health of your website.

When creating a new custom website, when is the ideal time for the content? For the shortest possible development time, deliver the content to your web team at the beginning of the project, before the design is started. Practically though, many website projects do not have the luxury of having the content ready at the very beginning of the design & development process. With more businesses crafting their website content in-house, the reality is that the right time is when the customer says it’s right…

It’s time to find out what keywords are popular in your niche. Choose your favorite keyword research tool and dive right in! The Google Keyword Tool is a good free option. The actual reported volume numbers are higher in Google’s tool than with other keyword tools, but if you ignore the specific numbers, the relative volumes are identical from tool to tool. Other keyword research options include experimenting with the “instant” search features at Google and YouTube…

As a new website is launched one of the first questions should be: “how will leads be collected on the site?” Many businesses in the past looked at their corporate websites as online brochures, where they directed their prospects, partners and customers to “go have a look”.

By now even the most conservative businesses are interested in attracting a share of online searchers to their site. Will these visitors eagerly consume your site’s content? Will they give you a call, buy your product…

So you’ve decided to have a new website created by your favorite website design company. Chances are, you’re focusing more effort than ever on your company’s internet presence. And for good reason. More of your current and future customers are using the internet to find out more about your products and services. And now you’re wondering how it’s going to turn out – not to mention the all-important question “when will it be done?” …Looking back on the 100 or so websites I have been involved in, the ones that I am most proud of and where the client was most satisfied share these three things…

So you’ve put in months of hard work creating a new website and you are just days away from the live launch, so now it should be vacation time, right? Well, go ahead plan that vacation! These simple tips should allow you and your website team to flee the office and be drinking Mai Tais on the beach while your new site starts wowing your visitors. First, check your local reputation. What happens when someone “Googles you” or your company…