WordCamp Detroit is coming! As summer winds down, vacations wrap up, and kids return to school, the geeks begin to circle and prepare for WordCamp Detroit. Since we love everything WordPress and we are also geeks, we’ve decide to help sponsor this year’s event at the RenCen in downtown Detroit. Why Should You Attend a WordCamp? If you love WordPress or want to get involved with WordPress, it’s a great opportunity to learn more about WordPress and interact with the local WordPress community. ... Read More
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Should You Ditch Your Website & Developer?
When I first started my business, I thought projects would be clearly defined as web design or SEO. Oh was I wrong. Projects, like clients, come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. What may start out as a simple SEO project may lead into a full-blown website development. And this migration isn’t because I’m pushing web design on clients, it’s because the client has significant limitations with their existing website. Since I run into this often, I'm sure the average website owner does ... Read More
Social Media Can be a Band-Aid and Not the Cure
This week I had a call from a very nice gentleman who wanted help with social media and blogging. He also mentioned the need for a little organic SEO. Great I thought, this is my thing and we’re a perfect fit for each other. I love the combination of social media, blogging, and SEO. To me this combination is like “Rebecca candy”. What Lies Beneath is Always So Scary At the end of our discussion I promised to review his website and dig further into his online presence. I’m not going to offer to ... Read More
The Two-Headed Monster Believes in Cohesive Marketing
Each week I receive calls and emails from a variety of people wanting help with “stuff”. This stuff can typically be put into a social media bucket, SEO bucket, or website design bucket. In most cases they blend together and reside in a big internet marketing bucket. Regardless of the stuff (or really problems and issues) that drives the call or email, I generally make a point of stopping them from looking at one thing and I force them to look at their internet marketing as a whole. Holistic ... Read More
I Owe Bing a Big Fat Apology
Bing I owe you an apology. As of this weekend, I’ve realized I owe you one big fat public apology. For years I’ve dismissed Microsoft and I was a loyal fan of Google. This weekend you made me see a new you. A new, improved and pretty cool Bing. On Saturday morning I was drinking my coffee, surfing the web, and reading blog posts. Yes I am an SEO (aka nerd) and this is what we do on a Saturday morning. As I explored the web I happen to run across a blog post on Bing’s Webmaster Center blog. ... Read More
Sticks and Stones Break My Bones, Wireframes Excite Me
Over the years I’ve matured in my web design process. I now have a graphic artist who creates really great design comps and a few WordPress gurus who whip these creations into the Genesis framework from StudioPress. I truly believe I have some of the best people around and I am a lucky girl. Yes I realize that sounds like fluff, but in my geeky WordPress world all that makes me happy. It means I get to focus on clients, strategy, SEO, and I get to create wireframes. Website wireframes are ... Read More
Converting Visitors is About Connecting the Website Dots
If you’ve been following my blog and you're a regular reader of my posts, you may have noticed in many recent posts we’ve been walking through my website design process. It has over 90 lines of to do items for my team and my clients. Yep I said 90 with a nine and a zero. That’s a lot, but there is a reason for it. I’m methodical in nature and my web design process is too. There are a lot of dots to connect and things to worry about when you launch a new website. That doesn't mean it has to ... Read More
Keyword Research for the Average Joe
Good keyword research is imperative for organic SEO. We SEO consultants typically view this practice as common sense, but it’s only because we do it all the time. In the real world, keyword research isn’t necessary easy for the average marketer or webmaster. But keyword research doesn’t have to be some big crazy formula. I read a lot of SEO articles and blog posts and the internet is full of great content and advice for performing elaborate keyword research. While this works, the activity ... Read More
Why You Should Treat Your Website Like the Family Dog
Friday afternoon I had a call with a client I built a website for back in March. Before I realized it, I was comparing their website to the family dog. Not a typical analogy, but it worked in the situation and the client understood the point I was trying to make. Who’s Taking Care of Fido? In my house I take care of the family dog. I’m not a big fan of our English Lab, but I’m still the one who makes sure he is fed, watered, and let in and out four hundred times a day. I am the caregiver even ... Read More
With Good SEO Google Has a Memory Like an Elephant
I’ve always said short-term memory is like lake front property. There is only so much lake front property to go around and you have to allocate it to the most important things within your life. Now that I’m forty, my lake front property – aka my short-term memory – seems to erode faster with each passing day. Google is far from forty and has a memory like an elephant. Good SEO only makes this elephant stronger. My SEO Efforts Will Outlive Me This concept has been overly apparent to me this ... Read More
Social Media is About the Shoes
Social media is everywhere and everyone thinks that he/she is an expert. The local dry cleaner, your lawyer or dentist, even the defunct SEO agency. These days everyone is into social media. Even my mother-in-law. But Are All These People Really Experts and Can They Truly Execute a Social Media Campaign? Well I think many agencies and people are just natural social media experts. Take my client Detroit Garden Works for example. Deborah, the owner, is a self-taught blogger and she is great at ... Read More
Accountant Turned SEO
Today I read an article on Marketing Sherpa about formalizing an SEO process and plan. Wow! It took me back to college, aka twenty years ago, when I was enrolled as an accounting major. Yes folks, this SEO started out as an accountant. My Reality Check as a Future Accountant My college years were self-funded. I lived off waiting tables and I paid tuition via grants and loans. My 30+ hour work weeks were spent waiting tables. My days as a server did more than just bring in money. They taught me ... Read More
The Case of the Hacked WordPress Website
A few months ago I was out of town visiting a client. On my route home my faithful iPhone popped up an email from another client. The client said “something strange” was appearing on their website. Peculiar I thought, because I’m the only one with admin access and I haven’t changed anything. I thought an investigation was in order, but didn’t go much past that initial thought. Following the Clues When I could get my hands on my Mac, I checked out the website. Sure enough, there was bizarre ... Read More
The Indisputable Power of the Blog Post
Today is vacation. I sit alone, quietly drinking coffee, as the rest of my family and our friends sleep. It is our annual family vacation up north and this is the first morning. As I sit with my cup enjoying the sunrise over the lake, I begin reading Engage by Brian Solis. I am bothered. Not by the book, but by a conversation I had with a prospect a week ago. Yes a week ago. The woman was an SEO referral from another marketer I know in Detroit. We had a wonderful conversation about her company’s ... Read More
DIY SEO or Professional SEO Consultant?
What’s your SEO approach? Are you a do-it-yourself SEO or did you hire an SEO consultant? DIY SEO can be great because it is a whole lot cheaper than hiring an SEO professional. And even better, since you are your own SEO expert, you are in control of everything. On the flip side, DIY SEO can also be very time consuming and it can lead you down a dark path of destruction without you ever even knowing. It can also give you a false sense of security and make you believe you know enough to be ... Read More
Top Ten Signs You Need a New Website
Each week I speak with companies who need a new website and complain to me about their current website. I’m a frank person and once someone knows this, they frequently just start saying the first thing that comes to their head. Some of the comments are so funny and painfully accurate, they have me laughing out loud and whipping the tears off my face. While that is good for me, it is not for the company who owns the website. The below list of top reasons for a website redesign is a humorous ... Read More
Internet Marketing is a Battlefield
Winning the Internet Marketing War Requires a Marketing Recognizance Mission, Bulletproof Armor, and a Strategic Plan of Attack Make no mistake, internet marketing is a battlefield. You’re going to war against a million other websites and you need to have sufficient weaponry to compete and to walk away unscathed. You need to know your enemy, you need armor for proper defense and you need a clearly defined plan of attack to win the online battle. When was the last time you performed a ... Read More
Browser-Based Enlightenment
Open Up Your Browser and Take a Good Look at Your Online Presence Immanuel Kant defined enlightenment as “The emancipation of the human consciousness from an immature state of ignorance and error." The term enlightenment reminds me of the small business owner and his undeveloped view of internet marketing and more importantly, how he and his company fit within today’s internet dependent culture. Now don’t take that comment as a negative view on the small business owner or small business in ... Read More
Bad Website Architecture: The Silent SEO Killer
My focus is small business marketing, so I encounter a lot of people who have tried a do-it-yourself SEO approach to internet marketing. The semi-savvy business owner thinks his SEO knowledge is pretty darn good, yet he just can’t figure out why he isn’t seeing increases in website traffic. In our conversation he provides obscure long-tail keywords to illustrate his SEO tactics are working. He also tells me he lacks traffic and real revenue resulting from all the time he has allocated to his ... Read More
SEO Can’t Help a Website That Sucks
Each week I speak with potential SEO clients who ask me to “make their phone ring”. It is an honorable request, but I struggle with this because in many cases, SEO alone can’t solve their problems. SEO can help, but once the website visitor arrives to their website, they’ll run screaming for the hills. I’m not a website snob and I value the small business owner and his desire to bring sales in through the internet. I think internet marketing is critical for many small businesses, because it ... Read More
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