Monday
Why love Monday? It's your reset button, your hit-the-ground-running, your New Years Day of the week. Mondays are when we get a chance to look at what we can do better from the previous week and make that a focus.
Many people look at Monday as a plague - "a case of the Mondays" - but this is the day that owns the rest of the week, the day to wake with Success! in your head, to put on the conductor's cap and drive that train. Because if you don't, you're nothing but a passenger.
Takeaway: Monday is your engine!
Tuesday
Why love Tuesday? I've found that most people poo-poo away Mondays, so Tuesday is the busiest day of the week. We're getting things done, helping clients, taking calls, making calls, building new business and existing relationships.
Beside that, it's the "release" day of the week: movies on DVD, video games, new CDs, and - for the most part - books. This Tuesday, make business happen and find something new to love.
Takeaway: Tuesday is your genesis!
Wednesday
Why love Wednesday? Most people call it "Hump Day" while they slog through the week, the mid-point of a dismal outlook. NO! Wednesday is the first sign the business week is soon coming to a close, that there is a limit to what can happen in a business week. Get moving!
Send out your reminders, contact your clients, make sure something is happening before Friday.
Plus: New comics are released.
Takeaway: Wednesday is your lifesource!
Thursday
Why love Thursday? Based on the past few days, Thursday should be relatively quiet, so catch up on some things. Make Thursday the day you knock out your absurd inbox or make a weekly trip to your local networking group or just put on the headphones, hit the driving music (me: techno), block out the distractions and get it done.
As you may have heard, the weekend's on its way.
Takeaway: Thursday is your catch-up!
Friday
Why love Friday? What's not to love about Friday? It's the last "work day" of the week!
Most people fluff off on a Friday even more than a Monday. For some it's even more stressful because you've got to find some closure to the week, need to get X number of things done before the weekend.
But it's Friday! Make sure you spend some moments in the morning planning your day. Get what you can done and be okay with putting off the rest to next week. Close the deals, pause the conversations.
Plus: New movies are released in theatres every Friday. Popcorn time!
Takeaway: Friday is your closure!
Saturday
Why love Saturday? If you're like me, Saturdays are sometimes work overflow. But whether you work for yourself or someone else, Saturdays NEED to be yours! Do what you must - absolutely must - and nothing more business-wise. Get out there and fix that thing with the door or put a nail in that creaky step and retire in the evening with friends or family (and if you have neither nearby, call me) because you've been knocking it down hard for the last few days and if you work hard the general wisdom is that you must play hard - or at least play somewhat.
Takeaway: Saturday is your leisure!
Sunday
Why love Sunday? Football!
Just kidding. Yes, there's football, but from a business perspective, Sunday is the recharge day, the visualization day. If you want to preempt your Monday, knock through some emails. Follow-up on the Saturday gutter-cleaning or basement-organizing you didn't quite finish.
But relax. Please. Relax. Play some video games, catch up on your DVR shows, rent a movie, but spend your best parts of this day the way you want to spend it: in quiet peace alone, with family or other loved ones. Decompress.
And as you end the day, prepare for tomorrow, even if it's just mentally saying to yourself "Success!" as you fall asleep. Because Monday's coming and Monday's exciting because Monday's your reset button, your hit-the-ground-running...
Takeaway: Sunday is your recharge!
Every Day
Why love Every Day?
Because you're here. You're alive. You're doing what you do and you're going to be better at it every single day you do it.
You're going to Love Every Day because if you don't, you will lose. You will fail, as a business and as a human being. Yes, you are allowed some bad days, some idontwannas, but your motivation is your own, your conductor-ship of the train or bus is yours to hold or drop.
Drive your bus. Conduct your train. Make it count in both business and in life. Work your ass off and spend serious time with those you care about. And don't - ever - forget yourself. Quiet- beer- video game- movie- meditation- time is probably the most important part of the equation.
So love yourself, love others, love what you do. In that order.
Love. Every day.
As my father coined: "Love is the bond."
Make it happen in your life. Make it happen for you. And never forget to love every day.
Showing posts with label good business. Show all posts
Showing posts with label good business. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Do I Need to Adjust My SEO Every Month?
NO.
Sorry. Allow me to elucidate.
I get the question all the time and not everyone likes my answer. The question generally comes from a client or potential client who heard from someone something to the effect of: "Yeah, Google's always adjusting its algorithm, so you've got to mix up that SEO every single month to keep up."
The Plan
Say you or a service provider puts together an all-inclusive, rear-kickin' SEO plan and executes it perfectly. Every page has a definitive focus, reinforced by the page title - h1 - copy Holy Relevance Trinity. Your meta data is tuned (if not always used), alt and title attribute tags are playing some killer backup and your copy is sufficient but not overkill, readable but keyword-dense.
What then?
Well, assuming the necessary submissions, robots.txt, autodiscovery are in place and nothing is done to accidentally sabotage the outcome, you've got a pretty good chance Google et.al. will begin indexing your pages or raising your rankings. After a couple weeks to a couple months, that is.
The Someone Quote
"Yeah, Google's always adjusting its algorithm, so you've got to mix up that SEO every single month to keep up."
The first problem with that general idea is the timing. Yes, you can be certain that the good folks at Google don't take one day off making tiny changes to the algorithm. But as we just mentioned, it may take a couple months to get moving. So what were you tweaking?
The second problem with the quote is the absolute arrogance it encompasses. That Someone does not know a whole lot about the algorithm, let alone the little adjustments; if they did, they would be busy on a yacht.
The last problem is necessity. If you already have a clear focus on your pages and a solid search engine optimization setup, how much can you accurately make that better by small tweaks from month to month? The answer is: you can't.
The Con(clusion)
The person who tells you that you need SEO adjustments every month either does not understand search engine optimization or is lying in order to perpetuate that myth - and perhaps even rope you into an unnecessary, expensive 12+ month SEO contract. Their gain, your loss.
In a worst-case scenario, you're looking at a never-ending game of ghost cat-and-mouse: "Sorry about the lack of any measurable results, but we're doing everything we can and Google keeps switching it up."
(Can you guess which parties do not appreciate my answer?)
A Recommendation
Search engine optimization does change, but except for the HUGE revisions (hint: they have names), the little tweaks aren't going to drastically affect your rankings, and the little tweaks that would be done to your site monthly are something a small- or medium- sized business has absolutely no need for.
After I explain this to a client, I give them a realistic recommendation: Yes, Google does change, but your focus does not, not by much. So after 90 days we'll take a look at analytics, at rankings, (at no charge) and if we see something that could increase your rankings, at THAT time we'll put together suggestions with justification into a proposal for additional SEO work.
In my professional opinion, anything else is either ignorance or deception.
(Sidenote for another post: Be wary of anyone separating web design from SEO, e.g. "And this is our SEO Package." "SEO Friendly" is what you get if you don't choose that package, which generally means "If you want it later, we'll tear out the drywall in your house to add the electric. Until then? Nothing, and we'll wait for your call.")
Sorry. Allow me to elucidate.
I get the question all the time and not everyone likes my answer. The question generally comes from a client or potential client who heard from someone something to the effect of: "Yeah, Google's always adjusting its algorithm, so you've got to mix up that SEO every single month to keep up."
The Plan
Say you or a service provider puts together an all-inclusive, rear-kickin' SEO plan and executes it perfectly. Every page has a definitive focus, reinforced by the page title - h1 - copy Holy Relevance Trinity. Your meta data is tuned (if not always used), alt and title attribute tags are playing some killer backup and your copy is sufficient but not overkill, readable but keyword-dense.
What then?
Well, assuming the necessary submissions, robots.txt, autodiscovery are in place and nothing is done to accidentally sabotage the outcome, you've got a pretty good chance Google et.al. will begin indexing your pages or raising your rankings. After a couple weeks to a couple months, that is.
The Someone Quote
"Yeah, Google's always adjusting its algorithm, so you've got to mix up that SEO every single month to keep up."
The first problem with that general idea is the timing. Yes, you can be certain that the good folks at Google don't take one day off making tiny changes to the algorithm. But as we just mentioned, it may take a couple months to get moving. So what were you tweaking?
The second problem with the quote is the absolute arrogance it encompasses. That Someone does not know a whole lot about the algorithm, let alone the little adjustments; if they did, they would be busy on a yacht.
The last problem is necessity. If you already have a clear focus on your pages and a solid search engine optimization setup, how much can you accurately make that better by small tweaks from month to month? The answer is: you can't.
The Con(clusion)
The person who tells you that you need SEO adjustments every month either does not understand search engine optimization or is lying in order to perpetuate that myth - and perhaps even rope you into an unnecessary, expensive 12+ month SEO contract. Their gain, your loss.
In a worst-case scenario, you're looking at a never-ending game of ghost cat-and-mouse: "Sorry about the lack of any measurable results, but we're doing everything we can and Google keeps switching it up."
(Can you guess which parties do not appreciate my answer?)
A Recommendation
Search engine optimization does change, but except for the HUGE revisions (hint: they have names), the little tweaks aren't going to drastically affect your rankings, and the little tweaks that would be done to your site monthly are something a small- or medium- sized business has absolutely no need for.
After I explain this to a client, I give them a realistic recommendation: Yes, Google does change, but your focus does not, not by much. So after 90 days we'll take a look at analytics, at rankings, (at no charge) and if we see something that could increase your rankings, at THAT time we'll put together suggestions with justification into a proposal for additional SEO work.
In my professional opinion, anything else is either ignorance or deception.
(Sidenote for another post: Be wary of anyone separating web design from SEO, e.g. "And this is our SEO Package." "SEO Friendly" is what you get if you don't choose that package, which generally means "If you want it later, we'll tear out the drywall in your house to add the electric. Until then? Nothing, and we'll wait for your call.")
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Social Media: State Farm, Tempur-pedic, and Leveraging PR
Tempur-pedic & State Farm have both been doing something in the past several months that I have seen NO other companies doing and I wanted to bring it to light.
Perhaps you've seen this commercial from Tempur-pedic?
"Ask me," they tempt you. "Go to Facebook," they say.
Or perhaps the "People Trust People" commercial from State Farm:
"Talk to State Farm ...but not yet."
Both of these commercials are taking a single idea, leveraging social media, and coming out more transparent and credible for it.
The idea is this: The guy/gal selling you something has words staged to sell. If you hear "X Company is awesome" from them, it doesn't carry NEARLY the weight of hearing "X Company is awesome" from a friend, friend on Facebook, or as a testimonial from an existing customer.
And these companies are taking a chance: if you're looking for negative views of Tempur-pedic or State Farm, you can find them on the internet. They're staking a claim on the positive reviews of their clients, and because they both have a solid product that people are generally happy with, they have faith that YOUR friends or other people you don't necessarily know will speak wonderfully about what they have to offer.
(Side Note: the psychology behind justifying a large purchase that's better than what they had [Tempur-pedic] or "nothing going wrong when nothing happens" [State Farm] is not being addressed here.)
The great thing about these campaigns is that it's a design every small business can emulate (as long as you don't have a backlog of unsatisfied clients).
How does it work for small business? Easy.
When you're networking, when you're selling yourself, when people ask (and they should): Why should I choose you? You answer them by saying "Here's what makes us special..." AND "We can do what you need to increase value to your company, but here are a couple people/companies that know what we can do. Talk to them first. If you're still interested, my number's on the card."
You, too, can leverage organic PR to grow your business. You just didn't know you needed to do it yet. Now you do. Make it happen.
Perhaps you've seen this commercial from Tempur-pedic?
"Ask me," they tempt you. "Go to Facebook," they say.
Or perhaps the "People Trust People" commercial from State Farm:
"Talk to State Farm ...but not yet."
Both of these commercials are taking a single idea, leveraging social media, and coming out more transparent and credible for it.
The idea is this: The guy/gal selling you something has words staged to sell. If you hear "X Company is awesome" from them, it doesn't carry NEARLY the weight of hearing "X Company is awesome" from a friend, friend on Facebook, or as a testimonial from an existing customer.
And these companies are taking a chance: if you're looking for negative views of Tempur-pedic or State Farm, you can find them on the internet. They're staking a claim on the positive reviews of their clients, and because they both have a solid product that people are generally happy with, they have faith that YOUR friends or other people you don't necessarily know will speak wonderfully about what they have to offer.
(Side Note: the psychology behind justifying a large purchase that's better than what they had [Tempur-pedic] or "nothing going wrong when nothing happens" [State Farm] is not being addressed here.)
The great thing about these campaigns is that it's a design every small business can emulate (as long as you don't have a backlog of unsatisfied clients).
How does it work for small business? Easy.
When you're networking, when you're selling yourself, when people ask (and they should): Why should I choose you? You answer them by saying "Here's what makes us special..." AND "We can do what you need to increase value to your company, but here are a couple people/companies that know what we can do. Talk to them first. If you're still interested, my number's on the card."
You, too, can leverage organic PR to grow your business. You just didn't know you needed to do it yet. Now you do. Make it happen.
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