10.5 Resolutions For The New Year

OK. OK.  So I haven’t posted in a while.  I know and I’m sorry.  I took some time for the holidays, wrapped up some projects that needed to be done before the end of the year and hit the ground running.  I hope your holidays were healthy and happy.  Let me be the first last to wish you a Happy New Year! <grin>

You may have noticed a change in the look and features of my blog.  I think it will be a great asset to small and medium size businesses in the coming year.  I have some new things in the works for you!   And, as usual, I invite your comments and questions.

Please consider signing up for my blog feed.  You’re not going to want to miss a minute!

Did You Know? There are 525,600 minutes in a year.  This year, we’re going to give you 527,040.

Now back to work, me!

I love some of the resolutions I’ve seen online in the past couple of weeks and decided to start the new year and the new Website ROI Coach blog with a great approach that will pay dividends in the next 12 months, er, 11.5 months.  Let’s be great in 2008! (Note to self: resolve to write better slogans in the new year)

See if you agree with these 10.5 resolutions…

  • 1)    I will clearly define what my professional goals are for the year.  I believe that if I fail to plan, I plan to fail.
  • 2)    I will “Think Big.” Goals, target audiences and techniques can all be adjusted to meet or exceed my expectations.  Sometimes “interim goals” need to be achieved on my way to the big dance.
  • 3)    I will stay focused on my goals and give priority to regular and ongoing efforts that will result in achieving them.
  • 4)    I will take time to regularly assess my goals, efforts and progress and adjust accordingly.
  • 5)    I will engage, listen to and maintain a dialog with my customers.
  • 6)    I will monitor and study what my competitors are doing.  I will look for competitive advantages.
  • 7)    I will think about sales and marketing every day and do at least something daily to improve those efforts.
  • 8)    I will invest in education for my staff and me.  While staying within my budget, I will read books, periodicals, newsletters and blogs.  I will consider some investment in time and money in online training, attending a seminar or enrolling in a course.
  • 9)    I will prioritize networking relationships with others in my industry, as it is people that make my business successful.
  • 10) I will update my website regularly.  If I’m not doing it monthly, I shouldn’t be in business.  (Weekly or more frequently is best)   
  • 11) I will be honest and ethical and have good intentions – ALWAYS.

Any resolutions you’d care to add?

— Kurt Scholle
   www.WebAsylum.com
   Website Success Strategies

Blogging: A 10-Year Anniversary

Monday marked the 10th anniversary of the coining of the term "weblog."  10 years!  Who knew?

Jorn Barger, an interesting guy, interested in AI (artificial Intelligence) and James Joyce and Robot Wisdom, says that his intent for weblogs was to "make the web as a whole more
transparent, via a sort of "mesh network," where each weblog amplifies
just those signals (or links) its author likes best."  He says the Golden Age for blogs was 1998-1999 when the following principles were widely
understood:

1. A true weblog is a log of all the URLs you want to save or share.
(So del.icio.us is actually better for blogging than blogger.com.)

2. You can certainly include links to your original thoughts, posted
elsewhere … but if you have more original posts than links, you
probably need to learn some humility.

3. If you spend a little time searching before you post, you can probably find your idea well articulated elsewhere already.

4. Being truly yourself is always hipper than suppressing a link
just because it’s not trendy enough. Your readers need to get to know
you.

5. You can always improve on the author’s own page title, when
describing a link. (At least make sure your description is full enough
that readers will recognize any pages they’ve already visited, without
having to visit them again.)

6. Always include some adjective describing your own reaction to the linked page (great, useful, imaginative, clever, etc.)

7. Credit the source that led you to it, so your readers have the option of "moving upstream."

8. Warn about "gotchas" — weird formatting, multipage stories,
extra-long files, etc. Don’t camouflage the main link among unneeded
(or poorly labeled) auxiliary links.

9. Pick some favorite authors or celebrities and create a Google News feed that tracks new mentions of them, so other fans can follow them via your weblog.

10. Re-post your favorite links from time to time, for people who missed them the first time.

Google Yourself – Others Are!

A new survey says 47% of US adult Internet users Google themselves – or look up themselves on other search engines.  We all should.  You all need to know what others, including customers and prospects, are finding out about you online.  The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Pew Internet and American Life Project released the survey yesterday.  Only about 22% of US Internet users searched about themselves in 2002.  The report says those with more education and income were more likely to self-Google —
in some cases because their jobs demand an online presence or persona.  And that’s exactly why you need to do it.  More than half of Internet users in the U.S. reported searching for others, excluding celebrities.  It’s not uncommon for sales people to search for information about a prospect or for someone to search for information about a potential customer. 

You need to know the good and bad about you that is floating around on the Internet.  Obviously, if an arrest or other negative listing comes up online, it can impact your ability to do business.  But seeing positive listings such as participation in non-profit organizations can benefit you.  Even more, there may be other opportunities to position yourself as an expert.  My friend and mentor, Al Lautenslager, has written extensively for Entrepreneur.com and also authored several marketing books.  Reading the articles that come up in a search on his name have a huge impact on his personal brand.

But what if the information is bad – especially if it’s false?  I had such an experience a couple of years ago when a joint venture turned sour.  I had ended the relationship when it became evident that our ‘partner’ was dealing for himself, not to our mutual benefit.  I also had fears about his personal consumption habits.  To my surprise and dismay, the guy posted some vile and juvenile comments online that I was alerted to by a customer who knew me and thought it was funny.  I was able to get the posting removed almost immediately.

You may not be so lucky.  Sometimes getting something taken down is not possible.  I worked with a law firm in 2005 on such a case.  Their client had lost a lawsuit while being represented by another firm and whenever the company name was put into a search engine, the information was one of the first things that came up.  We worked to get other (positive) listings for their client, which resulted in to moving the lawsuit results much farther down where it would have less, if any, impact.

Information about you, both good and bad, can show up very quickly.  A year or so ago, I wrote a letter to the editor of the Chicago Sun-Times just to see how long it would take to appear in a search engine if the letter was published.  It took 24 hours.  So it’s important to monitor things constantly.  (You can set up a Google Alert on your name or company and receive a daily email listing any new links that come up with your name associated)

Monitoring your name or organization is important.  But it’s also important for your website to rise to the top on search engines for a targeted list of keywords.  If you’d like a FREE report on how high your website ranks on popular search engines for a list of keywords, send them to me and I’ll send you the report.

This is important!  You NEED to know!

— Kurt Scholle
    WebAsylum

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