I met a client at Caribou Coffee last week to review some logo comps. If you’ve never been to one, Caribou is like Starbucks’ rural, woodsy cousin. Anyway, I picked up my coffee and grabbed a couple of napkins to wipe off the table. I did a double take, and grinned:

“Yet another thing to stay awake for: Write a really, really short novel.” followed by their tag line, “Life is short. Stay awake for it.”

It’s just a napkin. Two-color printed on one side. But the clever message spoke to a core group of coffeehouse-goers: the artists who camp out for hours, sipping coffee while working on their masterpieces. It relates perfectly to their tag line (which I never noticed before picking up this napkin.) It addresses the key pain point of their consumers. They’re tired. How can Caribou help? By serving you coffee, because “Life is short. Stay awake for it.”

A napkin, by definition, is something to be used and discarded. Yet, by printing a simple message, they are encouraging you to use it in another way — as the perfect place to scribble notes and ideas — which means you won’t toss it. And if you did scrawl something brilliant on this fun napkin, you’d create a positive subconscious association with the coffeehouse.

It’s brilliant.

How can you surprise your customers? How can you show that you “get” them? Are you paying attention to the smallest details, even things that are meant to be discarded?

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A client sent me a link to this wonderful TED talk: “Simon Sinek: How great leaders inspire action“.

Sinek discusses “The Golden Circle” — the “what,” “how,” and “why” of what we do and who we are. He explains how finding the why behind your business is crucial to driving sales and setting yourself apart in the marketplace.

But very, very few people or organizations know why they do what they do. And by “why ” I don’t mean “to make a profit.” That’s a result. It’s always a result. By “why” I mean: what’s your purpose? What’s your cause? What’s your belief? Why does your organization exist? Why do you get out of bed in the morning? And why should anyone care?

Read the rest of this entry »

My birthday was last week. I decided to pay a gift forward, and I donated it to Kiva. Kiva’s mission is to connect people, through lending, for the sake of alleviating poverty.

I donated to the Femmes Commerèantes N°6 Group (pictured above) in Thies, Senegal. Their goal is to fight family poverty. My donation allowed them to reach their goal of purchasing supplies for their retail business.

The group will repay their loan over the next 10 months. Once the loan is repaid, I will receive a credit for the amount I donated. Then, I can lend it to someone else. Of course, there is no 100% guarantee that my investment will be repaid, but Kiva has processed over $28 million in loans, and has a 98.4% repayment rate.

Loans start at $25. I know that our economy is in the tank, and everyone is finding ways to cut back. But, I also know that this $25 gift made a difference, and that’s worth a small sacrifice on my part.

Visit kiva.org and consider lending money to alleviate poverty.

I’ve been reading and thinking a lot about intent and follow through. It’s a theme that seems to popping up all over the place for the last few months.

For me, it began with Chris Guillebeau’s article, “What you don’t do doesn’t matter.” The article is fantastic, and I highly recommend that you click over and read it, but, even if you don’t, the title says it all. For example, if I just think about sending someone a thank you note, but don’t actually send it, the thought doesn’t count. Nothing has changed. Maybe you feel a little better because, hey, you did think about it – but I usually feel worse, because I didn’t follow through.

While Chris’ article focused primarily on relationships, I think that “What you don’t do doesn’t matter” can be expanded to include personal and professional work – which is why I’ve adapted it as my new mantra.

I could’ve done that.

Have you ever said, “Psh. I could’ve done that.” or “I could do better than that.” I know I have. The critical difference is that this other person invested time and energy to create something, whereas I just thought about it. It’s the difference between having a bunch of recipes and opening a restaurant. I have a long list of things I’ve been meaning to do. Some have been started, but not finished. Some are nothing more than a bullet point on the list.

I don’t have a very good reason for not doing these things. I used to say, “I’ve just been so busy lately.” But thanks to this other article by Chris Guillebeau, I’ve tried to drop that excuse. It’s a terrible excuse. We’re all busy. It’s up to me to decide what I want to be busy doing.

What are you passionate about?

Seth Godin wrote about modern procrastination. We can keep scuttling along, staying very “busy” and yet not do anything important. Not creating anything of value. You might consider doing this interview with yourself as an exercise to compare what you are doing vs. what you’re truly passionate about.

In the past week or so, I’ve swapped TV, email and Facebook for reading real books, writing, and exercise. And, you know what? I feel better. Writing the SEO series last week was challenging, but also so much more rewarding than watching a Law & Order: SVU marathon.

What are you keeping busy with right now? What could you be doing instead?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

This week, I’m trying something new. Each day, I’ll write about a topic that I’ve been studying. This week’s topic: search engine optimization (or SEO, for short). Check back each day for a new post, or why not just subscribe to the RSS feed?

Many of the factors relating to page rank rely on the talent of your web developer, web designer and/or copy writer. Hiring these professionals requires a budget — but there are things you can do on your own, for free, to help your site’s page rank.

On Tuesday, I shared some tips and resources about how to improve your rank, which included the importance of inbound links. You can ask other sites to link to you, ideally with keyword specific text as the hyperlink, but you really don’t have any control over whether or not that site will actually link to you or how they’ll do it. So, how do you get inbound links?

You can create (some of) them yourself.

1. Create business profiles on sites like LinkedIn, Biznik, Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, etc. and fill out the profile information. Include a link to your business.
2. Publish articles anywhere and everywhere you can. A site like Biznik is a great place to get published. Demonstrate your expertise by writing a helpful article, with an extended byline linking back to your website.
3. Create an HTML signature to use in Web-based discussion forums that uses your name (or business name) as a link to your web site. Every message you post becomes a link to your site that search engines can index.

These tips alone aren’t guaranteed to move you to the top of a search — but they are especially great for increasing the page rank for your name or business name.

Other tips to drive traffic

These won’t necessarily help your page rank, but it will help drive visitors to your site, which will hopefully result in conversions (see Monday’s post).

1. Include links in your email signature. Don’t forget your signature from your Blackberry /iPhone/Smartphone. You send out 300 emails a day? That’s 300 opportunities to share a link.
2. Comment on other people’s blogs. People feel like they need to have a blog or “a Twitter” because “everyone has one.” I have a journalism background and I like to write — but I’ll be the first to say that maintaining a blog is challenging and time consuming. Reap some of the same benefits, with less effort. Read blogs that your prospects read and leave comments. Most comment forms ask you to fill in your web address, which becomes a link back to your site when you comment.

Up next:

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll share some additional SEO resources. Don’t miss it: subscribe to the RSS feed.

This week, I’m trying something new. Each day, I’ll write about a topic that I’ve been studying. This week’s topic: search engine optimization (or SEO, for short). Check back each day for a new post, or why not just subscribe to the RSS feed?

Page ranking is complicated. It can vary from search engine to search engine. It can vary from day to day.

Learn the lingo

There is a lot of terminology surrounding SEO and page ranking. You may want to keep these glossaries handy as you explore the page rank resources:

http://www.seoglossary.com/

http://www.sempo.org/learning_center/sem_glossary/

The relationship between page rank and keywords

Page rank is directly related to keywords. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, saying that you want to “show up on Google” means nothing. You want your site to appear in the search results when someone types a query into the search box. The words they type in the search box are keywords or keyword phrases.

When someone types in a keyword phrase, the search engine looks through its database of indexed pages and returns the best matches for those keywords. How do search engines determine the best match? This is where things get a little more complicated.

One thing to keep in mind is that search engines are dumb. For example, I am a freelance graphic designer, but if I don’t ever use the words “freelance graphic designer” on my site, I can’t expect Google to “know” I’m a freelancer based on the contextual information on my site. I have to use those keywords in my text, in the page titles, etc. to say “Hey Google! The search for ‘freelance graphic designer’ and the content on this page are a good match!”

Handy-dandy resources

Here are two resources that help you make sense of how different factors, including keywords, impact page rank:

Google’s PageRank Explained and How to Make the Most of It
This article explains, in detail, the algorithm behind Google’s patented PageRank and the various factors that impact it. Some takeaways: More internal linking (links within your site) and increasing the number of pages of your site helps your rank. However, don’t create duplicate “cookie cutter” pages just for the sake of a higher rank – it’ll actually count against you. Inbound links (links from other websites to yours) increase your ranking, because another site is essentially “voting” for your site. Outbound links add credit to your site’s existence, but too many outbound links actually drains your PageRank.

Search Engine Ranking Factors 2009

seomoz.org has compiled a phenomenal amount of information from world renown SEO experts. Their top-five ranking factors: Keyword Focused Anchor Text from External Links, External Link Popularity, Diversity of Link Sources, Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag, and Trustworthiness of the Domain Based on Link Distance from Trusted Domains. Some of the Ranking Factors can get really overwhelming and jargon-heavy, but scroll down to the comments section to read what some of the experts have to say (in plain English).

Up next:

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll share some tools on how to discover what your PageRank is and how to know where your site appears in different search engines based on your keywords. Don’t miss it: subscribe to the RSS feed.

This week, I’m trying something new. Each day, I’ll write about a topic that I’ve been studying. This week’s topic: search engine optimization (or SEO, for short). Check back each day for a new post, or why not just subscribe to the RSS feed?

SEO: defined

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” or un-paid search results. (Source: Wikipedia)

Four basic benefits of SEO

The following outlines the basic benefits of SEO: indexed pages, rankings, visitors and (ultimately) conversions. The goal of the entire SEO process is to get people to do something.

1) Indexed pages

Robots or crawlers from search engines move through all the content on the web and index it, which allows it to appear in a search. It is important to make sure that search engines can find your pages and decipher them – this is something that needs to be done by a web designer or developer. See the extra credit reading at the bottom for more information on constructing an optimized web page.

2) Rankings

Someone searches for “lawn and garden center Chicago” on Google. There are 529,000 results. If a business is the third one listed on this search, they are “ranked” third. This is what many clients talk about specifically, when discussing SEO – “I want to show up on Google.” (A better request would be: “I want my site to appear on a Google when someone searches for _______” This specific information helps your developer optimize your site.) However, being ranked #1 on ___ search engine technically doesn’t mean anything. A high ranking doesn’t necessarily convert into increased sales – it is simply a way in to your site. (Ranking will be covered in more depth in tomorrow’s post.)

3) Visitors

So, at this point, search engine robots have indexed your pages, and your site appeared when someone searched for something. Now, a real human clicks and views your site. We’re getting there! Unless you receive payment on a cost per impression basis (like via ads) this still doesn’t mean much.

4) Conversions

This is the ultimate goal of SEO. Those real, live people visiting your site do something. A conversion can be anything you want – a purchase, a download, a comment, a phone call, an email, a follow on Twitter, a subscription to an RSS feed, etc. It’s important to know what you want your conversions to be so you can set your optimization goals accordingly.

These are the bare-bone basics of what SEO is: Create a well-structured web page with great content and keywords so that the search engines can index it. Your site ranks well for keywords that you’ve chosen. Real people visit your site. Those people do something based on the information they find on your site.

Extra credit reading:

The construction of an optimized web page

Up next:

In tomorrow’s post, I’ll talk more about what determines search ranking. Don’t miss it: subscribe to the RSS feed.

photo by stefan/ / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

I think it’s fair to say that most designers have at least a little touch of OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). I like my pages neat, clean, and with plenty of white space. I can tell if the leading (line spacing) is off by a point or two. It drives me insane, even if I know my client probably can’t tell the difference. “Only you would catch that…” I’ve heard it a million times.

Even though the final product is perfectly polished, the process is far from it. Here’s an inside peek at one of my current projects — photographing my work for a presentation I’m giving later this week:

The setup:

1. a pane of glass from my computer desk
2. white foam core and paper
3. 3 clamp lights and 100-watt bulbs (from Menards)
4. paper to diffuse the light (from Calumet Photographic)
5. 1 large table
6. 3 chairs (to hold the lights)
7. Canon PowerShot SX100IS (8 MP) camera

Not the most glamorous setup, but here’s a sample image that came out of my shoot tonight:

Hope you enjoyed this “behind-the-scenes” look at my process!

PS – Many thanks to the fabulous woman who helped me out at Calumet Photographic (Chicago) this morning. She answered all my questions and even sketched out the proper setup for me.

“It follows that every design presentation is inevitably, at least in part, an exercise in bullshit. The design process always combines the pursuit of functional goals with countless intuitive, even irrational decisions. The functional requirements—the house needs a bathroom, the headlines have to be legible, the toothbrush has to fit in your mouth—are concrete and often measurable. The intuitive decisions, on the other hand, are more or less beyond honest explanation.”

—Michael Bierut
“On (Design) Bullshit” from 79 Short Essays on Design (Amazon affiliate link)

Frankly, I think clients hire designers based on the “bullshit” (intuitive decisions) – not on the functional requirements. I can’t explain to you why I think the headlines look better in Bodoni or why the logo looks better two pixels to the left. It just does.

I think almost anyone can read a few books or take a few classes and satisfy the basic design needs. They can talk about functionality. But there is something to be said for those that absorb the world around them and develop an eye that just “knows” what to pick.

These same designers also “know” that the following conversation doesn’t fly with clients:

Client: Why did you pick that font?

Designer: “Uh… I dunno. I just liked it.”

No. Instead we launch into these winded, passionate explanations… talking about things like mood, and what the type evokes. Honestly, it’s pure bullshit (and I’m sure our clients know it). But we will paint whatever picture we have to in order to convince the client to come along with us. Granted, they are paying us (hopefully) very good money, and I can understand why they deserve a better explanation than “Uh… I dunno.”

So, dear designers, if your clients aren’t taking your advice – don’t automatically assume that your design skills are lacking…try practicing your “bullshitting.” Try to say something about why you think Futura is more appropriate than Papyrus. I think clients trust us more when we talk with them, not at them. And good clients are the first to acknowledge that you know more than they do on the subject — after all, that’s why they hired you.

And, clients, perhaps try to be open to the idea that we can’t always concisely articulate the why part. I don’t know that a chef would be able to explain how he or she balanced the flavors to create something so delicious. It’s subjective. It’s intuitive. And it’s what distinguishes one designer from another.

…or is this just more (design) bullshit?

Feeling kind of cranky? Maybe even a little bitter? Yeah, I was too. It’s Monday, it’s cold and dreary in Chicago, I have jet lag from my trip to LA and I didn’t have any caffeine today. And then I did this one quick thing, and I felt a lot better.

Stop whatever you’re doing right now, go over to LinkedIn or Biznik and write someone a recommendation.

I mean it. Right now.

Scroll through your list of contacts and pick one person that you think does something awesome — it could be a client, a former co-worker, a professor — anyone. Take a few minutes (it really won’t take more than 15 minutes) and write a few sentences about them.

When you are done, I guarantee that you will feel awesome. Better than when that first sip of coffee starts kicking in on Monday morning. I can also guarantee that the person you just wrote about will feel awesome when they read it. It is a genuine, unexpected display of appreciation. Who knows, they may even feel inclined to write a bit of praise on your profile. Even if they don’t, I think writing recommendations looks great to prospective employers or clients — who wouldn’t want to work with someone that openly applauds and recognizes the work of others?

I know that you’re busy. I’m busy too. (As a side note, you might want to check out Chris Guillebeau’s article: “I’ve just been so busy lately.”) But, being busy isn’t an excuse not to acknowledge and thank the people who have positively impacted our lives — AND both LinkedIn and Biznik make it incredibly simple to display that positive message to the public.

Now, go for it!