Websites for Individuals

The LeBron Effect: An Internet Marketer’s Guide To Tonight’s Announcement

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lebron james effectI’ve got some quick thoughts about tonight’s LeBron James announcement. From an Internet marketing consultant‘s perspective, here’s what I’ll be paying attention to during the telecast:

First, what’s going to happen to Twitter? Will it hold up? This will be the most watched press conference in the Twitter Era since Tiger’s fake presser a couple of months ago. LeBron has been a trending topic all day. It will be interesting to see if Twitter can avoid putting up the fail whale once his decision becomes official. Twitter has held up fairly well during the World Cup, so you’d think they should be fine. But once he makes it official, it will be like someone let the water run from the Hoover Dam – a giant burst all at once.

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How to Make Clients [Less than Happy]

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We’re fortunate to get a lot of repeat and referral business. It’s because we take pride in the way we treat our clients. Since our company was founded in 2004, we have set out to treat everyone we work with as partners, not just people that pay us to do work for them (unlike a lot of our competitors out there).

Over the years I have learned a lot about how to work with our partners. And I have heard some horror stories from new business about the way they were treated by a previous vendor. I talk more about some of the most common and powerful ways to make sure clients will be…errr unhappy…in my latest blog post for the Outright community.

Enjoy.

Make Sure You Sign an Agreement Before You Build Your Next Website

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In my most recent post for the Outright Community, I wrote about how it’s critical for web developers to make sure they put everything in writing before they start any project.

I want to expand on that thought just a bit. The exact same thing is true for all of you on the client side of the equation. The next time you hire a website development firm, make sure everything related to the project – the price, the timeline, the requirements – are all in writing before any money changes hands.

It sounds obvious but a lot of firms are small. And they won’t spend a lot of time on details like contracts and agreements. They just want to crank out projects and get paid. Most of them do a great job and the amount of money involved isn’t huge, but it’s still a smart idea to protect yourself in case something goes wrong with the project.

Don’t fear the contract. Most firms will have very basic agreements that won’t require you to hire a lawyer to interpret it for you. Just be sure to read it over and ask any question if there are parts that don’t make sense. Don’t be afraid to push back on anything that doesn’t seem fair. A good firm will be willing to budge on terms in order to make you happy and to keep the job.

Have you hired a web development firm recently? Did they ask you to sign a service agreement? Let’s discuss in the comment section below.

In SEO, There’s No Such Thing As A Guarantee

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I got an email today that I wanted to share with you loyal readers. The title was 1st Page Results Guaranteed. Now I never ever read emails that are obvious spam. Even though I knew the contents of this one would be garbage, I couldn’t resist.

Here’s what it said:
“Do you wish you could increase your online leads? Getting a GUARANTEED 1ST PAGE GOOGLE RANKING is easier and more cost-effective than you might think. We have helped a lot of businesses thrive in this market and we can help you! Simply hit reply and I’ll share with you the cost and the benefits. See you at the top!”

Have you seen an email like this one before? What about a claim on an SEO’s website similar to this? Or maybe you’ve been told something like this when you’ve met with a search engine optimization firm. If you have, hopefully you deleted it before picking up the phone. If you haven’t, you are lucky because guarantees like these seem to be everywhere.

If you have not seen or heard anything like this before, then I am going to give you a visual to keep in mind for when you do. I want you to associate the SEO guarantee with this picture:
guaranteed-seo

Read moreIn SEO, There’s No Such Thing As A Guarantee