Marketing Monday: Just Ask For It

I’ve been running another blog with some friends on mine for about two months now.  We started it on a whim, and didn’t really get into publishing consistently until about a month ago.

Here’s where we stand now.  After two months of being up and running, we’re already getting ranked pretty well (1st page on specifics, 3rd-5th page for generals) for some of our keywords.  We have around 1000 unique visitors per month and that’s only about 33% of our traffic.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Hosting Real Estate

Oops, forgot to publish this yesterday.

Hosting, it’s big business these days, and it’s big money too.  Most people looking for hosting are concerned primarily with price (and in this economy who wouldn’t be.)

But let me give you an insider tip on this one.  The first question shouldn’t be, “How low can I go?”  It should be, “What do I need it to do?”

As with anything in this life, you get what you pay for.  So it’s important to know what you’re getting and why it may, or may not, work for you.  Additionally, you want to make sure that you get something that you can use easily and quickly to fulfill your needs.

I Didn’t Lose Your Files, They’re Just Not There

Losing files sucks.  It especially sucks if those files were part of a website, graphic, or project you were working on for a client.  As I mentioned on Tuesday, it’s important to make backups so you don’t lose what your work and have to recreate all that you’ve done.

Unfortunately, sometimes our clients aren’t great at making backups for themselves and they call on us to replace something we created a long time ago.  If you’re smart, you’ve created a CD with a backup that you can either mail them or re-upload for them (for an appropriate fee, of course.)

But what do you do when you don’t have those files?  Your client is going to be angry with you (even though you mailed him a backup disk as part of your original work, and it’s all their fault they don’t have that.)

Provided below are a few excuses and/or methods for informing your customer or client that you don’t have a backup of their files and they’ll either have to pay you again to recreate them, or find someone else to do the work:

Direct:

• For the good customer you like working with:  “I provided you a backup when the original project was completed.  I’m sorry you misplaced it and would be happy to recreate that work for you.  Let me get a contract drawn up and sent to you.”

Marketing Tip Monday: Transparency

Let’s face it, if you’re doing something “wrong” these days you’re going to be found out.  It doesn’t matter if you’re surreptitiously laying off some employees or dumping toxic waste, someone will find out about it and out you.  Just when you think you’re in the clear someone will Twitter it, blog it, or post images on Flickr and then you’re in trouble.

So, how do you prevent this?  Be honest!

If you have to layoff employees let them know how long they have to work there, and what you’re going to do about helping them find a new position.  Help them find new positions and do what you can to get them something new set up.

Website Wednesday: Picking The Right Domain Name

Picking the right domain name isn’t necessarily as important as you may think.  Unless you’re Coke, or Nintendo, or the American Broadcasting Corporation (and I think they all have theirs locked down by now) your domain name can really be anything.

Of course it is wise to have something that has to do with your industry and keyword rich, so if you can (and if it’s available) get something like that.  A good domain name should have something to do with your industry — like design for me — and something to set you apart from your competition — like start page.  Here are some good examples of good domain names:

1. Bakespace.com — a MySpace clone for chefs and cooks.
2. TempeCarWash.com — a local car wash company.

Now the next question is whether to go .com, .net, .biz, or what.  Here’s my personal opinion on that:  ALWAYS GET THE .COM!!!  If it’s available that is.  Most people using the web automatically think your domain name will end in a .com if they ever get confused or forget, so make sure you own it if you can.  You don’t want to be sending money to your compitors or to some adlink site, like the ones I mentioned on Monday.

That said, if you can bet the .net, .biz, .org, .info, .us, .mobi, etc., etc., etc., and you have the budget to get them, do so.  If you point them all to your main page, and rewrite the URL to the .com, you’re going to increase your rank and authority.

Another suggestion would be to buy the .net, .org, etc. of your competitors domain names.  Of course you probably shouldn’t do this if your competition is using a copyright, and even if they’re not, I’d point those domain names to the adlink sites (Sedo.com is great) instead of pointing them to your own site.  You don’t want to get into a costly legal battle over a $10 domain name.

So there are my 2¢ for the week.  Now go buy some domain names.

Tech Tip Tuesday: Make A Backup

I work in the hosting industry for my day job.  It’s interesting and educating (and many times humbling) work.  Other than the day job, I build websites, run a few (3) blogs, keep a few (5) Twitter streams, do the whole Facebook thing, the Flickr thing, and teach others about using the social web to market their businesses and websites.

One of the things that has amazed me in each and every one of these positions is how little people create backups of their information.  Most people create a backup once a month, many don’t make backups at all.

Of course I have had experience in this.  About a year ago my girlfriend’s computer crashed and she lost her entire educational portfolio (not fun when applying to Law Schools.)  Unfortunately she did not have a backup of any of these items anywhere, so they were lost to the ether.

I personally have always backed up my data in some form.  Whether it be online with Carbonite, some other online storage, or on an external hard drive.  I’ve even used my GMail account to save files as attachments.