Branding Blog

Advertising vs. Being Remarkable

"Advertising is a tax you pay for being unremarkable."
-Geek Squad founder Robert Stephens

There are STILL plenty of very smart people in the world who have not begun to realize the power of the web. For some, it's a fear of technology. Others have been too busy engaged in successful business. Still others just have their heads in the sand.

I was having a conversation with a group of very successful brick and mortar jewelers a couple of weeks ago. We were talking about my blogging class and they asked if I knew of any jewelers who have had any measure of success with blogging. I pointed them to Ice.com and their use of a blog strategy to tie their name to celebrities and provide lots of in-bound links to products.

Then, they asked me if I could name a business that has achieved any kind of success with YouTube?

"The best SEO is Great Content"

Seth Godin's new book, Meatball Sundae, is hot right now. Rachelle Money, a new journalist at WordTracker, caught up with him for a nice interview.

The best take-away is this quote:

"My position is that the clients are the problem, not the consultants. That's because they want shortcuts, not hard work. The best SEO is great content. Don't do that and you don't get much."

There's no writing more painful than forced "SEO writing". I won't do it. The reason is that visitors just don't like it. It's obviously painful and even if it works, it is seldom persuasive if all that traffic comes to your site.

If you diverted a freeway into your parking lot, you'd certainly have more traffic. But, would your new visitors like you or be more likely to become customers?

Buy Meatball Sundae at Amazon.

Web and Blog Tools for the TOTALLY Clueless

I'm gathering information. I've told people that TypePad is easy. Heck, I can use it.

So, what are the other easy web tools?  I've looked into Squarespace, and I like it.

What else is out there?  I want web tools that create good-looking sites without the owner having to know anything but pointing a mouse. No hosting issues.

Any suggestions?

We just want a few more tools in our belt before we gather in Austin to create some more great and simple sites and blogs.  By the way, if you plan on attending Accelerated Branding or Wonder Branding or the Academy Reunion, we can discuss these things in person. (I should have just found a house to rent in Austin for October!)

Can You Grok a Screencast?

The gang at Future Now Inc. are putting up some great screencasts with some suggestions on improving websites.

Plenty for everyone to learn!

Call To Action Seminar

Unbelievably, there are still a few open seats at next week's Call to Action Seminar at Tuscan Hall in Austin.

I'll be there and I hope to meet you there.

All of the details and a link to registration are after the jump.

Everybody Needs Online Copywriters

There's a growing demand for web copywriters. I end up writing for more clients than I really want to because I have trouble finding other writers for my Persuasion Architecture projects.

If you want to learn from the best, check out the Persuasive Online Copywriting seminar next week in Manhattan. A quick trip to NYC is always fun!

Listen to Grok on Webmaster Radio

Enjoy the latest Blog Buzz on Webmaster Radio.

My friends from GrokDotCom host a daily show at Webmaster Radio. The show airs live at 4:55pm weekdays. Or listen to the archives any time.

Grok, Grok, Grok

My buddies over at FutureNow have consolidated all of their bloggy efforts into the NEW GrokDotCom blog.

It's a great new site powered by a ContentRobot installation of WordPress with some very cool technology humming in the background.

In addition to the original content, it pulls in feeds from some great marketing blogs and sites. It may just be the only blog you need to read! I've added the post feed to my sidebar. Check it out.

How to Improve your "About Us" and "Contact Us" Pages

(This has been one of the top stories on American Small Business for several months. So, I'm stealing my own story and sharing it here.)

Best-selling author Bryan Eisenberg has been dishing out super advice over at ClickZ for nearly 5 years now. If you will take the time to read all 239 of his articles, you'll be way ahead of most.

The two most recent articles talk about two very important pages on your site, but pages that usually get only a cursory effort from most site developers. Your "About Us" (read the article) page is a key source of confidence for many of your customers (many could care less).

An "About Us" page is a tremendous opportunity to cement a relationship with many prospective customers. It can put a human face on an otherwise technical, dry, and impersonal page. Properly written, it can provide some serious buying resolve to certain customer segments.

Your "Contact Us" (read the article) page is equally as important. People want to know how to reach you when there's a problem…or if they want to compliment you! Bryan gives some great examples of companies doing it right and companies doing it wrong. He wraps it up with this:

The "contact us" page is a lifeline for many businesses. For others, it's what a visitor should click on as a last resort because she's failed to find answers elsewhere on your site. Either way, take the responsibility. Make sure visitors don't become frustrated before they reach out. In the end, that's the key measure of a good "contact us" page.

I think I'm in "The South"

March 7-13. That was the last full week I spent in my own home. Austin to Winnipeg to Denver to Phoenix to Los Angeles to Melbourne to Hobart to Los Angeles to Las Vegas to Austin to Phoenix to San Diego to Denver to Knoxville where I hear the lovely drawled greeting of the waffle lady here in the Residence Inn each morning at breakfast. I've got just a 74 more miles before I make United's Premier status this year. Too bad we're driving to Austin for Wizards of Web. ;-)

The more personas I create, the more wireframing I do, the better and quicker I get at it. It's fun work and it's exciting to see the lights come on in the eyes of the business owner as he gets a deeper understanding of his own business and realizes how important the Persuasion Architecture process will be...not just for his web site, but for all aspects of customer interaction.

I'm excited to be headed to Austin for Eisenberg's BIG EVENT. It's not too late to join us!

I'm also excited to get home the next week. That's where you'll find me for at least a few weeks.