You have settled on the scope of the project, the project has started and then you realize it, you forgot a feature, forgot a stakeholder, forgot to think about what happens after you start getting all the email. Heck, it could be that your hairdresser came up with a great idea and you want to incorporated it now. What happens next…

Client said - “Jennifer, we need to talk about XYZ. I know we haven’t discussed this before but it HAS to be here. It is one of our biggest requirements. The WHOLE reason we are doing the project.”

I don’t know what the big deal is, just fit it in. Yeah-Yeah, I’m sorry I forgot it right up front, but come on, how hard can it be to add? It’s just a tiny thing that leads to this form that needs to be sent to our 3rd party vendor and then sent back nightly so we know what the customer did and if they have been here before. (You would think that they have been doing this job long enough that they could do it in their sleep.)

Plus, isn’t it their job to expect things to change? How should I know what is hard and what is easy to do? If I had time to do their job I wouldn’t have had to hire them in the first place. Plus, I’ve got to get this project done and off my plate. Especially if I want to be recognized within the company. This is huge.

Vendor said - I don’t see why they don’t get it. This is why we discussed requirements in the beginning of the project. I don’t understand why they didn’t talk about it earlier if it was so important. I mean sure, it looks easy, but it isn’t that easy and now it’s going to put us back in the project timeline because we have to redo the architecture of the project. A=d to top it off the client is going to be mad because it’s going to cost more=and I’ll have to explain why and have them ask how to do it cheaper.

Seriously, I don’t know why in this day and age people just don’t get it.

Conclusion - The truth is, when you take the personal feelings out of this situation, what you have is a change. Don’t fool yourself, everyone knows where the other side is coming from. The client really does know that it is going to take more time and more money and although they really don’t know how much they do know it is a change and that they are the ones that are guiding it.

And on the flip side, the vendor really does know that you hired them for a reason. Yeah, it is going to change the timeline and the price, but the purpose of putting together the requirements and documenting the process as you go is so that it is a level playing field for everyone.

And seriously, the client doesn’t know that you hear this 3 times a week from anyone else, they only know that they need to accomplish something and it needs to look good for their bosses/organization/mother.. Any number of people. They are just trying to do it right.

The point of the story for both client and vendor is this. When you start a project and you need to add/edit/change something, step back and take a look at the big picture. Remove all personal feelings and write up the change request. Include why the change was asked for, what the change is, how it will work, how it won’t work, what it will effect and how much time/money it is going to take to change it. One of three things will happen; they will accept the change and you move on. They will reject it and you will move on, or they will decide it can wait until the next phase of the project… and you will move on. But change happens, it is the only thing we know to be an absolute truth.

Plan the work, work the plan…This statement makes project planning sound so easy, but in truth many projects fail before they even get started. How is that possible you ask? Failure to plan.

Sometimes the “need” to get something done outweighs the need to plan correctly for it. Or so some think. Have you ever heard, “We will make a decision when we get there”, or “Lets investigate some options and I’ll let you know”, or my personal favorite, “I have to see it working to know if it is right “. While working in this fashion feels good to start, it is not the most direct route to getting the work done and it is a heavy load on the finances as well. Both for the client and the company.

One way to help avoid these problems is to have a detailed discussion at the beginning of the project. A discussion where you gather the stakeholders and discuss the scope of the project. (The scope of the project is the sum total of all of its products or features.) Make decisions together on the direction to go. You should decide the way features should and will work. Write them down; include assumptions about how they work, and assumptions on how it won’t work. Being clear up front gets everyone on the same page and moving in the same direction. Do not count on the proposal to cover features in this much detail, it doesn’t and it isn’t supposed to. While having these talked up front may not curb the occasional “that’s not how I thought it was going to work”, it will, if documented, help to avoid rework of things that have been done.

Keep in mind that planning the project SHOULD take a big amount of time. The more planning and discussion done up front the less that needs to be done later. This means less rework to correct issues or misunderstanding and less money and heartache to the client, the team and the bottom line. Changes may come along, but your whole project is one big moving target if it isn’t planned correctly to begin with.
( That is putting it nicely)

So instead of groaning when the Project Manager wants to talk about the nuts and bolts of a project, next time rejoice that someone cares enough to want your project to be a success.

Over the past few years video has experienced rapid growth and adoption rates online.

Broadcasting networks continue to push more and more video content out on the web, large corporations use video to build their brand and, of course, videos on YouTube are viewed daily by millions.

But even with the growth of the past few years, for most industries online video is still in its infancy, which means big opportunity for businesses looking to differentiate themselves online.

Easy Ways for Your Business to Use Video on the Web

• Customer testimonials
• Online product demonstrations
• Video bios of employees
• Intro to the company or a product
• As a blog entry
• Facility overviews
• Viral/Buzz marketing
• and anything else you can dream up

If you’re interested in exploring how video can differentiate your business online, get in touch with us. We can help formulate a web video strategy and then execute the strategy to ensure its success.

I was asked the other day to walk a potential client through The Stone Content Management System which is based on a very popular open source CMS (Content Management System). If you are not sure what a CMS is, it is a tool that allows non-technical people to update the content, add/delete pages, add/delete images and many more things on their website through a user-friendly administrator tool.

As I was answering questions, the potential client told me that they had heard from another company that an Open Source CMS does not allow for a very flexible design and that if you wanted to have a nice design, the way to go is with a custom CMS. If you have ever taken a look at Stone’s Web Design Portfolio, you will know the answer to this. However, here are my two cents regarding that comment.

It doesn’t matter whether the CMS is custom or Open Source. If you know the system well enough (which Stone Interactive Group does) the design can look however you would like it to look. The second thing to consider is the designer themselves. Stone has a fantastic design team that produces wonderful results and the developers have been able to put every design thrown at them into this CMS.

The nice thing about Open Source is that you have an extremely large amount of team members that put time to keep the CMS up-to-date. If you ever need more help in the future with your website, you can go to many developers out there that may know the system and be able to pick it up quickly. The custom CMS projects that Stone has adopted from clients are typically very time consuming to understand and are typically out-of-date quickly and are not as easy to apply a redesign to.

So when you have the option to decide Custom VS Open Source, in my opinion, Open Source is the way to go and Stone is there to assist you along the way.

Have news: When you sit down to write a press release, ask yourself, “Is this really news? If you answer no, put the pen down or step away from the keyboard.

Get to the point: Remember those 5 W’s in school. Put them to use. Who, what, when, where and why. That’s it. You will be sending this to reporters who have deadlines and thus skim the release looking for answers to those questions and your contact info only…you’ll have about 5 seconds. Your boring, robotic quote will not be used; if they want a quote from you, they’ll call.

Ditch the buzz words: This is why people hate press releases, “green” “eco-friendly” “foreclosure”:toxic tomatoes”, don’t use these words if they have nothing to do with your company or you are a politician.

Grammatical and Spelling Errors: Proofread. Proofread. Proofread. Do not use all upper case…yes, even for the title. Do not rely on spellchecker. Do not go in the complete opposite direction and sound like an English Lit. major…no one likes a pompous press release.

Spam I Am: You’ve sent 10+ press releases of similar “news” to a media contact and nothing has come of it. You are blocked. Make one, I repeat one, attempt to contact said media representative and inquire as to what releases would be of interest and abide by their suggestions.

Yep that’s right, we’re on the hunt for a new Search Engine Marketing Specialist.

So, if you or someone you know are looking for an exciting new job and have some experience in search engine marketing (search engine optimization and/or pay-per-click) then we’d love to hear from you.

The more detailed job description can be found on our careers page as well as how best to get in touch with us.

As a side note, we’re also always on the lookout for interactive and web talent, so don’t be shy…if you’re looking then drop us a note, you never know what might come out of it.

In the SEO world there’s always A LOT of talk about links, and for the most part, rightfully so. Links continue to be a prime indicator of authority and relevance to search engines, which makes a proper link building strategy one of the pillars of a business’ search optimization success.

But its not all about links as David Mihm at blog, Mihmorandum, points out. In the blog post David keys in on Google’s local SEO algorithm and how links only seem to play a small part in determining relevance and instead, it is citations of your business that seem to truly drive high local search rankings.

Note: By “local search rankings” I’m referring to the placement ordering at http://maps.google.com when you click the “Find Businesses” link and type in the service that you offer and your location.

Ok, so what is a citation? A citation is simply a reference of your business on another website. At times these citations may be a link, but usually they are just a mention of your business name accompanied by your address and/or phone number. For the local rankings Google only seems to count citations on other local websites. Google is thinking that if other local websites are talking about your business then your business is more relevant than businesses that are not being talked about. A fairly basic concept, but quite eye-opening to see it actually in the works in Google’s local rankings.

I’m sure you can connect the dots from here, but for now it looks like increasing citations about your site from other local websites can make your business more visible in the local search engines. Easy places to start your quest might be your local chamber of commerce, local city guides (Yelp.com, Citysearch.com) and the Better Business Bureau.

Everyone knows that Google is the 800-pound gorilla amongst search engines, so much so that you’ll hear “google” being used as a verb in casual conversation. But even with Google’s search dominance there is still a significant portion of search activity happening on other engines.

According to Hitwise’s April 2008 search share numbers (see chart) Google has a firm grasp on the majority of search traffic with just over two-thirds of all searches being conducted on Google. However, their 67.9% share of searches also means that there are still 32.1% of searches happening somewhere else. From a search engine marketing standpoint this just means that it’s important to diversify your search engine marketing efforts across search engines.

At a minimum, at least target Google and Yahoo, combined they cover 88.18% of searches, and also cover a wider range of demographics since each engine tends to attract a different type of user. One other note, even though MSN and Ask.com have relatively low numbers, there still make be great ROI in targeting those engines, especially since many of your competitors will be ignoring them.

How unfair is this….
A prospective customer visits your website for the first time.
They notice that the site’s design feels a bit dated.
They notice that the website looks ’small’ on their monitor.
They notice that the copyright at the bottom of the page reads 2006.
And they recall that the last site they were on … your competitor … just seemed more professional.
Now, they’ve never met you.
They don’t know the high quality work that you provide.
They don’t know that your value is the best around.
They only know that your website left them feeling flat. Uninspired.
It’s not fair.
But it’s the way the world is working these days.
Your website truly is the hub for all of your marketing efforts.
Start there.

Where should my blog reside?
Most every time Stone sets up a client blog this question arises.
Should it be placed within the corporate website?
Should it be distanced from the corporate site?
Should it have its own look?
Domain name?
Should I use a service? Or software?
All good questions.

While action of most any sort is going to be more valuable than paralysis of analysis, the answers to these questions can most easily be answered by the business objectives associated with blogging in the first place.

A blog is one of the simplest ways to get fresh relevant content on a website and - from a search engine ranking perspective - having the blog reside within the same domain name and server can have a positive effect on SEO.

Many believe that a blog within a corporate site becomes a corporate blog … and, by definition, less edgy / interesting / genuine than a freestanding blog. The established corporate culture and reputation will affect the likelihood of that impression.

As far as using a blog service v. software, the services were originally setup to make it easy for everyone and anyone to blog. If you maintain a corporate site, it’s a safe bet to move forward with one of the open source blog software packages. Some of the popular blog packages have morphed into mini CMS platforms, complete with a list of 3rd party components. But all of them will include the expected list of features.

So when deciding where your blog should be located, ask yourself:
1. Are we doing this to improve search engine rankings? (within the site)
2. Are we doing this to position the organization as a thought leader? (within the site) Or are we doing this to position an individual or group as a thought leader? (separate location, design, name)
3. Are we doing this because top management won’t redesign the site and it’s fallen woefully behind the times? (whatever’s fastest)

We’re all “in” the business world. We have to deal with those silly little business world sayings. You know them … C-level … 30,000 ft view … I’ll stop there.

One saying, though, that gives me a physical reaction is ‘you know how it goes, the shoemaker’s kids have no shoes’.

Yes, I know how it goes. We all know how it goes. And we know all of the reasons for these analogous youngsters to be walking around barefoot.

I submit the following. Make your kids some shoes. The best you know how. That way everyone out there see these shoes on the shoemaker’s kids … and they get envious. They’ll dream about such shoes. Make them walk up to your shop and plead with you to sell them such a beautiful pair.

Don’t you think making those shoes would be time well spent?

Although recent media coverage within the online marketing space has been largely focused on Microsoft’s bid for Yahoo, an interesting effect of the bid has somewhat slipped under the radar. in an effort to fend off Microsoft’s bid Yahoo has begun seeking other strategic alternatives, one of which has been a test of outsourcing their paid search inventory to Google.

In fact, the test has already begun and, according the Wall Street Journal, initial results of the test have been positive from both Google and Yahoo’s perspective. The two parties will be continuing testing in the near future and then a longer term partnership may be on the horizon.

So what does a potential partnership between Google and Yahoo for the online marketer?

Well, first, if Yahoo does at some point transition their text advertising over to Google then there is tremendous upside to current AdWords customers with well-optimized accounts. The addition of Yahoo search sites to the AdWords network would immediately boost the number of people seeing their ads by around 20%.

Additionally, continued optimization efforts could solely be focus on a single account (AdWords) rather than needing to deal with two accounts and the nuances between the two. The only caveat to this would be that AdWords competition would surely become even more intense and only those with the expertise and budget will be able to truly reap any sustained benefits.

Discussion on the topic may be premature since a partnership would surely be subjected to scrutiny for anti-trust issues by the Justice Department, but it is worth keeping an eye on and definitely worth putting in a little effort on improving your AdWords account sooner than later.

Just this week we uncovered some eye-opening data on the value associated with orienting a user when they first arrive on a website. The data came from a recently signed client of ours. Their site, at the time, was buying pay-per-click traffic sent to internal pages, but these internal pages did little in the way of orienting a user. In an effort to do a better job of letting the user know that they had arrived at the right spot we added just a few simple elements to the landing pages.

First, and most importantly, we added a descriptive headline that closely (if not exactly) matched the PPC ads that the visitors were coming from. Second, we added a product picture that closely matched the PPC ads and finally we added a simple call-to-action that said something along the lines of “Browse our Product Selection.”

Nothing fancy at all, just enough information to assure visitors that they were in fact visiting the right website for what they’re looking for.

So what was the result of the changes?

Implementing the changes:

• Increased the number of product pages that visitors view by over 80%
• Increased the amount of time that visitors spend browsing the site by over 111%
• Reduced the number of visitors that leave before viewing any products by 37%

In total, those are great numbers for just a few quick changes to the internal pages of a site. Growing transactions on a site first requires building trust with visitors. Orienting site visitors is a simple yet powerful first step to build that level of trust.

The ultimate goal for most websites should be to have content that draws in potential customers and to get these potential customers to contact you for more information or some other call-to-action.

But how do you get potential customers to first come to your site and second to contact you?

There are some basics that will help. A quality website design, clear navigation and functionality, outstanding content and images, etc… But these are only the basics of a good website. Even with the basics in place, many sites miss the ultimate goal of having the user fill out a form, order a product or contact the company in another way. This goal is called the “Call-to-Action”. To be successful online, usually you don’t want to just use a call-to-action once on your site, but rather use them throughout your site.

Here are a few quick ideas on adding calls-to-action that you can easily add to your website:

1. Add your contact information on every page of the website.
   Some websites bury their “Contact Us” link. First, add a contact us link to your main and footer navigation. Second, add your phone number and address somewhere visible and consistent on every page. An example would be to add it to the footer or header of the website on every page.
2. Direct your potential customer to where you think they should go next.
   Don’t assume that the users on your site know what information they need next. At the bottom of the content area, add text and a link that would take them to the next step in the process. Don’t make them think. Make it obvious where they should go. You might add a link like this “Now that you have a better idea of the clients that we have worked with, learn more about what you can expect from our services.”
3. Add a “mini” contact form to every page of your website.
   You wouldn’t believe how many people actually fill out a mini form. This should be something that is small and doesn’t require a lot of thought or time from the user. The form might include the following fields: name, email and phone.
4. Capture visitor’s names and email addresses in other ways.
   There are a couple other ways to get a potential customer to offer up their name and email address. Offer articles or white papers on your site. For a user to be able to download these articles or white papers, they have to first fill out a simple form. Also offer an eNewsletter with new articles that may be published on your site at a later time. eNewsletters are a great way to get potential customers more information about your services and provide current customers with new services and information.

Give a few of these a shot on your site and you’ll be surprised at how conversions pick up…

If you don’t quite get what a blog is, how they work, or what their purpose is…here’s a quick video that should help explain a lot:

The video is a part of Common Craft’s Plain English series, breaks down complex Internet topics into simple explainations.

Social media as defined by Wikipedia is “any communications format where the users publish the content.” A simple definition, but not as simple of a process, especially for small businesses where time and resources are at a premium. To simplify the social media landscape just a bit, here are 9 simple ways for small businesses to leverage social media:

1. Have a Voice – The first step for any small business looking to tap into social media is to have a blog. A blog acts as your business’ voice on the Internet. It should be a place where employees can share thoughts, tips, news and anything else with the general public. Any business interested in starting a blog should give Wordpress a look first. MovableType is another worthy option.

2. Speak Up – In addition to running a blog, small businesses should actively be conversing on other industry blogs. The more conversations that your small business can be a part of, the better. If you’re not sure where to start just Google search for some industry-related phrase and the word ‘blog’…you’ll find at least a few.

3. Stumble and Digg for Blog Fodder – The easiest way to keep fresh content in your company’s blog is to find recent news stories in your industry and comment on them. StumbleUpon and Digg are both fantastic resources for finding stories that people are talking about. Pick a story and throw your hat in the ring…

4. Build Your Online Network – LinkedIn is the MySpace of the business world. Encourage employees to create profiles and invite clients to join their networks. Over time your company will build a substantial online presence and open up tons of new channels for client acquisition and finding new hires (see #7 for more on this). Depending on your business’ product or service, MySpace and Facebook may also make sense for online networking, but LinkedIn will provide the most benefit.

5. Answer Customer’s Questions – There’s no need to wait for a customer to approach you in order to answer their questions. Sites like Yahoo Answers, WikiAnswers and 43 Things are filled with people looking for help, you just need to give them what they want…

6. Prove that You Are an Authority – Show off your business’ expertise in your field by creating high-quality, authoritative articles on sites like Wikipedia, Work.com and eHow.com. Not only will you be gaining exposure on other websites but you’ll also build a reputation as an authority in your field.

7. Find the Right Employees – The social web has opened the doors for communicating and finding new hires. Jobster, for example, takes the standard job search model (think Monster.com) and adds social aspects to beef up the overall job search experience. On the other end of the spectrum, Craigslist allows companies to add free, no frills job postings in a local market.

8. Create New Flavors of Content – The runaway success of YouTube and Flickr has created a tremendous opportunity for small businesses to show off their product offerings in new forms of media, namely videos and photos. Leveraging these two forms of media often requires a great deal of creativity, but also can have a big payoff.

9. Get Reviewed – If your current customers love you then you might as well let them tell your potential customers about their experience. Yelp, Yahoo Local and Google Local are your best bets for sites where people freely review and search for businesses.

For now those are probably the 9 easiest ways for small businesses to tap into social media but it seems like every day there’s a new idea out there so keep your eyes open for opportunities.

We had a new Professional Web Management client in the office yesterday for a kickoff meeting.  It’s an exciting business model with an exciting site.  Most exciting, though, was perhaps something they said at the conference table.  Something that all of our clients should be interested in.

While discussing website traffic and search engine rankings, the following was said … “A few years ago, our site was not found at all on Google or Yahoo.  We started blogging.  And now we’re on the first page of Google for two of the most important search phrases.  We force ourselves to blog almost every day.  It’s not easy, but for us blogging is like ‘turning on the lights in the store’.  Blogging results in good search rankings … and that leads to traffic and sales.”

Great to hear.

Its hard to pick up a business magazine and not see something about blogs. But what are the real advantages (and disadvantages) for a company to consider before deciding whether or not blogging is for them?

1. Visibility - Blogs are one of the simplest, most-effective means for adding new content to a website. Even if your company writes a blog post once a month, that’s 12 new pages of content that search engines can find. Bumping up the schedule to a weekly blog post would mean 52 high-quality, on-topic content pages added to your site per year. On top of the new content, search engines tend to favor websites that pro-actively add new and unique content to their site. And a blog does just that.
2. Credibility - Done properly, a blog can be a huge boost to your company’s credibility. Writing honest, thoughtful feedback on recent industry issues and news presents your company as an authority within the industry. By communicating the value of your company’s thoughts in your blog, you also are communicating the value of your products and services to your customers.
3. Conversation - Blogs inherently foster conversation with their conversational tone and frequent updates. In essence, your company is beginning a conversation with each blog post that you write. Then (hopefully) readers comment on the posts and the conversation begins. Creating this sort of natural exchange of thoughts and ideas with you customers is a rare opportunity to begin the conversation without needed to “sell” anything. Just let the conversation start…sales tend to follow.

On the flip side, the only real disadvantage to having a company blog is that it takes a great deal of time and effort. However, if you can’t find time to market your business then you probably won’t have a business for long, so get blogging.

Let’s take a moment to debunk the myth that META tags are important for search rankings. Once upon a time it was true and somehow entered the public’s consciousness, but they no longer have a significant impact on search rankings. Let take a deeper look…

When speaking of META tags there are primarily two that search optimization conversations are focused on: the keywords tag and the description tag.

Keywords Tag

In the mid-1990s the keywords tag was crucial to good search engine rankings. With the keywords meta tag, search engines were allowing website owners to specify which keywords their page was about. This led to widespread abuse and misuse of the keywords tag, which has led to much, much less importance of the tag on search rankings.

While there is no harm in setting up the keywords tag, there also is little to be gained. If any SEO firm or SEO “professional” tells you otherwise, turn and walk away.

Description Tag

In the same way that the keywords tag has been abused, the description tag has suffered a similar fate. Search engines just don’t weigh it heavily, if at all, any longer.

However, it is crucial to realize that the description tag is extremely important for getting people to click-through to your site from the search engine results. Few people outside of the Internet marketing community truly realize and take advantage of this.

Let’s have a look…

If you search on Google, you’ll notice that each result displayed has a blue line of text that also is the link, followed by two lines of text that are plucked straight from the description tag.

For example, if you search “stone ig” (our company name) in Google the results will look something like:

Then a quick look at our homepage’s source code reveals:

<meta name=”description” content=”Stone Interactive Group - Ann Arbor, Michigan based Professional Web Design, Development, Search Engine Optimization and Online Marketing Services Company” >

The exact text from the page’s description tag appears in the search results.

By all means use this to your advantage and craft a description that speaks to what type of searchers you are looking for. By creating a description that stands out from your competitors you can very simply create a competitive advantage in search results.

Speaking of which…I think our site could use a description makeover.

In case you missed it, there was an <a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03google.html”>interesting article</a> in Sunday’s New York Times by Times reporter Saul Hansell who was recently granted access to one of the Google search quality team meetings. While a large part of what Saul heard was strictly off-the-record, there were some interesting revelations about the methods that Google uses to improve the quality of their search results.

Without getting into too much detail, a quick read-through of the article makes very clear that providing the most relevant and unique search results possible continues to be Google’s primary focus. Hansell revealed that Google’s search quality engineers make around a “half-dozen major and minor changes a week” to the search algorithm. These tweaks allow Google to make changes on an as-needed basis. Whenever an engineer detects that the results are skewed, a change is made, tested and the results improve.

The article also uncovers the Google ranking algorithm’s increasing complexity. Amit Singhal, Google’s search ranking manager, mentioned that the algorithm currently uses over 200 informational signals to determine how web pages should rank.  Some of the information is taken directly from web pages (text, images, links) while other information analyzes statistical trends to try to understand what exactly a search may be looking for. In total, the continuous quality improvements to Google’s search algorithm are exactly why Google is the most used search engine on the Internet.

The tweaks, informational signals and other topics from the article provide rare insight into the future of search engine optimization. In fact, without explicitly saying it, the article does point out that the single most important factor in search engine optimization. Providing unique and relevant content on your website.

Google’s search engineers are constantly tweaking and refining their software to find the best content for a particular search. If you aren’t actively creating some of the best content for your website’s topic then you aren’t optimizing for what Google is looking for.  After all, if you want your website to be found, you’ve got to make your site worth being found first.