Ending the year can be very encouraging for some. For others it is proof of a goal not reached. Whatever situation you find yourself in be encouraged that with new goals and some planning you can make 2009 a very successful year.

Yesterday I printed off my monthly sales for 2007 and 2008 and compared the two. It was interesting to see the trends that had developed. For example March, November, and December have been slow months for the past 2 years. However the months following are generally better than others. What I can learn from this is that when times are slow we crank up the marketing machine and get busy looking for work. We react to the problem The goal for 2009 is to plan in advance for those slow times by increasing marketing and networking efforts in advance to correct the coming slow down in business. Another trend that I have noticed is that a decrease in business generally follows our busiest months. This could be attributed to the lack of time spent on marketing when business is booming.

You may or may not be able to relate but chances are that the majority of us are in this boat together. Most people get their act together and start looking for work when they have had a slow down. Why not instead plan for those slow times and be proactive. The problem is that we never have the time to spend on marketing until we have nothing else to do. The reason we have nothing else to do is because we didn’t spend time marketing. It is a viscous cycle.

So the plan is this. Send out a monthly e-newsletter. The newsletter will provide consistent marketing throughout the year. In months before a historic slow down spend time calling potential clients and sending out direct mail. Also look for speaking opportunities at local chambers and other networking opportunities. Call past clients and look for new opportunities with them.

Rush Design Group can provide a email marketing solution as well as consult with you on the use of direct mail to target specific business opportunities. We can’t speak or network for you but we can insure your design materials look great. So good luck in the new year and make a plan now to have your most successful year to date. We look forward to working with you.

As you may remember on Nov.22 I decided to conduct an SEO experiment of sorts. The goal was to motivate my self to blog, network online, and increase my Search Engine Results. The Experiment has gone very well and I have enjoyed the process. I will continue to blog and network because I have seen such great results. I hope that the results will encourage you to do the same. So with out further delay here are the results in comparison to the starting stats.

Beginning Stats - Current Stats as of today.

Google Rank

graphic design Nashville - p 13 - p 3

logo design Nashville - p 5 p2 new blog www.logodesignnashville.com p 1 second spot

print design Nashville - p 9 p4 with no additional optimization for that Keyword phrase

branding design Nashville - p 2 p1 first spot WOW!

brand design Nashville - p 9 p2 new blog www.logodesignnashville p1 forth spot

Rush Design Group traffic last month 166 - 242 since Nov.22nd

Rush Design Blog Last month 84 - 769 since Nov.22nd

Also during this experiment www.rushdesigngroup.com/blog received a 1 page rank.

Thank you for reading I hope that you have found this SEO work interesting. Please continue to read. There will be few post between now and the new year but I will throw out a tweet is something goes up.

Here is a casual video of why you should be reading this blog on a regular basis. I hope the bandage on my pinky is not distracting. I whacked it in a cheese slicer accident. Do not worry I am left handed and can still deliver great design.

Dutch Cheese is my Favorite.

Today’s post is brought to us by Jeff Howard. Jeff works independently out of Catch Search Marketing. His client base includes local small business, B2B and large B2C consumer driven websites. Jeff can be reached best via e-mail. He also blogs about search marketing. I asked Jeff to answer a few questions on keyword research. His answers are below and I’d also like to point out if you are totally new to SEO, or just keyword research he has recorded a 4 part video series on search marketing.

Q: What role does keyword research play in SEO?
A: I think of keyword research as similar to choosing a storefront sign. For instance, if your a printing company owned by a guy named Dean then usually you choose something like “Dean’s Printing.” That is straight forward stuff and in the real world you only have one store front sign. This isn’t true on the web, on the web you have many pages and because search engines can rank each page ultimately you can choose a number of keywords to represent your business online.

Q: How many keywords should I focus on? and do phrases count as keywords?
A: A keyword usually is described as one word, while a phrase is a group of keywords. For example, a keyword phrase would be “Search Marketing Services.” Clearly, this phrase is made up of many keywords. The number of phrases you choose is based on a number of factors.
1) The size of your website
2) The amount of time you can devote to SEO
3) How well your website’s structure is built for SEO.

Q: How do I decide what keywords are best for my business?
A: Keywords should be chosen on a number of factors, and this is where it gets tricky. Probably the up most rule is to choose keywords based on relevance to the content on your website. If your Michael Bluth and run a banana stand, typically your keywords need to reflect exactly what it is you do. For example “Frozen Bananas in Santa Monica.” Its also important to avoid choosing keywords that are too broad. For example, the Bluth’s would not want to optimize a site for just “bananas.” There will be way to much competition for this keyword and they will be buried in the SERP’s forever. There are just so many factors that go into this step of SEO, its difficult to answer. I’ve found this PDF from polepositionmarketing.com that explains keyword research very well

Q: How do I know if my keywords are working
A: The best way to know if your keywords are working is to track your search engine referrals using most any analytics packages. Google Analytics is free, used by a lot of folks and will make it easy for you to find out what keywords people are using to find your website.

Q: Do keywords effect my Pagerank with Google
A: What keywords you target will not afftect your Pagerank. Pagerank is a metric that is suppose to show the value of the links pointing to your site. I personally believe Pagerank is a near meaningless metric, unfortunately it has popular appeal. PageRank is helpful to get an idea as the age and backlink profile of a website. Here is why I see PageRank as meaningless. Lets say your website gets 100 search engine referrals from 10 different keywords a month. You also know 5% of these visitors contact you for business, and 2% actually buy something. Do you care what your pagerank is? Its cool and fun to have a high pagerank, but thats the extent. I’d rather have a website working for my business with no PageRank than one not working with a PageRank of 10.

I hope these answers help provide a starting point for keyword research, its certainly one element of SEO that takes time to learn, perfect and manage. I’d like to point out, Google provides a very good keyword research tool for free. Finally, if your looking for a short primer about how to begin keyword research check out the video my website by clicking play below.

It is true. You can have a successful business without a logo. I run into businesses on occasion that basically have no branding and no logo. They have there name in some standard font on a sign but they really don’t have a logo or a brand. They have been in business for longer than I have been alive and are making good money doing whatever they do. So here I come ,mister logo designer, trying to sale them a logo or a brand or anything resembling a marketing effort. Their response usually goes like this. Well buddy our owner Jim started this business 50+ years ago and we rely on word of mouth and good customer service. “Two-thirds of new employer establishments survive at least two years, 44 percent survive at least four years, and 31 percent survive at least seven years, according to a recent study.” from sba.gov. If this is true than this business is unique to start with. To be in business for so long means they are doing a lot of things right. Generally after closer evaluation a few things are found to be true.

1. The business Owner is the back bone of the business and brings in the majority of revenue through personal contacts and long standing relationships.

Problem: If the owner dies. The relationships may also. Or if the person the owner has the relationship with moves to another company. The business will likely suffer. Because there is no brand in place the value dies with the relationship. If the value is in the brand then the new owner will likely continue the service that the brand represents. One other potential problem with this scenario is that if the business should decide to sale while things are good the owner will likely need to stay on to see the business through the transition. With so much of the value in the person and not in the brand the business will be valued less to potential buyers. Example if you were buying Coke. Would you want to own the drink or the name? If you could Only pick one you would probably pick the name because it is recognized world wide.

2.The company was able to carve out a niche early on and have not seen significant competition.

Problem: When competition comes, and it will, You don’t want to start a brand or marketing campaign to tell your clients about the value you bring. You want to have that in place before. Be assured that the competition will have all there ducks in a row. They will tell your customers all the things you should have been telling them coupled with a great price. It may not take much to persuade them to leave.

3.The Company has large clients that generate consistent business.

Problem: If one of those clients leaves you will have wished a strong brand had been in place so that when your new sales guy goes out people will have heard of and recognize the value in your brand. You will not need to take the time convincing them that you know what your doing you will just have to make the sale based on offering what they need at the right price.

So if you are a business that has enjoyed success, take the necessary steps to ensure your companies value and develop a professional image with a logo that customers can associate your quality with.

This video covers a few reasons why it is not wise to start a business with just business cards and no logo. A well designed logo will make your company look professional and set your business up for success. To find out more about logos read some related categories or Contact Rush Design Group.

Why should SEO guy be in on the creative brief?

I am a logo designer. Who recently has decided to educate myself as much as possible about SEO. After diving into the world of SEO I have found that it is much more complicated than I would have imagined. Granted there are some basic things that everyone can do to help their situation. The vision in my head of an SEO guy was much like the PC guy in the mac commercials. I, of course, use a mac, so by default I get to be the mac guy. This is probably not an accurate stereo type but lets just go with it. You can tell me how off base I am in the comments. But I digress. That has nothing to do with the point.

Common Ground between SEO guy and Logo guy.

The point is that I see some common ground between the logo designer and the seo guy. ( not quite sure what to call them yet). Anyway as a logo designer I focus on the client. Who they are, who they want to be, what there goals are, how they plan to get there. Many times not even worrying about the website yet because who knows if I will get that job anyway. We are just trying to get a logo done. We are just trying to get the positioning and the branding in place. But why wouldn’t I be thinking about how this logo, or brand, or position is going to play out on the web? Does it not make sense that I would bring an SEO expert in to the creative brief? Could an SEO expert not research the competition and tell me exactly what their goals are based on their links and keywords? With an SEO expert on the job we could forecast a plan to position the client for keywords or products that show the most opportunity for the client. If there is a gap in the competition why wouldn’t we position the client from the start to fill that gap. Why not start with the logo and make sure it is appropriate for the keywords we want to rank for. Further more clients in the logo process are open, more than any other time, to the idea of changing there name. Surely an SEO expert could make suggestions as to what domains would best fit the clients needs.

As for an SEO expert. I would imaging their main target is web design firms or web designers. I have never met an SEO expert that worked for a design studio other than a web design studio. Surely everyone can benefit from this knowledge. While there are plenty of Web design studios out there, there are many logo designers that transition the client from logo to print to web and need the help of an SEO expert. The help of an SEO expert would certainly bring value to the logo process.

In conclusion I think the future relationship between the logo designer and the SEO expert is promising. What do you think?

It is day 18 of the 30 day seo experiment.

The goal of the experiment is to:

1. Blog every work day
2. Sign up for as many social networks as possible
3. Read everyday about SEO ( Search Engine Optimization) Basically how to show up on Google.
4. Network with other bloggers and leave real comments

So far so good. I have noticed an increase in traffic as well as a better rank in search results. Throughout this experiment I have received some questions from clients and friends. Here are a few with some answers.

1. What is a blog? Surprisingly not everyone is familiar with blogs or how they work. Most blogs are focused on a specific topic and consist of one persons opinions on that topic. The blogger or blog owner writes on a regular basis about the topic that they want to be the expert on. The writing is generally casual and asks the readers to comment and share their opinions. The blogger can choose to approve those comments or delete them.
2. What is SEO? SEO stands for ( Search Engine Optimization). SEO is a lot of things and every post that is part of this experiment touches on different parts. But basically SEO is Optimizing your website to rank well on search engines for specific keywords.
3. What are Keywords? Keywords are the words that get typed into the search field on Google. You as the website owner decide what words you want to show up for. For example, Rush Design Group wants to show up for 3 basic Keywords or Key Phrases: logo design Nashville, graphic design Nashville, branding Nashville. So I make sure those words are on my site as much as possible.
4. Why do you keep spamming me? Sorry, I have been trying to promote my blog to everyone I know. Unfortunately not all of my clients, friends, and family like to hear from me everyday. What I have learned is that Facebook, Twitter ,and other social networks offer a passive form of contact I can say what I am doing with out demanding anyone read it. Emailing often may not be a good way to go if you want to promote your site. Although a Newsletter once a month has shown to be very productive.

I can’t believe how productive this experiment has been only 18 days in. I look forward to updating everyone on the final results. Leave a comment if you enjoy the post and if you are tired of hearing about it.

As part of the SEO experiment I have been spending way more time on the internet. I am getting started about 2hrs earlier in the morning now to do a little research, and then put up a post hopefully before you guys get to work and start looking on the internet for some non constructive activities. (This blog is educational and will grow your business. Just in case someone asks.)

While wandering the internet I have seen a lot about Twitter. Twitter is a site that lets you keep up with people by sending out short answers or questions. You can see an example of my “tweets” as they are called in the right column. As you can see they are short. The basic idea is that you get to see tweets from people that you want to follow, and the same is for people that follow you. On Twitter, a tweet is like your myspace or facebook status. It basically answers the question, “what are you doing?”

The useful thing about Twitter is that you can receive and make tweets with your cell phone or computer. While you are not required to use a cell it can be very convenient. As long as you have unlimited texting. Or if you have unlimited web you can log in to Twitters mobile site.

So why should you use it? Because SHAQ does. Do you need another reason? I know, I don’t care what SHAQ is up to but that is what is great. You can see what people are doing with out being all personal with them. If I send a request to be your friend on facebook ,and you only know me through a blog comment, that would be weird and stalker like. With Twitter I want you to follow me. I don’t care who you are. Really, follow me. Because if I break down on I65 I can send out a tweet and everyone I know will get it ,and merge left so they don’t hit me as they pass. Twitter is a combination of texting and instant messaging that lets you communicate through the phone and computer to everyone all at once.

Companies could use twitter to send out notices to out of office staff. Instead of texting everyone or using the old, slow, email. Or let customers know that you have a limited supply of that thing they want and you just put it on sale. Seriously though the CEO has hinted that tweet will become a money maker for corporations.  Whoever you are you could find a reason to set it up and try it out.If for no other reason sign up and save your companies name so that when you do get on the ban wagon it will still be available. So sign up and follow me on twitter.

Once you have signed up try this cool twitter wheel. It shows you how everyone is connected. Mine is pretty sad looking. But once you sign up to follow me, I will show you the updated wheel and hopefully it will be bigger. When you create your wheel it gives you a url. that is like this http://www.tweetwheel.com/rushdesign . Make yours and leave the address in the comments below so we can all see.

Other interesting notes about Twitter is that they were offered $500 million from facebook and said no. All this while Twitter has brought in little to no revenue. Although the CEO has said that that will change first quarter 2009.