Vitamin has done it again with yet another article that hits the mark. Paul Boag writes,

"The reason we find ourselves in conflict with our clients is because we make little or no effort to either understand their �??culture�?? or �??speak their language�??. If we wish to convince them of the value of accessibility, standards or any other best practice technique, we need to learn to present it in a language they can relate to."

I know for a fact that I have been guilty of this on more than one occasion and of the solution has always been to stand in my client's shoes briefly to gain perspective on their point of view.

The article is written more for the benefit of designers than for their business owner clients, but the value of the content runs both ways. If you're a web designer, Boag's article sheds light on the differences between the way you look at a project and the way your client views it. If you're a business owner attempting to communicate with and understand your web designer I think you'll find that the article will help you understand a little better how he or she thinks.

Virginia DeBolt has a great post on Vitamin that covers not only why your site should be viewable and easily navigable in mobile devices and PDAs, but how to go about making it so. The online world is being accessed more and more from mobile devices. If your web site is not easy to navigate or does not display correctly in these devices, you are counting out what could be a healthy chunk of your audience. This article is definitely worth the read.

I am receiving lots of questions from clients about starting a blog. As more and more of you are getting your blogs underway, there are inevitably aspects to this that are new to you. Some of it is new to me too! As I come across articles and resources that are helpful, I'll post them here.

The Wrong Advices has a great post about Why Do Blogs Fail? It's actually more focused on how you should approach blogging. Dan lists 10 crucial things you should be aware of, centering around the attitude and effort you bring to the blogging table.

I would only add:

• Write down in one or two sentences the answer to these two questions: What is your blog's intent? and Who is your targeted audience? It's extremely easy to get off track with your blog. Keep this "mission statement" nearby so that you can re-focus when you find yourself wandering off your track.
• Make sure you are blogging about something you are passionate about. You can't fake it. If you don't love what you're writing about, it will show, and your blog is destined to fade into obscurity.

If you have anything to add, please feel free to comment.

I hate it. I really do. SEO is 180 degrees in the opposite direction from what I am passionate about. Oh, don't get me wrong, I love traffic. I love e-mail inquiries slamming my inbox from the contact form on my business site. I love to hear the phone ringing. I even love to answer questions from existing clients using up un-billable time, just keeping the relationship going. But the process of traditional SEO is excruciating for me. The thought of sending an e-mail asking for a reciprocal link makes me want to scream.

So I quit! I'm not doing it any more. And I'm not hiring someone else to do it for me. I'm changing the entire way that my business is presented on my web site. Here's why:

I am happiest when I'm designing. That's what I do best. Incorporating the goals of my customer's business into an elegant, simple and useable design is a process that I lose myself in. I forget to eat lunch. 

I also love to communicate with people. I'm one of those guys who can spend an hour on the phone talking about "stuff" without even thinking about it.  If we're talking about web site or blog design, I can talk for much longer. So what does a designer do with a new business web site that has a page rank of 2 (otherwise known as Google's basement)? Start a conversation.

The more I read about Social Media Optimization through blogging, the more it seems like a no-brainer. Here's what I've learned:

Imagine promoting your web site by simply talking (writing) about what you're passionate about? And, it gets better. People with common interests or needs can post comments to your blog thus starting a conversation. As the conversation grows, so does the optimization, and so does the reach of your web site. It can't help but grow.

The optimization grows in several ways: First, when someone posts a comment, it usually includes a link to their web site or blog. This is also true of comments you post on other blogs- each comment includes another link. As blog owners take notice of your content, links will appear in the form of references to posts on your blog. Google loves blogs!  

The social aspect of the optimization also grows. Relationships in business mean contacts and referrals. Relationships built by blogging can come from places you never thought about. The process of reading, commenting, and posting about your passion is much more pleasant than trying to come up with a way to use "Best Blue Widgets" several times in the sales text on a page (even if you're passionate about blue widgets).

There are lot's of ways that a blog can help you grow your business, including gaining exposure for your web site. I'll be exploring them as this series continues...

I will be posting an on-going discussion on How Blogging can help you promote your business and your web site. There will be no set schedule for this series, rather posts will go up as I have them available. At some point, they will likely end up being compiled into a longer, more formal article.

I will be following a distinctly diferent approach to the content on my web site in the near future. I have had good success with traditional search engine optimization techniques on my original web site, jackwheeler.com. This was the business site for my Chicago Web Design business. After moving to Oregon, I chose to keep the site up as I was still drawing business in Chicago. The site you are viewing is targeted to the Eugene and Portland Oregon web design market. Using similar SEO techniques has seen marginal success.

I will be moving to a Social Media Optimization approach to marketing the site and my business. The results should be an interesting experiment to see how well this approach works. ¡Viva la conversación!

The first of these posts is next: Why I Hate Search Engine Optimization.

Kudos to Lorelle On Wordpress for noting the Inc.com article The Top 10 Things You Should Know Before You Blog. Good points and I like Lorelle's additional 10, specifically:

Everyone has an opinion - make yours count with facts, references, and validity.

and

Content, content, content, content, links, content, links, content, content, content, content.

The original article is not brand new, but it still rings very true today. Having a clear idea of what you are trying to accomplish with your blog will keep you on task. Blogging without a plan is fine for a personal diary or family site, but if you are blogging to enhance your business, a focused vision will help you avoid wasting precious time in areas that are unproductive.

Here is a list from The Wrong Advices that most of you should find really helpful.  16 Must Read Articles For Bloggers. There are some heavy hitting bloggers in the list and each of these articles are worth the read.

Over the past several weeks I've been reading everything I can get my mouse on about blogging. There are thousands of blog posts containing lists of  reasons why business owners should have a blog. Most of them mention that blogging about what you know will establish you as an expert in your field. This brings up an important question: Should you write from the point of view of an "expert", or should you write about your experiences as you go through the learning process?

Writing for the Chitika Blog Bash, Wendy Piersall from eMoms At Home writes,

"Many great blogs are �??learning�?? blogs �?? the author writes about what they are learning rather than what they already know. But whatever you write about, it�??s important to have real-life experience behind your posts. Hollow writing makes for a hollow readership."

One of the things I've learned in my reading is that one of the most compelling reasons for a business owner to have a blog is to create a community where real conversations can take place between the business owner and her customers. A blog can bridge the communication gap that often exists with a more traditional static web site alone. If you decide to start a blog to create a more personal relationship with your readers, then (like any relationship) honesty must be foremost on the list of what to bring.

With that in mind, it makes the most sense to me to throw away the mantle of "All Knowing Expert" and don the more comfortable "Guy who is taking the time to learn about web technology and sharing this acquired knowledge with his customers" one. Hopefully by sharing my experiences as I go, I can shed some light for those who are trying to promote their small business web sites.

"Designers, developers, project managers. Writers and editors. Information architects and usability specialists. People who make websites have been at it for more than a dozen years, yet almost nothing is known, statistically, about our profession. Who are we? Where do we live? What are our titles, our skills, our educational backgrounds? Where and with whom do we work? What do we earn? What do we value?

It�??s time we learned the answers to these and other questions about web design..."

Another great resource for helping you deal with content theft is Jonathan Bailey's Plagiarism Today.  Jonathon is not a lawyer, but offers great advice and a simple guide to approaching thieves and getting stolen content removed with the least amount of hassle, the goal being to get you back to your business as quickly as possible.

I'm in the process of launching a new (and long overdue) design site for my Oregon business. Blue Hat Design is the new moniker and it will serve as a blanket site for all of my web design business. The old site, JackWheeler.com will remain operable since I am still serving Chicago web design customers.

Writing copy is the biggest barrier for me. Good sales text is never easy to create and the difficulty is compounded by the need to be aware of SEO considerations. The first step for me was to do some Google searching for web design firms in other major cities and find out how others are currently presenting themselves. I randomly chose Atlanta and did a search for "atlanta web design". The third site I opened gave me a BIG surprise. Much of the content on the home page was identical, word for word to the content on my long-in-the-tooth Chicago web design page at http://www.jackwheeler.com! I was stunned to say the least.

My first thought was Gosh! I didn't think my old sales text was of such a high quality that someone would actually steal it. Then I started to get angry. It's the epitome of laziness to steal someone else's hard work. I mean, how much more effort would it take to keep the general idea, but change things around a bit and clean it up with a couple of original thoughts?

A little bit of research and asking around brought me to Copyscape.com. These folks offer a free app on their site in which you enter a URL and it will tell you up to ten other pages with identical content. How could I resist? I popped in my URL and lo! There were 5 other URLs besides the site in Atlanta! Now I was truly stunned. A total of 6 other web designers including one quite near Chicago had the same text copy copied directly from my web site. Maybe I should go into the copy writing business. I've always thought that was a weak link in my skill-set.

One of the sites had been recently updated and had my text removed. I sent polite but firm e-mails to the webmasters of the other sites and three of them responded immediately. Two said that they had hired others to write their copy for them. The third was confused and had thought that she had written all of the text on the home page and therefore couldn't have stolen it, but she couldn't be sure that she didn't have some help from others working on the site at the time. All three of them were polite and offered to remove the offending copy right away.

It's an interesting scenario and it brings up some questions regarding duplicate content. One being, "Do the major search engines penalize you for hosting duplicate content?". I will be looking into that and other aspects of content theft and/or reprinting as I move forward since along side my own writing,  I'm considering hosting some articles that are freely distributed around the Internet. I believe the usefulness of the content will out-weigh any possible SEO penalties. We shall see.

In the concept for the BlueHat Design web site, I decided to avoid using tables for any part of the layout. My goal was standards-based, validated markup accompanied by a style sheet that would handle all of the layout tasks. Really, this should be the goal for any professional web site. Accessability is important and if your site is not readable on your next customer's Blackberry, you could be missing out. Also important is accessability for visually impaired users.

The search for a good three-column layout approach that would hold up in most browsers was not a simple task. I had several false starts before settling on the version used for the main page. I chose not to re-invent the wheel and use a template as a starting point. The one that I finally settled on is from Alex Robinson's Five Easy Companion Pieces. This is one of many options listed here: ThreeColumnLayouts (home of the css-discuss mailing list). I added quite a bit to the template including a wrapper for the content that includes a background image for the left and right borders along with the left column background color. This all could be done without the images, but both the markup and the style sheet were less complicated this way. I've done some fairly extensive testing, and I find the layout works pretty well across the board with the exception of some quirks in Opera 7, Opera 3 and of course, Netscape 4. I drew the line there. If you find bugs, please comment and let me know what browser you're using.