Professional Website Design

So, now we have a more professional design, which will greatly improve how I am viewed as a professional. What is funny is that I could still be anyone, with no credentials (I do have credentials) but the impression now gotten is drastically improved.

For anyone who didn't see the previous design, here is the design right before this one:







Compared to the new one:

Professional website

I am the first to admit and tell you that my website's current incarnation isn't that professional. In fact it needs some major work (working on that).

The question is, how do you get a professional website look without spending gobs of money?

The easiest thing to do is find a website template that you can purchase for about $50 without any changes and put it up (I recommend you do spend a little bit of money on one, those free ones are still pretty cheezy).

Of course then you might run into the problem I hit, I didn't find a single thing I liked.

My suggestion, instead of doing what I did, pick one. Just pick one and suffer through it until you do have some money to spend. Eventually you will have something to spend on it and you can probably get something decent whipped up for $400 to $500.

Having a professional looking website, will definitely do wonders for your reputation.

Companies Must Watch Their Reputation

It is important that companies monitor what is said about them on the Internet.

There are two things they have to be aware of:

1) What customers are saying, including any possible upset customers
2) What employees are saying

For the first, it is important to be on the social networks so that you can respond to anyone who has had a bad experience with you or your product. You can offer to fix the problem or some other discount and this will ultimately be great for your reputation.

For the latter, you should make sure that your employees aren't giving away any secrets as well as monitor any disgruntle employees. These can be handled internally within your company, but your policy and handling must include the fact that social networking exists and people are allowed to say what they want.

It is a fine line and hard to work out, but we can help recommend policies to put in place (which should be reviewed by a lawyer as well).

Supporting a Charity

There are so many awesome charities out there to support that you really just have to pick one.

When you do, make sure that you make it widely known that you are. Some things you can do (which will help with your standing):

Create an account on the website of the charity

Find a related blog and offer to do a post about the charity for them (with a by line for yourself)

Publicize the charity on any charity social networks (if they are already there, join in the fun). Some sample charity hubs: http://www.change.org/ and http://www.causecast.org/

In other words, really support the charity and help them reach their mission, don't just give $5 and walk away.

This will help you but more importantly, help them.

Happy Halloween

Hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween.

The only thing I would pipe in about is don't do anything you don't want to show up on the search engines the following day.

This is the best way to avoid embarrassing things showing up on the search engines.

If you must make a foul of yourself, at least you were warned.

Google Changes

So if you have been using social networks only to try and push out any unwanted listings you might have found you lost some results recently.

That is because Google seems to have done a little change that really only effected people do that sort of thing. A few of the social networks lost some of their power and authority.

Now it wasn't much but if you had an article on a newspaper that you didn't want to see it might be coming back (or something similar).

One of the best remedies is to put out some optimized press releases on a web wire service with links to what you do want to show up.

What this change really shows is, you need to have several strategies in place and make sure they are all being maintained so you keep up any changes.