Vox Fortis Communications

While I’d like to say I should kick Shane in the shins for giving me homework, I can’t. I’m still being a jackass with updating, so he’s giving me a reason to. It’s so easy to get utterly wrapped up in your business to the point it’s next to impossible to talk about it, and you find yourself staring at a blank screen, pretty sure you have nothing worthwhile to impart. Apparently, my strange habits have been deemed worthy of sharing, so it goes to tell you never can tell.
So, Shane’s asking a group of us to expose parts of our weird little worlds. We all have our quirks, and most of them probably don’t come through on electronic mediums like this. Without further ado, here’s a glance into my weird little world.

I can’t stand things that clang.

Let me clarify. Got a set of keys? Please. For the love of all things holy…do not jangle them. It literally makes my teeth hurt. A close runner up is silverware being clanged around. It’s my worst nightmare to be in a restaurant with a kid banging silverware together. My teeth feel like they’re getting the creepy crawlies. I have no idea where this comes from, it’s been that way for as long as I can remember.

Oh, and if you get the devilish look in your eye and do it on purpose, you’d better duck. Silverware does serve useful purposes other than giving me the heebie jeebies.

I will do 18 loads of laundry…and not put it away.

If anyone can explain this phenomenon to me, that’d be great. I start feeling nutty when there’s too much laundry piled up. Nothing makes me feel better than shoveling that stuff into the washer and getting it outta my sight. Then I drag my feet on the folding thing, but it’s still a necessary evil if I want to get through the other piles of laundry.

Then?

It sits in a neatly folded pile. Like, forever. I HATE putting it away. I have no clue why. My closet is nicely organized, but I cannot force myself to walk it from the pile on the trunk to the shelves in there. Rationally, it makes no sense whatsoever.

Then?

I get annoyed because it’s sitting there. So I start wearing what’s sitting out there to get rid of the pile. Months later when I actually look in my closet, I’m all, “Wow, I forgot about that shirt.”

Yeah. Wonder why.

My kitchen sink can gross me out.

There can be explosions of junk ALL OVER the countertop in the kitchen, but my eye will go right to the sink. To any weird little pieces of food stuck on the stainless steel. To any dark splash marks from the morning’s coffee that was dumped. To the ONE glass that might be sitting in there. Everything else fades away, and that’s all I see.

Consequently, I’ll wind up absolutely scouring the sink, and leaving the rest of the crap everywhere.

Don’t ask. I have no idea.

I am on the Most Wanted list for houseplant death.

I am absolutely horrific with indoor plants. I seem to do ok with the ones outside (which usually consequently fry in Virginia’s summer heat) but I should attend some kind of group therapy for what I impose on houseplants. They’ll be there, on a stand of some kind, and I’ll walk right by them. The poor things are probably falling out of their pot trying to wave me down. “Hey! YOU! Waitwaitwait! I’ll do it! I’ll jump.” And I breeze on by, oblivious to the leaf depletion that happens thanks to lack of water or a feline that gets the munchies.

So there you have it. I kill plants, I hate keys and silverware, I have an odd obsession with my kitchen sink, and no matter how many times I walk into my closet in a day, I refuse to take clean clothes in there.

Told you I was weird. Good news is, we all are.

Before we get to the second lesson in the puppy SEO series, I had an epiphany while I was traveling this past week about creature comforts.

I am pathetically addicted to electronics. Save for a novel of some sort, when I travel there are some items guaranteed to be in my carry-on bag (which won’t include anything liquid related thanks to the brain children of Homeland Security…I use expensive crap on my hair and already learned that lesson the hard way): ye olde Nintendo DS (with a copy of Yoshi’s Island or a Kirby title, since you’re curious about the levels of my immaturity), the iPod, and my laptop.

Of course, all of these things require electricity. And you know what? No friggin’ airline has the same way of providing power, if at all. I considered getting this, but then read up on the airline I was taking only to find out that basically….you get no power to your seat, fool. You will be confined to a 5-6 hour cross-country flight, sweating as your battery meters peters out to nothingness.

What does this have to do with anything, other than me being a high-maintenance nerd? I’ll tell you what.

Earlier in the week I met with a new group that has presented a really awesome partnership opportunity for me. Ironically, the president and I are alums from the same company, though at different times. He’s refreshingly together (you deal with enough business owners who have no clue what’s going on or what they want, and you appreciate the ones who have their act together) but at one point he said something like, “I’m sorry, I know I’m structured, it’s left over from corporate America.”

I never expect clients to do anything differently than what they’re comfortable with. It’s the creature comfort factor. Maybe I’m a flexible person by nature, but I’ve heard some horror stories come from clients about freelancers they’ve worked with. Yes, we all need to set boundaries from freaky extremists to keep our lives sane, but part of being in business for yourself means giving clients what they need and what they’re comfortable with. It’s a fine line, and you will certainly find employers/clients that will push the boundary.

Be reasonable. Don’t force feed clients things they’re obviously not comfortable with. Working with a lot of freelancers can make people who need your expertise feel like me when trying to find an airline power source: no two are ever the same, and they don’t want to spend money on something if it’s not gonna work. Being flexible and reasonable is something that takes practice and negotiation. Hopping a cross-country flight isn’t exactly part of my normal day, and it came sooner than I thought it would, but the bottom line was that a group I work with needed me to do it. It’s a group I thoroughly enjoy working with and am already learning so much from, so that’s a movable boundary in my world. They’re knee deep into a campaign, and didn’t want to run outta juice for their DS.

So, that was my mini-epiphany for the week as I grumbled my way through the headache that the world of travel has become. That, and in general, flying sucks…but I can’t think of a snappy way to equate to working for yourself, so this is what you get.

For more on being what your clients need, check out this entry. And if you still are liking what you see, subscribe to me.

Thanks to the popularity of My Puppy Can Teach You Marketing, it’s now time for the next lesson in the series: My Puppy Can Help You Understand Basic SEO - Lesson #1.

I’m not talking about crazy blitzing to get your site into the #1 ranking in some ungodly amount of time. I don’t practice that stuff anyway, though I’ve been asked to. What do you, as a business or site owner, need to understand about search? My puppy has the answer, thanks to her piles of sticks. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, read the first entry already, wouldja?) Instead of how selecting her sticks is like marketing, let’s look at how it relates to search engines.

It might seem like the first question should be: Does Google even know you have a stick? It’s not. That comes at the end. Let’s start with the foundation.

What’s your stick all about?

The search engine only has a few precious ways to figure out what your stick looks like: what the site has on it, what other sites point to it, and when they’re pointing, what words they’re using.

The only thing you have absolute control over is the structure of your site and what you’re telling Google about it. When my pup looks at all the sticks in the woods outside (and trust me, there are plenty of them) she knows what she sees…some are bigger, some are smaller, some are brown, some are decomposing.

Don’t let Google think your site is of the decomposing variety…splintered, unfocused, and basically dead and useless. (Unless that’s your thing. Hey, on the Internet there’s room for everyone.)

Let’s assume you want to be brown and full of yummy bark (which, by the way, she skillfully peels off and spits out.) Your bark is that outside layer, the first thing the search engine looks at. It sees your url, which nowadays, can be very hard to make straightforward and relevant. It looks at your page titles, your meta data, and what your pictures are named. It’s peeling away the bark, and trying to figure out what pile you belong in.

The first thing I see a lot of clients rush toward is the body copy and keyword-stuffing in that regard. That won’t do you much good until Google looks at your site’s foundation first and figures out if you’re a log, a twig, if you fell from a Maple or a Spruce. Make the process easier for it (and better for you) by using those precious keywords here FIRST.

You’re reading one of the most impatient people on Earth, who wants to jump into customer-facing content like it’s a drug habit. I get it. But, you have to think bigger picture and in a more methodical manner when dealing with search engines. They were written by engineers for goodness’ sakes, so get in that mindset and make the behind-the-scenes foundation solid before you do anything else.

Stayed tuned for Lesson #2 of the Puppy SEO Series this week: finding your keywords.

I got in the car yesterday to go to the post office. As a regular community member over at BookMooch, I had a moocher who was waiting on a novel I’d recently finished. I live in an wee town in Virginia on the skirts of a metro area. This should not be any kind of production whatsoever…less than 5 minutes to the post office, tops. (Plus, I’m an impatient person, so…there’s that.)

I turned out of my development onto the main road where they were doing road work. Nothing big, one of those little buggy deals that punches squares into the asphalt (or is it concrete?) so they can insert the reflectors along the dividing line.

I sat and waited, and I started to get edgy. I watched the Highly Unnecessary Eighty Point Turn of the buggy, orchestrated by a construction guy who had originally stopped me by doing a hand wave while not even turned in my direction. He also had a walkie-talkie that didn’t appear to be getting any use.

Finally, I go on my way. On the way back, it was another annoying experience, but for a different reason.

As I drove toward the site, there was another guy there, but I saw a ray of hope in the situation because he had one of those tall signs. You know the kind “slow” on one side, “stop” on the other.

That’s where the hope ended, as I drove closer and could see him better. I was, by the way, driving closer because his sign had the “slow” turned towards my little car. Then I noticed his hand waving, indicating a stop….while not looking at me.

I stopped, utterly confused. Could I go? Was this a test? Was there a hidden camera looking to see how many citizens would just blow by? I looked around for an answer from the pine trees on either side of me. I looked back at the guy.

No eye contact, no nothing. I didn’t even know if he realized I was there. Maybe he wanted me to go but has a hand tic and I was going to make him feel bad by responding to that and not the friggin’ HUGE orange sign he appeared to be in control of.

As you can see, this was turning into a borderline existential crisis for someone that overthinks things as much as I do.

It’s also a really, really good example of your role with the clients.

You are the conductor.

Your client audience is looking to you for direction. They want a confident recommendation based on the expertise they’re working with you for. Don’t overwhelm them with choices or decisions on services they don’t know anything about. The best way to avoid that is to ask questions initially, and ask a lot of them. The key is to not ask questions about whether they want an email campaign or not. The key is to ask, overall, what they don’t have that they know they need. What struggles are they having? Don’t add to their pain, find out what it is and cure it.

Conductors serve more than just an audience.

They serve the musicians.

Whether it’s a client’s web page, their seo, their copy (or maybe all three) you will be directing the orchestrations that will make things happen. You’re the person that will stand there, conduct, and then turn to face the audience of your clientele, and it had better to be thunderous applause. If it’s not, it’s your fault. You can’t turn around, shrug, and say, “That tuba player sucks.”

The tuba player might suck, but it’s your job to keep that from the client and make him play better. That, or find another tuba player.

Don’t mix signals. In either direction.

Like my friend who had the “slow” sign in one hand the “c’mon, move it along” in the other, don’t confuse your clients. No matter what’s going on with the orchestrations behind the curtain of their project, convey what’s important for them to know. Give a reliable quote for the services they need (which goes along with the question asking I just kicked your tush over). If you assume they understand what everything includes, you’re in for trouble. Nickel and diming over things will confuse your client and could make them feel like you’re putting one over on them. Things like “Oh, I thought I was just writing your copy…it didn’t include any revisions or editing.” I don’t mean major, huge project scope changes, but things that should naturally come with any package. Deliver consistency so people will buy tickets for repeat showings.

Don’t overwhelm while trying to show off.

Although this is probably more apt to match with bands infamous for long, drawn out jam sessions that make some of us weep with boredom, I’m sticking to my analogy, dangit.

Remember, they hired you to do something they couldn’t. The more complicated you make it seem, the more horror you’ll see on their faces. Sure, if they ask to see the sheet music then show it to them. But don’t conduct, try and teach them how to conduct, make revisions to the sheet music…you get the point.

Keep practicing.

You’ll stumble. I guarantee you will. You’ll eat some costs and time you didn’t account for, you’ll work with bad contractors who are handling pieces of projects, and you’ll probably wind up firing that tuba player.

The good thing is, most people weren’t born like Beethoven. You won’t wave that baton and get perfection at first, but you will get more efficient every time you do it and will eventually be on the way to creating your own little masterpiece of a business.

I applied for a writing gig that I saw listed the other day, and it asked to include a phone number so if they were interested you could be reached. My phone rang early afternoon, with good and bad news: They had filled the slot, but they really liked my cover letter and my site.

What followed was one of the more pleasant conversations I’ve had with a potential client in awhile, and I was actually slightly bummed to hear they’d keep me on file and to take care. It’s ok, it happens. One of the things they asked me was interesting, and it got me to thinking. I was posed the same question later by another group that I may do some SEO work for, and it showed me the way in which I’m different for my marketplace.

“I see you do SEO work. Tell me your best story about getting a business to the front page.” This surprised me momentarily, but I understand why it was asked.

Rewind to a few months ago, when I posted an ad for an SEO person on Guru. One of my regular gigs was overflowing with SEO requests and we needed an extra hand. The replies we got astounded me. It seemed as though 99% of the applicants couldn’t speak in layman’s terms, but the other part was the bragging about ranking for certain sites.

Look, it’s not that I don’t understand that. SEO is hard, ongoing work, and I’ve worked with a lot of uber-SEO people and that really is their ultimate goal. It was apparent to me in these phone talks I had with potential gigs and clients that they’re very used to hearing that stuff.

Here’s the catch.

If you’re thinking about doing SEO and get a list of sites and search terms to check out from a potential provider: click on the link. What does the site look like?

In my experience, there are the uber-SEO people, and then there are the regular ol’ people like me. I understand SEO, but I also use it as part of an overall marketing strategy. I can run really extensive reporting, and give you the really tired textbook suggestions and myths. But if your site looks awful just to show up on the coveted first page, you’ve accomplished very little. I see listings all the time for “Need SEO company with first page Google guarantee ASAP.”

I don’t even know how to start helping those people understand, but you’re obviously an intelligent and charming person because you’re here reading me, so that gives you a leg up:

1. Be wary of any place that guarantees you any kind of placement. White hat SEO won’t work that fast, and you black hat SEO tricks will get you nailed right quick. 

2. If you secure a company like that, be prepared for the fact your site will be coated in text, linked to from a ton of completely irrelevant sites, and will generally just annoy people in general.

3. Most importantly: if you make the first page of Google and everyone abandons ten seconds after they click your link because their eyes start to twitch, what have you accomplished?

SEO is simply a piece of the marketing puzzle, not the whole enchilada. Would you want an enchilada that has the world’s softest, warmest, yummiest tortilla and plastic meat on the inside? No. (Wow, what an analogy, even for me.)

Yes, SEO is important. I would never say it isn’t. (And if I do, remind me that it’s part of my livelihood.) But it’s not the only important thing when marketing your site.

What’s an enchilada with no meat, cheese, salsa, sour cream and guacamole? It’s an incredibly crappy site that can claim “But hey, I’m on the first page of Google.”

In honor of the complete and utter neglect of my poor blog, I give you a photo of a jackass. That would be me. My promise to myself to stay updated got seriously sidetracked by some seriously crazy days leading up to the holidays and something had to give. Unfortunately, it was the task that doesn’t pay me money, which is coincidentally the one that can’t fire me if it’s neglected.Still, I’m a jackass for falling so far behind.That said, it’s time to get back on track. I spent the morning invoicing and catching up on also-neglected admin work. (Which um…I just got done saying my blog doesn’t pay me. My clients won’t either, if I don’t invoice them, but I managed to slack off on that too.)

To be fair, I haven’t taken days off in a long time. I went straight from corporate burnout to freelancing full-time, so I was bound to crash from the adrenaline of it all. Suffice it to say, I relaxed fully, enjoyed my holidays, but am totally ready to start getting my brain working again. Part of wiping the cobwebs off my brain included looking at where I’m at from a client and payment perspective.

I made the decision I seem to make a few times a year where I say, “Well, I’ll go ahead and cancel my membership at Guru.com.” Like clockwork, it gave me a reason not to. Let me first say that I recognize most people don’t have great things to say about freelancing sites. I’m in another camp, but I also think I use it differently. The people I see getting most frustrated are the ones that try and pin their freelance money-making entirely on sites like Elance.com and Guru.com. When Elance overhauled its structure last month, a lot of contractors were rightfully very upset because really, no matter how Elance wants to spin it, the providers were getting screwed and not the buyers. (Catalyst Blogger’s update can also be read here. I have to give shouts to a fellow Philly-native, of course.) I personally never had luck with Elance, so I’m in the Guru camp, but I can completely understand why they’re upset.I use freelancing sites for specific reasons, and I think they’re beneficial if you apply the tenets we all know as freelancers. I see these tenets get suspended when it comes to these sites, but they have to be treated like any other marketing channel. Here’s what I mean:  

Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. 

This is common advice among freelancers, business owners, and contractors. Do not tie yourself too heavily to one client, because if they go out of business, guess what? You might, too. Keep a constant and spread-out roster so you are self-sustaining. Places like Guru.com and Elance.com are no different.”But Susan,” you say, “I attract many clients by using that one site.” No, you really don’t unless you’re evolving them into longer-term relationships that can stand on their own outside of that site. The best illustration of that is the changes Elance made. You might have 100 potential clients on there, but because Elance changed, now you might not if you don’t want to pony up what I believe is a ridiculous amount of dough. In that way, you are putting your eggs in one basket because you’re relying on a single conduit to get you in front of those clients.

 Don’t bid on a job. Quote it.

This is a mentality thing that you might have to work at. I read a lot of “when I bid on a project” talk. Yes, in the site’s world, you’re bidding against others. But the minute you do that, you’ll start to lose. You cannot worry about what other people are bidding, because all it does it tempt you to get into a price war.

Don’t think of it as bidding on a job. Think of it as providing a quote to someone who is interested in your services. Every job quote I provide is what I’d quote anyone for copywriting or marketing…it isn’t less because of the medium I do it through. Sure, I probably don’t get a lot of jobs because of my price compared to someone in a third world country but I don’t want the job anyway if it’s not going to pay me my going rate. I don’t go on there and bid on every job. I’m selective, and trust me, you can usually tell on the job posting if it’s worth trying or not. Apply the same standards you would to any job you’re interested in.

Build repeat business.

When I was first starting out freelancing, I accepted small, one-off jobs because it was just supplemental income anyway. Nowadays, I scan through latest postings quickly if I have some time I could fill, and I only quote a job if it’s obviously something that could lead to a longer-term relationship.

Two of my favorite clients are groups I found on Guru. The one plainly said it would be a long-standing project management role. The other was for blog writing, but the client and I get along so well that he’s giving me a HUGE project that he trusts me with. He gives me stuff every week, and is one of the easiest people to get along with I’ve ever met. My project management client that I mentioned now trusts me to do more hours, and has started letting me flex my muscles in the area of SEO reporting and PPC as well. It’s amazing what can come from working consistently with people you like.

These are the basic things I apply to any client, no matter if they come from a site where you pay to gain access to job listings or not. Obviously, it’s worth the $80 or so per quarter to find that one diamond in the rough for me, because I get way more business from them than pays for the membership there. I also get invited to quote many projects thanks to my rating and portfolio information on there. (I rarely accept those, but occasionally I’ll throw my hat in the ring.) It was a good reminder to me the other day when I came on a writing listing for a company that looked promising. I quoted my hourly fee, and they responded with wonderful examples of what they’d need, and the fixed price was way more than fair for the work involved. They were polite, buttoned up, and obviously concerned with quality and not getting the cheapest person they possibly could. It was a good reminder that it’s a viable marketing avenue for me.

But, it’s not the only one. And it shouldn’t be your sole avenue of jobs, either.