Either way, it’s just a way to organize, publish and distribute your site’s content.

The RSS icon

The best way to understand this, and ultimately harness its huge power, is to set up your own feed reader. Think of a feed reader as your own customized newspaper.

Create you own customized newspaper

Imagine if every day you could get up, grab some coffee and sit down to a newspaper customized completely to your own interests. You can of course — that is exactly what a feed reader does.

Let’s say for example that you live in Los Angeles, work in renewable energy and are a huge Lakers fan. Let’s also say that maybe you own two standard poodles, and enjoy documentaries and rebuilding Volkswagen engines.

There are all kinds feeds out there with up-to-the-minute news and info on these topics and almost any other, and your reader acts as your own customized news source that shows you all the posts/videos/articles/etc from whatever sources you want.

There are just four steps involved

1. Sign up for Google Reader. There are many others, but Google Reader is definitely one of the best.

2. Bookmark your feed reader so you can find it.

3. Surf to your favorite sites and look for “RSS” or “Subscribe” and click to see the feed.

4. Copy the address of the feed. Now go back to your bookmarked feed reader, and paste it into the “add a feed” box.

If you really are a green-living/Lakers/poodle/documentary/Volkswagen fan, then here are some feeds you may want to paste in and follow.

feed://www.thedailygreen.com/living-green/rss/
feed://lakersblog.latimes.com/lakersblog/atom.xml
feed://www.standardpoodlesusa.com/Standard-Poodles.xml
feed://feeds2.feedburner.com/thedocumentaryblog
feed://www.gotengines.com/blog/feed

Or maybe you want to follow our feed. We highly recommended it.

http://feeds.feedburner.com/AltaPeterson/

Each time there is new info published, it will automatically update to your reader. So grab that cup of coffee and sit down to your own up-to-the-minute, customized, eco-friendly, 21st-Century newspaper.

Oh yes, one more step

5. Try to think of how you could contribute useful info that would build recognition for yourself and your brand. When you are ready, add “Subscribe to RSS” to your own site and start publishing to the world.

For a more detailed crash course, check out Feed 101 from Google.

I was intrigued and RSVP’d to meet up at The Beverley Center P.F. Chang’s. I was one of the last people to arrive, which worked out well for me as I got to sit next to the ring leader of this event, Saul Colt AKA Freshbook’s “Head of Magic.”

I knew he and I had a lot in common as soon he spilled on his shirt and then attempted to improve the situation using a wet paper napkin, which only made it much worse.

Saul’s message, which he repeats often, is “Do things that are so cool that people have no choice but to talk about them.”

This is word-of-mouth marketing at its finest. How powerful is word-of-mouth marketing? In late 2006 The Federal Trade Commission said that companies must disclose paid word-of-mouth marketing. This is because marketers know that there’s nothing that breaks through someone’s skepticism of a product or company better.

Unscrupulous marketers of the world will always try to beat the system. But real, and “real awesome” marketing doesn’t require paying anyone to lie for you.

It does require that you figure out what makes you unique and what you can offer that is so memorable that people feel compelled to tell others about it.

Then your customers will promote you … for free. Just as I have done here in this post.

Lyle is a manager at a landscape architechure firm in the midwest with about fifteen employees.

Lyle ~ Hey. We hired a marketing firm and just had our first meeting with them. Explaining to the partners about why blogs work was challenging but they were listening, so that was good.  The marketing people were cool, but I couldn’t help thinking the whole time that they were offering mostly common sense advise that we kind of know already.

Alta ~ That’s cool that the meeting went well. Tell them to start out by asking their friends and connections to be their first commenters, and to integrate the blog with their “social” stuff. In [Lyle's company's] case it would be good to find other small businesses around town that provide complimentary services and are trying to get in the ring with blogging, etc. Most bloggers appreciate comments so it really can be a good way to make friends/connections. 

One of the biggest things people aren’t aware of when they start out with this stuff is the need to actually engage with other carbon based lifeforms, i.e. – read and respond constructively to other people’s posts, status updates, tweets. Also, this blogging/social stuff is a total marathon, not a sprint.

Lyle ~ That was the primary point I was making at the meeting — why should we be surprised if people weren’t engaging on our blog if we weren’t on theirs?

The whole marketing market drives me nuts.  A small portion of it works and rules, the rest of it is just an excuse for people to go have coffee and talk about their businesses and feel all great about themselves.  It’s like having a personal trainer that doesn’t know anything about exercise, and doesn’t need to bring any results.  

That’s the thing that bugs me most of all — success measures for the money being spent on marketing.  If it doesn’t actually bring you new clients, then the money spent on the marketing was a failure.  

Alta ~ Besides engagement, the other main point to try to get across is that social media is a time not a money commitment. Unless you WANT to pay for it, then it’s a time and a money commitment!! : >

Also, no one really cares about your blog/FB page/feed. (repeat over and over until it sinks in) Seeing some real return on your investment probably starts with this understanding, and the thing about marketing is that a lot of it is just common sense.

Hiring a marketing person IS a lot like hiring a personal trainer: slight adjustments to your routine lead to results over time. At least that’s the idea. And yes, if you want to put forth the effort, you can learn to do it all for yourself … just a time commitment.

Lyle ~ I’m saving some of these emails of yours.  Well put!!

Alta ~ Thanks. Maybe I’ll turn this into a blog post. : >

Chances are there’s a WordCamp near you. Even if you’re totally non-technical, you can get a ton out of these very welcoming events. Check one out, you won’t regret it!

Here are some talks I saw last weekend:

The event sold out a month in advance and I pretty much begged the organizers for a ticket. One of the sponsors, Spoken City, who makes a really nifty WordPress Plugin for finding local businesses generously gave up one of their tickets and I scored it. (Thank you!!)

OC WordCamp is put on by not one but two cute OC blondes: Jeff and Brandon, who do an amazing job putting on a killer event. They do WordPress design and development and custom WP plugins as well. Check them out at pixeljar.net.

If you’re anywhere near So Cal I highly recommend getting on the mailing list (scroll down on right side) for next year’s OC WordCamp. I for one will be registered early.

This is a great read! So many people feel overwhelmed by “new” and social media. This book is just for them. It explains in very clear, non-techie language exactly why and more importantly HOW you should go about writing a blog, using Twitter, Facebook, You Tube, LinkedIn, etc.

One of the biggest misconceptions out there is that there is some secret trickery that you need to know in order to have a highly ranked website. The reason that Google continues to dominate web search is that they have generally provided the best and most useful results. Once you look at it this way, it becomes clear that the path to success is:

1. Provide useful, unique, up-to-date info.

2. Use the many (FREE) and easy tools out there to help both potential customers and search engines find your useful, unique, up-to date-info.

It will take some time and some perseverance to become a new marketing master, but this book is the absolute best overview I’ve found to get people started.

The info is presented in concise chunks and the typeface is huge for easy reading. The authors definitely put some thought into making this a useful resource.

This book rocks! Anyone involved in anything to do with websites (so pretty much everyone) will get a lot out of it.

The basic premise is that people are coming to your site to serve their own interests, not yours. They don’t want to spend time trying to “figure it out.”

Fancy design and cool programming features often get in the way, and unconventional layouts and navigation are often just REALLY not a good idea.

Another main point is that people have strongly held beliefs on what makes a great website. There’s a great diagram of the ideal homepage according to different individuals based on their job descriptions.

The designer likes a sleek and visually appealing site.

The programmer wants cool features and functionality.

The business development person likes lots of space for promos and ads.

And the CEO wants the site to have “PIZZAZ!!”

But none of these things matter in in slightest if people can’t easily use the site.

The last few chapters are on usability testing. The author bases his advise on a vast amount of actual, real-life research, and he even tells you how to do it yourself on a budget.

Some surprises are that that people don’t read, they scan. They also don’t take the time to find the best option or solution the site may offer. They just click around until they find the first thing that’s “close enough,” or if they don’t find it … that’s right … they leave.

This book is a quick, non-technical read. It’s entertaining, funny and packed with priceless advise.

It’s because the design of the site often looks nicer this way. The problem with this is that it puts form before function. It’s really a good idea to make your site easy to read … Ok?

Here’s some things to keep in mind:

• Reading off of a screen is about 25% slower than reading print. This might be a made up statistic that’s been repeated over and over, kind of like the eight glasses of water per day recomendation, but there’s no question that reading off of a screen does slow you down.

• People are very impatient online. They want it and they want it NOW. If you make things hard for them they will leave your site never to return.

• Your body text should be in stark contrast to the background. Yellow type on a groovy orange background? Sorry! Can’t read it.

• • • • •

Jakob Nielsen is widely considered to be The King of Web Usability. Notice how easy his site is to read? The text is big and black and the background is white.

His links are also very clear. You can tell exactly where and what they are. This is good for both people and search engines, but more on that in future posts.

It’s probably not necessary to be quite as much of a purist as The King, but following the following will go a long way:

• Links and only links should be underlined. It’s very best practice to make them blue too, since this has been a standard since the beginning of the web. For branding purposes you may not want blue links, but at least make them uniform.

• Break up your copy. Not only is screen reading slower, it’s also much more of a strain on the peepers. Long, dense paragraphs don’t help, but white space is your friend.

• Evaluate your site. Is it readable, or are you driving visitors away? (bad)

• Always put function before form when publishing to the web. It’s just a good rule of thumb.

Because WordPress is open source, there’s a spirit of generosity from the top down that makes developing websites on this platform well, kind of awesome.

A lot of us spend much solo time at our computers so it’s really great to connect with people in this spirit of open technological collaboration.

Recently I stumbled across the amazingly creative Asteroids plugin, courtesy of The Eric(k)s, which can be seen on ye ole’ home page.

Erik Andersson created the JavaScript version of the classic arcade game Asteroids and Eric Burger widgetized it for WordPress.

I created some icons based on the arcade image I made for my own page and have contributed them to the plugin, so everyone that downloads the next release will have the option of using an arcade image.

Timewise this is literally like a tiny drop of water in a swimming pool compared to the work done by the Eric(k)s, but I’m glad to have contributed something.

So thank you Eric(k)s, and thank you open source and WordPress communities for making this job a lot more fun and inspiring.

We recently attended an email marketing workshop put on by Constant Contact.
Here are some of the rules, guidelines and pointers we picked up.

1. Most importantly: Don’t be a spammer

People hate spammers, so being perceived as one is clearly bad for business. Plus, some forms of it are illegal. In 2003, Congress passed the THE CAN-SPAM Act, banning some of the most annoyingly egregious forms. Here are some additional guidelines.

There are two types of people you can email:

a. Those who already know who you are.
b. Those who have specifically signed up to receive your messages.

It is considered best practice to send only to people who have expressly opted in. Most businesses send to people who know them already, even if they haven’t opted in. The very best practice is to use a double opt-in.

2. Develop and send quality content, and not too often.

Even if the law doesn’t consider you to be a spammer, your readers will unless you provide them with something useful and interesting.

3. Grow Your Mailing List

Great content is great, but it doesn’t matter if you’re lacking an up-to-date list of interested contacts.

This advice is similar to all other forms of marketing:

4. Subject Line pointers:

• • • • • • •

We can help you develop your email marking campaign.

The author, Gloria Moss, states early on that she feels there are significant innate differences in the male vs. female brain and that males and females have different taste when it comes to design.

Men like less color, angular lines, and square or rectangle shapes. Women like more and brighter colors and strongly prefer circles and curved shapes over squares and rectangles. They also like unconventional and “childlike” typography much more than men.

Men are drawn toward designs that are more technical and realistic while women prefer things that are more abstract and decidedly less technical. Men go for function over form, while ascetics are much more important to women.

In product ads, women want a lot more detail about specific features than men. The author points out that this is one area where designers and marketers get it wrong. If you compare ads directed exclusively to the two groups, the male-targeted ads have on average a lot more text and detail. This would appear to be the exact opposite of what research shows to be the most effective approach. Women actually like a lot more detail in design in general than men.

Men like a lot of competition to be shown in ads while women are equally drawn to depictions of competitive and harmonious situations. According to Moss no one really takes issue with being gender stereotyped by marketing and advertising besides a “substantial minority of non-traditional” types.

Moss points out that in a household headed by a male/female couple, the female acts as either the joint or primary decision-maker in pretty much all purchase decisions, including homes, cars, appliances, etc. The only category that men clearly dominate is beer, with electronics like stereos and tvs being a distant second. In summary, even if you’re offering a product or service that seems like it would appeal more to men than women, you may be well advised to design and market toward the female ascetic, unless it’s beer.

The book further backs this position by showing that women are much less tolerant of male-oriented design than vise-vera. The best example talks about nightclubs generating a lot more business if they design their interiors with women’s preferences in mind. What this study found was that while women wanted to go somewhere that was appealing to them, men didn’t care about that at all. The men’s primary interest was the potential quantity of women present. If the space isn’t appealing to women, no one will end up there but if it is, you will get both women and men.

Moss applies this notion to graphic/web design and marketing. The lesson being that light and colorful designs with more curves and details are a pretty safe bet most of time and most people won’t be turned off by that approach. Men it seems are more flexible in their preferences.

Whether or not all of these differences are true, it’s good to think about the preferences of your audience, and to follow tried and true advice:

Focus on the needs and preferences of the end-user.
Know who your customers are. Keep them at the center of your business. Give them what they want.