Here’s a very useful tip that I use ALL the time. Instead of calling my cell phone provider to get a phone number:

I call:
1-800-GOOG-411

• It’s quick
• You can receive a text to add to your phone’s contacts
• You can even get a map showing the area around the business.
• And it’s FREE

To see other useful tips, check back often.
Quick Tips for Contractor Marketing #1 & #2

There are literally thousands of helpful, time saving tips. Any one of these tips could save you hours of time in a given year.

I’ll post these tips daily, so check back often

Contractor Marketing Tip #1 - Use military time to quickly enter hours in a website.

I’m constantly updating client’s directory listings on websites like YellowPages.com, InsiderPages, Yelp and others. Some allow you to enter your  business hours once and apply to all checked off days. And then there are others, where you must physically enter the hours for every day that you are opened.

So here’s the Quick Tip: Enter your time using the 24 hour standard(i.e., 500=5am, 1700=5pm, 1830=6:30pm, etc.). In most cases this will get you to the exact time without having to scroll through a long list.

And as a bonus…

Quick Tip #2 – Send a Text message with email.

Sometimes it’s helpful to send a text to a client via email. The reason you would do this is to keep a record of the text in your email box.

To send a text via email you need to know the phone number and the mobile phone service of your customer. And for that matter, you can also use this tip to send a text message out to your employees in the field.

While I always stand by the reasoning that a web dude is going to be able to do it better-faster-stronger-quicker, here are a couple of tips to help you DIY boys out.

The 10.5 mistakes web DIYers make and How to Avoid Them

Because this post is so long, here’s a Table of Contents

1. Not having a clearly defined strategy.
2. Not building it on a CMS
3. Poor Design
4. Poor Copy
5. Bad Optimization
6. Too Much Crap
7. Not Enough Compelling Stuff
8. No Contact Information Capture System
9. Ignoring Web Stats
10. Developing the Ron Popeel Attitude – Set it & Forget it!

10.5 is a surprise, you’ll have to read the article to find out what it is.

1. Not having a clearly defined strategy.

This is the absolute hands down biggest problem any website will face. If you’ve read any of my other posts you know how preachy I get about web strategy, but there is a big reason.

Without a crystal clear set of goals and the tools you’re going to use to accomplish them, your website is going to flop.

Everyday I see websites that look like they just got stuck up there, or somebody made one “because everyone else has one”. I know I’ll get static for saying this, but not everyone needs a website.

Before you even entertain the thought of building one, or having one built, please please please think about what your website is going to do, and how it’s going to fit into your sales process. If you can’t come up with an answer, you either don’t need one or you need to talk to an honest web person about how you could use a website.

Just having one to have one isn’t going to bring home the bacon.

2. Not building it on a CMS

I’ve talked at great length about the power of a Content Management System (CMS) here on the board. In my professional opinion, it is the only way to build a website now.

A good CMS will make it a million times easier to change the look of your site without having to redo everything, update content, and add pages and functionality. What would take you a couple of days with HTML and CSS takes you maybe hours with a CMS.

Make the change.

3. Poor Design

Better looking websites convert more often than ugly ones. It’s a cold hard fact, but it is absolutely true. However, there is a lot more to good design than just looking good.

Two things are important to remember when you are designing: how easy is it going to be to use, and what kind of weight does it give my content.

If your website is cluttered and choppy, you look less professional and people are going to be confused about what to do next or where to go.

Confusion on the web is a killer, because there are a million other sites the visitor can go to that are easier to use, and it doesn’t cost them anything to do it.

Don’t force them to bug out because your site hurt their head.

Hierarchy can easily be achieved with design.

Your call to action for example, is more important than other elements of your design. So you make it bold, or you make it red, or you make it bigger. Something to draw attention to it, because you want them to take action. That’s page hierarchy.

Don’t go overboard with making things important, one or two things should stick out per page.

4. Poor Copy

If your copy doesn’t move along the process, what will? An absolute killer of websites, crap copy will make the most well designed web site a lame duck.

Your web copy is often the first (and sometimes the only) communication that you have with a potential customer. If it isn’t compelling, what’s going to drive them along the sales process . . . ?

Write how you talk. Don’t sound like a salesy robot, write like your talking to them in an in house consultation

Use headings and sub headings, make paragraphs short.

When you scan a page do you get what it’s about?

How easy is the language to read and understand?

Little Timmy should be able to tell Mommy and Daddy all about how bitching your additions/kitchens/baths/foundations/roofs/tile/brickwork is.

5. Bad Optimization

SEO changes just about every 4 hours. Well, maybe not that fast, but it’s always in a state of flux. Often times DIYers get old and outdated information and in SEO old and outdated information is something written 6 months old.

If I had a nickel (here comes my grandpa talking) for every time somebody wanted to do a link exchange, or join a directory, or keyword spam, or ghost text keywords, or whatever else worked 5 years ago for there site, I would be an incredibly wealthy young man.

One keyword per page.

Pay attention to density.

Only gather relevant links from more powerful sites than yours, and make sure they are one way only.

Pay attention to how many links are on that page, yours will be devalued by the amount of link juice spread around . I could go on and on, but a better bet is to pay someone for SEO.

6. Too Much Crap

A lot of DIYers had someone tell them it was important to put things “above the fold”. So they put everything above the fold. Or they information overload on the homepage, because that’s often times the only page people see.

Tisk, tisk, tisk tisk tisk.

White space is key.

Home pages are for general outlines, use inline pages to go further in depth. Get your message across as quickly and simply as possible.

This works for design too. If it looks really cool, and distracts visitors from taking action, chop it off. Only keep that which moves the process along.

I promise you no one is coming back to your site just to check out your slideshows/galleries/popups/animations/swirly funky crazy stuff. If used correctly, they are all great tools to move the sale along. But if they are just there to fill a space or look cool, chop it.

7. Not Enough Compelling Stuff

Your website isn’t a business card. You’ve got all the room in the world to play, so fill it with relevant content. By relevant content I mean stuff that is going to help position you as an expert or keep you top of mind when it comes time to buy.

8. No Contact Information Capture System

So you’ve listened to all the other stuff I’ve said so far, and you’ve got a pretty A OK site going. So people come, they like what they see, it’s easy to use, you’ve got them hooked.

But you don’t have a way to capture their details so that you control the marketing tempo.

How many times do you think people are coming to your site that are just researching you against your competition, and aren’t ready to buy today?

Now let’s say you have a tool that captures there contact info, and you shoot them a couple of messages over the course of a couple weeks. The competition has a website like you used to have, without anything like that. All of a sudden it comes time to buy, and they customer doesn’t even remember anybody else but you, because you were always there giving them info, keeping them updated, building that relationship.

Pretty powerful tool, no? And 99.9% of websites (both pro and DIY) don’t use it. ####ing insane.

9. Ignoring Web Stats

Google Analytics is free, and probably the most powerful set of reporting tools I’ve ever used. Each and every single client of mine gets it, even if they don’t want it.

Why plop down time and money if you aren’t going to measure whats working and what isnt?

How would you like to know what pages people are finding to be the most interesting, and then featuring them on the homepage so you increase conversions?

Or if your traffic good local traffic or bad national traffic?

How about what keywords people are using the most to find you and focusing on them instead of your dumpers that nobody uses?

The number one reason a website kills all other marketing is the ability for you to quickly adapt and measure the results.

Don’t waste time and effort anymore, find out whats good, whats bad, whats ugly, and make changes to streamline your effectiveness.

10. Developing the Ron Popeel Attitude – Set it & Forget it!

Huggggggggeeeeeeeeeee mistake for a couple reasons.

One, static content isn’t going to bring people back. Once they have seen all that’s on your site, why would they come back? And very rarely are you going to sell them the first time.

Two, search engines devalue sites that aren’t updated frequently. A site that is always coming up with fresh content is seen as an active resource. Google likes this.

People like it, and if they see you as a resource they are going to tell their friends. This is good for business.

A blog is a great way to keep fresh content flowing, and also for building relationships. Top 10 lists like this one get passed around all the time, and it’s not that difficult to come up with a couple for your site and release them every two weeks. It’s a lot lower maintenance than you’d think.

10.5 Not hiring a pro

Mostly just a gag of post (hence the .5), but think about it. Faster results, better performance, will actually make you money. Find one that you trust to do a good job, I’m sure you’ll be happy with the results

As always I look forward to the discussion. I hope you took at least a couple things away from this post that will help you if your a DIY, and pay strict attention to 10.5!!!!!

And have you ever considered what would happen to your personal information if someone were to get their hands on it?

Everyday we hear nightmare stories of Stolen Identities. One way to avoid becoming the next statistic is to use unique passwords for the websites you visit. Below is one of the many ways to make passwords unique and secure. And all the while, easy to remember.

1. Passwords should be at the minimum a combination of numbers and letters.
2. The ideal password would also combine the numbers and letters with symbols.
3. Passwords should be a minimum of 6 characters long. The ideal length of passwords should be 8 – 10 characters.
4. You should use a combination of capitalized and non-capitalized letters in your password.

So how are you going to devise a password that does all of the above and still be memorable? Here is a simple strategy.

• Capitalize the third letter of a password.
• If symbols are allowed, some websites may not allow symbols, convert the vowels to a symbol:a = @, e = 3, i = 1, o = 0, u = ^
• Start you password with two numbers, if symbols are allowed you can use the equivalent symbol for the numbers(i.e., 1 =! , 2 = @, 3 = #, etc.).

Examples:

For the website: HomeDepot.com

Pick two favorite two digit numbers. For this example my numbers are 45 & 87.

My symbol combinations for my favorite numbers are: $% and *& respectively.

Example #1 – 8 character password

$%h0M3d3 This password uses symbols, numbers and capitalization. The password is difficult to guess and hard to crack. But if you are consistent with your personal password rules, it will be very easy for you to remember.

Example #2 – 8 character password, no symbols

45h0M3d3 This password should only be used when symbols are not allowed. It is always best to include a symbol. Please note, all the same rules applied without the symbols.

Example #3 – 13 character password

$%h0M3d3p0t*& This password uses symbols, numbers and capitalization. The password is difficult to guess and hard to crack. But if you are consistent with your personal password rules, it will be very easy for you to remember.

In this example, we used both of our favorite number combinations as symbols.

Last Example: 8 character password, symbols and a very short domain(website name):

For the website: Go.com

This provides us with a variation using all of the rules we learned before. For an eight character password, we have to juggle somethings up.

$%g0.C0m Instead of using just the domain name, we also included the suffix of “.com” by using the same rules. When used in combination, all of these passwords are considered to be very strong and hard to guess.

Here are a couple of Do’s & Don’ts

Here are some guidelines about what secure passwords should not include:

• Your name
• Your spouse’s name
• Your parent’s name
• Your pet’s name
• Your child’s name
• Names of close friends or coworkers
• Names of your favorite fantasy characters
• Your boss’s name
• Anybody’s name
• The name of the operating system you’re using
• The hostname of your computer
• Your phone number
• Your license plate number
• Any part of your social security number
• Anybody’s birth date
• Other information that is easily obtained about you
• Words such as wizard, guru, gandalf, and so on.
• Any username on the computer in any form (as is, capitalized, etc.)
• A word in the English dictionary
• A word in a foreign dictionary
• A place
• A proper noun
• Passwords of all the same letter
• Simple patterns on the keyboard, like qwerty
• Any of the above spelled backwards
• Any of the above followed or prepended by a single digit

Good passwords:

• Have both upper and lower case letters
• Have digits and/or punctuation characters as well as letters
• Are easy to remember, so they do not have to be written down
• Are seven or eight characters long
• Can be typed quickly, so someone else cannot look over your shoulder

SecurityStats.com This site has a great tool to test the strength of your passwords along with some other useful tips.

Microsoft.com Has a wonderful article about Strong passwords: How to create and use them you can read this by clicking here.

While there are many different strategies commonly used in customizing passwords, I have found this to be the easiest to remember for multiple websites. Another great way of managing passwords is to use a software based program. There are many available for both PC’s and Mac’s. A Google search using the phrase of “password manager mac” or “password manager pc” will provide you with an abundant list of alternatives.