Texture design

Posted by rebecca

It's been about a month and a half since our new site launch, meaning that we've received nearly 2 months' worth of YOUmoz submissions (160, to be exact, with 94 entries published). A little over half of the submissions we received got published, but how did we decide what to publish and what to nix? We thought we'd put together a list of tips and guidelines for those of you who either have submitted entries to YOUmoz or have thought about submitting:

1. We're definitely more likely to publish posts that demonstrate your expertise on a particular topic, niche, sector, etc. This doesn't mean we won't publish beginner-level posts--it's just that a well-written post that reflects the author's savviness is more likely to be published and could also end up being promoted onto the main Designmoz blog.
   
2. A lot of posts we published linked to SERPs and websites as references and examples, included screenshots, and incorporated bullet points and numbered lists. These posts reflected the extra effort the author went into researching his post, as well as his desire to share something interesting with readers.
   
3. We often receive submitted posts that are nothing more than a concise, basic Design question. These questions likely won't get published because YOUmoz is a user-generated blog, not a forum. If you have an Design question, it's better to post it at
   www.cre8asiteforums.com,
   www.highrankings.com, or other Design forums. You can, however, pose or bring up questions in your YOUmoz posts. Good questions to ask might be those that are complicated, illustrate an interesting side of Design, webdev, conversion strategy or online marketing, and are thought-provoking and encourage a discussion.
4. Submitting a spam post is just absurd. We don't blindly publish everything that's submitted--each post is reviewed and edited before it's published. It's a waste of time to write a three-sentence blurb about your site's services and drop about eighteen links, because this post will never see the light of day.
5. You don't have to stick strictly to Design topics. We have a variety of blog categories (business tactics, web design/development, etc), and you can write about anything that fits within these topics. However, try to keep your posts on-track. Cold remedies, recipes, and other posts that clearly lack relevance won't get published.
   
6. It's okay to promote yourself at the end of your post with a short blurb (a couple of sentences should suffice) on who you are and your website. We'll likely formalize the author bio portion soon.
7. We try to space out the publication of YOUmoz posts, so if there are ten or so posts sitting in the submitted queue, we'll publish a few at a time in order to give our readers some breathing room. Therefore, don't get all riled up if you submitted something a few days ago and still haven't received word as to whether or not it's been approved--we're just being strategic (and sometimes swamped with actual client work).

We're extremely proud and surprised to see how many submissions we've received so far, and the interaction on YOUmoz has been terrific. Keep up the great work, authors! You're really starting to build a strong, engaging community. If you're interested in authoring a YOUmoz post but haven't gotten around to it, or if you've submitted something and had it rejected, then don't give up. We still want to read what you have to offer, and I'm sure the rest of the Designmoz members do as well. Reader feedback is generally positive or constructive, so I'd recommend giving it a shot.

If you have any questions about YOUmoz submissions or about the process that I haven't addressed in this post, feel free to ask them in the comments.

Technorati Tags

youmoz, ugc, Designmoz

Posted by randfish

This week, I've authored several posts on appealing to those folks who provide natural links and those who link due to successful viral marketing campaigns (linkbait):

1. The Secret to Ranking at the Search Engines (on why appealing to link-savvy demographics is important)
2. Creating Content that Appeals to┬?a Link-Savvy Audience (on topic foci that can draw in links)
3. Making a Site Link Friendly (on how to improve a site's chances of earning inbound links)

For my next piece in this segment, I want to emphasize and explain why these tactics are universally applicable and explore some ways to entice natural links. While many marketers feel like they're left out of the linkbait game because of the content focus of their sites, I'd posit that even the most boring, unsexy sites can both appeal to linkerati and create great viral content.

Let me walk you through the process of identifying linkerati in the most link and web-unsavvy market possible. That's right... I want you to imagine yourself as the owner of a new┬?Seattle catering company, let's call you┬?Sally Skibinski's Source of Sustinence (catchy, eh?) or SSSoS.

SSSos is launching a new website to help promote their catering business. As a reader of Designmoz, you've done your keyword research (yes, I'm shamelessly linking to the paid guide) and you know that the most popular, relevant phrase that you need to rank for is (surprise, surprise) - Seattle Catering. Taking a peek at the SERPs, things don't look promising:

The competition is stiff and the first dozen links are direct competitors - you'll have a tough time getting a link out of any of them (make no mistake, people, catering is a cutthroat business in the Emerald City). But, despite their success, the top ranking sites have made one, fatal mistake -┬?they didn't read Designmoz (I've always wanted to write that).

So how do you do it? How do you build a site that crushes the competition -┬?one that ensures your utter dominance in the field of baking cakes and shlepping latkes? Simple. You build not only for your customers, but for the linkerati, too.

Step I:┬?Know Your Linkerati

Ask yourself - who are the visitors to a regional catering website most likely to provide a link?

• Restaurant & catering critics working for local media publications
• Local directory creators like Yelp, Citysearch, YellowPages, NWSource, Seattle Weekly, etc.
• Foodies with blogs
• Local message board participants at places like Craigslist, Seattle.About.com, TheStranger.com forums, etc.
• Recipe seekers who tag and share content through social media sites
• Businesses that employ your catering services in a partnership (or just on a regular basis)

Step II: Broaden Your Reach

Just because the catering industry is somewhat boring on the web doesn't mean you have to be - broaden your horizons and imagine some of the most relevant areas your content could expand.

• Recipes
• Food photography
• Food presentation how-to's
• Customer service tips
• Small business & startup tips
• Ingredient testing and comparisons
• Bulk food shopping

Step III: Brainstorm Content Ideas

With your audience in mind and an expanded sphere from which to operate, get to work creating ideas for specific content pieces that your site can support.

• AJAX-driven catering menu creator that provides pricing and photos
• Photography of the incredibly meals you can provide including recipes for how to make at home (in small quantities) and ingredient lists with sourcing (where you get each of your products)
• Directory of the best places in the city to buy food - which farmers provide the best produce during each season, where to buy in bulk, what fishmonger to deal with, which butcher, etc.
• Signature dishes presented in an America's Test Kitchen walkthrough style of how you tested and refined the recipe until it was absolutely perfect
• List of tips for sharpening the presentation of home-made dishes to look like professional quality preparation
• Videos on food prep, recipes, presentation, catering menus you've built
• Interviews with famous chefs around town about their own work

Step IV: Create a Site Architecture that Allows for Inclusion of Your Content

A standard 5-page catering site like most of those atop the current SERPs won't suffice. You'll want a blog, a section for video tutorials, special articles a directory of vendors and a recipes collection along with the usual list of services, photography and testimonials.

Step V: Build a Phenomenal Site

Hire a designer who can make your site look like something that belongs on CSSRemix, WebCreme or CSSBeauty. Implement your robust site architecture with easy-to-use navigation and clear presentation of content. Read Steve Krug's book and follow his tips religiously. Obey the rules of standard search-friendliness with clean URLs, good title tags, well written meta descriptions and properly targeted content pages.

Step VI: Launch & Promote

When you launch, you should be submitting to those design portals, writing posts about your new site on NWSource and TheStranger.com forums seeking input, connecting┬?with local food bloggers┬?(they have their own get-togethers for goodness sake), requesting that all the businesses who regularly use your services link to you on their sites and promoting your site to every fan of every bite at every meal you serve - "I'm so glad you like it - the recipe's on our website - sssos.com."

If you can do it for a subject as dry, un-techy and digg-ignorant as catering, you can do it with anything. Don't let your hangups about who the linkerati are or how linkbait works for a site like Designmoz or Drivl stop you from getting creative, getting inspired and following this path to search success.

Technorati Tags

seattle caterers, food bloggers, linkerati, how-to, webdev, Design

The competition is stiff and the first dozen links are direct competitors - you'll have a tough time getting a link out of any of them (make no mistake, people, catering is a cutthroat business in the Emerald City). But, despite their success, the top ranking sites have made one, fatal mistake -┬?they didn't read Designmoz (I've always wanted to write that).

So how do you do it? How do you build a site that crushes the competition -┬?one that ensures your utter dominance in the field of baking cakes and shlepping latkes? Simple. You build not only for your customers, but for the linkerati, too.

Step I:┬?Know Your Linkerati

Ask yourself - who are the visitors to a regional catering website most likely to provide a link?

• Restaurant & catering critics working for local media publications
• Local directory creators like Yelp, Citysearch, YellowPages, NWSource, Seattle Weekly, etc.
• Foodies with blogs
• Local message board participants at places like Craigslist, Seattle.About.com, TheStranger.com forums, etc.
• Recipe seekers who tag and share content through social media sites
• Businesses that employ your catering services in a partnership (or just on a regular basis)

Step II: Broaden Your Reach

Just because the catering industry is somewhat boring on the web doesn't mean you have to be - broaden your horizons and imagine some of the most relevant areas your content could expand.

• Recipes
• Food photography
• Food presentation how-to's
• Customer service tips
• Small business & startup tips
• Ingredient testing and comparisons
• Bulk food shopping

Step III: Brainstorm Content Ideas

With your audience in mind and an expanded sphere from which to operate, get to work creating ideas for specific content pieces that your site can support.

• AJAX-driven catering menu creator that provides pricing and photos
• Photography of the incredibly meals you can provide including recipes for how to make at home (in small quantities) and ingredient lists with sourcing (where you get each of your products)
• Directory of the best places in the city to buy food - which farmers provide the best produce during each season, where to buy in bulk, what fishmonger to deal with, which butcher, etc.
• Signature dishes presented in an America's Test Kitchen walkthrough style of how you tested and refined the recipe until it was absolutely perfect
• List of tips for sharpening the presentation of home-made dishes to look like professional quality preparation
• Videos on food prep, recipes, presentation, catering menus you've built
• Interviews with famous chefs around town about their own work

Step IV: Create a Site Architecture that Allows for Inclusion of Your Content

A standard 5-page catering site like most of those atop the current SERPs won't suffice. You'll want a blog, a section for video tutorials, special articles a directory of vendors and a recipes collection along with the usual list of services, photography and testimonials.

Step V: Build a Phenomenal Site

Hire a designer who can make your site look like something that belongs on CSSRemix, WebCreme or CSSBeauty. Implement your robust site architecture with easy-to-use navigation and clear presentation of content. Read Steve Krug's book and follow his tips religiously. Obey the rules of standard search-friendliness with clean URLs, good title tags, well written meta descriptions and properly targeted content pages.

Step VI: Launch & Promote

When you launch, you should be submitting to those design portals, writing posts about your new site on NWSource and TheStranger.com forums seeking input, connecting┬?with local food bloggers┬?(they have their own get-togethers for goodness sake), requesting that all the businesses who regularly use your services link to you on their sites and promoting your site to every fan of every bite at every meal you serve - "I'm so glad you like it - the recipe's on our website - sssos.com."

If you can do it for a subject as dry, un-techy and digg-ignorant as catering, you can do it with anything. Don't let your hangups about who the linkerati are or how linkbait works for a site like Designmoz or Drivl stop you from getting creative, getting inspired and following this path to search success.

Technorati Tags

seattle caterers, food bloggers, linkerati, how-to, webdev, Design

Posted by Fluxx

Per some recent suggestions, I've decided to elaborate a little more about some of the things I learned at the SXSWi panels.┬? First up: the keynote by Kathy Sierra of the Creating Passionate Users blog.┬? Of course I can't recreate Kathy's talk or her immense knowledge on the subject, but I can give the you gist of what she talked about.┬? If you'd like to listen to Kathy's speech, SXSW has a podcast or her talk available for download.┬? There is a edited video of her talk available as well.┬? And, Kathy writes a little bit of her experiences on her own blog.

Phew!┬? And now, on to the talk.

Kathy started out asking, what's that "one thing" about human interaction that makes it so meaningful?┬? And how do we convey that emotional meaning in our software?┬? Some people think it's simply the smell of other humans that makes it meaningful - but we can't put that in our software.┬? Really, nobody knows for sure.┬? But no matter what, a more human experience makes for better software and more passionate users.

When you are frustrated or confused, you make a face - usually furrowing your eyebrows and tilting your head.┬? People around you see that, and they respond.┬? They ask you questions, they help you out.┬? Problem is, software can't do that.┬? The software has no idea what the user looks like or is feeling.┬? It can't tell if the user is confused, working well, or even if they're totally lost.

Thus, our software needs a way to have the user tell us they're confused.┬? Sounds simple enough.┬? And when the users is at this confused stage, it's a very critical time.┬? If we don't pick up on the users confusion early on, we're going to loose them and their passion.┬? Nobody is passionate when they suck at your software.

When someone is interacting with your software, there are some perceived milestones people achieve.┬? First, there is the "suck threshold."┬? People here say to themselves, "Wow, I suck.┬? I'm not good I'm not bad...I just suck."┬? Secondly, there is the passion threshold.┬? Here, the user is actually getting really good at the software and is really enjoying it.┬? Quick tip: all things being equal, he who gets their users past the suck threshold the fastest wins.┬? The faster we can get people past that threshold, the more passionate they'll be about our software.

So what do we do?┬? How do we get them to stop sucking and move past the passion threshold?┬? Let them tell us.┬? They need a "WTF?" button.┬? It lets the user tell us, clear as day, when they're confused.┬? So back when the user is making that face, but now at the computer, they have a way tell us.┬? Click the "WTF?" button.

But, your usual knowledge base or FAQ system isn't going to cut it.┬? You might ask, "Isn't that what they're doing when they click FAQ?┬? Aren't they saying "WTF?"┬? Not really.┬? As Kathy says, FAQs are written for a user who is mildly in love with the application and likes the product.┬? The people who actually need and use the FAQs are usually new to the software and totally lost.┬? Help documents and FAQs are meant more for the higher level users, those who are closer to the passion threshold.

So what should happen in our software when someone presses the "WTF?" button?┬? Well, Kathy suggests to "start thinking like a human."┬? In the real world, when you're talking with someone and they look confused, you simply ask them, "what's wrong?"┬? You need to emulate that in your software.┬? Ask if the user is even in the right place?┬? Maybe they went too far in the process and actually need to be moved to a different location?┬? In your help documents, Kathy suggests using top level phrases like, "I'm lost,"┬? or, "I'm confused" after someone clicks the "WTF?" button.┬? They're real user questions real people might say, and help the software identify what's wrong.┬?

Being human is very important - especially with the writing style of your help text.┬? Make sure you talk like a person.┬? Kathy notes several studies which show tiny changes in help language - making it more conversation like, personalizing it, using the word "you" - can have huge benefits.┬? But why?┬? Well one of the theories is when your brain reads conversational text, it doesn't know the difference between reading conversation and having conversation.┬? And so your brain turns on and says, "Crap, this is a conversation, I need to pay attention!"

Kathy then gave a bunch of examples of software, and some that got it right and some that got it wrong.┬? She pointed at Excel, and it's painfully un-human help system.┬? All these examples helped to solidify the main point of the talk: rather than creating passionate users through marketing, where you can usually out spend the other guys to win, you should instead focus on out teaching your users better than the next guy.┬? That's the true key to success, and creating passionate users.

Technorati Tags

SXSW, SXSWi, South by Southwest, Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users

Posted by randfish

On Monday, Brian Provost at ScoreBoard Media Group authored a post called - The First Question You Should Ask Your Design Consultant. Brian's exceptionally good at expressing himself, so I won't paraphrase:

“If you can rank a site in lucrative markets, why would you do it for clients instead of for yourself?”

That’s the first thing you, the prospective client, should ask each of the Design consultants you are considering...

Brian proceeds with what is, in essence, a direct indictment of Designmoz's business model and the model of most of these folks as well:

...For many of us, we only consulted as long as we had to in order to build up our bankroll.┬? I’m constantly amazed at how many of these “Design Firms” with the big followings generate little to no income from their own projects.┬? If there is a stronger signal of quality┬?for a lack of confidence in their own ability, I can’t think of it.

That said, I charge a lot and I have an addiction to cars, so I may divert some more energy to consulting before a car purchase.┬? It’s really, really hard to ween yourself from the Consulting Crack Pipe, but with that said, if your consultant does nothing but consult/teach, that’d be a huge red flag to me.┬? If anyone with more than 3 years of experience is allocating more than 50% of their time to consulting, I’m going on record as doubting their skills.

The funny part is, Brian and I actually agree about this issue. Our opinions differ, however, when it comes to which skills, exactly, are being called into question. While Brian believes that Designmoz (I know he didn't specifically mention us, but we're a perfect match for the profile) is bad at the practice of search engine marketing, I think the truth is that we're bad at starting up different business models. For me, personally, Design is what I'm passionate about - I love teaching people about how the search engines operate, speaking at conferences, giving presentations to small and mid-size companies, answering questions over email and generally helping good companies perform better in the rankings.

I'm certainly willing to accept my limitations, and I would like to broaden what Designmoz does - we have 3 unique internal projects that have all been under way for some time (but getting the client work done and keeping the bills paid keeps getting in the way ). However, I recognize that Brian makes an excellent point - despite having a few 5-figure and several, smaller mid-3 figure contracts each month, there can be little doubt that the value of ranking well in the right industries can provide considerably greater returns.

First off, before anyone replies, I think it's valuable that you read Brian's entire post - his position isn't absolute and he does allow for some "excuses" as to why talented folks might take on consulting or client work. What interests me most about this topic is how other talented Designs, whether you work for a company in-house or at an Design company or (particularly) as a private consultant would defend themselves from these charges. Are we good Designs, but bad businesspeople? Lazy enterpreneurs? Risk-averse and lacking in confidence?

BTW - I think I'm adding Scoreboard to my must-read blogs list. Thanks for the tip, Aaron!

Technorati Tags

Design consulting, brian provost, scoreboard media

Today we launched my personal favorite of our recent tools and that is a keyword density and Design rank checking tool. Enter any page into the form and we'll crawl the page, retrieve the most common terms in one, two, and three keyword strings and provide for you the densities of all the terms in the list.

After that we'll let you select which terms you're most interested in with checkboxes or you can use a search box to speed things up and we'll provide your rankings on Design for all the phrases you're interested in. It's a great tool and definitely one worth adding to your favorites.

Tip: this isn't just useful to check your own site. Enter your competitors' pages and find out what they're targeting and how they're ranking.

You'll find this new tool here and the rest of our tools (now 11 and counting) on our free Design tools page.<