From the category archives:

Online Marketing

I recently took a friend to see Eddie Izzard for his birthday. The show was at the Spreckles Theater in downtown San Diego so I wanted to find a nice restaurant near by to grab dinner first. I perused Google Maps and found a very nice looking restaurant called Currant just down the street from the theater. Their menu and wine selection looked great so we were pumped for a great meal.

The restaurant had a good vibe and was smartly decorated with a chalk board advertising their wine flight selection. I ordered the Pinot Noir wine flight only to be notified that the chalk board hadn’t been updated since they opened and they no longer had those wines. Annoying but I can get over it.

We barely glanced at the menu after we were seated since we had both already made our selections when we looked at the menu online. However when I didn’t see what I had selected on the menu, I asked the waitress about it. Her response was basically the same as her response to the chalk board. She said that they change their menu quarterly so they don’t keep their website up to date. Oh wow, your menu changes 4 times a year? Clearly I can see how updating your site four times a year would be such a major time suck and totally not worth it (sarcasm). As a side note, their site is completely in Flash so yes it would take longer to update but that’s not the only way they are getting screwed by their Flash website as we all know.

The waitress had no idea what was even on the website and I bet if I asked her what the domain was she would have to ask someone else. It is astonishing that companies still feel like once they put up a website they are done. Your website needs to be fully integrated into your everyday business and updated regularly. Especially if you have client-facing employees, they need to be well versed in what is on your website. You and your employees will look like idiots if a customer asks a question about something they saw on your website and the employee has no answer.

I most likely won’t go back to Currant since the food was mediocre on top of not being able to get what I was looking forward to. But for their sake, I hope they start to take their website seriously and stop thinking of it as just a fancy place to put their phone number.

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Should You Always Design With SEO In Mind?

12.21.2007 Online Marketing

And a quickie version for those of you sitting in cubes who can’t watch because you’re pretending your working:
This video is in response to a post by Jill Whalen on Search Engine Land this week following up on a debate in the High Rankings Forum about whether SEO is an extra skill or a [...]

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Marketing Unique Products Online

11.28.2007 Online Marketing

Cyber Monday is over and the results are in.  It’s no surprise that Nielsen reported a 10% increase over 2006 in shopping traffic and comScore reported a 21% increase in online sales.
So what does this mean for you?  It means if you are selling a consumer product online the future’s so bright you’ve got to [...]

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Marketing and Optimization for Non-Viral Videos

11.27.2007 Online Marketing

A quick video about how to market non-viral videos online

And the transcript for those of you who don’t like to watch
TechCrunch recently had an article about the strategies behind viral videos with great tips about how to make your viral videos successful once you upload them. But what if your [...]

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