Search Marketing Insomniac…The Blog of Adam Henige

I couldn’t help but share this one.  In March we were fortunate enough to be nominated for the Greater Lansing Business Monthly’s Entrepreneur of the Year…and we won!  Up against tough competition like Justin Caine and Good Fruit Video and Sam Hogg of GiftZip (one of our clients), it was truly one of the best nights in our company’s history.  Here’s Chris Holman introducing Joe and I, and then our completely off the cuff acceptance speeches.  Honestly, the running joke at the office that week was, “Have you practiced your acceptance speech yet?”  We had no notion whatsoever that we would win.

Adam Henige and Joe Ford Win Emerging Entrepreneurs of the Year from Netvantage on Vimeo.

Image: Polyrelus via Wikimedia

I don’t have kids myself, but I’ve heard the term “terrible twos” more than enough to know that a two year old can be quite the ball of untamed fury.  I’m not sure how that relates to a business, but I’d like to think that we can continue to grow in our own way without causing the laundry list of headaches that come with a typical two year old.

It’s been a great run thus far, and as we celebrate our second birthday on May 12th I just wanted to run down a list of lessons I’ve learned as a small business owner over the course of two years, and hand out some much deserved thank yous to the people who have helped us be successful thus far.

Lessons learned

1. Stick to what you know.  The dollar bills have been wagged in our face more than once to go outside of the core services that we offer but we never took the bait.  That wasn’t always easy when clients were few and times were lean, but we stuck to our guns and it was, and will continue to be, the right thing to do.
2. Get organized!  One thing we continue to work through is developing and maintaining consistent processes.  This isn’t easy when your staff and client roster keep growing while the methods you employ from client to client keep changing as well.  Be aware of process at all times and try to institute them at all times.
3. Bend over backwards to maintain your reputation.  I had an instance where a very small client came to us with a small project to help push their organic traffic over the hump.  For the limited scope and size of the project, I felt we did a pretty bang up job, but it didn’t quite make the splash the client had hoped.  They came back, not upset, but wondering what else they could do given their limited resources.  They were good people with a good business, so I put in a few extra hours of work to show them what they should be doing to help themselves.  I guess I could have blown them off, but one loud unhappy voice can be heard for miles…
4. Put yourself out there!  The Search Marketing Community is full of incredibly smart and talented people, but it’s good to get yourself known in whatever field you choose to follow.  So do your homework and try to contribute to your industry.  I don’t have a ton of time to guest blog or do white papers, but I love when I have the chance to.  I even uncorked some of my old statistical skills that I hadn’t used since 1998 to baffle some people over at SEOMoz with my guest blog on term vector theory.
5. Work smarter, not harder.  As our capabilities grow as an organization, we’re able to do some far more interesting link building tactics.  Make something cool, and the links will come (sometimes…if properly marketed!)  Here’s some fun stuff we’ve worked on recently - Are you smarter than a football player? and in honor of National Boating Safety Week, a boater’s safety quiz.
6. Have fun.  Our office is extremely fun.  People laugh and joke a lot.  Surround yourself with smart, motivated and fun people and good things happen.  That’s science.
7. Good partners make good business.  Where to start?  Traction, Nicholas Creative, ICS Marketing Support Services, Visual Hero, Mighty, and a handful of wonderful contractors who we have fabulous symbiotic relationships with.  The same theory applies here as does with our own staff - surrounding yourself with good partners leads to good results.

Random thanks.

1. Whoever the hell nominated us for the Greater Lansing Business Monthly Emerging Entrepreneurs Award.  We honestly did not see that coming but are very grateful for the recognition.
2. My parents, who I did not invite to that event because I was certain we weren’t going to win.  My bad.  If I get nominated for anything else in my lifetime, I’m bringing you no matter what.  Also thanks for not thinking we were out of our mind starting a business in 2008 and giving up awesome jobs at another great company in Spartan Internet.
3. Joe Ford.  My partner in crime continues to be an excellent face to our company and the perfect compliment to my skill sets.  Synergy, Joe…synergy.
4. All the excellent staff and interns who have already worked for us.  We do our best to make your time with Netvantage valuable, and you have been instrumental in our success thus far.
5. The local media.  The Great Lakes IT Report, Capital Gains, WLNS, the LSJ and of course the Greater Lansing Business Monthly have all been very helpful spreading the word when notable things happen at Netvantage (and with many of our friends and partners).
6. Shaun Anderson.  One of my favorite big time SEOs (I’m still a relative nobody), who in a round about way helped me name this blog.  He’s located in the UK and during an email string pointed out that based on the hours of my communications, I must not sleep.  I like the title, so thanks for the help!
7. Last but not least - our clients, past and present.  It took some guts for clients to sign with us as we started with none.  For every company that rolled the dice by working with the new guys, I can never thank you enough.  We will continue to do our best to provide value to you.

I can’t wait to write another one of these next year, hopefully chock full of more learning experiences and new people to thank.

As a growing company, inevitably we have to reach out to contractors from time to time to deal with surges in demand for our services.  As I come up on my second year of ownership here at Netvantage, I’ve learned a couple of hard lessons, and right now I’m learning that dealing with unreliable contractors is downright infuriating.  Enter my experience with writer Chris Kyalo.  I initially contacted Chris in 2009 to develop some articles for a client of ours and despite being a little behind schedule, he did a bang up job delivering exactly as he had promised.  More recently, I reached out to him for a larger project, and it’s been a painful experience.  Since this man has my money and hasn’t found it fit to return it, I suppose I will publish our correspondence as a lesson learned for other possible SEOs who run into this situation.

When Contractors Go Bad

Below details the string of communication that lead up to this post (with 4 very slight semantic edits to protect the identity of my clients).

— On Mon, 1/4/10, Adam H wrote:

From: Adam H
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Chris Kyalo” <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Date: Monday, January 4, 2010, 7:55 AM

Hi Chris,

Sorry for the delay, but I just sent the money over from our new corporate paypal account.  Please let me know when you’ve received it.

Thanks,

Adama

— On Wed, 1/6/10, Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Adam H”
Date: Wednesday, January 6, 2010, 7:24 AM

Hi Adam,

Thanks. I received the Paypal funds.

I will keep you posted

warmly,
Christopher Kyalo.

— On Thu, 1/21/10, Adam H wrote:

From: Adam H
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Chris Kyalo” <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Date: Thursday, January 21, 2010, 9:07 AM

Hi Chris,

Just wanted to get in touch and see how things were progressing.  Thanks.

— On Fri, 1/22/10, Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Adam H”
Date: Friday, January 22, 2010, 5:49 AM

Hello Adam,

You should start looking at some articles before end of next week.

warmly,
Chris.

— On Tue, 2/2/10, Adam H wrote:

From: Adam H
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Chris Kyalo” <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Date: Tuesday, February 2, 2010, 2:58 PM

Hi Chris,

Any update on our articles?

Thanks,
Adam

— On Thu, 2/4/10, Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Adam H”
Date: Thursday, February 4, 2010, 9:47 PM

Hello Adam,

Articles coming up. Some technical issues that had slowed everything considerably have just been resolved a few hours ago.

warmly,
Chris.

— On Mon, 2/8/10, Adam H wrote:

From: Adam H
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Chris Kyalo” <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Date: Monday, February 8, 2010, 4:09 PM

Thanks Chris, any further ideas on the timeline for these?

Thanks.

— On Fri, 2/12/10, Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Adam H”
Date: Friday, February 12, 2010, 12:52 PM

Hello Adam,

Really sorry for the delay. I have to confess that underestimated the backlog of articles I had to clear.

Still I am working on your articles and will be able to give you an accurate timeline as soon as I send you the first batch in a few days time. Please don’t worry, the entire lot will be done pretty quickly without compromising the quality in any way.

warmly
Christopher Kyalo.

— On Sun, 2/21/10, Adam H wrote:

From: Adam H
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Chris Kyalo” <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Date: Sunday, February 21, 2010, 12:23 PM

Chris,

To say I’m a bit concerned as to whether I will see these articles is an understatement at this point.  I sent payment more than a month and a half ago and have nothing to show for it.  I would like to resolve this one way or another this week - either with a completed project, a partially completed project with a refund, or a refund.  Please let me know how you would like to proceed.

Thanks,
Adam

— On Fri, 2/23/10, Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: Fw: Articles
To: “Adam H”
Date: Tuesday, February 23, 2010 12:49 AM

The project will be completed by the end of this week. I underestimated the backlog I accumulated and the truth is that I really wanted to give your articles my best rather than just complete them for the sake of completing them.

Still I am really sorry for what has happened. It should NOT have happened.

Chris.

— On Sun, 2/28/10, Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Subject: Articles
To: Adam H
Date: Sunday, February 28, 2010, 2:21 AM

Hello Adam,

Thank you so much for your patience during my crisis.

Below find the initial articles I have done. I am eager to know what your honest verdict is on this articles. Let me know as soon as you can. I will send more articles later.

warmly,
Chris.

I*Edited out the completed articles - 2.5% of the total contracted work - which was quality work, I won’t deny that*

— On Tue, 3/9/10, Adam H wrote:

From: Adam H
Subject: Re: Articles
To: “Chris Kyalo” <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010, 7:20 AM

Chris.

I understand you’ve had some troubles on your end, but from my perspective, I have been promised a product multiple times that has not been delivered.  If I don’t have my articles by the end of the week I want my money back.  I’m servicing clients and if I can’t produce the articles then I’m to blame.  I can better use that money elsewhere.

If I don’t receive payment, I will be forced to disclose how this played out publicly.

-Adam

— On Sun, 3/9/10, Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Chris Kyalo <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Subject: Articles
To: Adam H
Date: Tuesday, March 9, 2010 8:49 PM

I have been trying to pace myself as acurately as possible because I did not want to give you a date that won’t work out this time. By Wednesday next week all your articles should be done without fail. I will start sending the complete batches within the next 2 days.

— On Thu, 4/8/10, Adam H wrote:

From: Adam H
Subject: Re: more articles
To: “Chris Kyalo” <ckyalo@yahoo.com>
Date: Thursday, April 8, 2010, 10:37 PM

Chris we are now at nearly three months for less than 20 percent of our required work.  Some of the articles I had previously requested aren’t even in line with our needs at this point.  Do you have any timeline for all of the work to be complete or are you just going to continue to string this along into 2011?  I simply don’t have forever for this.  I have tried to give you deadlines, but I keep getting a slow trickle of work.  Previously you finished your work in a very timely fashion, so I know you’re capable of this, yet somehow this just isn’t happening.  Give me a timeline you can stick to that’s within the next 30 days or give me the rest of my balance back.  This is very disappointing.

*End transmissions*

I understand that you can’t make every client happy.  As a business owner myself, I have worked hard to maintain the stellar reputation we have thus far been able to achieve.  However, while sometimes expectations might not be properly communicated or met, when you deliver an end product there’s really no excuse for taking someone’s money and providing them 20% of what you promised.  Needless to say, this is what it is to get ripped off.  When dealing with contractors such Chris Kyalo, just remember to proceed with caution.

*This guest post was provided by the good folks at SEMAdvisory.

The old tried-and-true forms of traditional advertising are being shifted to the backburner. Print media such as magazines and newspapers, and broadcast media like radio and television, are seeing fewer and fewer budget dollars from businesses who are finding online marketing more effective, and more cost-effective.

According to a marketing research report co-sponsored by ExactTarget.com and Econsultancy, more money is being allocated to digital forms of advertising by more businesses. The report is based on poll to over 1,000 marketers regarding their 2010 marketing and branding strategies.

Despite economic decline over the last few years, 46% of marketers polled said they are increasing their overall advertising budgets in 2010. And 66% of those polled said they are increasing their digital advertising budgets. Overall, the report says it expects a 17% surge in the total amount of digital advertising spending.

Metrics is the New Rule

For advertising dollars to be worth the expense, it needs to be effective. And though there are ways to trace and measure the conversions of some traditional forms of advertising like sales letters, knowing the exact ROI an advertising campaign reaches per person is nearly impossible.

But not with digital marketing. Marketing via the internet allows an entirely new “scientific” aspect to measuring and tracking advertising efforts. That is one reason many marketers are adjusting their marketing efforts toward digital advertising. The majority of online marketers can effectively measure the advertising results of strategies such as SEO, email, and pay per click. That is why 64% of marketers are plan to increase marketing dollars toward these strategies in 2010.

And while digital marketing is still a growing trend, not everyone is getting on board. However, 28% of marketers polled said they are shifting at least a small portion of their marketing budget to digital channels. And 34% of said that “more science than art” is the reason for shifting some budgetary monies.

Social media is also seeing a spike in allocated funds. 70% of respondents said they will be increasing budgets for off-site social media such as Twitter and Facebook. Additionally, the growing popularity of mobile advertising is spurring on 56% of respondents to increase spending toward mobile searches.

Digital Advertising Challenges

Though more marketers are spending more money than ever on digital advertising, there are still some limitations and barriers that a few have not yet overcome. 48% of respondents said that the biggest barrier to digital advertising growth was the lack of understanding about the media. Additionally, 35% said they have a lack of staff who can implement and track digital advertising.

So while digital advertising is still growing, and many more marketers are increasing digital marketing budgets, it seems there is still much to learn about the opportunities of online marketing. The digital channels of marketing present a vast frontier for marketers to spend quality advertising dollars in the future when it is better understood and the staff is available to conduct digital advertising in earnest.

Author Bio:

SEMAdvisory assists Dallas SEO clients in reaching their online goals. We pride ourselves in delivering effective Dallas search engine optimization to all small to mid-sized business owners.

Blogging.  If you talk to the internet marketing snobs they’ll tell you it’s “so 2007″.  If that were the case, there wouldn’t be so many that are still so successful.  Sure there are other newer, shinier mediums, but a good blog still holds a tremendous amount of value and can be a great business and relationship builder.  The real question is, how do you make a good one?

I think I can speak a little bit from experience, as:

1. We’re a small business
2. I’m a blogger
3. I consider my blog a moderate success (though I really wish I had more time to devote to it…but see number 1 for why I can’t)

Most small businesses lack the resources of their larger contemporaries, which adds some significant challenges to creating a successful and beneficial blog.  I’ve created a short checklist that helps me, and will hopefully help you either create or transform your blog as one that people can truly find value in.

Don't put a stinker in someone's inbox.

1. Create quality content.  Too often small businesses will have a couple of ideas that are worthy of a post, but the majority of their blogging is filler.  Don’t make your blog a one hit wonder, think of your blog as an album.  Nobody will buy an album if there’s only one or two good songs.  Assume that every reader will sign up to your RSS feed, and if your post isn’t something someone would take the time to open and read then don’t write it.  Nothing’s more annoying than getting a stinkbomb in your inbox or Google Reader.
2. Be unique.  If you have an idea for a blog, spend some time researching to see if it’s been discussed before.  Do a quick search or two on the topic and if it’s been done, try to add a unique spin to it.  If you want to get some attention, link to the other posts as well, and you can get some exposure by showing up in their trackbacks if the other blogs have them enabled.
3. Involve others.  Once you’ve established your blog and have a bit of an audience, offer others the opportunity to do a guest post or co-write a post on a topic that they’re passionate about.  These people will likely help promote their appearance on their blog or other social media avenues as well.  The more popular your guest, the better off you’ll be.

4. 

   100% of people like graphs. It's a law.

   Make it look good.  Like it or not, credibility often comes with appearance.  So making your blog have a professional look goes a long way to getting people to spend time reading your work.  Furthermore, add relevant images to your blog.  People like visuals - especially graphs.

5. Create a schedule and stick to it.  One of the hardest parts about maintaining a blog is maintaining a blog.  It takes time.  I’m guilty of falling off my schedule from time to time as well, but I try to tackle a blog topic or two each weekend.  It’s always nice to have a spare topic that’s not time sensitive to post when life doesn’t allow.  If you have a team, this gets even easier, as long as each member knows when they’re expected to add a post.  Create a schedule and stick to it.  Reward yourself for sticking to it if you must (I would blog for a Klondike bar.)

If you need motivation or need to sell other members of your team on blogging, keep in mind some of the key benefits:

1. A blog lets you casually articulate a position on a topic or better explain products/services without heavy handed selling.  It’s a great way to tell a story and to personalize your business.
2. Fresh content makes search engines happy - green content shows your site is active and constantly adding relevant content to your blog/site’s theme.
3. Your blog is a great opportunity to build links (which will help your overall site’s ranking as well).  Publish an RSS feed and promote your blog in blog directories and via social media to get yourself noticed.  Once you have an audience and great content, links will follow.

Another great resource for blog beginners is the Clear Writing Checklist - which offers some technical recommendations for selecting colors, images and fonts to make your blog all it can be.  I definitely recommend checking that out.

Any other recommendations are certainly welcome in the comments.  Happy blogging!