Of course, it’s not so simple because Real estate agents are tied into this arcane monopoly called the the MLS and in turn something called MLS Reciprocity.  You can find info about the MLS reciprocity (an FAQ) at http://members.rebgv.org/mlsr/. 

By the way, there is an updated FAQ on MLS Reciprocity for REBGV based on the one linked above.  If you want the link, shoot me an email. 

Here is how my conversation went:

The Call

(Note, reponses from REBGV are in bold below)

Hi there, I wondered if I could talk to you for a few minutes about Reciprocity and some of the questions I have?

Sure

So, I have never done a Real estate web site before and one of the features the agent is asking for is to provide their listings on their web site.  Now, I know there are bunch of different ways we can go about doing this.  I don’t mind doing a framed page where their listings show up in a different frame, but I’m wondering if there is a more elegant way of doing it?

What features are they asking for?

What I would like to be able to do is take the listing information maybe through an API of some kind, and be able to reformat that information so its more inline with how their web site is being designed?

Is that your only feature for their web site?

Yes, their own listings.  Why do you ask?  Is there something else I should be asking for?

Yes, what office are they with?

One is with Amex, and the other is Century 21. 

Let’s see.  I don’t even know where to start.  OK.  I think one feature that agents will eventually want on their web site…a lot of agents have this, so I would be a little bit surprised if they don’t want to go their eventually.  We have an advertising program called MLS Reciprocity also known as IDX that we don’t internally refer to as IDX, but that’s the common acronym in other jurisdictions.  Basically, it’s an advertising program that allows participating members to advertise other agents’ listings on their web site as long as those agents are from a participating office.  Right now about 90-92% of listings, man thousands of listings – all are in the Reciprocity pool and there are lots and lots of web sites where you can see the results of what happens when people advertise using other people’s listings.  The simplest method is the search.  We provide one such search engine which is relatively customizable, but not super customizable.  It’s relatively low cost but really there is a data API.  It’s relatively difficult to work with.  If they are willing to go there, the sky is the limit. So for example, there is a site at Burnabycondo.com and NewWestCondo.com.  There are bunch of sites that use this pool of data for various reasons and that’s within our advertising guidelines.  So, you are asking if we can get this data for just this one person?  Yes, you can.  I have got at least a couple of ways of doing it, but that’s probably going to lead to other questions pretty soon and so you should cover off those questions with your clients sooner rather than later.  There is an FAQ available online.  I’m working on a new one that answers questions a little better.

I’m actually looking at it right now.  Is it http://members.rebgv.org/mlsr/?

Yes.  It’s in that directory but that one is old.  There is a newer one at ….. (please email me for the link). I think it’s a better description about what’s available. I really do think it’s a better description and how these members have to get into it.  I know you started the conversation with how do I get data for these one members, but if you decide to go for a data API for Reciprocity, you are agent’s information will almost invariably be in it.  If they decided to use the board solution for IDX, we also have a way that we can make it work.  I could easily provide you a couple of links that provide their active listings, but they are somewhat linked to this because I built everything in the same time.  I don’t think I have directly answered your questions, but given you more to think about.

Yes, I thought it was straightforward where I log into some tool, pull some JS and off I go.

To tell you the truth, it is simple.  I can give you a link right now that will give you a white blank page with some grey highlights that would provide listings for one agent.  I can do that right now but then they are going to want, can we customize this a little.  Well, yes, you can but when you start customizing it a little.. you know searches.. you know not just search pages but listing pages.  I think the agent will want to go there anyways.  I don’t think it’s that much of an advantage to have searching anymore but it seems to be an omission anyways.

OK.  I will look through this.  I guess you are actively working on this and making it better for people to use?

Well, we have got a product, a basic search product, that does not draw a lot of attention. Its something we have built up 6 or 7 years ago and its a basic low cost sort of solution for members but we also provide access to the data and other 3rd parties have taken that and run with it and done things like searches that use Google maps and expanded the data, and maybe walk scores and such.  All of that is possible, but we choose to let the market decide.  We provide a basic solution that our members have a low cost option and everyone else can “have at er”.

How do I found out about that?  You said there was a more complex solution with a data API. Is it RETS.org?

You are looking through the FAQ I assume.  The question is “You are a third party.  How do I obtain my own data?”. RETS is the protocol that we use and then you would have to figure out the code.  We have some PHP samples, but you have to figure it out yourself after getting the agreement signed.  It’s quite a lot of work so you have to decide how many realtors you are working for and how much they are willing to pay and all that sort of thing. 

So I could potentially as a web designer setup my own customary app using the RETS protocol, talk to this data, pay for the fees obviously that are listed, and then…

Yes, but that data is always used on behalf of a realtor.  We cannot license that data for people to use any AnyWebSite.com.  We only license it for use on AnyRealtorsWebSite.com. 

I understand.  OK, good.  You have given me some good info.  I really appreciate it.  I’m going to send you my email and if you have any other information you haven’t talked about, or links or documents, that would be great.

One thing I’m actively working on, is the new FAQ and if there are some questions it doesn’t answer, let me know.

Takeaway

So, it’s quite clear, I have a few options:

1. Use the existing free listing and integrated search offered by REBGV
2. Pay the fees and build my own custom interface using RETS and the data API

What Realtors need to do

1. Sign the license agreement for Reciprocity with their office
2. See if their office offers custom in house Reciprocity data via the RETS protocol based API
3. Signup for a Real Estate Website through a 3rd party vendor – for example Ubertor.com.
4. Work directly with a web designer to create a custom web site and possibly forego custom search and listing data.

What I’m going to do next

To be honest, this isn’t the first time I’m looking at this problem.  It’s clear that REBGV hasn’t come up with a great solution, and is truly leaving a massive revenue stream on the table with regard to their Reciprocity data.  I mean, they have spent all that time to get the data and make it available, but literally nothing to interface directly with agents and offices to provide custom search and data listing functionality.  As my contact suggests, they prefer to “let the market decide”.  That’s not very smart to be perfectly honest.

Further Reading

• The FAQ I mentioned in the post above: http://members.rebgv.org/mlsr/
• A great discussion forum and place to get more info: http://www.realestatewebmasters.com
• My post on the above discussion forum to get more info: http://www.realestatewebmasters.com/thread25059.html
• RETS discussion at http://forums.rets.org/showthread.php?t=2804

Are you a webmaster for a real estate agent in Vancouver and have already developed something useful for RETS?  Let me know! 

Being Creative is a Curse and a Blessing

As a designer, I’m looking at other designers for inspiration all the time.  That creative spirit, however, is both a blessing and a curse. It’s a blessing because I’m looking at new designs all the time and am curious about how other creatives look at branding.  I like design and I enjoy the creative process and that’s definitely a feather in my cap.  Being curious about design is also a curse, however, because I’m never satisfied with my own brand.   It always feel’s a bit incomplete, and as I learn more about design, branding, and standing out, I feel like I need to do something different.

My Brand History over the last 10 years

Take my own brand and how I market myself which I started doing in 2001 with bcbold.com:

• 1998 – Launched bcbold.com as my first exercise into online marketing.  View this version at archive.org.
• 2001 – After several revisions, I relaunched with a new design and also started using Active Server Pages to manage the content.  View this version at archive.org
• 2003 – I changed from bcbold.com to redprimary.com.  View this version at archive.org
• 2003 – 2008 – I changed the design of redprimary.com over that 5 year period many times and have at least 12 verifiable revisions of the site.  Every time I learned something new about design, I tweaked my own online presence.
• 2009 – I changed from using redprimary.com to fullmotiongroup.com which is my online portfolio because I felt redprimary.com didn’t really represent what I do.
• 2010 – I’m going to launch WebMarketingMasterPlan.com which is where all of my web marketing articles and expertise will eventually go.

At the moment, I’m leaning towards Minimalism and the idea that less can be more.  Take the latest version of fullmotiongroup.com.  It’s a dead simple design and all fits on one page.  No frills, no marketing, no lengthy blog posts, no sales pitches, no lengthy content, and no ebooks.  It’s a portfolio site that stands alone and if someone wants to read more about me, they can contact me or visit this blog.

The Rise of "Jack of All Trades"

I don’t know if it’s becoming more common globally, but certainly with IT Professionals such as myself, being multi-talented and a jack of all trades is commonplace.  Nearly everyone I know in IT has multiple skills and abilities.  I have decided that having multiple domains for each of my "personas" is a good thing too, and I’m going down that route now.

• fullmotiongroup.com – my simple portfolio site for my web design work
• webmarketingmasterplan.com – an educational resource I’m launching in 2010 with articles and best practices on web marketing and design or maybe as an ebook (I haven’t decided which will bring greater profits).  I might also do video with each blog post.
• mayurj.com – this blog and dumping ground for everything that doesn’t fit into the above two sites
• mayurj.org – A launching pad or lifestream page I have no plans on launching for now. I expect it to look something like Gina Trapani’s site and it might be the one domain I hand out to people looking to hire me.

My other domains, redprimary.com and bcbold.com I expect to keep for the forseeable future and won’t let them go (the Pagerank and domain history can’t be replaced).

5 reasons to have multiple domains

1. Reason 1: You have multiple skills and all together they don’t fit in one site
2. Reason 2: Thin-slice yourself and represent each skill/ability with it’s own brand
3. Reason 3: When customers visit one of your domains, they get what they want quickly and without fuss.  They don’t have to wade through hundreds of categories or a series of menus.
4. Reason 4: Experiment with a brand idea or marketing angle like MRPWebmedia did with 136words.com
5. Reason 5: Expand a series of blog posts or skills you develop into it’s own site.  If you have too much on one site, designers will tell you that your original brand becomes polluted.

10 places I get design inspiration

1. Wired Magazine – there are some great ad and article designs in this magazine and I get a copy every month.  I keep copies around and flip through them before I start a design project.
2. Television Ads – Sure shows are great, but ads during primetime or major sport events are great places get new "memes", themes, and angles on marketing.
3. Vandelay Design Inspiration – Definitely one of the best resources for web design ideas, the author sends out an email each month which I always look forward to reading.  If you are a web designer, definitely subscribe to the author’s emails.
4. Twitter – Recently I’m getting a lot of people adding me to Twitter.  Sometimes, I look at their twitter accounts and visit their site to see what they do.
5. Local Mall – You would be surprised what you can see at the local mall (besides all the pretty eye candy) when you pay attention to the poster boards and in-store marketing
6. Books – I’m into personal development these days and have a big collection of about 3000 hours from guys like Rohn, Tracy, Robbins, Waitley, Covey and more.  Often, I get inspired to think differently about marketing and branding and that has definitely influenced my work.  In particular, Blink and Purple Cow from Seth Godin are outstanding examples of thinking outside the box.
7. MRPWebmedia – I just found this one recently.  It’s a great collection of articles about branding and marketing and the authors have gone down the path that marketing is about being like a Purple Cow (a reference to Seth Godin’s book on the subject) – ie that marketing is about doing something outstanding that people talk about.
8. Lifehacker, Engadget and ZdNet.com – These sites together offer links to vendors, articles, and tonnes of in-site content.  All of it together helps me to see design differently and sometimes in a fresh way. Often I will click the sidebar ads to see what other new ventures are coming out the woodworks.  I found some of my favorite services like MediaTemple (web hosting) and Basecamp (project management) this way.
9. Sitepoint.com – This is a large site focused on design and online marketing and they have several different email newsletters they send.  I subscribe to all of them which often feature ads from related businesses.  Flippa.com is one site I found this morning while looking at the Sitepoint email newsletter.
10. Supermarkets – Surprisingly, this is a great place for design ideas.  The food business is highly competitive and retailers have to make every square inch on product packaging count.  Web design can benefit from the same requirements – to make every square inch of a design count for something.  Next time you visit the supermarket, pay attention to product packaging that catches your eye and ask yourself what made it standout.

5 Reasons Why you MUST stand out

Having read most of the articles at MRPWebMedia.com, I’m convinced that doing something extraordinary is crucial in marketing. Actually, it’s an idea I always knew, but reading the articles helped refresh my memory. Online, it’s even more critical.  Here’s why:

1. Reason 1: With the rise of web sites, everyone skims pages and rarely reads a page in full.  You have about 10 seconds and you might as well make it count with something extra-ordinary.  Seth Godin talks about this in a book called Blink if you’re curious about how to stand out and why
2. Reason 2: With easy access to Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook, a great idea can go viral very quickly.  Do something different and people will talk about you.  This is good for your business, and it’s also good for your Pagerank
3. Reason 3: People don’t remember "Just like Everyone Else" .  They remember the guy with the red mohawk, or the girl with the long platinum blonde hair and grey eyes.  People’s emotions are triggered when they see something different, and hopefully, if you did a good job, they remember it for good reasons.  If people see something different, they are more likely to do business with you when their need arises.
4. Reason 4: People buy emotional states, not features and facts.  Nearly everything you buy you do so for the emotional state you hope to feel.  Good branders and marketers know this and don’t try to sell features and facts about a product or service.  They sell the emotional state and that alone is all you need.  If you don’t stand out, it’s probably cause you didn’t sell an emotional state in your branding and marketing.
5. Reason 5: Competition is fierce and the Internet levels the playing field.  In less than a minute on Google you can find a list of 20 potential businesses you might want to do business.  If 18 of them all look the same and have the same boring features and facts listed on their site, they all look the same in the customer’s eyes.  But if one or two of them stand out and have something unique or create an emotional response worth buying, they win.  Online, standing out is a must, and if you don’t, you lose.

I just got off a call with a potential client that asked me for help.  They initially contacted me via email (I have no idea how they found me and will post in the near future about that) and I replied back to the site owner with a quote and time estimate.

I then did something few other web designers do in these situations: a follow up phone call.  This is good practice in creating confidence with your potential clients and it helps a LOT in persuading potential clients to work with you.

Why?  Well, let’s start with an understanding of what customers expect from their web designer:

What every Customer Wants from you

1. On time.  Being on time is simple.  Don’t promise if you can’t deliver.  There is no shame in being up front and honest about what you can and can’t do and in stating the absolute truth.  At worst, you might have to admit you can’t deliver when they expect you to, and at best, it shows a great deal of honesty.  Your customer counts on you for delivering when you say do.  Their business and internal activities rely on you being on time.  So promise a time you are able to stick to and don’t compromise.  If you fall behind, let your client know right away so they can accommodate the additional time you may need.  Be honest and be real about your time commitments.
2. On Budget.  This one is tricky.  As a web designer, I often run into a situation where a customer will keep asking and asking for changes not realizing the amount of work involved.  Something benign like changing text is perfectly fine but when you are asked to move things around on a page or change the site layout in some fundamental way, the time involved can be significant. Customers just don’t understand the web development process and perhaps that’s an area you want to spend more time explaining when meeting clients.  My suggestion when costing out a project is to quote by the hour initially and estimate total time required – being exact isn’t always necessary but some clients need this.  You can also adjust your hourly rate depending on the size of the client (yes, you really can charge more to larger firms and companies and that’s ok in my book). This last tip goes against popular opinion.  Some designers think they should set an hourly rate and stick to their guns no matter what.  I don’t agree.  Consider lower paying jobs as experience earned and mark it off as that.  If you help a client out in the short term with their needs, and you meet their budget requirements, they will appreciate it and remember you when their budget improves.
3. Technical Expertise.  It goes without saying that if you follow the rules above, that clients will tend to put your name in good light.  However, you need to actually do the work as promised and this won’t happen if you over promise your skills.  If you CAN do the work, then great.  If you can’t, however, propose to the client that you bring in a skilled freelancer you will need to hire to get their work done.  Think of the client’s perspective.  They just want to hire someone that can get their work done so they can move on to the next area of business they are concerned with.  They don’t have the time or energy to go out and hire someone else in addition to you, so bring the solution to the table.  If you need a programmer, add that into your quote and say you have a programmer you work with.  Become an expert at finding out what clients need and present solutions that fit their business requirements and continue honing this investigative skill.  If client’s ask you for a skill you don’t have, go out and learn it and then next time a client calls, you will be ready.  Skills learned are always beneficial if for nothing more than perfecting your craft.

Now let’s talk about that follow-up phone call.

The best way to communicate with clients

Understanding human behaviour is a great skill to acquire and learn and thankfully I have spent a lot of time figuring my own patterns of behaviour through personal development and taking courses.  A side effect of this is that I have learned a lot about communication as well.

1. Best: Face to Face. Studies show that the best way of communicating (regardless of audience) is face to face and in person.  Why? Because it’s real, and it can’t be faked.  It’s honest, and non-verbal communication has a power of it’s own.  It’s not a coincidence that more and more companies are leveraging video streaming on their web sites.  The smarter marketers have just figured this out and many marketing companies are jumping into online video streaming (like these guys).
2. Better: Phone call. If you can’t meet a client one-on-one, give them a call.  I can tell you from the phone call I just had that there is a whole series of messages being played “under the surface” in phone conversations.  If you make the call, pay attention to what customers are saying and show them how you can help solve their problems and reduce their fears.  In my case, the customer mentioned that they had attempted to work with others designers in the past but most of them had overpromised, and under delivered.  Having made that follow up phone call, I’m cogniscent of this concern now and will be extra careful with this client if I win their contract.
3. Good.  Email.  If you can’t meet clients face to face and a phone call isn’t going to happen, email is good enough.  Email, however, doesn’t let you “speak”.  It’s cold and formal and it’s difficult to show your personality and energy.  If you must do email, at least include a link to a sound byte of yourself on your web site so potential clients can hear and see you.  Some clients don’t mind email.

Regardless of the above rules, each client is different.  Some prefer face to face, long lunches, dinners, drinks, and others prefer precision, and email.  Figure out what client’s want and give it them.  As my friend Eddie says, “Learn to adapt and conquer”.

As web designers, It’s too easy to sit behind email and not learn the art of face to face communication but leverage it whenever you can.  It’s real, and it shows who you are.  Few other web designers go as far as following up with phone calls and sending thank you cards, etc.  It doesn’t take much to be different.  Try it, and you will be surprised by the results.

I’m learning a lot about SEO lately and how search engines index content.  One idea I stumbled upon reading about SEO optimization for your blog is the idea of using lots of Categories almost to the point of over-using it.   I’m convinced now that having lots of Categories in your blog is beneficial to both your reading audience and your search engine ranking.  Here’s why:

1. Reason #1: Lots of relevant keywords helps searchers.  I’m not suggesting you use every category in your blog for each blog post, but that you think of as many keywords as you can when blogging.  Consider all the possible keywords a person might be searching
2. Reason #2: Reduces Misinterpretation for visitors. By having all your categories listed on your blog (as I do here), someone looking for other content about a given topic will be able to find it easily.  If I only used 5 or so categories on this blog, it would be necessary for visitors to interpret what kinds of content would be in each category and that means work.  Nobody likes to work.  Reading and enjoying your blog should be an effortless and enjoyable experience.  Lot’s of blog categories and listing them all in your site helps readers and let’s them find other relevant content.
3. Reason #3: Visitors get to form a picture.  As you scan my list of categories you get an idea of the kinds of content you can expect to find on my blog, and that helps you form a picture of what this blog is about.  Just like a picture speaks a thousand words, lots of categories helps you understand what this blog is about.  One thing you know for sure: this blog isn’t about dog training.
4. Reason #5: Every category means a separate indexed page in Google.  Assuming you are using the category template in your WordPress blog, each category page means a separate page in the Google index which CAN help your ranking.

Got more reasons to use lots of categories?  Leave a comment and share with other readers!

About 7 minutes.  That’s all the time I took to write this blog post.  I didn’t login to the WordPress admin pages, and I didn’t visit my blog to post this blog entry.  How did I do it?  Read on for more.

1. Tip #1: Write about anything.  You think you need to write about something you just learned?  Well yes, but also write anything you already know, especially the knowledge you take for granted.  Newbie’s just starting to learn what you already know will appreciate what you see as common sense knowledge.  This blog post for example, highlights knowledge I already take for granted but it’s entirely possible someone out there doesn’t know it.
2. Tip #2: Get yourself a desktop blogging tool.  Windows Live Writer is my personal favourite and it’s a huge timesaver.  I’m writing this blog entry with this software now.  What I like most about using it is that I can copy/paste from other programs (like Photoshop) and image insertion is dead easy.  The WordPress admin screens just don’t make the cut when compared to a desktop blogging tool
3. Tip #3: Go nuts with keywords and categories.  With a blog like this one, I’m able to get away with lots of categories. It’s a well designed theme and the layout lends well to many extra categories.  The additional time spent with categories and tags also let’s you get some good Google Juice too.
4. Tip #4: DON’T BE PERFECT!  I put this in caps because perfection will kill you.  You don’t need to be perfect, just post often.  I have a few customers that sit on a single post for days and that’s just time wasted.  Unless your audience are book publishers, you don’t need grammatical perfection.  Quantity is great but not without substance.  For example, it’s senseless to break this blog post into 10 individual blog posts with one item each.  It’s not going to get your Google Juice doing that.  Don’t sacrifice readability for quantity but also don’t worry about perfection. 
5. Tip #5: Use spell-check and revise at least once.  I use Windows Live Writer which has spell checker built in.  Spelling mistakes are bad and show a lack of care and attention.  I also revise the post once just to see if it’s readable.
6. Tip #6: Post a link in Facebook, Twitter, and Digg.  Blogging is great, but if nobody reads it, it’s energy spent for nothing.  Let your network know about your blog by posting links in your social networks.
7. Tip #7: Provide at least one image.  At least one, and perhaps even 2 or 3 if your post is long. Images help readers by breaking up long posts into sections that are scannable and easy to read.  Take a minute and visit Google Image search to find relevant imagery. Besides, images also just look purdy. 
8. Tip #8: Provide links.  The web is a hyperlinked world and links are what people like to see. Take the time to find one or two useful links to other sites if that’s called for but don’t overdue it.  For example in this post, I have linked to “Windows Live Writer” above, but only because it’s relevant to this blog topic and someone might find the link useful.  Sometimes, links to relevant content are appreciated and a nice blogger will leave a comment behind.
9. Tip #9: Use short paragraphs, bullets, and lists.  Online content is easier to read when you employ creative use of lists, bullet points, and short paragraphs.  Studies show people tend to scan screens rather than read in full.  As well, use bold/italics and colors to break up long text into readable snippets, as I have done here using bold and numbering the tips.
10. Tip #10: Write for a target audience.  If you have a blog about dog training, don’t put in blog entries about your recent vacation to Mexico.  Keep your blog content specific to a certain business, a service you provide, or one of your “personas” (I talked about personas in a blog entry about branding. Read that entry). I find that personal blogs about every single thing happening in a person’s life tend to get polluted with irrelevant content.  This blog for example is about my business, technology, and online marketing ideas and I will create a separate one about my vacations and non-business affairs if I intend to blog about those activities.

Enjoyed reading this post?  Leave a comment!

Out of the blue, I was contacted today by a local business owner seeking WordPress theme customization from a theme they purchased on Themeforest (by the way, read about how I was able to provide everything the client wanted in my other blog post)  At first, I thought someone referred them to me, but after asking I was told they found me by searching for the phrase WordPress Theme Customization Vancouver on Google where I rank #6. 

As you might guess, I’m extremely pleased by the first page ranking considering I have had my new site, Full Motion Group, out for less than a year, and that I only recently installed a new theme from Themeforest.  I’m going to share with you what I believe are the key factors in getting the ranking, and why I believe it’s partly attributed to the single page design I decided to implement.

Before I list my reasons, let’s get clear on WHAT a single page web site is:

1. A theme or design where all of your primary keyword rich site content is loaded into the client browser when they hit your domain name root
2. No frames, iframes, or fancy post-backs to load content in-line. 
3. Flash is NOT your primary content vehicle (can be used for headers and non-keyword rich content).
4. Any sub-page content or blog posts can be linked to, but those pages are not your primary keyword-rich content

As mentioned, I recently implemented a single page theme on my business portfolio web site, Full Motion Group.  The theme was from Themeforest called Personal Landing Page. I made many modifications to the theme (which i discuss at length about in the comments to the theme) to suit my needs like adding testimonials and making it possible to link to individual posts in the portfolio section.

If you visit the site, and then view the source code, you will see that the site’s primary content is loaded when you visit the home page.  The only content that doesn’t appear on-load are the in-depth profile case studies (like this profile).  In future, I might enhance the design further to load this content as well but for now I’m happy with the way it is.

After purchasing the theme, and playing around with source code, I knew that the theme had potential for good search engine ranking, but I never guessed it would produce results until today.

How I got to be #6 on Google for “WordPress Theme Customization Vancouver” and why a single page web site is better for your search engine ranking

1. Reason #1: All site content is loaded when a search engine crawler visits the site.  No additional links need to be followed that contain keyword rich content. 
2. Reason #2: If keywords are repeated unnecessarily (like in site footers), they pollute crawler statistics.  For example, let’s say you have a page footer on every page that contains a short description of your business and some relevant keywords.  Keywords used in that description appear for each page of your site and that forces crawlers to make some guesses about what that page could be about
3. Reason #3: You only need to maintain meta-tag information for one page.  I used the All-in-one seo plugin whenever I launch a WordPress site, and one of the first things I do is enter the home page title and description.  With a single page theme, I only need to do this once and I can carefully monitor my analytics results and tweak those keywords to match the results I’m looking for.
4. Reason #4: Content deeper within your site might not get crawled.  With traditional multi-page web sites, you need to hope that a crawler will index your entire site. Who knows how search engine crawlers behave, and it might not always be the case (as anyone that has tried to search the Microsoft site can attest to). Single page web sites on the other hand, are crawled and indexed completely, that you can be sure of.
5. Reason #5: Single page web sites load more quickly. Well, this isn’t always the case, but certainly a single page theme creates less total traffic than say 10 individual pages of the same content (barring content that is cached in browser).
6. Reason #6: Single page web sites that are updated are re-indexed completely. I’m sure that every time I updated my web site, a search engine eventually revisits and recrawls the site eventually.  Having all my content on a single page load also means that all my content is re-indexed which is even better because I can carefully tweak my entire site’s keywords without too much fuss.

I have yet to prove for sure that a single page theme is better for you from an SEO point of view, and certainly this doesn’t always apply for all sites (as you get larger, you will need to split content into multiple pages), but if you can get away with it, I suggest you give it a try.

Like this post?  Leave a comment or link to me!

If you own a web site or design web sites for companies, you should be checking site performance on a regular basis.  It’s the only way to know objectively if you are on track towards improving your search ranking and keyword placement, and thus getting a positive return with your online marketing efforts.

Of course, once your visitors arrive at your site, your site needs to have well constructed “calls to action” and entice visitors to make the next step of buying your products or contacting you, but let’s leave that to a future blog post.

Below are 5 tools I use on a regular basis to measure how my web sites are doing.  Each has it’s own purpose which I describe below.

WebsiteGrader.com – an indispensable tool and the one I use most often it gives you Pagerank, counts inbound links, and tells you other details about your site you might not have thought about (like 301 redirects or domain expiration)

BacklinkWatch.com – get excellent insight into what links are pointing to your site. The report also tells you if the links have “nofollow” (something a lot of bloggers are adding into their comment widgets)

Quarkbase.com – get info about things like your Alexa rank, what tools were used to build your site as well as some general traffic and ranking data.

URLtrends.com – An incredible amount of information far beyond all the other tools mentioned so far.  However, the page navigation is terrible and the bar graphs produced are cryptic and hard to decipher.  Nevertheless the data is significant and you can come up with plenty of ideas on site improvements from the data here.

LinkPopularity.com – this last tool doesn’t do much more than give you 3 links to view your search indexing progress at the big 3 (Google, MSN, Yahoo).  It’s handy when you want to quickly see how well your site is being ranked.

NEW! TestEverything.com – this one is new and one I just found from sitepoint.com.  I haven’t tried it yet, but it covers an extensive list of possible tools to literally test everything about your site.  I will post a review in the future about it.  If you have used testeverything.com, let me know and give me your opinion.

Are you standing out?  Are you marketing just like everyone else or are you taking the extra steps to stand out against the competition?  Good companies market themselves like everyone else and most of the time, that’s ok.  The problem, however, is that in a democratized market online where the barriers to competition are neutralized, it’s not enough.  It’s too easy for potential customers to view your competition and make their own decision about working with you.  All of your competitors have a web site just like yours.

Example: searching for a dentist

Take for example, searching for a dentist online.  You arrive in a new city, and you need a dentist. Assuming you search online first – and studies show 60% of consumers today search for vendors online first – you can very quickly come up with a short list of 10 or 20 dental clinics you might want to become a patient at.  So how do you decide which one to call?  Maybe a list of testimonials? dental certification?  reviews by patients?  a well designed list of services? pictures of staff?  But wait, does that sound familiar?  That’s because it is. You see, your competition is doing the same thing and providing everything I just listed.  In fact, they probably all are.  So what do you do then?

The Purple Cow

The key in getting that extra edge on your competition is standing out, being different, and doing something memorable.  Seth Godin calls it “The Purple Cow” in his book by the same name.  Seth says that being different is what works – just like if you were to see a purple cow in a field of brown cows – and being different is what you should be working at doing.

Take the dental clinic example. What if the clinic owner takes that extra step to stand out?  Maybe with weekly videos on dental health management or with a “best smile” rating application on their web site.  Or maybe with giving new patients a personal makeover kit, or holding a monthly running and health improvement clinic. How about creating a web site called 1000smiles.com and inviting users from all over the web to add their smiles and featuring smiles from your clinic’s patients.  Being different, going that extra mile is all about standing out.  Whatever business you are in, come up with a list of 10 or 20 ideas that help you stand out, that help you become the “Purple Cow”.

I’m not special right?

Now, you are probably thinking to yourself

• I don’t do anything special
• I don’t have a business that’s different than everyone else
• It’s too risky.  I don’t want to be different
• My customers want me to be like everyone else
• Why bother?  I have enough customers
• Being different is dangerous and I could alienate some customers
• My customers are reserved and don’t take risks
• It’s a waste of time and money and a gamble

Well, that’s might be true.  Yes, you don’t HAVE to be different, and you don’t HAVE to be special.  But online, that’s the only way to stand out.  You see when someone searches online, they have certain expectations on what they want to see online and you need to provide at least that much information on your web site.  But what if you go the extra mile, and have something memorable like the ideas I mentioned above?  Is it possible that your customers will remember your uniqueness?  Is it possible your idea was so juicy your customers tell others about it?  Is it possible the blogosphere gets wind of your idea and your idea goes viral?

Checklist: Just ask your customers

If you are still unconvinced that standing out is essential to your marketing efforts, try on this checklist with some of your customers.  Go ahead, print out this list and see what your customers say.

1. What do I/we do differently than my competitors that you noticed?
2. Why did you choose our/my business?
3. What was the one thing I/we had different than anyone else?
4. Would you recommend me/us, and if so, what would be one thing you would mention?
5. What was one product or service we/i had, that nobody else had?
6. Did you view our/my website before deciding to call?

The answers to these questions will very quickly give you something to sink your teeth (pardon the pun) into.  Continuing with the dental clinic idea, let’s say a customer mentioned your extended business hours, and that you had a laser whitening system.  These are two big advantages you had compared to your competitors and these were big factors in deciding to visit your dental clinic. Now that you know, leverage this uniqueness and ways you were able to stand out in your online marketing and branding.  Mention your extended business hours and laser whitening system in your marketing copy and on your web site.

Now, here is where the real ideas start

So you have already taken the time and made the effort to be different.  You know how you are different and you market this in your marketing copy.  Great.  But what about going the extra mile to be different.  What about doing something extra-ordinary.  Something way outside the norm?

10 ideas for making you stand out online

It’s not that hard to stand out, truth be told.  Very few of your competitors are reading articles like this one, and even fewer are implementing outstanding marketing ideas. Here are 10 cheap, free, and easy ideas you could launch right away, with minimal effort

1. Give away ebooks (start with a checklist style book and make a bunch of them)
2. Show a video on your home page (use tubemogul to distribute it).  Look at 136words.com for a great example of online video
3. Do a weekly podcast and distribute it through the Apple.com store.
4. Give away an iPod each week to online subscribers
5. Write a monthly newsletter (use campaignmonitor for awesome e-newsletters)
6. Implement a ratings web site for pictures/sounds/ideas related to your product (for example 1000smiles.com if you are a dental clinic)
7. Interview celebrities, dignitaries, or notable authors in your industry and post the results on your web site
8. Show your real photograph (professionally done of course).  Yes, you would be truly shocked how few of your competitors are doing this!
9. Record a 2 minute audio clip for each page of your web site (easily done with a good publishing system like WordPress – it’s what I use for all my clients).
10. Interview your past customers on video and feature them in case studies on your web site.  Even though potential customers know it’s a marketing ploy, it still works!

Hopefully you get some indication about why standing out is essential and how you can go about discovering your own uniqueness.  If you still need help, feel free to give me a call.  I’m always ready to consult and coach businesses on business marketing.

I’m writing this post for a client I have just started working with in the hopes that it clears up some of the mystery around this topic and perhaps you will also learn a thing or two from my 2+ years of working with WordPress.

If you spent any time at all with WordPress, you eventually run into the dilemma of When to use Posts vs Pages for new content.  Sometimes the path is very clear when your theme design makes the choice self-evident (as with this blog theme for example where every content item is a Post).  Other times, it’s not as clear-cut (like with some of themes at Woothemes like The Station)  When it’s not as clear-cut, and your theme design doesn’t necessarily dictate which one you should use, you need a framework like the one I describe below.

Now, before we go any further, let’s learn about the differences between posts and pages for our less experienced users.

Difference between Post and Page from a WordPress point of view

Well, let’s consider the possible areas that the Posts and Pages might differ:

• Editing and Embedding Content?  Definitely not.  Both are equal in their ability to render HTML.
• Commenting?  Nope, both can accept them and you can turn commenting and pinging off any any page/post you feel like (including adding aging rules with various plugins so that commenting eventually gets turned off on schedule)
• Publish Date?  Nope, both have this too
• Content Hierarchy?  Well, yes and no. You can’t say for certain really without considering your theme and how you implement the site.  For instance with pages, hierarchy is clear-cut with page and sub-page inheritance and that’s easy to put into a menu structure with just a few lines of code.  However, with posts, you can implement hierarchy as well via categories and sub-categories and creating a menu system to display this hierarchical structure.  I would caution that you face more constraints this way (especially if you implement page and post hierarchy on the same menu). Let’s just say for now, that content hierarchy is more suited to page content and if a deep menu structure is called for in your design, consider using pages for easier coding of your menu system, or (god forbid!), use a different content management system more suited to complex content hierarchy like Joomla or Drupal.
• Tags?  Only with posts (well unless you install a Technorati plugin for your pages but that’s another discussion). Tagging is something that accompanies all posts nicely and can be accessed in the WordPress loop for each post entry.  It’s meant to be used with Posts alone and if you need tagging on your page content, consider some custom programming or re-thinking your content strategy
• Categories?  Again, only with posts.  If you want to implement categories with your page content, you are likely going to face an uphill battle and will eventually resort using posts anyways.

Tags and Categories are the difference

Yep, tags and categories.  So now that you know, we are done right?  Not so fast.  You see, what you also need to understand is that both tags and categories can be implemented freely during content writing.  They can both be created on the fly with each of your posts and if you don’t consider the implications on your theme, you might run into troubles.

For example, let’s say you have a design from your client that requires the following: