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Offering FREE webpage to our clients

Posted on June 13, 2009

We recently did work for John L. Scott Realty and included a new, value added feature. Each client, upon completion of their order, will be given a “Featured Client” page on our website for one month.

This free exposure is our way of saying thank you for your business.

To see our latest client, go to www.jimwsmith.com and click on the “Featured Client” button.

Writing for the web

Posted on February 24, 2009

Writing your own copy for your website is not the same as writing home to Mom. Here are a few things you need to keep in mind:

1 - Stay on topic
So many websites ramble on and on. Know what you want to say and stick to it.

2 - Get right to the point
This isn’t a novel. Jump right in or you will lose your reader.

3 - write short sentences
The viewer seldom wants to spend a lot of time reading. Long sentences make your copy look too thick.

4 - Use bullet points or numbered lists
Web readers love bullet or numbered points. They can glance at your info and get what they need.

5 - Think like your readers - what matters to them
Your readers don’t care how proud you are of your company or that your great, great grandpa started the business. Write about what matters to them. What will make their life better? Why should they use your business? How will working with you improve their income, relationship, or whatever it is you can offer them. When you write, pretend you are your reader.

6 - Include key search words - especially in the first few paragraphs
This is a big deal. What are the key words that people might use to find your website? Find ways to build them into your copy. Search engines will often pick those up in the first couple paragraphs.

7 - Put it away and review tomorrow
No matter how brilliant you think your copy is, sleep on it. You’ll often find things you want to take out or edit.

8 - Write your headline last and make it pop
Your heading is important and deserves extra effort. Once you are done with the body copy you will have a more focused idea for a title. Remember, the headline is what pulls people into your article.

9 - Chec spellling, check selling, check spelling
Nothing throws a reader off more than misspelled words and typos. They often feel that if you can’t take the time to check your own copy, you may not be careful with their work. And, don’t just rely on spell check software. If you type ‘you’ when you meant ‘your’ the checker won’t get it.

10 - Ask someone to read it
Try to have someone else read it and see if they understand what you are trying to say

11 - Find your voice
How do you want to relate to your readers? Do you want to be relaxed and homey or more formal? What best reflects the relationship you should have with your readers?

12 - Have fun
Write about what you know and what you love. Your readers will pick up on your enthusiasm and see you as an authority.

There’s a lot more to say on this, but twelve is a good number; I’ll take my own advice and keep it short!

RSS feed issues solved

Posted on February 22, 2009

Many of you have had problems accessing my rss feed. I now have a button at the top that sets it up for many different readers. If you are having any further trouble, please leave a comment. Sorry for the hassel.

And thank you for grabbing my feed!

A Centrist’s View on the Obama Presidency

Posted on November 5, 2008

I just wrote an email to my children trying to explain what this election means to our generation.  I am a centrist that leans to the right, so I don’t agree with all of Obama’s political views. This election, however, carries much greater meaning to me.  So I thought I’d share my email with my readers:

Hi _________, __________, _________, & _________,

Even though I disagree with some of his political views and hope that he will move closer to “center-left,” this election has incredible meaning to Mom and I.  I’ve seen a lot of elections in my lifetime, but this is the first one that made me cry.  Seeing Jesse Jackson, a man who was very involved in the civil rights movement, cry with disbelief in his eyes was poignant; but for me it was when Obama and his family walked on stage.

We all experience present events through the filter of our past.  From my vantage point, I saw a young Kennedy family victorious mostly because of his gift of oratory and the hope his youthful visions promised.  He was the first Catholic elected president – overcoming a resistance that went clear back to the founding of our nation.  Now this new man and his family have overcome even more.

I remember watching a movie, I think it was Deep Impact, where Morgan Freeman played the President.  I thought to myself how good it would be for us if there ever were a black president – how healing it would be.  Although I knew someday it would come, I never thought I’d live to see it.  But I never thought I’d see the Berlin Wall fall either.  My historical filter made those two things seem too far off, taking many more generations to happen.

I was wrong.  Sometimes God moves much faster than we think is possible.  A whole lot of things had to come together to make both of these events happen.  I guess my faith in His timing, and in the American people has grown because of this election of our new President.

What I’m trying to say is I grew up in a wonderful, peaceful place called Birch Bay during a tumultuous time in our history:  the Kent State shootings, the assassinations of three leaders (Martin Luther King, Jr., Jack Kennedy, and Bobby Kennedy).

Charles Dickens could have easily been writing about the 60’s when he wrote:

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair; we had everything before us, we had nothing before us; we were all going directly to Heaven, we were all going the other way.”

So, for our generation, this election is a culmination of our hopes.  Mom and I were never ‘hippies’ but we were a part of that idealistic time.  It’s true I wish Obama were more of a centrist, but his presidency is a symbol of our nation’s growth.  Sometimes God provides amazing metaphors. Obama isn’t just black.  He had a black, African father and a white mother from Kansas.  He is a blending of our races.  His mulatto heritage makes him a perfect metaphor for the healing of our country.  (If you want an idea of our generation’s hopes in this, see the movie “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”)

Well, I know you all realize the historic nature of this event.  I guess I just wanted to share how profound it is for us.  You were born in a time when prejudice was looked down on.  We were born in a time when, in certain parts of the country, it was the accepted norm.  The 60’s were a time of fighting against prejudice and hoping for change.  1968 was a major turning point, a major clash of ideologies.  The Tet Offensive marked the beginning of the end of the Vietnam War and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy exposed the ugliness of racial hatred.  It was the end of our youthful, naive idealism and the beginning of real change.  We became adults and the world grew up a bit too.

Now, exactly 40 years later, we have a black president with a really weird name moving into the White House.  I don’t know if he will be a good leader or not, but the fact of his election fulfills Martin Luther King’s hope that someday a man will be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin.  King died because of those words, our new president is a result of them.

Dad

Sarah Palin - The Truth Behind the Negative Buzz

Posted on September 15, 2008

This blog is not usually political but I’m getting tired of the half-truths being tossed around about Sarah Palin.  So, here’s a copy of an article from my personal blog:

(For a more expanded look at Sarah Palin see this fairly well balanced, and very well footnoted, Wikipedia article)

Here’s the ‘rest of the story’ behind a few of the “issues” bouncing around SP:

The Library Thing (book banning? I don’t think so):

During the time when SP was newly mayor, and, at the same time, the library was updating their book-challenge policy to be identical to other borough libraries, SP asked how Emmons, the library director, felt about censorship should there be protests about a book. SP never mentioned any books that she had in mind and was only asking Emmons her views on the issue. There never was a list of books suggested by Palin. See this article by the local newspaper.

The Trooper Firing Thing:

The trooper in question was SP’s brother-in-law. Several members of her family, including SP, heard him making death threats on her family, in particular, her father. Whether her methods were appropriate can be questioned, but her motives were justified. (If I were in the same position and had the same options open, I think I would have done the same if my Dad’s life was threatened.)

The Bridge to Nowhere Thing:

This nickname implies the bridge actually was proposed to go nowhere. In fact, it was to connect Ketchikan with its airport. Congressed approved the money ($442 million) as part of the 2006 National Dept of Trans appropriations bill. Later, as earmarks became a controversial issue the earmark for the bridges was removed, but the money was still sent to Alaska for use as needed in transportation costs. With the bridge plan scrapped, a road was built at a much higher cost than the bridge would have cost. Alaskan money was used to make up the difference. SP’s sudden flip flop on her position to the bridge earmark is definitely in question, but the bridge project was legitimate and not to “nowhere.”

The Wolf Paw Thing:

(The following is a quote taken from the above mentioned Wikipedia article.)

In 2007, Palin supported the Alaska Department of Fish and Game policy allowing the hunting of wolves from helicopters as part of a predator control program intended to increase moose populations. In March 2007, Palin’s office announced that a bounty of $150 per left front (?) wolf paw would be paid to the 180 volunteer pilots and gunners, to offset fuel costs, which drew protest among the wildlife activitists.

In August, 2007, both lawmakers and Governor Palin approved appropriating $400,000 from the state treasury to explain the aerial hunting program to Alaskans. On August 26, 2008, Alaskans voted against ending the state’s predator control program.

It looks to me that not only SP, but the state legislature AND a majority of the populace voted to continue the program. Alaska has its own unique issues in regards to wildlife. If a predator population grows to the point of creating a serious decline in the population of another species, I think the state should have the right to cull if needed without interference from the feds.

My thoughts:

No politician, SP included, handles things perfectly. You have to view each of them by the overall picture. Many things are being said about SP - some true, some half-truths, and some baseless rumors. I can’t think of a single politician or any Pres or VP that is impervious to deserved and undeserved criticism.

We humans tend to look only at the facts that support our positions. This often leads to the telling of stories that leave out critical details. Now that she has hit the mainstream, Sarah Palin has the joy of being on the receiving end of innuendo.

I still like the gal.

Your wide-angle shots have the bends? Try these tips

Posted on August 6, 2008

If you do any photography with wide-angle lenses, you’ve probably been frustrated with distortion issues. You take a shot of a tall building and the walls suddenly warp. Don’t worry, it’s not the drugs you did in the 60’s, it’s your lens.

Here are some things I do to reduce the problem.

(1) Whenever possible get the camera high enough so you can get the shot you want with the camera exactly level. This, of course, requires shooting at the vertical midpoint. It isn’t always do-able but it will eliminate most of the distortion - especially the vertical distortion. As soon as you tilt the camera up parallel lines “v out” like this: \ /, point it down they go the other way.

(2) Try to keep your camera exactly perpendicular to the scene. This will help to avoid horizontal distortion.

(3) A lot of distortion can be corrected in Photoshop. Go to filters/distortion/lens correction. It has great controls that are pretty good at mimicking the results you’d get using tilts and swings on a 4×5 camera.

(4) Sometimes you get distortion on just one side of your photo. When this happens, the regular lens correction in Photoshop doesn’t help much. Try the Edit/transform/distort tool. It allows you to tweak just one side of the image.

(5) You may occasionally notice a bending of parallel lines either outward like this: ( ) or inward like this: ) (. Photoshop has an adjustment for this too. If you have to use it, keep an eye on the vertical and horizontal settings, you may have to readjust them.

(6) If you are having severe distortion that will require a lot of adjusting in Photoshop, be sure to shoot your scene with extra space around the area you want to crop. You can lose a lot of your image because you have to crop in to avoid the white space created by the Photoshop adjustments.

I hope these tips help you get rid of “the bends.”

Send your marketing person packing

Posted on June 23, 2008

Many small to medium size companies have a “marketing department.” Some mistakenly call their sales staff the marketing department. But that’s not it.

Dig a little deeper. Wind you way down a dark hall. If you find a hunched-back person, her face blanched with desperation and her eyes blood shot from too little sleep and too much coffee, you’ve found it; the Marketing Department.

You might call her a graphic designer or communications producer because she designs all your brochures, websites, videos, and any other tools your sales staff needs. But if she is coming up with ideas that help you reach your customers - that connect with their needs and wants - then she IS your marketing department.

So give her a break. Let her out of her cave for a while. Send her packing.

Send her on sales calls with your best salesperson. Have her meet your best clients. In other words, let her have a relationship with the people she builds all those tools for - your customers.

If she doesn’t come to understand your customers (and potential customers) then all she will be doing is designing, photographing, and writing for your sales staff.

Here’s the most important advise you can give her as she steps out of the cave, squinting at the mid-day sunlight (which she hasn’t seen for years). Tell her to look at your company from the customer’s point of view. Pretend she doesn’t work for you, but that you work for her as her vendor. What does the world look like through the customer’s eyes?

I promise you, she will come back from these trips with a head full of ideas. And those ideas, turned into the sales tools she produces, will make you money.

And when that happens, give the kid a raise . . . or at least a room with a window.

Writing a successful news release

Posted on June 4, 2008

There are several methods of getting free publicity. One of the most common is the news release. The challenge is getting it printed. The publication decides if they are going to print your news release and so you must make it worth their time and cost.

Here are a few tips on how to make your news release more enticing to the editor.

Real News
The quickest way to the round file (trash bin) is to send a fluff piece about how great your company/product is. The article should be a legitimate news story - not an advertisement. This could be the hiring of a new employee, a company expansion that creates new jobs, awards or other recognition, charitable efforts by your company, community events you sponsor, etc. Remember, the primary word is NEWS release. Make it real. Make it relevant.

Timely
Make sure your news release is covering relatively current events. A new CEO who just came on board fulfills the publication’s need for current news. If the CEO joined your firm a year ago, it is too late for that angle. Find something about him/her that is relevant to today.

Write from a reporter’s viewpoint
The company owner and top executives should not write the news release. Instead, find an employee who doesn’t know everything about your business. Then have him do interviews and put together the release as if he were an outside reporter.

Four W’s and an H
Journalism 101 - get answers to these questions: Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How. Do this and the news release will practically write itself.

Inverted pyramid
Due to space limitations, the editor may cut part of your story. Editors always cut from the bottom - so be sure your most important points are near the top of the article. In fact, your first paragraph should contain the main message you want to communicate, the second should fill in the details and the third should cover less critical background information. Think of this structure as an inverted pyramid where the most important information is on top and the least important is at the bottom.

Keep paragraphs small
Try to have no more than three or four sentences per paragraph. Most articles are printed in narrow columns. This is especially true with newspapers. Editors don’t like too many lines in a paragraph because it creates a large block of text, which often looses the reader.

Include a photo
This is the most important advise of all. Send a photo with the news release whenever possible. And better yet, have a person in the picture. Your chances of getting printed are multiplied when you include an interesting photo.

Advertise with the publication
Large news publications keep their editorial department separate from their advertising department for obvious reasons; they don’t want advertisers driving their news. Trade publications are less concerned about this. In either case, though, a regular advertiser pulls more weight when it comes to news releases.

Hire a professional writer/photographer
You knew this was coming right? Yes, it is self-promotion on my part. But there are advantages to going this route. First, keeping a regular flow of timely news releases is a time-consuming task taking your employee’s time away from productive work. A professional is good at maintaining a working relationship with the publication’s editorial staff. He also has a good feel for how often to send a release to a particular publication and more importantly, has a feel for their editorial style so the release will fit in well with other articles in the magazine or newspaper. Perhaps most important, if you hire a professional writer/photographer who has a background in journalism, your news release stands a much better chance of getting published.

Whether you decide to do it yourself or hire a professional, properly produced news releases will help develop a positive image of your company to prospective clients and the community.

Ad Placement

Posted on May 14, 2008

I often get asked about ad placement. Where is the best place to put my ad in a magazine? What size ad should I get? How about those little “business card” size ads?

The best place to put your ad depends on several factors. Is there a regular column covering a topic that fits with your ad? Where is your competition placing their ads and why? Does the magazine fall open at the center? (If it is stapled instead of bound, it probably does.) What section of the magazine is most popular to the readers? (Talk to the magazine’s editor, read the “from the editor” article at the beginning of several editions, read several editions and decide what interests you the most).

What about the cover pages? This usually means one of three pages: the inside front, inside back, or outside back. It is often a full page ad and these pages are the most expensive. In my opinion, the outside back is the best, the inside cover second, and the inside back third.

Now what about ad size? Deciding this is more art than science, but I can tell you what works best for my clients (and saves them money at the same time). Choose an island ad. It is called an island because it is the only ad on the page and is surrounded by editorial copy. I’ve found that most readers are reading the magazine for the articles and not for the ads. In reading the article, your eyes continually bump into the island ad. Compare this to the more costly full-page ad. The ad may pull some simply because of its size; however, there is no editorial copy on your page and readers will often turn your page over to find the rest of the article without looking at the ad.

Then there are those little business card ads - so called because they are about the size of a business card. If it is all you can afford, go for it. But persuade your sales agent to place your ad at the top of the heap instead of buried under other business card ads. Above all, avoid like the plaque those pages that are filled with these ads. And finally, make sure your ad is distinctly different from the rest. Are they all color ads? Then go black & white. All black & white, then go color. Use a large bold headline and little or no text. You may have guessed by now that these tiny ads are not my favorite.

And, finally, take a look at your budget. What size ad can you afford to run several times? An ad run once is wasted money. Readers will often not notice your ad until the second issue. They may not really look at it until the third. They may not read it until the forth. A good rule of thumb is to run the ad until you are getting bored with it and then run it a few months more. Remember, when you get your copy of the magazine, you are looking for your ad. The readers are not.

The four elements of a successful ad

Posted on May 2, 2008

Here’s how to get the best readership on your ad and beat out the competition:

Work most on what’s important. Readers usually view your ad elements in this order: photo, headline, caption, and text. Notice that the text (a.k.a. body copy) is at the bottom of the list. Lets take a look at each element.

Photo: Pick up any newspaper or magazine and find a page with several ads on it. Pay attention to what you look at first. If there are a lot of text ads but one with a photo - I’ll bet your eyes went there first. It’s nearly impossible to control. Now, if there is more than one ad with a photo, but only one has a picture of a person you will jump to that ad. Photos draw attention away from your competitor’s ads.

Headline: If you don’t have a photo, the next best thing is your headline. (Of course you need a good headline even if you have a photo.) Keep it short and to the point. Nothing kills an ad worse than a long, rambling headline. Important: spend more time on creating your headline than you do creating your body copy.

Caption: People may not read your body copy, but they nearly always read the caption under your photo. In fact, if you have an important point you want to make, try putting it in the caption.

Text (body copy): this is the least viewed part of your ad. There are two things you can do to make it more likely that your reader will, in fact, read it. (1) Keep your text down to as few words as possible. People tend to avoid large amounts of text. (2) Keep it focused on what’s important to your customer.

Paying attention to these four elements will pull the reader to your ad and away from the competition’s.

More posts coming up:
- Ad placement
- Differentiating your ad from the rest
- Writing the ad copy
- Writing a successful news release
- Picking the right publication for your ad

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